Not a good start to your argument. You do realize that not everyone thinks his strategies are automatically correct. Frankly, I think he's popular only because his policies easily justify increased public spending.
This is why the reductions spending have produced such a massive improvement in the Greek economy.
Well, what bankruptcy magically gets better without a lot of other peoples' money? Getting out of bankruptcy has always been a long process. I don't see why Greece should suddenly get better just because it has embraced some degree of austerity.
Second, you obviously conflate the consequences of spending beyond their budget for decades with the consequences of austerity, which is basically an emergency treatment for a government that has lost most financial credibility. I think an analogy would be blaming the consequences of a heart attack on the emergency treatment for that heart attack.
We should ask, would it be better somehow, if Greece wasn't undergoing austerity, but had instead been removed from the Euro? Well, Greece's debt would either stay Euro-valued or not. If debt doesn't stay Euro-valued, then it's another Euro-imposed haircut on lenders acting in good faith. If debt stays Euro-valued, then Greece has a similar lack of ability and credibility to pay its bills that it has now. I don't see the situation being any better.
No, endemic levels of tax evasion (come on, you honestly expect me to believe you had no idea Greece was a tax haven) mixed with equally endemic levels of corruption means that Greece's tax revenues have consistently fallen below expectation.
That isn't due to uncontrolled capitalism or an uninvolved government, but rather due to widespread disobedience of a too involved government. When running a successful business or getting a job requires you to disregard or sidestep government regulation, then you're going to see a society chock full of law breakers.
OTOH, if it truly was as you said, then we would see no such disobedience merely because there wouldn't be that sort of law passed in the first place. Personally, I think Greece would benefit from capitalism that was a little less controlled and a government that was a little less involved.
The problem in Greece is mainly due to lack of involvement of the government and too much uncontrolled capitalism.
This is sarcasm right? It's kind of like looking at a car with a flat and claiming the problem is that the driver hasn't punctured the other three tires too. Greece didn't get into the mess it is in by unfettering capitalism, a thing incidentally that it has yet to do.
And now the Cavendish banana is going the same way as the Gros Michael thanks to the same monoculture farming technique. And there may not be a replacement.
Except for the next monoculture varieties that they come up with. It's just not that hard. They could also switch back to the Gros Michael. It's still around.
Good luck getting the deniers to accept that it is actually climate change that's affecting the coffee supply.
Rather than evolution of coffee rust, bad farming practices, and development and planting of coffee plants more susceptible to coffee rust? I imagine it won't be the least bit difficult.
Why does ever bible thumper consider it a bad thing to change ones mind about something in light of new data?
Why does everyone else do that too? I guess because we've evolved not to readily change our minds. Maybe it was bad for us if we changed our minds too much about saber-tooth tigers or poisonous plants. "I think poison ivy changed due to a dream vision I had last night. Let's roll in it!"
I find it remarkable how anti-scientific some of the attitudes among the supposedly pro-science side are. Here, you are complaining about "bible thumpers" merely because they exhibit a universal human behavior.
As to your "data", I think it's painfully clear that the researcher (who was quoted on the climate change allegation) is tying coffee rust to climate change in order to sell their story and attract funding rather than tell a more plausible story. Where is the discussion of evolution of coffee rust, bad farming practices, and the presence of more susceptible coffee plants (they need not be at the same farm as the "fine coffee" plants)?
CO2 will produce 1.2 +/- 0.1C warming per doubling.
That is just over half the lower bound alleged by the authors. Why should I take your word over theirs? At least, they aren't foolish enough to claim tenth of a degree precision.
And nowhere is there in that idiotic posting of yours assertion that the values are not known enough to make valid conclusions.
One merely needs to look at what I wrote:
How come the range on the temperature forcing of CO2 is still a factor of two?
Driving is considered a privilege not a right, you agreed to comply with certain requests in order to get your license.
Those "certain requests" have to comply with the New Jersey and US constitutions. Placing onerous and unconstitutional requirements on a necessary, prevalent, or valuable private activity such as driving or trading on the stock market is profoundly undemocratic.
That was my first reflex too, but then I realized, if the police officer has probable cause or the permission of the phone owner which are two of the constitutionally allowed pretexts for searching of property, then the fact that the property in question is a cell phone is irrelevant.
It's not known yet exactly why coffee rust has become such a problem now, but one of the leading suspects is climate change.
Here's another eye-rolling moment from the chicken littles who can't be bothered to decide what climate change is. From the article,
âoeThereâ(TM)s increasing evidence that climate change is part of the problem. You find coffee rust striking much farther up the valleys than it used to. Thereâ(TM)s no other plausible explanation,â Baker said. âoeBut what happened last year, and why it was so aggressive and widespread, weâ(TM)re still a bit [perplexed]. And if we donâ(TM)t really know what caused it, itâ(TM)s going to be hard to predict.â
Another plausible explanation, especially given the more virulent nature of this coffee rust problem, is that it has evolved or a new strain has moved in. That wasn't hard. Note that the researcher is confident that "climate change" is involved, but far less confident that biology is involved.
This is a researcher in the field making these claims not some ignorant Wired writer. I see this as further evidence that climatology has been taken over by political forces. A scientist makes an overly confident claim about "climate change" and it gets readily and uncritically reported by a high profile news source. And the take away that the reader gets is that their coffee is threatened by climate change. That's a classic propaganda move.
Soooo... In other words, we should trust our government.... to always be doing bad in everything they do.
There's no need for this new meaning of the word "trust" when the governments in question readily demonstrate said bad behavior.
How about this: Science.
The premier counterexamples are the huge variety of environmental regulations and subsidies based allegedly (and sometimes truly) on scientific research.
For example, the US state of California requires a lot of irrelevant and useless warning signs on the basis that somewhere in a building there is at least one chemical that is "known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity". You can say "But that's not Science". Doesn't matter. That's how Science gets implemented.
I don't think it's "naive", I just think it's not being done.
you appear to think they are doing meteorology rather than climatology
No, the problem here is that ephemeral, small spatial scale meteorological activity that can't be modeled by current climate models have an effect on the climate.
The IPCC report indicates they already factor in uncertainties about clouds etc.
The IPCC says a lot of things. It's already known to exaggerate the certainty and extent of existing research and to put special interests in charge of IPCC gatekeeping.
I think in the future when people are doing psychological studies of the developed world "climate change" hysteria, a lot of that research will center on the role that the IPCC played in building an artificially strong consensus and providing an official voice for a bunch of Chicken Little scenarios.
The numbers clearly show that after shutting off 32 TWh on nuclear (2010-2011) this was compensated for by a increase in renewables by 20 TWh
I notice that 20 is significantly lower than 32. And I think it's a considerable error to claim that intermittent power sources can cover base load even with Germany's decent level of hydroelectric power. It matters when that power is generated, not just if it is generated.
The increase in coal is actually attributed to the low cost of emission certificates
How about by climate simulations for starters? Keep in mind that the spatial resolution of those simulations tends to be much larger than a thunderstorm.
If you'd spent any time as a practicing scientist or bothered to resarch "the elephant in the room" you would know that your accusations of bias are completely without merit.
I have and I stand by the accusation.
Firstly, the government agencies who will benefit from the changes in policy are not the ones that dish out funding.
I would wager, for example, that NASA and the UK's MET would indeed benefit from a stronger case for AGW. They currently fund climatology research. With greater urgency for AGW, they probably would receive more money for such research and perhaps money for other projects.
And those agencies aren't independent, but part of a larger government whole. Other parts would do the regulating. There are also cases where agencies have creeped into a regulatory power. Like how the US Army became responsible for a good portion of the water projects in the US.
Secondly, if you've ever written a research proposal to a government agency you'll know that the proposed research will be into topic X. No one writes a proposal saying "we will prove political point X".
So you're saying that such funders have a minimal amount of subtlety and finesse so as not to tip their hand? One would have to be rather incompetent to openly reveal an ulterior motive.
Third, the government agencies don't actually decide who gets the money. They dictate the broad aread, but like all the rest of science, it's sent out for peer review.
I don't buy that at all. They get to choose the peers and they hold the money. And if one looks at actual government agencies which fund research, they routinely impose other goals and purposes. For example, the NSF back in the late 90s started on a fad of providing multilevel research (that is, funding research involving undergrads through professional researchers). That wasn't imposed by their peer review committee.
What I don't get here is why people think that with a fairly corruptible society and huge stakes, that there isn't such activity. It doesn't have to be planned by a secret and sophisticated cabal, just a huge network of people all seeking their interests which in this case happen to go mostly in one direction towards confirmation of AGW as a problem requiring considerable public spending (especially when they grant there is an opposition with similar issues, namely, the fossil fuel industry).
Just as oil companies are going to push things their way, so will renewable power generators or electric cars. And there are big insurers and financial companies looking at picking up some action, such as in carbon emission credit markets.
Instead of granting that maybe we should be looking carefully at this evidence and research due to the large, existing conflicts of interest, they emphasize the groupthink angle, such as how many scientists (however that is counted) which adhere to the current orthodoxy. This is a profoundly anti-scientific viewpoint.
These are scientists, not economists and generally ignoring elephants in the room leads to a lack of getting published.
One such elephant is who actually funds climate research. Government agencies that will benefit from the increased funding and power of changes in policy.
Bullshit. You're ignoring the decades of research on these topics. You're ignoring the physics, and the simulations built on those physics. Now you may simply be ignorant of this, or you're being willfully deceitful, but either way these are certainly not "poorly understood phenomena".
How come the range on the temperature forcing of CO2 is still a factor of two? A relevant quote from the rebuttal article:
This doubling is expected to cause a warming this century of four to seven degrees Fahrenheit [2 to 4 degrees C].
It's worth noting that a) the actual forcing may be below the "expectation", b) we've already experienced a portion of that temperature rise (it's from preindustrial levels not as the authors imply the beginning of this century), and c) it depends strongly on how much CO2 we actually generate - even laissez faire policies eventually have lower fossil fuel demand due to the exhaustion of some part of those resources.
And then we get to the groupthink you exhibit. Decades of research which still hasn't been able to nail down one of the most significant parameters of AGW theory and a host of "simulations" which are based on poor data (recall that we've been able to measure directly average global temperature only since satellites were available for it) somehow translate into the confidence you project.
And it is people like you which make scientists not even want to bother to try and explain anything.
So what? It's not our job to gullibly swallow whatever someone says. If they don't like it, too bad. Either do it or throw those public funds at someone who will do that job.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of public funding at stake to the tune of tens to hundreds of billions a year. And climatologists are mostly funded by the same parties that would benefit from that public funding.
You don't want to listen. You don't want to know.
Interesting how strong the psychological projection is here.
Isn't the whole "anti-climate change camp" devoted to the notion that there is such a thing as major, wide-spread actions without consequences, contrary to your major assertion?
No. One has to start by not mischaracterizing the arguments. First, this sort of juvenile argument is why I recommend we don't use the phrase "climate change" in a scientific context. Here, by describing the opposition to the current theories of anthropogenic global warming or AGW and to proposed costly societal remedies as "anti-climate change" or somehow denying that any climate ever changes, which I don't think describes anything other than a very small sliver of society.
Most such opposition grants some sort of climate change, even if it's God flooding the Earth to rid the world of a bunch of sinners. And most will grant natural climate change such as the glacial and interglacial periods of the ice ages. So almost everyone grants that climate change happens and most grant that the climate has changed in the past in the way that climatologists are worried about. The global temperature can raise and lower with effect on regional weather patterns.
Going past that, some even grant that AGW happens, which is the camp I'm in. But that doesn't imply that it is better that we do something about AGW than not.
There is this huge spectrum of beliefs. It's not all people who don't believe that climate never changes and that the Earth's climate won't ever change in the future.
Second, there is a lot more than a little dishonesty in this area. For example, the repeated assertion of consensus as an indication of correctness, such as you do above. There's a lot of money available to those who can back AGW propaganda and mitigation policies.
And I assert that aggregation of paleoclimate data has been taken over by these particular forces. Interpretation of the climates of the past is pretty much owned by a few organizations that all depend on AGW being some sort of threat to humanity in order to obtain funding.
And then there's the money. I figure there is currently roughly tens of billions each year in public funds available to special interests as a result of concern about AGW. And that this will go up to hundreds of billions per year in the next ten to twenty years, but only if the public buys in that AGW is a clear and present danger.
So if, say, 50% of scientific papers are "intellectually honest," and 97% of scientific papers addressing climate change conclude that anthropogenic factors are the main drivers of variance over the last century or more, then how can you not "buy into the global warming camp"?
So if the current paper isn't "intellectually honest" or is dependent on a paper which isn't. Then what? Arguments such as the above are painful to read. In the advent of widespread "intellectual dishonesty," especially when that is focused on certain influential areas, then it will matter. One should have an obligation to not just "buy in". If it's not, then it won't.
It's worth noting here that the only thing the paper does is claim cause and effect from a perceived correlation between global rainfall patterns and production of carbon soot in a certain region.
Other regions (particularly India and China) have increased production of carbon soot and sulfates during this time. So we have a regional drop in sulfate production (the focus of the study), but not a corresponding global drop in sulfate production. In that link, see the graph on page 10. Note that sulfate production is only down slightly (about 15% roughly) from its peak in 1970.
Because on the level of global climate, somehow man's actions are perpetually too small to effect it, or a deity will counter any potential harm we do, or the planet will magically turn every potential disadvantage to advantage, or the like?
No. There is also the camp that no one has demonstrated that it is better to do anything about AGW, such as inhibiting the global economy by transitioning to a society that generates less greenhouse gases.
Getting the US federal government finances into order (which includes cutting spending substantially), curtailing US government power, and of course, cutting taxes.
Wrong: the IRS manager had nearly 200 meetings at the White House.
Apparently, the manager in question had that many instances of allotted time for meetings, but didn't actually use most of those opportunities. The actual number of meetings seems to be around a dozen, unless there were some meetings off the books.
At a glance, this seems more a "will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest" moment. Obama probably just strongly implied that interference with conservation non-profit formation would be looked upon favorably. But he probably hasn't an inkling what was actually done. Someone else is keep track of those political books, I'd wager.
As to the Koch brothers, if they donated in batches of small donations, then they'd sail completely under the radar. The loophole is huge when one considers how easy it is to automate such donations to a web page.
For example, how many $20 donations did Charles Koch make to the Obama campaign (which as I recall had about half its donations in such unreported small donations)? We don't know because neither party has to report that.
Slashdot Mirror
John Maynard Keynes? Heard of him?
Not a good start to your argument. You do realize that not everyone thinks his strategies are automatically correct. Frankly, I think he's popular only because his policies easily justify increased public spending.
This is why the reductions spending have produced such a massive improvement in the Greek economy.
Well, what bankruptcy magically gets better without a lot of other peoples' money? Getting out of bankruptcy has always been a long process. I don't see why Greece should suddenly get better just because it has embraced some degree of austerity.
Second, you obviously conflate the consequences of spending beyond their budget for decades with the consequences of austerity, which is basically an emergency treatment for a government that has lost most financial credibility. I think an analogy would be blaming the consequences of a heart attack on the emergency treatment for that heart attack.
We should ask, would it be better somehow, if Greece wasn't undergoing austerity, but had instead been removed from the Euro? Well, Greece's debt would either stay Euro-valued or not. If debt doesn't stay Euro-valued, then it's another Euro-imposed haircut on lenders acting in good faith. If debt stays Euro-valued, then Greece has a similar lack of ability and credibility to pay its bills that it has now. I don't see the situation being any better.
The EU is involved not just the Eurozone. For example, the UK has apparently contributed over twelve billion pounds to Eurozone stabilization.
No, endemic levels of tax evasion (come on, you honestly expect me to believe you had no idea Greece was a tax haven) mixed with equally endemic levels of corruption means that Greece's tax revenues have consistently fallen below expectation.
That isn't due to uncontrolled capitalism or an uninvolved government, but rather due to widespread disobedience of a too involved government. When running a successful business or getting a job requires you to disregard or sidestep government regulation, then you're going to see a society chock full of law breakers.
OTOH, if it truly was as you said, then we would see no such disobedience merely because there wouldn't be that sort of law passed in the first place. Personally, I think Greece would benefit from capitalism that was a little less controlled and a government that was a little less involved.
The problem in Greece is mainly due to lack of involvement of the government and too much uncontrolled capitalism.
This is sarcasm right? It's kind of like looking at a car with a flat and claiming the problem is that the driver hasn't punctured the other three tires too. Greece didn't get into the mess it is in by unfettering capitalism, a thing incidentally that it has yet to do.
And now the Cavendish banana is going the same way as the Gros Michael thanks to the same monoculture farming technique. And there may not be a replacement.
Except for the next monoculture varieties that they come up with. It's just not that hard. They could also switch back to the Gros Michael. It's still around.
Good luck getting the deniers to accept that it is actually climate change that's affecting the coffee supply.
Rather than evolution of coffee rust, bad farming practices, and development and planting of coffee plants more susceptible to coffee rust? I imagine it won't be the least bit difficult.
Why does ever bible thumper consider it a bad thing to change ones mind about something in light of new data?
Why does everyone else do that too? I guess because we've evolved not to readily change our minds. Maybe it was bad for us if we changed our minds too much about saber-tooth tigers or poisonous plants. "I think poison ivy changed due to a dream vision I had last night. Let's roll in it!"
I find it remarkable how anti-scientific some of the attitudes among the supposedly pro-science side are. Here, you are complaining about "bible thumpers" merely because they exhibit a universal human behavior.
As to your "data", I think it's painfully clear that the researcher (who was quoted on the climate change allegation) is tying coffee rust to climate change in order to sell their story and attract funding rather than tell a more plausible story. Where is the discussion of evolution of coffee rust, bad farming practices, and the presence of more susceptible coffee plants (they need not be at the same farm as the "fine coffee" plants)?
CO2 will produce 1.2 +/- 0.1C warming per doubling.
That is just over half the lower bound alleged by the authors. Why should I take your word over theirs? At least, they aren't foolish enough to claim tenth of a degree precision.
And nowhere is there in that idiotic posting of yours assertion that the values are not known enough to make valid conclusions.
One merely needs to look at what I wrote:
How come the range on the temperature forcing of CO2 is still a factor of two?
Funny enough, climate and biology do not operate independently.
I grant that. But note again, how confident the researcher is in one and not the other.
Driving is considered a privilege not a right, you agreed to comply with certain requests in order to get your license.
Those "certain requests" have to comply with the New Jersey and US constitutions. Placing onerous and unconstitutional requirements on a necessary, prevalent, or valuable private activity such as driving or trading on the stock market is profoundly undemocratic.
That was my first reflex too, but then I realized, if the police officer has probable cause or the permission of the phone owner which are two of the constitutionally allowed pretexts for searching of property, then the fact that the property in question is a cell phone is irrelevant.
It's not known yet exactly why coffee rust has become such a problem now, but one of the leading suspects is climate change.
Here's another eye-rolling moment from the chicken littles who can't be bothered to decide what climate change is. From the article,
âoeThereâ(TM)s increasing evidence that climate change is part of the problem. You find coffee rust striking much farther up the valleys than it used to. Thereâ(TM)s no other plausible explanation,â Baker said. âoeBut what happened last year, and why it was so aggressive and widespread, weâ(TM)re still a bit [perplexed]. And if we donâ(TM)t really know what caused it, itâ(TM)s going to be hard to predict.â
Another plausible explanation, especially given the more virulent nature of this coffee rust problem, is that it has evolved or a new strain has moved in. That wasn't hard. Note that the researcher is confident that "climate change" is involved, but far less confident that biology is involved.
This is a researcher in the field making these claims not some ignorant Wired writer. I see this as further evidence that climatology has been taken over by political forces. A scientist makes an overly confident claim about "climate change" and it gets readily and uncritically reported by a high profile news source. And the take away that the reader gets is that their coffee is threatened by climate change. That's a classic propaganda move.
Soooo... In other words, we should trust our government.... to always be doing bad in everything they do.
There's no need for this new meaning of the word "trust" when the governments in question readily demonstrate said bad behavior.
How about this: Science.
The premier counterexamples are the huge variety of environmental regulations and subsidies based allegedly (and sometimes truly) on scientific research.
For example, the US state of California requires a lot of irrelevant and useless warning signs on the basis that somewhere in a building there is at least one chemical that is "known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity". You can say "But that's not Science". Doesn't matter. That's how Science gets implemented.
you appear to think they are doing meteorology rather than climatology
No, the problem here is that ephemeral, small spatial scale meteorological activity that can't be modeled by current climate models have an effect on the climate.
The IPCC report indicates they already factor in uncertainties about clouds etc.
The IPCC says a lot of things. It's already known to exaggerate the certainty and extent of existing research and to put special interests in charge of IPCC gatekeeping.
I think in the future when people are doing psychological studies of the developed world "climate change" hysteria, a lot of that research will center on the role that the IPCC played in building an artificially strong consensus and providing an official voice for a bunch of Chicken Little scenarios.
The numbers clearly show that after shutting off 32 TWh on nuclear (2010-2011) this was compensated for by a increase in renewables by 20 TWh
I notice that 20 is significantly lower than 32. And I think it's a considerable error to claim that intermittent power sources can cover base load even with Germany's decent level of hydroelectric power. It matters when that power is generated, not just if it is generated.
The increase in coal is actually attributed to the low cost of emission certificates
And probably because 20 TWh is less than 32 TWh.
How about by climate simulations for starters? Keep in mind that the spatial resolution of those simulations tends to be much larger than a thunderstorm.
If you'd spent any time as a practicing scientist or bothered to resarch "the elephant in the room" you would know that your accusations of bias are completely without merit.
I have and I stand by the accusation.
Firstly, the government agencies who will benefit from the changes in policy are not the ones that dish out funding.
I would wager, for example, that NASA and the UK's MET would indeed benefit from a stronger case for AGW. They currently fund climatology research. With greater urgency for AGW, they probably would receive more money for such research and perhaps money for other projects.
And those agencies aren't independent, but part of a larger government whole. Other parts would do the regulating. There are also cases where agencies have creeped into a regulatory power. Like how the US Army became responsible for a good portion of the water projects in the US.
Secondly, if you've ever written a research proposal to a government agency you'll know that the proposed research will be into topic X. No one writes a proposal saying "we will prove political point X".
So you're saying that such funders have a minimal amount of subtlety and finesse so as not to tip their hand? One would have to be rather incompetent to openly reveal an ulterior motive.
Third, the government agencies don't actually decide who gets the money. They dictate the broad aread, but like all the rest of science, it's sent out for peer review.
I don't buy that at all. They get to choose the peers and they hold the money. And if one looks at actual government agencies which fund research, they routinely impose other goals and purposes. For example, the NSF back in the late 90s started on a fad of providing multilevel research (that is, funding research involving undergrads through professional researchers). That wasn't imposed by their peer review committee.
What I don't get here is why people think that with a fairly corruptible society and huge stakes, that there isn't such activity. It doesn't have to be planned by a secret and sophisticated cabal, just a huge network of people all seeking their interests which in this case happen to go mostly in one direction towards confirmation of AGW as a problem requiring considerable public spending (especially when they grant there is an opposition with similar issues, namely, the fossil fuel industry).
Just as oil companies are going to push things their way, so will renewable power generators or electric cars. And there are big insurers and financial companies looking at picking up some action, such as in carbon emission credit markets.
Instead of granting that maybe we should be looking carefully at this evidence and research due to the large, existing conflicts of interest, they emphasize the groupthink angle, such as how many scientists (however that is counted) which adhere to the current orthodoxy. This is a profoundly anti-scientific viewpoint.
These are scientists, not economists and generally ignoring elephants in the room leads to a lack of getting published.
One such elephant is who actually funds climate research. Government agencies that will benefit from the increased funding and power of changes in policy.
Bullshit. You're ignoring the decades of research on these topics. You're ignoring the physics, and the simulations built on those physics. Now you may simply be ignorant of this, or you're being willfully deceitful, but either way these are certainly not "poorly understood phenomena".
How come the range on the temperature forcing of CO2 is still a factor of two? A relevant quote from the rebuttal article:
This doubling is expected to cause a warming this century of four to seven degrees Fahrenheit [2 to 4 degrees C].
It's worth noting that a) the actual forcing may be below the "expectation", b) we've already experienced a portion of that temperature rise (it's from preindustrial levels not as the authors imply the beginning of this century), and c) it depends strongly on how much CO2 we actually generate - even laissez faire policies eventually have lower fossil fuel demand due to the exhaustion of some part of those resources.
And then we get to the groupthink you exhibit. Decades of research which still hasn't been able to nail down one of the most significant parameters of AGW theory and a host of "simulations" which are based on poor data (recall that we've been able to measure directly average global temperature only since satellites were available for it) somehow translate into the confidence you project.
And it is people like you which make scientists not even want to bother to try and explain anything.
So what? It's not our job to gullibly swallow whatever someone says. If they don't like it, too bad. Either do it or throw those public funds at someone who will do that job.
Keep in mind that there is a lot of public funding at stake to the tune of tens to hundreds of billions a year. And climatologists are mostly funded by the same parties that would benefit from that public funding.
You don't want to listen. You don't want to know.
Interesting how strong the psychological projection is here.
What feedbacks, and ignored by whom?
Increased reflection of sunlight by clouds and heat radiation from storms particularly small scale weather like thunderstorms.
Out of interest - anyone know why we've not re-visited thorium?
My guess is that it would compete with fusion research.
A need is something that is required for survival (food, water, shelter, air).
Health care isn't required for survival. Life on Earth has survived for at least a billion years without health care of any sort.
Isn't the whole "anti-climate change camp" devoted to the notion that there is such a thing as major, wide-spread actions without consequences, contrary to your major assertion?
No. One has to start by not mischaracterizing the arguments. First, this sort of juvenile argument is why I recommend we don't use the phrase "climate change" in a scientific context. Here, by describing the opposition to the current theories of anthropogenic global warming or AGW and to proposed costly societal remedies as "anti-climate change" or somehow denying that any climate ever changes, which I don't think describes anything other than a very small sliver of society.
Most such opposition grants some sort of climate change, even if it's God flooding the Earth to rid the world of a bunch of sinners. And most will grant natural climate change such as the glacial and interglacial periods of the ice ages. So almost everyone grants that climate change happens and most grant that the climate has changed in the past in the way that climatologists are worried about. The global temperature can raise and lower with effect on regional weather patterns.
Going past that, some even grant that AGW happens, which is the camp I'm in. But that doesn't imply that it is better that we do something about AGW than not.
There is this huge spectrum of beliefs. It's not all people who don't believe that climate never changes and that the Earth's climate won't ever change in the future.
Second, there is a lot more than a little dishonesty in this area. For example, the repeated assertion of consensus as an indication of correctness, such as you do above. There's a lot of money available to those who can back AGW propaganda and mitigation policies.
And I assert that aggregation of paleoclimate data has been taken over by these particular forces. Interpretation of the climates of the past is pretty much owned by a few organizations that all depend on AGW being some sort of threat to humanity in order to obtain funding.
And then there's the money. I figure there is currently roughly tens of billions each year in public funds available to special interests as a result of concern about AGW. And that this will go up to hundreds of billions per year in the next ten to twenty years, but only if the public buys in that AGW is a clear and present danger.
So if, say, 50% of scientific papers are "intellectually honest," and 97% of scientific papers addressing climate change conclude that anthropogenic factors are the main drivers of variance over the last century or more, then how can you not "buy into the global warming camp"?
So if the current paper isn't "intellectually honest" or is dependent on a paper which isn't. Then what? Arguments such as the above are painful to read. In the advent of widespread "intellectual dishonesty," especially when that is focused on certain influential areas, then it will matter. One should have an obligation to not just "buy in". If it's not, then it won't.
It's worth noting here that the only thing the paper does is claim cause and effect from a perceived correlation between global rainfall patterns and production of carbon soot in a certain region.
Other regions (particularly India and China) have increased production of carbon soot and sulfates during this time. So we have a regional drop in sulfate production (the focus of the study), but not a corresponding global drop in sulfate production. In that link, see the graph on page 10. Note that sulfate production is only down slightly (about 15% roughly) from its peak in 1970.
Because on the level of global climate, somehow man's actions are perpetually too small to effect it, or a deity will counter any potential harm we do, or the planet will magically turn every potential disadvantage to advantage, or the like?
No. There is also the camp that no one has demonstrated that it is better to do anything about AGW, such as inhibiting the global economy by transitioning to a society that generates less greenhouse gases.
What exactly is the tea party these days?
Getting the US federal government finances into order (which includes cutting spending substantially), curtailing US government power, and of course, cutting taxes.
Wrong: the IRS manager had nearly 200 meetings at the White House.
Apparently, the manager in question had that many instances of allotted time for meetings, but didn't actually use most of those opportunities. The actual number of meetings seems to be around a dozen, unless there were some meetings off the books.
At a glance, this seems more a "will someone rid me of this meddlesome priest" moment. Obama probably just strongly implied that interference with conservation non-profit formation would be looked upon favorably. But he probably hasn't an inkling what was actually done. Someone else is keep track of those political books, I'd wager.
As to the Koch brothers, if they donated in batches of small donations, then they'd sail completely under the radar. The loophole is huge when one considers how easy it is to automate such donations to a web page.
For example, how many $20 donations did Charles Koch make to the Obama campaign (which as I recall had about half its donations in such unreported small donations)? We don't know because neither party has to report that.