Are we really suppose to take global warming cultists seriously? [Archive]

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Devastatin Dave

12-17-2007, 01:52

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=502563&in_page_id=1811&in_page_id=1811&expand=true#StartComments

I mean, come on, look at this fruit. Sorry, when your spokesmen for your cult is Al Gore and Mr Silly Shirt man, how are we suppose to buy into this scam?

Mikeus Caesar

12-17-2007, 02:14

Are we really suppose to take Devastatin Dave seriously?

Because sometimes i don't know if you're serious, or just one big sarcastic jokey stereotype of a right-wing 'americun', being operated by some hippie out of his arthouse studio apartment in San Francisco.

master of the puppets

12-17-2007, 02:18

one so prone to vanity is probably easily swayed by the thin arguments of global warming advocates.

Husar

12-17-2007, 02:18

It's "supposed", everyone who wants to be taken seriously should know that. ~;p

And what's so bad about a dutchman showing that he really cares? :inquisitive:

Maybe it doesn't suit the macho attitude of those who don't but then I don't really care about them. :dizzy2:

Slug For A Butt

12-17-2007, 02:20

Cult or non cult, I'm still a little sceptical full stop.
I don't argue with the fact that the planet is getting warmer but doesn't our planet have a history of hotter and cooler phases? I'm just a bit fed up with it all, and feel that if we knew the next ice age was going to happen in 100 years time we'd be finding reasons to blame ourselves for that too in spite of the fact that we've had ice ages before mankinds industrial revolution.
Sigh... I think if we had been around when Pangaea first split we'd have blamed ourselves for that too. :oops:

Justiciar

12-17-2007, 02:46

What he said.

I don't disagree with the concept. But I'm sick to death of hearing about it. :skull:

Vladimir

12-17-2007, 02:56

What he said.

I don't disagree with the concept. But I'm sick to death of hearing about it. :skull:

Sick of the clowns which are trod out center stage to advocate their cause. It makes me want to burn half the trees in the US. China doesn't care and reason is AWOL.

Slug For A Butt

12-17-2007, 03:09

Bored to death with it.
And we have a BBC radio station dedicated to news (radio 5) which was reporting a few months ago that 56% of scientists surveyed were not convinced that humans were to blame for global warming. So why am I getting it shoved down my throat every day that it's my fault when the majority of the scientists were still sceptical? The station then went on to mention later in the show that "scientists" were telling us how naughty we are and how we need to stop farting etc to save the planet. Is that the minority scientists then?
I'm confused, bored and alienated when it comes to this subject now. :help:

Devastatin Dave

12-17-2007, 03:15

Mikeus Caesar

12-17-2007, 04:06

You should see me in chaps....

Sure, that would be a laugh :beam:

With regards to the global warming issue - i do kind of agree with the rest of you. I am sick of it being constantly on the news (it's like the case of Madeleine McCann - sure, it's terrible, but i don't bloody care 4 months later!) and do believe that it's not entirely our fault - that the natural warming and cooling periods of the Earth are also responsible, it's just our bad luck that we decided to go and build up civilisation during a warming period.

Don Corleone

12-17-2007, 04:29

Devastatin Dave

12-17-2007, 04:34

Oh come on Dave. We all know the only reason you don't agree with global warming and Al Gore is because you're secretly gay. When you start threads like this, it's like a cry for help... "Please, love me. Recognize me for what I am... gay and stuck in a closet".

You got it snoogums. I'm here for you. :kiss2:
And all this time I thought that only one person here on the org understood the REAL me...
Thanks Don to being sensitive to my not so obvious cries. I'm off to pick out some drapes...

AntiochusIII

12-17-2007, 07:56

So, more seriously now, the apparent trend in this thread is that overexposure to the issue is causing apathy and skepticism, correct?

Mikeus Caesar

12-17-2007, 08:17

So, more seriously now, the apparent trend in this thread is that overexposure to the issue is causing apathy and skepticism, correct?

Correct.

At least, that's the case among us. I think the general population is yet to catch up with us, the intellectual elite.

Fragony

12-17-2007, 10:30

Well it kinda hurts when the most polluting conference in history doesn't give any results. Love the Mandela shirt, oh teh martyr, don't want to see him here anymore unless he rows back.

Geoffrey S

12-17-2007, 11:42

So, more seriously now, the apparent trend in this thread is that overexposure to the issue is causing apathy and skepticism, correct?
Overexposure could be worse. I think it's more the removal of the actual scientific debate from headlines, replaced with the essentially political side of things (on either side here) which anyone can see for what it is: a sham which isn't about the actual issues at hand.

Don Corleone

12-17-2007, 12:06

It's kind of hard to believe that these folks running the conference really consider the issue of man-caused global warming to be serious when each of them flew there in their own personal jet to a South Pacific island.

Odin

12-17-2007, 13:50

Maybe if the oceans start rising slightly, or more devestation affects the landscape one of you brilliant minds will come up with a remedy?

Of course the global warming community is overblowing the increase of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is anyone here denying it? I'd like to think of myself as a moderate but Im not hearing a whole lot of moderate solutions.

Its like the democrats circa 2002-5 they had no platform of thier own they just pissed and moaned about what the other party was doing.

any takers on a course of action or am I imagining all the stuff thats occuring environmentally? Its okay if you think I am, I've been accused of living in a fantasy world in my mind for years.

JR-

12-17-2007, 14:03

Maybe if the oceans start rising slightly, one of you brilliant minds will come up with a remedy?

sure we will, its called sea defences and they'll work just fine.

it's bangladesh that will suffer, but because they are poor rather than the fact the sea will be higher there.

Odin

12-17-2007, 14:06

sure we will, its called sea defences and they'll work just fine.

it's bangladesh that will suffer, but because they are poor rather than the fact the sea will be higher there.

Ah, thanks for falling into the trap.

So we will react when the event occurs, not be proactive to prevent the event?

I'm not sold on doom and gloom yet, but there are a lot of people poo pooing the fact that we are emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere then ever.

Eventually its going to bite us in the behind, and the price is going to be high.

Husar

12-17-2007, 14:23

It's almost christmas and still no snow here. :furious3:
I wouldn't be surprised if we get almost none at all this winter, been that way for a while now. I'm repeating myself but I don't care why that is, I just want my snow back. :furious3:

Don Corleone

12-17-2007, 14:29

Husar

12-17-2007, 15:51

Take some of mine. We've gotten 2 1/2 feet in the past 2 weeks.
Thanks, very nice of you. I can PM you my adress if you cannot afford to deliver enough to cover all of NRW.

Xiahou

12-17-2007, 16:35

Ah, thanks for falling into the trap.

So we will react when the event occurs, not be proactive to prevent the event?If that is the most cost-effective and efficient way to handle a problem? Of course. Again, let me summarize:
1. We don't know what role, if any, we're playing in global climate change.
2. Even if it were man-generated CO2 causing all the warming, it's impossible for us to make the needed cuts in time to stop it.
3. We don't know how much warming there really is and if it would really be such a bad thing.
4. Since we don't know if there is a problem, nor can we do anything about it if there is one- the only choice is to continue being as prosperous as possible so as to be able to deal with any consequences when, and if they occur.

Eventually its going to bite us in the behind, and the price is going to be high.That's far from clear.

Well it kinda hurts when the most polluting conference in history doesn't give any results. Love the Mandela shirt, oh teh martyr, don't want to see him here anymore unless he rows back.Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be crying the whole flight home on his private jet while pondering global warming. :yes:

It's kind of hard to believe that these folks running the conference really consider the issue of man-caused global warming to be serious when each of them flew there in their own personal jet to a South Pacific island.It's even better than that, iirc. I'd heard that there wasn't room enough on the island's airport to park all of their private jets that they're flying in on- so many of them, after dropping of their kook environmentalist payloads, had to take off again, empty, and travel to nearby airports with larger hangers. Of course, they'll then have to fly back empty as well to pick up their 'deeply concerned for the environment' passengers before they leave their island resort. :no:

Odin

12-17-2007, 17:08

1. We don't know what role, if any, we're playing in global climate change.

Can we agree that we are emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere? I'm no scientist so I wont sit here and claim an absolute that we are the cause of global warming. I will claim we are emitting to much CO2 into the atmosphere, do you agree with this claim? If not then that would be unsurmountable position for us.

2. Even if it were man-generated CO2 causing all the warming, it's impossible for us to make the needed cuts in time to stop it.

So remain status quo and hope for the best? How did that work out in New Orleans (as an abstract point of reference of course :wiseguy:)

3. We don't know how much warming there really is and if it would really be such a bad thing.

I can agree on that, I am not above backing down from my position either. However since we cant prove or disprove it either way, I much rather go the prevention route. Better to be safe then sorry IMHO.

4. Since we don't know if there is a problem, nor can we do anything about it if there is one- the only choice is to continue being as prosperous as possible so as to be able to deal with any consequences when, and if they occur.

Thankfully a lot of other intelligent people in the world have the opposite position than you. because now your talking about absolutes yourself "the only choice" isnt the only choice. Again, I dont think the end is near but I do think reducing CO2 emissions should be a goal and is attainable if we try and fail at least we tried.

Of course if you dont believe the problem will end up being tangiable down the road then thats certainly your perogative, however heat waves in the EU killing people, fires on the west coast, floods in the mid west, drought in the east and down under they have had a drought for years.

Best answer I have gotten from the poo pooers on these events are its the natural course of nature, or historically this is normal fare yadda yadda but the ivory tower mentality is cynical at best at this point.

Its a simple enough equation even those committed to shouting down the environmental left certainly cant deny the one signifigant point, can the earth consume our CO2 emissions without having a devestating effect?

Maybe some of you are gamblers, thats cool. I much rather spend a little coin now and eleminate a potential threat down the road. As they say, a little money up front can save you money down the road.

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 17:33

Overexposure could be worse. I think it's more the removal of the actual scientific debate from headlines, replaced with the essentially political side of things (on either side here) which anyone can see for what it is: a sham which isn't about the actual issues at hand.
Well said! These days it's harder to find a graph of all temperature increase data, than it is to find 500 bloggers, politicians, lobbyist groups and general scumbags speaking about how the global warming should be solved by handing them millions of dollars. Worst example I came across lately, was some company owner who said we should stop recycling and taking care of heavy metal pollutions (which are very easy to solve, and in fact all of us are, knowing or not, actually taking care of this at the moment), and instead buy products from his company. Truth is, his company's impact on environment will be 1/1,000,000 of the damage he would cause if people would listen to his BS about not keeping the current systems for reducing heavy metals emission into lakes and similar.

The matter of most interest to everybody is exactly how serious the problem is, with as exact numerical data as possible. (Most) People are not too stupid to realize what needs to be done when they see the hard facts. No, the current mass media coverage focuses less on the hard scientific data than on:
1. presenting a person who is working with the issue, showing how he toasts his breads in the morning or what clothes he is wearing
2. talking about some useless meeting that is being held about the issue - meetings were total idiots who know almost nothing about the issue meet, after getting there by polluting jets, to discuss whether their Dom Perignon or Beluga caviar was most fresh today
3. talking about people who are talking about people who are talking about global warming
4. telling what the consequences could be if the consequences of the consequences of global warming would arise
5. trying to undermine the credibility of the global warming research by not mentioning anything except bogus reports and research made by lobbyist organizations such as oil companies and weapons manufacturers who are seeking to prevent a solution to the global warming problem from happening

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 17:38

1. We don't know what role, if any, we're playing in global climate change.

2. Even if it were man-generated CO2 causing all the warming, it's impossible for us to make the needed cuts in time to stop it.

These two statements are somewhat contradictory. How can you "know" (read: completely without supporting argumentation or scientific data claim) that we can't solve the problem if we've caused it, if you simultaneously claim we don't know how much effect our actions have? If we don't know which part of our actions causes the warming as you claim, then how can you be so sure that we can't eliminate that cause? :dizzy2: :dizzy2: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

3. We don't know how much warming there really is and if it would really be such a bad thing

Have you heard of thermometers?

Vladimir

12-17-2007, 18:03

5. trying to undermine the credibility of the global warming research by not mentioning anything except bogus reports and research made by lobbyist organizations such as oil companies and weapons manufacturers who are seeking to prevent a solution to the global warming problem from happening

You forgot to say military industrial complex! :wall:

Fragony

12-17-2007, 18:10

This the the 'amersfoortse kei'

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6f/Amersfoortse_Kei.jpg/150px-Amersfoortse_Kei.jpg, but it's really from Norway, last ice-age ended right here so we have these big stones. It's solar activity not CO2. CO2 is just a stfu to raise taxes.

Viking

12-17-2007, 18:20

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 18:24

Some background info on the credibility of environment research:

- Ozone layer crisis - CFC gases used in refrigerators and similar caused severe damages to the ozone layer, threatening to remove all protection against UV light, which can break down DNA and cause mutations and cancer. A continuation of use of CFC gases up till now, instead of the prohibition of it and active research gone into finding alternatives, would likely have increased skin cancer rates by up to 100% today, if not even more. There are still irrepairable damages to some parts of the ozone layer, especially near the South Pole, but the problem is not increasing any more. The switching from CFC gases to alternatives was NOT giving any competitive advantage to the companies that switched by free will, so in order to create any incentive to stop destruction of the absolutely vital ozone layer, prohibition was needed. The combined efforts of science, and political actions by prohibition solved a problem which in a matter of 50 years could have resulted in world-wide skin cancer mass epidemia.
SOLVED

- Acidification problem - the acidification of lakes led to mass death of species in lakes, and damages to trees and other vegetation. The damages to vegetation in general contributed to climate changes as CO2 binding was reduced, but also to many other problems, such as decreasing water quality and difficulties obtaining fresh water. This was solved by a number of measures to reduce certain especially harmful substances, the introduction of catalysts to car engines, and decrease in pollution of various other substances (through putting bans on certain substances, and maximum content percentages on other). Halting increase of this problem has been solved, but the damages made to the environment will take approximately 100-500 years to recover.
SOLVED

- TBE disaster - causing massive damages to human beings and animals alike, by assembling in fat tissue, this substance was banned, even though the replacements could be more expensive and less effective. The ban was necessary to give a market incentive to prevent usage of the harmful, cheap and short term effective substance over the use of better alternatives.
SOLVED

- Heavy metal emissions - caused mass-death of fish in lakes, among other things. These heavy metals can also be radioactive (causing cancer etc), and/or poisoning of humans. Drinking water quality was heavily threatened. Bans and maximum content percentage laws were passed after accurate information was provided by researchers, and the problem has been solved (as in that it won't increase much if the current policy is maintained). Industry had no major problems transferring to alternative materials even though they could be more expensive or require more complex architecture/design of the products.
SOLVED

- Eutrophication - not yet solved, but thorougly analyzed. Caused problems in supply of clear drinking water, and also causes major lakes to disappear by becoming land out of the earth bound by the dense vegetation. A lot of solutions are being developed to decrease the problem, by support from research and bans and restrictions on the most dangerous substances. Part of the problem still remains to be solved. It is critical to our food supply, because the undermined soil quality caused by too quick growth-harvest cycles is dealth with by increased use of chemical fertilizers, which are a major cause in eutrophication. This problem has been recognized by research but is not expected to be solved completely any time soon by simple technology improvements, but may rather require halting of the population growth to work.
SCIENTIFIC PART ALMOST SOLVED, POLITICAL PART HALFWAY SOLVED

- Global warming - accurate data for the problem exists, but the problem is not yet solved. The biggest problem lies entirely in the sphere of politics and mass media. Researchers have classified the problems and substances very well and have provided many different possible ways of solving the problem, depending on which policy the politicians prefer to choose. The problem now lies entirely in the hands of the politicians and mass media.
SCIENTIFIC PART ALMOST SOLVED, POLITICAL PART NOT SOLVED

The difficulty now compared to the previous problems, is that China and India and various other countries in the world, where education levels are low, and democracy more or less non-existent, have to take part in the negotiations. Back in the 50ies to 90ies, when the other problems were solved, we only needed to discuss within Europe and America, and had no problems reaching agreements, since the level of trust was high among the negotiating parts, and no countries which were at war with each other or in aggressive economical competition were on the opposite sides of the negotiation table.

All these environment negotiations are like the prisoner's dilemma (see wiki: Prisoner's dilemma), i.e. where both you and an opponent have one option "nice", and one option "aggressive". The rules are that if both choose "nice", both will win much, if both choose "aggressive", both lose a lot, but most of all is lost by one who chooses "nice" when the other chooses "aggressive", and most is won by one who chooses "aggressive" when the opponent chooses "nice". The problem is to correctly choose between "nice" and "aggressive" to get the best possible outcome. Typically over a long period of time, those who manage to cooperate and trust each other win compared to any who ever used the "aggressive" option. Conversely, those who are hesitant to use force to respond to offenses, and refuse to switch to "aggressive" to respond when an opponent chooses "aggressive", end up losing the most. What we need to do, is to ensure that all parties choose "nice", or otherwise we will have to make them do so.

The prisoner's dilemma gives no problems when both parties trust each other: then both will choose "nice". When there's lack of trust, both will have problems choosing, since they expect that the opponent may very well choose "aggressive". The only solution is to form pacts among those who are prepared to cooperate, and invade countries who try to sabotage peace and justice for all other countries in the world. If the enviromental problems aren't solved, just as much is at stake as in the previous environmental problems which we DID solve. I think it's time we start considering using military threats towards China and India if they refuse to cooperate and accept treaties on reducing emissions of the most dangerous substances. However, to facilitate negotiations we should still leave out most poor countries in Africa, South America and central Asia, because this will make the countries in Europe, America and China and Asia more likely to reach an agreement, and we have the largest emissions and industrialized populations. After that, it would be much easier to press other countries to join, by force or not. European and American armies are perfectly suited to that type of war: it includes no occupation phase whatsoever, just a bomb-every-factory-to-pieces campaigns, which could be carried out with minimal casualties.

Additionally, we need to heavily fight the problems that spreading of false information about the problem is. Boycott all global warming sources that have any profit interest behind them. That includes Al Gore's movie, various other documentaries not made by non-profit organizations or representatives of states, and newspapers that publish sensationalist stories about the problem.

Fragony

12-17-2007, 18:35

Piers Corbyn.

Nuff said.

scientists are further critical of his methods due to the low probability of his results

hmm, I would call 80% quite something.

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 18:36

"As Corbyn refuses to publish his methods in any journal, scientists are further critical of his methods due to the low probability of his results"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn

"In October 2007 Corbyn predicted a superstorm for Great Britain and The Netherlands at the end of November 2007[8]. Satellite images on 20 November 2007 though prove that this prediction is false.[9] Many people in the Netherlands (mostly older people) were very concerned and some people even started to lock themselves up in their houses, thinking the predicted 'superstorm' in the last weekend of november would cause a lot of damage. When the storm did not occur, Corbyn started changing the date, and still said the storm would come (later in 2007)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn

"Corbyn is also a global warming sceptic. His beliefs stem from the same solar forecasting he uses for his predictions [...] predictions [...] based on what [he calls] 'The Solar Weather Technique'. [...] combines [...] analysis of over a century of historical weather patterns with [...] solar observations. [...] He considers past weather patterns and current solar observations, drawing correlations between cosmic radiation and cloud cover."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn

No offense meant, but he sounds like a good old Nostradamus to me...

JR-

12-17-2007, 18:38

Ah, thanks for falling into the trap.

So we will react when the event occurs, not be proactive to prevent the event?

I'm not sold on doom and gloom yet, but there are a lot of people poo pooing the fact that we are emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere then ever.

Eventually its going to bite us in the behind, and the price is going to be high.
What trap.................? :inquisitive:

Let me be clear:
> I am not against reducing emissions and pollution, it is a good thing and results in less local ecological stress.
> I am totally for some level of renewable energy as diversification of supply is another way of saying energy security.
> I am very much in favour of energy saving measures because using 1KW/hour of electricity a day to heat your home is always going to be better than using 10.
> I. Agree. That. The. World. Is. Warming.

But it is the poor that suffer from rapid-change and extreme-variation of weather and climate patterns.

So before we engage in gargantuan legislative monstrosities such as kyoto i would like to know that the trillions spent would be better directed at ending poverty, i.e. building the bangladeshi's some houses that won't get washed in the hundreds of thousands by a nasty monsoon in 50 years time.

I would also only like to do the above on the condition that everyone piles in as there is not much point if India, China and co don't join the party.

Xiahou

12-17-2007, 18:46

These two statements are somewhat contradictory. How can you "know" (read: completely without supporting argumentation or scientific data claim) that we can't solve the problem if we've caused it, if you simultaneously claim we don't know how much effect our actions have? If we don't know which part of our actions causes the warming as you claim, then how can you be so sure that we can't eliminate that cause? :dizzy2: :dizzy2: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: It's pretty obvious, but I'll explain it anyway. If man-generated CO2 is the problem, which we've been generating more and more of since the industrial revolution, it would be utterly impossible for us to stop producing CO2- period. The claim isn't that it's just current levels of CO2 that are too much, the claim is that it's been happening for decades. Making the kind of cuts that would roll our energy consumption back to the 1960's or earlier would be akin to suicide- it's not going to happen. Thus, if it is a problem(I have some serious doubts), we can't stop it.

Have you heard of thermometers?Are you serious? :no:

If you want to actually debate the science, get up to speed on this (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=96450) thread and then make any points there. I'm not interested in simultaneously re-arguing the exact same things over again here.

Edit:
So remain status quo and hope for the best? How did that work out in New Orleans (as an abstract point of reference of course :wiseguy:)
What about New Orleans? I'm not seeing the relevance.

Odin

12-17-2007, 18:46

:inquisitive:
What trap.................? :inquisitive:

In your 1st post in response to my hypothetical of the ocean rising you said you would build sea defenses. Did I take you the wrong way? Would that be a reaction to the issue? Or a choice to do so before it happened? I suspect you meant it as a reaction, and thats the trap we cant fall into. Did I read you wrong? :inquisitive:

Capital exprenditures always seem to cost more when the problem is present, as opposed to anticipated.

Let me be clear:
> I am not against reducing emissions and pollution, it is a good thing and results in less local ecological stress.
> I am totally for some level of renewable energy as diversification of supply is another way of saying energy security.
> I am very much in favour of energy saving measures because using 1KW/hour of electricity a day to heat your home is always going to be better than using 10.
> I. Agree. That. The. World. Is. Warming.

But it is the poor that suffer from rapid-change and extreme-variation of weather and climate patterns.

a proactive solution based on your above comment would help to address the comment below with the noted exception of high lighted part.

So before we engage in gargantuan legislative monstrosities such as kyoto i would like to know that the trillions spent would be better directed at ending poverty, i.e. building the bangladeshi's some houses that won't get washed in the hundreds of thousands by a nasty monsoon in 50 years time.

We dont need kyoto or any other binding international treaty on this issue. What we need is for countries to be proactive now, before a binding treaty like this is needed and we are up to our behinds in the muck and everyone needs a bail out.

The problem seems to be is you have people, intelligent people too (see Xiahou) who simply are prepared to hope for the best. Short of proof I sympathize with thier position, however shouting down the other side without proof to the contrary rings just as hollow.

Fragony

12-17-2007, 18:46

"As Corbyn refuses to publish his methods in any journal, scientists are further critical of his methods due to the low probability of his results"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn

"In October 2007 Corbyn predicted a superstorm for Great Britain and The Netherlands at the end of November 2007[8]. Satellite images on 20 November 2007 though prove that this prediction is false.[9] Many people in the Netherlands (mostly older people) were very concerned and some people even started to lock themselves up in their houses, thinking the predicted 'superstorm' in the last weekend of november would cause a lot of damage. When the storm did not occur, Corbyn started changing the date, and still said the storm would come (later in 2007)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn

He sounds like your average sensationalist Nostradamus...

Why bother with political scientists? He has an 80% succes, nobody can claim that. He is right not to bother with extremists, we have a market for smart people, let's leave the propaganda to screamers and their funders.

By the way, superstorm didn't happen, it was a normal one. Wasn't a superstorm that led to the flood in the fifties, just verything that could go wrong did. Look at a map, when we have a certain wind and a certain stream we are a bottleneck.

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 18:51

Piers Corbyn.

Nuff said.

scientists are further critical of his methods due to the low probability of his results

hmm, I would call 80% quite something.
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/05/trying-to-bet-on-climate-with-piers.html

"Moreover, he refuses to detail his techniques or even test his skill in any objective manner"

"It seems likely that much of his "success", such as it is, is based on issuing forecasts that read like horoscopes, where an optimistic assessor would find merit, but a critical assessor would find fault"

Fragony

12-17-2007, 18:54

http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/05/trying-to-bet-on-climate-with-piers.html

"Moreover, he refuses to detail his techniques or even test his skill in any objective manner"

"It seems likely that much of his "success", such as it is, is based on issuing forecasts that read like horoscopes, where an optimistic assessor would find merit, but a critical assessor would find fault"

If someone has an 80% succesrate I don't have to know why, let the numbers speak. Let the screamers explain why there was an iceage in saudi arabia and why antartica was heaven even before the SUV. You will find that the earth doesn't make a perfect circle around the sun because of the gravity from other planets, it's in fact an oval. Happens every 30.000 years or so.

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 18:59

It's pretty obvious, but I'll explain it anyway. If man-generated CO2 is the problem, which we've been generating more and more of since the industrial revolution, it would be utterly impossible for us to stop producing CO2- period. The claim isn't that it's just current levels of CO2 that are too much, the claim is that it's been happening for decades. Making the kind of cuts that would roll our energy consumption back to the 1960's or earlier would be akin to suicide- it's not going to happen. Thus, if it is a problem(I have some serious doubts), we can't stop it.

We removed almost all cavalry from our armies when the tanks begun mass production. We had been using cavalry for 2,000 years when it happened, but nevertheless it was not difficult to remove the obsolete cavalry. Your argument that "just because we've used it a long time we can't remove it" makes no sense. We've made cuts in many substances in recent years. Science and technology has improved a lot since we removed the harmful substances - in most cases we've not lost any life quality. Rather, the opposite, I would claim. In the last 50 years we've introduced more technology than ever, even though we've been more restrictive than ever before in history by passing laws against many substances.

Next will you start telling us to remove our tanks and start using men armed with spiked clubs instead? :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

Are you serious? :no:

Eh? Are you claiming we don't know how much temperature has increased year by year since 1950? :dizzy2: Or what exactly do you try to say by writing like this:

3. We don't know how much warming there really is

Odin

12-17-2007, 19:03

Edit:What about New Orleans? I'm not seeing the relevance.

I'll have to go do a search if you want links but I recall at the time the levy system had been underfunded for maintence/updating by the state legislature. Basically they let it remain status quo and hoped for the best, and they got the worse.

Im not saying that it would have saved the city if they had made capital improvement investments, but it might have, and we will never know now will we.

Got it now?

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 19:05

If someone has an 80% succesrate I don't have to know why, let the numbers speak.
In that case, I presume you're an ardent supporter of Nostradamus' 99% "successrate" as well?

Let's face it - if a person can't reveal his method, his claims can't be taken as scientific. For now we can just guess - either he has a method, or he is just chancing or phrasing his predictions like an Atrologer formulates horoscopes. As such, nothing he says should be trusted blindly. To do so is somewhat similar to claiming that the average Russian citizen in 1922 should blindly trust Stalin in everything because the first 5 years of Communism in USSR had actually brought economical improvements and shown that their "method" had a high "successrate". We all know how that ended.

No, it's not sensible to blindly trust anyone who can't demonstrate his method. Especially when he, like this Astrologer dude, is making personal profit from his claims.

Fragony

12-17-2007, 19:11

In that case, I presume you're an ardent supporter of Nostradamus' 99% "successrate" as well?

If he in fact had that, yeah. Even if it was 80%, and I would settle for even less. Are you in fact saying that mathematicians aren't scientists? They would call 80% rather significant statistically speaking.

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 19:23

If he in fact had that, yeah. Even if it was 80%, and I would settle for even less. Are you in fact saying that mathematicians aren't scientists? They would call 80% rather significant statistically speaking.
Yes, but he has to agree to having his method tested objectively. Additionally, his method should be analyzed to see if it consistently tends to overestimate or underestimate some particular phenomenon a lot, to evaluate it properly. Third thing is that one should analyze how large his deviation from the correct value is in the cases when he is wrong. The "80% successrate" is his own claim, but what would his success rate be if it was objectively evaluated? What if it is just 5% successrate?

Again, let me take the example with Stalin (yes maybe a bit out of place and extreme example, but incorrect claims are best refuted by taking extreme examples where the fallacy becomes obvious - fallacies are usually not as obvious in everyday examples): the communist regime had by 1922 had an extremely high successrate in improving a lot of things for the average Russian citizen. Should the average Russian citizen in 1922 have reasoned "OMG high successrate but unofficial, secret methdology - yay, that sounds good, now I should blindly trust these guys forever". Or should they reason: "they claim to have a high successrate. First of all, this successrate should be investigated objectively. If it is incorrect, they should be mistrusted more than before for trying to lie. However if the investigation shows that they indeed have a high success rate, then we should ask ourselves - will they maintain the high success rate in the future? That, we will only know if we know if they're using sensible methodology, and argue that there are certain guarantees coming with their method. We should ask ourselves, if the success up till now is just a coincidence."

Dîn-Heru

12-17-2007, 19:24

Is it not understandable that you could suffer an emotional breakdown if you had worked for 12 days arguing over the WORDING of a road map, ie plans about what we will TALK about doing to prevent too much damage to the world, and then on top of that being accused of not doing your job properly.. ?

Or are grown men not allowed under any circumstances to shed a tear..?
(As an example, Saladin I believe is reported to cry publicly at one or more occassion, and he managed to boot the Franks out of Jerusalem and most of the Holy Land..)

The impression I get of the article is exactly that, haha look at the week man crying... Does this matter if the goal he is working towards is a good one?

Oh, and this gem: "Three colleagues - one of them a woman - formed a protective group around him and escorted him out of the hall. It was all very dramatic." (bolding by me)

Of what importance is it that one of the colleagues was a woman?

The main point of this rant is that the people who are in the spotlight in the work on halting global heating does not matter as much as making a choice between being proactive or reactive..

But what do I care, burn in your dessert when it comes, race you to Svalbard when it turns green.. ~:flirt:

(Oh and just for the record I totally agree with Don when it comes to their planes, but what did you expect..? They are politicians, they talk, it does not mean that they think.. Sadly because of the selfish nature of man we need someone on top in matters like this to coordinate the actions needed)

Husar

12-17-2007, 19:29

If he in fact had that, yeah. Even if it was 80%, and I would settle for even less. Are you in fact saying that mathematicians aren't scientists? They would call 80% rather significant statistically speaking.
The problem is how you get the 80%, I could claim every day that my table will be in the same position tomorrow as it is today, as long as I won't move it my successrate will be 100%, then a year later I shall claim that a big cockroach will eat the planet earth within a year. Given my 100% successrate concerning predictions, would you believe me? :dizzy2:

Fragony

12-17-2007, 19:30

Yes, but you have to agree to having your method tested objectively. Additionally, his method should be analyzed to see if it consistently tends to overestimate or underestimate some particular phenomenon a lot, to evaluate it properly. Finally, "80% successrate" is his own claim, however nobody has been able to critically and objectively evaluate his method.

So? It's called patent, he invented a method and decided to go commercial. Don't blame him considering his company.

HoreTore

12-17-2007, 19:33

Of what importance is it that one of the colleagues was a woman?

Because women are weak and their place is the kitchen. You already knew that.

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 19:38

So? It's called patent, he invented a method and decided to go commercial. Don't blame him considering his company.
Think of the reason why you don't worship Nostradamus. That is the reason why I don't worship this astrologer dude. Also see Husar's post with the example with the moving table.

Viking

12-17-2007, 19:40

Dîn-Heru

12-17-2007, 19:43

Because women are weak and their place is the kitchen. You already knew that.

:shame: Oh, yes of course, silly me, a bit tired today..

Fragony

12-17-2007, 19:43

Think of the reason why you don't worship Nostradamus. That is the reason why I don't worship this astrologer dude. Also see Husar's post with the example with the moving table.

He does weather forecasts, company's have little use for astrology unless women are their target area. They love people who can claim a 80% succesrate though.

Dîn-Heru

12-17-2007, 19:56

@ Viking

Dev. Dave is one of a kind and I would not have him any other way for all that I disagree with his views and manner of expressing them at times.

My argument was about the article itself, and how it focuses on a person rather than the issue at hand. (This sentiment is also not limited to this particular case, but what seems to have become the normal state of things..)

Like you said we seem to be more prone to tackle the player rather than the ball, and I am just getting tired of it...

Viking

12-17-2007, 20:07

JR-

12-17-2007, 20:11

:inquisitive:

In your 1st post in response to my hypothetical of the ocean rising you said you would build sea defenses. Did I take you the wrong way? Would that be a reaction to the issue? Or a choice to do so before it happened? I suspect you meant it as a reaction, and thats the trap we cant fall into. Did I read you wrong? :inquisitive:

Capital exprenditures always seem to cost more when the problem is present, as opposed to anticipated.

i am all in favour of pro-actively building flood defences, decent homes, and clean water supply in areas where this doesn't exist.

Dîn-Heru

12-17-2007, 20:26

@ Viking
Yes, quess you are right, it has been a favorite method of many throughout history to get things their way by ad hominem arguments. Still tired of it though..

Xiahou

12-17-2007, 20:58

Next will you start telling us to remove our tanks and start using men armed with spiked clubs instead? :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:This is absurd. You're trying to comparing replacing animal labor with machinery to replacing fossil fuels... with what again? :idea2:

Eh? Are you claiming we don't know how much temperature has increased year by year since 1950? :dizzy2: Or what exactly do you try to say by writing like this:Um, it hasn't increased year by year since 1950- Even using current measurement techniques. :no:

I'll have to go do a search if you want links but I recall at the time the levy system had been underfunded for maintence/updating by the state legislature. Basically they let it remain status quo and hoped for the best, and they got the worse.

Im not saying that it would have saved the city if they had made capital improvement investments, but it might have, and we will never know now will we.

Got it now?
No, I still don't see the relevance. You're saying that because preventative measures may have helped New Orleans that they are therefore the best choice in every other single instance anywhere? You may need your appendix removed at some point in your life. By your line of reasoning, you should have an operation to cut it out now as a "preventative" measure. Although, that is even more reasonable than the suggested preventative measures being suggested on global warming. Maybe something more like, getting a pre-emptive heart transplant (without a donor lined up) might be a better comparison. :beam:

Personally, I think about 80% of New Orleans should never have been built- or at the very least, shouldn't have been insured. Most of it was below sea level and in a hurricane/flood prone area. But again, I don't see where any of that is relevant to global warming. :shrug:

Rodion Romanovich

12-17-2007, 21:06

"This is absurd. You're trying to comparing replacing animal labor with machinery to replacing fossil fuels... with what again?"
Eh? You're trying to make the argument that we shouldn't improve our technology because we've used the technology for a long time and "therefore we can't change it". That is a logical fallacy. We replaced cavalry with tanks when cavalry proved unsustainable. Do you think technological progress is fostered by the attitude of not changing a losing team?

"Um, it hasn't increased year by year since 1950- Even using current measurement techniques"
Correct, I made a typo. I mean "If you smoothen the curve by filtering out all high-frequency noise, the temperature measurements increase steadily year by year from 1950". Not that I suppose you will understand it better put that way, than when using the simplified formulation I used above, since you seem more interested in focusing on the high-frequency noise than on the speed and magnitude of the larger variations - which is what matters.

Odin

12-17-2007, 21:26

You're saying that because preventative measures may have helped New Orleans that they are therefore the best choice in every other single instance anywhere?

you know thats not what I'm saying Xiahou, who's being absurd now? Of course it isnt the
best choice in every other single instance anywhere?

Its an example of the potential of prevention.

You may need your appendix removed at some point in your life. By your line of reasoning, you should have an operation to cut it out now as a "preventative" measure.

My reasoning isnt linear its specific to the potential impact of global warming. Your being lazy because your not reading my posts, which is fine. Your attempting to paint my point with a broad brush, might work with the passionate ones but not in my case.

its very simple, even you can understand but if you want to stubborn thats fine too. you know what preventative steps are, of course you have to believe there is something to prevent, if you dont then the point is moot with you.

Although, that is even more reasonable than the suggested preventative measures being suggested on global warming. Maybe something more like, getting a pre-emptive heart transplant (without a donor lined up) might be a better comparison. :beam:

Maybe more like knowing something like smoking can damage your heart and shopping around for the best price on a carton? :beam: Smoke um if you got em sport ! :thumbsup:

Personally, I think about 80% of New Orleans should never have been built- or at the very least, shouldn't have been insured. Most of it was below sea level and in a hurricane/flood prone area. But again, I don't see where any of that is relevant to global warming. :shrug:

Its relevant for the simple reason that New Orleans was built, levies were put in place to prevent it from flooding. They were not maintained or reenforced and they failed. The relevancy? If an investment had been made the situation might have been prevented. reducing CO2 emissions now might prevent a negative situation in the future.

It might also do nothing, or be a waste of money but it might also be a complete disaster. Basically one has to believe there is an issue in the 1st place, apparantly you dont. Thats fine, we'll end up dancing around all afternoon then. for me, I'd rather be preventative now and find ways to reduce CO2 emissions.

Xiahou

12-17-2007, 22:13

reducing CO2 emissions now might prevent a negative situation in the future. What are you basing this on, speculation? If we are causing global warming via CO2, the amount of cuts and the timeframe they would need to be done in is insurmountable. Full stop. Stopping the growth of CO2 emissions would be economically painful- let alone cuts. At Bali, they're bandying around figures like 40% below 1990 levels to make an impact and even that's uncertain- some pro-AGW scientists are saying it's already too late to stop it.

When it's a problem that we're not sure exists, not sure what the damage will be if it does, and not sure what, if anything, would avert it, cripplingly expensive preventative measures (that may not even work) aren't the way to go.

My reasoning isnt linear its specific to the potential impact of global warming. Your being lazy because your not reading my posts, which is fine. Your attempting to paint my point with a broad brush, might work with the passionate ones but not in my case.You're clearly missing the point if that's what you think. :shrug:

Ironside

12-18-2007, 11:16

Why bother with political scientists? He has an 80% succes, nobody can claim that. He is right not to bother with extremists, we have a market for smart people, let's leave the propaganda to screamers and their funders.

By the way, superstorm didn't happen, it was a normal one. Wasn't a superstorm that led to the flood in the fifties, just verything that could go wrong did. Look at a map, when we have a certain wind and a certain stream we are a bottleneck.

Two questions.
Are normal winter storms common (occuring yearly)?
Is this normal storm counted against his success rate or failure rate?

Fragony

12-18-2007, 11:49

Against, he was spot on about the tidal waves/storm combo though.

Louis VI the Fat

12-18-2007, 12:55

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12_02/yvoMS1512_468x293.jpg

What's up with his shirt?

Why do lefties mistake traditional attire for an appropriate wardrobe when dealing with non-Westerners? If an Indonesian diplomat goes to a convention in the Netherlands, he doesn't wear clogs. He will wear a suit, like all Asians do - the international business standard, modern.

If this De Boer insists, he himself can wear clogs and Dutch costumes. But the thought would of course never cross his mind.

He is a sorely mistaken leftie. The kind who thinks globalisation is only imperialism revisited, a Western dictate, instead of modernisation, driven by indigenous forces. Wearing traditional Indonesion clothing to a diplomatic summit is a slap in the face of his hosts. It achieves the opposite of what De Boer thinks it does. It doesn't show an appreciation of Asian traditions. It betrays a patronising racist attitude. What a disgrace, this.

The disdain for this buffoon on the face of Ban Ki-moon is almost painful to watch.

Fragony

12-18-2007, 13:07

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12_02/yvoMS1512_468x293.jpg

What's up with his shirt?

hint

http://419.bittenus.com/WilliamsMuyeke/Nelson%20Mandela.jpg

And yeah he's a disgrace.

Xiahou

12-18-2007, 22:34

The disdain for this buffoon on the face of Ban Ki-moon is almost painful to watch.
You know, I barely even noticed it until you pointed it out. I guess his shirt was too loud to notice much anything else in the photo. But yeah, you're right- disdain looks to be putting it mildly. Something to the effect of "Oh no, here goes the drama queen again."

Devastatin Dave

12-18-2007, 23:07

Something to the effect of "Oh no, here goes the drama queen again."
I was thinking more like, "Dude, chill, we've got almost everyone fooled on this global warming scam, don't blow it now!!!".:laugh4:

Husar

12-19-2007, 03:10

On a somewhat related note. (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/gore_wins_oscar_nobel_peace_prize)
:laugh4:

Adrian II

12-19-2007, 11:40

I maintain a safe distance to all cultists. :brood:

And I want to hear something new about the climate issue, not the same old junk.
Surprise me, somebody? :coffeenews:

Pannonian

12-19-2007, 12:31

I maintain a safe distance to all cultists. :brood:

And I want to hear something new about the climate issue, not the same old junk.
Surprise me, somebody? :coffeenews:
DevDave is a closet liberal? Would that be surprising enough?

Adrian II

12-19-2007, 12:52

DevDave is a closet liberal? Would that be surprising enough?Nope. :coffeenews:

Louis VI the Fat

12-19-2007, 12:56

Surprise me, somebody? :coffeenews:Interplanetary comparitive studies? :sweatdrop:

Venus’s climate is strongly driven by the most powerful greenhouse effect (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEMFPY808BE_0.html) found in the Solar System. The greenhouse agents sustaining it are water vapour, carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid aerosols.

Duke John

12-19-2007, 14:38

https://img528.imageshack.us/img528/9307/dramaglobalwarmingla8.gif

KukriKhan

12-19-2007, 14:54

I maintain a safe distance to all cultists. :brood:

And I want to hear something new about the climate issue, not the same old junk.
Surprise me, somebody? :coffeenews:

Global warming? Lobal-schmarming (http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/death-star-gala.html) or "You think WE got troubles...". Black hole jets fry neighboring galaxy.*

*Makes for a pretty cool new wallpaper though. :)

Viking

12-19-2007, 15:20

Interplanetary comparitive studies? :sweatdrop:

Venus’s climate is strongly driven by the most powerful greenhouse effect (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEMFPY808BE_0.html) found in the Solar System. The greenhouse agents sustaining it are water vapour, carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid aerosols.

80% of the sunlight hitting Venus is reflected back into space and does never hit the surface; yet the temperature is 500 C higher on the surface than in the upper atmosphere. Hm....

https://img337.imageshack.us/img337/3064/greenhouse02l400yv8.jpg

Louis VI the Fat

12-19-2007, 16:28

80% of the sunlight hitting Venus is reflected back into space and does never hit the surface; yet the temperature is 500 C higher on the surface than in the upper atmosphere. Hm.... Yes (http://hubble.uhh.hawaii.edu/UHH/astro384/astro352_1_files/frame.htm). :yes:

Comparative planetology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetology) is a fairly recent sciencific discipline, enormously boosted the past decade or so by the huge amount of information send back to earth by all those probing sondes.

Give me an unlimited budget and a few decades, and I'll give you any climate you want on earth. It's not rocket science. Uh, well it is in fact, quite literally so. But it can be done. :yes:

Viking

12-19-2007, 16:54

How to heat a planet:

Adding heat
Mirrors made of thin aluminized PET film could be placed in orbit around Mars to increase the total insolation it receives. This would increase the planet's temperature directly, and also vaporize water and carbon dioxide to increase the planet's greenhouse effect. Directing such reflected sunlight near the polar caps would maximize the effectiveness of this method.

While producing halocarbons on Mars would contribute to adding mass to the atmosphere, their primary function would be to trap incoming solar radiation. Halocarbons (such as CFCs and PFCs) are especially powerful greenhouse gases, and are stable for lengthy periods of time in atmospheres. They could be produced by genetically engineered aerobic bacteria or by mechanical processors scattered across the planet's surface.

A terraformed Mars:

https://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4249/terraformedmarstharsisjr3.jpg

Of course, heating a planet this way is not possible on Earth in any way. :uhoh:

ICantSpellDawg

12-19-2007, 17:09

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/COMMENTARY/10575140/-1/RSS_COMMENTARY

Year of global cooling

By David Deming
December 19, 2007

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.

Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.

If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.

Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

David Deming is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.

Ser Clegane

12-19-2007, 17:46

Viking

12-19-2007, 18:05

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

The natural variations cannot cause cold temperatures? :laugh4:

Note: these temperatures are caused by the local climate.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation

Not under any circumstance is it; we are in a heating period. Some "sceptics" says the temperatures does not increase, some say anything but (anything but) human activity is the cause; the heating is real. Will they ever agree on this basic science? :laugh4:

Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

Put this information into context if it is to be assumed as reliabled.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.

Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.

Again the local climate and year-to-year differences. The global warming measured is "only" 0.7 degrees (which much or little depending on the context..), and does not create unsurpassabel troubles for new low-temperature records.

If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.

These facts does not prove nor disprove anything.

Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

This man has just tried to explain the global climate by just pointing out a few issues spread randomly over the globe. ~D

Pannonian

12-19-2007, 18:12

So Mr. Deming looks at some anecdotal evidence and declares 2007 to have been a freezing year...

When I visited Toronto in October it was extremely hot for that time of the year. Evidence for global warming?

Very scientific...

For reference some global temperature measurements (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt)
Isn't the threat climate change, rather than just global warming? Whether specific places are warming or cooling, the fact is that communities have developed to suit the environment they are used to. A change in the weather system would mean different environmental conditions, with drastic effects for communities that aren't able to adapt, with spillover effects into their neighbours. Kind of like the refugee problem in Europe after WW2, but on a larger scale, all over the planet.

Innocentius

12-19-2007, 19:36

I can't say that I'm very interested in this debate, nor in global climate/warming, but I just have a question to you anti-cult-people: Exactly what do you think this cult will gain from fooling everyone on earth that there's a global warming going on?

Fragony

12-19-2007, 19:44

Innocentius

12-19-2007, 19:50

:laugh4:

JR-

12-19-2007, 21:05

Personally I think it are socialist forces who want to break western power.

Yes, I am serious.
oddly enough i kind of agree; the green movement (IMO) has derived a lot of its support from the socialists and communists who ended up distraught and disillusioned after 1991.

so they need a new ideology to fill that vacuum in their souls........... and low and behold we are once again presented with a revolutionary zeal for supra-national command-economy action plans that will save the world (read: free the proletariat).

oh gee!

Viking

12-19-2007, 21:13

Oh yes the global warming is gonna skyrocket socialism. :dizzy2:

Someone better come and save us with Intelligent Design and more proper science. Ah, like in ancient Greece the science should be. This empiric method ruined everything.

Devastatin Dave

12-19-2007, 21:48

Innocentius

12-19-2007, 22:55

I'm not convinced about the socialism aspect, but there is BIG money to be made in this.

Could you please elaborate that somewhat? And do you who believe in this ever contemplate whether your theory is actually even plausible?

And I'm sorry, Furunculu5, there's no universal plan to free the proletariat (far from all socialists and communists can even agree on what the proletariat is, or if it exists at all). I'd be more scared of more "liberal" politicians who use their democratic power to control their people.

Xiahou

12-20-2007, 03:44

I'm not convinced about the socialism aspect, but there is BIG money to be made in this.
I honestly don't know how much of a driving force behind the green movement they are, but definitely many socialists/communists/anti-capitalists and so on have embraced the green movement as a means to an end.

You're certainly right that there's a lot of money to be made off of global warming. Al Gore has made millions, and then there's the cap&trade and offset scams too. :yes:

Viking

12-20-2007, 10:01

Who's supporting a theory is irrelevant. Al Gore's movie is not the science. If people is making money out of global warming, what does it really matter? :dizzy2:

Adrian II

12-20-2007, 10:19

Exactly what do you think this cult will gain from fooling everyone on earth that there's a global warming going on?There is big money to be made for a variety of industries. The cultists fool themselves, mainly. It is a semi-religious movement based on the old concepts of sin, revelation, apocalypse and redemption.

I blame Jezus Christ.

JR-

12-20-2007, 12:05

Oh yes the global warming is gonna skyrocket socialism. :dizzy2:
i'm not claiming it would.

JR-

12-20-2007, 12:07

And I'm sorry, Furunculu5, there's no universal plan to free the proletariat (far from all socialists and communists can even agree on what the proletariat is, or if it exists at all). I'd be more scared of more "liberal" politicians who use their democratic power to control their people.

my apologies, i did mean to draw direct inference between saving the world and freeing the proletariat, just to demonstrate the continuity of ideological zeal.

JR-

12-20-2007, 12:09

Who's supporting a theory is irrelevant. Al Gore's movie is not the science. If people is making money out of global warming, what does it really matter? :dizzy2:
it does if it's driving political movement, and you believe it has become a self-perpetuating gravy-train.

doubly so when you thought the fan-base were idiots the first time around!

Viking

12-20-2007, 12:26

There is big money to be made for a variety of industries. The cultists fool themselves, mainly. It is a semi-religious movement based on the old concepts of sin, revelation, apocalypse and redemption.

I blame Jezus Christ.

The IPCC does not call for apocalypse; though of course bringing such stuff in gives you more crediblity.

i'm not claiming it would.

Yes you more or less did by agreeing to Fragony's statement.

it does if it's driving political movement, and you believe it has become a self-perpetuating gravy-train.

doubly so when you thought the fan-base were idiots the first time around!

Until the clima sceptologists came with their Greek philosophy science, ad hominem and fancy T-shirts, there were no "fans" of global warming science. This cult-claim derives from the pathethic idea that humanity cannot impact the climate in anyway because then we would have to reconsider most of our energy sources. The important thing is to find alternative energy sources that can relieve us from the dependance upon oil. Just cutting the CO2-emissions will do no good to the economy.

Enviromentalists like the global warming idea, maybe socialists also; but that does not change the science in any way.

JR-

12-20-2007, 15:23

Yes you more or less did by agreeing to Fragony's statement.

Until the clima sceptologists came with their Greek philosophy science, ad hominem and fancy T-shirts, there were no "fans" of global warming science. This cult-claim derives from the pathethic idea that humanity cannot impact the climate in anyway because then we would have to reconsider most of our energy sources. The important thing is to find alternative energy sources that can relieve us from the dependance upon oil. Just cutting the CO2-emissions will do no good to the economy.

Enviromentalists like the global warming idea, maybe socialists also; but that does not change the science in any way.

that is why i said; "i kind of agree", as a way introducing my opinion that the green movement is formed from the wreckage of the USSR and all it stood for. i do not believe that global warming will lead to a resurgence in socialism.

unlike your idea that the pro-green movement was a reaction to the climate-septics, i personally favour my idea that they are by and large ex commies/marxists/socialists looking for a new cause, so the rest of the paragraph is an irrelevance to me i'm afraid. but yes, finding alternative energy sources is a jolly good idea.

in fact the science does change, all the time as a result of new data, reinterpreting old data, and an ever better understanding of complex systems.

Viking

12-20-2007, 16:15

that is why i said; "i kind of agree", as a way introducing my opinion that the green movement is formed from the wreckage of the USSR and all it stood for. i do not believe that global warming will lead to a resurgence in socialism.

unlike your idea that the pro-green movement was a reaction to the climate-septics, i personally favour my idea that they are by and large ex commies/marxists/socialists looking for a new cause, so the rest of the paragraph is an irrelevance to me i'm afraid. but yes, finding alternative energy sources is a jolly good idea.

in fact the science does change, all the time as a result of new data, reinterpreting old data, and an ever better understanding of complex systems.

Again: who favours it does not change the science. Who is behind it might very well, thought the instituitions that supports man made global warming are the same old reliable major institutions that always has existed; in gross contrast to the clima sceptic instutions that most (serious) scientists never ever have heard about.

I'm not sure what you mean by "pro-green movement", I've read scientific reports on the issue created by normal scientists; where does this movement come into the picture? :dizzy2:

JR-

12-20-2007, 16:30

you said:
Until the clima sceptologists came with their Greek philosophy science, ad hominem and fancy T-shirts, there were no "fans" of global warming science.

i responded:
unlike your idea that the pro-green movement was a reaction to the climate-septics, i personally favour my idea that they are by and large ex commies/marxists/socialists looking for a new cause, so the rest of the paragraph is an irrelevance to me i'm afraid. but yes, finding alternative energy sources is a jolly good idea.

to which you retorted:
I'm not sure what you mean by "pro-green movement", I've read scientific reports on the issue created by normal scientists; where does this movement come into the picture?
a response which makes no sense given the sequence of the conversation...................? :inquisitive:

Husar

12-20-2007, 16:48

I blame Jezus Christ.
Blasphemy! :san_smiley:

drone

12-20-2007, 16:55

I honestly don't know how much of a driving force behind the green movement they are, but definitely many socialists/communists/anti-capitalists and so on have embraced the green movement as a means to an end.
Which is weird, considering how well the communists treated the environment when they were in power. :rolleyes:

Viking

12-20-2007, 17:35

you said:

i responded:

to which you retorted:
a response which makes no sense given the sequence of the conversation...................? :inquisitive:

I haven't mentioned the "green movement" earlier. The only "fans" of any global warming "science" as I see it, is those who applaude any science that is sceptic to global warming without really reading into it what it says nor seek to find how reliable this source is, despite that it contradicts all reports from the respected scientific institutions.

Louis VI the Fat

12-20-2007, 18:07

Personally I think it are socialist forces who want to break western power. What of enlightened neo-liberals then?
The next French revolution: Nicolas Sarkozy sets out his plans for a green future

President Sarkozy will attempt to claim leadership of the environmental movement tomorrow, but his promises of a radical, green France risk falling victim to a reluctance to raise taxes, drop speed limits or touch the country’s reliance on nuclear power. “Carbon labels” for supermarket products and anti-pollution incentives for new cars are among ideas that are likely to be endorsed by Mr Sarkozy when he presides over the conclusion of a two-day summit of French and global experts, campaigners, business groups and other lobbies.

“Super-Sarko” promised a masterplan for a green revolution in his election campaign in the spring. After his election in May, Mr Sarkozy signalled his desire for a “change of consciousness” by creating a new super-ministry, for the Environment and Sustainable Development, which groups energy and transport. Jean-Louis Borloo, its chief since June, ranks second to François Fillon, the Prime Minister. “We have no alternative but to change the rules radically and bring about an environmental revolution,” Mr Borloo said this month when six working groups produced 30 pages of proposals. “Our biggest challenge is to reorganise society before dwindling resources force us towards a society of restrictions,” he said. Link (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2726846.ece)

ICantSpellDawg

12-20-2007, 19:56

long link (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb)

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"
Complete U.S. Senate Report Now Available: (LINK)

Complete Report without Introduction: (LINK)

INTRODUCTION:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.

Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bite the dust.” (LINK) In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement. (LINK)

This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate.

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.

“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote. [Note: See also July 2007 Senate report detailing how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation - LINK ]

Scientists from Around the World Dissent

This new report details how teams of international scientists are dissenting from the UN IPCC’s view of climate science. In such nations as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, New Zealand and France, nations, scientists banded together in 2007 to oppose climate alarmism. In addition, over 100 prominent international scientists sent an open letter in December 2007 to the UN stating attempts to control climate were “futile.” (LINK)

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a “consensus” of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. “I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority.”

This new committee report, a first of its kind, comes after the UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri implied that there were only “about half a dozen” skeptical scientists left in the world. (LINK) Former Vice President Gore has claimed that scientists skeptical of climate change are akin to “flat Earth society members” and similar in number to those who “believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona.” (LINK) & (LINK)

The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; oceanography; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore.

Additionally, these scientists hail from prestigious institutions worldwide, including: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; the Belgian Weather Institute; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Stockholm University; University of Melbourne; University of Columbia; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.

The voices of many of these hundreds of scientists serve as a direct challenge to the often media-hyped “consensus” that the debate is “settled.”

A May 2007 Senate report detailed scientists who had recently converted from believers in man-made global warming to skepticism. [See May 15, 2007 report: Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics: Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research – (LINK) ]

The report counters the claims made by the promoters of man-made global warming fears that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling.

Examples of “consensus” claims made by promoters of man-made climate fears:

Former Vice President Al Gore (November 5, 2007): “There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat.” (LINK) Gore also compared global warming skeptics to people who 'believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona' (June 20, 2006 - LINK)

CNN’s Miles O’Brien (July 23, 2007): The scientific debate is over.” “We're done." O’Brien also declared on CNN on February 9, 2006 that scientific skeptics of man-made catastrophic global warming “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.” (LINK)

On July 27, 2006, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein described a scientist as “one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.” (LINK)

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC view on the number of skeptical scientists as quoted on Feb. 20, 2003: “About 300 years ago, a Flat Earth Society was founded by those who did not believe the world was round. That society still exists; it probably has about a dozen members.” (LINK)

Agence France-Press (AFP Press) article (December 4, 2007): The article noted that a prominent skeptic “finds himself increasingly alone in his claim that climate change poses no imminent threat to the planet.”

Andrew Dessler in the eco-publication Grist Magazine (November 21, 2007): “While some people claim there are lots of skeptical climate scientists out there, if you actually try to find one, you keep turning up the same two dozen or so (e.g., Singer, Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, etc., etc.). These skeptics are endlessly recycled by the denial machine, so someone not paying close attention might think there are lots of them out there -- but that's not the case. (LINK)

The Washington Post asserted on May 23, 2006 that there were only “a handful of skeptics” of man-made climate fears. (LINK)

ABC News Global Warming Reporter Bill Blakemore reported on August 30, 2006: “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such [scientific] debate” on global warming. (LINK)

# #

Brief highlights of the report featuring over 400 international scientists:

Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!”

Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.” “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact,” Sorochtin wrote.

Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.

Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit,” Tennekes wrote. “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.

France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming – Myth or Reality? - The Erring Ways of Climatology. “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless ac#ceptance. ... Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God ... fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!”

Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”

Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases. “

Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong,” Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: “The earth will not die.”

Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: “To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”

Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at University of Columbia expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,” Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.

India: One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”

USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”

Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."

New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so.”

South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”

Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: ““We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”

Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”

Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”

China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively Exaggerated’ – Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan’s and Sun Xian’s 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated." Their study asserted that "it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change.”

Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”

Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: "CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”

Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”

USA: Dr. David Wojick is a UN IPCC expert reviewer, who earned his PhD in Philosophy of Science and co-founded the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University: “In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this.” Wojick added: “The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”

# # #

Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary

The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight times the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking “consensus” LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst Dr. John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK)

Proponents of man-made global warming like to note how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called "consensus" view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the "consensus" statements. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process. (LINK)

The most recent attempt to imply there was an overwhelming scientific “consensus” in favor of man-made global warming fears came in December 2007 during the UN climate conference in Bali. A letter signed by only 215 scientists urged the UN to mandate deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. But absent from the letter were the signatures of these alleged “thousands” of scientists. (See AP article: - LINK )

UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri urged the world at the December 2007 UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia to "Please listen to the voice of science.”

The science has continued to grow loud and clear in 2007. In addition to the growing number of scientists expressing skepticism, an abundance of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. A November 3, 2007 peer-reviewed study found that “solar changes significantly alter climate.” (LINK) A December 2007 peer-reviewed study recalculated and halved the global average surface temperature trend between 1980 – 2002. (LINK) Another new study found the Medieval Warm Period “0.3C warmer than 20th century” (LINK)

A peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists found that "warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence." (LINK) – Another November 2007 peer-reviewed study in the journal Physical Geography found “Long-term climate change is driven by solar insolation changes.” (LINK ) These recent studies were in addition to the abundance of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007. - See "New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears" (LINK )

With this new report of profiling 400 skeptical scientists, the world can finally hear the voices of the “silent majority” of scientists.

LINKS TO COMPLETE U.S. SENATE REPORT: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Complete Report: (LINK) Complete Report without Introduction: (LINK)

# # #

How do i post that "spoilers" thing? I'm taking up whole pages with these articles.

'spoil' and '/spoil' with brac[]ets will work ~Kukri

JR-

12-20-2007, 20:49

roflmao, where are you viking?

Devastatin Dave

12-21-2007, 03:59

roflmao, where are you viking?
Planet Al Gore in the Clinton quadrent.

LittleGrizzly

12-21-2007, 05:37

I wouldn't say global warming lends itself to socialism paticularly well, all that cash that could be spent on welfare programs and the like...

and not wasting energy and finding alternate power sources are just sensible really.... so i can see why they would be seen as socailism ~;)

Viking

12-21-2007, 12:06

long link (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb)

How do i post that "spoilers" thing? I'm taking up whole pages with these articles.

'spoil' and '/spoil' with brac[]ets will work ~Kukri

Oh c'mon, a few angry scientists here and there is irrelevant. Show me a decent and well accepted study pointing out that CO2 releases are not powering the global warming (hint: no such in-depth study exists ).

These randomly selected scientists can't even agree on how to disagree. :laugh4:

ICantSpellDawg

12-21-2007, 16:41

These randomly selected scientists can't even agree on how to disagree. :laugh4:

Probably because they are too busy not thinking en masse?

How about this? (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071221/NATION/844993096/1001)

Scientists doubt climate change

By S.A. Miller
December 21, 2007

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, said "the endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day."

More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says.

The scientists — many of whom are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis — cast doubt on the "scientific consensus" that man-made global warming imperils the planet.

"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number — entirely without merit," said Dutch atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, one of the researchers quoted in the report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

"I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached," Mr. Tennekes said in the report.

Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report debunks Mr. Gore's claim that the "debate is over."

"The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day," he said.

After a quick review of the report, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said 25 or 30 of the scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobil Corp.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the accusation, saying the company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories.

"Recycling of that kind of discredited conspiracy theory is nothing more than a distraction from the real challenge facing society and the energy industry," he said. "And that challenge is how are we going to provide the energy needed to support economic and social development while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions."

The Republican report comes on the heels of Saturday's United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, where conferees adopted a plan to negotiate a new pact to create verifiable measurements to fight global warming in two years.

In the Senate report, environmental scientist David W. Schnare of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said he was skeptical because "conclusions about the cause of the apparent warming stand on the shoulders of incredibly uncertain data and models. ... As a policy matter, one has to be less willing to take extreme actions when data are highly uncertain."

The hundreds of others in the report — climatologists, oceanographers, geologists, glaciologists, physicists and paleoclimatologists — voice varying degrees of criticism of the popular global-warming theory. Their testimony challenges the idea that the climate-change debate is "settled" and runs counter to the claim that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling.

The report's authors expect some of the scientists will recant their remarks under intense pressure from the public and from within professional circles to conform to the global-warming theory, a committee staffer said.

Several scientists in the report said many colleagues share their skepticism about man-made climate change but don't speak out publicly for fear of retribution, according to the report.

"Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," atmospheric scientist Nathan Paldor, professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in the report.

The IPCC has about 2,500 members.

HEATED DEBATE

The following are comments from some of the more than 400 scientists in a Republican report on global warming:

•"Even if the concentration of 'greenhouse gases' double, man would not perceive the temperature impact."

Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences

•"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the [U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] number — entirely without merit. ... I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

Atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, former research director at the Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute

•"The hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The [greenhouse-gas] hypothesis does not do this. ... The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates."

David Wojick, expert reviewer for U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

•"The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming."

Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo-Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

•"There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried."

Anton Uriarte, a professor of physical geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain

Source: Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committe

Viking

12-21-2007, 20:34

Probably because they are too busy not thinking en masse?

How about this? (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071221/NATION/844993096/1001)

Scientists doubt climate change

By S.A. Miller
December 21, 2007

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, said "the endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day."

More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says.

The scientists — many of whom are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis — cast doubt on the "scientific consensus" that man-made global warming imperils the planet.

"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number — entirely without merit," said Dutch atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, one of the researchers quoted in the report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

"I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached," Mr. Tennekes said in the report.

Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report debunks Mr. Gore's claim that the "debate is over."

"The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day," he said.

After a quick review of the report, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said 25 or 30 of the scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobil Corp.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the accusation, saying the company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories.

"Recycling of that kind of discredited conspiracy theory is nothing more than a distraction from the real challenge facing society and the energy industry," he said. "And that challenge is how are we going to provide the energy needed to support economic and social development while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions."

The Republican report comes on the heels of Saturday's United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, where conferees adopted a plan to negotiate a new pact to create verifiable measurements to fight global warming in two years.

In the Senate report, environmental scientist David W. Schnare of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said he was skeptical because "conclusions about the cause of the apparent warming stand on the shoulders of incredibly uncertain data and models. ... As a policy matter, one has to be less willing to take extreme actions when data are highly uncertain."

The hundreds of others in the report — climatologists, oceanographers, geologists, glaciologists, physicists and paleoclimatologists — voice varying degrees of criticism of the popular global-warming theory. Their testimony challenges the idea that the climate-change debate is "settled" and runs counter to the claim that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling.

The report's authors expect some of the scientists will recant their remarks under intense pressure from the public and from within professional circles to conform to the global-warming theory, a committee staffer said.

Several scientists in the report said many colleagues share their skepticism about man-made climate change but don't speak out publicly for fear of retribution, according to the report.

"Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," atmospheric scientist Nathan Paldor, professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in the report.

The IPCC has about 2,500 members.

HEATED DEBATE

The following are comments from some of the more than 400 scientists in a Republican report on global warming:

•"Even if the concentration of 'greenhouse gases' double, man would not perceive the temperature impact."

Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences

•"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the [U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] number — entirely without merit. ... I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

Atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, former research director at the Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute

•"The hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The [greenhouse-gas] hypothesis does not do this. ... The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates."

David Wojick, expert reviewer for U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

•"The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming."

Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo-Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

•"There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried."

Anton Uriarte, a professor of physical geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain

Source: Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committe

Point being it's not joint science that put them in this group, only that they disagree to mainstream science. The article you link to looks like it is written on another planet, I barely ever see any science concluding the fears for global warming are exaggerated given (apart from some US websites). That much is uncertain can in reality mean two things:

1. it will not be as warm
2. it will be even warmer than predicted

Saying much is uncertain is a non-argument.

What is certain is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that since the industrial revolution human activites has increased the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 with an amazing 31%.

Louis VI the Fat

12-21-2007, 22:48

Point being it's not joint science that put them in this group, only that they disagree to mainstream science. The article you link to looks like it is written on another planet, I barely ever see any science concluding the fears for global warming are exaggerated given (apart from some US websites). Aye. But the problem isn't limited to fringe websites. The problem is the politisation, and the external funding, of much science. This problem is more pronounced in the US then elsewhere. You can buy any science you want in America. The techniques for raising doubt and scientific controversy are well established, and always the same, be it global warming, intelligent design, Acid Rain or the Ozone / CFC problem.

The last two debates are the most sobering, as they both bear such excruciatingly frustrating similarities to the Global Warming debate.

The hole in the Ozone layer environmental disaster was thankfully twarthed when the US chemical giant Dupont gained a patent on CFC substitutes. Overnight, the skeptics dissapeared and the US government changed from opposing CFC reducing measures to being it's biggest proponent. :wall:

Oh, I must not forget to mention the humorous irony of the names of the leading US congressional ozone hole skeptics: Doolittle and DeLay. :beam:

The good stuff is all in this article here (http://www.wunderground.com/education/ozone_skeptics.asp), not in my post. It lists the techniques of the skeptics, and has a warning to environmentalists too:

Unfortunately, it appears that we have not learned our lesson from the past 30 years' experience with the ozone-CFC debate. Once again, we find a theory that has wide support in the scientific community being attacked by a handful of skeptics, publishing outside of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, their voices greatly amplified by the public relations machines of powerful corporations and politicians sympathetic to them. And once again, some environmentalists have responded by presenting a distorted or imbalanced version of the facts, often colored by excessive emphasis on the low-probability scenarios of doom, that the popular press is only too eager to repeat, since prophesies of disaster sell. A balanced and truthful treatment of the Global Warming debate that focuses on presenting an unbiased version of our current scientific understanding is difficult to find. .

Adrian II

12-21-2007, 23:59

The good stuff is all in this article here (http://www.wunderground.com/education/ozone_skeptics.asp), not in my post. It lists the techniques of the skeptics, and has a warning to environmentalists too:Oh poppycock. I'll raise you a peer-reviewed scientist and skeptic, Bjorn Lomborg, whose new book Cool It I am reading at the moment. Take this episode concerning the 2001 IPCC report, the first IPCC-document in which the science was openly and shamelessly exchanged for political rhetoric:

The wording of the text changed from ‘there has been a discernible human influence on global climate’ to this line finally included in the official summary: ‘Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.’ Yet when asked by New Scientist about the scientific background for this change, Tim Higham, spokesman for the UN Environment Program, responded: ‘There was no new science, but the scientists wanted to present a clear and strong message to policymakers.’There you go. Science is being 'bought' by governments and UN bodies as well. Whether you and I should buy into it is an entirely different matter.

The scientific track record of environmentalists isn't exactly clean either. Just think of the fossil fuel panic, DDT, the 'global cooling' scare.

I agree that 'science' can be bought, but science can not. 'Climate science' as we know it from today's mass media is a pseudo-religion, a moral argument dressed in scientific garb but with no concomitant substance. A lot of people are going to feel very embarrassed twenty-five years from now.

JR-

12-22-2007, 00:21

broadly agreed.

Louis VI the Fat

12-22-2007, 01:35

Oh poppycock. I'll raise you a peer-reviewed scientist and skeptic, Bjorn Lomborg, whose new book Cool It I am reading at the moment. Take this episode concerning the 2001 IPCC report, the first IPCC-document in which the science was openly and shamelessly exchanged for political rhetoric:

The wording of the text changed from ‘there has been a discernible human influence on global climate’ to this line finally included in the official summary: ‘Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.’ Yet when asked by New Scientist about the scientific background for this change, Tim Higham, spokesman for the UN Environment Program, responded: ‘There was no new science, but the scientists wanted to present a clear and strong message to policymakers.’There you go. Science is being 'bought' by governments and UN bodies as well. Whether you and I should buy into it is an entirely different matter.

The scientific track record of environmentalists isn't exactly clean either. Just think of the fossil fuel panic, DDT, the 'global cooling' scare.

I agree that 'science' can be bought, but science can not. 'Climate science' as we know it from today's mass media is a pseudo-religion, a moral argument dressed in scientific garb but with no concomitant substance. A lot of people are going to feel very embarrassed twenty-five years from now.Stercore tauri, Adrian.

I would agree with your post up until the last paragraph. In fact, I already did: 'environmentalists have responded by presenting a distorted or imbalanced version of the facts, often colored by excessive emphasis on the low-probability scenarios of doom, that the popular press is only too eager to repeat, since prophesies of disaster sell. A balanced and truthful treatment of the Global Warming debate that focuses on presenting an unbiased version of our current scientific understanding is difficult to find.'

It is a pseudo-religion, complete with end-of-the-world eschatologies, abstination, penance, punishment by a higher entity for mortal man's sins. It places man outside of nature, humans are said to interfere with nature, as if the two are seperate spheres. The Middle Ages are not over indeed.

However, underneath it all, there is solid science. Human activity is having an impact on the climate.
(It always has had, of course, even termites are responsible for the environment of the African savannah. Global warming is nothing compared to the clearing of Europe's forrests in the past two millenia. A few thousand years ago, an Irish Elk could walk through an uninterrupted forrest from Siberia all the way to Spain, where it would be eaten by lions. But I digress...)
Let me be more precise: carbondioxide emissions impact the earth's climate. It changed the earth's climate over the hundreds of millions of years during which it was substracted from the atmosphere, and it changes it now that it is released back again, in a few centuries. Not even your darling queen of the skeptics, Bjørn Lomborg, denies this. The more important questions are, does it matter, and, in accordance with LomBorg, are we using our resources to their best effect to combat any possible consequences?

The fun in my post was also to show how the roles have been reversed: the Americans solved the Ozone-CFC problem, against stern European opposition and skepticism. How? Because there was a clear solution, there was a direct economic incentive, because only thirty nations were involved in the Montreal agreement, and each nation only had a small delegation of a few persons. How very different from the congresses on global warming. Bali was an excercise in organising a congress that was bound to serve absolutely nothing. If you want to make sure that nothing constructive will come out of it, this was how to go about it.

econ21

12-22-2007, 02:46

Oh poppycock. I'll raise you a peer-reviewed scientist and skeptic, Bjorn Lomborg, whose new book Cool It I am reading at the moment.

Lomborg's an interesting chap, but he is not a scientist - as in natural scientist. He's got a PhD in political science, which is not quite the same thing. I'm not sure Lomborg brings more to the subject in technical terms than you or I could, although I admit he has written on it a lot. His most famous publications on global warming are in newspapers and books. I am not aware of him publishing in peer-reviewed natural science journals. (If he has, I'll wager it is not the kind of original techncial research that would qualify as the science of global warming IMO.)

Adrian II

12-22-2007, 22:01

Lomborg's an interesting chap, but he is not a scientist - as in natural scientist. He's got a PhD in political science, which is not quite the same thing.Bjorn Lomborg is associate professor of statistics at Aarhus University. He may not be a biologist or meteorologist, but biologists and meteorologists sometimes make poor statisticians. Lomborg's criticism of certain global warming theories focused on their calculations and predictions, not their biological or meteorological expertise.

My remark about him having been peer-reviewed was a bit of an insider joke, directed at all those who are aware of the controversy caused by Lomborg's first book The Skeptical Environmentalist. That book has been subjected to the mother of all peer-reviews by the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, by a scientific panel of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and by various other bodies including both Danish and foreign environmentalist institutes...

English assassin

12-22-2007, 22:24

I'll raise you a peer-reviewed scientist and skeptic, Bjorn Lomborg

OK. So, that's one. I realise science isn't democracy or a popularity contest, but could you stack up a few more?

As for the scaremongering, well, gee, waddaya know, I guess if you want to get something done, you have to present the story in language the media understands. When my clients come to see me they want to know if they will win their case*. If I say "yes", its not dumbing down, its not shooting from the hip, its just that they don't want (and to be honest here are not going to understand) a day long lecture on a hundred years of case law and experience gained over longer than I admit to remember in practice.

Doesn't mean the answer isn't "yes" though.

(*or they would if I was a litigator.)

Adrian II

12-23-2007, 01:40

OK. So, that's one. I realise science isn't democracy or a popularity contest, but could you stack up a few more?They are all over the place if you just look for them. Over one hundred scientists -- including prominent climatologists, geologists, marine biologists, etc. -- sent an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon during the Bali conference.

National Post
Thursday, December 13, 2007

Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Dec. 13, 2007

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon Secretary-General, United Nations New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by government representatives. The great majority of IPCC contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports: - Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability. - The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years. - Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/ wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully, [List of signatories below] Copy to: Heads of state of countries of the signatory persons.

---

Don Aitkin, PhD, Professor, social scientist, retired vice-chancellor and president, University of Canberra, Australia

William J.R. Alexander, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

Bjarne Andresen, PhD, physicist, Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Geoff L. Austin, PhD, FNZIP, FRSNZ, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg

Ernst-Georg Beck, Dipl. Biol., Biologist, Merian-Schule Freiburg, Germany

Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, U.K.; Editor, Energy & Environment journal

Chris C. Borel, PhD, remote sensing scientist, U.S.

Reid A. Bryson, PhD, DSc, DEngr, UNE P. Global 500 Laureate; Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research; Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin

Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Alberta

R.M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

Willem de Lange, PhD, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, Waikato University, New Zealand

David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma

Freeman J. Dyson, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University

Lance Endersbee, Emeritus Professor, former dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monasy University, Australia

Hans Erren, Doctorandus, geophysicist and climate specialist, Sittard, The Netherlands

Robert H. Essenhigh, PhD, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

Christopher Essex, PhD, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario

David Evans, PhD, mathematician, carbon accountant, computer and electrical engineer and head of 'Science Speak,' Australia

William Evans, PhD, editor, American Midland Naturalist; Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame

Stewart Franks, PhD, Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia

R. W. Gauldie, PhD, Research Professor, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

Gerhard Gerlich, Professor for Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, Institut fur Mathematische Physik der TU Braunschweig, Germany

Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay

Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,Wellington, New Zealand

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project

Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut

Louis Hissink MSc, M.A.I.G., editor, AIG News, and consulting geologist, Perth, Western Australia

Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona

Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis

Zbigniew Jaworowski, PhD, physicist, Chairman -Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling -virology, NSW, Australia

Wibjorn Karlen, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Olavi Karner, Ph.D., Research Associate, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics, Toravere, Estonia

Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia

David Kear, PhD, FRSNZ, CMG, geologist, former Director-General of NZ Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Zealand

Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former research scientist, Environment Canada; editor, Climate Research (2003-05); editorial board member, Natural Hazards; IPCC expert reviewer 2007

William Kininmonth M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia's National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization's Commission for Climatology

Jan J.H. Kop, MSc Ceng FICE (Civil Engineer Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Emeritus Prof. of Public Health Engineering, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands

Prof. R.W.J. Kouffeld, Emeritus Professor, Energy Conversion, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Salomon Kroonenberg, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), The Netherlands

The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby, economist; Chairman of the Central Europe Trust; former Chancellor of the Exchequer, U.K.

Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary

David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware

Marcel Leroux, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

Bryan Leyland, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant and power engineer, Auckland, New Zealand William Lindqvist, PhD, independent consulting geologist, Calif.

Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A.J. Tom van Loon, PhD, Professor of Geology (Quaternary Geology), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland; former President of the European Association of Science Editors

Anthony R. Lupo, PhD, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Dept. of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri-Columbia Richard Mackey, PhD, Statistician, Australia

Horst Malberg, PhD, Professor for Meteorology and Climatology, Institut fur Meteorologie, Berlin, Germany

John Maunder, PhD, Climatologist, former President of the Commission for Climatology of the World Meteorological Organization (89-97), New Zealand

Alister McFarquhar, PhD, international economy, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.

Ross McKitrick, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph

John McLean, PhD, climate data analyst, computer scientist, Australia

Owen McShane, PhD, economist, head of the International Climate Science Coalition; Director, Centre for Resource Management Studies, New Zealand

Fred Michel, PhD, Director, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University

Frank Milne, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Economics, Queen's University

Asmunn Moene, PhD, former head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway

Alan Moran, PhD, Energy Economist, Director of the IPA's Deregulation Unit, Australia

Nils-Axel Morner, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden

Lubos Motl, PhD, Physicist, former Harvard string theorist, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic John Nicol, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics, James Cook University, Australia

David Nowell, M.Sc., Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa

James J. O'Brien, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Meteorology and Oceanography, Florida State University Cliff Ollier, PhD, Professor Emeritus (Geology), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Garth W. Paltridge, PhD, atmospheric physicist, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia

R. Timothy Patterson, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University

Al Pekarek, PhD, Associate Professor of Geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, Minnesota

Ian Plimer, PhD, Professor of Geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia

Brian Pratt, PhD, Professor of Geology, Sedimentology, University of Saskatchewan

Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Geology and Isotope Geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences

Alex Robson, PhD, Economics, Australian National University

Colonel F.P.M. Rombouts, Branch Chief -Safety, Quality and Environment, Royal Netherland Air Force

R.G. Roper, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology

Arthur Rorsch, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, B.C.

Tom V. Segalstad, PhD, (Geology/Geochemistry), Head of the Geological Museum and Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology, University of Oslo, Norway

Gary D. Sharp, PhD, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, CA

S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia and former director Weather Satellite Service

L. Graham Smith, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario

Roy W. Spencer, PhD, climatologist, Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville

Peter Stilbs, TeknD, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Research Leader, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH(Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden

Hendrik Tennekes, PhD, former director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute

Dick Thoenes, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Brian G Valentine, PhD, PE (Chem.), Technology Manager -Industrial Energy Efficiency, Adjunct Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Maryland at College Park; Dept of Energy, Washington, DC

Gerrit J. van der Lingen, PhD, geologist and paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand

Len Walker, PhD, Power Engineering, Australia

Edward J. Wegman, PhD, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University, Virginia

Stephan Wilksch, PhD, Professor for Innovation and Technology Management, Production Management and Logistics, University of Technolgy and Economics Berlin, Germany

Boris Winterhalter, PhD, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland

David E. Wojick, PhD, P.Eng., energy consultant, Virginia Raphael Wust, PhD, Lecturer, Marine Geology/Sedimentology, James Cook University, Australia

A. Zichichi, PhD, President of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva, Switzerland; Emeritus Professor of Advanced Physics, University of Bologna, Italy

Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

National Post linky (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=165020)

And a recent U.S. Senate Report (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb)mentions 400 skeptic scientists in the relevant fields of expertise.

Cheetah

12-23-2007, 02:21

The fact that the effect is within observed natural ranges does not mean that it is not there (i.e. actually they agree that it is there). Also, that the effect (as yet) is within natural ranges does not imply that it is actually a "natural" effect i.e. not caused by humans.

As to the opening question: cultists not, warming yes. Actually the name is misleading but it is a long story.

econ21

12-23-2007, 03:10

Bjorn Lomborg is associate professor of statistics at Aarhus University.

Well, he was. He left Aarhus in 2005. :google: He's now at Copenhagen. More importantly, he was in the Department of Political Science. He is now in a Business School. He has no academic qualifications as a statistician. True Professors of Statistics are employed in Maths Departments. All Lomborg did was teach stats to his social science students. (I've also taught statistics to social science students - it's not rocket science, they struggle to understand hypothesis testing.)

He may not be a biologist or meteorologist, but biologists and meteorologists sometimes make poor statisticians. Lomborg's criticism of certain global warming theories focused on their calculations and predictions, not their biological or meteorological expertise.

Indeed, but where I came in was your offering him up as one scientist who was sceptical of climate change. I think when people ask for a scientist who is sceptical of climate change, they are asking for someone in the natural sciences who is near the top of their discipline. Lomborg is at best a user of such science, not a producer of it.

My remark about him having been peer-reviewed was a bit of an insider joke, directed at all those who are aware of the controversy caused by Lomborg's first book The Skeptical Environmentalist. That book has been subjected to the mother of all peer-reviews by the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, by a scientific panel of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and by various other bodies including both Danish and foreign environmentalist institutes...

Apparently, Lomborg's only peer-reviewed work in an academic journal is unconnected to statistics or climate change. ("Nucleus and Shield: Evolution of Social Structure in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma" in the American Sociological Review.)

Louis VI the Fat

12-23-2007, 04:00

Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Dec. 13, 2007 This is a political letter, with political and economical recommendations. It's signatories should not have been climatologists and geologists, but economists.

Where it does touch on climatological issues, the letter is tendentious to such an extent that I doubt the scientific integrity, at least, the intellectual honesty, of the signatories.

JR-

12-23-2007, 12:51

i do not.

Adrian II

12-24-2007, 03:04

I think when people ask for a scientist who is sceptical of climate change, they are asking for someone in the natural sciences who is near the top of their discipline.On request, I just gave a couple of hundred names of skeptical scientists. Now their scientific credentials are being belittled because they hold views that are, well, skeptical. At least the debate over 'global cooling' thirty years ago was an open one, without too much alarmism and without so many closed minds and uncritical media attention.

These days when it comes to man-made global warming, too many people would note the splinter in this or that skeptical eye rather than the beam in the eyes of the believers.

Wakey wakey. The issue is wide open, there is no consensus. :balloon2:

Cheetah

12-24-2007, 04:09

On request, I just gave a couple of hundred names of skeptical scientists.

Not on request, but I have pointed why their argument is false. ~;)

Adrian II

12-24-2007, 04:49

Not on request, but I have pointed why their argument is false. ~;)"Their argument"?

Are you seriously suggesting that all of those 400-500 scientists have put forward one and the same argument about global temperatures?

Among them is a hurricane specialist (Christopher Landsea) who argues that we are not entering a period of increased hurricane activity and that increasing hurricane damage over the past 100 years is due to societal trends. Another (Stephen Schwartz from Brookhaven National Lab) argues that the earth's climate is only about one-third as sensitive to CO2 as the IPCC has hitherto assumed. Etcetera etcetera. Entirely different approaches to different and in a sense entirely unrelated scientific and policy issues.

Interestingly, more and more criticism of the IPCC is coming from people who have previously participated in it.

There is Aynsley Kellow, Head of the School of Government, University of Tasmania, who contributed to the latest IPCC report yet is of the opinion that the IPCC's future global industrial growth estimates are wrong. Another is John Christy, a Professor of Atmospheric Science from University of Alabama and until recently a Lead Author of the IPCC, who wrote, among other things, the following about the IPCC process:

While most participants are scientists and bring the aura of objectivity, there are two things to note:

this is a political process to some extent (anytime governments are involved it ends up that way)
scientists are mere mortals casting their gaze on a system so complex we cannot precisely predict its future state even five days ahead
The political process begins with the selection of the Lead Authors because they are nominated by their own governments.

Thus at the outset, the political apparatus of the member nations has a role in pre-selecting the main participants.

But, it may go further.

At an IPCC Lead Authors' meeting in New Zealand, I well remember a conversation over lunch with three Europeans, unknown to me but who served as authors on other chapters. I sat at their table because it was convenient.

After introducing myself, I sat in silence as their discussion continued, which boiled down to this: "We must write this report so strongly that it will convince the US to sign the Kyoto Protocol."
Politics, at least for a few of the Lead Authors, was very much part and parcel of the process.

And, while the 2001 report was being written, Dr Robert Watson, IPCC Chair at the time, testified to the US Senate in 2000 adamantly advocating on behalf of the Kyoto Protocol, which even the journal Nature now reports is a failure.

The tendency to succumb to group-think and the herd-instinct (now formally called the "informational cascade") is perhaps as tempting among scientists as any group because we, by definition, must be the "ones who know" (from the Latin sciere, to know).

linky (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7081331.stm)

Cheetah

12-24-2007, 04:55

You got me. They had no arguments. :bow:

This did not prevent them to make a proposition though:

Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Please tell me then what on is this proposition based if not on arguments?

JR-

12-24-2007, 11:31

"Their argument"?

Are you seriously suggesting that all of those 400-500 scientists have put forward one and the same argument about global temperatures?

Forget it, you're talking to the cultists. Can you not see the gimlet gleam of messianic conviction in their eyes, they are too far gone. :idea2:

Viking

12-24-2007, 13:07

Sun and global warming: A cosmic connection? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7092655.stm)

And Giles Harrison believes climate sceptics need to apply the same scepticism to the cosmic ray theory as they do to greenhouse warming - particularly those who say there are too many holes in our understanding of how clouds behave in the man-made greenhouse.

"There is some double-speak going on, as uncertainties apply to many aspects of clouds," he says.

"If clouds have to be understood better to understand greenhouse warming, then, as we have only an emerging understanding of the electrical aspects of aerosols and non-thunderstorm clouds, that is probably also true of any effect of cosmic rays on clouds."

Dr Svensmark agrees it would be wrong for anyone to claim the case has been proved.

"If anyone said that there is proof that the Sun or greenhouse gases alone are responsible for the present-day warming, then that would be a wrong statement because we don't really have proofs as such in the natural sciences," he says.

The scepticism is selective; you cannot say the fears are exaggerated because we don't know enough yet: it is a blatant paradox.

Another (Stephen Schwartz from Brookhaven National Lab) argues that the earth's climate is only about one-third as sensitive to CO2 as the IPCC has hitherto assumed. Etcetera etcetera. Entirely different approaches to different and in a sense entirely unrelated scientific and policy issues.

He argue, they argue. You pick this guy because his science leans toward your own personal opinion.

Adrian II

12-24-2007, 15:09

You pick this guy because his science leans toward your own personal opinion.I "picked" several hundred guys because I was asked to by English Assassin. I was asked produce the names and academic titles of skeptics, so I gave them.

And I elaborated on some of them in order to demonstrate that they have all sorts of different scientific reasons to doubt the so-called consensus, not just one overriding reason.

The enormity of some posts is baffling. I was asked to produce names of skeptics. Now that I have produced them, I am told I merely picked hem because they are skeptics. What was it again that Einstein said about stupidity and the universe? :rolleyes:

Slug For A Butt

12-28-2007, 04:12

What was it again that Einstein said about stupidity and the universe? :rolleyes:

:laugh4: He's only positive that one is infinite :laugh4:

But seriously, I agree completely. You were asked to come up with a list and then you are told that your list doesn't count. :wall: I suppose only a list that fits his politics is acceptable.
Just a thought, anyone remember the millenium bug that a lot of scientists said was going to kill us all (while giving them valuable grants?). Like I said, just a thought.

Cheetah

12-28-2007, 05:38

I had a question.

Papewaio

12-28-2007, 06:02

Ironside

12-28-2007, 09:44

I think we are warming the globe.

BUT
a) To what degree (pun intended) compared with nature (volcano's, el nino, solar radiation etc).
b) Is warming it a bad thing? Surely the time of the dinosaurs had more flora and fauna to support such massive beasts... maybe we can get greater crop yields like in Indonesia which has areas that has 4 crops per annum out of a field.

The problem with b) is that such things takes time, the soil quality for example, will take longer to change than the estimated temperature change.

So if it stabilise on a higher temperature it will benefical in the long term, but have severe repercussions for a few generations before that.

The marine life do prefer colder regions actually, due to better circulation of nutrients at 4 degree C water, but I don't think those regions will disappear even in the 6 degree increase scenario (basically the worst case scenario by the IPCC), although they wil shrink and probably won't be around the entire year in the Artica region.

Xiahou

12-28-2007, 10:45

The enormity of some posts is baffling. I was asked to produce names of skeptics. Now that I have produced them, I am told I merely picked hem because they are skeptics. What was it again that Einstein said about stupidity and the universe? :rolleyes:
That's the way it works in these "debates". Scientific arguments are dismissed because there is a "consensus" among scientists. If you list some of the many, many scientists who don't agree, they're dismissed as outliers who are unqualified or bought off. At this point, you're back to the beginning again- wash, rinse, repeat.

The fact is, I think they'd be hard pressed to come up with serious scientists that will actually sign off on all of the IPCC "consensus" statements. Most, at the very least, would say parts are over-stated or still poorly understood. The consensus is more a consensus among activists than real scientists, imo.

Marshal Murat

12-28-2007, 17:03

Even the French get in on the Act (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aVvwX1RTVGr8&refer=muse)

Allegre doesn't deny that the climate has changed or that extreme weather has become more common. He instead emphasizes the local character of these phenomena.

While the icecap of the North Pole is shrinking, the one covering Antarctica -- or 92 percent of the Earth's ice -- is not, he says. Nor have Scandinavian glaciers receded, he says. To play down these differences by basing forecasts on a global average makes no sense to Allegre.

The motto of his book comes from Marcel Proust: ``Facts don't enter a world dominated by our beliefs.''

Viking

12-28-2007, 22:30

I "picked" several hundred guys because I was asked to by English Assassin. I was asked produce the names and academic titles of skeptics, so I gave them.

And I elaborated on some of them in order to demonstrate that they have all sorts of different scientific reasons to doubt the so-called consensus, not just one overriding reason.

The enormity of some posts is baffling. I was asked to produce names of skeptics. Now that I have produced them, I am told I merely picked hem because they are skeptics. What was it again that Einstein said about stupidity and the universe? :rolleyes:

You fail to put it in context; what makes a small bunch of scientists not related to each other, more reliable than thorough scientific reports from instutions trusted when it comes to anything else? ~:rolleyes:

Slug For A Butt

12-28-2007, 23:28

Institutions with a vested interest? :inquisitive:

Xiahou

12-29-2007, 00:55

Institutions with a vested interest? :inquisitive:Indeed. Why should you trust a bunch of non-affiliated, independent scientists over an agenda driven political organization like the IPCC? Why wouldn't you?

Viking

12-29-2007, 12:42

This whole agenda thing is getting ridiculous. The science is there: ignore it at your own risk. :saint:

Seamus Fermanagh

12-29-2007, 14:34

This whole agenda thing is getting ridiculous. The science is there: ignore it at your own risk. :saint:

Have you read it? The science, that is, not the "summarizations" thereof.

All I can find is an endless parade of summaries from someone and not the study (ies) itself.

Adrian II

12-29-2007, 19:40

Have you read it? The science, that is, not the "summarizations" thereof.

All I can find is an endless parade of summaries from someone and not the study (ies) itself.Here (http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/assessments-reports.htm) it is, the 2007 assessment containing the reports of all three working groups.

Xiahou

12-30-2007, 00:40

This whole agenda thing is getting ridiculous. The science is there: ignore it at your own risk. :saint:
In this much, I think we can agree. :yes:

Seamus Fermanagh

12-30-2007, 04:46

Thanks Adrian, though its a long read.

Got through the first chapter -- more to follow, its on my favorites list for the present.

One point of note:

They seem to be using a .1 significance level throughout as opposed to the more widely used .05 (or for medical testing .001). I was taught that .1 significance was a fair indicator, but that other factors were likely to be equally explanative. Causality claims get trickier the further you deviate from the .05 level.

Still, its good to see the model being followed and I have far more to review and evaluate.

Thanks again.

Banquo's Ghost

12-30-2007, 12:26

Protagonists from both sides might enjoy this gem from Jeremy Clarkson (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article3107633.ece).

Unhand my patio heater, archbishop

Jeremy Clarkson

The Archbishop of Canterbury told the faithful on Christmas Day that unless human beings abandon our greed, we will be responsible for the death of the planet.

Hmm. I’m not sure that I can take a lecture on greed from a man who heads one of the western world’s richest institutions. As we huddle under a patio heater to stay warm while having a cigarette in the rain, his bishops are living in palatial splendour with banqueting halls, wondering where to invest the next billion.

And are the churches open at night as shelter for the homeless and the weak? No, they are locked lest someone should decide to redress the inequalities of western society by half-inching a candelabra and fencing it to buy Christmas presents for his kiddies.

Then we must ask how much old Rowan really understands about the implications and causes of global warming. He thinks that taking a holiday in Florida and driving a Range Rover caused the flooding in Tewkesbury this summer. But then he also believes it’s possible for a man to walk on water and feed a crowd of 5,000 with nothing more than a couple of sardines.

Hmm. Well here are some facts that Rowan might like to chew on over his fair-trade breakfast cereal. The Alps are enjoying good snowfalls this year, in much the same way that the Alps in New South Wales enjoyed healthy snowfalls last summer.

The hurricane season finished a couple of weeks ago and, contrary to all the scaremongering from Al Gore’s mates, the number of severe storms, for the second year in a row, was slightly below average.

Closer to home, Britain did not, as was predicted by the BBC’s hysterical internet news site, bake this summer under record-breaking temperatures. It was wet and soggy, much like in all the summers of my youth. And the only reason Tewkesbury flooded is because we’ve all paved our drives and built houses on the flood plains so the rainwater had nowhere else to go apart from Mrs Miggins’s front room.

In the light of all this, I would like Rowan Williams to come out from behind his eyebrows and tell us how many people have been killed by greed-induced global warming. Because even the most swivel-eyed lunatic would be hard pressed to claim it’s more than a few dozen.

Meanwhile, I reckon the number of people killed over the years by religious wars is around 809m. I tell you this, beardie. Many, many more people have died in the name of God than were killed in the name of Hitler.

Between 1096 and 1270, the Crusades killed about 1.5m. Way more than have been killed by patio heaters and Range Rovers combined. Then there was the 30 years’ war, which reduced Europe’s population by about 7.5m. And the slaughter is still going on today in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine and Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was killed by a religious nut, not a homeless polar bear.

We have been told by those of a communist disposition that if we return to a life of sackcloth and potato soup (bishops excepted) and if we meet all the targets laid down by the great scientist John Prescott at Kyoto, then Britain will be a shining beacon to the world. Others will see what we have done and immediately lay down their 4x4s.

Rubbish. America and China and India will ignore our lunacy and our economic suicide and continue to embody the human spirit for self-improvement (or greed, as Rowan calls it).

No matter. Old Rowan will doubtless applaud the move. This is a man who was arrested in the antinuclear protests of the 1980s. Who refused to call the 9/11 terrorists evil and said they had serious moral goals. Who thinks that every single thing bought and sold is “an act of aggression” on the developing world. Who campaigns for gay rights but wouldn’t actually appoint a homosexual as a bishop. And who recently said in an interview that America was the bad guy and that Muslims in Britain were like the good Samaritans.

In other words, he’s a full-on, five-star, paid-up member of the loony left, so anything that prevents the middle classes from having a Range Rover and a patio heater is bound to get his vote.

If, however, he really wants to bring peace and stability to the world, if he really believes Britain can be a force for good and a shining beacon in troubled times, then I urge him to close the Church of England.

If we can demonstrate that we can survive without a church - and when you note 750,000 more people went online shopping on Christmas Day than went to church, you could argue we already do - then, who knows, maybe the mullahs and the left-footers will follow suit.

Daft? Not as daft as expecting the government in Beijing to renounce electricity because everyone in Britain has swapped their Range Rover for a mangle.

But better? Well yes. I genuinely believe we are born with a moral compass and we don’t need it reset every Sunday morning by some weird-beard communist in a dress. I am, as you may have gathered, completely unreligious, but it doesn’t stop me trying to be kind to others, and I’m never completely overwhelmed with a need to murder madmen in pulpits. Slightly overwhelmed sometimes, but never completely.

Morally, the world would be no worse if religion were abolished. Practically, it would be much, much better. And so, given the choice of which we should give up, God or the patio heater, the choice is simple.

:beam:

Adrian II

12-30-2007, 14:00

They seem to be using a .1 significance level throughout as opposed to the more widely used .05 (or for medical testing .001). I was taught that .1 significance was a fair indicator, but that other factors were likely to be equally explanative. Causality claims get trickier the further you deviate from the .05 level.Through factor analysis, you can actually factor out certain relations, i.e. exclude them as possible causes. That much I understand (I did some factor analysis way back when I was a student). However, an old school friend of mine is now a professor of mathematics and probability calculus at Wageningen University, and some of the things he mentions to me might as well be in Chinese or Swahili. I don't even understand the mathematical problems he deals with, let alone the proposed solutions. Basically, he is working on uncertainty to the umptieth degree, and on the question how we, humans, should approach such uncertainty and how we should use the array of mutually influential choices or options that we have in the face of it. He says it is a good approach to climate issues as well, because there are many uncertainties involved whereas the consequences of ignoring certain probabilities can be hugely damaging.
Protagonists from both sides might enjoy this gem from Jeremy Clarkson (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article3107633.ece).:grin:

Rodion Romanovich

12-30-2007, 15:47

Banquo's Ghost

12-30-2007, 16:14

Rodion Romanovich

12-30-2007, 18:33

You automatically class the observable global warming as human-induced. There are many scientists who agree with you, and many who are skeptical. All scientific theories require skepticism to test them.

I've yet to hear an argument against global warming that hasn't already been accepted by all scientists who agree with the global warming theory:

- sun spots - shown to have a large impact, but the latest current changes can't be explained by it, since in fact in the most recent 2 decades we've seen solar activity that would, according to the solar activity models, in fact DECREASE temperature

- C02 increase curve lies slightly after temperature curve - yes, because when it gets hotter, oceans etc can't bind as much C02. CO2 and CH4 causes increase in temperature, then the temperature causes release of some more C02 before a new balance is achieved. A fluid can bind less amount of gas in higher temperatures.

- God has made it hotter - yes, but if God made it hotter, maybe he's trying to teach us something :idea2:

- Nostradamus/other astrologer said it was going to get hotter anyway - yeah, but he/she hasn't argued why he/she thinks so

- western world will make more money out of not fixing the problem - no, if we don't want to help fixing it, then China and India won't either. This is likely to push us all to a point where bloodshed is needed to secure the survival of any members of the species at all, in 30-50 years from now. This bloodshed between the western world and China, India and others, whatever the factions will be, is not likely to leave us all feeling very nice, or being very rich either for that matter

- we can't fix it, or industry will die - then how come we fixed it the last 5-10 times we actually tried to solve the political part of an enviroment problem? All environmental problems we've solved so far have involved bans and/or legal regulations for maximum allowed environmental destruction allowed per product. We need exactly the same to solve global warming. Western industry has done this many times. Just look at any battery you put in a modern electronic product, and the circuit boards, and the car engines, and so on and so forth. Hardly a single product you can buy these days HASN'T already gone through changes because of environmental regulations. Second point is that if all other countries fix it as well, then your industry won't be at a disadvantage. In fact, western countries are likely to have the EASIEST transition to more environmental friendly industry. If we can make other countries accept fairly distributed decrease in pollution per capita or per GDP, we're the greatest winners.

- but my grandma in X says it was cold today - yes, but global warming is about average temperatures, not about finding single extreme instances. The average is increasing.

- but the average measurements are unreliable - there are many different measurements, some of them are excluding cities, others not, some include ice cores, some only include thermometers. Some have used the same measurement techniques since 1900 up till now. Neither of these measurements disagree with the fact that it's getting hotter, and that the increase in temperature is going faster than ever before, and that it is strongly correlated to pollution with a small time delay. The reliability of these measurements is certainly higher than that of your grandma's measurements.

- but this cool blogger that I like says global warming is a scam - check his sources and see if he's understood them correctly. If he has any strong argument, spread it exactly as it is, with accompanying relevant data, rather than just saying "X says global warming is a scam because he read it", because that won't bring any discussion forward.

Xiahou

12-31-2007, 02:24

- C02 increase curve lies slightly after temperature curve - yes, because when it gets hotter, oceans etc can't bind as much C02. CO2 and CH4 causes increase in temperature, then the temperature causes release of some more C02 before a new balance is achieved. A fluid can bind less amount of gas in higher temperatures.That begs two questions: First, obviously CO2 isn't the initiator of climate change. What is? Second, if CO2 lags behind, but amplifies global warming, what stops it? By that line of reasoning, a small increase in temperatures would cause an increase in CO2, which would cause further increases in temperature, causing more CO2 release and so on ad nauseum. What could possibly break this cycle and cause such a cooling effect to override this vicious circle? Or is the warming effect of CO2 being overstated?

Just like when CO2 increases lag behind temperature increases, CO2 decreases have also lagged behind temperature decreases by hundreds of years. How can this be if CO2 is the major cause of climate change?

Rodion Romanovich

12-31-2007, 11:44

That begs two questions: First, obviously CO2 isn't the initiator of climate change. What is? Second, if CO2 lags behind, but amplifies global warming, what stops it?

Welcome to the world of multiple chemical equilibrium systems. You may think it's a paradox, but CO2 too helps increasing temperature. The reason why an infinite CO2 release -> temperature increase -> CO2 release cycle doesn't occur because of it, is because there are factors acting in the opposite direction. When CO2 increases in the atmosphere, the amount bound to plants per time unit increases. Because there are forces acting in different directions, sufficiently long after a change (transient) has taken place, eventually an equilibrium occurs (steady-state), where the changes in both directions are equal, i.e. the net change is zero.

Here's an introduction on the principles of chemical equilibrium:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_equilibrium
Nature is a system of multiple equilibria, with some dozen reactions (including many forms of natural CO2 binding and release, solar cycles, temperature-based gas release, cloud formation etc) being relevant to climate change.

The problem is that equilibria can be pushed into either direction by affecting other reactions upon which the particular reaction depends. A lot of release of greenhouse gases pushes the equilibrium to a higher temperature, because, among other things, of the problematic time delay between release of CO2, and binding of it again. This problem gets worse with deforestation and undermining of the soil quality so that very few things can grow and bind the CO2 again. The problem isn't that we pollute something that can't be bound again, but that it is polluted faster than it can be bound again, and that pushes the equilibrium to a much higher temperature.

Release of CH4 has more dramatic consequences than release of CO2, as you have probably heard. One of the reasons for this is that the system that takes care of and binds CH4 isn't as fast as that which binds CO2. So it goes like this: CH4 increase -> temperature increase -> CO2 release -> temperature increase. The forces acting in the opposite direction then have a much stronger "opposition" and so the equilibrium gets pushed towards the direction of higher temperature.

Xiahou

12-31-2007, 16:51

"Chemical equilibrium" doesn't answer my questions. Again, if CO2 causes warming and warming causes more CO2, how does the planet ever cool? Not only does ice core data show that CO2 increases lag behind temperature increases, but CO2 decreases also lag behind temperature decreases.

If CO2 is the major cause of climate change, how does the planet warm when CO2 levels are relatively low (before CO2 concentration begins to increase) and how does the planet cool when CO2 levels are high (before they begin to fall)?

Looking at ice core data, it seems to me that CO2 looks more like a symptom of warming than a primary contributor, as it generally tracks with the temperature but lags behind by hundreds of years in both increases and decreases.

Rodion Romanovich

12-31-2007, 18:38

"Chemical equilibrium" doesn't answer my questions. Again, if CO2 causes warming and warming causes more CO2, how does the planet ever cool?

I explained this above. Simply because higher CO2 concentrations cause more binding of CO2 to plants under normal circumstances. So when the positive feedback system CO2->temp increase->CO2 brings CO2 higher, the amount that is bound back into plants per time unit increases. But this binding takes time because the plants have to grow. Thus there will be a delay, which means the equilibrium is moved towards higher temperature.

The rest of your post should be answered by this.

Looking at ice core data, it seems to me that CO2 looks more like a symptom of warming than a primary contributor
It is both - a major symptom, and a lesser cause. CH4 and others are worse per concentration polluted, for example, but CO2 is polluted in so high quantities that it is still not completely harmless. The big problem with CO2 isn't CO2 pollution though, but more how we undermine nature's ability to bind CO2 back. This damage is done by means of deforestation, desertification, erosion and human interventions of different other kinds that prevent better growth of plants to be fast enough to compensate quickly enough to keep the equilibrium at low enough temperature. As it is in some places, the delay is made longer or even infinite, which pushes the equilibrium towards far hotter temperatures.

Major sources of CH4 pollution include meat production and fossile fuels, major sources of CO2 pollution include almost any factory as well as fossile fuels. Major sources of preventing CO2 binding include food production in many overpopulated regions near the equator, slash and burn farming that destroys rain forests, and too high demand for rain forest wood, among other things. The big issue with the global warming (and most of the other environmental problems today), is purely political. We're starting to reach a point which is likely to cause a Malthusian disaster (including high risk of war and genocide) due to overpopulation, because our technology can't keep up with the population increase. We may also be on our way to something unique so far in history: a point where technology can't be improved too much more to be able to support a larger world population - a final, massive Malthusian disaster unlike any we've seen before. Two things need to be achieved in order to solve the problem before war and genocide happens:
1. limit population growth in overpopulated areas
2. solve industrial pollution problems.

No. 2 is comparatively easy. There are only a few major industrial countries that pollute, so for the coming 1-2 decades we really only need to bother about the following countries: China, Japan, India, Korea, Russia, EU countries, Norway, Turkey, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland.

No. 1 is trickier. We need to intervene in third world country affairs to make sure they 1. manage to solve the overpopulation and population growth problems, 2. switch to more sustainable forms of farming.

The first is difficult to achieve, but we can do two things. One is more earmarked aid programs. Another is military force. For military actions, we can gain a casus belli and legitimacy in many ways. By the treaty (no. 2 above), we gain legitimacy since we have then done our part and can require others who stand in the way of safety of mankind to do their share. By providing aid to minority tribes that are being killed because they didn't want to overpopulate like the more numerous and violent tribes, we can also gain a casus belli. For instance, the smallest of the tribes that are threatened in Congo could receive military support against some of the more genocidally inclined tribes. By coordination with aid programs and programs to improve the sustainability of the agriculture of carefully chosen African countries that wish to cooperate to solve the problems in exchange for our military aid, we could achieve a lot. In short, we should realize that our moral position is incredibly strong if we form a treaty such as the one above, and that we can then force third world countries to help solving the problem even if they at first refuse. But hopefully none will refuse, if they realize the danger these environmental problem pose towards entire mankind, and especially those who live close to the equator.

---

The more I look at it, the more obvious it seems that global warming is a purely political problem. Environment research has very little to do with it at the stage we've reached now. The scientists have given accurate reports and models, and suggested plenty of alternative ways of solving the problem. Now it's up to the politicians to solve it and save us all, or be more worried about their own status, power and succeeding in their corruption affairs. Too bad our current "democracies" prevent any people with the required organizational skills from starting parties or coming to power, because of surveillance, too many assassinations of politicians, and systems which require you to be born rich to be able to at all take part in national politics or starting a party. While the world is marching towards a disaster, futile little details like these suddenly stand in mankind's way to a rescue which looks so ridiculously easy in theory, but is so difficult to reach in practise. And there's nothing we can do about it, except praying that the current politicians actually get their butts moving and do something... What is left to do now lies beyond the reach of average civilians.

Adrian II

01-01-2008, 13:24

I wonder why the global warming deniers on their "list of scientists sceptical to global warming" include so many scientists who are in fact not sceptical to global warming but have merely happened to publish papers that describe non-human factors which cause climate change.It's because most are not "global warming deniers". They don't deny global warming. What they deny is the emphasis on human causation and/or the emphasis on the possibly catastrophical resuls of global warming.

An example of the latter would be Paul Reiter, chief entomologist at the Louis Pasteur Institute nd a leading expert on malaria. He contributed to the last IPCC assessment studies (working group II) until he discovered that the non-expert authors of the chapter insisted on introducing a causal relationship between global warming and the spread of malaria. He claims the non-experts won, wich turned the chapter into a 'sham'. He asked the IPCC to have his name removed from the official list of '2000 of the world's leading scientists' who reprtedly back the latest assessment. They agreed to scrap him, but did't. In the end Reiter had to threaten a lawsuit to get is name removed.

According to a 2006 testimony from Reiter to Congress:

A galling aspect of the debate is that this spurious 'science' is endorsed in the public forum by influential panels of 'experts.' I refer particularly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Every five years, this UN-based organization publishes a 'consensus of the world's top scientists' on all aspects of climate change. Quite apart from the dubious process by which these scientists are selected, such consensus is the stuff of politics, not of science. Science proceeds by observation, hypothesis and experiment. The complexity of this process, and the uncertainties involved, are a major obstacle to a meaningful understanding of scientific issues by non-scientists. In reality, a genuine concern for mankind and the environment demands the inquiry, accuracy and scepticism that are intrinsic to authentic science. A public that is unaware of this is vulnerable to abuse."

Another gentleman in this category would be William Gray, another of the world's leading hurricane experts (I already mentioned Christopher Landsea earlier in the thread). In a 2005 interview with Capitalism magazine he acknowledged global warming, yet denied that it causes increased hurricane activity. And he exlicitly criticises the politicization of his area of expertise under the Clinton administration.

Q: And from a seasonal, monthly point of view, you had been predicting a growing number of hurricanes. Now, my question is in the wake of Katrina and some of the statements that we’ve heard immediately afterwards by advocates of the global warming theory – is global warming behind this increase in hurricanes?

Gray: I am very confident that it’s not. I mean we have had global warming. That’s not a question. The globe has warmed the last 30 years, and the last 10 years in particular. And we’ve had, at least the last 10 years, we’ve had a pick up in the Atlantic basin major storms. But in the earlier period, if we go back from 1970 through the middle ‘90s, that 25 year period – even though the globe was warming slightly, the number of major storms was down, quite a bit down.

Now, another feature of this is that the Atlantic operates differently. The other global storm basins, the Atlantic only has about 12 percent of the global storms. And in the other basins, the last 10 years – even though the Atlantic major storm activity has gone up greatly the last 10 years. In the other global basins, it’s slightly gone down. You know, both frequency and strength of storms have not changed in these other basins. If anything, they’ve slightly gone down. So if this was a global warming thing, you would think, “Well gee, all of the basins should be responding much the same.”

Q: You’re familiar with what your colleagues believe. Do you think many hurricane experts would take a different point of view, and would say, “Oh, it’s global warming that’s causing hurricanes?”

Gray: No. All my colleagues that have been around a long time – I think if you go to ask the last four or five directors of the national hurricane center – we all don’t think this is human-induced global warming. And, the people that say that it is are usually those that know very little about hurricanes. I mean, there’s almost an equation you can write the degree to which you believe global warming is causing major hurricanes to increase is inversely proportional to your knowledge about these storms.

Now there’s a few modelers around who know something about storms, but they would like to have the possibility open that global warming will make for more and intense storms because there’s a lot of money to be made on this. You know, when governments step in and are saying this – particularly when the Clinton administration was in – and our Vice President Gore was involved with things there, they were pushing this a lot. You know, most of meteorological research is funded by the federal government. And boy, if you want to get federal funding, you better not come out and say human-induced global warming is a hoax because you stand the chance of not getting funded.No amount of home-baked theories about the earth's "chemical equilibrium" is going to convince me that such scientists are per se wrong to deny the so-called consensus. As Reiter stated, the notion of an established consensus in this whole field is as such, i.e. inherently, unscientific.

Rodion Romanovich

01-01-2008, 13:52

It's because most are not "global warming deniers". They don't deny global warming. What they deny is the emphasis on human causation and/or the emphasis on the possibly catastrophical resuls of global warming.

No they don't deny the emphasis of human causation, or that the consequences of a global heating of 5-10 degrees would be incredibly dangerous for food and water supply, and that it also risks unleashing further positive feedback systems which are currently inactive. What they do is deny speculations such as "more hurricanes are caused by global warming" and "location x will have more flooding disasters" (for hurricanes, distribution of heat is more important than average heat, and for flooding, what matters most is how close to the water you build your houses). The issue where there is a consensus is about that there is a global average temperature increase, no more no less. The rest, such as discussions on hurricane magnitudes, are peripheral theories of relatively minor importance. Your quotes only demonstrate examples of people disagreeing to these peripheral theories. I disagree to many of them as well. This does not change the fact that there IS a consensus on the heating and what are the major causes of it - among them can be mentioned: methane from cows, pollution from industry, burning of fossile fuels, and hampered regrowth and rebinding of CO2 and CH4.

No amount of home-baked theories

It seems you haven't read much about the scientific aspects of our environmental problems. If you had, you would no doubt have noticed that there's probably not a single major environmental problem where theory of chemical multiple equilibrium feedback systems isn't the very core of the issue. I can recommend wikipedia's article for a short introduction, especially the paragraph "Feedbacks":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
Although not very long, it covers many of the practical implications of some of the known feedback systems of interest in relation to global warming.

Adrian II

01-03-2008, 16:11

If you had, you would no doubt have noticed that there's probably not a single major environmental problem where theory of chemical multiple equilibrium feedback systems isn't the very core of the issue. I can recommend wikipedia's article for a short introduction, especially the paragraph "Feedbacks"You confuse feedback with equilibrium. And I don't think Wikipedia represents the cutting edge of climate science.

AFAIK the latest IPCC Assessment does not mention chemical equilibrium once. It does not occur in the index or glossary or in the three most relevant chapters of the Physics report (Working Group I). Maybe you confuse it with thermodynamic equilibrium, a concept borrowed from theoretical physics which has been introduced into some of the climate models mentioned in the relevant chapters. The Assessment does mention various geobiochemical feedback mechanisms, but without the homeostatic aspect to which you refer, and which smacks altogether too much of the Gaia-hypothesis and related speculative science.

However that may be, it does not alter the fact that hundreds of experts, some of them (former) contributors to IPCC reports, disagree with (parts of) the IPCC assessments and that therefore there is no consensus. QED.

Rodion Romanovich

01-03-2008, 16:38

You confuse feedback with equilibrium.
No, I don't. Where a single feedback occurs in a system, either equilibrium (stable system), perfect sinusoidal oscillation, or infinite growth occurs (unstable system). Where multiple feedback occurs, there can be multiple steady equilibria, or infinite growth, or more complex oscillations. Equilibrium is as close to feedback as "term" is to "addition", so whenever feedback is discussed, discussing equilibrium is highly relevant.

And I don't think Wikipedia represents the cutting edge of climate science.

Wikipedia can give you a good introduction to how feedback systems and equilibria work - that is why I in a friendly tone provided you with the link as an introduction to the subject of feedback and equilibria, which you weren't aware had to do with global warming.

But as you have become so hostile and starting to criticise the link I posted to help you out as not being good enough for you, I may as well respond in a hostile tone and comment that posting links to articles written by journalists doesn't really represent the cutting edge of climate science either. In fact, wikipedia is much more likely to present a correct view of global warming than a few carefully selected newspaper articles with an angle.

AFAIK the latest IPCC Assessment does not mention chemical equilibrium once.

Do you expect "addition" to occur in the index of a university level textbook within the field of Mathematics? I'm no expert at chemistry, but I do know enough to know that multiple feedback systems and equilibrium are very basic tools within Chemistry and not something you would mention specifically in a climate report. I mentioned it because it's the basic tool of understanding of most of the practical effects that can be observed. In a climate report you would instead find keywords referring to practical examples of phenomena which are understood and calculated on with the help of the tools that general theory of feedback systems and chemical equilibrium provide. The following examples of such keywords exist in the IPCC Assessment:
- from working group II assessment (taking from 'A'):
acidification, afforestation, aerosols, albedo, aggregate impacts, algal blooms, arctic oscillation.
- from working group I assessment (taking from 'A'-'C'):
aerosols, afforestation, albedo, arctic oscillation, carbon cycle.

However that may be, it does not alter the fact that hundreds of experts, some of them (former) contributors to IPCC reports, disagree with (parts of) the IPCC assessments and that therefore there is no consensus. QED.

That not every single scientist in the world agrees with every statement in the IPCC assessments does not mean there's not a consensus about the core issues of the report, including that there's warming, and that mankind's actions have a big impact on it (for example, the solar cycle model currently says there should be cooling, while we're measuring heating) both by increasing causes of temperature increase, and hampering nature's capabilities of compensating it. And that mankind's water and food supply will be in danger if the heating continues. And that we risk, when reaching a sufficiently high temperature, unleashing new and currently unknown positive feedback systems which are currently inactive.

Xiahou

01-03-2008, 18:03

However that may be, it does not alter the fact that hundreds of experts, some of them (former) contributors to IPCC reports, disagree with (parts of) the IPCC assessments and that therefore there is no consensus. QED.Rodion's own views are also well outside the "consensus", from what I can gather.

It is both - a major symptom, and a lesser cause. CH4 and others are worse per concentration polluted, for example, but CO2 is polluted in so high quantities that it is still not completely harmless.There, before outlining his population control measures, I believe he's stating that CO2 is not the major cause of global warming- only a lesser cause. That roughly lines up with my current beliefs- that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but can't possibly be the culprit behind all or most of our warming. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, that's quite a bit different from what we find in the IPCC summary. :shrug:

Marshal Murat

01-03-2008, 20:33

In Russia - World get Cold! (http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080103/94768732.html)

Adrian II

01-03-2008, 20:50

[..] posting links to articles written by journalists doesn't really represent the cutting edge of climate science either. In fact, wikipedia is much more likely to present a correct view of global warming than a few carefully selected newspaper articles with an angle.I was the first in this thread to link to the original IPCC 2007 Assessment. I have read the whole darn thing and chemical equilibrium does not play a role in any of the chapters, not even the ones about modeling. And so far in this thread I have quoted only scientists, no journalists. You are 'seeing things', which is not surprising, given the tenacity with which you defend untenable positions.

Don Corleone

01-03-2008, 21:23

Gig 'em Adrian! :boxing:

Rodion Romanovich

01-04-2008, 11:34

I was the first in this thread to link to the original IPCC 2007 Assessment.

So, do you want a medal?

I have read the whole darn thing and chemical equilibrium does not play a role in any of the chapters

I've already explained why chemical equilibrium doesn't receive a special mention in their report - to them it's a basic tool of modeling, it would be like giving special mention to multiplication, which is another basic tool of modeling.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, so I'll now try to explain the significance of equilibrium, in the context I mentioned it, split it up in small numbered statements so you can tell me exactly which part you disagree to:
1. Atmosphere composition matters to how strong greenhouse effect is created
2. Atmosphere composition changes are determined by calculations and measurements of the rate at which reactions which release (to the atmosphere) and bind different elements proceed.
3. Many of the elements and compounds that are relevant to the greenhouse effect, including carbon and water vapor for example, are bound/released by both single chemical equilibrium reactions, and larger systems of one-way reactions which together form a feedback cycle with equilibrium. Simply applying models for one-way reactions doesn't work when there's such cyclic behavior: equilibrium calculations and other tools for analyzing feedback systems are necessary to understand and quantify the behavior.

And so far in this thread I have quoted only scientists, no journalists.

You quoted a selected newspaper article which contained small cutouts from an interview with a scientist. That is not the same as quoting scientific papers, or even introductory texts on the subject.

Adrian II

01-04-2008, 18:59

So, do you want a medal?No, just a decent opponent who admits his mistakes.
You quoted a selected newspaper article which contained small cutouts from an interview with a scientist.I quoted much more. Luckily the other members of this forum can read and judge for themselves.

Rodion Romanovich

01-04-2008, 19:29

Luckily the other members of this forum can read and judge for themselves.
Yes, that is indeed lucky. :2thumbsup: