"Educated" opinions on climate change - Part 3 42

[jmw]

At 273 posts I guess the time has come to request the old thread archived and continue in a new thread and it is in this thread that I think the latest news has its proper place.

The world has never seen such freezing heat

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

Oh dear,
just what do you have to do to lose the last shreds of credibility?

Tell me honestly folks, how many engineers would still have a job with a track record like Hansen?
Actually, perhaps we'd better not answer that because I suspect the answer is that in any profession there are complete f***-ups who will never be brought to book simply because the credibility of the people who have believed them for so long is also at risk and once one goes then the domino effect comes into being.

I guess that it is only when NASA closes that we will see and end to the career of this fine purveyor of temperature data but we can be sure he will turn up in some other role on the IPCC or as an acolyte of Nobel Laureate, Al Gore.

Success, it seems, depends not on getting it right but on notoriety and why else would so many deadly politicians earn so much on the speaking circuit once they have finally left office and while their dark deeds are still fresh in everyone's mind?


You know I can't help wondering, if it weren't for those "Chads" I wonder what sort of a condition the world would be in now? And, if we are in dire financial straits now, what kind of position would we otherwise be in?



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[LCruiser]

http://www.urbanheatislands.com/

 

[cranky108]

First we were told to put solar panels on our roofs, now they want the roofs white. So will we be expected to paint the solar panels white?

In a hot area, a white roof makes since, just like a dark roof in a cool area. But what about people inbetween? Should we be expected to paint our roofs white with water colors every spring?

 

[KENAT]

Don't be silly cranky108. Just get reversible roofs;-)

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at posting policies:

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

What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484

 

[SnTMan]

cranky108, getting rid of all that leftover latex is a big deal these days

 

[csd72]

Just to reinvigorate this post.

I came across the following lecture on the web, it is fascinating what they say about climate change and everything in general:

http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html

 

[owg]

Thanks for that link csd72. It leads to a lot of interesting stuff. I like the idea of not needing to know whether Global Warming is or is not a threat. Bjorn says its not a priority anyway.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[jmw]

Great link but what about the 2008 conference?
The trouble is that he is being sane, rational and thinks that is how things should be done and how decisions should be taken.

I don't know if he thinks that is how things could be done or if he is just amusing himself.

If we look carefully, we'll see that this is the antithesis of how governments understand and decide things.
How the UN decides things is even less logical and the "unifying" agency for global action is the UN.

Of course, in the militant anarchist approach to controlling the world, adopted by greenies, is to gain influence in as many such bodies as possible. This is Archimedes "give me a lever and a place to stand and I'll move the world." approach. Simply leverage power in niche organisations and let the influence reach out and control the lives of billions.

In such cases the decision criteria will never be as BL describes it. They will be based on the best way to maximise fear (ignorance helps) and how to leverage that into something that will destroy society. They also know politicians are their unwitting or uncaring dupes who see the deliverable as their way to control voters.

Small wonder the no one is going to spend anything meaningful on AIDs, nor on malaria.

Most importantly, he lacks and will be denied the right media response, he has already been categorised as a "denier" and as an economist and not a climatologist.
This is not a message that the media will help spread.

So, top of the list is climate change and its going to stay there.
Sad, but there it is.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[owg]

Here is a link to a 2008 Copenhagen Consensus Conferencence summary.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/126753.html

Combatting HIV/AIDS dropped from #1 in 2004 to #19 in 2008. Since these tend to be long term projects, this instability is a bit disturbing. Still global warming held firm in last place, even in a longer list.



HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[owg]

Here is a link to the top 30 from 2008.

http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=953

Note that R&D on low carbon technologies made it in at #14, but Global Warming mitigation only, was a solid #30. I am baffled to note that Copenhagen 2009 (December) will be all about climate change. What did I miss?


HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[jmw]

Of course, there is a flaw in these arguments too.
The premise that climatologists should tell us about climate change and malaria experts about malaria but that economists should price it all up is fine, so far as it goes.

BUT; I am wary of making decisions based only on the economics, I think we have all seen what happens to companies when the bean counters move in and I would hope that isn't what is happening here.... OTOH, compared with the way they do it now, bring on the bean counters.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[csd72]

I think the diffference here is that when it is a company the accountants are there to juice as much profit out of the system, whereas in this case they are trying to get as much done with a finite level of money. I can see how this could work.

Unfortunately there is no perfect form of comparison.

 

[LCruiser]

Particularly when we really don't know the benefits vs. the costs of CO2 increasing.

There is an argument to be made that convection is the buffer for ghg's - the more ghg's, the more heat closer to the ground, the more convection. Evaporation/convection moves a huge amount of heat from the surface to the mid troposphere. The average global rainfall is about a meter per year. Figure out the joules yourself. That's about 100 w/m^2. A couple percent change in that number alone wipes out the difference from the CO2 increase.

 

[gearguru]

Just found this article:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25648336-30417,00.html

 

[csd72]

cracking stuff!

 

[satchmo]

http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....Store_id=c4ca8586-9be7-4337-8fce-f1dda1897279

 

[jmw]

Good links satchmo.
From the first I was immediately struck by:

Europe’s current policy and strategy for supporting the so-called “green jobs” or
renewable energy dates back to 1997, and has become one of the principal
justifications for U.S. “green jobs” proposals. Yet an examination of Europe’s
experience reveals these policies to be terribly economically counterproductive.

Hmmm. another example of selectivity when counting up jobs generated it fails to comment on jobs lost especially in support industries. I came across this somewhere else, if I could just think where....

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[GregLocock]

Can we close this thread and start a new one? Load time is getting silly.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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

 

[csd72]

Good idea! But we need to insert a bit more debate into it as interest seems to be waning.

 

[SnTMan]

csd72, I thought "the debate is over"

 

[ewh]

Who won?

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