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

[jmw]

To be honest, I suspect Russel's celestial tea pot may be more to the point here since it deals with the burden of proof and the difficulty of proving a negative.
In this case AGW is looking more and more like the tea pot every day.

Now if I can get Schroedinger's cat in somewhere.... Oh, but wait, there is a problem with that damn cat which we can only resolve, it appears, by assuming spontaneous wave collapseor some other objective collapse theories......AGW exists only when we are not measuring it. The moment we measure it, it undergoes spontaneous collapse and we have one or other of its eigen states it is either true or it is not true and so far ...?
yes, I like the idea of quantum theory applied to AGW.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ewh]

Thanks jmw,,, that was it, along with the Agnostic Atheism Wager.

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

 

[cranky108]

"It seems that I have also heard the precautionary principal applied to theology."

I don't like dismissing any theorys. But if it is simple things like recyleing cans because it saves 50% of the energy, I can do that.

However, if you want to gas prices to increase by 50 to 100%, I disagree. It's just a theory until it has been proven.

Precautionary does not mean whole hog. It means proceed with some amount of concern (somewhere between none and some).

I actually want to see hard facts before we see any regulations. What I do on my own is how much I feel is worthwhile.

 

[dawei87]

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.

TGS, thank you for the question and apologies for the delay in replying.

“Are you trying to justify unethical behavior”?

Not at all. I didn't reject the significance of the emails automatically, but I did approach them with a degree of skepticism. I thought that’s what a good skeptic was supposed to do? Surely you don’t condone those who lap up truncated quotes and say good night without bothering to find out what they really mean. And I have yet to see a single quote that did not become far less serious when brought into its actual context.

“Do you do justify unethical behavior in your work as an engineer?”

I would not condone someone engaging in deception in the field of engineering. But I would also not accept the practice of looking at the thousands of emails that I, or you, or anyone else in the field has sent over the past ten years, quote mining and cherry picking sentences (or even parts of sentences) that seem suspicious, and using that against the author of the emails.

Do you really think there is no piece of any of your personal emails that when totally removed from context might make you appear in a less than flattering light? If so you must have an extraordinarily cautious approach to the wording of your informal emails that you believe are (and always will be) kept private from the general public.

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

It should make us skeptical of the science, sure. And it did. That's why they were investigated. By no fewer than six different organizations (Penn State, the UK House of Commons of Commons Science and Technology, University of East Anglia, the US EPA, The Department of Commerce Inspector General, and the National Science Foundation).

All six of them, while finding some reason to criticize scientists, found that the overall integrity of the science was sound.

I can agree that they are guilty of being reluctant to release some information that should be public. In response to Climategate (the first one) they released huge amounts of data that was not before available. These “new” emails are not new, they are from pre-climategate times bringing up the same problems about withholding information. A problem that has been adequately addressed by greatly increased transparency of data and methods. That’s why this new release is stale bread.

Now, can you see why the emails in fact reveal that there is no significant hoax going on? Keeping in mind that these emails are private, the scientists had no reason to hold back from what they were really thinking and really wanted to say to each other.

And what do they demonstrate? Scientists arguing and debating about the integrity of various pieces of data, or figures, or papers. They are engaging in the very practice of skepticism and open-mindedness and internal argument that skeptics talking of collusion seem to claim isn't happening. They are arguing against cases of exaggeration, personal bias, and scientific oversight--all things that they are supposedly guilty of purposely accepting every day and without a second thought.

Climategate has been the biggest nail in the coffin yet to the hypothesis that AGW a total bald-faced lie perpetrated by scientists perfectly colluding together (which to be fair is an idea that you don’t appear to subscribe to yourself, at least not to the extent of some others here [including one individual who feels that “science is irrelevant”] so this point is not specifically directed to you.)

We can agree that they should have handled FOIA requests and the divulging of information better. But it's a lesson they've been beaten with so thoroughly in the aftermath of Climategate that I suspect that climatology currently has more of its data and methods available to the general public than any other modern field of science.

 

[dawei87]

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.

And I think that's perfectly legitimate and I would probably completely agree with your entire opinion on this. What’s unfortunate is that people are so bogged down in the idea of the hoax that meaningful and productive discussions about what the best solution might truly be do not even get a chance to start.

I see comparisons made to Russell’s Teapot. My answer to that would be to take another Dawkins favorite and argue that with religion it shouldn’t matter. You don’t believe in God out of fear of being wrong. That would be pretty unflattering to God if he did exist. But in any case it is a purely personal question.

AGW is not personal. It either exists or it doesn’t, and eventually it will be proven one way or the other beyond the doubt of even the most hardlined skeptic. In 50-100 years, no one will be arguing about the reality of AGW anymore. We will all have the answer when we turn on the weather channel or walk outside, unlike the question of faith in which that answer only comes after we die, at which point most people stop debating. But what I think what Molten was getting at—and this is a frustration I share myself, particularly among engineers—is the demand that no action can be justifiable until this point of certainty (lying in the indefinite future) has been obtained. Why that's frustrating is that it's essentially a demand to wait until AGW has already played out its worst effects.

It's understandable to want certainty before taking big actions, but the nature of this problem means that we simply don't have that luxury.

 

[owg]

to dawi87:

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

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

So the answer is zero, we agree.





HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[moltenmetal]

owg: I've typed this reply several times and can't find the words to respond. If your world view is so narrow that you're willing to put a small benefit for your (our) own country ahead of a huge problem for most of the world's population...your position is so unethical that it leaves me speechless. No wonder our country is being tarred with the tarsands brush in the international media- it appears that some of us actually deserve it.

 

[cranky108]

If it is unethical to put your own interests above that of other people, then we as a society have a big problem. I see that type of behavior while driving to work every day.

Unethical is to act on your own interests solely for your own gain by cheeting, lying, or other criminal activity.

To discuss how a common event, or movement is to your gain is not unethical.

In some ways we all have a gain or loss if the climate should change. Why is that a problem?

 

[jmw]

What can I say?
The fact that the apparent warming appears only in the homogenised data and not in the raw data, the fact that they are concerned that even in the homogenised data there is insufficient warming for their case....
I wouldn't buy a use car from any of these people far less invest trillions in fixing something that most probably isn't broken.
The various false claims made about warming (or are we talking about abrupt climate change now? or maybe its "catastrophic climate change"?) and while they talk about various effects masking the true extent of global warming maybe the case is that various effects are masking the true extent of global cooling.
It may just be that we really are in a mini ice age and the precautionary actions recommended may actually make things a damn sight worse because the re-inforce an existing (natural) trend.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ewh]

dawei87,
You state that AWG is not personal and it either exists or it doesn't, but the question of the existence of God is a personal one. I have to disagree. While someone's belief in God is entirely personal, the existence of God, like AWG, is not subjective. One clear difference is that AWG is a matter of degree, while the existence or non-existence of a supreme being is absolute, and has nothing to do with personal belief. Unless of course you want to approach the question from more of a quantum viewpoint. ;-)

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

 

[rb1957]

personally i think the only way we'd know for sure would be to create a parallel universe and change some of the actions. looking back from the future would be tainted with our opinions and biases.

maybe not burning fossil fuels will reduce the concentration of a trace gas by a significant amount, maybe not. maybe not burning FFs will have other unintended -ve effects ... restrict global economy, more importantly global economy and standard of living.

i think we can allow the burning of wood, since it is reasonably renewable.

maybe we adopt sustainable life-styles and accept the limitiations that would place on our society.

IMVHO, i don't think anyone can prove the occurrence of AGW (or not). if they were cooking the books to get the result they wanted ... how can that be acceptable ? how can you write that off as a human failing ?? if i cooked my calcs, and something bad happened, someone would cook my goose !

i think the AGW claim is based on "even if it isn't, can you take the risk ?" and the "deniers" is based on "how do you know it'll make ANY difference ?".

 

[ornerynorsk]

I am very much against Chicken Little using public funds to "prove" that the sky is falling. I'd much like to see a large enough acorn to shut up these garbage "scientists" and prod them toward work to which they're more suited. Sales and marketing, perhaps.

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.

 

[jmw]

I think we can allow the burning of wood, since it is reasonably renewable.

Great swathes of forest have disappeared over the years even with us switching to gas. The fad for wood burning stoves has resulted in poaching wood rather than buying it. Retailed in little bundles it ain't that cheap.
So we have people buying chain saws (which burn fossil fuels) and harvesting their firewood in an unsustainable way.
Now let me see, when we consider just how much woodland was lost due to agriculture and fuel use in pre-industrial times, I wonder how long wood will last with 7 billion people using it and happily logging it late at night and not replanting or managing it properly... and if we look for examples of economies dependent on wood for fuel do we see a happy people or a people who have so deforested the land that the first rain washes everything away?
Wood is a luxury.
It will also have to compete with "bio-fuels" and food. And we still have to leave somewhere for the orang outang to live.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cranky108]

If we can't use wood, what do we do with all these trees killed by insects? Just let them rot.

I see more wood poaching because people want to place them in there homes for a month.

But isen't one biofuel natural gas?

In all honestly, there already is logging, but all the smaller stuff is left because there isen't much of a market.

And if you buy your wood at the grocery story you must be preaty stupid. Most people buy wood in much larger sizes, with a much lower cost of packaging.

Or maybe you would perfer we use dung as a fuel.

 

[SnTMan]

Well, I wasn't going to enter this fray, but on the subject of burning wood, I actually saw this, I think it was in the newspaper.

A picture of rows of cow pies drying in the sun, caption said it was a more "sustainable" fuel than wood. Well. Maybe for some people in some places, (I mean I personally don't own any cows, nor do I own enough trees to talk about in terms of fuel) but I think most anyone would agree it would be difficult to find a poorer fuel that cow dung, excepting no fuel at all.

Is this really an environmental approach to energy or just... (Words fail me).

Regards,

Mike

 

[cranky108]

I don't remember saying anything about cows. What other animals live near by.

Hint: look in the mirror.

 

[moltenmetal]

Cranky, now you’ve got me thinking, which is a dangerous thing.

I can think of plenty of examples of how it’s unethical to think of your own interests first, forgetting about the interests of others, even if you don’t commit a crime in the process..

If you’re first in a lifeboat and can man the oars, is it unethical to row away from the rest of the survivors still in the water because that will mean there’s more water and provisions for you?

Is it ethical to leave your children a huge debt? That would be in your interest- you’d have more to spend now.

If Canada were to not join a global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions merely because we’re a big and growing exporter of fossil fuels and we feel that global warming will benefit most of our landmass (regrettably not the portion of our landmass where 80% of our population lives), I guess that wouldn’t make us unethical. It would make us self-serving and very poor global citizens- international paraiahs actually. But then again, fossil fuels have us globally dealing with all sorts of paraiah states already, so nothing new there.

 

[cranky108]

Maybe that is the flaw of ethics, that we don't have a common meaning.

At what point do we leave behind self-serving, and become ethical? You go to the store and there is one loaf of bread left. Do you take it, or leave it for someone more in need?

I suppose you could say it is more ethical for Canada to not sell there oil, and gas, because it could cause global warming. But what about all those unemployed oil field workers?

Is it unethical to ignor all this global warming stuff because it is an unproven theory? Or is it unethical to force everyone to do everything they can, because it might be real?

Ethics is something each of us must decide. I don't believe in taking anything that isen't mine. But just as the national debt is mine, so is the national resources. And I intend to use what I need.

 

[cranky108]

As a slightly different topic, Has any one seen where the US is now exporting refined petroliem products?

I guess our consumption has droped in recent years (I don't know the percentages).

 

[rb1957]

i wouldn't consider natural gas to be a biofuel, any more than i would consider petroleum to be one. the difference (between FFs and biofuels) in my mind is biofuels (the way they're talked about in the media) are produced from a biostock created recently but FFs were converted from biostock over centuries ... burning biofuels "recycles" the carbon, burning FFs liberates carbon sequestered centuries ago.

btw, isn't methane a much more "effective" GHG have CO2 ? isn't methane produced by land-fills (and swamps). complaining about landfills (as a source of methane) would have provoked much less laughter than pointing to cow farts ... but then maybe there was a vege agenda at work too ?