Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0 29

[zdas04]

I know cancer is a legitimate issue. That was my point: it is a logical misstep to point to scammers or suspicious officials or whomever and use that as a reason to question for one second the scientific validity of the issue. The two should be completely separate.

is a stupid point. The only people foisting the AGW issue on us is folks with a huge self interest in spreading fear. I call a "scientist" who destroys original data a "scammer". I call a politician who introduces legislation to provide a monopoly on carbon aggregation to his contributors suspicious at least.

No, the world is not black and white. It is many shades of grey. I do believe that it is anti-human to hate the human race, and the AGW argument exhibits a large degree of hate for the human race. Mankind has done many things to the environment that were wrong. Rivers shouldn't catch fire. Rain should not melt statues. Playgrounds should not be toxic. But, all of the things man has done to the environment have been local. The air quality in the LA Basin is horrible, but by the time you get to Barstow the air is clear. Hong Kong harbour is filthy, but 50 miles out to sea you wouldn't know that Hong Kong is there. The pH of the rain in Denver is slightly basic.

Bottom line is that there is NO science in this discussion, it is just politics and economics.

David

 

[dawei87]

It is many shades of grey. I do believe that it is anti-human to hate the human race, and the AGW argument exhibits a large degree of hate for the human race.

I'm sorry, but that is a far stupider point than my simple (and really quite benign and obvious) argument that one should separate the scammer from the scientist.

To be concerned that some members of the human race caused a problem for the human race is in no way implying a hatred of the human race. If anything it is the opposite: it is expressing a concern for human well-being and considering this issue that humans happened to cause as part of that concern. If you really can't understand that simple idea as being theoretically possible--that some humans might have (purely inadvertently) caused some problems for themselves and other humans--then I really don't know what to say.

You seem to be so hopelessly entrenched in conspiratorial politics that you can't even embrace an extremely simple and rational point, i.e. that humans could might actually be capable of accidentally causing a challenging problem for themselves. Not an armageddon, but a problem that requires ingenuity. I do feel that we are incapable of this ingenuity. If that is an 'anti-human' view in your point then you have a very pessimistic view of the intellectual capability of the human race.

Mankind has done many things to the environment that were wrong. Rivers shouldn't catch fire. Rain should not melt statues.

If you feel that environmental problems can only possibly ever be localized, and not global, then please demonstrate the science for that claim. Because it is quite a bizarre and subjective claim to make.

Bottom line is that there is NO science in this discussion, it is just politics and economics.

Well, that is your paranoid opinion and you're entitled to it. But if you really feel that the entire body of research on climatology is based solely on ulterior political and financial motives, and no hard empirical and theoretical evidence, then I'm sorry but your sheer lack of education on this issue means that we simply have no common ground, and there is no point in continuing this discussion.

 

[GregLocock]

For amusement's sake, let's run through the liturgy again

1) CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing

2) In small scale experiments CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas

3) The global temperature is increasing

4) man is rapidly burning fossil fuels

5) 4 causes 1

6) 1 and 2 cause 3

7) modifying 4 will affect 3

8) 3 is a bad thing

Of those I agree with 4, 1 (from a very low base histrically), 2 but would point out that /so far as this effect is concerned/ the atmosphere is so saturated with CO2 that more makes no odds, 5 the numbers seem to line up, 3 yes, we are coming out of an ice age, good.

6 7 8 are the crux of the warmisti religion, and are respectively completely unproven, unlikely even by their own modelling, and wrong, for human beings if not polar bears.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[dawei87]

the atmosphere is so saturated with CO2 that more makes no odds

Well, that just ignores several effects such as pressure and doppler broadening, and that the upper atmosphere is not saturated. Of course the logarithmic effect of an increased gas is incorporated into every climate model predicting warming (i.e., it isn't news.)

we are coming out of an ice age, good.

Except that the planet came out of the ice age 8,000 years ago, and has been cooling to the next ice age ever since then--at least until about ~100 years ago.

6 7 8 are the crux of the warmisti religion, and are respectively completely unproven, unlikely even by their own modelling, and wrong, for human beings if not polar bears.

That a greenhouse gas would cause global warming is not 'unproven' it is a very straightforward application of fundamental laws of physics, and not disputed by any of the prominent 'skeptical' scientists. If you have an issue, talk to Lindzen or Spencer, as they have very clearly acknowledged the reality of the greenhouse effect and gone as far to say that 2x CO2 would at the very least effect a warming of 1 C.

As for warming being a bad thing, it's not warming that is the fundamental issue, it is the resulting climate change. This is the climate that human civilization has adapted to. It is the climate in which we have laid our farms, built our cities, laid political boundaries and constructed coastal infrastructure. A change of 3-5 C would potentially represent a climate change as significant as the difference between an ice age and today. A scrambling to adapt to a new climate means abandoning current infrastructure, crossing political boundaries, and trying to plant food on land that wasn't previously able to handle it. It would be a problem. Again, not the end of the world, but a problem among others. I really don't understand why that scenario is so terrifyingly impossible to accept that people feel a need to flat-out deny it. It is a challenge, but nothing that humans cannot deal with. That you would feel it necessary to deny that humans might possibly face a challenge, rather than simply acknowledge it as a challenge to be overcome, reflects an underlying lack of confidence in the capabilities of the human race. Quite "Anti-Human" if I may use the term ironically.

 

[GregLocock]

Oh dear.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[zdas04]

dawei87,
I just typed out a long rant about how easy it is to claim "laws of physics" when you are making stuff up, but I deleted it. I've decided that I've had as much of your condescending nonsense as I'm willing to tolerate and will quietly bow from the discussion. I believe down to my soul that AGW is an economic and political discussion (and no I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I know that nothing I say will prove that point to you). You think that manipulated data and computer models have proven a scientific point. I have no chance of changing your position on that either. It has become a "My God can beat up your God" discussion and I'm bored with it.

Enjoy yourself.

David

 

[dawei87]

Enjoy yourself too.

You have not provided a single scientific argument yet claim to be more knowledgeable about science than me...and then presume that *I* am the condescending one.

Live in your own world. Reality will move on without you. I did not automatically assume that you were a conspiracy "nut" but nothing you have said has even attempted to prove that you were not, so I am left with no other assumption.

You keep talking about manipulated data and faulty models but have not once verified this claim with any piece of evidence. Believe in this if you want. And believe that I am simply ignorant and wrong in my morals--hell, believe I'm a red-blooded communist, I really don't care. I guess asking for scientific proof makes one a communist. Shows how little faith you have in the capitalist's appreciation of science.

I'm sorry that you feel I am ignorant for simply not subscribing to your pompous idea that *your* view of this scientific topic is the only correct one.

Perhaps one day you will actually make a strong scientific point, at which point I will be happy to listen.

 

[jmw]

dawei87,
we did all the science to death.
See previous threads and see also other websites. See also the comments above about the debate not changing anyone's minds.

I'd like to draw your attention to this article and ask you to see where you fit in.

The two things that stand out in Climategate and Climategate 2.0 is that people like Phil Jones et al are not acting as scientists, but advocates. Worse still their science is corrupt and they are corrupting the scientific process.
I am surprised also at the extent to which they have corrupted the scientific media to an extent that brings other science into disrepute.
When I was nowt but a lad I read New Scientist (science for dummies) and Nature.... I was sitting around in a hospital wiring room yesterday and was surprised to find New Scientist and to see how poorly it compares today with previously.
In two issues were articles talking up the idea that individual citizens would take legal action against "big oil". There were also plenty of stories which BBC like were filled with AGW dogma.
So where was their balance?

One of the issues coming from the latest Climategate is the extent to which Jones, Mann et all seek to manipulate the scientific press and have editors removed and scientists dismissed from their jobs.

None of this is good or defensible.

There is a big risk in creating policy based on corrupt science provided by corrupt scientists.


Oh, and actually, climate change advocacy is on the way out. This is probably not a thread we are likely to return to soon.
The opportunity to create a world government (as undemocratic as it can be) based on climate change has passed.
And the determination that we have reached 7 billion population has been made. It isn't exact but in a well prepared "impromptu" comment on a BBC radio 4 food program we got a nice lecture about the dangers of a population of 9 billion on food supplies and water.... note they have already leapt to 9 billion not 7. No idea when or if we will reach 9 billion - such facts are never relevant. In other words, the BBC is already shifting its ground and just as they got together with the Tyndall Centre to set up Realclimate I suppose they'll follow the established procedure and set up "RealPopulation" or something similar very soon.

The new issue is population.
Just as soon as they can figure how to make money out of it, but the BBC has already climbed onboard this one. When they start talking about population problems on Antiques Road Show you'll know they've found the real money maker.
One of the key presentations was "Education and population – Sir Crispin Tickell. He is advocating educating women and girls......
Dave Gardner over at Numberwatch added a link to this NICK Clegg triggered fresh outrage at Britain’s spiralling overseas aid budget by pledging £355million of taxpayers’ cash to educate girls in poor countries. which suggests they have a start on the money.

Of course, the big concern is just how quickly we can finish of the AGW scam before it does any irreparable harm. Before, for example, we have artificial volcanoes located amongst the wind farms.






JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[owg]

If you lived in Canada, like I do, how much would you spend to stop it getting warmer?

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[dawei87]

I find your disjointed list of conspiracy theories to be less than impressive. Believe whatever you want to. The BBC is being sensational so that they can increase their ad revenues. It's all a convoluted excuse to form a one-world government. Scientists are simply sadists who get their jollies by taking away your right to turn on your AC and drive your car. Got it.

Although I really don't see how an article about droughts--or hurricane strength or sea level rise or what have you--is more "alarmist" than articles claiming it's all a massive hoax aimed at forming a unified socialist state. The latter seems far more sensational and alarmist than anything that has ever come out of the IPCC. But maybe that's just me.

Redirecting back to the science...

I've seen plenty of other websites and other threads. I have yet to see a single scientific argument put forth by the deniers that shows that AGW is incorrect, and I have found the evidence supporting AGW to be quite persuasive. So do many others, including many scientists who were once very skeptical.

If you have a hard factual scientific point that is contrary to some basic tenet of AGW, feel free to open it up for discussion. Otherwise I'm really not interested.

 

[dawei87]

owg, Canada is generally considered to be one of the countries that will have a net benefit from AGW.

 

[cranky108]

This whole thing reminds me of an arument I had when I was young.

It went like this: "Yea, well my dad can beat up your dad".

 

[jmw]

The BBC is being sensational so that they can increase their ad revenues

The BBC doesn't have ad sales, it collects license fees from anyone with a television.
It is more personal than that, it is their pension funds that are heavily invested in AGW scam money makers.

Now you may have missed it but the idea of Multi-Lateral Cross Boundary treaties was up for debate at CAP 15 or whatever it was called. The idea was that the situation was so serious that what was needed was an organisation with its own revenue raising powers and its own enforcement powers i.e. a world government.
I'm pretty sure we don't yet need a Godwin's law descent for illustrations of how the unthinkable can suddenly become not only thinkable but a reality, at least, not of you consider the rantings of some of the more influential sponsors of AGW.
OK, maybe no one called it a world government but that is what it amounts to.
Want a precedent? Look at the EU - inbuilt mission creep leading toward a small scale version of a World government. No one can pretend the EU is democratic nor ever intended to be, that was just rhetoric. In that case the threat to be averted was a another world war. And still they are trying to achieve their own revenue raising powers and their own enforcement policies and none of it with any form of democracy.
And you don't think the same could happen on a global scale with AGW as the great scare?
You need to get out more.

By the way, the science is irrelevant. We have no science, it is about money and power. AGW was the excuse, a very necessary excuse for the next big scare after the cold war and they are now lining up the next one which is population.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[TGS4]

dawei87, have you actually read the emails, and not just someone's filter of them. It's beyond "scientists behaving badly", and shows very unethical behavior. Are you trying to justify unethical behavior? Do you do justify unethical behavior in your work as an engineer? Do you understand the concept of "noble cause corruption"?

If the people doing the science are unethical, can we trust their science? Simple question.

 

[jmw]

The role of the scientist should be to inform policy makers.
Not influence or advocate policy.

This is most clearly illustrated in the various reports on particulates to the UK's Environment Agency. The draft report is detailed reasonably clear and impartial. It reports the concensus on each aspect and it discloses source data and how they handled it.
It is devoid of emotive terminology and refers to morbidity and life expectancy. As it refers to particulates among the population it is quite solid stuff.

Compare and contract to a report, using computer models to try and simulate results, on particulate emissions from shipping and their effect on populations and you will see where impartial science has given way to advocacy.
The report is brief, the data hard to track the computer models obscure and the language is highly emotive talking about deaths as if due to one time exposure to toxins rather than, as ought to be the case, the impact on life expectancy as a result of a life time exposure.
Challenged on this the author has ignored such criticisms.

There was a discussion (it rarely reached the level of debate) on the BBC radio the other day where a scientist was saying it was OK to advance opinion and recommend policy.
Sorry.
No.
The value of science is when it is dispassionate and objective.




JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[moltenmetal]

dawei87: thank you for taking up the torch in this utterly frustrating fight.

It positively disgusts me how many engineers I encounter, both here and elsewhere, who can't get past the idea that there are risks such as AGW that we cannot conclusively prove, but which are worth tackling anyway. They fail to use the same analysis on this issue that they use on any other risk mitigation issue they deal with professionally. In my opinion they mostly do so out of fear of what the resulting changes will do to their current way of living. That sort of thinking is beneath the dignity of our profession in my opinion, and society at large NEEDS our profession to do better on this and other issues.

My argument in past threads has evolved through debate, but the fundamentals are still consistent, not because I'm pig-headed and closed minded but because nobody has refuted them:

1) No credible person is disputing that humans have nearly doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration since we started burning fossil fuels. Many arguments about alternative sources of CO2 such as volcanoes etc. dwarfing our fossil emissions are easily refuted by reference to the DIRECTLY MEASURED atmospheric CO2 concentration data we have, which happens to match very well with the indirect CO2 concentration data climate scientists also use. So the argument is not whether or not CO2 has increased and will increase further unless we change our consumption patterns- the argument is merely whether or not this "forcing" we're putting into the system, which is rather obvious to anyone who understands basic physics, will have a significant effect or not.

2) Nobody can show anything other than a probability or risk of detrimental AGW- the climate modelling is too complex to do this. Hence, some people get caught on this fact and can't move past it, feeling that the "change nothing" option is the best one in the face of uncertainty. But probability times severity of harm in this case gives the issue a huge risk index- one we cannot ignore and simply study until it has been proven by virtue of having already happened. AGW is a HAZOP issue for risk mitigation, no different than any other we engineers tackle on a daily basis except that the scope is planetary. Our ability to reverse it after it has happened is very limited- all we can do is adapt.

3) Fossil fuels are finite and have higher value uses to humankind than using them as fuels- especially when much of that use is currently inefficient and wasteful to the extreme. Finding a way around the fuels uses for fossil carbon is something we're going to tackle anyway, and the sooner we do it the easier it will be on all of us. Many people here freely admit that they believe in this, but their belief is a mile wide and an inch deep as they don't believe in spending any money to make this happen. They worry about the economy as it exists now too much to risk changing it with a carbon emissions tax etc. I personally think that a carbon emissions tax makes excellent sense as a conservation and use diversion tool for such a finite and valuable resource, whether or not AGW is a real problem.

4) Carbon sequestration would cause us to p*ss through our finite fossil reserves even faster, and hence is a suspect solution at best.

5) AGW is only one of many "problems of the commons"- economic negative externalities- that we need to fix via taxation in order for free markets to do their job properly. Systems which attribute costs to those who do not cause them are flawed and need to be fixed. the alternative, i.e. subsidy of what we consider to be "virtuous energy", is economically unsustainable and puts idiot government in charge of picking which technologies should be winners and losers. This keeps the smart money out of the whole arena and delays properly dealing with the problem.

 

[jmw]

Ah, the old "precautionary principle".
This is usually promoted based on two options:
AGW is true and we do nothing and we are all doomed.
AGW is not true but better safe than sorry because to do nothing and AGW is true is unthinkable.

This is like that old chestnut "Is it better to be rich and unhappy or poor and happy?" in that the way the proposition is framed is designed to evoke a specific answer.
Or you could sit through an encyclopaedia/double glazing/conservatory salesman's pitch to see how they lead you to the inescapable conclusion that you have to buy what they are offering plus, if you waver they ring their manager and get you a special "don't tell anyone or they'll all want it" buy it now price.

So let's fill in the other other options they don't want you to consider.
I'll make it easy by taking the old chestnut.
There are four options, not two:
The original two are again:
[ul][li] Rich and unhappy[/li]
[li]Poor and happy[/li][/ul]
To which we must add:
[ul][li]Rich and happy[/li]
[li]poor and unhappy[/li][/ul]
Do the same with the precautionary principle applied to climate change and figure out what the downsides are to fixing something that ain't broke.
For example, spending a fortune and bankrupting our economies unnecessarily.
Spending all our money fixing something that doesn't need fixing and then finding we don't have the resources when we need to do something about something that is broke.
My biggest concern is that the money we spend on windfarms and solar energy and lose in carbon trading scams, not to mention the downturn in productivity we impose could deny us the chance to develop some meaningful new energy sources e.g. fusion power.

here is one of the many alarmist examples of this on YouTube (This is one I remember commenting on some years ago).
Elsewhere you see the precautionary principle labelled as:
"Precautionary principle: A rational Decision rule with Extreme events" (Berkley University conference on ambiguity, uncertainty and climate change).
You have to be brave to challenge the statement and ask why is this rational? In fact it can be anything but. It is worth not accepting these bold declarations at face value but thinking about it.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ewh]

It seems that I have also heard the precautionary principal applied to theology. Better safe than sorry!

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[TGS4]

moltenmetal - to answer your specific points:
1) Yes atmospheric CO2 levels have risen coincidentally (and I mean that in both the meanings) with humans burning fossil fuels. Correlation does not equal causation. Temperatures have risen and fallen under scenarios of increasing and decreasing CO2 levels. Where's the irrefutable science that demonstrates increased CO2 = catastrophic warming?
2) We've discussed this before. I have already presented my take on the risk management aspects here. You may happen to disagree with the value and weightings that I put on the ledger, but I have presented that as a risk-management scenario. You happen to believe that mitigating the source is better, I happen to think that the evidence shows that adapting post-facto is the better solution. Your statement

They fail to use the same analysis on this issue that they use on any other risk mitigation issue they deal with professionally.

is patently and demonstrably false (and, unfortunately, stating such falsehoods weakens your argument).
3) We agree that the finite-ness of fossil fuels are a reason for concern. Where we disagree is that I think that it should be addressed head-on, fully and openly discussing the merits as such. You think that the AGW scare is the perfect excuse to piggy-back and achieve the same ends without actually addressing the issue.
4) Couldn't agree more.
5) Problem of the commons - we'll continue to agree to disagree.

What is new here, and I have asked the question of dawei87, and I will directly ask you: the scientists whose job it is to determine the science that you and I argue about, have been shown to have acted unethically and with malice and forethought. So, based on that fact, is their science suspect? If not, why not? (Please at least tell us that you are appalled by the unethical behavior of certain individuals).

One last thing about the precautionary principle - you do understand that the absolutely correct implementation of the precautionary principle specifically excludes applying it?

 

[jmw]

Pascals wager

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com