Sure, but where's the line? What if he was running from the law? What if he was an unpopular political activist?
There is a fine line between helping the cops save a life and helping the governemnt take our freedoms. You should always keep that in mind when you propose harsh penalties for not cooperating with government demands.
Receipt of stolen goods is a serious crime. The shareholders should consider themselves lucky they aren't being considered for jail time.
In a free society, you wouldn't be able to achieve individual profit without individual responsibility. The corporate form is a legal fraud, and ought to be abolished. Any good that it may have accomplished could have been done by a shareholder partnership with insurance protection (to protect against the seizure of shareholder assets in the case of a bankruptcy, etc). The undue protection corporations receive has allowed the formation of vast monopoliesand has encouraged truly sociopathic behavior. You wind up with a system like ours where corporations are able to take control of the government through contributions, and are rarely held accountable (and almost never dissolved) for their crimes, generally getting off with a financial slap on the wrist that generally isn't even large enough to negate the profit they obtained from the commission of the illegal act in the first place.
Most of the cell phone companies in this nation are so corrupt that they need to be shut down. Sprint is probably the biggest offender. They use credit scores like a club to extort money from their customers. After the first time I got screwed, I simply shut it down, and I never paid their stupid disconnect fee. I should have taken them to court for the blip on my credit, but I didn't see it as a big deal, but getting screwed out of hundreds of dollars would definately have me in a lawyers office, if not to file a lawsuit, then seeking defense counsel for firebombing their corporate office.
Sure, but they are all pretty limited, generally with linear plotlines and limited numbers of areas available. They also tend to suffer from resorting to spawning points, where a game like this could use real population data to create a realistic starting scenario that STAYS realistic through the whole game. Rather than just finishing a drink at a bar and finding everyone in the world is suddenly a zombie, you would hear news of it, and it would likely take days for it to reach you, so you could use that time to set up your base of operations while still having to deal with other regular people. You could have some cities walling themselves up to keep the zombies out only to have one get in and find it's a deathtrap. People could occupy various types of structures, or flee into the countryside, etc, etc.
I think it's time for a zombie outbreak game that is based on the real world, with totally open gameplay. It's time to find out if malls really are the best place to take shelter or not, and settle a bunch of other zombie based issues once and for all!
Well, I'm tired of arguing with a brick wall, so I'm going to cut it off here, though I will ask you which you would find more desirable, a mile of ice covering Washington, or extending the grain belt north into Canada? I'll tell you about the selenium based drugs, though. You did not see anything about it on the internet a few years ago. None of the drug work was published due to interdepartmental politics--a certain drunkard professor torpedoed (who somehow became a world famous AIDS researcher) the project, and wouldn't allow any more work on the project using university resources, which set us back about three years--we're getting ready to start some testing again). Yes, there are actual drugs (like I said, I have them in the freezer), though they are now focusing on Pseudomonas and Staph (including MRSA). The technology utilizes phage display libraries to generate peptide sequences with strong binding constants to the targeted organism or virus, which then delivers a payload of covalently bound selenium, which proceeds to kill the target by catalyzing the production of reactive oxygen species without affecting nearby cells.
We've had to focus on the shorter timeline projects (things like materials like paints and plastics, and as you can see from the website, certain class two medical devices), which are finally starting to pay off. If all goes well, we will be able to fund the drug work ourselves.
Yes, and never with any specific examples... just a broad accusation. Surely since you believe these accusations, you could point me towards a source? So that I'm not hypocritical, I'll direct you toward what I consider a very thorough defense of climate science. It's two years old now, but still relevant.
HA! That article talks about computer models being used for investment. Tell me, how well do you think THAT worked out for them? Also, check out the comments section there. Those guys do a better job of refuting it than I can, as there are some computer scientists in the computer modeling section. There is also a lot of interesting discussion in the "CO2 Levels Lag Behind Temperature Changes" portion. There are some posters who claim that water vapor accounts for 99% of heat retention. Having moved from 100% humidity southeast Texas, where the High temp is often 95, while the low is only 80, to low humitidy Lubbock, where The high is 105 and the low 50, not to mention the fact that a generally warmer planet will put more water vapor into the air kind of intuitively busts the "CO2 as main actor in Global Warming" thing. Thanks for posting that article. There is a lot of great stuff there, although most of it points in the other direction from your argument.
Yes, you do. Epicycles, before they were abandoned, did the best job to date of explaining the motion of the planets. Until a better model arose, it would have been silly to abandon it.
Unless people think it's right. You have to show that a scientific theory is lacking. Epicycles NEVER adequately explained planetary movements. Not even close, really. They would be sort of close for a few days out, then it would all go to hell, and that was simple, non-chaotic movement. In this world, a tiny error (like overestimating the "blanket effect" of CO2, or underestimating the amount of time the water spends in the atmosphere) would ensure that you got wildly erroneous results.
Exactly my point... the people presenting a contrary view are not building models. There is plenty of money. Here's an article about the well-funded deniers. How you can claim that the problem is money is beyond me. The big money would overwhelmingly prefer that global warming were a non-issue.
Businesses are focused on debunking global warming, not improving climate science. As such, they haven't funded climate research that could go against them.
So no sources, then? I thought so. Put yourself in my position... you are asking me to change my mind on an issue based on an unsubstantiated claim from a random poster on slashdot.
My company's website has some information on our cancer work, which comes from the same principle. www.selenbio.com
Then why are they funding the deniers?
They don't, not really. They try to get the most bang for their buck, so they pay people to publish newsletters and do PR. They aren't particularly interested in research that they can't control.
Do you have any proof of this? I'd assert that they aren't getting government money because they aren't interested in building a model. In fact, if I want to go all crazy conspiracy, I'd say that they know building yet another model will force them to come to the same conclusion as everyone else who has built a model, and the money will stop flowing their way from the denier gravy train. Here is a pretty hilarious list of the "scientists" who deny global warming. Sorry about the clearly biased source, but the list is too hilarious to pass up.
It seems likely to me that the only way for these guys to really survive is going to be for them to get back to doing real, hard hitting investigative journalism. Anyone can and does do the shallow stuff. Blogs will certainly fill that niche, and they will remain free. What you can charge for is first access to breaking news and good investigative journalism. Want to see where the money trail leads in the bank bailouts? You'll have to subscribe to our premium service. Want to hear which of your local politicians is taking kickbacks from government contractors? That'll be a one time fee, or free to our subscribers.
The days of relying on the news wire are over, guys. Anyone can do that, and they can do it without having to pay a single salary, while making money off of ad content. In a perfectly competitive system, consumer costs approach the marginal costs. When something is basically free, or cheap enough to be ad supported, then it will be. If the audience is limited, or the costs too high, than a fee to read will be used, or some other model will emerge. This is how the market works. It drives non-competitive players out of the market. On a side note, the music industry would do well to adopt a similar strategy (ie the music is free/ad supported, but the concerts are not).
Well, considering the criticism I just posted is so well known that it is posted as a standard "denier" argument, yet has not been addressed in any serious manner, I would say that yes, there is evidence of such.
You don't have to build your own model to point out the epicycles don't explain planetary movement. It helps to have a model that does explain observations, but it isn't necessary. If there is so much money out there for competing models, show me. I haven't seen any.
The results were never published, due to politics. If you want evidence that there isn't much money for AIDS cure research, take a look at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and notice that they are now only funding vaccine work. The NIH is giving similar favor. That fact has EVERYTHING to do with climate science. It shows that unpopular things, no matter how amazing they are, can be squashed by bureaucracy and politics.
Those types of companies would like to disprove global warming, but the development of a new model for climate science is well outside of their field of interest. Not to mention that most of those types of companies aren't exactly in any position to be funding massive research projects at the moment. Only the government has any money right now, and they have blacklisted all climate change "deniers".
If someone pointed out problems with my interpretation and methods, then I would FIX THEM, and I would THANK them for it. In fact, we found recently that we had basically wasted TWO YEARS of research into a new form of anti-microbial plastic because we were binding non-specifically to the surface (which was only discovered when we sent material out to a client who then proceeded to test it in a manner that we thought didn't apply to us--they didn't have our preconceived notions). If we had been questioned earlier, we could have gotten a product to market a year ago, where instead we sat wringing our hands, steadily "improving" the product, when we were really only developing a timed release technology (which is cool by itself, but it isn't what we wanted, and is worthless for medical devices). Legitimate objections to the "science" of climate change have been papered over, and many words have been redefined for this particular argument. If you had to come up with your own model in order to criticize the current model, we'd still be looking for the philosophers stone! What we have in this case is a group of scientists driven by funding opportunities to come up with data in support of a theory, NOT against it. If this happened in my lab, I would fire the scientist perpetrating the fraud (actually it did, unfortunately the fraudster at the time was my boss, who set our work back by at least two years).
More likely, no-one has been able to get funding, because there aren't any groups that feel particularly threatened by such action. I would build a model, but I'm not a climate scientist. As a chemist I can, and regularly do, take criticism from a wide variety of sources, including other chemists, scientists from other branches, medical doctors, dentists, businessmen, and marketing people.
The sad fact is that scientists go where the money is. Currently, there isn't much money in a cure for AIDS (all the granting agencies are now funding vaccine work), which is why the cure we developed in our lab several years ago is sitting in a freezer for lack of funding for chimp and human trials. Now if something HUGE like that can get shoved aside, imagine how easy it is for contrarian research to take place in a field where dissent is immediately quashed by political forces at the granting agencies.
Not that they are ignored, but are simply unknown. If you think scientists know everything, I hate to disappoint, but I'm a scientist (a damn good one, you can thank me for the next generation of antimicrobial materials coming to the consumer, medical, and industrial world over the next five years), and I'm not smart enough to understand 1/1000000th of the phenomena that go on in this universe.
For example, I recall reading about an oral tradition among the aboriginal people of Australia that talks about a number of climate cycles, which apparently included El Nino, La Nina, as well as several cycles ranging from 125-625 years in period, and even a 40,000 year cycle. Who knows if there is any truth to it or now, but it does point out that there is a lot we don't know. If we start actively trying to manipulate the climate, we are almost certain to shoot ourselves in the foot.
No, I'm not. I wanted long term data from the start (we were talking about historical data from hundreds of thousands of years ago, remember?). If you think 100 years of data is enough, then you are hardly qualified to be either an advocate or a sceptic. Anyways, ahving data from Mauna Loa, an ACTIVE VOLCANO isn't exactly what I would call "average".
In any event, I looked at the data from the first CO2 ice core I saw on that site, and it showed that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere started increasing a little under 30,000 years ago, going up 50% by ~1300AD (assuming I'm reading it right, it isn't very clear), though it was still within the range of other cycles over the past 200K years. Also, the data stops several hundred years ago (about 1300 AD). If you have any sources for the last few hundred years, we can finish painting the picture here.
Just looking at the data may not be sufficient, as it is hard to line up. I'm also not sure how he is calculating his deltaT. If it is a year over year change, the the Earth was quite cold indeed a few tens of thousands of years ago. It seems more likely that it is change from "today's" temperature. With that in mind, when we take a look at the data, we see that at about 121000 years ago, thee was a peak of CO2, where the temperature peaked 10,000 years before that. It seems to me that that says that CO2 is a TRAILING indicator, and does not necessarily contribute to the warming. If it did, the Earth would have still been warming as the CO2 concentration rose a further 8% after the temperature peaked.
So yeah, thanks for debunking that whole "global warming" thing for me!
Absolutely not. I want the charts showing temperatures going back at least a hundred thousand years, and I would prefer ten million. That data is less than a thousandth of a blip on the geological time scale.
I KNOW politicians are stupid. If they start the fear-mongering machine, it means they are lying. Think about the bailouts, and the "stress tests".
Show me the actual charts (the link you posted had broken pictures), and if the temperature takes off as CO2 concentration ramps up, I'll concede that you may be right.
No, that is not what he said. He said: "But it does not make any sense at all to reject CO2 as a primary driver of climate change today because it looks, through the foggy glasses of time, like CO2 has not always completely controlled climate changes in the past."
He's saying that it doesn't make any sense to look at past data to help us draw conclusions about current trends, which is utter madness! If you want to shut down the engine of the world, you damn well better be SURE, BEYOND DOUBT that you are right, and be aware that millions if not hundreds of millions of people will DIE because of it. The fact is that there IS doubt. To say that all scientists agree is WRONG, because I'm a scientist, and I do disagree, thank you very much. I also don't take kindly to politicians lying about what I think about ANYTHING.
Of course HE doesn't say it. He says the same thing that I said (that warming started before the CO2 started rising), then he went on to say that CO2 caused the rise, when HE JUST SAID that the temperature started rising before the CO2.
Just because he can't explain it any other way doesn't mean that that CO2 is what caused it. You can't see the other possible causes because there is no record. It could have been caused by any number of events, such as solar cycles, Earth passing through some galactic radiation belt, bombardment by ice/methane microcomets, etc etc.
When did I cherry pick? I took HIS DATA and interpreted it in the way that my scientific training dictated (I'm a chemist). I might be wrong, but his evidence certainly doesn't support his conclusion. If the Earth started warming, and the CO2 rose centuries later in response, and both kept rising thereafter, that is absolutely not proof that CO2 causes warming! Unless he can identify what caused the initial warming, and show that it didn't continue throughout the period, then his "evidence" is worthless.
When scientists discuss science, the is ALWAYS argument like this. Critics, me in this case, poke holes in the theories that are presented until the theory is strong enough to withstand attack. When people start talking about global warming, rather than a give and take, they simply label critics "deniers" and write them off. THAT IS NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS. Therefore, this is POLITICS, not science.
Umm, I did. He agrees with me on the data, then goes on to draw conclusions that don't match his data.
For example: "During the glacial/interglacial cycles, CO2 concentrations and temperatures show a remarkable correlation. Closer examination reveals that CO2 does not lead the temperature changes, but actually lags by many centuries. Even so, the full extent of the warming can not be explained without the effects of CO2. Though this period does not demonstrate greenhouse gas initiated warming, it does lend support to the importance of CO2 and CH4 in setting the planetary thermostat."
The data disproves what he is saying, but he says it supports it. This person must be a mental gymnast.
Next link: "While there are indeed poorly understood ancient climates and rather controversial climate changes in Earth's long geological history, there are no clear contradictions to greenhouse theory to be found. What we do have is an unfortunate lack of comprehensive and well resolved data. There is always the chance that new data will turn up shortcomings in the models and unforeseen new aspects to climate theory, and I guarantee you scientists in the field are working hard to uncover such things - every scientist relishes the thought of uncovering new data that overturns current understanding. But it does not make any sense at all to reject CO2 as a primary driver of climate change today because it looks, through the foggy glasses of time, like CO2 has not always completely controlled climate changes in the past."
Basically he says that there is no historical correlation, but that because the current CO2 is produced by humans, there suddenly is some sort of correlation. Also he questions the strength of the data, which when you question it from the other way you are called a "denier". Why would the Earth get warm when people produce CO2, but not when it rises naturally?
Ok, you go have surgery to to remove that tumor that you may or may not have, even though the surgery may or may not kill you. Also, we don't know if the tumor is actually cancerous or not. Actually, we're not even sure if its a tumor, or something that comes naturally from aging.
This is the problem with taking massive action based on a model. If the model turns out to be wrong (yes, the whole thing could still be wrong--I haven't seen any evidence that it takes into account any natural climate cycles that have a period of more than 5,000 years, the current warming trend is nothing more than noise compared to such cycles), then you have done all this damage to industry worldwide (and lowered everyones standard of living, not to mention the fact that you caused a large number of people to starve to death). What if these climate cycles are natural, and we were actually helping to stop an ice age from wiping out a good sized portion of human civilization? Global cooling is a much scarier thought than global warming. A warmer planet encourages more wildlife diversity, opens up more cropland, though it will pose a problem for many low laying nations.
The significance of this finding is that we no longer have to worry about the gulf stream shutting down due to warmer climate, which would have hit the Western democracies hard. Who cares if it's a little warmer? So long as the weather isn't significantly affected (ie New England an England become as cold and dry as Siberia), then it really isn't a problem.
Ummm, your links agree with me. Temperature rises preceded CO2 increases. It then goes on to claim that somehow the CO2 STILL causes it. Apparently CO2 moved faster than the speed of light and violated causality back in those days. The second link admits that CO2 levels are not well correlated with historical temperature (he blames this on a lack of comprehensive data--meaning that he recognizes that they don't have data, but he's somehow still right).
There is a lot more to the story of climate change than CO2, but governments around the world would shut down civilization rather than hear that.
You and I must have wildly different understanding of the word "refute".
No, it really isn't. The very historical charts that Mr. Gore laid out in his "An Inconvenient Truth", when superimposed on one another, show that the atmospheric CO2 concentration trailed the temperature increase. When people point to current trends, they fail to account for the fact that there are natural cycles in climate that go on over tens of thousands of years.
Global Warming is a science the way String Theory is a science, which is to say that it makes no testable predictions. Well, that's a bit harsh, it says that if CO2 goes up, then temperature goes up, but it is untestable because the effect is below the signal to noise ratio when you factor in long term climactic cycles. Basically, it's JUST A MODEL. When a major factor of your model is destroyed, it puts to lie ALL of the assumptions based on that model. Since you obviously aren't going to do that, nor will the politicians, I guess that makes it a matter of who makes the choices.
That is to say, it's politics.
Another flamebait moderation in 3..2..1..
Sure, tell that to the single mother working three jobs. In many, if not most cases, they buy that kind of stuff because the kids are the ones who have to prepare it. Poverty is tough. You obviously haven't lived through it.
I live in a trailer community with a $600/month mortage payment including taxes and insurance. All that food was grown in about 1000 square feet. This year, we put in raised beds, and will be able to grow the same amount in half the space. You'd be surprised what you can get out of a couple of windowboxes and an inverted tomato planter (one of which would produce about 50 lbs of tomatoes per year, year round). All you need is good soil and some time. Of course, TIME is exactly what most people don't have these days.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but where's the line? What if he was running from the law? What if he was an unpopular political activist?
There is a fine line between helping the cops save a life and helping the governemnt take our freedoms. You should always keep that in mind when you propose harsh penalties for not cooperating with government demands.
Receipt of stolen goods is a serious crime. The shareholders should consider themselves lucky they aren't being considered for jail time.
In a free society, you wouldn't be able to achieve individual profit without individual responsibility. The corporate form is a legal fraud, and ought to be abolished. Any good that it may have accomplished could have been done by a shareholder partnership with insurance protection (to protect against the seizure of shareholder assets in the case of a bankruptcy, etc). The undue protection corporations receive has allowed the formation of vast monopoliesand has encouraged truly sociopathic behavior. You wind up with a system like ours where corporations are able to take control of the government through contributions, and are rarely held accountable (and almost never dissolved) for their crimes, generally getting off with a financial slap on the wrist that generally isn't even large enough to negate the profit they obtained from the commission of the illegal act in the first place.
Exactly. It's called a "lawsuit".
Most of the cell phone companies in this nation are so corrupt that they need to be shut down. Sprint is probably the biggest offender. They use credit scores like a club to extort money from their customers. After the first time I got screwed, I simply shut it down, and I never paid their stupid disconnect fee. I should have taken them to court for the blip on my credit, but I didn't see it as a big deal, but getting screwed out of hundreds of dollars would definately have me in a lawyers office, if not to file a lawsuit, then seeking defense counsel for firebombing their corporate office.
Sure, but they are all pretty limited, generally with linear plotlines and limited numbers of areas available. They also tend to suffer from resorting to spawning points, where a game like this could use real population data to create a realistic starting scenario that STAYS realistic through the whole game. Rather than just finishing a drink at a bar and finding everyone in the world is suddenly a zombie, you would hear news of it, and it would likely take days for it to reach you, so you could use that time to set up your base of operations while still having to deal with other regular people. You could have some cities walling themselves up to keep the zombies out only to have one get in and find it's a deathtrap. People could occupy various types of structures, or flee into the countryside, etc, etc.
It could be a lot of fun.
I think it's time for a zombie outbreak game that is based on the real world, with totally open gameplay. It's time to find out if malls really are the best place to take shelter or not, and settle a bunch of other zombie based issues once and for all!
Well, I'm tired of arguing with a brick wall, so I'm going to cut it off here, though I will ask you which you would find more desirable, a mile of ice covering Washington, or extending the grain belt north into Canada? I'll tell you about the selenium based drugs, though. You did not see anything about it on the internet a few years ago. None of the drug work was published due to interdepartmental politics--a certain drunkard professor torpedoed (who somehow became a world famous AIDS researcher) the project, and wouldn't allow any more work on the project using university resources, which set us back about three years--we're getting ready to start some testing again). Yes, there are actual drugs (like I said, I have them in the freezer), though they are now focusing on Pseudomonas and Staph (including MRSA). The technology utilizes phage display libraries to generate peptide sequences with strong binding constants to the targeted organism or virus, which then delivers a payload of covalently bound selenium, which proceeds to kill the target by catalyzing the production of reactive oxygen species without affecting nearby cells.
We've had to focus on the shorter timeline projects (things like materials like paints and plastics, and as you can see from the website, certain class two medical devices), which are finally starting to pay off. If all goes well, we will be able to fund the drug work ourselves.
Yes, he did, because the point was in the body of the story!
The amount of noise out there would make it tough to get useful information like that. Local news won't be nearly as vulnerable to that either.
Yes, and never with any specific examples... just a broad accusation. Surely since you believe these accusations, you could point me towards a source? So that I'm not hypocritical, I'll direct you toward what I consider a very thorough defense of climate science. It's two years old now, but still relevant.
HA! That article talks about computer models being used for investment. Tell me, how well do you think THAT worked out for them? Also, check out the comments section there. Those guys do a better job of refuting it than I can, as there are some computer scientists in the computer modeling section. There is also a lot of interesting discussion in the "CO2 Levels Lag Behind Temperature Changes" portion. There are some posters who claim that water vapor accounts for 99% of heat retention. Having moved from 100% humidity southeast Texas, where the High temp is often 95, while the low is only 80, to low humitidy Lubbock, where The high is 105 and the low 50, not to mention the fact that a generally warmer planet will put more water vapor into the air kind of intuitively busts the "CO2 as main actor in Global Warming" thing. Thanks for posting that article. There is a lot of great stuff there, although most of it points in the other direction from your argument.
Yes, you do. Epicycles, before they were abandoned, did the best job to date of explaining the motion of the planets. Until a better model arose, it would have been silly to abandon it.
Unless people think it's right. You have to show that a scientific theory is lacking. Epicycles NEVER adequately explained planetary movements. Not even close, really. They would be sort of close for a few days out, then it would all go to hell, and that was simple, non-chaotic movement. In this world, a tiny error (like overestimating the "blanket effect" of CO2, or underestimating the amount of time the water spends in the atmosphere) would ensure that you got wildly erroneous results.
Exactly my point... the people presenting a contrary view are not building models. There is plenty of money. Here's an article about the well-funded deniers. How you can claim that the problem is money is beyond me. The big money would overwhelmingly prefer that global warming were a non-issue.
Businesses are focused on debunking global warming, not improving climate science. As such, they haven't funded climate research that could go against them.
So no sources, then? I thought so. Put yourself in my position... you are asking me to change my mind on an issue based on an unsubstantiated claim from a random poster on slashdot.
My company's website has some information on our cancer work, which comes from the same principle. www.selenbio.com
Then why are they funding the deniers?
They don't, not really. They try to get the most bang for their buck, so they pay people to publish newsletters and do PR. They aren't particularly interested in research that they can't control.
Do you have any proof of this? I'd assert that they aren't getting government money because they aren't interested in building a model. In fact, if I want to go all crazy conspiracy, I'd say that they know building yet another model will force them to come to the same conclusion as everyone else who has built a model, and the money will stop flowing their way from the denier gravy train. Here is a pretty hilarious list of the "scientists" who deny global warming. Sorry about the clearly biased source, but the list is too hilarious to pass up.
I have a few links:
It seems likely to me that the only way for these guys to really survive is going to be for them to get back to doing real, hard hitting investigative journalism. Anyone can and does do the shallow stuff. Blogs will certainly fill that niche, and they will remain free. What you can charge for is first access to breaking news and good investigative journalism. Want to see where the money trail leads in the bank bailouts? You'll have to subscribe to our premium service. Want to hear which of your local politicians is taking kickbacks from government contractors? That'll be a one time fee, or free to our subscribers.
The days of relying on the news wire are over, guys. Anyone can do that, and they can do it without having to pay a single salary, while making money off of ad content. In a perfectly competitive system, consumer costs approach the marginal costs. When something is basically free, or cheap enough to be ad supported, then it will be. If the audience is limited, or the costs too high, than a fee to read will be used, or some other model will emerge. This is how the market works. It drives non-competitive players out of the market. On a side note, the music industry would do well to adopt a similar strategy (ie the music is free/ad supported, but the concerts are not).
Well, considering the criticism I just posted is so well known that it is posted as a standard "denier" argument, yet has not been addressed in any serious manner, I would say that yes, there is evidence of such.
You don't have to build your own model to point out the epicycles don't explain planetary movement. It helps to have a model that does explain observations, but it isn't necessary. If there is so much money out there for competing models, show me. I haven't seen any.
The results were never published, due to politics. If you want evidence that there isn't much money for AIDS cure research, take a look at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and notice that they are now only funding vaccine work. The NIH is giving similar favor. That fact has EVERYTHING to do with climate science. It shows that unpopular things, no matter how amazing they are, can be squashed by bureaucracy and politics.
Those types of companies would like to disprove global warming, but the development of a new model for climate science is well outside of their field of interest. Not to mention that most of those types of companies aren't exactly in any position to be funding massive research projects at the moment. Only the government has any money right now, and they have blacklisted all climate change "deniers".
If someone pointed out problems with my interpretation and methods, then I would FIX THEM, and I would THANK them for it. In fact, we found recently that we had basically wasted TWO YEARS of research into a new form of anti-microbial plastic because we were binding non-specifically to the surface (which was only discovered when we sent material out to a client who then proceeded to test it in a manner that we thought didn't apply to us--they didn't have our preconceived notions). If we had been questioned earlier, we could have gotten a product to market a year ago, where instead we sat wringing our hands, steadily "improving" the product, when we were really only developing a timed release technology (which is cool by itself, but it isn't what we wanted, and is worthless for medical devices). Legitimate objections to the "science" of climate change have been papered over, and many words have been redefined for this particular argument. If you had to come up with your own model in order to criticize the current model, we'd still be looking for the philosophers stone! What we have in this case is a group of scientists driven by funding opportunities to come up with data in support of a theory, NOT against it. If this happened in my lab, I would fire the scientist perpetrating the fraud (actually it did, unfortunately the fraudster at the time was my boss, who set our work back by at least two years).
More likely, no-one has been able to get funding, because there aren't any groups that feel particularly threatened by such action. I would build a model, but I'm not a climate scientist. As a chemist I can, and regularly do, take criticism from a wide variety of sources, including other chemists, scientists from other branches, medical doctors, dentists, businessmen, and marketing people.
The sad fact is that scientists go where the money is. Currently, there isn't much money in a cure for AIDS (all the granting agencies are now funding vaccine work), which is why the cure we developed in our lab several years ago is sitting in a freezer for lack of funding for chimp and human trials. Now if something HUGE like that can get shoved aside, imagine how easy it is for contrarian research to take place in a field where dissent is immediately quashed by political forces at the granting agencies.
Not that they are ignored, but are simply unknown. If you think scientists know everything, I hate to disappoint, but I'm a scientist (a damn good one, you can thank me for the next generation of antimicrobial materials coming to the consumer, medical, and industrial world over the next five years), and I'm not smart enough to understand 1/1000000th of the phenomena that go on in this universe.
For example, I recall reading about an oral tradition among the aboriginal people of Australia that talks about a number of climate cycles, which apparently included El Nino, La Nina, as well as several cycles ranging from 125-625 years in period, and even a 40,000 year cycle. Who knows if there is any truth to it or now, but it does point out that there is a lot we don't know. If we start actively trying to manipulate the climate, we are almost certain to shoot ourselves in the foot.
No, I'm not. I wanted long term data from the start (we were talking about historical data from hundreds of thousands of years ago, remember?). If you think 100 years of data is enough, then you are hardly qualified to be either an advocate or a sceptic. Anyways, ahving data from Mauna Loa, an ACTIVE VOLCANO isn't exactly what I would call "average".
In any event, I looked at the data from the first CO2 ice core I saw on that site, and it showed that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere started increasing a little under 30,000 years ago, going up 50% by ~1300AD (assuming I'm reading it right, it isn't very clear), though it was still within the range of other cycles over the past 200K years. Also, the data stops several hundred years ago (about 1300 AD). If you have any sources for the last few hundred years, we can finish painting the picture here.
Just looking at the data may not be sufficient, as it is hard to line up. I'm also not sure how he is calculating his deltaT. If it is a year over year change, the the Earth was quite cold indeed a few tens of thousands of years ago. It seems more likely that it is change from "today's" temperature. With that in mind, when we take a look at the data, we see that at about 121000 years ago, thee was a peak of CO2, where the temperature peaked 10,000 years before that. It seems to me that that says that CO2 is a TRAILING indicator, and does not necessarily contribute to the warming. If it did, the Earth would have still been warming as the CO2 concentration rose a further 8% after the temperature peaked.
So yeah, thanks for debunking that whole "global warming" thing for me!
Absolutely not. I want the charts showing temperatures going back at least a hundred thousand years, and I would prefer ten million. That data is less than a thousandth of a blip on the geological time scale.
I KNOW politicians are stupid. If they start the fear-mongering machine, it means they are lying. Think about the bailouts, and the "stress tests".
Show me the actual charts (the link you posted had broken pictures), and if the temperature takes off as CO2 concentration ramps up, I'll concede that you may be right.
No, that is not what he said. He said: "But it does not make any sense at all to reject CO2 as a primary driver of climate change today because it looks, through the foggy glasses of time, like CO2 has not always completely controlled climate changes in the past."
He's saying that it doesn't make any sense to look at past data to help us draw conclusions about current trends, which is utter madness! If you want to shut down the engine of the world, you damn well better be SURE, BEYOND DOUBT that you are right, and be aware that millions if not hundreds of millions of people will DIE because of it. The fact is that there IS doubt. To say that all scientists agree is WRONG, because I'm a scientist, and I do disagree, thank you very much. I also don't take kindly to politicians lying about what I think about ANYTHING.
Of course HE doesn't say it. He says the same thing that I said (that warming started before the CO2 started rising), then he went on to say that CO2 caused the rise, when HE JUST SAID that the temperature started rising before the CO2.
Just because he can't explain it any other way doesn't mean that that CO2 is what caused it. You can't see the other possible causes because there is no record. It could have been caused by any number of events, such as solar cycles, Earth passing through some galactic radiation belt, bombardment by ice/methane microcomets, etc etc.
When did I cherry pick? I took HIS DATA and interpreted it in the way that my scientific training dictated (I'm a chemist). I might be wrong, but his evidence certainly doesn't support his conclusion. If the Earth started warming, and the CO2 rose centuries later in response, and both kept rising thereafter, that is absolutely not proof that CO2 causes warming! Unless he can identify what caused the initial warming, and show that it didn't continue throughout the period, then his "evidence" is worthless.
When scientists discuss science, the is ALWAYS argument like this. Critics, me in this case, poke holes in the theories that are presented until the theory is strong enough to withstand attack. When people start talking about global warming, rather than a give and take, they simply label critics "deniers" and write them off. THAT IS NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS. Therefore, this is POLITICS, not science.
Umm, I did. He agrees with me on the data, then goes on to draw conclusions that don't match his data.
For example: "During the glacial/interglacial cycles, CO2 concentrations and temperatures show a remarkable correlation. Closer examination reveals that CO2 does not lead the temperature changes, but actually lags by many centuries. Even so, the full extent of the warming can not be explained without the effects of CO2. Though this period does not demonstrate greenhouse gas initiated warming, it does lend support to the importance of CO2 and CH4 in setting the planetary thermostat."
The data disproves what he is saying, but he says it supports it. This person must be a mental gymnast.
Next link: "While there are indeed poorly understood ancient climates and rather controversial climate changes in Earth's long geological history, there are no clear contradictions to greenhouse theory to be found. What we do have is an unfortunate lack of comprehensive and well resolved data. There is always the chance that new data will turn up shortcomings in the models and unforeseen new aspects to climate theory, and I guarantee you scientists in the field are working hard to uncover such things - every scientist relishes the thought of uncovering new data that overturns current understanding. But it does not make any sense at all to reject CO2 as a primary driver of climate change today because it looks, through the foggy glasses of time, like CO2 has not always completely controlled climate changes in the past."
Basically he says that there is no historical correlation, but that because the current CO2 is produced by humans, there suddenly is some sort of correlation. Also he questions the strength of the data, which when you question it from the other way you are called a "denier". Why would the Earth get warm when people produce CO2, but not when it rises naturally?
Again, it's all politics.
Ok, you go have surgery to to remove that tumor that you may or may not have, even though the surgery may or may not kill you. Also, we don't know if the tumor is actually cancerous or not. Actually, we're not even sure if its a tumor, or something that comes naturally from aging.
This is the problem with taking massive action based on a model. If the model turns out to be wrong (yes, the whole thing could still be wrong--I haven't seen any evidence that it takes into account any natural climate cycles that have a period of more than 5,000 years, the current warming trend is nothing more than noise compared to such cycles), then you have done all this damage to industry worldwide (and lowered everyones standard of living, not to mention the fact that you caused a large number of people to starve to death). What if these climate cycles are natural, and we were actually helping to stop an ice age from wiping out a good sized portion of human civilization? Global cooling is a much scarier thought than global warming. A warmer planet encourages more wildlife diversity, opens up more cropland, though it will pose a problem for many low laying nations.
The significance of this finding is that we no longer have to worry about the gulf stream shutting down due to warmer climate, which would have hit the Western democracies hard. Who cares if it's a little warmer? So long as the weather isn't significantly affected (ie New England an England become as cold and dry as Siberia), then it really isn't a problem.
Hey, 50 years from now it'll be cheap, because we'll have nuclear fusion!
Luckily for us, 50 years from now never gets here.
You're citing stock climate change deniers' arguments. They were refuted looooooong time ago. Do you think all climate scientists are idiots?
Specifically: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/04/historically-co2-never-causes.php
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/geological-history-does-not-support.php
From the long list of: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php
Ummm, your links agree with me. Temperature rises preceded CO2 increases. It then goes on to claim that somehow the CO2 STILL causes it. Apparently CO2 moved faster than the speed of light and violated causality back in those days. The second link admits that CO2 levels are not well correlated with historical temperature (he blames this on a lack of comprehensive data--meaning that he recognizes that they don't have data, but he's somehow still right).
There is a lot more to the story of climate change than CO2, but governments around the world would shut down civilization rather than hear that.
You and I must have wildly different understanding of the word "refute".
No, it really isn't. The very historical charts that Mr. Gore laid out in his "An Inconvenient Truth", when superimposed on one another, show that the atmospheric CO2 concentration trailed the temperature increase. When people point to current trends, they fail to account for the fact that there are natural cycles in climate that go on over tens of thousands of years.
Global Warming is a science the way String Theory is a science, which is to say that it makes no testable predictions. Well, that's a bit harsh, it says that if CO2 goes up, then temperature goes up, but it is untestable because the effect is below the signal to noise ratio when you factor in long term climactic cycles. Basically, it's JUST A MODEL. When a major factor of your model is destroyed, it puts to lie ALL of the assumptions based on that model. Since you obviously aren't going to do that, nor will the politicians, I guess that makes it a matter of who makes the choices.
That is to say, it's politics. Another flamebait moderation in 3..2..1..
Sure, tell that to the single mother working three jobs. In many, if not most cases, they buy that kind of stuff because the kids are the ones who have to prepare it. Poverty is tough. You obviously haven't lived through it.
I live in a trailer community with a $600/month mortage payment including taxes and insurance. All that food was grown in about 1000 square feet. This year, we put in raised beds, and will be able to grow the same amount in half the space. You'd be surprised what you can get out of a couple of windowboxes and an inverted tomato planter (one of which would produce about 50 lbs of tomatoes per year, year round). All you need is good soil and some time. Of course, TIME is exactly what most people don't have these days.