I am aware of what options there are with the program, thanks. You (and the others here) seem to be missing the point: the NAGGING is UNNECESSARILY intrusive and, no, you can't set it so the nag popup won't popup; it ignores that setting for that particular notification.
I downloaded and installed the "Free" version. After installation, it considered itself Trialware, nag screens and all. I didn't mind being notified occasionally, but literally every freaking hour, minimizing other applications, no matter what I did to shut the damn thing up, was the last straw.
No, I won't have fun with Symantec, either; they've been high on my shit list for nigh on two decades for being similarly useless.
I normally use AVG, but I wanted to try Avast because it detected a particular website drive-by that one of the sites I frequent got hit with that very few others could detect. After that experience, I think I would rather take my chances.
I uninstalled the Avast trial a couple months ago with extreme prejudice as the piece of shite CONSTANTLY interrupted everything I was doing every goddamned hour to tell me that the trial was going to expire in a couple WEEKS. It would minimize other apps (including games, full-screen videos, etc) so its little warning box could be seen. Yes, I turned off every notification option I could find in it, and it STILL harassed me, so into the refuse pile it went. Yet another idiot company I will never do business with ever again.
So, it comes as no surprise to me that they would hire such an aggressive "support" company. The glove fits the hand.
They both need to die in a fire and then rot in hell together.
Please, by all means use more Draconian DRM on your games. I DO NOT HAVE TO BUY THEM, I PROMISE!
I don't pirate, either. Pirating a game would mean I actually liked it, but I won't even acknowledge the existence of games/companies which employ asinine DRM measures.
It is fast coming to the point where indie game quality is as good as, if not better than, AAA title quality. I'm happy to give my AAA title business to smaller indie devs who understand the concept of not punishing their customers because they live in a perpetual state of fear for their bottom line.
That's a great theory, except it doesn't work that way in the real world.
It works great in practice, too. After seeing it in action and being part of the "High Priesthood of IT" in a Fortune 100 company for a number of years, I can attest to the fact that it does work, and works well.
In just about every case where another department/division of the corporation tried to "buck the system", they ended up paying significant portions of their budgets for IT to clean up their messes, which in turn led to more adherence to IT "best practices" policies.
Never doubt for a minute that expressing the consequences in terms of money is the most powerful motivator of policy. That, and making IT policy into an employee code of conduct issue.
In the real world, the users decide that since they can't bully IT into doing what they want for free, they'll just try to do it themselves rather than beg their boss for permission to spend budget dollars on the company IT department, especially when no one in the department has even gotten a raise this year. So when they need a new switch port activated, they don't call the help desk. Instead, they order a $20 piece of crap cable/DSL modem from Purchasing (you know, the one with DHCP enabled by default) and just go ahead and plug it into the network, taking down most of the subnet when it starts spewing out spurious IP addresses to all the clients on the segment. IT gets the blame because its already-razor-thin-budget didn't allocate enough money for adequate monitoring software to protect against the moron who plugged in the switch. All of its budget money went into more wireless access points to support all of the users who suddenly got iPads for Christmas and are pissed off because they won't work in the basement conference room or in the toilets.
I'll tell you a little anecdote. Back in the late 90s, the biggest network disaster at this particular company was HP network printers. The network was mostly bridged token ring, and of course, HP printers LOVE to communicate via broadcasting. Even better, there was this quaint little piece of software that came packaged with every printer called HP JetAdmin. It was HP's pride and joy; effortless administration of your network printers -- if you only had a couple printers on a tiny SOHO network. So, here we are, clients (as they called "users") getting a brand-spanking new HP networked printer, unboxing it, plugging it in, and popping the install disk into their computers. At that time, there was a single install, which installed printer drivers, AND HP JetAdmin. Shortly thereafter, large segments of the network would go down from thousands of printers broadcasting "Hey JetAdmin!! Here I am!" back to these systems.
The problem was, HP printers were on the "approved" list of printers for purchasing, so any client could order one from the contract suppliers, and it would show up in a day to a week. Some people wouldn't wait for IT to get them a proper "drivers only" install onto their computer, so broadcast storms were a weekly event. Eventually, the IT department, backed by the affected organizations in the company who got the bill for the network outages and recovery time, had it out with HP and got them to only supply printers with "driver only" install disks with the printers that came into the company.
I remember that day like it was yesterday; there's nothing quite like an executive-level ass-reaming of a major manufacturer to brighten your day.
Every other department that uses IT pays for it. Those who use more IT services, or otherwise cost the company money from their IT fuckups, pay more. Eventually, they learn to work WITH the IT department to lower their overhead costs so they can meet their budgetary targets. That means doing the kinds of things that the idiots best represented by the author of that article abhor: the things recommended/enforced by those "High Priests" as best practices.
I mean, yeah, there are bad IT people and departments out there, to be sure, just like there are bad users. Unlike bad users, though, bad IT people and departments don't last very long.
The ignorance of our elected officials was never funny. It was sad and grossly pathetic, and still remains so.
Given the democractic system, it is a direct reflection on who we are as a people. As much as people piss and moan about the retards we end up electing, vanishingly few of said people either vote for non-retards, or run against the retards. As such, we get the government we deserve; the government that WE THE PEOPLE voted for.
Just like the corporatocracy/plutocracy/Fascist state that we're fast becoming (which is an obvious symptomatic effect of the problem), people don't get how they are empowering the very evil they rail against. Corporations would have NO power if people stopped feeding them.
Yes, but fortunately we aren't talking about 10x increases in CO2 concentrations due to human activity,
Nor are we talking about such increases when humans, let alone our civilizations, were around at all.
leaving a large safety margin (increase in solar output has been much smaller in comparison).
Yes, of course! There are only two factors at play, and they are both directly proportional in their effects when they are changed. Someone call Climate Research and inform them of your astounding simplification of the climate system.
And you can go back to more recent figures where solar output was closer to what it is and CO2 concentrations were still several times what they are today without any runaway effects.
Like when? When were CO2 concentrations "several times what they are today" last? Oh, that's right, over 100 million years ago. Again, your ridiculously oversimplified take on climate science must astound your peers! That is beyond the fact that you're arguing with yourself, since I never claimed that there were any "runaway effects" in the first place. More of your 1337 mind-reading skillz letting you down again, apparently.
Have you ever even bothered to look at climate history?
MANY times. Have you? Is the best you can do a single Wikipedia reference? What did that take, all of two minutes? Do you even know what the fuck you're looking at with that single graph?
No misinformation, you just read it wrong:
Am I? Let's see...
"Despite the supposed environmental destruction, the world is experiencing less war, less conflict, and less hunger today than it has since the start of the industrial revolution."
Do we have less war today than during WWII? Yes. My point exactly.
Yeah, I obviously mistook "since the start of the industrial revolution" to mean "since the start of the industrial revolution", rather than what you actually were thinking when you wrote those words: "than during WWII". Unlike you and your awesome mind-reading skillz, I just have to go on what people say. I'm sure you understand.
After consigning fascism and communism to the dustbins of history
Someone better let the Chinese know that their current form of government has been consigned to the "dustbins of history". As for Fascism, it's alive and well in the US in the form of the corporatocracy/plutocracy enabled by current political "climate".
and liberalizing trade and migration, things have improved greatly for all of humanity.
A whole lot of humanity today would heartily disagree.
In different words, you don't have numbers,
No, in the same words, because that's PRECISELY what I said. Your failed attempt to spin the obvious is pretty epic there.
Yet, you still claim that there is a "consensus" that there is going to be global devastation unless we act now.
Only If you can quote where I made any such claims; otherwise, you're just practicing more of your uber mind-reading skillz.
You raised the possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect and used it to justify limiting CO2 emissions.
No, you completely misread and spun what I said. I brought it up SPECIFICALLY to cast doubt on it, and offered a lesser, but still significant set of criteria to justify taking SOME action; I didn't specify what action to take; you added that yourself.
I'm saying "that doesn't seem plausible to me because..." In response, you just say "I don't know" and attack my objection. Where does that leave us? Still with no evidence or rational argument that a runaway greenhouse effect can happen.
How many times do I have to say "I never claimed any such
There is no such thing as a "steady-state climate";
You'll note I said "fairly steady-state climate">. Omitting important qualifiers when quoting opponents is pretty intellectually dishonest, but that's OK, I've come to expect it; at least you blatantly show your bias, making it easy for all to see.
global temperatures have been oscillating wildly for the past several million years.
"Wildly", within 4C peak-to-peak over the last 5M years, and here we are, potentially seeing upwards of that much on the POSITIVE SIDE in a couple hundred years. Your definition of "wildly" is a bit skewed.
Over the past 20000 years alone, sea levels have changed by more than 80m, glaciers covered much of Europe and the US,
..and our current civilization and its infrastructure is no more than a couple thousand years old; the vast majority of it being built in the last two hundred or so. What do you think 1-2m of sea level rise over the course of the next couple of centuries would do to said infrastructure? What about biodiversity?
and temperatures have risen many times than what IPCC predicts.
"Many times", eh? Well, let's see; the IPCC AR4 predicts a T increase of 3C on average, and up to 6.4C worst-case. In the last 5 million years, 4C peak-to-peak, and over the last 500M years, 11C ptp. That's less than 4 "times" for avg, and 2 "times" for worst case. Your definition of words like "many times" seems to be suspect.
Furthermore, our civilization's infrastructure does not depend on a stable climate.
Yeah, that's why food prices are so low right now. Bollocks.
The US has undergone vast changes in settlement, transportation, and agriculture over the last decades.
Given your penchant for creative word redefinition, I think your usage of "vast" is more than suspect. More bollocks.
Germany and Japan rebuilt modern technological societies after the devastation of WWII.
The so-called "devastation" of WW2 was primarily surgical, targeting military and industry, and nothing on the scale of natural disasters, like the recent Pakistan and Australian floods which hit everything without prejudice. As such, rebuilding modern technological societies in postwar Japan and Germany is trivial by comparison. Look simply at a single event, like hurricane Katrina in the US. There are places which will take decades to rebuild -- until the next Katrina hits. Then what?
The notion that human societies are based on stable, long-term infrastructure and settlement is ridiculous. No scenario predicted by IPCC would require anything near the changes humanity has experienced over the last century.
Ridiculous to you, maybe. I don't find it ridiculous at all. Hundreds of millions of displaced people are going to dwarf anything in the past.
That statement is just an expression of your xenophobic and anti-immigrant biases.
Apparently, your mind-reading technique needs a bit of refinement. I regret to inform you that you know precisely DICK about my biases.
In fact, immigration does not "put a strain" on countries, it contributes positively to their economies and their cultures.
Tell that to the Somalis and the Kenyans. I'm sure they'll heartily agree with your assessment of their wonderful situation at present.
It is the policies you advocate--limits on CO2 emissions and limits on migration--that will impede economic development and as a result cause people to suffer and die by the millions.
That's pretty much the most retarded thing I have ever heard, I think. Limits on CFCs didn't impede economic development; in fact it did the opposite. Surtaxes on SO2 emissions didn't cause people to suffer and die by the millions, either. Are you r
Well, you should know. CO2 concentrations have been ten times (!) their current levels and at higher temperatures without runaway greenhouse effects.
CO2 concentrations have been 10 times higher in times when solar output was lower. Quite a number of factors may have been involved which prevented a runaway greenhouse effect. I don't have any information or evidence that it can or can't happen, hence "I don't know". Somehow, I severely doubt you do either.
Throughout most of the ages since the dinosaurs, there have been no polar ice caps or glaciers. The normal climate on this planet is significantly warmer than it is now.
There have been "cool" periods since that time, but the reason that large scale ice sheets did not form (during the Jurassic-Cretaceous period) was due primarily to continental plate configuration; there were most certainly glaciers where predominant long-term climate/weather patterns allowed for them. I don't think any particular temperature range can be considered "normal". The warm/cool phases appear to be pretty well-balanced.
Even still, none of that changes the nature of the problem of AGW-induced climate change. Our civilation's infrastructure depends on a fairly steady-state climate, and rapid changes will cause serious problems.
Positing the possibility of a "runaway greenhouse effect similar to Venus" in arguments about climate change is completely unreasonable and irrational.
No, posting a probability of such without facts to back it up would be unreasonable and irrational. Kinda like saying "The normal climate on this planet is significantly warmer than it is now" without any facts to back it up. At least I said "I don't know", and "probably not". Sounds pretty reasonable and rational to me. *shrug*
Good, let's go for it! The long term benefits would far outweigh the costs.
Yeah, if the long term benefits are a bunch of humans drowning/starving to death/killing each other off over food/water because they were too stupid to avoid the problem when they knew about it and could have done something about it, then yeah, I think I agree.:)
They are Greenpeace's own numbers. If even advocacy groups like Greenpeace come up with such small numbers in their worst case scenarios, why should we do anything about climate change? Do you have better numbers? Because right now, you're just waving your hands.
The source of the numbers doesn't give them any more credence or validity. Greenpeace is just as capable of being wrong in their prognostications as anyone. No, I don't have better numbers; many problems that are plausible effects of climate change are very hard to put numbers on. How much is a human life worth? How about a million lives? Hundreds of millions? What about just human suffering? What about mass extinction of species? How do you put a dollar amount on those things?
I don't need to put dollar figures on such things, because they are beyond having such meaningless valuations placed on them. Why do you?
Despite the supposed environmental destruction, the world is experiencing less war, less conflict, and less hunger today than it has since the start of the industrial revolution.
You can't possibly be serious. We had two of the most devastating wars in history in the last century, let alone all the other conflicts across the world since then. As for less hunger, some of the largest famines have also occurred in the last 200 years. Where are you getting your misinformation?
And those countries that are a military threat to us (e.g., Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.) do not suffer from either flooding or climate-induced starvation. On the other hand, those countries that do experience starvation and flooding (e.g., Bangladesh, Somalia) are no threat to our security.
Umm.... it is now well established that Mann and Jones have been hiding data.
No, they haven't. You cannot produce a shred of REAL evidence to back up that claim.
The places you cite are all climate shills pumping out propaganda.
No, they are outlets for the research and data, some of which are run by the scientists themselves in an attempt to disarm the constant noise and bullshit from REAL "shills pumping out propaganda", like icecap, climateaudit, WUWT, etc.
For the avoidance of error, let us be clear what the original issue was. Some tree-ring data was used in an attempt to show that the world's temperature had remained pretty static until recently, when it had shot up. This is known as the 'hockey-stick' assertion, and is a major plank of the argument that mankind has caused global warming by increasing CO2 emissions recently.
It is important to know which items of data, from where, were used in constructing this graph. Not EVERY tree-ring series was used. The choice is obviously important, because it has to be done in an unbiased way.
That "some tree-ring data" was only a very small portion of the overall data used to build paleoclimate reconstructions. Others included ocean/lake sediments, ice cores, coral growth, cave depsits, fossils, borehole temps, and glacier length records, to name a few. Taken together, they all converge on an average which is represented well by the so-called "hockey-stick" graph.
MBH98 is only one of a number of research papers from that time which showed anomalous warming in the latter half of the 20th century; it just happened to be singled-out by opponents because of its presentation and robustness.
Some scientists asked for information about which of the many tree-ring series were used, which parts of these were used, and how the choices were made, so they could examine the selection criteria.
Jones said that all the tree-ring data was freely available on the web. This is true, but it was not what was asked for. What was needed was data on the way parts of this data were chosen. To this day Jones has refused to reveal the details of which items were used and how they were chosen, and continues to claim, as do all the propaganda outlets, that because all the data is freely available he has fulfilled all freedom-of-information requirements.
You must be referring to Mann, as Jones does not do dendrochronology. Jones works with actual meteorological temperature records. It sounds like you're conflating the two. Mann's research specifies the tree ring data selection criteria used and sources for said data (I presume you've, you know, actually READ MBH98, right?). Mann's claims that the data and methods to process it were made available are borne out by the fact that McIntyre and McKittrick were able to perform their analyses of his work. So the claim that Mann has not fulfilled his obligations as a scientist to provide ALL of the data and tools surrounding his research are bogus.
At this point, I would say "nice try", but it's actually a pretty pathetic effort; you're just rehashing the same tired old shit that's been beaten down countless times. That's what your denier masters want, though. They want (and you apparently buy into it) it to be repeated endlessly on the premise that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. Except we won't, and we'll keep pointing it out as a lie in front of everyone, to your and your masters' eternal shame (which we know you don't have any).
SOME of Jones' temperature data was not made available because UEA was under contractual obligations not to release it. That said, it was available to anyone who wanted it, as the Met Offices don't discriminate who they sell it to. You have to sign a contract saying you won't disseminate it, of course.
In fact, this whole episode has now been overtaken by events. Since the Earth has started
"Now, see how that works? Demonization works both ways, ya know."
Until fairly recently, even the claim that it has gotten warmer was based on extremely sloppy by climatologists who lacked expertise in statistics (the ASA itself criticized that work).
Gross misrepresentation much? I think you need to check your makeup.
The fact that the statistical work has been cleaned up now doesn't change the fact that the original work was sloppy and criticism of it was valid.
The "cleaning up" resulted in statistically insignificant changes in the results. It doesn't sound like "sloppy" and "valid criticism" are very robust descriptive terms in this context.
And what has been shown is just that it has been getting a little warmer on average, over some large regions, nothing else.
Yeah, it's just a little warmer in the Arctic now, on the order of 8-15F some months. Please, now...
The second gross misrepresentation implying that the observation of man-made human warming has automatic policy implications, like the proposed reductions in CO2 emissions. In fact, the "consensus of scientists" is absolutely clear: there is no plausible scenario in which human CO2 emissions make our planet uninhabitable.
Well, actually, there IS a scenario where it becomes uninhabitable, it's called a "runaway greenhouse effect", similar to what happened to Venus. Is it plausible? I don't know. Probably not; however, I think there are big problems which ARE plausible, even though lesser effect than that one. A global food production collapse, for one. If you think that masses of starving people are not a massive problem, both in terms of security, and also in terms of potential pestilence and conflict that could erupt out of it, I don't know what to say; there aren't many things that could be much worse.
Even the IPCC doesn't believe that humans will be able to melt the polar ice caps under the worst case scenario. Even their worst case forecasts amount to only a tiny fraction of what humanity has experienced over the last 20000 years anyway.
Well, recent lines of evidence and research are showing that even the IPCC AR4's predictions are a bit cautious/conservative, so I would look to the next report. There's definitely a VERY strong indication that the Arctic will be effectively ice-free within 10-20 years. Antarctica/Greenland, probably not by 2100, but well, you never know. The big question right now is whether there are these things called "fast feedbacks" and "tipping points", and how strong and likely they are. Methane from melting clathrates and melting permafrost are one of those big "hmmmm..." ones right now that have many scientists awake at night.
Sea level rise, islands flooding, expansion of equatorial deserts, balanced by increasing habitability of northern zones, are climate changes humanity has not only coped with but thrived under.
Well, when it has changed over the course of a few millennia, sure. However, when it happens over the course of a couple centuries, will we be able to adapt fast enough? Are you going to be able to convince people that they will have to abandon their homelands and move to some strange places where the ecosystems themselves will be similarly shocked/stressed? Who's to say that those "New Northern Zones" will support such a migration? Just because they are warmer doesn't necessarily mean they are now capable of supporting the throngs of people who are going to flock to them. It takes a long time to condition soil for mass agriculture, ya know.
Greenpeace estimates a cost of $156 billion for a 1m sea level rise for the US (multiply that by 4-5 for the whole world). But the IPCC predicts only a 60cm rise over a hundred
So you admit that they stonewalled on the station list till 2008? And you admit that they didn't release their software until after they had been exposed by the climate gate email release? I may not have been clear, but I didn't mean to imply that they still haven't released stuff, but only that they were stonewalling at one time.
Do you know what a "station list" is? It's a list of weather stations all over the world. It's not exactly a secret, ya know. He didn't stonewall on releasing anything that wasn't already accessible by the public. You get a list of all the Meteorological offices across the world, and you ask them for their list of stations. Some may require you to PAY for that information. What's so super seekrit squirrel about that?
They didn't release their software until they had PERMISSION to do so. I bet you also didn't know that some weather station data is STILL not published to this day. You have to get it from the MOs who SELL it, if you want a copy.
If they have proprietary info that they CAN NOT release, by contract, no amount of whining about "stonewalling" is going to change a damn thing about that. Get over it.
Strange. Why didn't he just give the URL for the files instead of refusing. But of course you've quoted a source admitting he didn't release the station list till 2008. So it doesn't look like it was "IN THE RESEARCH".
Because..he..didn't..have..rights..to..release..the..data. What part of this is unclear? The SOURCES (the MOs) of the data WERE in the research. He said that much in the report.
You cite BEST as replication by some other than buddies, but I was referring to replication of the hockey stick. BEST did not replicate the hockey stick. Furthermore, BEST was lead by an alarmist, so that is not clearly replication by other than buddies.
No, BEST does not do paleoclimate reconstruction, but the "blade" of the "stick", which is what many deniers actively dispute about it anyway, matches with a high degree of confidence to the BEST results.
Also, Richard Muller and Judith Curry are HARDLY "alarmist", considering Muller sided with McIntyre and McKittrick over the MBH98 reconstruction. He still voices opposition to it, but he's no longer doubting the temperature record, and where it is heading. Curry has been dissenting against the "mainstream" climate take on purely social grounds for a while now.
Anthony Watts admitted after his own study that the average temperature trend of the urban stations was no higher than the good rural stations. Of course he then minimized it and tried to make a seemingly insignificant issue of the difference between the trends in the diurnal temperature range.
Anthony Watts doesn't admit he's wrong about squat. In that dodge, he avoided any fallout from any admission of fault. It wasn't "mea culpa, I was wrong, maybe I should rethink things a bit", it was more like "meh.. even if I was wrong, it doesn't matter anyway; AGW STILL IS WRONG!!!!1!1!!oneoneone!1".
I see tons of ignorance on the skeptic side. The alarmist side actually seems to be much more grounded in facts.
That's nice of you to say, but...
But now we're seeing that the alarmist facts may not be as solid as was once thought.
Such as? Got the data? Research?
And you simply dismissed my criticism of the attempt to "hide the decline", but you gave no reasoned defense.
That's because it is an irrational and stupid canard that has had the snot beaten out of it so much that I can't see how anyone can STILL use it with a straight face.
OK, if you insist. Reasoned defense: You DO understand the context of that comment, right? Here, this video will 'splain things.
That is understandable given it appears to be indefensible.
Hmmm, you really do need to read the climategate 2 letters, don't you.
While I would have liked to have skipped the 2-year-old leftover turkey, alas, it just wasn't to be, so I've allllready been there, thanks.
From message 4241.txt, a communication from Rob Wilson to Ed Cook (and others):
I think it is telling where you decided to cut it off. Let's continue with the REST of the message from the point you chopped it:
It is certainly worrying, but I do not think that it is a problem so long as one screens against LOCAL temperature data and not large scale temperature where trend dominates the correlation.
I guess this over-fitting issue will be relevant to studies that rely more on trend coherence rather than inter-annual coherence. It would be interesting to do a similar analysis against the NAO or PDO indices. However, I should work on other things.
The funny part is, EVEN WITH McIntyre's/McKittrick's correction in 2003 (which he WAS credited for, by the way) and in 2005, the difference had no significant impact on the results, given the same data.
Surely this vindicates Mann -- by proving that it does indeed turn white noise into hockey sticks!
Yes! It shows that improperly applying a statistical modeling technique will give you bad results! That said, MBH98 avoids doing just that. Amazing, isn't it?
Not only is Mann wrong,
Which you've yet to provide any evidence of, but let's continue..
but the hockey team knows it perfectly well!
Are you expecting me to take you seriously after that? Really? O.o Well, better make sure your tinfoil hat is on straight for the rest of this response, then.
There are letters where people openly lament being involved with the hockey stick type reconstructions
Actually, no one in that tranche ever laments "being involved with hockey-stick type reconstructions", nor specifically with MBH98. They lament being involved with certain OTHER reconstructions (which is clear if you actually, you know, read the email threads, but I digress). Even still, scientists disagree during the scientific process. If you asked those same scientists now, what do you think they'd say? With few exceptions, they admit they were wrong, and support the mainstream research. Go figure, eh? Gotta be a conspiracy, or maybe the Team's coach knows how to run a tight ship. (and other places, e.g. where they "hid the decline" in tree ring data)
Oh, please, give that BS a rest, already. ZOMG! HE USED A TRICK TO HIDE THE DECLINE!!! WTF?!?! Bollocks, pure and simple.
because they are terrible science and because they are openly worried that sooner or later people will catch on. As indeed they have, although they have won the PR war (another great Mann quote) to such an extent that even though they themselves know that the hockey stick is bogus and that white noise fit according to Mann's cherrypicking methodology will produce nothing but hockey sticks, it just won't die, will it?
I know.. they are so terrible at it; it must be just pure, dumb luck that they are right, and being vindicated by EVERY RESPECTED BODY OF INQUIRY that has scrutinized them, let alone the continually mounting evidence and research that rolls in year after year.
Thanks to people like you!
Why, thank you! I would love to take all the credit, but I really should share it with "The Team".:D
We could review the specific Climategate 2 letters where Jones talks about deliberately trying not to give away data to the people who requested it (something I would call "stonewalling", except that the circumstance in question is a FOIA request that was only a miss
There is likely no risk; it is a digital data product, so it is licensed, and they probably pay a subscription fee so they can get any of the data (including more current data) at any time.
No. Those who requested the data requested that if all the data couldn't be provided, then the freely available data should be provided. They were refused.
30.First, in answer to the question of whether the raw data are accessible and verifiable, Professor Jones told us that: The simple answer is yes, most of the same basic data are available in the United States in something called the Global Historical Climatology Network. They have been downloadable there for a number of years so people have been able to take the data, do whatever method of assessment of the quality of the data and derive their own gridded product and compare that with other workers.
31.In addition, of course, there are the sources of the data, the weather stations, to which any individual is free to go and collect the data in the same way that CRU did. This is feasible because the list of stations that CRU used was published in 2008.
41. Professor Jones contested these claims. According to him, “The methods are published in the scientific papers; they are relatively simple and there is nothing that is rocket science in them”. He also noted: “We have made all the adjustments we have made to the data available in these reports; they are 25 years old now”. He added that the programme that produced the global temperature average had been available from the Met Office since December 2009.
51. Even if the data that CRU used were not publicly available—which they mostly are—or the methods not published—which they have been—its published results would still be credible: the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets; in other words, the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified.
When asked for a list of what data was used, but not the data itself, they refused. Even if the data is available for free on the net, how can the results be replicated if they will not say which data was used?
Jones PERSONALLY refused. The information about what data was used has been available since the original papers and research were performed! IT'S IN THE RESEARCH, DURRRR. Have you ever read any of it?
BEST was funded by the Koch brothers, owners of a giant oil/petrochemical company. Most DEFINITELY NOT "buddies" with Mann. Even still, being "buddies" in science doesn't mean diddly-squat; it's not about WHO you know, but WHAT you know, and HOW WELL you know it. So far, Mann's work has been REPEATEDLY vindicated.
There can be no vindication for trying to "hide the decline".
Ya know, for a minute there, I thought you might be trying to be genuinely serious and skeptical. Then you trot THAT out./facepalm
It is a well established rule of science that you don't leave out data that casts doubt on your conclusion.
You are correct, it is, and the vast majority of climate scientists and their research faithfully follow that rule, no matter how many intellectually dishonest, ignorant, and gullible idiots falling for charlatans and snake oil salesmen lke Watts, Michaels, Singer, et cetera ad nauseum, try to spin otherwise.
You've fallen for their story.
No, I've fallen for the FACTS of the matter. I've done my homework; I've looked beyond anyone's story; what's YOUR excuse?
Many of us used to think the alarmists were good willed, and we assumed they were honest. I still think they are good
And continues. Phil Jones, for example, has stonewalled requests for the raw data used to e.g. create HadCRUT3 etc, although recently it seems that one reason he hasn't shared it is that he lost it and literally can't share it.
That is complete and utter bullshit.
First, he has never stonewalled requests for the raw data. It's been out there for ANYONE to obtain. The problem is that, for some of it, you have to PAY to get it, and UEA was forbidden by contract to give away said data for free because then people wouldn't PAY for it anymore. So, if you want to piss and moan about access to the raw data, then apply your angst and woe to the most responsible parties, the Met offices which want to profit from their weather data-gathering businesses.
Second, the "lost data" canard is a crock. Since the raw data is not owned or generated by UEA, but instead obtained from outside sources, they have NO mandate to keep the original raw data once they have processed it. They (and you and anyone else) can go and get it from the same sources at any time. Whip out your checkbook and get to it.
So we have a rather important temperature series, openly available on the web and used by many, many climate researchers and nobody can reconstruct it, including the original author. The problem continues -- it is like pulling teeth, getting members of the hockey team to share data and/or methods so anyone can check them.
You (and they) most certainly can get the original raw data and reconstruct it. There are literally mountains of data that have been released to the public on a large part of climate science. You just need to learn who and how to ask properly and, in some cases, how much it costs.
Here's a huge FREE repository of all kinds of climate-related data, from the climate scientists themselves.
Since the few times somebody has bulled through until they've succeeded, e.g. Steve Mcintyre vs Michael Mann, what has been discovered is that the published result (the infamous MBH "hockey stick") is nothing but amplified, distorted white noise that has absolutely no correlation with the data used to produce it, let alone skill at reconstructing actual past temperatures, it doesn't bode well for the discipline.
Mann's work has been vindicated and replicated time and time again, McIntyre's (and others') quixotic attempts to discredit it notwithstanding.
I've recently written a guest article on WUWT..
That explains the ignorance of your previous comments a bit.
..calling for data/methods transparency in climate research. By transparent, I mean that you should not be allowed to publish a paper that could potentially influence lawmakers and public policy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars unless you simultaneously publish all contributory raw data (including any data you for any reason left out) and the actual computer code used to process it into figures and conclusions. Something this important needs full open source open data transparency even more than medical research (another discipline where reproducibility of results is abysmal, where there are vested interests galore, and where we spend/waste a phenomenal amount of both money and human morbidity and mortality on crap results.
In large part, this is precisely what happens, with a few exceptions. Those exceptions usually revolve around whether any kinda of contracts with private entities to obtain said data, or to develop software/hardware, are in effect that would preclude giving them away. That said, the research should (and usually does) document the specifications for said hardware/software, and include where the original data came from for anyone to pay to obtain it themselves.
As a software developer who actually writes software for scienti
Sorry, that should read 512 bytes per second, or 30,720 bytes per minute, which is 7200 text messages, or $108.00 compared with $0.047 for the same amount of voice data, about 23,000% more.
Slashdot Mirror
No, like I said elsewhere, it WAS the "FREE" version. It just considers itself Trialware until you purchase/register it.
I am aware of what options there are with the program, thanks. You (and the others here) seem to be missing the point: the NAGGING is UNNECESSARILY intrusive and, no, you can't set it so the nag popup won't popup; it ignores that setting for that particular notification.
If their way to get you to register once per year is to drive you batshit insane with persistent nagging popups weeks in advance, you can have it.
Heh. "grown ups". I guess I should have expected that kind of irony in some moronic AC reply.
I downloaded and installed the "Free" version. After installation, it considered itself Trialware, nag screens and all. I didn't mind being notified occasionally, but literally every freaking hour, minimizing other applications, no matter what I did to shut the damn thing up, was the last straw.
No, I won't have fun with Symantec, either; they've been high on my shit list for nigh on two decades for being similarly useless.
I normally use AVG, but I wanted to try Avast because it detected a particular website drive-by that one of the sites I frequent got hit with that very few others could detect. After that experience, I think I would rather take my chances.
I uninstalled the Avast trial a couple months ago with extreme prejudice as the piece of shite CONSTANTLY interrupted everything I was doing every goddamned hour to tell me that the trial was going to expire in a couple WEEKS. It would minimize other apps (including games, full-screen videos, etc) so its little warning box could be seen. Yes, I turned off every notification option I could find in it, and it STILL harassed me, so into the refuse pile it went. Yet another idiot company I will never do business with ever again.
So, it comes as no surprise to me that they would hire such an aggressive "support" company. The glove fits the hand.
They both need to die in a fire and then rot in hell together.
..the more sales slip between your fingers.
Please, by all means use more Draconian DRM on your games. I DO NOT HAVE TO BUY THEM, I PROMISE!
I don't pirate, either. Pirating a game would mean I actually liked it, but I won't even acknowledge the existence of games/companies which employ asinine DRM measures.
It is fast coming to the point where indie game quality is as good as, if not better than, AAA title quality. I'm happy to give my AAA title business to smaller indie devs who understand the concept of not punishing their customers because they live in a perpetual state of fear for their bottom line.
Most people will go "Stratwho?", shrug their shoulders and go back to eating their turkey sandwiches.
That's as far as I get before I skip to the next article.
Seagate has always been crap, so no great loss there.
Oh, I agree. There are some cases where policy overhead becomes too much to justify its existence, but those cases are not the norm.
That's a great theory, except it doesn't work that way in the real world.
It works great in practice, too. After seeing it in action and being part of the "High Priesthood of IT" in a Fortune 100 company for a number of years, I can attest to the fact that it does work, and works well.
In just about every case where another department/division of the corporation tried to "buck the system", they ended up paying significant portions of their budgets for IT to clean up their messes, which in turn led to more adherence to IT "best practices" policies.
Never doubt for a minute that expressing the consequences in terms of money is the most powerful motivator of policy. That, and making IT policy into an employee code of conduct issue.
In the real world, the users decide that since they can't bully IT into doing what they want for free, they'll just try to do it themselves rather than beg their boss for permission to spend budget dollars on the company IT department, especially when no one in the department has even gotten a raise this year. So when they need a new switch port activated, they don't call the help desk. Instead, they order a $20 piece of crap cable/DSL modem from Purchasing (you know, the one with DHCP enabled by default) and just go ahead and plug it into the network, taking down most of the subnet when it starts spewing out spurious IP addresses to all the clients on the segment. IT gets the blame because its already-razor-thin-budget didn't allocate enough money for adequate monitoring software to protect against the moron who plugged in the switch. All of its budget money went into more wireless access points to support all of the users who suddenly got iPads for Christmas and are pissed off because they won't work in the basement conference room or in the toilets.
I'll tell you a little anecdote. Back in the late 90s, the biggest network disaster at this particular company was HP network printers. The network was mostly bridged token ring, and of course, HP printers LOVE to communicate via broadcasting. Even better, there was this quaint little piece of software that came packaged with every printer called HP JetAdmin. It was HP's pride and joy; effortless administration of your network printers -- if you only had a couple printers on a tiny SOHO network. So, here we are, clients (as they called "users") getting a brand-spanking new HP networked printer, unboxing it, plugging it in, and popping the install disk into their computers. At that time, there was a single install, which installed printer drivers, AND HP JetAdmin. Shortly thereafter, large segments of the network would go down from thousands of printers broadcasting "Hey JetAdmin!! Here I am!" back to these systems.
The problem was, HP printers were on the "approved" list of printers for purchasing, so any client could order one from the contract suppliers, and it would show up in a day to a week. Some people wouldn't wait for IT to get them a proper "drivers only" install onto their computer, so broadcast storms were a weekly event. Eventually, the IT department, backed by the affected organizations in the company who got the bill for the network outages and recovery time, had it out with HP and got them to only supply printers with "driver only" install disks with the printers that came into the company.
I remember that day like it was yesterday; there's nothing quite like an executive-level ass-reaming of a major manufacturer to brighten your day.
Every other department that uses IT pays for it. Those who use more IT services, or otherwise cost the company money from their IT fuckups, pay more. Eventually, they learn to work WITH the IT department to lower their overhead costs so they can meet their budgetary targets. That means doing the kinds of things that the idiots best represented by the author of that article abhor: the things recommended/enforced by those "High Priests" as best practices.
I mean, yeah, there are bad IT people and departments out there, to be sure, just like there are bad users. Unlike bad users, though, bad IT people and departments don't last very long.
The ignorance of our elected officials was never funny. It was sad and grossly pathetic, and still remains so.
Given the democractic system, it is a direct reflection on who we are as a people. As much as people piss and moan about the retards we end up electing, vanishingly few of said people either vote for non-retards, or run against the retards. As such, we get the government we deserve; the government that WE THE PEOPLE voted for.
Just like the corporatocracy/plutocracy/Fascist state that we're fast becoming (which is an obvious symptomatic effect of the problem), people don't get how they are empowering the very evil they rail against. Corporations would have NO power if people stopped feeding them.
Yes, but fortunately we aren't talking about 10x increases in CO2 concentrations due to human activity,
Nor are we talking about such increases when humans, let alone our civilizations, were around at all.
leaving a large safety margin (increase in solar output has been much smaller in comparison).
Yes, of course! There are only two factors at play, and they are both directly proportional in their effects when they are changed. Someone call Climate Research and inform them of your astounding simplification of the climate system.
And you can go back to more recent figures where solar output was closer to what it is and CO2 concentrations were still several times what they are today without any runaway effects.
Like when? When were CO2 concentrations "several times what they are today" last? Oh, that's right, over 100 million years ago. Again, your ridiculously oversimplified take on climate science must astound your peers! That is beyond the fact that you're arguing with yourself, since I never claimed that there were any "runaway effects" in the first place. More of your 1337 mind-reading skillz letting you down again, apparently.
Have you ever even bothered to look at climate history?
MANY times. Have you? Is the best you can do a single Wikipedia reference? What did that take, all of two minutes? Do you even know what the fuck you're looking at with that single graph?
No misinformation, you just read it wrong:
Am I? Let's see...
"Despite the supposed environmental destruction, the world is experiencing less war, less conflict, and less hunger today than it has since the start of the industrial revolution."
Do we have less war today than during WWII? Yes. My point exactly.
Yeah, I obviously mistook "since the start of the industrial revolution" to mean "since the start of the industrial revolution", rather than what you actually were thinking when you wrote those words: "than during WWII". Unlike you and your awesome mind-reading skillz, I just have to go on what people say. I'm sure you understand.
After consigning fascism and communism to the dustbins of history
Someone better let the Chinese know that their current form of government has been consigned to the "dustbins of history". As for Fascism, it's alive and well in the US in the form of the corporatocracy/plutocracy enabled by current political "climate".
and liberalizing trade and migration, things have improved greatly for all of humanity.
A whole lot of humanity today would heartily disagree.
In different words, you don't have numbers,
No, in the same words, because that's PRECISELY what I said. Your failed attempt to spin the obvious is pretty epic there.
Yet, you still claim that there is a "consensus" that there is going to be global devastation unless we act now.
Only If you can quote where I made any such claims; otherwise, you're just practicing more of your uber mind-reading skillz.
You raised the possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect and used it to justify limiting CO2 emissions.
No, you completely misread and spun what I said. I brought it up SPECIFICALLY to cast doubt on it, and offered a lesser, but still significant set of criteria to justify taking SOME action; I didn't specify what action to take; you added that yourself.
I'm saying "that doesn't seem plausible to me because..." In response, you just say "I don't know" and attack my objection. Where does that leave us? Still with no evidence or rational argument that a runaway greenhouse effect can happen.
How many times do I have to say "I never claimed any such
There is no such thing as a "steady-state climate";
You'll note I said "fairly steady-state climate">. Omitting important qualifiers when quoting opponents is pretty intellectually dishonest, but that's OK, I've come to expect it; at least you blatantly show your bias, making it easy for all to see.
global temperatures have been oscillating wildly for the past several million years.
"Wildly", within 4C peak-to-peak over the last 5M years, and here we are, potentially seeing upwards of that much on the POSITIVE SIDE in a couple hundred years. Your definition of "wildly" is a bit skewed.
Over the past 20000 years alone, sea levels have changed by more than 80m, glaciers covered much of Europe and the US,
..and our current civilization and its infrastructure is no more than a couple thousand years old; the vast majority of it being built in the last two hundred or so. What do you think 1-2m of sea level rise over the course of the next couple of centuries would do to said infrastructure? What about biodiversity?
and temperatures have risen many times than what IPCC predicts.
"Many times", eh? Well, let's see; the IPCC AR4 predicts a T increase of 3C on average, and up to 6.4C worst-case. In the last 5 million years, 4C peak-to-peak, and over the last 500M years, 11C ptp. That's less than 4 "times" for avg, and 2 "times" for worst case. Your definition of words like "many times" seems to be suspect.
Furthermore, our civilization's infrastructure does not depend on a stable climate.
Yeah, that's why food prices are so low right now. Bollocks.
The US has undergone vast changes in settlement, transportation, and agriculture over the last decades.
Given your penchant for creative word redefinition, I think your usage of "vast" is more than suspect. More bollocks.
Germany and Japan rebuilt modern technological societies after the devastation of WWII.
The so-called "devastation" of WW2 was primarily surgical, targeting military and industry, and nothing on the scale of natural disasters, like the recent Pakistan and Australian floods which hit everything without prejudice. As such, rebuilding modern technological societies in postwar Japan and Germany is trivial by comparison. Look simply at a single event, like hurricane Katrina in the US. There are places which will take decades to rebuild -- until the next Katrina hits. Then what?
The notion that human societies are based on stable, long-term infrastructure and settlement is ridiculous. No scenario predicted by IPCC would require anything near the changes humanity has experienced over the last century.
Ridiculous to you, maybe. I don't find it ridiculous at all. Hundreds of millions of displaced people are going to dwarf anything in the past.
That statement is just an expression of your xenophobic and anti-immigrant biases.
Apparently, your mind-reading technique needs a bit of refinement. I regret to inform you that you know precisely DICK about my biases.
In fact, immigration does not "put a strain" on countries, it contributes positively to their economies and their cultures.
Tell that to the Somalis and the Kenyans. I'm sure they'll heartily agree with your assessment of their wonderful situation at present.
It is the policies you advocate--limits on CO2 emissions and limits on migration--that will impede economic development and as a result cause people to suffer and die by the millions.
That's pretty much the most retarded thing I have ever heard, I think. Limits on CFCs didn't impede economic development; in fact it did the opposite. Surtaxes on SO2 emissions didn't cause people to suffer and die by the millions, either. Are you r
Well, you should know. CO2 concentrations have been ten times (!) their current levels and at higher temperatures without runaway greenhouse effects.
CO2 concentrations have been 10 times higher in times when solar output was lower. Quite a number of factors may have been involved which prevented a runaway greenhouse effect. I don't have any information or evidence that it can or can't happen, hence "I don't know". Somehow, I severely doubt you do either.
Throughout most of the ages since the dinosaurs, there have been no polar ice caps or glaciers. The normal climate on this planet is significantly warmer than it is now.
There have been "cool" periods since that time, but the reason that large scale ice sheets did not form (during the Jurassic-Cretaceous period) was due primarily to continental plate configuration; there were most certainly glaciers where predominant long-term climate/weather patterns allowed for them. I don't think any particular temperature range can be considered "normal". The warm/cool phases appear to be pretty well-balanced.
Even still, none of that changes the nature of the problem of AGW-induced climate change. Our civilation's infrastructure depends on a fairly steady-state climate, and rapid changes will cause serious problems.
Positing the possibility of a "runaway greenhouse effect similar to Venus" in arguments about climate change is completely unreasonable and irrational.
No, posting a probability of such without facts to back it up would be unreasonable and irrational. Kinda like saying "The normal climate on this planet is significantly warmer than it is now" without any facts to back it up. At least I said "I don't know", and "probably not". Sounds pretty reasonable and rational to me. *shrug*
Good, let's go for it! The long term benefits would far outweigh the costs.
Yeah, if the long term benefits are a bunch of humans drowning/starving to death/killing each other off over food/water because they were too stupid to avoid the problem when they knew about it and could have done something about it, then yeah, I think I agree. :)
They are Greenpeace's own numbers. If even advocacy groups like Greenpeace come up with such small numbers in their worst case scenarios, why should we do anything about climate change? Do you have better numbers? Because right now, you're just waving your hands.
The source of the numbers doesn't give them any more credence or validity. Greenpeace is just as capable of being wrong in their prognostications as anyone. No, I don't have better numbers; many problems that are plausible effects of climate change are very hard to put numbers on. How much is a human life worth? How about a million lives? Hundreds of millions? What about just human suffering? What about mass extinction of species? How do you put a dollar amount on those things?
I don't need to put dollar figures on such things, because they are beyond having such meaningless valuations placed on them. Why do you?
Despite the supposed environmental destruction, the world is experiencing less war, less conflict, and less hunger today than it has since the start of the industrial revolution.
You can't possibly be serious. We had two of the most devastating wars in history in the last century, let alone all the other conflicts across the world since then. As for less hunger, some of the largest famines have also occurred in the last 200 years. Where are you getting your misinformation?
And those countries that are a military threat to us (e.g., Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.) do not suffer from either flooding or climate-induced starvation. On the other hand, those countries that do experience starvation and flooding (e.g., Bangladesh, Somalia) are no threat to our security.
It's not a matter of sovereig
Umm.... it is now well established that Mann and Jones have been hiding data.
No, they haven't. You cannot produce a shred of REAL evidence to back up that claim.
The places you cite are all climate shills pumping out propaganda.
No, they are outlets for the research and data, some of which are run by the scientists themselves in an attempt to disarm the constant noise and bullshit from REAL "shills pumping out propaganda", like icecap, climateaudit, WUWT, etc.
For the avoidance of error, let us be clear what the original issue was. Some tree-ring data was used in an attempt to show that the world's temperature had remained pretty static until recently, when it had shot up. This is known as the 'hockey-stick' assertion, and is a major plank of the argument that mankind has caused global warming by increasing CO2 emissions recently.
It is important to know which items of data, from where, were used in constructing this graph. Not EVERY tree-ring series was used. The choice is obviously important, because it has to be done in an unbiased way.
That "some tree-ring data" was only a very small portion of the overall data used to build paleoclimate reconstructions. Others included ocean/lake sediments, ice cores, coral growth, cave depsits, fossils, borehole temps, and glacier length records, to name a few. Taken together, they all converge on an average which is represented well by the so-called "hockey-stick" graph.
MBH98 is only one of a number of research papers from that time which showed anomalous warming in the latter half of the 20th century; it just happened to be singled-out by opponents because of its presentation and robustness.
Some scientists asked for information about which of the many tree-ring series were used, which parts of these were used, and how the choices were made, so they could examine the selection criteria.
Jones said that all the tree-ring data was freely available on the web. This is true, but it was not what was asked for. What was needed was data on the way parts of this data were chosen. To this day Jones has refused to reveal the details of which items were used and how they were chosen, and continues to claim, as do all the propaganda outlets, that because all the data is freely available he has fulfilled all freedom-of-information requirements.
You must be referring to Mann, as Jones does not do dendrochronology. Jones works with actual meteorological temperature records. It sounds like you're conflating the two. Mann's research specifies the tree ring data selection criteria used and sources for said data (I presume you've, you know, actually READ MBH98, right?). Mann's claims that the data and methods to process it were made available are borne out by the fact that McIntyre and McKittrick were able to perform their analyses of his work. So the claim that Mann has not fulfilled his obligations as a scientist to provide ALL of the data and tools surrounding his research are bogus.
At this point, I would say "nice try", but it's actually a pretty pathetic effort; you're just rehashing the same tired old shit that's been beaten down countless times. That's what your denier masters want, though. They want (and you apparently buy into it) it to be repeated endlessly on the premise that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. Except we won't, and we'll keep pointing it out as a lie in front of everyone, to your and your masters' eternal shame (which we know you don't have any).
SOME of Jones' temperature data was not made available because UEA was under contractual obligations not to release it. That said, it was available to anyone who wanted it, as the Met Offices don't discriminate who they sell it to. You have to sign a contract saying you won't disseminate it, of course.
In fact, this whole episode has now been overtaken by events. Since the Earth has started
That is a gross misrepresentation.
You obviously missed the following line:
"Now, see how that works? Demonization works both ways, ya know."
Until fairly recently, even the claim that it has gotten warmer was based on extremely sloppy by climatologists who lacked expertise in statistics (the ASA itself criticized that work).
Gross misrepresentation much? I think you need to check your makeup.
The fact that the statistical work has been cleaned up now doesn't change the fact that the original work was sloppy and criticism of it was valid.
The "cleaning up" resulted in statistically insignificant changes in the results. It doesn't sound like "sloppy" and "valid criticism" are very robust descriptive terms in this context.
And what has been shown is just that it has been getting a little warmer on average, over some large regions, nothing else.
Yeah, it's just a little warmer in the Arctic now, on the order of 8-15F some months. Please, now...
The second gross misrepresentation implying that the observation of man-made human warming has automatic policy implications, like the proposed reductions in CO2 emissions. In fact, the "consensus of scientists" is absolutely clear: there is no plausible scenario in which human CO2 emissions make our planet uninhabitable.
Well, actually, there IS a scenario where it becomes uninhabitable, it's called a "runaway greenhouse effect", similar to what happened to Venus. Is it plausible? I don't know. Probably not; however, I think there are big problems which ARE plausible, even though lesser effect than that one. A global food production collapse, for one. If you think that masses of starving people are not a massive problem, both in terms of security, and also in terms of potential pestilence and conflict that could erupt out of it, I don't know what to say; there aren't many things that could be much worse.
Even the IPCC doesn't believe that humans will be able to melt the polar ice caps under the worst case scenario. Even their worst case forecasts amount to only a tiny fraction of what humanity has experienced over the last 20000 years anyway.
Well, recent lines of evidence and research are showing that even the IPCC AR4's predictions are a bit cautious/conservative, so I would look to the next report. There's definitely a VERY strong indication that the Arctic will be effectively ice-free within 10-20 years. Antarctica/Greenland, probably not by 2100, but well, you never know. The big question right now is whether there are these things called "fast feedbacks" and "tipping points", and how strong and likely they are. Methane from melting clathrates and melting permafrost are one of those big "hmmmm..." ones right now that have many scientists awake at night.
Sea level rise, islands flooding, expansion of equatorial deserts, balanced by increasing habitability of northern zones, are climate changes humanity has not only coped with but thrived under.
Well, when it has changed over the course of a few millennia, sure. However, when it happens over the course of a couple centuries, will we be able to adapt fast enough? Are you going to be able to convince people that they will have to abandon their homelands and move to some strange places where the ecosystems themselves will be similarly shocked/stressed? Who's to say that those "New Northern Zones" will support such a migration? Just because they are warmer doesn't necessarily mean they are now capable of supporting the throngs of people who are going to flock to them. It takes a long time to condition soil for mass agriculture, ya know.
Greenpeace estimates a cost of $156 billion for a 1m sea level rise for the US (multiply that by 4-5 for the whole world). But the IPCC predicts only a 60cm rise over a hundred
So you admit that they stonewalled on the station list till 2008? And you admit that they didn't release their software until after they had been exposed by the climate gate email release? I may not have been clear, but I didn't mean to imply that they still haven't released stuff, but only that they were stonewalling at one time.
Do you know what a "station list" is? It's a list of weather stations all over the world. It's not exactly a secret, ya know. He didn't stonewall on releasing anything that wasn't already accessible by the public. You get a list of all the Meteorological offices across the world, and you ask them for their list of stations. Some may require you to PAY for that information. What's so super seekrit squirrel about that?
They didn't release their software until they had PERMISSION to do so. I bet you also didn't know that some weather station data is STILL not published to this day. You have to get it from the MOs who SELL it, if you want a copy.
If they have proprietary info that they CAN NOT release, by contract, no amount of whining about "stonewalling" is going to change a damn thing about that. Get over it.
Strange. Why didn't he just give the URL for the files instead of refusing. But of course you've quoted a source admitting he didn't release the station list till 2008. So it doesn't look like it was "IN THE RESEARCH".
Because..he..didn't..have..rights..to..release..the..data. What part of this is unclear? The SOURCES (the MOs) of the data WERE in the research. He said that much in the report.
You cite BEST as replication by some other than buddies, but I was referring to replication of the hockey stick. BEST did not replicate the hockey stick. Furthermore, BEST was lead by an alarmist, so that is not clearly replication by other than buddies.
No, BEST does not do paleoclimate reconstruction, but the "blade" of the "stick", which is what many deniers actively dispute about it anyway, matches with a high degree of confidence to the BEST results.
Also, Richard Muller and Judith Curry are HARDLY "alarmist", considering Muller sided with McIntyre and McKittrick over the MBH98 reconstruction. He still voices opposition to it, but he's no longer doubting the temperature record, and where it is heading. Curry has been dissenting against the "mainstream" climate take on purely social grounds for a while now.
Anthony Watts admitted after his own study that the average temperature trend of the urban stations was no higher than the good rural stations. Of course he then minimized it and tried to make a seemingly insignificant issue of the difference between the trends in the diurnal temperature range.
Anthony Watts doesn't admit he's wrong about squat. In that dodge, he avoided any fallout from any admission of fault. It wasn't "mea culpa, I was wrong, maybe I should rethink things a bit", it was more like "meh.. even if I was wrong, it doesn't matter anyway; AGW STILL IS WRONG!!!!1!1!!oneoneone!1".
I see tons of ignorance on the skeptic side. The alarmist side actually seems to be much more grounded in facts.
That's nice of you to say, but...
But now we're seeing that the alarmist facts may not be as solid as was once thought.
Such as? Got the data? Research?
And you simply dismissed my criticism of the attempt to "hide the decline", but you gave no reasoned defense.
That's because it is an irrational and stupid canard that has had the snot beaten out of it so much that I can't see how anyone can STILL use it with a straight face.
OK, if you insist. Reasoned defense: You DO understand the context of that comment, right? Here, this video will 'splain things.
That is understandable given it appears to be indefensible.
Hmmm, you really do need to read the climategate 2 letters, don't you.
While I would have liked to have skipped the 2-year-old leftover turkey, alas, it just wasn't to be, so I've allllready been there, thanks.
From message 4241.txt, a communication from Rob Wilson to Ed Cook (and others):
I think it is telling where you decided to cut it off. Let's continue with the REST of the message from the point you chopped it:
It is certainly worrying, but I do not think that it is a problem so long as one screens
against LOCAL temperature data and not large scale temperature where trend dominates the correlation.
I guess this over-fitting issue will be relevant to studies that rely more on trend
coherence rather than inter-annual coherence. It would be interesting to do a similar
analysis against the NAO or PDO indices. However, I should work on other things.
The funny part is, EVEN WITH McIntyre's/McKittrick's correction in 2003 (which he WAS credited for, by the way) and in 2005, the difference had no significant impact on the results, given the same data.
Surely this vindicates Mann -- by proving that it does indeed turn white noise into hockey sticks!
Yes! It shows that improperly applying a statistical modeling technique will give you bad results! That said, MBH98 avoids doing just that. Amazing, isn't it?
Not only is Mann wrong,
Which you've yet to provide any evidence of, but let's continue..
but the hockey team knows it perfectly well!
Are you expecting me to take you seriously after that? Really? O.o
Well, better make sure your tinfoil hat is on straight for the rest of this response, then.
There are letters where people openly lament being involved with the hockey stick type reconstructions
Actually, no one in that tranche ever laments "being involved with hockey-stick type reconstructions", nor specifically with MBH98. They lament being involved with certain OTHER reconstructions (which is clear if you actually, you know, read the email threads, but I digress). Even still, scientists disagree during the scientific process. If you asked those same scientists now, what do you think they'd say? With few exceptions, they admit they were wrong, and support the mainstream research. Go figure, eh? Gotta be a conspiracy, or maybe the Team's coach knows how to run a tight ship. (and other places, e.g. where they "hid the decline" in tree ring data)
Oh, please, give that BS a rest, already. ZOMG! HE USED A TRICK TO HIDE THE DECLINE!!! WTF?!?!
Bollocks, pure and simple.
because they are terrible science and because they are openly worried that sooner or later people will catch on. As indeed they have, although they have won the PR war (another great Mann quote) to such an extent that even though they themselves know that the hockey stick is bogus and that white noise fit according to Mann's cherrypicking methodology will produce nothing but hockey sticks, it just won't die, will it?
I know.. they are so terrible at it; it must be just pure, dumb luck that they are right, and being vindicated by EVERY RESPECTED BODY OF INQUIRY that has scrutinized them, let alone the continually mounting evidence and research that rolls in year after year.
Thanks to people like you!
Why, thank you! I would love to take all the credit, but I really should share it with "The Team". :D
We could review the specific Climategate 2 letters where Jones talks about deliberately trying not to give away data to the people who requested it (something I would call "stonewalling", except that the circumstance in question is a FOIA request that was only a miss
There is likely no risk; it is a digital data product, so it is licensed, and they probably pay a subscription fee so they can get any of the data (including more current data) at any time.
No. Those who requested the data requested that if all the data couldn't be provided, then the freely available data should be provided. They were refused.
Bzzt. Wrong. Try again.
30.First, in answer to the question of whether the raw data are accessible and verifiable, Professor Jones told us that:
The simple answer is yes, most of the same basic data are available in the United States in something called the Global Historical Climatology Network. They have been downloadable there for a number of years so people have been able to take the data, do whatever method of assessment of the quality of the data and derive their own gridded product and compare that with other workers.
31.In addition, of course, there are the sources of the data, the weather stations, to which any individual is free to go and collect the data in the same way that CRU did. This is feasible because the list of stations that CRU used was published in 2008.
41. Professor Jones contested these claims. According to him, “The methods are published in the scientific papers; they are relatively simple and there is nothing that is rocket science in them”. He also noted: “We have made all the adjustments we have made to the data available in these reports; they are 25 years old now”. He added that the programme that produced the global temperature average had been available from the Met Office since December 2009.
51. Even if the data that CRU used were not publicly available—which they mostly are—or the methods not published—which they have been—its published results would still be credible: the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets; in other words, the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified.
When asked for a list of what data was used, but not the data itself, they refused. Even if the data is available for free on the net, how can the results be replicated if they will not say which data was used?
Jones PERSONALLY refused. The information about what data was used has been available since the original papers and research were performed! IT'S IN THE RESEARCH, DURRRR. Have you ever read any of it?
It has only been replicated by his buddies.
Bzzt! Wrong. Try again.
BEST was funded by the Koch brothers, owners of a giant oil/petrochemical company. Most DEFINITELY NOT "buddies" with Mann. Even still, being "buddies" in science doesn't mean diddly-squat; it's not about WHO you know, but WHAT you know, and HOW WELL you know it. So far, Mann's work has been REPEATEDLY vindicated.
There can be no vindication for trying to "hide the decline".
Ya know, for a minute there, I thought you might be trying to be genuinely serious and skeptical. Then you trot THAT out. /facepalm
It is a well established rule of science that you don't leave out data that casts doubt on your conclusion.
You are correct, it is, and the vast majority of climate scientists and their research faithfully follow that rule, no matter how many intellectually dishonest, ignorant, and gullible idiots falling for charlatans and snake oil salesmen lke Watts, Michaels, Singer, et cetera ad nauseum, try to spin otherwise.
You've fallen for their story.
No, I've fallen for the FACTS of the matter. I've done my homework; I've looked beyond anyone's story; what's YOUR excuse?
Many of us used to think the alarmists were good willed, and we assumed they were honest. I still think they are good
And continues. Phil Jones, for example, has stonewalled requests for the raw data used to e.g. create HadCRUT3 etc, although recently it seems that one reason he hasn't shared it is that he lost it and literally can't share it.
That is complete and utter bullshit.
First, he has never stonewalled requests for the raw data. It's been out there for ANYONE to obtain. The problem is that, for some of it, you have to PAY to get it, and UEA was forbidden by contract to give away said data for free because then people wouldn't PAY for it anymore. So, if you want to piss and moan about access to the raw data, then apply your angst and woe to the most responsible parties, the Met offices which want to profit from their weather data-gathering businesses.
Second, the "lost data" canard is a crock. Since the raw data is not owned or generated by UEA, but instead obtained from outside sources, they have NO mandate to keep the original raw data once they have processed it. They (and you and anyone else) can go and get it from the same sources at any time. Whip out your checkbook and get to it.
So we have a rather important temperature series, openly available on the web and used by many, many climate researchers and nobody can reconstruct it, including the original author. The problem continues -- it is like pulling teeth, getting members of the hockey team to share data and/or methods so anyone can check them.
You (and they) most certainly can get the original raw data and reconstruct it. There are literally mountains of data that have been released to the public on a large part of climate science. You just need to learn who and how to ask properly and, in some cases, how much it costs.
Here's a huge FREE repository of all kinds of climate-related data, from the climate scientists themselves.
Since the few times somebody has bulled through until they've succeeded, e.g. Steve Mcintyre vs Michael Mann, what has been discovered is that the published result (the infamous MBH "hockey stick") is nothing but amplified, distorted white noise that has absolutely no correlation with the data used to produce it, let alone skill at reconstructing actual past temperatures, it doesn't bode well for the discipline.
Mann's work has been vindicated and replicated time and time again, McIntyre's (and others') quixotic attempts to discredit it notwithstanding.
I've recently written a guest article on WUWT..
That explains the ignorance of your previous comments a bit.
..calling for data/methods transparency in climate research. By transparent, I mean that you should not be allowed to publish a paper that could potentially influence lawmakers and public policy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars unless you simultaneously publish all contributory raw data (including any data you for any reason left out) and the actual computer code used to process it into figures and conclusions. Something this important needs full open source open data transparency even more than medical research (another discipline where reproducibility of results is abysmal, where there are vested interests galore, and where we spend/waste a phenomenal amount of both money and human morbidity and mortality on crap results.
In large part, this is precisely what happens, with a few exceptions. Those exceptions usually revolve around whether any kinda of contracts with private entities to obtain said data, or to develop software/hardware, are in effect that would preclude giving them away. That said, the research should (and usually does) document the specifications for said hardware/software, and include where the original data came from for anyone to pay to obtain it themselves.
As a software developer who actually writes software for scienti
Man, I am having trouble with math tonight.. the 120 message figure was right. :P
overcorrections :P
Sorry, that should read 512 bytes per second, or 30,720 bytes per minute, which is 7200 text messages, or $108.00 compared with $0.047 for the same amount of voice data, about 23,000% more.
Such a bargain, eh?