Global warming or carbon cult?

Interbane · Unread post Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:37 pm

The way I see it, I won't be confident with any conclusion I arrive at unless I devoted a large chunk of my spare time to researching and investigating. An entire second job's worth of time and effort. The waters have been so muddied, that even after you get a good understanding of every point to be made, and all the evidence, there is still the fact that the Climate investigation is still relatively in it's infancy.

So a heuristic. Make as close to a zero net sum change to the environment as you can. All the time when messing with natural systems, people make things worse. This is a fact. The resulting unintended consequences are usually of the level that if applied to an entire world, would be catastrophic. I would say that even if no evidence for global warming existed, we would still be justified in having policies to limit or eliminate pollution, including carbon as a primary concern.

Unread post Sat Feb 11, 2012 2:34 am

For a scientific discussion of the Wall Street Journal Article, see http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/ ... ngs_an.php

The political polarisation around global warming is steadily worsening. I read the Forbes essay. It is superbly crafted to be plausible, but is utterly biased against science.

The key error in it to my reading, apart from all the spurious doubt about evidence, was the assertion that fixing the climate would be expensive. I disagree with that completely. What we need to do is work out efficient ways to tap the massive energy available from non-fossil sources. Once we do that we have a platform for stable economic growth.

The fossil fuel paradigm is a path to hell.

Unread post Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:31 am

gang of denialists in WSJ wrote: A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls.

Professor Nordhaus has now refuted this trashing of his reputation by the Wall Street Oilrag, writing a freely available cover story for the latest issue of the New York Review of Book.

At http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... are-wrong/

William Nordhaus wrote:My response is primarily designed to correct their misleading description of my own research; but it also is directed more broadly at their attempt to discredit scientists and scientific research on climate change. I have identified six key issues that are raised in the article, and I provide commentary about their substance and accuracy. They are:
1 Is the planet in fact warming?
2 Are human influences an important contributor to warming?
3 Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?
4 Are we seeing a regime of fear for skeptical climate scientists?
5 Are the views of mainstream climate scientists driven primarily by the desire for financial gain?
6 Is it true that more carbon dioxide and additional warming will be beneficial?

As I will indicate below, on each of these questions, the sixteen scientists provide incorrect or misleading answers. At a time when we need to clarify public confusions about the science and economics of climate change, they have muddied the waters. I will describe their mistakes and explain the findings of current climate science and economics.

... the loss from waiting is $4.1 trillion

... The claim that cap-and-trade legislation or carbon taxes would be ruinous or disastrous to our societies does not stand up to serious economic analysis. We need to approach the issues with a cool head and a warm heart. And with respect for sound logic and good science.

Unread post Sun Sep 22, 2013 3:53 pm

Could we be still emerging from the Little Ice Age? And couldn't that account for our current warming trend?

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-art ... d-evidence

Interesting that we don't really have a consensus about what the Little Ice Age was or how long it lasted.

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

A Paleo perspective on Abrupt Climate Change (from the National Climatic Data Center - part of NOAA)

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html

At this point, we know that abrupt climate change is a reality. It has happened before and will happen again. How and why it happened in the past are still open questions, as are how, why, and when it might happen in the future.

ant · Unread post Sun Sep 22, 2013 6:39 pm

As ive said before and ALMOST everyone here can admit to, chaotic systems are notoriously difficult to assign predictions too. Our climate is a chaotic system, of course.

Here's a little piece on it:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... j98D2S9LTo

Modeling chaotic systems is incredibly difficult.
people like Robert disseminate only the data that bolsters their agenda.
Ive made a similar point about Robert's mythicist belief.

One of his claims was that oeer review is absent in relation to the historical Christ because the scholars that support the historical evidence are all in on it.
Gotta love conspiracy theories that make your theories fact.

But i too am for a substantial decrees of the filth we toss into the atmosphere

ant · Unread post Sun Sep 22, 2013 9:36 pm

from a true skeptic point of view, it will be interesting to see how this is addressed:

"Leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the purported slowdown ahead of next week's meeting of the IPCC."

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3957766

The climate fluctuations probably are due to variables too numerous to track.

Interbane · Unread post Sun Sep 22, 2013 10:17 pm

The heating of Earth's surface appears to have slowed in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising.

I truly hope it's not like the resistance increase of a balloon just before it pops, if pressed with a finger.

I think the causal web regarding climate change is too insanely complex to say for sure what will happen. But that doesn't mean I'm not worried. In Earth's history, ice ages have been common. But people somehow think the climate will stay the same. An ice age would be catastrophic. So would overheating and desertification. There's been an equilibrium that's allowed us to flourish over the last ten thousand years. We're insane if we think it will continue indefinitely.

There are indicators that things are going awry. Global temperature increase, sea levels are rising, the oceans are warming, glaciers are retreating, the oceans are becoming acidic.

Our consumption needs to stop producing such ungodly amounts of byproducts/externalities. Anything that has the potential to change the climate must stop, even if we don't yet have the ability to see what those changes will be.

ant · Unread post Sun Sep 22, 2013 10:34 pm

For the sake of mankind, it is better to error on the side of caution.

i agree with you.

what i do not agree with is how political this has become.
and we must consider in our day and age that science is perhaps in bed with politics more than it ever has been before.
we must be cautious.

Interbane · Unread post Mon Sep 23, 2013 4:53 pm

ant wrote:and we must consider in our day and age that science is perhaps in bed with politics more than it ever has been before.
we must be cautious.

If you agree that we shouldn't be dumping byproducts into the environment, what other method can you think of to make it happen? If there's an allowed niche in the marketplace for it to happen, it will happen. To disallow such niches, you need politics.

I think science needs to be more "in bed" with politics. Not pseudo-science or misinterpreted science or rejection of science, but sound science. Scientific influence on policy should be heavy, because it's the best source of information we have to base decisions on. What we should be cautious of is the religious thinking - politicians like Sarah Palin who think there's no possible way humankind could impact our environment, because it's "gods environment" and he wouldn't let anything bad happen. That sort of ignorance is the true threat. Science counters that threat, or at least it would if more people understood the process and accepted it as trustworthy.

ant · Unread post Mon Sep 23, 2013 5:16 pm

There's more than just "doing the right thing" or making the best moral judgement when political parties are involved. As it relates to politics, there's mostly power, wealth, and "special interests" involved. Political parties dish out monies to scientists that will push agendas favored by that party. Said scientists, with their own prestige and money objectives are motivated to "fit the data" that is being sought.
Its happened before.

I'm not saying it's avoidable because I don't think it is. Nor do I believe we should use "other methods" to make decisions that science is best at addressing. I never said that nor did I imply it.

You have this image of me that I'm trying to rid the world of science so that some form of religious world government can take over and ruin your future. Calm the **#@ down.

And then there's a real issue of turning to Scientists for every concern. Some issues can and should be addressed without consulting Science. I don't know if you agree or disagree with that statement. I'd think you would want to avoid turning scientists into our new Apostles.
If not then you are engaging in scientism. And we've had that conversation before.

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