Educated" opinions on climate change - Part 4 27

[controlnovice]

Do you think an impartial and independent review panel of scientists can be found? I think they have all chosen sides.

Exactly why JMW continued this discussion in a new thread. Even when scientists are discussing AGW, in this case Polar Bear population, they don't invite the scientist who disagree with them.

______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

 

[zdas04]

JMW,
The reference you provided on Saturday has a great quote in it

But even a compromise could inflict devastating damage on our own economic future – all for a theory now shot so full of holes that its supporters are having to suppress free speech to defend it.

.

What I find most fascinating is the seemingly inexhaustible discussion below the article. It mirrors this one quite well. "The climate is heating up (with references)", "The climate is cooling down (with references)", "The glaciers are melting (with references)", "The glaciers are advancing (with references)". The "deniers" claiming that politicians are using AGW as a smoke screen to hide their other abuses. The "members of the Church of Global Warming" saying that no credible scientists disagree with AGW (or is it Global Climate Change?).

My view is that the definition of "belief" is "acceptance of a postulate in the absence of data", and this subject is just too much like other religions in that every single piece of data can be used to support either position.

David

 

[cranky108]

Is there a reason poor people don't use energy efficent devices? Maybe because they are poor and can't afford them.

Wealther people tend to use energy more efficently. However, wealther people also tend to have more energy demands.

Has anyone seen a $10,000 house? It's small, uses loads of energy, and the owners paided cash.

So is the solution high energy costs, and loads of assistance. Or low energy costs, and much less assistance.

The issue is peoples attitudes. If they believe at all about reducing energy consumption (Forget global anything), then it needs to be packaged and sold.
Craming it down as taxes just makes people mad, angry, and defiant.

 

[BJC]

Actions taken to mitigate global warming ( real, imaginary, political etc ) won't be decided by engineers. Engineers will build the systems to do what is needed to fix it (real or imaginary). has anyone ever worked on a scrubber system on a power plant? Within 10 years the CO2 capture will be just another system on a power plant. The cost will be passed on to consumers (just like a scrubber, cooling tower precipitator etc).
Lots of things get built that arn't really practical or needed, or shouln't be needed if the world is was a better ( saner ) place. I have only met one engineer who refused to work on defense projects ( this was at a big time AEC company ). the rest of us are more or less who _ _ _s- goe anyplace, do anything for money.

 

[moltenmetal]

cranky108: the current market created the current consumption patterns.

Want new consumption patterns? You MUST change the market.

Relying on people's sense of morality alone on this issue is a recipie for failure.

Like it or not, the carbon tax is necessary. People can be angry, defiant, and will still pay the tax- and will also alter their consumption to suit their pocketbook.

What some of you want is an "objective" set of scientists, because you believe the existing group is beholden to vested interests. Sorry, but you don't get to change the scientific community just because their views don't suit your own!

 

[cranky108]

As taxes go higher, the black market will get bigger. Cheating and corruption will become larger, and yes there will be some reduction in consumption. But with the reduction in consumption there will also be a greater demand for assistance, and higher demands for medical care.
Expect food prices to go up, and import demands of goods to increase.

Nontaxed energy will become more important.

Next question: Will the goverment exempt itself from this? (Not that they pay taxes anyway. But from the reductions).

 

[jmw]

Oops!
Just when the IUK has decided to turn the Peak District into a giant wind farm, Christopher Booker puts his finger on a small concern about the recent colder weather which is likely to adversely affect crops:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/.../Crops-under-stress-as-temperatures-fall.html

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SomptingGuy]

Booker is becoming like Dawkins. He protesteth too much.

This article is typical. Climate change does not mean that the whole world will experience the same change. Local climates are largely controlled by ocean currents. Daffodils being a week late in the Scilly Isles one year does not indicate a global cooling.

- Steve

 

[Tomfh]

jmw,

What do you make of Booker's claims that the theory of evolution is a lie?

 

[jmw]

I think that the concept of evolution probably works very well with probably some need to understand parts of it better rather than postulate some radical alternative go explain what we don't understand. Why? it is the simplest solution and I'd rather suspect that by trying to understand the simple we will find the answers we need and bot go running off after some new Lysenkoism.

It seems people are quite happy with the idea of small incremental changes over a very long time but far less happy with the idea of radical changes over a short time and into which concept they find it difficult to understand how complex organs can evolve.

There are some simple clues.
Awhile back, before the smoke free zones, smokeless fuels and gas fired central heating i.e. back when pollution was orders of magnitude higher than today, London buterflies were very dark but with the changes to smokeless fuels, tree bark lightened up and it didn't take very long before butterflies were light coloured.

Then too we have accounts of how the enormous quantities of agent orange and the various defoliants dumped on Vietnakm lead to a rapid evolution of the insects such that some where concentrating the toxins for their own use in their venom. Some postulated that the insects seemed almost pre-programmed.

So what I suggest is that under extremes of an environment that threatens a significant impact on a population in some way evolutionary forces are equal to the challenge.
It is a it like suggesting that modern computers still lack the ability to perform some calculations or test out some models. There is always some one who points out that if you ran every combination, even with the best computer speed available, you'd still need a hundred years or a thousand years to run them all.
Except.
Except if you use the idle computing power of millions of PCs in screen saving mode to run a different solution on each of them.

So it might be with evolution, that it works slowly and incrementally where there are small forces in the environment but where there are major pressures, it "forces" large and rapid changes. Don't forget that some species may disappear if they can't respond but where a species shows any response, it does well.
That too is a survival trait and what we see today, like in a knock-out league, are all the species that survived past high pressure events.
Incidentally, notice ho simple environmental factors can lead to significant changes. A small temperature change is all that is required to change the sex of the unborn crocodile in its egg.

After the Great War the number of male children born was significantly higher than normally experienced.

Myxametosis nearly wiped out rabbits but the ones that survived were those that spent most time above ground. Small thing but critical and however few or however many there were that liked it above ground, they won that round. It just takes two of them to survive and, well you know rabbits.
It may be that the species was almost wiped out by the change but so what.

In other words, we can see some rather fleeting events that threaten dire consequences for a species and which produce significant outcomes.

We are talking here about relatively simple changes in response to exceedingly short term pressures. So, who is to say that with the right sort of extreme pressures sustained over longer periods and perhaps with a mix of other factors that evolution isn't capable of accounting for it all? Given that I'd pursue the possibilities of a simple single solution rather than looking for something more dramatic and complicated to explain it all away.

I don't see that it is a case that modern concerns about the evolution of highly sophisticated organs is necessarily a problem. Evolution has not been proven wrong, it is just a lack of understanding how it works that is the problem.

The problem with Dawkins is he has as much belief that there is no god as there is belief amongst others that there is a God.
OIt doesn't matter how much more complicated the world becomes or nature or the age of the universe. To those who believe it just means God was cleverer and more subtle than previously given credit for.
Dawkins should know he can't prove the non-existence of something which can't be proved and should recognise that in the end, belief in or belief not in has no relevance to science.
When you come down to it, it is as easy to believe in God as not believe, but proof is equally as difficult on either side. The winners are those who don't ask for proof.
He should set it aside and get on with life.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[GregLocock]

Re effect of cloud cover

My friend Doc Martyn posted the following

http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf

This paper shows, for the first time using direct physical measurement, that the 'expected' positive feedback caused by cloud cover is in fact a negative feedback. This is actual SCIENCE as opposed to in silico modeling, a model has been TESTED using measurement.

Lindzen and his co-author's conclusion is that the climate sensitivity i.e. the expected warming obtained from doubling of CO2 from 280 ppm (in 1800) to 560 ppm (in 2100) is actually smaller than the bare value of 1.2 °C. It could be close to 0.5 °C which would mean that no additional warming from CO2 is expected by 2100.

The plot, on page 14, in the upper left is the actual measurement, the others are what the models predict.

http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf

Cheers

Greg Locock

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

 

[jmw]

Following the links and discussion of this on "Watts Up With That?" we come to a dumbed down paper (dumbed down for congress) by Roy Spencer:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....Store_id=e12b56cb-4c7b-4c21-bd4a-7afbc4ee72f3

(Thanks Roy, it saves me forcing my brain).
Coupled with this is a CARB report (Califorinia Air Resources Board)report which is decsribed as saying that the correlation bewteen heavy fuel oil Sulphur and particulates is weak.
I link the two because the IMO (Part of the UN) is pushing through ever more draconian measures to reduce sulphur emissions as part of a multi-straned (and sometimes conflicting) effort to reduce CO2 specifically (though the sulphur reduction measures will result in increased CO2 thorugh the extra refining) and other greenhouse gases and NOX and SOX.
Senator Boxer, mentioned in this report, features in various climate change initiatives including a plan to force shipping to use diesel not HFO.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[owg]

Thanks jmw, I am glad that I do not have to worry about global warming any more. Now I only have to worry about our response to it.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[jmw]

We always had to worry about our response to it, whether real or imaginary, its all one to politicians.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[NomLaser]

I just had a light bulb moment while reading over Nuclear Street's email newsletter and with the idea of water vapor playing a huge role in global warming.

My thought was, how much of an impact does nuclear energy play in the formation of water vapor? I remember hearing the push towards more nuclear energy during the campaigns. If water vapor is a big contributor to global warming then wouldn't the water vapor that they produce have a negative impact? I don't have the answers, obviously, but I'm curious as to what others think of it. This could be expanded into the idea of hydrogen based cars producing water vapor as emissions instead of hydrocarbons and CO2.

 

[tmacm]

Wow...

Think about the order of magnitude between the water vapor produced by all of the nuclear plants and hydrogen cars to all of the oceans, lakes and rivers in the world.

 

[NomLaser]

It was just a thought

 

[cranky108]

Don't let it get out, or we might see a hydrogen and carbon tax.

Then no more NASA hydrogen powered vehicles.

 

[owg]

Having just read the book available at

http://www.withouthotair.com/

, I note that the author identifies 3 reasons why the US should have a sensible energy policy.

1) Fossil fuels are a finite resource.
2) Most of the fossil fuels are outside of the US
3) Its very probable that using fossil fuels is changing the climate.

The first two points are essentially facts. The third is a bit iffy. The author spends very little time on the subject. So US energy policy should be soundly based on the first two points, and not get carried away with the third point just yet.

Wow, I was not planning to go there, but I think I just made a case for the US continuing to support expansion of the Athabasca Oil Sands operations.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[zdas04]

Unless there was an annexation that I haven't heard of, isn't Athabasca Oil Sands outside the US? Exports of cash from the US to Canada is still a net export.

Maybe oil sands in Colorado and Utah might make more sense.

David