An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/01/an-insiders-story-of-the-global-attack-on-climate-science/
9 comments
The best science says that climate change is probably going to make a large fraction of the world practically uninhabitable in less than a hundred years
The best climate science is still crap.
We can note some upward trends, but we still haven't created very good models that predict where things are going or how quickly. We still don't know how strong of an effect CO2 has to our climate vs solar activity and natural variability. It's been rather telling that IPCC has had to adjust its predictions significantly over the last decade because they haven't matched up with reality.
Let's all step away from the hype, politics, and hollywood portrayals to figure out what's really going on.
Personally, I find it very grounding to go back to Judith Curry's blog every once in a while to see what a reasonable skeptic is observing in all the political noise around the science.
http://judithcurry.com/
The best climate science is still crap.
We can note some upward trends, but we still haven't created very good models that predict where things are going or how quickly. We still don't know how strong of an effect CO2 has to our climate vs solar activity and natural variability. It's been rather telling that IPCC has had to adjust its predictions significantly over the last decade because they haven't matched up with reality.
Let's all step away from the hype, politics, and hollywood portrayals to figure out what's really going on.
Personally, I find it very grounding to go back to Judith Curry's blog every once in a while to see what a reasonable skeptic is observing in all the political noise around the science.
http://judithcurry.com/
Did you choose to take Judith Curry's word for it over the mainstream of the scientific community because of your expertise, or because she conveniently says things that align with your pre-existing opinions?
Blogs are always a less-than-ideal medium for picking out scientific truth, but compare Judith Curry's blog (which is barely better than Watts Up With That) with, say, RealClimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/
The differences in scientific focus is immediately evident. Judith Curry myopically focuses on lazy "debunkings," yelling at her imagined enemies, and hyping up her own public appearances; RealClimate focuses on new scientific papers, what's going on at conferences, and a much smaller proportion of "ethics" and "meta" questions.
Blogs are always a less-than-ideal medium for picking out scientific truth, but compare Judith Curry's blog (which is barely better than Watts Up With That) with, say, RealClimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/
The differences in scientific focus is immediately evident. Judith Curry myopically focuses on lazy "debunkings," yelling at her imagined enemies, and hyping up her own public appearances; RealClimate focuses on new scientific papers, what's going on at conferences, and a much smaller proportion of "ethics" and "meta" questions.
Did you choose to take Judith Curry's word
It's telling that you twisted what I said in that way. I don't take her word any more than I take Mann's word. I read a variety of sources and try to reason about them to create my own world view.
Since I don't have an oil well in my backyard, I don't really have a dog in the fight besides my general interest in the "success" of our society.
I really don't spend enough brain cells to understand the issues as well as the climate scientists, but I am good/have relevant experience in two important ways.
1. I've worked with simulation enough to know that they aren't worth crap if they don't have a track record for predicting reality. Climate models have had no appreciable success at predicting long range climate. As much as you may want to, you can't put the cart before the horse. The validity of the model has to be proved before they can be trusted. Before that happens, you're using religious thinking and trying to label those who don't agree with you heretics.
2. I'm good at spotting bullshit politics masked as scientific authority. I've found the IPCC, Mann, et al. to be extremely political in their approach to Science. They trash people who don't agree with them and they don't just admit it when they and their models are significantly wrong.
It's telling that you twisted what I said in that way. I don't take her word any more than I take Mann's word. I read a variety of sources and try to reason about them to create my own world view.
Since I don't have an oil well in my backyard, I don't really have a dog in the fight besides my general interest in the "success" of our society.
I really don't spend enough brain cells to understand the issues as well as the climate scientists, but I am good/have relevant experience in two important ways.
1. I've worked with simulation enough to know that they aren't worth crap if they don't have a track record for predicting reality. Climate models have had no appreciable success at predicting long range climate. As much as you may want to, you can't put the cart before the horse. The validity of the model has to be proved before they can be trusted. Before that happens, you're using religious thinking and trying to label those who don't agree with you heretics.
2. I'm good at spotting bullshit politics masked as scientific authority. I've found the IPCC, Mann, et al. to be extremely political in their approach to Science. They trash people who don't agree with them and they don't just admit it when they and their models are significantly wrong.
"Bullshit politics"
"crap"
Keep it civil.
You clearly privilege Judith Curry's work over the rest of the scientific community; and even if you gave them equal billing, that'd be inappropriate, simply because she's significantly outnumbered. And her skepticism is always expressed in political forums, never scientific ones, which further takes away from how much scientific credibility she has, at least when it comes to her AGW denialism.
2) is, naturally, an argument from "climate science is bunk because climate scientists are evil because crusso is an expert at saying climate scientists are evil," which is unfortunately a common logical error.
"crap"
Keep it civil.
You clearly privilege Judith Curry's work over the rest of the scientific community; and even if you gave them equal billing, that'd be inappropriate, simply because she's significantly outnumbered. And her skepticism is always expressed in political forums, never scientific ones, which further takes away from how much scientific credibility she has, at least when it comes to her AGW denialism.
2) is, naturally, an argument from "climate science is bunk because climate scientists are evil because crusso is an expert at saying climate scientists are evil," which is unfortunately a common logical error.
Keep it civil.
Seems like you're trying to augment your argument by asserting some sort of language dominance. Do you find that helps with other people?
You clearly privilege Judith Curry's work over the rest of the scientific community
Her work? Partially. I prefer her calm approach to Science that demands evidence and remains skeptical vs the all-too-often politically-driven one I see at the IPCC. That said, I read realclimate about as often as I read Curry's blog.
she's significantly outnumbered
Yeah, I'm significantly outnumbered by Miley Cyrus fans too. What of it?
crusso is an expert at saying climate scientists are evil
At the end of the day, we can't all understand everything. Lacking models that reflect reality, this is all just guesswork - so I'd prefer to rely on my understanding of what makes good Science.
Seems like you're trying to augment your argument by asserting some sort of language dominance. Do you find that helps with other people?
You clearly privilege Judith Curry's work over the rest of the scientific community
Her work? Partially. I prefer her calm approach to Science that demands evidence and remains skeptical vs the all-too-often politically-driven one I see at the IPCC. That said, I read realclimate about as often as I read Curry's blog.
she's significantly outnumbered
Yeah, I'm significantly outnumbered by Miley Cyrus fans too. What of it?
crusso is an expert at saying climate scientists are evil
At the end of the day, we can't all understand everything. Lacking models that reflect reality, this is all just guesswork - so I'd prefer to rely on my understanding of what makes good Science.
Seems like you're trying to augment your argument
Yes, it is. When someone's getting emotional about a topic, particularly a scientific one, it's useful to point it out, to rhetorically place yourself on the side of scientific, rational debate. You do the same thing one line down when you emphasize how much you prefer her "calm approach to Science."
Her work
Which work? Is it her scientific papers you respect, or her publicizing the evils of other scientists?
outnumbered by Miley Cyrus fans too
Miley Cyrus is great. But are you comparing the entirety of the climate science community to fans of a particular pop singer, when it comes to judging scientific credibility?
Yes, it is. When someone's getting emotional about a topic, particularly a scientific one, it's useful to point it out, to rhetorically place yourself on the side of scientific, rational debate. You do the same thing one line down when you emphasize how much you prefer her "calm approach to Science."
Her work
Which work? Is it her scientific papers you respect, or her publicizing the evils of other scientists?
outnumbered by Miley Cyrus fans too
Miley Cyrus is great. But are you comparing the entirety of the climate science community to fans of a particular pop singer, when it comes to judging scientific credibility?
entirety of the climate science community
That's the point, though, isn't it? It's not the entirety of the climate Science community.
That's the point, though, isn't it? It's not the entirety of the climate Science community.
""crap"" is pretty civil. I pick up my dog's every day just to keep our neighborhood civil.
RealClimate has a history of censoring intelligent skepticism [0] and of mindlessly defending the scientifically indefensible [1].
[0] http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hockey-stick-gets-...
http://amac1.blogspot.com/2011/06/tiljander-data-series-appe...
[1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/doing-...
[0] http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hockey-stick-gets-...
http://amac1.blogspot.com/2011/06/tiljander-data-series-appe...
[1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/doing-...
> Let's all step away from the hype, politics, and hollywood portrayals to figure out what's really going on.
Sure, but let's also enact policies that help make our societies and economies more robust to whatever that answer is. When there are time lags involved, you cannot wait for perfect information before you act.
Sure, but let's also enact policies that help make our societies and economies more robust to whatever that answer is. When there are time lags involved, you cannot wait for perfect information before you act.
let's also enact policies societies and economies more robust to whatever that answer is
I agree completely with that. As a first step, I'd be happy if our federal government could somehow balance and claw the debt back to a point where we will have financial reserves against future challenges rather than our current extremely vulnerable position.
I agree completely with that. As a first step, I'd be happy if our federal government could somehow balance and claw the debt back to a point where we will have financial reserves against future challenges rather than our current extremely vulnerable position.
Screw the models, look at the data. Especially the biological and physical data: plant and animal species ranges, bird migration patterns, permafrost melting. All point toward warming.
No, it doesn't say that. The best climate science predicts a rise of 3 degrees Celsius or so, which has the potential to substantially disrupt some vulnerable societies and act as a significant drag on economic growth. It would not render large portions of the world uninhabitable, though.
I refuse to believe that humanity is at its apex.
Keeping our heads in the sand about climate change is a terrible idea and will have dire consequences. Admitting defeat and that the world is about to go down the toilet is also going to have dire consequences.
My opinion: Raise awareness about the problem and fight to fix it.
Keeping our heads in the sand about climate change is a terrible idea and will have dire consequences. Admitting defeat and that the world is about to go down the toilet is also going to have dire consequences.
My opinion: Raise awareness about the problem and fight to fix it.
The title is a little misleading. The story is from one of the scientists targeted in the attack, not an insider from the attacking side (which would be very interesting indeed).
Decent article, but not exactly surprising given what I've already read about on some of the attacks on climate science here in the U.S.
Decent article, but not exactly surprising given what I've already read about on some of the attacks on climate science here in the U.S.
> not an insider from the attacking side (which would be very interesting indeed).
This might not be exactly what you're interested in, but it was reported that the Global Climate Coalition, "a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels" that "led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming", was advised by it's own scientific and technical experts that "the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted".
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?...
This might not be exactly what you're interested in, but it was reported that the Global Climate Coalition, "a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels" that "led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming", was advised by it's own scientific and technical experts that "the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted".
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?...
I'm glad to see this finally being acknowledged and the funding behind these attacks being called out. In fifty years, when economies are collapsing due to rising sea levels and all the upheaval caused thereby, will we finally look back (as we did with smoking propaganda) and realize what influence malicious greed can effect over ignorance?
Or in 50 years when things are the same will we finally look back and realize what influence greed and stupidity can effect over people that reason things through rather than accepting everything printed?
Remember - 40 years ago it was Global Cooling.
Remember - 40 years ago it was Global Cooling.
Remember - 40 years ago it was Global Cooling.
This is a red herring, used to hand-wave away the serious, broad, deep, and highly credible body of evidence that points to significant human-caused global warming.
So-called "global cooling" was a fairly marginal conjecture that was floated in the 1970s but never taken very seriously by most climate scientists. Already by 1970, most climate research focused on warming, not cooling.
This is a red herring, used to hand-wave away the serious, broad, deep, and highly credible body of evidence that points to significant human-caused global warming.
So-called "global cooling" was a fairly marginal conjecture that was floated in the 1970s but never taken very seriously by most climate scientists. Already by 1970, most climate research focused on warming, not cooling.
using five adjectives in a row, LOL
So you're saying that climate scientists are motivated by greed and stupidity?
And if you've been involved in climate debates before, you know full well that an article in Newsweek does not mean global cooling was widely accepted among climatologists. It was not.
And if you've been involved in climate debates before, you know full well that an article in Newsweek does not mean global cooling was widely accepted among climatologists. It was not.
There's always this adage: "No problem, no funding."
Are you insane? If there was any credible science to contradict the climate change hypothesis, it would absolutely be funded. There are trillion dollar industries with massive vested interests in climate change not being a real thing.
I can't say for certain how corrupt or not the climate science community is. I can say for certain that there isn't a lot of money in being a scientist.
I can't say for certain how corrupt or not the climate science community is. I can say for certain that there isn't a lot of money in being a scientist.
An irrationalist revolt against the Enlightenment and the possibility of rational debate.
I made an account specifically to address this fallacy.
It is absolute nonsense to pretend that "Global Cooling" was ever an accepted scientific prediction.
Wikipedia is sufficient for a quick overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
BadAstronomy is a well respected scientific journalism blog that has a more personal and less formal take on this nonsense: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/09/10/climate_...
It is absolute nonsense to pretend that "Global Cooling" was ever an accepted scientific prediction.
Wikipedia is sufficient for a quick overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
BadAstronomy is a well respected scientific journalism blog that has a more personal and less formal take on this nonsense: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/09/10/climate_...
If you consider "global cooling" and "global warming" to be similar phenomenon within the scientific community, then you really are very badly misinformed. This is ironic since you accuse others of "accepting everything printed". I think maybe you're the one with a poor sense of credibility.
> Remember - 40 years ago it was Global Cooling.
Please direct me to a large collection of reports and policy statements published by mainstream scientific organizations 40 years ago that stated that the totality of empirical evidence at the time substantiated global cooling. I want a collection like the following, but one that relates to global cooling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...
Thanks for your help.
Please direct me to a large collection of reports and policy statements published by mainstream scientific organizations 40 years ago that stated that the totality of empirical evidence at the time substantiated global cooling. I want a collection like the following, but one that relates to global cooling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...
Thanks for your help.
Remember: the science just improves, and the science works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...
"The scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and it is extremely likely (at least 95% probability) that humans are causing most of it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...
"The scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and it is extremely likely (at least 95% probability) that humans are causing most of it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels."
Through skepticism. What you're doing there is faith.
What you're doing is baselessly asserting things.
My thoughts exactly. The planet goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. Man made "climate change" of any stripe is a hoax.
"hoax" seems like way too charged of a word.
But I don't understand the intellectual condescension towards people who are skeptical about a theory that claims to not only predict the future behavior of an entire planet's climate but also how much one element of the planet (humans) impacts the climate.
But I don't understand the intellectual condescension towards people who are skeptical about a theory that claims to not only predict the future behavior of an entire planet's climate but also how much one element of the planet (humans) impacts the climate.
The condescension comes because of the quality of the arguments used. People who claim to be "skeptical" use fallacious arguments, misrepresent information and make general emotive points rather than pointing to scientific data and statistical interpretation.
For example, you make a point about predicting "the future behaviour of an entire planet's climate". But you could equally say that we should be skeptical of Newton's theory of gravity because it predicts the future physical movements of every atom of an entire planet. It was a specious point. You just said something that was true in a way that sounded impressive. You didn't even mention the models, let alone give any criticisms of the current state of climate model validation. You just made the target of the model sound complicated, without giving any detailed consideration of how complicated it actually is when taken in aggregate.
If you're going to criticise a science then use science to do it. The quality of the criticism has to be on a par with the interpretation it criticises. Otherwise it's clear you're arguing from ignorance. While it makes sense to be skeptical while ignorant, you can't expect people who aren't ignorant to take your views seriously.
For example, you make a point about predicting "the future behaviour of an entire planet's climate". But you could equally say that we should be skeptical of Newton's theory of gravity because it predicts the future physical movements of every atom of an entire planet. It was a specious point. You just said something that was true in a way that sounded impressive. You didn't even mention the models, let alone give any criticisms of the current state of climate model validation. You just made the target of the model sound complicated, without giving any detailed consideration of how complicated it actually is when taken in aggregate.
If you're going to criticise a science then use science to do it. The quality of the criticism has to be on a par with the interpretation it criticises. Otherwise it's clear you're arguing from ignorance. While it makes sense to be skeptical while ignorant, you can't expect people who aren't ignorant to take your views seriously.
Newton's law of universal gravity is a thing of beauty in its simplicity and power. It is simple enough that basic experiments can be run in any high school physics class, and yet so powerful that it can with a great deal of accuracy predict the movement of the planets.
I'm contending that current climate science is different. I think it is too complex to ever boil down to a nice little F = G x (m_1 x m_2) / r^2 package. But perhaps we just haven't discovered that piece yet.
Please understand that I'm not arguing we shouldn't study climate change. The complexity of what climate science is trying to predict just gives me pause.
I'm contending that current climate science is different. I think it is too complex to ever boil down to a nice little F = G x (m_1 x m_2) / r^2 package. But perhaps we just haven't discovered that piece yet.
Please understand that I'm not arguing we shouldn't study climate change. The complexity of what climate science is trying to predict just gives me pause.
Contrary to your claim, the effects of CO2 are comparably simple formula:
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmospheri...
And no scientist disproved it. And anybody who is able to calculate the orbits is able to use the CO2 formula too.
And it's also nothing new, first such scientific work is by Arrhenius, 1895, that is 120 years ago:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/arrheniu...
And even then he also "stood on the shoulders" of other scientists:
"Arrhenius relied heavily on the experiments and observations of other scientists, including Josef Stefan, Arvid Gustaf Högbom, Samuel Langley, Leon Teisserenc de Bort, Knut Angstrom, Alexander Buchan, Luigi De Marchi, Joseph Fourier, C.S.M. Pouillet, and John Tyndall."
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmospheri...
And no scientist disproved it. And anybody who is able to calculate the orbits is able to use the CO2 formula too.
And it's also nothing new, first such scientific work is by Arrhenius, 1895, that is 120 years ago:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/arrheniu...
And even then he also "stood on the shoulders" of other scientists:
"Arrhenius relied heavily on the experiments and observations of other scientists, including Josef Stefan, Arvid Gustaf Högbom, Samuel Langley, Leon Teisserenc de Bort, Knut Angstrom, Alexander Buchan, Luigi De Marchi, Joseph Fourier, C.S.M. Pouillet, and John Tyndall."
Interesting reading. Thanks for the link.
So what does that formula say the average temperature will be in 2014? Because I'm pretty sure we'll be able to predict very precisely where Pluto will be throughout the year.
So what does that formula say the average temperature will be in 2014? Because I'm pretty sure we'll be able to predict very precisely where Pluto will be throughout the year.
I will assume that you are honestly interested. Moreover I'll assume that you don't know enough of hard science, otherwise you wouldn't ask the question. So I'll have to use an analogy:
Imagine we're a colony of super-smart ants, living on the mountain slope, and as the product of our ant economy we pump through some smart pipes some water to some point some meters above our ant city, and there the water is released. That water produces the creek, sloshing around our city, like the water does, irregularly. The ant scientists are able to calculate that the increased sloshing practically didn't exist before the ants started to pump the water. They can estimate the proportion of the waves around the city and claim that if the increase of the pumping continues the water will in a span or two of ants lives reach the city. The ant deniers then claim: "you scientists can't predict a single wave from minute to minute, so we can be skeptical and continue what we're doing, it's good for our economy." The additional catch? The mechanism which the ants use doesn't respond immediately, it has a built-in delay and built-in amplifier. Even if the ants stop now the amount of water will raise, or maybe even blow the fuses of the mechanism, where the increase of the water will never stop.
That's where we are now. Asking for the height of the moment of the single wave doesn't invalidate the formula we know: more CO2 gives more heat on Earth. And we should be aware of the mechanism, which has both the delay and the amplifier.
The humanity released in the atmosphere around 10 billion tons of CO2 in 2012 alone. Around 150 years ago it was cca 50 million tonnes per year, that is two hundred times less than now.
The concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in the ppm (parts per million). Even difference in such small concentrations provably increases the heat on the Earth, the basic formulas are indisputable.
In 2013 the atmosphere reached 400 ppm of CO2, that is 0.04% concentration indisputably produced by human activity:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/14/record-40...
If you're really interested, do read the article.
Imagine we're a colony of super-smart ants, living on the mountain slope, and as the product of our ant economy we pump through some smart pipes some water to some point some meters above our ant city, and there the water is released. That water produces the creek, sloshing around our city, like the water does, irregularly. The ant scientists are able to calculate that the increased sloshing practically didn't exist before the ants started to pump the water. They can estimate the proportion of the waves around the city and claim that if the increase of the pumping continues the water will in a span or two of ants lives reach the city. The ant deniers then claim: "you scientists can't predict a single wave from minute to minute, so we can be skeptical and continue what we're doing, it's good for our economy." The additional catch? The mechanism which the ants use doesn't respond immediately, it has a built-in delay and built-in amplifier. Even if the ants stop now the amount of water will raise, or maybe even blow the fuses of the mechanism, where the increase of the water will never stop.
That's where we are now. Asking for the height of the moment of the single wave doesn't invalidate the formula we know: more CO2 gives more heat on Earth. And we should be aware of the mechanism, which has both the delay and the amplifier.
The humanity released in the atmosphere around 10 billion tons of CO2 in 2012 alone. Around 150 years ago it was cca 50 million tonnes per year, that is two hundred times less than now.
The concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in the ppm (parts per million). Even difference in such small concentrations provably increases the heat on the Earth, the basic formulas are indisputable.
In 2013 the atmosphere reached 400 ppm of CO2, that is 0.04% concentration indisputably produced by human activity:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/14/record-40...
If you're really interested, do read the article.
Thanks for the article. It seems like the gist is - (please correct me if I'm wrong)
1) We have much better ways of measuring CO2 than we ever have before. 2) The amount we're detecting is going up and recently passed a major milestone 3) Serious and politically difficult cut backs in fossil fuels are required to decrease CO2 totals
Taking all that as fact because I certainly don't know enough to dispute it, that's for sure, I have a few questions -
1) Is this actually "bad" for the planet, or is it just bad for humans? The article states that the planet had 400ppm 2-4 million years ago. I guess my question is, why is it bad if humans cause this when it wasn't bad when other phenomena caused it?
2) Could the earth have a feedback mechanism that we don't yet understand to deal with this on its own? These seem so common in nature on a small scale. It seems likely one could exist on a large scale, too.
3) If the only way out of this is drastic human behavior change, then it seems like we should switch to focusing on adapting rather than preventing. Humanity just won't make the levels of fossil fuel cuts that the article says are necessary.
---
Also, to respond to your ant analogy - I gather that you equate my question of the average temp for 2014 to predicting waves from minute to minute in the analogy. If one year is too short, then what length of time is long enough to predict? I really think that a major reason why climate change is so unpersuasive to many people (myself included) is that the theories aren't testable in short enough windows of time.
Please consider this analogy:
I have invented an algorithm that correctly predicts the average value of the S&P500 over the next 50 years. The algorithm really works and it says the average value is 1000x higher than now. Obviously, people could use it to make a killing, even though the algorithm does not claim what the year to year value will be. I could explain my logic over and over, but most people are simply not going to risk their own money on it. However, if I correctly predicted the value of the S&P500 for 2014, 2015, and 2016, I bet lots of people would take my advice for 2017. Without that evidence can you really blame their skepticism?
1) We have much better ways of measuring CO2 than we ever have before. 2) The amount we're detecting is going up and recently passed a major milestone 3) Serious and politically difficult cut backs in fossil fuels are required to decrease CO2 totals
Taking all that as fact because I certainly don't know enough to dispute it, that's for sure, I have a few questions -
1) Is this actually "bad" for the planet, or is it just bad for humans? The article states that the planet had 400ppm 2-4 million years ago. I guess my question is, why is it bad if humans cause this when it wasn't bad when other phenomena caused it?
2) Could the earth have a feedback mechanism that we don't yet understand to deal with this on its own? These seem so common in nature on a small scale. It seems likely one could exist on a large scale, too.
3) If the only way out of this is drastic human behavior change, then it seems like we should switch to focusing on adapting rather than preventing. Humanity just won't make the levels of fossil fuel cuts that the article says are necessary.
---
Also, to respond to your ant analogy - I gather that you equate my question of the average temp for 2014 to predicting waves from minute to minute in the analogy. If one year is too short, then what length of time is long enough to predict? I really think that a major reason why climate change is so unpersuasive to many people (myself included) is that the theories aren't testable in short enough windows of time.
Please consider this analogy:
I have invented an algorithm that correctly predicts the average value of the S&P500 over the next 50 years. The algorithm really works and it says the average value is 1000x higher than now. Obviously, people could use it to make a killing, even though the algorithm does not claim what the year to year value will be. I could explain my logic over and over, but most people are simply not going to risk their own money on it. However, if I correctly predicted the value of the S&P500 for 2014, 2015, and 2016, I bet lots of people would take my advice for 2017. Without that evidence can you really blame their skepticism?
1) As humans are causing it, they are making the change much much faster than the natural effects did. The living world has much less time to adapt. Humans are producing the massive extinction.
2) No, the Earth would certainly not fix it for us, we know how CO2 behaves. A third of CO2 goes in the oceans at the moment, raising acidity which dissolves , for example, corals. It's another place where humans produce extinctions.
3) Human civilization is extremely dependent on the current state, most of the decisions are made like the current state lasts forever (very short term) and the deniers aren't focusing on anything else than spreading the belief that there isn't any need to adapt to anything. They deny the basic facts. You are also still making the same questions doubting the basic facts.
There's absolutely no need to wait for any "confirmation," the scientific certainty is 97% right now. If you don't understand this, imagine that your doctor analyses your blood, your tissue samples, your medical history and many more observations and all results are absolutely consistent with the same illness, and 97 of 100 people die with that results if they don't stop smoking.
In our case, we are actually even more certain than any "uncertain" medical diagnosis of today. We measure the "organism" not with one thermometer but with almost unlimited number of them, and we make the different "tissue probes" also on unlimited number of places all the time. All are consistent. More CO2. More heat. Nobody who understands basic science can deny that.
You ask basically "shouldn't the patient smoke until the certainty that he dies is 100%?" Well then he is actually dead. The problem is, the patient is the whole earth, and we don't have another one.
2) No, the Earth would certainly not fix it for us, we know how CO2 behaves. A third of CO2 goes in the oceans at the moment, raising acidity which dissolves , for example, corals. It's another place where humans produce extinctions.
3) Human civilization is extremely dependent on the current state, most of the decisions are made like the current state lasts forever (very short term) and the deniers aren't focusing on anything else than spreading the belief that there isn't any need to adapt to anything. They deny the basic facts. You are also still making the same questions doubting the basic facts.
There's absolutely no need to wait for any "confirmation," the scientific certainty is 97% right now. If you don't understand this, imagine that your doctor analyses your blood, your tissue samples, your medical history and many more observations and all results are absolutely consistent with the same illness, and 97 of 100 people die with that results if they don't stop smoking.
In our case, we are actually even more certain than any "uncertain" medical diagnosis of today. We measure the "organism" not with one thermometer but with almost unlimited number of them, and we make the different "tissue probes" also on unlimited number of places all the time. All are consistent. More CO2. More heat. Nobody who understands basic science can deny that.
You ask basically "shouldn't the patient smoke until the certainty that he dies is 100%?" Well then he is actually dead. The problem is, the patient is the whole earth, and we don't have another one.
I'm afraid you may understand this science well, but not human nature. I'm not a climate scientist. 99% of the population are not climate scientists. So if the experts can't convince the population, they will never affect their behavior.
Precisely predict some measurable events in the future and people will start to believe you. Until then, it is a lost cause.
So again, I ask, if predicting the average temp in 2014 is too narrow of a window, what is a window of time you feel confident predicting?
Precisely predict some measurable events in the future and people will start to believe you. Until then, it is a lost cause.
So again, I ask, if predicting the average temp in 2014 is too narrow of a window, what is a window of time you feel confident predicting?
> In fifty years, when economies are collapsing due to rising sea levels...
Sea level rise has not accelerated in twenty years of measurement[0] (depending how you cherry pick the analysis it is actually decelerating[1]) and will add 160mm or about half a foot if the next fifty years is the same pace as the last twenty. I don't think that's going to collapse very many economies.
[0]http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ [1]http://climatechangedebates.com/sea-level-stats-longer.php
Sea level rise has not accelerated in twenty years of measurement[0] (depending how you cherry pick the analysis it is actually decelerating[1]) and will add 160mm or about half a foot if the next fifty years is the same pace as the last twenty. I don't think that's going to collapse very many economies.
[0]http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ [1]http://climatechangedebates.com/sea-level-stats-longer.php
I hope you realize that choosing twenty years is itself cherry picking.
Here's a fun exercise for you: what would the real second derivative have to be in order for it to be clearly positive over a mere twenty year interval?
Here's a fun exercise for you: what would the real second derivative have to be in order for it to be clearly positive over a mere twenty year interval?
This has really become more of a religious argument than a science argument. Some people will never be convinced man made climate change is real. Others will never be convinced it isn't. The rest of the people don't care.
It would be a clear science argument if there weren't groups that are very motivated (money, power) to misdirect the public by making "doubts" for their own gains, as the article clearly illustrates.
There is a practical scientific consensus that the current global warming is real and caused by the human activity. The illusion of "maybe yes maybe no" (quasi-religious doubts) can come only from the media who give the equal attention to the one doubter and to the group of almost all world's scientist.
In the internet speak, the deniers are successfully trolling the public.
There is a practical scientific consensus that the current global warming is real and caused by the human activity. The illusion of "maybe yes maybe no" (quasi-religious doubts) can come only from the media who give the equal attention to the one doubter and to the group of almost all world's scientist.
In the internet speak, the deniers are successfully trolling the public.
I'm not unsympathetic to the exasperation of scientists concerning that their work is being dismissed by people who don't have the expertise to evaluate it, but all this talk about a "consensus" is where they shoot themselves in the foot. Science doesn't advance by "consensus". And using that as the defense is just a different type of faith (faith in the omniscience of the group).
Prior to the 80's the 'consensus' was that stomach ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods. Two lone Australian medical researchers thought a bacterium was the causal agent, and so one of them actually swallowed a petri dish to prove his point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall
Prior to the 80's the 'consensus' was that stomach ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods. Two lone Australian medical researchers thought a bacterium was the causal agent, and so one of them actually swallowed a petri dish to prove his point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall
The talk of "consensus" emerged because previously there was a concerted effort from vested interests to make the public believe that climate change was a controversial issue amongst the scientific community. This severely muddied the waters of public opinion. So it's important to continue the message of scientific consensus.
The scientific consensus is our best model for reality. That isn't about having faith in any group, it's about having faith in the scientific process. Your example of stomach ulcers only supports that point. Once new evidence was found, the new explanation was quickly adopted into the scientific consensus (so it remained the best model for reality).
The scientific consensus is our best model for reality. That isn't about having faith in any group, it's about having faith in the scientific process. Your example of stomach ulcers only supports that point. Once new evidence was found, the new explanation was quickly adopted into the scientific consensus (so it remained the best model for reality).
> Once new evidence was found, the new explanation was quickly adopted into the scientific consensus (so it remained the best model for reality).
The problem with a direct comparison in this case, that we ought to accept the consensus and be as dismissive about anthropogenic climate change skeptics as we are about someone who still claims that the Sun revolves around the Earth, is that in the case of stomach ulcers, the result is easily testable and reproducible. Much harder for something as complex as the climate. Additionally, this issue is laden with political consequences on both sides so it's hard to accept objectivity on either side (very difficult for someone to obtain a grant inside the academic mainstream to study something that is contrary to accepted opinion, and very difficult for someone to obtain a grant from industry to study something that is in line with accepted opinion. not to mention the potential effects for fossil fuel and alternative energy companies)
The problem with a direct comparison in this case, that we ought to accept the consensus and be as dismissive about anthropogenic climate change skeptics as we are about someone who still claims that the Sun revolves around the Earth, is that in the case of stomach ulcers, the result is easily testable and reproducible. Much harder for something as complex as the climate. Additionally, this issue is laden with political consequences on both sides so it's hard to accept objectivity on either side (very difficult for someone to obtain a grant inside the academic mainstream to study something that is contrary to accepted opinion, and very difficult for someone to obtain a grant from industry to study something that is in line with accepted opinion. not to mention the potential effects for fossil fuel and alternative energy companies)
Your insinuations aren't true at all. The scientist do the science, nobody can claim that politics had any influence of any relevant scientific results: all of them were independently rechecked many times over.
The problem is that deniers don't advance the science. They are just trolling, effectively obstructing the possible improvements. Please read the article for an example of a huge trolling action.
The consensus just means that the different scientists can independently reproduce the similar results. You can do the calculations yourself too.
The consensus just means that the different scientists can independently reproduce the similar results. You can do the calculations yourself too.
> The consensus just means that the different scientists can independently reproduce the similar results. You can do the calculations yourself too.
But that's not how the 'consensus' is being used in argument. The way that advocates use it as a bludgeon: that because 99% of all climate scientists agree with anthropocentric climate change that any argument to the contrary is ludicrous and ought to be dismissed outright. Now, I don't think (I guess I hope) that the actual scientists think in those terms. But that's how their advocates (Al Gore and the like) frame the issue. And that both hurts their cause and provides fuel for the opposition. I'd bet that if Al Gore had never entered the cultural debate over climate change it would be much, much healthier.
But that's not how the 'consensus' is being used in argument. The way that advocates use it as a bludgeon: that because 99% of all climate scientists agree with anthropocentric climate change that any argument to the contrary is ludicrous and ought to be dismissed outright. Now, I don't think (I guess I hope) that the actual scientists think in those terms. But that's how their advocates (Al Gore and the like) frame the issue. And that both hurts their cause and provides fuel for the opposition. I'd bet that if Al Gore had never entered the cultural debate over climate change it would be much, much healthier.
I hope you understand that trillions of dollars of capital have a major interest in finding errors in the science and still all they have't found anything significant all they effectively do is trolling, just like in the article?
> It would be a clear science argument if there weren't groups that are very motivated (money, power) to misdirect the public by making "doubts" for their own gains, as the article clearly illustrates.
Definitely. There are groups willing to spend a lot of money to spread doubt about global warming. And, there are groups willing spend a lot of money to spread fear about global warming.
> There is a practical scientific consensus that the current global warming is real and caused by the human activity.
Consensus suggests correctness, but it isn't a guarantee. Once there was a consensus the sun rotated around the earth and that was dis-proven by a guy with a telescope and good record keeping. Granted we've come a long way in science, but we're also analyzing far more complex systems.
Definitely. There are groups willing to spend a lot of money to spread doubt about global warming. And, there are groups willing spend a lot of money to spread fear about global warming.
> There is a practical scientific consensus that the current global warming is real and caused by the human activity.
Consensus suggests correctness, but it isn't a guarantee. Once there was a consensus the sun rotated around the earth and that was dis-proven by a guy with a telescope and good record keeping. Granted we've come a long way in science, but we're also analyzing far more complex systems.
Once there was a consensus the sun rotated around the earth and that was dis-proven by a guy with a telescope and good record keeping.
There was a recent article in Scientific American about this (unfortunately, subscription required).
Given the size of the image of a star seen thru a telescope, either the size or the distance can be calculated from the other by elementary geometry. Because of diffraction from the wave nature of light -- which wasn't understood back then -- these calculations said that if the stars were the same size as the sun they couldn't be much farther away than the farthest planets. Which would be close enough to see annual parallax if the earth really did move around the sun.
And so because of this and a couple other reasons, Copernicus had to resort to proof-by-theology since the available evidence appeared to disagree with his position.
There was a recent article in Scientific American about this (unfortunately, subscription required).
Given the size of the image of a star seen thru a telescope, either the size or the distance can be calculated from the other by elementary geometry. Because of diffraction from the wave nature of light -- which wasn't understood back then -- these calculations said that if the stars were the same size as the sun they couldn't be much farther away than the farthest planets. Which would be close enough to see annual parallax if the earth really did move around the sun.
And so because of this and a couple other reasons, Copernicus had to resort to proof-by-theology since the available evidence appeared to disagree with his position.
I read through this a while back and it is an interesting exploration of the whole Geocentric/Heliocentric dust-up (or smackdown as they call it):
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smac...
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smac...
Have you actually read the article? It looks you haven't. It's about the deniers who obviously trolled everybody at the expense of the taxpayer's money not bringing any scientific improvement at all.
They brought about a great scientific improvement. At NIWA's site you can now see detailed accounting of the methodology behind the adjustments:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-re...
That was put together in December 2010. Before that, they'd been handled in an ad-hoc manner. Some of the adjustments detailed in the literature, some no doubt scrawled on a piece of paper on some professor's desk or sitting in some fortran code on a 5 1/2 floppy. The thing about climate science is that it is done by academics, and if you've ever been in academia you'll know what I mean... If they want us to turn the modern economy inside-out, it is fair enough to ask for a little more rigour.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-re...
That was put together in December 2010. Before that, they'd been handled in an ad-hoc manner. Some of the adjustments detailed in the literature, some no doubt scrawled on a piece of paper on some professor's desk or sitting in some fortran code on a 5 1/2 floppy. The thing about climate science is that it is done by academics, and if you've ever been in academia you'll know what I mean... If they want us to turn the modern economy inside-out, it is fair enough to ask for a little more rigour.
As far as I understand, the deniers didn't do it. They just trolled enough to force the additional analysis by the real scientists. The result?
"NIWA's 'seven-station' series has been re-analysed, and independently peer-reviewed, and the result confirms a NZ-wide warming trend."
Practically the same result, nothing that confirms the wishes of deniers.
"NIWA's 'seven-station' series has been re-analysed, and independently peer-reviewed, and the result confirms a NZ-wide warming trend."
Practically the same result, nothing that confirms the wishes of deniers.
To an extent, I agree. I'm past the point of caring about who or what is to blame. I'm more interested in whether or not we are sufficiently prepared for a drastic change in climate (whether it be hot or cold).
And more than that, I'm far more concerned about the state of our oceans. Particularly because of a lack of knowledge about it's current state, where it's headed, and what it means for us.
And more than that, I'm far more concerned about the state of our oceans. Particularly because of a lack of knowledge about it's current state, where it's headed, and what it means for us.
That's a pretty strange assertion to make. This is a scientific issue. It will be resolved one way or another by observations of reality. Most people care about it. It's not really a religious argument at all.
The rest of the people don't care.
Except that they will, as the consequences become evident.
Except that they will, as the consequences become evident.
Global warming is one of those tough issues for me. I guess you could call me a skeptic, but I try very hard to be a thoughtful skeptic.
What makes the whole conversation unproductive is there appears to be two sides: one which argues there is no problem and we must do nothing, and the other side says that the problem is going to end the world as we know it and we must change our entire way of living and make it our number one priority.
For me, there is a progression of questions that I must answer before I can sign on to the latter's assertions., And they look something like this:
1. Is the world warming? I think it most certainly is, but I would also note that it appears that the warming trend has halted for the past 10 to 20 years. From what I can gather, scientists have reasons why that might be the case but have not explained it.
2. Is the warming man-made? To a large degree, I believe that it is. However, there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.) If I had to put a number on it, I would say 50 to 60% man-made.
3. Can we do anything about it? This is where I begin to separate from the global warming crowd. Theoretically, we can certainly do something about it, but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way that we can reduce greenhouse emissions to such an extent that it's going to make a great difference. Further, china and India are ramping up their CO2 emissions, and there's nothing that the developed countries can do about it. Finally, I have ethical objections to telling developed countries that they have to use less energy which will inevitably result in more lives lost due to starvation or simply just malnutrition and poverty.
4. Should we do anything about it? I believe this is a cost-benefit analysis. And I haven't done the analysis myself, but sometimes I question whether spending the enormous amounts of money today is worth putting off an uncertain disaster tomorrow when we have actual problems today that we could be working on instead. We have millions of people every year dying from malnutrition, poor water supplies, malaria, HIV/AIDS, etc. Why not save those actual lives instead of spending the money saving hypothetical lives in 100 years. And indeed, won't we be more suited to save those lines in 100 years than we are right now, meaning that the mitigation effort could be a lot cheaper?
What makes the whole conversation unproductive is there appears to be two sides: one which argues there is no problem and we must do nothing, and the other side says that the problem is going to end the world as we know it and we must change our entire way of living and make it our number one priority.
For me, there is a progression of questions that I must answer before I can sign on to the latter's assertions., And they look something like this:
1. Is the world warming? I think it most certainly is, but I would also note that it appears that the warming trend has halted for the past 10 to 20 years. From what I can gather, scientists have reasons why that might be the case but have not explained it.
2. Is the warming man-made? To a large degree, I believe that it is. However, there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.) If I had to put a number on it, I would say 50 to 60% man-made.
3. Can we do anything about it? This is where I begin to separate from the global warming crowd. Theoretically, we can certainly do something about it, but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way that we can reduce greenhouse emissions to such an extent that it's going to make a great difference. Further, china and India are ramping up their CO2 emissions, and there's nothing that the developed countries can do about it. Finally, I have ethical objections to telling developed countries that they have to use less energy which will inevitably result in more lives lost due to starvation or simply just malnutrition and poverty.
4. Should we do anything about it? I believe this is a cost-benefit analysis. And I haven't done the analysis myself, but sometimes I question whether spending the enormous amounts of money today is worth putting off an uncertain disaster tomorrow when we have actual problems today that we could be working on instead. We have millions of people every year dying from malnutrition, poor water supplies, malaria, HIV/AIDS, etc. Why not save those actual lives instead of spending the money saving hypothetical lives in 100 years. And indeed, won't we be more suited to save those lines in 100 years than we are right now, meaning that the mitigation effort could be a lot cheaper?
> What makes the whole conversation unproductive is there appears to be two sides: one which argues there is no problem and we must do nothing, and the other side says that the problem is going to end the world as we know it and we must change our entire way of living and make it our number one priority.
This is called a false dichotomy. There are an entire range of viewpoints on this; you've just chosen two extremes to work from.
Some public people have been trying to clarify that the world won't end, it will just be a far more miserable place to live. Fortunately, we have the smog problem in Beijing to point to as a very easy example of what to expect from population centers that don't make efforts to control pollution.
Further, there aren't just the effects of warming to consider, but lots of other environmental concerns too, like overfished oceans and oil spill disasters.
Earth won't end. Earth will get along just fine without us.
> Is the world warming? I think it most certainly is, but I would also note that it appears that the warming trend has halted for the past 10 to 20 years.
It hasn't. There was a "missing heat" problem, that has since been largely resolved by finding quite a bit of warming in the deep ocean. IIRC that study is still pending further research, but seems solid. If it's true, then that's a fairly bad sign, since ocean temperature is a lagging indicator -- i.e., it'll continue to stay warm long after the atmosphere has begun to cool.
http://phys.org/news/2013-07-decade-unprecedented-deep-ocean..., "Past decade saw unprecedented warming in the deep ocean"
> Is the warming man-made? To a large degree, I believe that it is. However, there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.)
And, of course, the thermodynamics of the increasing numbers of UFOs and spectral spirits.
Seriously, though, the problem here is that, first, those factors have been looked at (although I'll agree that they could benefit from further study -- but so could everything) and they have been found not to be influential, and second, there's no evidence to think in the first place that they should be influential. That is, climate change denialists are running from rebuttal to rebuttal as each one is disproven, despite the overwhelming evidence that scientists do already know what the causes of warming are over the last few centuries.
For example: http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2013/sun-221213, "Sun not a key driver of climate change"; http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/, "Climate change: How do we know?"; http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php, "Global Warming & Climate Change Myths" (answers 174 common climate change denialist myths).
> If I had to put a number on it, I would say 50 to 60% man-made.
This is a made-up number. It is meaningless.
> Can we do anything about it?
Absolutely. Lots of people have been doing things about it. For example, U.S. energy consumption has leveled off over the last decade, despite an explosion in personal electronics, thanks to increases in efficiency in everything from cars to energy production to the devices themselves.
And every little bit helps.
> This is where I begin to separate from the global warming crowd.
Er, with all due respect, you separated from the global warming crowd quite a while back in your comment.
> Theoretically, we can certainly do something about it, but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way that we can reduce greenhouse emissions to such an extent that it's going to make a great difference.
"I can't make a really big difference, so I won't make a difference at all."
California added more residential solar in 2013 than in all previous years -- combined. Is that not a difference? Countries around the world have been building out renewable energy. Germany is now 25% renewable in energy production; Sweden has become so efficient at converting trash into energy that they're now importing trash from other countries.
Certainly, not being able to make some impossibly large positive difference in emissions isn't an excuse for continuing to make the problem worse, which is what denialists want.
> Further, china and India are ramping up their CO2 emissions, and there's nothing that the developed countries can do about it.
"My neighbor doesn't maintain his yard, so I shouldn't bother to maintain mine."
As the rest of the world continues to move forward in improved environmental technology, there will be increased incentives for China and India to do so too. There will be more political pressure, but the technology will also improve and become cheaper, as it has been for decades. At some point, it will simply make economic and political sense for India, China, and other countries to adopt better environmental technologies.
> Finally, I have ethical objections to telling developed countries that they have to use less energy which will inevitably result in more lives lost due to starvation or simply just malnutrition and poverty.
This is ... a very silly thing to say.
Nobody's calling for energy or food reductions that will reduce populations. On the contrary, continuing to improve energy technology, as well as agriculture and education and medicine, will increase the life expectancy for a population, and, based on all available metrics so far, as people live longer, better educated, healthier lives, they naturally choose to have fewer babies.
What do you think the life expectancy is for the residents of all of the squatters' villages in the Pacific islands that have been destroyed by hurricanes and other storms?
Are you really advocating for continuing the use of old, wasteful technology which, as a side effect, increases the likelihood of devastating storm seasons, because it's better for poor people?
> Should we do anything about it? I believe this is a cost-benefit analysis. And I haven't done the analysis myself, but sometimes I question whether spending the enormous amounts of money today is worth putting off an uncertain disaster tomorrow when we have actual problems today that we could be working on instead.
Alright, look, you're not questioning anything. You're daydreaming. We live in an age of unprecedented access to information. When I was little, we had encyclopedias and public libraries; if I wanted to learn about a subject, I had to put in a lot more effort than is necessary today.
You could choose to spend just a few minutes here and there actually questioning all of this, and you could learn something and then you could have all of the benefits of a slightly more informed opinion, rather than just repeating the political talking points you've heard elsewhere.
And, by the way, climate is an actual problem that we do have today.
> We have millions of people every year dying from malnutrition
...and the technology to feed them, were it not for all of the navel-gazers wondering whether or not we should...
> ...poor water supplies...
...I've personally raised funds to send a hydrologist to Uganda...
> ...malaria...
...Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation...
> ...HIV/AIDS...
...tremendous amounts of ongoing research, to the extent that there now exist very low impact, long-term, cost-effective treatments for HIV/AIDS...
> ...etc.
So why do you believe that any of these things has to stop while we build more solar plants or work on further increasing vehicle efficiencies?
> Why not save those actual lives instead of spending the money saving hypothetical lives in 100 years.
Are you talking hypothetically, or practically? Is this a choice that you, personally, actually have to make, ever?
Why don't you visit https://watsi.org/fund-treatments (a YC non-profit), and make a difference in an actual life there, and then come back and opine a little bit more about whether or not we should entirely abandon environmental R&D?
> And indeed, won't we be more suited to save those lines in 100 years than we are right now, meaning that the mitigation effort could be a lot cheaper?
I fully expect that, 100 years from now, people will be having the exact same conversations, in some form or another, that they've been having for the last thousand years: "really, what use is it to do anything at all, if we have to choose between doing one thing or doing another thing?"
This is called a false dichotomy. There are an entire range of viewpoints on this; you've just chosen two extremes to work from.
Some public people have been trying to clarify that the world won't end, it will just be a far more miserable place to live. Fortunately, we have the smog problem in Beijing to point to as a very easy example of what to expect from population centers that don't make efforts to control pollution.
Further, there aren't just the effects of warming to consider, but lots of other environmental concerns too, like overfished oceans and oil spill disasters.
Earth won't end. Earth will get along just fine without us.
> Is the world warming? I think it most certainly is, but I would also note that it appears that the warming trend has halted for the past 10 to 20 years.
It hasn't. There was a "missing heat" problem, that has since been largely resolved by finding quite a bit of warming in the deep ocean. IIRC that study is still pending further research, but seems solid. If it's true, then that's a fairly bad sign, since ocean temperature is a lagging indicator -- i.e., it'll continue to stay warm long after the atmosphere has begun to cool.
http://phys.org/news/2013-07-decade-unprecedented-deep-ocean..., "Past decade saw unprecedented warming in the deep ocean"
> Is the warming man-made? To a large degree, I believe that it is. However, there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.)
And, of course, the thermodynamics of the increasing numbers of UFOs and spectral spirits.
Seriously, though, the problem here is that, first, those factors have been looked at (although I'll agree that they could benefit from further study -- but so could everything) and they have been found not to be influential, and second, there's no evidence to think in the first place that they should be influential. That is, climate change denialists are running from rebuttal to rebuttal as each one is disproven, despite the overwhelming evidence that scientists do already know what the causes of warming are over the last few centuries.
For example: http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2013/sun-221213, "Sun not a key driver of climate change"; http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/, "Climate change: How do we know?"; http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php, "Global Warming & Climate Change Myths" (answers 174 common climate change denialist myths).
> If I had to put a number on it, I would say 50 to 60% man-made.
This is a made-up number. It is meaningless.
> Can we do anything about it?
Absolutely. Lots of people have been doing things about it. For example, U.S. energy consumption has leveled off over the last decade, despite an explosion in personal electronics, thanks to increases in efficiency in everything from cars to energy production to the devices themselves.
And every little bit helps.
> This is where I begin to separate from the global warming crowd.
Er, with all due respect, you separated from the global warming crowd quite a while back in your comment.
> Theoretically, we can certainly do something about it, but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way that we can reduce greenhouse emissions to such an extent that it's going to make a great difference.
"I can't make a really big difference, so I won't make a difference at all."
California added more residential solar in 2013 than in all previous years -- combined. Is that not a difference? Countries around the world have been building out renewable energy. Germany is now 25% renewable in energy production; Sweden has become so efficient at converting trash into energy that they're now importing trash from other countries.
Certainly, not being able to make some impossibly large positive difference in emissions isn't an excuse for continuing to make the problem worse, which is what denialists want.
> Further, china and India are ramping up their CO2 emissions, and there's nothing that the developed countries can do about it.
"My neighbor doesn't maintain his yard, so I shouldn't bother to maintain mine."
As the rest of the world continues to move forward in improved environmental technology, there will be increased incentives for China and India to do so too. There will be more political pressure, but the technology will also improve and become cheaper, as it has been for decades. At some point, it will simply make economic and political sense for India, China, and other countries to adopt better environmental technologies.
> Finally, I have ethical objections to telling developed countries that they have to use less energy which will inevitably result in more lives lost due to starvation or simply just malnutrition and poverty.
This is ... a very silly thing to say.
Nobody's calling for energy or food reductions that will reduce populations. On the contrary, continuing to improve energy technology, as well as agriculture and education and medicine, will increase the life expectancy for a population, and, based on all available metrics so far, as people live longer, better educated, healthier lives, they naturally choose to have fewer babies.
What do you think the life expectancy is for the residents of all of the squatters' villages in the Pacific islands that have been destroyed by hurricanes and other storms?
Are you really advocating for continuing the use of old, wasteful technology which, as a side effect, increases the likelihood of devastating storm seasons, because it's better for poor people?
> Should we do anything about it? I believe this is a cost-benefit analysis. And I haven't done the analysis myself, but sometimes I question whether spending the enormous amounts of money today is worth putting off an uncertain disaster tomorrow when we have actual problems today that we could be working on instead.
Alright, look, you're not questioning anything. You're daydreaming. We live in an age of unprecedented access to information. When I was little, we had encyclopedias and public libraries; if I wanted to learn about a subject, I had to put in a lot more effort than is necessary today.
You could choose to spend just a few minutes here and there actually questioning all of this, and you could learn something and then you could have all of the benefits of a slightly more informed opinion, rather than just repeating the political talking points you've heard elsewhere.
And, by the way, climate is an actual problem that we do have today.
> We have millions of people every year dying from malnutrition
...and the technology to feed them, were it not for all of the navel-gazers wondering whether or not we should...
> ...poor water supplies...
...I've personally raised funds to send a hydrologist to Uganda...
> ...malaria...
...Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation...
> ...HIV/AIDS...
...tremendous amounts of ongoing research, to the extent that there now exist very low impact, long-term, cost-effective treatments for HIV/AIDS...
> ...etc.
So why do you believe that any of these things has to stop while we build more solar plants or work on further increasing vehicle efficiencies?
> Why not save those actual lives instead of spending the money saving hypothetical lives in 100 years.
Are you talking hypothetically, or practically? Is this a choice that you, personally, actually have to make, ever?
Why don't you visit https://watsi.org/fund-treatments (a YC non-profit), and make a difference in an actual life there, and then come back and opine a little bit more about whether or not we should entirely abandon environmental R&D?
> And indeed, won't we be more suited to save those lines in 100 years than we are right now, meaning that the mitigation effort could be a lot cheaper?
I fully expect that, 100 years from now, people will be having the exact same conversations, in some form or another, that they've been having for the last thousand years: "really, what use is it to do anything at all, if we have to choose between doing one thing or doing another thing?"
I think you've missed the point that I was making, so I'm a little puzzled as to why you're spending all the time to do a line by line takedown. My main point is that I think any money that we are thinking about spending to mitigate global warming now could probably be better used solving world hunger or malaria or something. I don't KNOW that for a fact, and I'm open to arguments one way or the other. Just, to me, real people dying today is just more urgent than hypothetical people dying in the future.
I was just responding to the things you said.
If that's your main point, I already replied to it. Efforts are already underway by governments, scientists, companies, non-profits, foundations, and even somewhat poor individuals like myself to resolve the other issues facing people around the world.
Why do you believe that money spent on environmental technology is slowing the progress in other areas? Do you really think that if countries would just stop building wind power for a few years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would cure malaria more quickly?
Even if that were true, aren't there, I dunno, dozens of other sources of funding that would make more sense to borrow from?
The thing is, your objection here is a really common one, and it always takes the same form: don't spend money on environmental technology, it would be better spent doing (anything at all other than environmental technology) instead. But nobody ever justifies it. Nobody ever bothers to figure out what the relative impacts on human life of environmental technology vs., say, increased funding for malaria research are.
The Dust Bowl disaster in the 1930s was directly caused by human activity. It displaced hundreds of thousands of people (or millions, depending on how you count) and contributed to starvation conditions in large parts of the country. It caused dust pneumonia, which killed people (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcri...).
A single typhoon in the Phillipines last year killed thousands and left millions more homeless (http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/08/us/typhoon-haiyan-one-month/).
The pollution in Beijing might be taking as much as 16 years off of the average resident's life span there (http://www.businessinsider.com/beijing-air-quality-hits-life...).
Drought, extreme weather (both hot and cold), tropical storms, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, bad air quality -- these things are not hypothetically affecting people. While we can't altogether stop these disasters any time in the near future, we can start doing things now to make them less severe.
Real people have been dying for, at least, close to a hundred years because of human impacts on the environment.
If that's your main point, I already replied to it. Efforts are already underway by governments, scientists, companies, non-profits, foundations, and even somewhat poor individuals like myself to resolve the other issues facing people around the world.
Why do you believe that money spent on environmental technology is slowing the progress in other areas? Do you really think that if countries would just stop building wind power for a few years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would cure malaria more quickly?
Even if that were true, aren't there, I dunno, dozens of other sources of funding that would make more sense to borrow from?
The thing is, your objection here is a really common one, and it always takes the same form: don't spend money on environmental technology, it would be better spent doing (anything at all other than environmental technology) instead. But nobody ever justifies it. Nobody ever bothers to figure out what the relative impacts on human life of environmental technology vs., say, increased funding for malaria research are.
The Dust Bowl disaster in the 1930s was directly caused by human activity. It displaced hundreds of thousands of people (or millions, depending on how you count) and contributed to starvation conditions in large parts of the country. It caused dust pneumonia, which killed people (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcri...).
A single typhoon in the Phillipines last year killed thousands and left millions more homeless (http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/08/us/typhoon-haiyan-one-month/).
The pollution in Beijing might be taking as much as 16 years off of the average resident's life span there (http://www.businessinsider.com/beijing-air-quality-hits-life...).
Drought, extreme weather (both hot and cold), tropical storms, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, bad air quality -- these things are not hypothetically affecting people. While we can't altogether stop these disasters any time in the near future, we can start doing things now to make them less severe.
Real people have been dying for, at least, close to a hundred years because of human impacts on the environment.
Well, after searching, it appears there is a book that does exactly this. I'm going to read it, and then maybe I will have a better idea of what the relative cost benefits are.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/thank-you?ie=UTF8&a=...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/thank-you?ie=UTF8&a=...
Link's busted.
"How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place" - I'm about halfway through, but according to this Copenhagen consensus group, which appears to be made up of Nobel prize-winning scientists, the ROI for global warming mitigation is negative (using the same methodology they applied to the other items they were considering).
> ...but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way...
Yeah, in the same way that scientists discovered that CFGs are eating away ozone layer, but the world's governments were too incompetent to meaningfully reduce CFG production, and now we end up with all the Penguins dying in Antarctica and people dying of skin cancer in New Zealand?
Or in the same way scientists discovered sulfur emissions caused acid rain, but the US government implemented a piss-poor version of "cap and trade" program[1] that was doomed to failure, and much of the Rocky and Appalachian mountains is now barren wasteland?
Never mind the science (which has literally ocean-ful of evidences now). Even the economics of reducing emission is proven to work.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program
Yeah, in the same way that scientists discovered that CFGs are eating away ozone layer, but the world's governments were too incompetent to meaningfully reduce CFG production, and now we end up with all the Penguins dying in Antarctica and people dying of skin cancer in New Zealand?
Or in the same way scientists discovered sulfur emissions caused acid rain, but the US government implemented a piss-poor version of "cap and trade" program[1] that was doomed to failure, and much of the Rocky and Appalachian mountains is now barren wasteland?
Never mind the science (which has literally ocean-ful of evidences now). Even the economics of reducing emission is proven to work.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program
I think if you equate the difficulty of CFC reduction and sulfur reduction to the difficulty of reducing global CO2 emissions, then you're really not having a serious conversation. There's at least two orders of magnitude of difficulty between the two.
Dude, you can't just say "there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.)" and then accuse others of not being serious.
Every point you just mentioned has been dealt to death. And if you really want to be serious about "two orders of magnitude of difficulty", please try to quantify it, and explain why, for example, building more solar and nuclear plants just isn't going to cut it.
Every point you just mentioned has been dealt to death. And if you really want to be serious about "two orders of magnitude of difficulty", please try to quantify it, and explain why, for example, building more solar and nuclear plants just isn't going to cut it.
I'm trying very hard to be constructive here, and I'm not exactly making an argument I'm just telling you where I am on the issue. Clearly I'm not an expert and I haven't read everything there is to read about it.
I still don't really see what's wrong with the statement that I made. Would you argue that we know everything that is necessary to know about, say, solar cycles? Or CO2 sequestration? I am willing to admit that it's possible that we do, but it's a much harder argument to make.
Finally, you are making my original point for me. People seem stuck in the theory and don't pay attention to the practical matters. For example, on the issue of nuclear power, Japan and Germany are in the process of decommissioning their nuclear power plants. The forecast for nuclear power is flat at best and negative at worst.
I'm all for building 10,000 nuclear power plants tomorrow, but it's not politically feasible. If that's your solution, then you're just not being serious.
With respect to the two orders of magnitude of difficulty, a quick Google came up with the following title "Fighting Climate Change Could Cost 4% of Global Economy — but It’s Worth It". The article is by someone supportive of CO2 reduction policies, so it seems fair to take the number as a first approximation. 4% of the global economy is A LOT.
Again, with a quick Google search, I came up with the following document (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.201... addresses exactly this issue. A quote:
"In response to these predictions a large number of developed countries signed the Kyoto protocol in 1997. The Protocol is aimed at mitigating global warming, primarily by reducing net emissions of the main ‘greenhouse gases’: carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxide (NO) methane (CH4) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)). A variety of proposals have been put forward aimed at achieving the reductions in emissions proposed under the Protocol. Some of these proposals, most notably reductions in CFC emissions, involve relatively low costs and have additional benefits, such as reduced damage to the atmospheric ozone layer, sufficient to justify them even in the absence of concerns about global warming. Others, such as reductions in emissions sufficient to stabilize the current atmospheric stocks of CO2, would involve substantial economic and social costs."
I'm sorry, but even when I try to read your posts sympathetically, all I see is "The science is settled, and you're an idiot" (I especially appreciate you addressing me as "dude"), when I've just pointed out above that at least some of the points you are making are not in fact settled, or even realistic.
I still don't really see what's wrong with the statement that I made. Would you argue that we know everything that is necessary to know about, say, solar cycles? Or CO2 sequestration? I am willing to admit that it's possible that we do, but it's a much harder argument to make.
Finally, you are making my original point for me. People seem stuck in the theory and don't pay attention to the practical matters. For example, on the issue of nuclear power, Japan and Germany are in the process of decommissioning their nuclear power plants. The forecast for nuclear power is flat at best and negative at worst.
I'm all for building 10,000 nuclear power plants tomorrow, but it's not politically feasible. If that's your solution, then you're just not being serious.
With respect to the two orders of magnitude of difficulty, a quick Google came up with the following title "Fighting Climate Change Could Cost 4% of Global Economy — but It’s Worth It". The article is by someone supportive of CO2 reduction policies, so it seems fair to take the number as a first approximation. 4% of the global economy is A LOT.
Again, with a quick Google search, I came up with the following document (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.201... addresses exactly this issue. A quote:
"In response to these predictions a large number of developed countries signed the Kyoto protocol in 1997. The Protocol is aimed at mitigating global warming, primarily by reducing net emissions of the main ‘greenhouse gases’: carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxide (NO) methane (CH4) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)). A variety of proposals have been put forward aimed at achieving the reductions in emissions proposed under the Protocol. Some of these proposals, most notably reductions in CFC emissions, involve relatively low costs and have additional benefits, such as reduced damage to the atmospheric ozone layer, sufficient to justify them even in the absence of concerns about global warming. Others, such as reductions in emissions sufficient to stabilize the current atmospheric stocks of CO2, would involve substantial economic and social costs."
I'm sorry, but even when I try to read your posts sympathetically, all I see is "The science is settled, and you're an idiot" (I especially appreciate you addressing me as "dude"), when I've just pointed out above that at least some of the points you are making are not in fact settled, or even realistic.
I must say I agree with your points and wish more people would approach the area logically with probabilities and cost benefits and the like. Many seem to treat it more like a religion where the high priests of the IPCC pronounce man has sinned by causing warming and we must atone by putting up solar panels which may be ok to feel righteous but is not very effective from an engineering point of view given CO2 emissions keep rising regardless.
Sigh, I don't know how I could explain "the science is settled" without sounding condescending, but let me try.
> I still don't really see what's wrong with the statement that I made. Would you argue that we know everything that is necessary to know about, say, solar cycles? Or CO2 sequestration?
Do we know everything that is necessary to know about, say, hurricanes? No. But when the weather service warns a category-5 hurricane is approaching your town and expected to make a landfall tomorrow afternoon, you don't just ignore that (after all, they don't know everything, and the prediction can (and sometimes does) go wrong) and go on a picnic.
Do we know everything about general relativity? No, but that doesn't stop us from trusting airline pilots who are in turn relying on GPS signal which actually works only because the satellites are compensating for general relativistic effects.
Do we know everything about solar cycles? No, but we have Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory), Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), and numerous other satellites whose entire purpose is to observe the sun. If the sun is emitting more solar radiation than before, we'd know.
Let me just quote wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#Solar_variation...
> The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (TAR) concluded that the measured magnitude of recent solar variation is much smaller than the amplification effect due to greenhouse gases but acknowledges in the same report that there is a low level of scientific understanding with respect to solar variation.
In other words, even if we don't know a lot about solar variation, we know enough to rule out the possibility that its effect is large enough to drive global warming. Unless we could somehow hypothesize a new mechanism completely overlooked by scientists so far and somehow that mechanism explains current global temperature trend and we find that the global warming effect was due to the sun instead of CO2 (which would mean that all the current climate models, which agree with measured CO2 and temperature, are actually spectacularly wrong).
Occam's razor says it's CO2.
I'm sorry, the science IS settled. I won't call you an idiot, you might be just misinformed and (due to the misinformation) cannot discern peer-reviewed science from FUDs.
* About economics, I'll just say "building 10,000 nuclear plants" is not the only way (actually, probably not even the cheapest way) to reduce CO2 emission.
And if you're looking at economics, you can't ignore the potential cost of the global warming being real (more likely than not) and we do nothing or very little to stop it (sadly, also likely). During the WW2, USA poured enormous resource into development of nuclear weapon, even when nobody was sure if it's going to work at all, because the cost of doing nothing (and finding it out when Nazis developed one first) was considered unacceptable.
> I still don't really see what's wrong with the statement that I made. Would you argue that we know everything that is necessary to know about, say, solar cycles? Or CO2 sequestration?
Do we know everything that is necessary to know about, say, hurricanes? No. But when the weather service warns a category-5 hurricane is approaching your town and expected to make a landfall tomorrow afternoon, you don't just ignore that (after all, they don't know everything, and the prediction can (and sometimes does) go wrong) and go on a picnic.
Do we know everything about general relativity? No, but that doesn't stop us from trusting airline pilots who are in turn relying on GPS signal which actually works only because the satellites are compensating for general relativistic effects.
Do we know everything about solar cycles? No, but we have Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory), Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), and numerous other satellites whose entire purpose is to observe the sun. If the sun is emitting more solar radiation than before, we'd know.
Let me just quote wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#Solar_variation...
> The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (TAR) concluded that the measured magnitude of recent solar variation is much smaller than the amplification effect due to greenhouse gases but acknowledges in the same report that there is a low level of scientific understanding with respect to solar variation.
In other words, even if we don't know a lot about solar variation, we know enough to rule out the possibility that its effect is large enough to drive global warming. Unless we could somehow hypothesize a new mechanism completely overlooked by scientists so far and somehow that mechanism explains current global temperature trend and we find that the global warming effect was due to the sun instead of CO2 (which would mean that all the current climate models, which agree with measured CO2 and temperature, are actually spectacularly wrong).
Occam's razor says it's CO2.
I'm sorry, the science IS settled. I won't call you an idiot, you might be just misinformed and (due to the misinformation) cannot discern peer-reviewed science from FUDs.
* About economics, I'll just say "building 10,000 nuclear plants" is not the only way (actually, probably not even the cheapest way) to reduce CO2 emission.
And if you're looking at economics, you can't ignore the potential cost of the global warming being real (more likely than not) and we do nothing or very little to stop it (sadly, also likely). During the WW2, USA poured enormous resource into development of nuclear weapon, even when nobody was sure if it's going to work at all, because the cost of doing nothing (and finding it out when Nazis developed one first) was considered unacceptable.
Here's my problem with the "the science is settled" argument:
Every time I go to investigate specific issues, it appears that there are credible people that disagree with the "settled science".
Let me be clear, I'm not arguing the actual point, I'm just trying to explain to you how hard it is for somebody who really does want to know the truth to actually find it. For every person that says one thing, I find another one that makes an equally compelling argument that it is the opposite. I just don't know who to believe.
Take the "global warming pause" problem. I did a Google search and started reading some of the results, and on the first page I came across this apparently well respected scientist who doesn't agree with the consensus. What criteria am I to use to disregard his opinion in favor of someone else's who appears to me to be equally qualified?
Here's the relevant parts:
The claim that the pause has been caused by heat is going into the deep ocean below 700 m is speculative and relies on models undergoing many data adjustments. That speculation is contradicted by two major issues.
First the Argo data has definitively shown the upper 300 meters have cooled slightly since 2003 (Read Xue 2011) and the consensus among oceanographers is that it is in the upper 100 meters that most of the heat is exchanged with the atmosphere.
Second is it defies known physics. IPCC expert Dr. Hans von Storch said in a recent interview "there is evidence that the oceans have absorbed more heat than we initially calculated. Temperatures at depths greater than 700 meters (2,300 feet) appear to have increased more than ever before. The only unfortunate thing is that our simulations failed to predict this effect." He went on to lament “If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.”
“There are two conceivable explanations — and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn’t mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.”
The Dr. von Storch interview can be seen in its entirety at Stampf, O. and Traufetter , G. (2013) Spiegel International, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von...
Every time I go to investigate specific issues, it appears that there are credible people that disagree with the "settled science".
Let me be clear, I'm not arguing the actual point, I'm just trying to explain to you how hard it is for somebody who really does want to know the truth to actually find it. For every person that says one thing, I find another one that makes an equally compelling argument that it is the opposite. I just don't know who to believe.
Take the "global warming pause" problem. I did a Google search and started reading some of the results, and on the first page I came across this apparently well respected scientist who doesn't agree with the consensus. What criteria am I to use to disregard his opinion in favor of someone else's who appears to me to be equally qualified?
Here's the relevant parts:
The claim that the pause has been caused by heat is going into the deep ocean below 700 m is speculative and relies on models undergoing many data adjustments. That speculation is contradicted by two major issues.
First the Argo data has definitively shown the upper 300 meters have cooled slightly since 2003 (Read Xue 2011) and the consensus among oceanographers is that it is in the upper 100 meters that most of the heat is exchanged with the atmosphere.
Second is it defies known physics. IPCC expert Dr. Hans von Storch said in a recent interview "there is evidence that the oceans have absorbed more heat than we initially calculated. Temperatures at depths greater than 700 meters (2,300 feet) appear to have increased more than ever before. The only unfortunate thing is that our simulations failed to predict this effect." He went on to lament “If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.”
“There are two conceivable explanations — and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn’t mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.”
The Dr. von Storch interview can be seen in its entirety at Stampf, O. and Traufetter , G. (2013) Spiegel International, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von...
> 3. Can we do anything about it?
> 4. Should we do anything about it? I believe this is a cost-benefit analysis
Great points. Worrying about climate change is a luxury. Most humans are worried about serious threats to their well being with much shorter time lines. Convincing the population of climate change is challenging. Convincing them to make real sacrifices to combat it seems nearly impossible.
Great points. Worrying about climate change is a luxury. Most humans are worried about serious threats to their well being with much shorter time lines. Convincing the population of climate change is challenging. Convincing them to make real sacrifices to combat it seems nearly impossible.
I thought that picture of an advert from the 'Heartland institute' near the bottom of the page was a hilarious albeit overdone joke.
"I still believe in global warming. Do you?" - Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber
So I assumed it was a joke, and such transparent and patronising adverts could never have been dreamed up. However it does look like that was a planned advert, luckily the campaign was canned. I'm still kind of amazed!
"I still believe in global warming. Do you?" - Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber
So I assumed it was a joke, and such transparent and patronising adverts could never have been dreamed up. However it does look like that was a planned advert, luckily the campaign was canned. I'm still kind of amazed!
I'd take the climate scientists more seriously if they could offer a comprehensive theory on ice ages. As far as I can tell, over the past 250 years the best they've been able to come up with is 'multi-factor', which of course means they have candidates, but no winner.
That, for me, would be some real science -- not politically charged, not funding-driven, not in the pocket of a lobby or an industry and frankly fascinating. It kills me that there is this fatuous back and forth when the most interesting question of the the planets climate goes effectively unanswered.
That, for me, would be some real science -- not politically charged, not funding-driven, not in the pocket of a lobby or an industry and frankly fascinating. It kills me that there is this fatuous back and forth when the most interesting question of the the planets climate goes effectively unanswered.
Don't both sides claim this kind of thing has happened to them? So again, who do we believe?
Do climate scientists have #skininthegame?
My opinion: the future will be worse. Don't have kids.