To really make the measurement fair, you would need to add private medical insurance (and comparative bills) onto the US tax base, but that starts to make things very complex.
As for monopolies coming from government regulation, perhaps you should read something about the history of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Human nature doesn't change, but the laws we make to curtail abuses of power are important.
There must be equivalent or better situations in terms of environmental conditions, working conditions, and freedom.
I could not agree more. I am against tariffs as a protectionist measure; however, I think that a $$$ tariff on worker's rights, environmental conditions and other such things would do a lot to stabalise the current race-to-the-bottom that has gutted the US manufacturing industry.
So... you want to pay your workers 10c per day? Fine, we will slap a tariff on that assume they got $8 per hour.
The only problem with such a measure, is that it would become highly political, and thus butchered so that it does not work.
The only solution is enormous cuts, and that's the politically impossible solution because the people are bought by the promise of cradle to grave welfare state, and it's an impossible promise.
There is only a grain of truth to this. In most countries, social security is self-funded by payroll taxes and compulsory employee contributions. i.e.: you pay for your retirement.
In the USA, the lowest taxed developed country, some people have invested themselves in the notion that "welfare" thinking is what is behind economic decline. There are many reasons for the decline of prosperity in the USA, and one of them is unbridled faith in "job creators", who have pissed a lot of money up the wall.
Hayek was the father of modern laissez-faire capitalism, and ideological champion of Thatcher and Reagan. Hayek understood full well the consequence of concentrations of power with a free market -- that the market would fail. Hayek saw the governments responsibility to intervene in the market, and break up powerful corporate interests. In the USA, in particular, his ideas have taken on a sharp twist of irony, in that laissez-faire capitalism is the cover for the new corporate oligarchy, which is proving more powerful then congress.
The republican party in particular is invested in destroying government regulation, which will simply raise the bar of corporate malfeasance, which is an economic inefficiency. I am sure that tea-partiers will always continue to blame "welfare-thinking" for the stagnant nature of an economy run by corporate interests that legislated their way out of free and fair competition.
A measurement that shows that the heat trapping ability of CO2 is a dominant driver of climate. Leaping from the spectral behavior of CO2 in a lab, to how it would react in the complex real world is not a straightforward step.
I agree it is not straight-forward, yet we are at a stage where it is impossible to explain warming in the last 50 years without it. Note that designing a CPU is not straight-forward, but you computer still works.
As for fire insurance -- it costs you money, and isn't what all the AGW-opposition is about? Really it is a question of cost-benefit analysis.
As for science not being consensus -- that is a thought terminating cliche. Everybody who actually knows something about climate science agree on the major details, except for a handful of people. But it is worse than that. You should really understand the history of this debate since the early 80s. It is pretty damning indictment on our "democracy".
As for my "limited vision", I am not insisting that any change is due to human activity. I am insisting that there is a strong argument that some change is due to human activity. There is a world of difference in those two positions.
As for temperature driving CO2 -- this is a often repeated denialist argument, that has been studied and responded to over a decade ago. That it keeps coming up in its original unchanged form demonstrates that denialists are not interested in understanding the science, but merely the politics of obstruction. If you like, I can post you a link to a short video that explains what is wrong with the "temperature drives CO2" argument.
Truth be told; however, if you were really interested in understanding something beyond your "limited vision", you would work out both sides of the argument yourself, instead of merely reading Andy Watts' bizarro bog.
I am sure New York will function perfectly well with canals, just like Venice.
One final point about the economics of a carbon tax -- there is a strong argument that this will drive a lot of technology and innovation, some of which we are already seeing. The country that invests first will be the country that owns the export contracts of the future. Think of how GM destroyed itself by fighting fuel efficiency regulations. The oil price jumped, and everybody ran for foreign cars which are sometimes twice as efficient. Then GM screamed for a government bailout. That is what laissez-faire economics gives you.
RE: electric rooster, you are starting to sound like an intelligent designer. Take up the issue with a philosophy of science professor, or join the ID movement.
Regarding Temp leads CO2, this is an often repeated denialist argument, that has been answered more then a decade ago. The reason why denialism is denialism, is because people like you continue to repeat this stuff, without working out what it means, and what the historical responses are. That is because people like you are more interested in being right, then knowing anything.
Sure, one could go to UTF-16 instead, but then there's a lot of wasted space
Actually, if you think about it, this might not work either. It depends on whether you want to count delete characters or not. Most instances when you want the number of characters in a string, you want to consider delete characters -- and just think for a moment how you might need to do that.
If you define "global temperature" as "all uses of averages" (seriously, rotfl), then you may be talking about nonsense. If you are talking about the average temperature of the earth's surface, then there is a straight-forward definition. Measuring it is more difficult, but not impossible, and there are error bars for this type of thing.
As for heat *distribution*, that is not what global temperature is meant to measure. Apples and oranges.
As for the poles increasing in temperature -- yes they do increase more, relative to the equator, but there is also much more variability. So you are right in a sense. I jumped the gun on that one. Doesn't effect the premise of my argument, that there *is* a global average temperature, and that is *is* useful.
As for me "contradicting" myself: the average increase in temperature is about the increase in energy. The distribution of that heat between the equator and poles is about a model (a separate consideration).
I should have mentioned that the main driver of violent weather is warm oceans.
This has nothing to do with Occam's razor. And I was talking about an electronic rooster that never fails, because it is a thought experiment, you know?
McIntyre and McKitrick published a paper in 2003, which is really very weak, and rebuttals have been posted. It is worth reading and understanding the arguments from both sides on this one. (Note that AGW doesn't rest on the hockey stick.)
Onto falsification: if C02 didn't trap heat (which you can measure), or CO2 wasn't increasing (which you can also measure), then AGW would be falsified. CO2 has almost doubled since the industrial revolution, and is increasing exponentially. What type of measurement do you want?
Onto probability of CAGW: even though your house has a 1% chance of burning down, you probably have fire insurance. Eisenhower did not launch the attack on Normandy with a 100% expectation of winning. (He had a prepared speech in case things went horribly wrong on day 1.) It really is a question of risk management.
AGW was established by consensus in 1979 (there is a NAS report on the matter). The controversy back then was, "what will be the effects". The error bars *back then* established 95% confidence. (Think of your house burning down.) The effects are still up in the air, but we are already seeing:
+ More powerful storms (warm the oceans, and storms get worse)
+ Changes in nature (plant hardiness zones, bird migrations, glacial retreats, melting ice-caps)
+ Temperature record
+ Rising sea level
We are seeing these phenomena across the entire globe. All of this is correlated with rises in CO2. (Seriously, most AGW-opponents don't dispute that CO2 is rising. It is an elementary part of the AGW argument. Do you really not believe that CO2 concentrations have risen?)
I doubt that we wont be able to adapt to the changes in nature, but powerful storms and rising sea levels have a direct economic impact. In particular, most of our cities are at sea level, and all of that investment in infrastructure will come under a cloud in the next 100 years.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
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Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 1
Making that into a Tea Party-only sentiment is a little dishonest.
True. Medicaid part D was designed for the republican base. It has not been repealed because it will be very unpopular with the people most likely to vote.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 1
A semi-private-public system for retirements would be okay. They have such a system in Australia, called superannuation, and one benefit is that the government doesn't get to pillage social security to fund wars.
It was brought in by the Labour government -- one of many large reforms of the Labour era (83-96). The era of reform politics may be over for good.
It just occurred to me that you just summerised the abstract from Essex et al.. Essex et al. as correct in only the most trivial sense of the word. Their paper is full of elementary mistakes.
Note that at least one of the authors is forthright in stating that the world is warming. If there is no global temperature, what could he mean?
It is true that heat could be distributed across the world in many different ways. For example, the equator could be -20C and the poles +40C. Would you agree that this is absurd given our understanding (i.e.: *model*) for how heat is distributed across the globe? Again, the particular heat distribution is of interest, but not what is been talked about in a global temperature.
An increase in global temperature is about the total energy in the climate system, which drives weather patterns. It is not about saying, for example, that Florida will experience exactly XYZ.
It just occurred to me that Burns & Grove are insufficient to show causation, and you must have "no alternative explanations". Consider the perennial philosopher's stand-by of a roster's call causing the sun to rise. (As you can see, this has nothing to do with arguments from ignorance.)
When you say people shouldn't be listened to, then you are in shaky territory.
I have answers to all your points, and could easily cast aspersions on Andy Watts, who has been implicated in the most irrational aspects of this debate.
I subscribe to AGW. CAGW is a possibility, but warming may not be so bad either. Mind you, most of our cities will be in trouble, so it will be catastrophic from an economic point of view.
An average increase of 1 degree across the globe will increase that energy heat-difference (between the tropics and poles). It is really very simple.
Wrong. You can have an increase in the energy heat difference between the tropics and the poles without *any* average increase.
How can I be more clear. 1 degree difference will increate the heat-difference. There may be other ways to do it as well, but that is not what was said
There is no point talking to someone too ideological to backdown on the simplest things.
As for the paper, we could start by looking at section 3.1.2. The authors mixed up celsius and kelvin. (I mean, wtf?) You must use kelvin in thermodynamic equations.
This is just one of many mistakes.
But I am sure you will twist my words to mean their opposite *again*, and perhaps assert that it doesn't matter according to some "logic".
The weakest link would be temperature records and proxies. If climate is changing, then we should see changes in seasonal pattens, glaciers, bird migrations, etc., and they should pretty much all trend the same way. That is indeed what we see.
Watch this short 10 minute clip on what we know about climate change. It directly addresses this notion that somehow there should be a *single* hypothesis and *single* magic paper that seals climate change.
btw, it is typical for AGW-opponents to slip from "there is no warming", and "you cannot be confident enough that it is warming", to "warming isn't bad". This merely shows that they had no interest in understanding the topic in the first place.
As for warming the biosphere being somehow good for the environment -- almost all our cities are in jeopardy.
It is possible that it was science, and then a whole bunch of name callers joined in. That would be a historical question, which has been researched. There is a book on it (which also explains the science of the name calling), but this one hour talk sums up the history concisely.
Wrong. You can have an increase in the energy heat difference between the tropics and the poles without *any* average increase.
But that is just not what is being stated. If you get bitten by a snake, you might die. But if you die, that doesn't mean you were bitten by a snake.
As for global average temperature... it is not a case of being useful like highs and lows of daily temperatures are useful. The global average temperature tells you something about the energy in the system. Apples and oranges.
Essex McKitrick & Andresen (2006) is a model of absurdity, but you need to look closely to figure this out. I suspect you haven't read it. Please verify that you have read it by summarizing the argument. If you don't understand what is wrong with the argument by then, then I will tell you.
First off, I think you misstated yourself - you state that observing "CO2 is a greenhouse gas" would falsify AGW - I'm assuming you didn't mean that, and instead meant that if any of those items were *not* observed, that would be a falsification.
AGW rests on the idea that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which is simple falsifiable physics.
That's a cop out, not a falsifiable hypothesis.
It is just basic science. To show causation, you must:
* Show correlation
* Show temporal ordering
* There must be an absence of alternative explanations.
We're talking *really* basic philosophy of science here.
Onto the two papers you linked. You must have made a mistake with Stenni et al. because it is irrelevant to the MWP. As for Trouet, et al. (2009), this repeats the same North Atlantic current argument, which is really weak. Not just because you are better off going to China to get the temperature in China, but for other reasons that we could get into.
This contradicts the entire spirit of a suicide pact.
Totally true. History is full of ideological crusaders who had blinkers to reality, and stuck to their guns as the world burnt up around them. We have seen one such suicide pacts convene. They/always/ think they are doing the right thing. CHARGGE!!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Behold: the shady underside of laissez-faire economics.
As for the US being lowest taxed
Tax as % of GDP.
To really make the measurement fair, you would need to add private medical insurance (and comparative bills) onto the US tax base, but that starts to make things very complex.
As for monopolies coming from government regulation, perhaps you should read something about the history of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Human nature doesn't change, but the laws we make to curtail abuses of power are important.
There must be equivalent or better situations in terms of environmental conditions, working conditions, and freedom.
I could not agree more. I am against tariffs as a protectionist measure; however, I think that a $$$ tariff on worker's rights, environmental conditions and other such things would do a lot to stabalise the current race-to-the-bottom that has gutted the US manufacturing industry.
So... you want to pay your workers 10c per day? Fine, we will slap a tariff on that assume they got $8 per hour.
The only problem with such a measure, is that it would become highly political, and thus butchered so that it does not work.
The only solution is enormous cuts, and that's the politically impossible solution because the people are bought by the promise of cradle to grave welfare state, and it's an impossible promise.
There is only a grain of truth to this. In most countries, social security is self-funded by payroll taxes and compulsory employee contributions. i.e.: you pay for your retirement.
In the USA, the lowest taxed developed country, some people have invested themselves in the notion that "welfare" thinking is what is behind economic decline. There are many reasons for the decline of prosperity in the USA, and one of them is unbridled faith in "job creators", who have pissed a lot of money up the wall.
Hayek was the father of modern laissez-faire capitalism, and ideological champion of Thatcher and Reagan. Hayek understood full well the consequence of concentrations of power with a free market -- that the market would fail. Hayek saw the governments responsibility to intervene in the market, and break up powerful corporate interests. In the USA, in particular, his ideas have taken on a sharp twist of irony, in that laissez-faire capitalism is the cover for the new corporate oligarchy, which is proving more powerful then congress.
The republican party in particular is invested in destroying government regulation, which will simply raise the bar of corporate malfeasance, which is an economic inefficiency. I am sure that tea-partiers will always continue to blame "welfare-thinking" for the stagnant nature of an economy run by corporate interests that legislated their way out of free and fair competition.
A measurement that shows that the heat trapping ability of CO2 is a dominant driver of climate. Leaping from the spectral behavior of CO2 in a lab, to how it would react in the complex real world is not a straightforward step.
I agree it is not straight-forward, yet we are at a stage where it is impossible to explain warming in the last 50 years without it. Note that designing a CPU is not straight-forward, but you computer still works.
As for fire insurance -- it costs you money, and isn't what all the AGW-opposition is about? Really it is a question of cost-benefit analysis.
As for science not being consensus -- that is a thought terminating cliche. Everybody who actually knows something about climate science agree on the major details, except for a handful of people. But it is worse than that. You should really understand the history of this debate since the early 80s. It is pretty damning indictment on our "democracy".
As for my "limited vision", I am not insisting that any change is due to human activity. I am insisting that there is a strong argument that some change is due to human activity. There is a world of difference in those two positions.
As for temperature driving CO2 -- this is a often repeated denialist argument, that has been studied and responded to over a decade ago. That it keeps coming up in its original unchanged form demonstrates that denialists are not interested in understanding the science, but merely the politics of obstruction. If you like, I can post you a link to a short video that explains what is wrong with the "temperature drives CO2" argument.
Truth be told; however, if you were really interested in understanding something beyond your "limited vision", you would work out both sides of the argument yourself, instead of merely reading Andy Watts' bizarro bog.
I am sure New York will function perfectly well with canals, just like Venice.
One final point about the economics of a carbon tax -- there is a strong argument that this will drive a lot of technology and innovation, some of which we are already seeing. The country that invests first will be the country that owns the export contracts of the future. Think of how GM destroyed itself by fighting fuel efficiency regulations. The oil price jumped, and everybody ran for foreign cars which are sometimes twice as efficient. Then GM screamed for a government bailout. That is what laissez-faire economics gives you.
The definition is straight-forward. Measuring it is not. Apples and oranges.
As for warm water not driving stroms -- guess you should fix this wikipedia article, to reflect the "truth"
RE: electric rooster, you are starting to sound like an intelligent designer. Take up the issue with a philosophy of science professor, or join the ID movement.
Regarding Temp leads CO2, this is an often repeated denialist argument, that has been answered more then a decade ago. The reason why denialism is denialism, is because people like you continue to repeat this stuff, without working out what it means, and what the historical responses are. That is because people like you are more interested in being right, then knowing anything.
Sure, one could go to UTF-16 instead, but then there's a lot of wasted space
Actually, if you think about it, this might not work either. It depends on whether you want to count delete characters or not. Most instances when you want the number of characters in a string, you want to consider delete characters -- and just think for a moment how you might need to do that.
If you define "global temperature" as "all uses of averages" (seriously, rotfl), then you may be talking about nonsense. If you are talking about the average temperature of the earth's surface, then there is a straight-forward definition. Measuring it is more difficult, but not impossible, and there are error bars for this type of thing.
As for heat *distribution*, that is not what global temperature is meant to measure. Apples and oranges.
As for the poles increasing in temperature -- yes they do increase more, relative to the equator, but there is also much more variability. So you are right in a sense. I jumped the gun on that one. Doesn't effect the premise of my argument, that there *is* a global average temperature, and that is *is* useful.
As for me "contradicting" myself: the average increase in temperature is about the increase in energy. The distribution of that heat between the equator and poles is about a model (a separate consideration).
I should have mentioned that the main driver of violent weather is warm oceans.
This has nothing to do with Occam's razor. And I was talking about an electronic rooster that never fails, because it is a thought experiment, you know?
I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
McIntyre and McKitrick published a paper in 2003, which is really very weak, and rebuttals have been posted. It is worth reading and understanding the arguments from both sides on this one. (Note that AGW doesn't rest on the hockey stick.)
Onto falsification: if C02 didn't trap heat (which you can measure), or CO2 wasn't increasing (which you can also measure), then AGW would be falsified. CO2 has almost doubled since the industrial revolution, and is increasing exponentially. What type of measurement do you want?
Onto probability of CAGW: even though your house has a 1% chance of burning down, you probably have fire insurance. Eisenhower did not launch the attack on Normandy with a 100% expectation of winning. (He had a prepared speech in case things went horribly wrong on day 1.) It really is a question of risk management.
AGW was established by consensus in 1979 (there is a NAS report on the matter). The controversy back then was, "what will be the effects". The error bars *back then* established 95% confidence. (Think of your house burning down.) The effects are still up in the air, but we are already seeing:
+ More powerful storms (warm the oceans, and storms get worse)
+ Changes in nature (plant hardiness zones, bird migrations, glacial retreats, melting ice-caps)
+ Temperature record
+ Rising sea level
We are seeing these phenomena across the entire globe. All of this is correlated with rises in CO2. (Seriously, most AGW-opponents don't dispute that CO2 is rising. It is an elementary part of the AGW argument. Do you really not believe that CO2 concentrations have risen?)
I doubt that we wont be able to adapt to the changes in nature, but powerful storms and rising sea levels have a direct economic impact. In particular, most of our cities are at sea level, and all of that investment in infrastructure will come under a cloud in the next 100 years.
Making that into a Tea Party-only sentiment is a little dishonest.
True. Medicaid part D was designed for the republican base. It has not been repealed because it will be very unpopular with the people most likely to vote.
A semi-private-public system for retirements would be okay. They have such a system in Australia, called superannuation, and one benefit is that the government doesn't get to pillage social security to fund wars.
It was brought in by the Labour government -- one of many large reforms of the Labour era (83-96). The era of reform politics may be over for good.
It just occurred to me that you just summerised the abstract from Essex et al.. Essex et al. as correct in only the most trivial sense of the word. Their paper is full of elementary mistakes.
Note that at least one of the authors is forthright in stating that the world is warming. If there is no global temperature, what could he mean?
It is true that heat could be distributed across the world in many different ways. For example, the equator could be -20C and the poles +40C. Would you agree that this is absurd given our understanding (i.e.: *model*) for how heat is distributed across the globe? Again, the particular heat distribution is of interest, but not what is been talked about in a global temperature.
An increase in global temperature is about the total energy in the climate system, which drives weather patterns. It is not about saying, for example, that Florida will experience exactly XYZ.
It just occurred to me that Burns & Grove are insufficient to show causation, and you must have "no alternative explanations". Consider the perennial philosopher's stand-by of a roster's call causing the sun to rise. (As you can see, this has nothing to do with arguments from ignorance.)
When you say people shouldn't be listened to, then you are in shaky territory.
I have answers to all your points, and could easily cast aspersions on Andy Watts, who has been implicated in the most irrational aspects of this debate.
I subscribe to AGW. CAGW is a possibility, but warming may not be so bad either. Mind you, most of our cities will be in trouble, so it will be catastrophic from an economic point of view.
It is not an argument from ignorance, because it does not stand alone. Don't forget, there is also temporal ordering and correlation as well.
The philosophy of causality has a long history. Burns & Grove's #3 was not taught in the model of causailty that I learned in experimental design, but it seems reasonable enough.
As for your points. You are flat wrong about #2 -- we increased the CO2, and the temperature is catching up. Note that this answers #3 as well.
How do we know that warming doesn't happen when humans emit CO2? How can I know that that is not true already? What are you talking about?
An average increase of 1 degree across the globe will increase that energy heat-difference (between the tropics and poles). It is really very simple.
Wrong. You can have an increase in the energy heat difference between the tropics and the poles without *any* average increase.
How can I be more clear. 1 degree difference will increate the heat-difference. There may be other ways to do it as well, but that is not what was said
There is no point talking to someone too ideological to backdown on the simplest things.
As for the paper, we could start by looking at section 3.1.2. The authors mixed up celsius and kelvin. (I mean, wtf?) You must use kelvin in thermodynamic equations.
This is just one of many mistakes.
But I am sure you will twist my words to mean their opposite *again*, and perhaps assert that it doesn't matter according to some "logic".
The weakest link would be temperature records and proxies. If climate is changing, then we should see changes in seasonal pattens, glaciers, bird migrations, etc., and they should pretty much all trend the same way. That is indeed what we see.
Watch this short 10 minute clip on what we know about climate change. It directly addresses this notion that somehow there should be a *single* hypothesis and *single* magic paper that seals climate change.
btw, it is typical for AGW-opponents to slip from "there is no warming", and "you cannot be confident enough that it is warming", to "warming isn't bad". This merely shows that they had no interest in understanding the topic in the first place.
As for warming the biosphere being somehow good for the environment -- almost all our cities are in jeopardy.
It is possible that it was science, and then a whole bunch of name callers joined in. That would be a historical question, which has been researched. There is a book on it (which also explains the science of the name calling), but this one hour talk sums up the history concisely.
So simply proving that CO2 is a greenhouse gas means that human CO2 *must* be the primary driver of global climate?
That is not what is being stated.
That CO2 is a greenhouse gas is a falsifiable hypothesis (correct?). It is proven. If you disprove it, then you disprove AGW.
There are hundreds of falsifiable hypotheses in the AGW argument.
Wrong. You can have an increase in the energy heat difference between the tropics and the poles without *any* average increase.
But that is just not what is being stated. If you get bitten by a snake, you might die. But if you die, that doesn't mean you were bitten by a snake.
As for global average temperature... it is not a case of being useful like highs and lows of daily temperatures are useful. The global average temperature tells you something about the energy in the system. Apples and oranges.
Essex McKitrick & Andresen (2006) is a model of absurdity, but you need to look closely to figure this out. I suspect you haven't read it. Please verify that you have read it by summarizing the argument. If you don't understand what is wrong with the argument by then, then I will tell you.
First off, I think you misstated yourself - you state that observing "CO2 is a greenhouse gas" would falsify AGW - I'm assuming you didn't mean that, and instead meant that if any of those items were *not* observed, that would be a falsification.
AGW rests on the idea that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which is simple falsifiable physics.
That's a cop out, not a falsifiable hypothesis.
It is just basic science. To show causation, you must:
* Show correlation
* Show temporal ordering
* There must be an absence of alternative explanations.
We're talking *really* basic philosophy of science here.
If you look in Michael Mann's original and follow-up papers, proxy records (coral etc.) show that eastern asia was cold at the same time Europe was warm. Note that Europe is tiny compared to Eastern Asia. (The other relevant papers are behind a paywall -- blame the journals.) This excellent essay shows the breakdown of temperature by region over time in Figure 2.
Onto the two papers you linked. You must have made a mistake with Stenni et al. because it is irrelevant to the MWP. As for Trouet, et al. (2009), this repeats the same North Atlantic current argument, which is really weak. Not just because you are better off going to China to get the temperature in China, but for other reasons that we could get into.
Also note, that the hockey stick supports the AGW theory, but the AGW theory does not rest on the hockey stick. here is a list of myths about the hockey-stick.
This contradicts the entire spirit of a suicide pact.
Totally true. History is full of ideological crusaders who had blinkers to reality, and stuck to their guns as the world burnt up around them. We have seen one such suicide pacts convene. They /always/ think they are doing the right thing. CHARGGE!!!!!