A Lid for the Can of Worms. Good Heavens, We'll Freeze to Death! 41

[ornerynorsk]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/09/09/arctic-sea-ice-up-60-percent-in-2013/

Take that, Mr. Gore.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> We can discuss 1 without considering 2 at all if we are honest and have courage.
There is no point in discussing question 2 unless the answer to question 3 is "yes". In fact, the existence of question 2 almost assumes the answer to question 1 is "yes".

I think the answer to question 1 is "we don't know". If you look at just recent data, then you can make as case for the answer to question being "probably". However, if you look at the more inclusive long-term historical data and trends, the you can make a case for the answer to be "not likely".

In my mind, the only questions that have a consensus answer of "yes" are:
[li] Is the earth warming (the last 15 years notwithstanding)?[/li]
[li] Are CO₂ emissions drastically increasing? [/li]
But correlation doesn't mean causation. What the data does strongly suggests is that man is largely responsible for the CO₂ levels increasing. But the science is not there to connect the second with the first and "strongly suggest" that the warming is the result of increased CO₂. That part we just don't know.

There are two scams in play. The first is that it doesn't make sense is to say that the emissions are bad if they come from country A, but they're okay if they come from country B. That does two things: it moves money from country A to country B, and it changes the location of the emissions. What it doesn't do is reduce global emissions. But when money moves, people get rich, so that is a course of action advocated by many.

The second scam is using the alarmist FUD rhetoric to fleece the people to find a cure. Pay me today or this crisis will kill us all tomorrow.

I think it would be far more practical for humanity to lose the emotional baggage of global warming and climate change and all that "the sky is falling" alarmist rhetoric. Stop trying to justify actions by trying to show a causation connection that isn't supported by the historical data. Instead, let's step back and focus on just the 2^nd issue. Let's focus on just dealing with increased CO₂ emissions and look for practical and cost-effective means to reduce global CO₂ emissions.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[TGS4]

"warm the planet significantly"
"drastically modify the environment"

Put some numbers on that, quantify it like, well, an engineer.

My point is that regardless of whether anthropogenic CO2 is the sole culprit of warming, if there is indeed warming (or even cooling as some may predict), there will be costs and benefits. Claiming catastrophe so dire that adaptation is impossible is disingenuous at best and lying at worst. Quantify it - make a definite list of the winners and losers. Assign costs and benefits to those. Raise the funds post-facto.

What's being currently promoted is a means to stop said catastrophe 70-100 years+ in the future. The sole promoters of the catastrophe are the "models", which are showing less and less skill as time marches forward. So, if the models are wrong, then no catastrophe. If no catastrophe, then nothing to stop - we can take a cautious wait-and-see approach of ongoing investigation and adaptation. If nothing to stop, then no immediate need for additional funds, because there are no costs.

I don't have a problem with a wait-and-see approach. We'll have much more data in 30 years. Maybe by then the models will have advanced to the point where they show some ongoing skill... If I'm wrong, well then cook me some crow and I'll gladly eat - plus we'll still be 40-70 years+ away from the hypothetical catastrophe. If I'm right, we won't have sacrificed civilization for nothing.

Why the hurry?

 

[zdas04]

Why hurry? The shelf life on this particular brand of sepsis is expiring. If the Chicken Little's of AGW are going to make their personal fortunes like Al Gore did then they simply must hurry.

The last time the earth significantly warmed was called (in retrospect) The Renaissance. Warmer temperatures lowered the amount of effort required to gather heating fuel, they extended the growing season so food required fewer resources to be expended, and they created a class of people with leisure time which resulted in an explosion of art and science. A significant portion of the world is still very close to subsistence (i.e., all of the available hours in the day are committed to acquiring food and fuel) and global warming would improve their quality of life measurably. Some islands will disappear. Water levels in Amsterdam, Venice, and New Orleans will rise, but so what? Two of the three did real well last time. The third will or it won't. An infinitesimal portion of the earth's population will be adversely affected (they'll have to move, I've done it 26 times, it is survivable). So the downside of us hardcore "Deniers" being wrong is improved quality of life for mankind. I can live with that.

The only possible scenario that warming is not good is temperatures increasing without bound. With the size of the oceanic heat sinks, that arithmetic just doesn't work. That silly video that JJPellin linked above used oceanic la Nina and el Nino to explain the last 16 years (via a reference to the only one of 35 climate models referenced in the video that predicted flat) so even the Chicken Little's can acknowledge the the gargantuan impact of the heat sink created by the 310 million cubic miles of water in the earth's oceans.

Without the politics, nepotism, and the criminal mentality of politicians, this whole discussion would have been an interesting academic exercise conducted in obscure journals and second-tier universities and the AGW Hypotheses would almost certainly have been discarded by now. But the politicians smelled an opportunity. Think about it, the U.S. Congress cannot agree to a budget for 2009 (let alone 2014), but they are quite willing to implement taxes and mandatory subscriptions to a "private" trading scheme to prevent a nebulous "catastrophe" in 2113. The only explanation for that kind of prospective action is personal gain and the certainty that they'll be retired by the time the true scope of their malfeasance comes to light.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[TGS4]

Thanks David. I'm wondering what 2dye4, JohnRBaker and moltenmetal will have to say...

 

[JohnRBaker]

Nothing that has been posted since my last contribution has in any way undermined my position, that is, without some sort of external pressure, it's naive to assume that capitalism will respond in any way except that which results in the largest return on investment to the owners/investors. So whether so-called Global Warming is real or imagined, corporations will, without government interference, continue to do what makes them the most money in the short term. And if Global Warming does turn out to be real, this will in NO way change their behavior if nothing else changes.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[TGS4]

Fair enough, John. But, why the hurry with those who believe in CO2-based global warming to implement a "solution".

 

[JohnRBaker]

A distant problem, if you wait too long before responding, might suddenly become an impending threat. Sort of like that old adages, "A stitch in time saves nine".

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[GregLocock]

"A stitch in time saves nine" is often good advice, but basing major economic and social policy on the predictions of computer models that can't tie their own shoelaces and tend to eat the paste in art class, doesn't seem like a strategy for a successful outcome either. Correct me if I'm wrong but the /only/ 'evidence' for CO2 kicking above its weight GW wise is those very same models that have consistently overpredicted the total temperature rises over the rather short period of time where the idea of a global temperature has been measurable with any accuracy. If CO2 is in fact behaving as direct measurement and calculation suggest it should then any CO2 mitigation efforts will be even less effective than anticipated.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[GregLocock]

Here's an easy to understand graph showing the consistent failure of the models over the last 20 years

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/09/16/ipcc-models-getting-mushy/

and I've attached a graph that draws the same sort of conclusion from the paper I posted earlier.

So exactly how bad do these models have to be before engineers, presumably more skilled at the analysis of rubbery correlation data than the average journalist or politician, conclude that they are not telling us predictions with enough usefulness?



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[2dye4]

Wow who would have thought that just asking for conservation of a limited resource would cause so much hand wringing and prediction of doom.

One would think the MMGW skeptics are being asked to do without air..

All that is being asked is that the industrialized countries give up driving mammoth SUV and pickup truck for no reason other than
vanity and ridiculous indulgence. Along with industry taking energy conservation seriously.

One would think it just might be possible to expand our standard of living from reducing waste, there is vast precedent for this no??

Heck the economy would likely be boosted from the increased savings, well not everyones economy, those in the fossil fuel business would
take a hit but that happens every time efficiency is increased. The economists call that creative destruction.

Now the science.
Many people do not want to gamble with the climate. The skeptics say show us the proof. Well of course there is no perfect
certainty and there never will be. All we know for sure is that we are digging up millions of years of stored carbon and
injecting it into our atmosphere in a geological instant. Some are worried about this, and there is some minor chance that
this will damage our planet severely. No there is no proof, but it is possible, and we will of course do nothing to stop it.

So for those who want cheap energy so they can waste it we will go on re arranging the deck chairs on the titanic and hope for the best.

FWIW I know nothing will ever be done about this issue, because people believe what they want to and there will always be someone who will take to a podium and tell the public it's junk science, don't worry, be happy. And the public will follow them.

 

[2dye4]

Further question for Greg.

Do the IPCC models predict absolute temperature of just the CO2 forcing of temperature.

The difference is very significant.

 

[debodine]

Sadly, David's explanation here also accounts for (in my opinion) significantly more than half of everything politicians in the US do every day, if you include sleeping and eating. If you exclude those activities, I believe the percentage approaches 95%. That final 5% is when instead of working for their own glory, they are using their position to protect the backsides of other elected criminals just in case they need a favor some day.

"Without the politics, nepotism, and the criminal mentality of politicians, this whole discussion would have been an interesting academic exercise conducted in obscure journals and second-tier universities and the AGW Hypotheses would almost certainly have been discarded by now. But the politicians smelled an opportunity. Think about it, the U.S. Congress cannot agree to a budget for 2009 (let alone 2014), but they are quite willing to implement taxes and mandatory subscriptions to a "private" trading scheme to prevent a nebulous "catastrophe" in 2113. The only explanation for that kind of prospective action is personal gain and the certainty that they'll be retired by the time the true scope of their malfeasance comes to light."

That last clause of this quote from David, bolstered by the belief that they won't be exposed while in office in any way that cannot be managed by media manipulation, is why they get away with it year after year.

Am I cynical? Am I skeptical? Yes. After watching the transformation of our former republic of the United States of America into the People's Republic of Big Brother, I tend to distrust anyone who believes they have a right to take what I have earned for my family.

 

[TenPenny]

So, instead of bickering back and forth, have you thought about a solution that might be more palitable to me and the other voters?

A solution to what?
Climate change? If you want a 'solution' to climate change, you'll have to die, because there's nothing you can do to prevent the climate from changing. If you want a solution to man-made climate change, you'll have to kill all humans, so that there is no human activity.

Other than that, you'd have to explain what problem you are looking for a solution to.

 

[zdas04]

2dye4,
I am a Veteran. My son is a currently serving member of the U.S. Military. I have a lot of respect for service members. I'm not sure what your status is, but with a discipline tag of "Military", I'm pretty willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, and then you say:

All that is being asked is that the industrialized countries give up driving mammoth SUV and pickup truck for no reason other than
vanity and ridiculous indulgence. Along with industry taking energy conservation seriously.

and realize that you have zero knowledge of either human nature or economics, in addition to your total lack of understanding of the computer models you are defending.

I've spent about half this year in Australia. That country implemented a carbon tax last year. I first learned about it in December when a Lease Operator refused to purge the air out of a pressure vessel we had just installed because of the carbon tax. That was a really dangerous thing to do and I'm not sure that the politicians would sanction killing a few dozen workers in the name of "Climate Change". The last time I was there (last month, before the recent election), I happened to step into a SUV dealership and they had no new cars on the lot. I asked the salesman and he said that every vehicle that comes in is already sold and paid for. He hasn't done a test drive on a new vehicle this year. When I asked how the Carbon Tax was impacting his business he said that he hopped that Labor wins the election so the carbon tax won't get repealed--the tax is really good for the SUV business. Seem counter intuitive? It may be fear of an outright ban is driving the marketplace. It may be a major nose thumbing at the Labor Party. I don't know. I just know what I've seen.

I was in Stavanger, Norway a few years ago and was amazed at the number of bicycles on the road (and at the cost of a taxi ride). Then I noticed the posted price for petrol. When my mom was a girl (in the 1930's) a gallon of gasoline cost about 3 times the cost of a gallon of milk. When I was a boy in the 1950's that ratio was still pretty close. In Stavanger, a liter of petrol was just under 3 times the cost of a liter of milk. This seemingly appropriate price caused people to adjust their habits to keep their energy costs in proper proportion to their food costs. Current cost of a gallon of milk in my town is $3.39. Cost of a gallon of regular gasoline this morning is $3.43. If you want to impact behavior you would need to raise that to around $10. Not happening.

Starting in about 1978 our spineless, criminal politicians passed some laws in the US that let motor fuel prices float on world markets. Generally a good idea. The unintended consequence was urban sprawl, shopping malls that can only be accessed by privately owned vehicles, public transit systems that are mostly a joke, supermarkets, super stores, death of downtowns, death of railroads. That is all because of Jimmy Carter's wrong-headed "leadership". Now we're way more than half pregnant and properly priced motor fuels in the US would cause a global depression that would be nearly certain to end in general chaos.

Why the hell should industry take energy conservation seriously. I've done dozens of analysis of energy saving and it is rare for one of these projects to pay out prior to the end of the expected life of the added equipment. Fuel is just too inexpensive. A government energy policy in 1970 that forced motor fuel prices to move with US CPI instead of the whims of the Saudi Sheikhs and Russian criminals would have allowed the prices to walk up with the economy and allowed people to adjust their consumption organically over time. A 40 year transition from $2.80/gallon (in constant 2011 dollars) in 1969 to $10.70/gallon in 2013 would have seen a very different infrastructure development than we've seen. It didn't happen. Now we have what we have. All indicators are that motor fuel prices will decline sharply from here. Laws passed during the Arab Oil Embargo that make exports of hydrocarbons illegal without an exception from the EPA will keep the output from the new Shale Oil and Tar Sands fields from hitting world markets and will be a glut on the US market, driving prices down.

Our outrageously low fuel prices are bringing energy-intensive industries back from overseas. If natural gas is $22/MMBTU in Poland and $6/MMBTU in Milwaukee or Detroit, then the difference in labor costs becomes trivial in an energy-intensive industry. That is happening today. Shale Gas is the cause. Even if you throw a $30/tonne tax on CO2, the result is still a bargain on the world market. "Fixing" this "problem" requires more integrity than our politicians have exhibited since that little meeting in Philadelphia in the 18th century that told King George that we were mad as hell and not going to take it any more. A band-aide would simply be wealth re-distribution from workers to speculators and elected officials. An amputation would end civilization as we know it. Doing nothing allows market forces to bring a series of temporary balance points that are all better than any "managed" alternative.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.
The plural of anecdote is not "data"

 

[2dye4]

""The plural of anecdote is not "data" ""

Gee now where did I get that from...

By paragraph.

1 Only an insult, I need not respond.
2 The fear of fuel cost rising would have exactly the opposite effect, not sure what is going on down under.
3 Not sure why the ratio of milk/fuel cost per gallon really needs to be a universal constant.
4 You say generally a good idea then tear it down. Should the price have been fixed and thus higher ??
5 As I said energy is too cheap for improvements to make economic sense, raise the cost to make it make sense.
6 As I said also there is no political avenue to fix this problem. Let's just be honest as say we are going to **** the environment
and stop hiding behind wishful and fantasy theories that it will all just go away.
6 Since it will take society a long time to readjust why not try to get started now. The climate skeptics don't want to ever start
the process of restructuring society for reduced energy consumption.

And why should being military make me have any preconceived idea about energy waste??

 

[TGS4]

Do the IPCC models predict absolute temperature of just the CO2 forcing of temperature.

The difference is very significant.

Huh? I am really convinced now that you have absolutely no idea what a General Circulation Model (GCM) or Climate model does or how it works. It's not a linear mathematical equation whereby the contribution from one component (CO2) can be teased apart from the contributions from the other components. These things are highly non-linear, particularly with feedback mechanisms, that are also highly dependant on the initial and boundary conditions. Have you ever even looked at the Navier-Stokes equations, in spherical coordinates, involving multi-species reacting components, with phase changes and radiation/convection/conduction heat transfer? I have (had to derive the conversion from Cartesian coordinates to cylindrcal and then spherical coordinates). Have you then tried to create a spatial discretization of that? I have.

Conserving a finite resource (and energy conservation) is something that, I think, both zdas04 and moltenmetal (although both on opposite sides of the CAGW-spectrum) can agree on - I know that I certainly do. But going about it through the backdoor of some imagined crisis - CAGW - is fundamentally dishonest. You wanna talk energy conservation - please do. You wanna talk conservation of fossil fuels - please do. Just don't bring in some imagined fantasy of catastrophe on a planetary scale due to geologically-insignificant warming supposed linked to anthropogenic emissions of CO2. You wanna talk about energy pricing in the context of conservation - please do. You wanna talk about changing a taxation system from one fundamentally based on income and move it to a consumption tax basis, with a primary focus on energy consumption - please do. These are all grown-up discussions that we really should be having, but NOT in context of CAGW.

In addition to you having no clue about numerical simulations, I am quite convinced that your understanding of economics is on the same level. And that's not an insult (although you are, of course, free to take it as such), it is merely an observation based on your posts. I would be happy to be demonstrated to be wrong, but I won't hold my breath.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Gents, I am (almost) starting to regret posting this thread. It's clear that this hot topic is more emotional than guns, religion, and politics. There have been some very good points made along the course of discussion, but it's quite apparant that our collective strongly formulated opinions are, indeed, the irrestible force meeting the immovable object. Time to agree to disagree, and if you can't agree with that, there's always Godwin's Law.

Nazis, Adolf Hitler.


It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[debodine]

If I may quote 2dye4:

"6 As I said also there is no political avenue to fix this problem. Let's just be honest as say we are going to **** the environment
and stop hiding behind wishful and fantasy theories that it will all just go away."

This is why skeptics say "prove it" instead of reaching for our wallets to hand over our family's bread. This may be a case of projection on your part because (to me) it is the climate model theories that appear to be wishful, since we don't have an observable set of accurate measurements over a significantly long period of time to validate the model theories. Otherwise the model theories would have accurately predicted the last 15 years of stagnation in the temperature rise. The chart presented by GregLocock (using available, verifiable data) shows that they didn't. This to my mind means they are not sufficiently trustworthy for use in formulating major policy decisions by any government.

Remember that we didn't in the past and still don't have a calibrated and trustworthy set of global measuring devices. We have a few devices in a few places, but many of the first generation set of instruments are compromised by poor placement.

My point is that we can mamipulate the charts and the statistics all day long but we don't have validated data sets from which to begin. The attempt to get a global set of measuring devices in place was a good start but it is still a long way from reality, and it would take centuries of accurate recording to have any kind of confidence in long term trend modeling.

 

[debodine]

ornerynorsk I just saw your post after I posted mine. I am not capable or qualified to overcome Godwin's Law, thus I yield and will not post on this thread again. )

 

[TGS4]

ornerynorsk - that was actually one of the cornerstones of the previous bunch of threads where we reached 400+ posts in each one. As much as we disagree, I don't think that any of them invoked Godwin's Law. For that, I am very thankful - we engineers must be doing something right ;-). (Heck, most of them didn't even bring up Trofim Lysenko...)