Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? 25

[KENAT]

However, I'm pretty sure litres are the same size both sides of the pond, which is how the price is calculated in Europe (even the UK). I'd hope the folks that do the calcs convert it to US Gallons, but maybe not.

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[jmw]

Hmmm,
I see we are back onto the same topic as before.
I started this thread separately because it wasn't about climate change but about rigging the data and just about everything else to position us in a tight place.
Somehow I get the feeling that the point has been missed.

If you guys think it would be OK in your own work to make the data fit the results, to manipulate the peer review process etc. I'd be mighty surprised.

I also feel that as usual we are not seeing the real issue here which is not climate change but the question of professional integrity and ethics.

I am fine with scientists making public the results of their research but when they go of beam and turn into social engineers who think they have to make choices for the rest of us I begin to get a bit hinky.

Still, if you guys are happy not to make the distinction between this thread and the original and still separate and viable thread then fine by me.





JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[FeX32]

Not sure if you guys have seen this one:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/hctools/ImprimisTool/archives/2007_08_Imprimis.pdf

As for the manipulating of data, it is a byproduct of the "man made climate change problem" which is the root.

Actually, I have seen data manipulation in other places as well. Even in engineering. It seems that some "folk" in the area of data driven research are akin to this.

 

[NomLaser]

JMW

You're right, anyone in any other profession would be ridiculed and toss out of every corner if they cooked data to obtain the end result that they wanted. The problem with AGW is that everyone has been spoon-fed info for so long about how CO2 is 'harmful' and will destroy the Earth that no one's BS meter is in full tilt.

They assume that since CO2 is a GWG that the more that we put out, the more the Earth will warm. Seems somewhat logical. The real problem is that everyone gets lazy and doesn't think for themselves anymore. They let the MSM dictate what they watch and listen to. If it's not important enough to be on MSM then why bother? If one actually pays attention to where the money is going they will see how and why this has happened. Only now are people really starting to realize that AGW has no backbone to stand upon. They 'lost' the original datasets and now only have their value added data to fall back on. If that happened in any other profession you would be required to scrap all of your progress and start over. Sadly, no one seems to want to do that.

 

[moltenmetal]

owg: even in Ontario, 40% of your "hydro" comes from fossil fuels. Consider Carnot and do the math- the CFLs are doing a good job ALL YEAR- unless you heat your home with electric resistance in which case you should give your head a shake.

cranky: all my outdoor lights are CFLs and they work just fine- in Canada, where it gets plenty cold. They do take a while to start up, but when running they do plenty more lumens per watt than any halogen bulb. They're not as pretty and you can't dim them, but for raw efficiency they're great. Do you dim your outdoor lights or care about their colour temperature?!

jmw: I admitted that I personally made the whole AGW thing up. What more do you want? You can go on with life as normal, guilt free, because somebody lied about or distorted something. Nobody in the AGW denial camp is guilty of any over-simplification, subterfuge or out-right lies- they only have our best intentions at heart- maintaining teh status quo that we're all comfortable with. Go back to your homes- the whole thing was a hoax. Shut up and consume- the convenience you've demanded is now mandatory!

 

[cranky108]

molten, since you asked, my outdoor lights are either movement sensitive, or solar (because I was to lazy to run the wires).
If you really want efficent lights, look into HPS.

jwm, I have seen dishonesty for an agenda, but not to this scale. And it usually involved favors (translation: my good buddy). The root always seems to be a sales person, and a lack of ethics.
However, the person doing this did not feel bad about bending the facts.
But what is the difference between rigging a bid, or just never going out to bid? The customer pays more, and who cares?

Here is the concern; what if they did rigg the data, but broke no laws. What is the perception, or recourse?

 

[NomLaser]

FWIW, just saw this on BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394483.stm

UN body wants probe of climate e-mail row

The UN panel on climate change says claims UK scientists manipulated global warming data to boost the argument it is man-made should be investigated.

The allegations emerged after e-mails written by members of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were posted on the internet.

Robert Watson, one of the government's chief scientific advisors, has called for all the raw data to be published.

Norfolk police are investigating whether computers were hacked.

'Serious issue'

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading body for assessing climate change science.

The organisation's chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri told BBC Radio 4's The Report programme the claims were serious and he wants them investigated.

"We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it," he said.

"We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail."

Last week, the IPCC defended its procedures in the wake of the row.

One of the leaked e-mails suggested CRU head Dr Phil Jones wanted certain papers excluded from the UN's next major assessment of climate science.

Dr Jones, who has stood aside from his job pending the results of an internal review, strenuously denies this was his intention and says other e-mails have been taken out of context.

The row broke out two weeks ago when hundreds of messages between scientists at the CRU and their peers around the world were put on the internet along with other documents.

Carbon intensity - A unit of measure. The amount of carbon emitted by a country per unit of Gross Domestic Product.
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Glossary in full

Climate "sceptics" have claimed that the e-mails undermine the scientific case for climate change being caused by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, dubbing the issue "ClimateGate".

Other academics prominent in developing the mainstream view of climate science maintain that the contents of the stolen documents make no difference to the picture outlined by IPCC in its landmark 2007 assessment.

 

[jmw]

Moltenmetal,
I am happy to challenge you on AGW over on the other thread.

I wanted here to look at what these first revelations mean (there is said to be another 100MB waiting to be uploaded).

I know that some people think/believe. know that AGW is happening and others think/believe/know that it isn't.
Not just here but in the outside world.
There are climatologists on both sides, scientists on both sides.
The point here is about why scientists should expect to get away with manipulating data and the peer review process etc etc and what it says for AGW that they have to do so.

If anyone who was an advocate of AGW before still is as certain as before I'd find it hard to believe. I wouldn't necessarily expect hem to say OK, there is no AGW.
I would expect them to say "lets clear the debris and have a proper incontrovertible look in what's left over.

On the other side, there are many people who believe the AGW case is pure hokum many will say this just proves it.

I think it is hokum but I don't think this proves it. I think it does raise some very serious questions and I think that because of that I'd be even more loathe to endorse any precautionary principle or any major government shenanigans on the back of it.

I'll go further and say that if the majority of the popuation wants to cut way back on emissions even though they don't think AAGW is real but just because its a good thing then I'd have to go along.

What really bugs me is that we are heading for the situation where even though a majority of the population may think AGW doesn't exist or simply irrespective of whether it exists or not, that they'd like not to do what the pollies want to do, then the pollies have no business doing stuff that only a minority favour doing. That isn't democracy, that's a fair ways along toward a totalitarian state.

Oh, and by the way, the guy who really scares me is John Holden.
he wants to talk about "climate disruption" because "climate change".

I'd like to see these guys just present the facts in an unemotional neutral way, explain carefully and then let people make value judgements about what should be done.

Too many of these scientists are telling us not only what the problem is but what we should do and they aren't even concerned to let us decide if we want to do anything or not.

So, if you want to go that extra mile on green living fine, but unless a majority agrees to do so too, I'll choose what I want to do and how I want to do it.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cranky108]

Can we put GW on trial like they did Darwin?
However in some peoples mind, we still haven't concluded that.

I don't think the issue is if GW exists. It should be why are goverments not listening to the population.

 

[TGS4]

I hate to harp on this point, something that I keep bringing up every time this thread reappears:

Why is the climate at (insert your favourite date here) constitute "good" and any deviation from it, whether caused by anthropogenic means or not, constitute "bad"?

Imagine our caveman forefathers having this discussion near the end of the last ice-age. Global warming was certainly happening then. Sea levels rose >80ft. Massive ice sheets and glaciers melted. But, that condition was all that mankind at that point knew - so the changes (as in climate change) were, no doubt, catastrophic for them. Some species became extinct. Some human populations likely died. Humans as a species, however, moved on, adapted, and went along our merry way.

So, whether or not climate change is anthropogenic or not, who really cares? Seriously! Adapt or die. Move or die. That's kinda the way this planet rolls. Or at least has rolled for the last 5+ billion years. What makes this moment in time so different.

Back to the original topic - did the folks at CRU cook the books? I don't know. I think that phrases like "used so-and-so's TRICK" are pretty common slang for clever ideas - I use them all the time. "Hide the decline" on the other hand sounds suspicious.

I don't want to take another's word for it that AGW is happening - show me the DATA. Not the cooked and modified and fixed data, but the DATA. And, while they're at it, show the source code for their climate models. We can only argue with their predictions if we know what their predictions are predicated on. From the sounds of some of these e-mails, the assumptions and correlations are so convoluted, that eventually they just fit the models to the data. Unfortunately, the models no longer represent any physical phenomenon. Or, the models that did represent physical phenomenon can't predict the actual data. Sounds like a good reason to start back at square one to me - not try to bring about financial and governmental changes.

Like JMW and moltenmetal (and others) have said - saving a finite resource in fossil fuels is a good reason in and of itself to conserve. But don't couch the argument in "the planet is going to self-destruct" because of warming. That's simply dishonest.

 

[rb1957]

i think it does matter whether climate change is caused by AGW or by some other "natural" process. if it is by a "natural" process (like changes in the big glowing ball in the sky) then you could say it was meant to happen, and we'd probably focus on dealing with the situation that results. if it is driven by AGW processes then you could reasonably conclude that we're messing with the "natural" climate (sort of analogous to pollution) and we should stop, etc.

the problem with the politics of CC is that it's become so politicised that both sides of the political spectrum offer the same policy, trying to attract voters. maybe we're seeing the beginnings of questioning, and the proposal of an alternative policy (maybe one focused on conservative, rather than controlling CO2 in the atmosphere) to give voters a choice.

here's hoping ...

 

[CajunCenturion]

GregLocock - That's a fair point, but how much of the behavior change was at the consumer level, and how much was at the manufacturer level? And how much did the manufacturer's response actually offset some of the consumer behavior?

I presume there are effects on both sides. That being said, I still stand by the notion that levying taxes makes to discourage certain action makes for a good behavior modification technique.


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

 

[NomLaser]

Cajun

I disagree, negative reinforcement never/rarely works. What you will do is tax the corporations for spewing out emissions and they will pass that along to consumers. If consumers don't have any other option they will be forced to pay the prices and deal with it until there is a breaking point. Either the economy bankrupts itself or there is a revolt among the people. Neither of which we should be doing to try and force environmental changes that may or may not make any difference.

What happens when the world reduces their CO2 output and the world starts (or continues) warming? Are the scientists going to say that we aren't doing enough or will they be willing to rethink their ideas?

 

[GregLocock]

Buffett said that there have been something like 1000 car companies in the USA. Now there are, well, one really.

Making cars is intensely competitive, car companies regularly went bust when they tried to sell something that consumers weren't interested in. They don't go bust if they invest several years profits in bringing out an alternative as quickly as they can. BTDT twice.

What I am getting at is that given new car will only sell profitably if (a) it meets the government regs (so clunky as it is CAFE does have some effect) and (b) customers want it. To satisfy the tradeoffs in the latter we build funny little models, that attempt to provide an optimum profitability, base don the attractivenss of various features.

Does a customer want 3* crash or 5*? 5* of course.

That adds $2000 to the price, increases the car's mass by 50 kg, reduces fuel consumption by 3%. Does the customer still want it? Well, he doesn't care about mass. Our engine boys can probably get that 3% back for $500, that's what the customer has been buying.

Or say we can improve the 0-60 time by 1 second, with no degradation in fuel consumption for another $500? Guess what, that is what customers have been going for, for the last 20 years.

The truth is that even at $4 per gallon the cost of fuel is a small fraction of the true cost of ownership of a new vehicle, as such tax increases on fuel have to be enormous before they provide a signal to the market for new cars.


Cheers

Greg Locock

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[owg]

For anyone who has an hour or two to spare, this link gives a good background on global warming work from 1820 almost to today.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[GregLocock]

Sorry, that was spectacularly incoherent. Here's what i should have typed

Buffett said that there have been something like 1000 car companies in the USA. Now there are, well, one really.

Making cars is intensely competitive, car companies regularly went bust when they tried to sell something that consumers weren't interested in, but the car company thought they /should/ buy. If they don't go bust as a result it is because they invest several years profits in bringing out an alternative as quickly as they can. BTDT twice.

What I am getting at is that given new car will only sell profitably if (a) it meets the government regs (so clunky as it is CAFE does have some effect) and (b) customers want it. To satisfy the tradeoffs in the latter we build funny little models, that attempt to provide an optimum profitability, based on the attractiveness of various features.

For the last 20 years cars have been getting heavier, more crashworthy, and faster. Fuel consumption has remained about the same. The reasoning roughly is as follows-

Does a customer want 3* crash or 5*? 5* of course.

That adds $2000 to the price, increases the car's mass by 50 kg, reduces fuel consumption by 3%. Does the customer still want it? Well, he doesn't care about mass. Our engine boys can probably get that 3% back for $500, that's what the customer has been buying.

And say we can improve the 0-60 time by 1 second, with no degradation in fuel consumption for another $500? Guess what, that is what customers have been going for, for the last 20 years.

10-15 years ago Audi released a small diesel car. It got something around 60 mpg in real life usage. Disappeared without trace.

The truth is that even at $4 per gallon the cost of fuel is a small fraction of the true cost of ownership of a new vehicle, as such tax increases on fuel have to be enormous before they provide a signal to the market for new cars.



Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[CajunCenturion]

NormLaser - ==> I disagree, negative reinforcement never/rarely works.
I'm completely with you. Please see my post of 2 Dec 09 9:43, paragraph three, where I argue against taxes. My post of 4 Dec 09 17:02 should say that although I recognize Greg's point about EU fuel taxes, I stand by the notion that taxes are NOT a good behavior modification technique.

Greg - If I'm reading it correctly, I think you're supporting the case against taxes as a means to control behavior. In your post of 2 Dec 09 16:57 you ask, "So why does the European private vehicle fleet average (say) 30 mpg, and the US one say 20 mpg? You don't think higher fuel taxes might have something to do with it?". In your post of 5 Dec 09 1:29 you tell of the 60 mpg diesel that disappeared without a trace and further, that even a $4/g tax is a small fraction of the cost. In fact, tax increases on fuel have to be enormous before they provide a signal to the market for new cars.

So what does account for the higher efficiency vehicles in Europe? What I'm wondering is if in response to the higher taxes, did the European buying public opt for a more efficient product rather than a change in attitude and behavior. As I said in my post of 4 Dec 09 17:02, I suspect there is probably a little bit of both.

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

 

[NomLaser]

This should really make Copenhagen interesting

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece

Met Office to re-examine 160 years of climate data

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.

The Met Office works closely with the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), which is being investigated after e-mails written by its director, Phil Jones, appeared to show an attempt to manipulate temperature data and block alternative scientific views.

The Met Office’s published data showing a warming trend draws heavily on CRU analysis. CRU supplied all the land temperature data to the Met Office, which added this to its own analysis of sea temperature data.

Since the stolen e-mails were published, the chief executive of the Met Office has written to national meteorological offices in 188 countries asking their permission to release the raw data that they collected from their weather stations.

The Met Office is confident that its analysis will eventually be shown to be correct. However, it says it wants to create a new and fully open method of analysing temperature data.

The development will add to fears that influential sceptics in other countries, including the US and Australia, are using the controversy to put pressure on leaders to resist making ambitious deals for cutting CO2.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change admitted yesterday that it needed to consider the full implications of the e-mails and whether they cast doubt on any of the evidence for man-made global warming.

 

[rb1957]

i find it odd that the NOAA says their data is good and they're predicting the same thing as the alledged "fudged" CRU data ...

 

[rb1957]

"Buffett said that there have been something like 1000 car companies in the USA. Now there are, well, one really."

greg, i guess i'd count two (US car manufacturers) ... Ford and GM (opps, the US govt)