Climate Change Thread

[Fisherking]

Not new but certainly ignored or overlooked as inconvenient.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestay.../#14adf391171b

[HopAlongBunny]

Couldn't read the link above, but it got me looking at forbes.
Found a very nice article on "cherry-picking" data:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksher.../#1dd268bf34a7

[Montmorency]

Not new but certainly ignored or overlooked as inconvenient.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestay.../#14adf391171b

The article is worthless, but the study it refers to is more interesting. This is actually a pretty limited and old (2007) sample from a survey conducted by APEGA (Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta) on its own members in the face of heated discussion on the subject among the membership.
The purpose of the cited study is not to assess support for this or that question, but to use the open-ended answers from the survey in the framework of organizational science to discover how members "frame" institutional logics and the field of climate science and the construction of expertise and legitimacy. The elements used for classification were three organizing ideas:

1. Climate change is natural, uncontrollable
2. Climate change is both natural and humanmade
3. Climate change is manmade, controllable

With these, 7 subthemes were used to place individual respondents into the categories, or frames, created in the study:



So the valuable part of the study is in its organizational science methodology. If your question is limited to 'what did engineers in Alberta think of anthropogenic climate change in 2007', then the answer of 'half or less subscribed' isn't informative or meaningful to a broader issue. More recent analyses of larger, more international surveys of those directly involved in climate science (rather than just engineers broadly) would be necessary to make the argument you seem to have in mind.

[Husar]

Meteorologists are experts on the weather, not the climate. Geoscientists are a variety of scientists as well, their major employers are probably corporations that look for things in the earth, such as coal or oil, or....
Not to forget that the author is the head of a very openly biased think tank: http://sparkoffreedomfoundation.org

edit: That goes of course back to what Montmorency says about the interpretation of the study and so on. If the guy has an agenda, his interpretation cannot necessarily be trusted. And before you complain, I read his article and some of the links in it anyway, just to get an idea of what he is trying to say.

I would also heavily disagree with his point that the free market will fix everything anyway, the free market is a great tool to destroy the environment in general. Might as well sell Uranium on the free market and claim that nothing bad will happen because the free market fixes everything. It only needs some basic logic and knowledge to see that we do at the very least have an impact on our climate. In fact, the natural causes that are cited as alternatives make the outlook even worse, because naturally we are/should be headed towards an ice age....

http://www.skepticalscience.com/head...le-ice-age.htm

It can therefore be concluded that with CO2 concentrations set to continue to rise, a return to ice age conditions seems very unlikely. Instead, temperatures are increasing and this increase may come at a considerable cost with few or no benefits.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/4...-next-ice-age/

In about 2,000 years, when the types of planetary motions that can induce polar cooling start to coincide again, the current warming trend will be a distant memory.

This means that humanity will be hit by a one-two punch the likes of which we have never seen. Nature is as unforgiving to men as it was to dinosaurs; advanced civilization will not survive unless we develop energy sources that curb the carbon emissions heating the planet today and help us fend off the cold when the ice age comes. Solar, nuclear, and other non-fossil-­fuel energy sources need to be developed now, before carbon emissions get out of hand.

I'm well aware that the two sources do not entirely concur, but neither of them is very detailed on the issues, as the Milankovitch cycle is made up of more than two factors IIRC.

Similarly, the idea that we cannot possibly have a huge impact on the planet is quite funny given that we make industrial use of most of the available landmass and burn fossils within a few hundred years that took millions of years to be naturally created. To say that this has no impact when the effect of greenhouse gases is clearly known, does seem rather silly to me. That "only" 59% of meteorologists believe climate change is man-made is not a very strong argument to the contrary, as much as mister Taylor may want it to be one.

I don't even care whether it is 97% or 59% of climate scientists if the majority simply has the better arguments so far.
A proper argument or model for "naturally ocurring climate change" would be a good start for a discussion rather than only relying on other peoples' opinions. I'd like to know why people think climate change is natural, what exactly caused it, why these causes would not naturally cause a very slow descent into an ice age instead and why the human contribution to greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is so small that it does not matter.

[Montmorency]

why the human contribution to greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is so small that it does not matter.

Most critics who are also climate scientists don't disagree with an anthropogenic factor in principle, but say that weak experimental results leave us currently unable to say what specific climate outcomes will or can be the result of specific human actions, to the point that there is not enough evidence that curbing absolute CO2 emissions alone would mitigate any observed trends (whether or not these trends should be interpreted as "catastrophic"). Another example:

A hypothesis to the effect that humans cause some warming, or
even that most current global warming is very likely to be anthropogenic, is not—and does
not necessarily imply—a hypothesis to the effect that current warming, if continued over
some unspecified period, might prove sufficiently damaging to justify any climate policy to
address climate change, still less any public support for it.

[Husar]

Most critics who are also climate scientists don't disagree with an anthropogenic factor in principle, but say that weak experimental results leave us currently unable to say what specific climate outcomes will or can be the result of specific human actions, to the point that there is not enough evidence that curbing absolute CO2 emissions alone would mitigate any observed trends (whether or not these trends should be interpreted as "catastrophic"). Another example:

That seems like a risky stance to take. "Let's move at full speed until we can definitely tell whether it's just a hilltop or a cliff" seems like a dangerous stance if you cannot possibly brake anymore by the time you know for sure. As for the effects of too many greenhouse gases, I think Venus could be a good example.

http://www.universetoday.com/22577/v...nhouse-effect/

You might be surprised to know that Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System. With a global temperature of 735 Kelvin (462 degrees C), the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. And if you could stand on the surface of Venus, you would experience atmospheric pressure 92 times greater than what you’re used to on Earth. Why is Venus so hot? The Venus greenhouse effect shows you what happens when this the process of trapping sunlight goes out of control into a runaway process.

Not that we would necessarily get these temperatures here, but the effects of a few degrees more in a short period of time can be seen in the disappearance of coral reefs and other effects.
What bugs me even more is that most of the climate change denial seems to go hand in hand with a general attitude of only looking for profits and "the industry" and so on, while we already have fish poisoned with plastic, terrible soil erosion and many other adverse effects that come from basically the same attitude of "let's wait until people die in droves before we change anything".

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The world is much cooler than it once was, but much warmer than some of our more recent cold periods. SOURCE

The last century or so has seen, by human standards, a fairly large increase in average temperature. Whether this is driven primarily by humans or not, it is certainly altering our life space and creating concerns that must be addressed.

[Husar]

The world is much cooler than it once was, but much warmer than some of our more recent cold periods. SOURCE

And again I generally agree with you, but have to say that to argue we're fine because dinsosaurs and insects the size of a rhinocerus could survive much warmer temperatures is not exactly consistent with my goals in life. *squashes a bug that is conveniently not large enough to eat him*

Of course in the long term we may have to find another planet anyway and in the really long term even that won't save us eternally.
Maybe the idea is that we could rather leave the universe with a bang now than to drag it out for a few more millennia.

Regardless, the best approaches should factor in considerable death and damage. A question of "whether" we can avoid consequences is a bad one, and any action motivated by it will invariably disappoint.

Well, yes, and I haven't turned vegan yet either to save the planet. Either way changing what we can is better than just running into the light. I mean, even the Chinese are willing to cooperate the matter, but then again some say it's their conspiracy.

[Pannonian]

The world is much cooler than it once was, but much warmer than some of our more recent cold periods. SOURCE

The last century or so has seen, by human standards, a fairly large increase in average temperature. Whether this is driven primarily by humans or not, it is certainly altering our life space and creating concerns that must be addressed.

More immediately, although this may apply less to the US than to Europe, the energy suppliers that the Euros depend on are decidedly unfriendly to our way of life. If we don't want to go with the Saudis and others in the area, then there are the Russians. And the Russians count as relatively close to our way of thinking. We need to reduce our energy consumption, if only to gain more independence in our foreign policy. The 1970s (IIRC) should have driven this lesson home.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

More immediately, although this may apply less to the US than to Europe, the energy suppliers that the Euros depend on are decidedly unfriendly to our way of life. If we don't want to go with the Saudis and others in the area, then there are the Russians. And the Russians count as relatively close to our way of thinking. We need to reduce our energy consumption, if only to gain more independence in our foreign policy. The 1970s (IIRC) should have driven this lesson home.

Ya think? I remember those gas lines. I remember the death of the "Big Steel" US auto.

[Montmorency]

That seems like a risky stance to take. "Let's move at full speed until we can definitely tell whether it's just a hilltop or a cliff"

Specifically here a foggy cliffside road and we can't tell how what we're doing affects the car until after a considerable distance.

Regardless, the best approaches should factor in considerable death and damage. A question of "whether" we can avoid consequences is a bad one, and any action motivated by it will invariably disappoint.