I'm not worried about Global Warming

[Blenton]

The following illustrates the growing consensus of scientific experts that believe climate change over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
...
Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)
...

I used to receive Engineers Australia magazine every month, and with it every month were debates against global warming. I hardly think that all the 'engineers of australia' agree with GW (in fact I think most think its false).

 

[Andre]

There are some problems with that "consensus". The latest http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2282/Consensus-Takes-Another-Hit-More-than-60-German-Scientists-Dissent-Over-Global-Warming-Claims-Call-Climate-Fears-Pseudo-Religion-Urge-Chancellor-to-reconsider-views .

 

[Blenton]

Its great to see scientists waking up from the carbon dioxide wool that's been thrown over their eyes, I hope more will change their minds in the future.

And I hope that the damage Al Gore has wrought on this world with his movie (which seemed to be the final tipping point) is minimal. Sadly if it were up to him and other global warming twits they would attempt nuke those goddamn carbon dioxide bastards out of the atmosphere at any cost...

 

[ideasrule]

There are some problems with that "consensus". The latest http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2282/Consensus-Takes-Another-Hit-More-than-60-German-Scientists-Dissent-Over-Global-Warming-Claims-Call-Climate-Fears-Pseudo-Religion-Urge-Chancellor-to-reconsider-views .

Careful where you get your information from. That website's home page features this oversized headline:

"CO2 is 'Plant Food': Skeptical Physicist Declares 'those who want to reduce use of fossil fuels are mortal enemies of the biosphere' -- 'This is a profoundly evil act'"

I don't think even Evo would agree with that.

 

[ideasrule]

Well once we get all of our CO2 production down, we should go help out our solar neighbors with their global warming problem. Unless you want us to believe that our CO2 is traveling across the vast distance of space to warm up mars.

And yes I do have proof to back up my claim that Mars is also experiencing a warming trend.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html"

See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070527101114.htm for another report of the same warm-up. It's due to a change in albedo resulting from dust storms, not radiative forcing. Note that on Mars, dust storms are a very different creature from the "serious" ones you sometimes hear about on Earth; they often become global and obscure the entire planet's surface, turning it into featureless. (Such was the case during the 2001 Mars opposition. Amateur astronomers who waited for closest approach to observe the planet got http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast11oct_2.htm . Who knew that extraterrestrial weather can be more frustrating than Earth's?)

 

[Andre]

Careful where you get your information from. That website's home page features this oversized headline:

"CO2 is 'Plant Food': Skeptical Physicist Declares 'those who want to reduce use of fossil fuels are mortal enemies of the biosphere' -- 'This is a profoundly evil act'"

I don't think even Evo would agree with that.

thanks for giving another nice example of creating folk devils and moral panic.

Some references to think about

http://www.worldofteaching.com/powerpoints/english/Folk Devils and Moral Panics' -.ppt

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/mannheim/publications/cohen2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_devil

It appears that the creation of folks devils for anyone who dared to challenge global warming was initiated here:

...But what's not run-of -the-sty is a 1998 letter, signed by Enron's then-CEO Ken Lay (and a few other bigwigs), asking President Clinton, in essence, to harm the reputations and credibility of scientists who argued that global warming was an overblown issue. Apparently they were standing in Enron's way.

The letter, dated Sept. 1, asked the president to shut off the public scientific debate on global warming, which continues to this date. In particular, it requested Clinton to "moderate the political aspects" of this discussion by appointing a bipartisan "Blue Ribbon Commission."

The purpose of this commission was clear: high-level trashing of dissident scientists. Setting up a panel to do this is simple -- just look at the latest issue of Scientific American, where four attack dogs were called out to chew up poor Bjorn Lomborg. He had the audacity to publish a book demonstrating global warming is overblown.

Because of the arcane nature of science, it's easy to trash scientists. Imagine a 1940 congressional hearing to discredit Einstein. "This man actually believes the faster you drive, the slower your watch runs. Mr. Einstein, then why weren't you here yesterday?" The public, listening on radio, immediately concludes this Princeton weirdo is just another academic egghead. End of reputation.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/30/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other-secret.aspx

Oh and it doesn't make that dissent less real, does it? Would it be less true if ***fill in your worst enemy here*** declared that water boils at 100C or 212F or 373K?

Now about that headline, wouldn't it be worthwile to investigate the complete carbon cycle over the geologic past first to see if there may be some rationality in there or not?

 

[thomasxc]

Not that all Southerners are hicks; I have been privileged to know some well-educated, intelligent Southerners. But they are clearly not in the majority.

i was born, raised, and live in north central florida. that is so true.

 

[ideasrule]

thanks for giving another nice example of creating folk devils and moral panic.

It's called requesting reliable sources. A propaganda website that looks like the Time Cube and sounds like creationist ******** is clearly not a reliable source. Its arguments are similar to creationist ones, too: "Oh look, I found these couple of scientists who doesn't believe in A. Scientists are doubting A! The consensus is faltering!"

 

[Andre]

No it's called moral panic, but now I can thank you for demonstrating how something that orginally started as science has become something else, name it dogma, pseudo religion, politics or pseudo science, etc, whatever you like. Why? Because you declare it true by consensus and deny its falsifiability by declaring anybody who challenges it, to be a folk devil.

Science is fallacy free. But there are three major fallacies governing global warming, the argument at populum for the false consensus claim, the argumentum ad hominem (alleged oil company bribery and such) for all who oppose (and prove the non-consensus that way) and guilt by association by the comparison with young Earth creationists and/or flat eartheners and even suggestions of the holocaust (deniers).

 

[Andre]

Now maybe there is a misunderstanding here. We have climate issues and energy issues. Most certainly a carbon based economy will run into sustainability problems sooner or later and it we want to preserve Earth for our children, we need to put sustainability priority one on the list. Let there be no doubt about it.

On the other hand we have climate, which has done only one thing in the last 4.6 billion years, change and change again, all the time, always.

Furthermore there are physical properties to CO2, making it radiative in the Infra Red frequency bands in which Earth is emitting energy, which is likely to affect weather and climate, together with a bunch of other factors.

So obviously combining the two, it would be very convenient if it was to be made reasonable that more CO2 might ruin the climate and persuade humanity to behave better and stop emitting. There is only one problem. That can't be proven, on the contrary.

Even if more CO2 would mean a considerable warming of the climate, there is no way to predict if it is negative or positive. For instance the major warming event in the beginning of the Holocene, aka Holocene Thermal Maximum (~9000-5000 years ago) brought very favorable conditions in Siberia and in the Arctic, as well as it brought the African Humid Period, which turned the Sahara into a lovely green place and many early cultures started to develop and bloom in that period. So why would a warming be catastrophic now?

So it is unsure how much warming more CO2 will bring and if that warming is disastrous or beneficial. The irrevocable tying of climate disaster to carbon dioxide is likely to backfire once it is clear that either there is no global warming coming or that it is only to the benefit of currently barely inhabitable areas, albeit in 10 or 20 or 100 years. People are going to be very angry when they start to realize that they had to ruin their economy for nothing, because science said so but science was wrong. Will science ever be trustworthy again?

Certainly we must minimize our carbon footprint and conserve energy, by all means but for a real reason. I ride a bike and you?

 

[thomasxc]

Now maybe there is a misunderstanding here. We have climate issues and energy issues. Most certainly a carbon based economy will run into sustainability problems sooner or later and it we want to preserve Earth for our children, we need to put sustainability priority one on the list. Let there be no doubt about it.

On the other hand we have climate, which has done only one thing in the last 4.6 billion years, change and change again, all the time, always.

Furthermore there are physical properties to CO2, making it radiative in the Infra Red frequency bands in which Earth is emitting energy, which is likely to affect weather and climate, together with a bunch of other factors.

So obviously combining the two, it would be very convenient if it was to be made reasonable that more CO2 might ruin the climate and persuade humanity to behave better and stop emitting. There is only one problem. That can't be proven, on the contrary.

Even if more CO2 would mean a considerable warming of the climate, there is no way to predict if it is negative or positive. For instance the major warming event in the beginning of the Holocene, aka Holocene Thermal Maximum (~9000-5000 years ago) brought very favorable conditions in Siberia and in the Arctic, as well as it brought the African Humid Period, which turned the Sahara into a lovely green place and many early cultures started to develop and bloom in that period. So why would a warming be catastrophic now?

So it is unsure how much warming more CO2 will bring and if that warming is disastrous or beneficial. The irrevocable tying of climate disaster to carbon dioxide is likely to backfire once it is clear that either there is no global warming coming or that it is only to the benefit of currently barely inhabitable areas, albeit in 10 or 20 or 100 years. People are going to be very angry when they start to realize that they had to ruin their economy for nothing, because science said so but science was wrong. Will science ever be trustworthy again?

Certainly we must minimize our carbon footprint and conserve energy, by all means but for a real reason. I ride a bike and you?

i completely agree in every aspect. and the idea that people truly understand the environment and the complexities of the weather doesn't hold much water.

 

[ideasrule]

If you don't understand the need for reliable sources, I'm not interested in debating.

 

[Andre]

If you don't understand the need for reliable sources, I'm not interested in debating.

I still don't get it, so some source reports the existence of an open letter of scientists dissenting the "consensus". Now how reliable is that message? Nowadays it's easy to find out. See/google if there are other, independent sources reporting the same. So, we did that and it proved to be true. That letter does exist.

So what tell that about the (unreliable?) source. It was correct, so why would this source be considered not reliable? Because it was made that way? Wasn't it just scapegoated (if that's a word), -made suspect- because it did not follow the consensus?

How about sources that routinely fire a bunch of fallacies, ad hominems, poisoning the well, guilts by associations etc while making a point, succesfully discredit the opponent to undermine its reputation as a reliable source. Successfully, because it is so attractive if they were to be right and the opposition was to be wrong. http://muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/23-Medievalglobalwarming.html ...

..When a conclusion is attractive, I am tempted to lower my standards, to do shoddy work. But that is not the way to truth. When the conclusions are attractive, we must be extra cautious.

But why would those 'sources' need to do that, using a maximum of fallacies? If there was a rock solid proof of their point, there is no need to make folk devils. So how about the reliability of sources that seem to have only one purpose, discredit sceptical noises?

 

[wittgenstein]

"We all know that the financial stakes are enormous in the global warming debate — many oil, coal and power companies are at risk should carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases get regulated in a manner that harms their bottom line. The potential losses of an Exxon or a Shell are chump change, however, compared to the fortunes to be made from those very same regulations."
From the site Andre gave (post 66)
With the July 2007 release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.

The global conspiracy has even taken over the oil industry's geologists?


You keep mentioning that one should not accept consensus opinions and say that to do so is argument at populum.
From the site given by Andre ( post 69)
"Not every reliance upon the testimony of authority figures is fallacious. We often rely upon such testimony, and we can do so for very good reason. Their talent, training and experience put them in a position to evaluate and report on evidence not readily available to everyone else. But we must keep in mind that for such an appeal to be justified, certain standards must be met:

1. The authority is an expert in the area of knowledge under consideration.

2. The statement of the authority concerns his or her area of mastery.

3. There is agreement among experts in the area of knowledge under consideration."

 

[wittgenstein]

I think it was Carl Sagan ( I could be wrong) that said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For example if you told me that a mouse was in the next room I would require little evidence to believe you. However, if you said that a moon man was in the next room I would require a ton of evidence to believe you. When you claim that every scientific organization of national or international standing is part of a global conspiracy, I require a lot of evidence.

 

[mheslep]

I think it was Carl Sagan ( I could be wrong) that said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For example if you told me that a mouse was in the next room I would require little evidence to believe you. However, if you said that a moon man was in the next room I would require a ton of evidence to believe you. When you claim that every scientific organization of national or international standing is part of a global conspiracy, I require a lot of evidence.

Sagan was right, but in my view your application of his phrase is baffling upside down. The claims regarding the impact of AWG are extraordinarily extraordinary: millions will die of famine, storms will ravage the earth, sea levels will drown existing coast lines, and most all of this will happen in this century. Given all these extraordinary claims, you look not to evidence at all, but to consensus.

 

[thomasxc]

interesting point.

 

[Equate]

... millions will die of famine, storms will ravage the earth, sea levels will drown existing coast lines, and most all of this will happen in this century.

So be it.

Earth's climate has changed dramatically over the past 4+ billion years, nothing new. Just because we - the humans - are on the tableau now doesn't mean climate has to conform to our standards.

As far as I know we don't have the ability to change weather patterns which means we have to adjust. If cities like New Orleans, Houston, or even countries like Bangladesh get swamped - we will move on. Honestly, how dumb can one be and establish a life in say, Florida? It's a disaster waiting to happen. Move to save grounds.

 

[Blenton]

Does anyone wonder if natural bushfires release more CO2 than manmade sources?

 

[Andre]

You keep mentioning that one should not accept consensus opinions and say that to do so is argument at populum.
From the site given by Andre ( post 69)
"Not every reliance upon the testimony of authority figures is fallacious. We often rely upon such testimony, and we can do so for very good reason. Their talent, training and experience put them in a position to evaluate and report on evidence not readily available to everyone else. But we must keep in mind that for such an appeal to be justified, certain standards must be met:

1. The authority is an expert in the area of knowledge under consideration.

2. The statement of the authority concerns his or her area of mastery.

3. There is agreement among experts in the area of knowledge under consideration."

If we accept #1 and #2, what about #3,

the first of a few authorities in the area of knowledge under consideration with statements concerning his or her area of mastery.

Chris Landsea's letter of resignation from the IPCC

...I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

...Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4's Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity" along with other media interviews on the topic. The result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today...

...To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable,
long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record...

... personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IPCC leadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth's actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have decided to no longer participate in the IPCC AR4.

 

[Proton Soup]

Wow, did you just give us Alberta?!? We're reciprocate by giving you Alabama...we'll throw in Mississippi too, just since your're such good neighbors !

alabama is not for sale.

you can take some of the northern energy-hog states if you like.

http://knol.google.com/k/michael-walsh/us-energy-consumption-the-big-picture/ltc02gtfr337/3#Energy_consumption_and_climate

 

[Chi Meson]

you can take some of the northern energy-hog states if you like.

http://knol.google.com/k/michael-walsh/us-energy-consumption-the-big-picture/ltc02gtfr337/3#Energy_consumption_and_climate

It's painful to know that all my efforts in minimizing consumption in Mystic, Connecticut is being negated by a single outdoor jacuzzi in New Canaan.

 

[Andre]

"Not every reliance upon the testimony of authority figures is fallacious. ... But we must keep in mind that for such an appeal to be justified, certain standards must be met:

1. The authority is an expert in the area of knowledge under consideration.

2. The statement of the authority concerns his or her area of mastery.

3. There is agreement among experts in the area of knowledge under consideration."

If we accept #1 and #2, what about #3,?

..the first Chris Landsea's letter of resignation from the IPCC

the second of a few authorities in the area of knowledge under consideration with statements concerning his or her area of mastery.

http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543

...I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period."

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the "Little Ice Age" took hold in the 14th century. Warmer climate brought a remarkable flowering of prosperity, knowledge, and art to Europe during the High Middle Ages.

The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had to be "gotten rid of."...

 

[Andre]

"Not every reliance upon the testimony of authority figures is fallacious. ...

Chris Landsea's letter of resignation from the IPCC
http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543

the third of a few authorities in the area of knowledge under consideration with statements concerning his or her area of mastery.

http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf

...This report concerns the rise in global temperatures, specifically during the 1990s. The MBH98 and MBH99 papers are focused on paleoclimate temperature reconstruction and conclusions therein focus on what appear to be a rapid rise in global temperature during the 1990s when compared with temperatures of the previous millennium. These conclusions generated a highly polarized debate over the policy implications of MBH98, MBH99 for the nature of global climate change, and whether or not anthropogenic actions are the source...

...In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling...

...In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface...

...It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.

 

[Andre]

And here are a lot more authorities in the area of knowledge under consideration with statements concerning his or her area of mastery.