Fact-Man wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote: Coito ergo sum wrote:
All that is good. I never said global warming isn't happening. I certainly do not deny that the climate changes. I don't, however, take anything at face value, and I am skeptical of extreme claims. I've been hearing this "it's much worse than we thought" line for 3 decades now. It's always much worse than we thought and we're always on the imminent verge of impending doom if we don't do X, Y or Z (usually involving large transfers of wealth or large shifts in policy). It kind of smacks of the used car salesman, who tells you that if you don't buy the car today, then the deal won't be available tomorrow.
Well, actually, we haven't been hearing that "it's much worse than we thought" for three decades. If you go back through IPCCs AR's published since 1990 you'll not see any such pronouncements and if you review published climate science you'll not see them either. It is only in very recent times, the past couple of years or so, that the idea that things are worse than we thought have surfaced. And "impending doom" is an inaccurate portrayal of the conditions that will emerge over the coming decades, or at the least it's overly dramatic, which serves no purpose other than to inflame feelings. What does "impending doom" mean? It has no functional meaning that offers any precision.
It's just a general reference to what amount to doomsday claims. It's not a mathematical term. I was making a general reference to to the claims I've heard on many issues that predict colossal devastation. New ice ages, worldwide droughts, mass starvation, sending us back to the stone age, complete depletion of all American oil by 1990 (that was a prediciton in the 1970s]....you know...general claims of devastation of biblical proportions, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria.
But you offered the comment in the context of a discussion about GW and climate change and hence I took it that way. Not too surprising, eh?
And, rightly so, because it falls into the same category - constant overhyping of the issue in order to "raise awareness" a la Al Gore.
Fact-Man wrote:
Most of the claims to which you refer weren’t made by scientists or were made by men who thought they were scientists or who wished to be. With the media paying a role by blowing their prognostications out of all proportion, e.g. the Ice Age scare in the 1970’s, which had zero science behind it, was mainly a hype job by the media.
Of course, and much of what general global warming proponents propagate is what is described in the media - overhyped, out of context claims that bear little resemblance to the actual science. There's the engineer who builds something, and then there's the salesmen.
Fact-Man wrote:
Today’s climate scientists are a much more reserved, mature, and disciplined group of people who aren’t given to wild claims or predictions.
You wouldn't know that from the number of things, like the hockey stick graph, and the email scandal, that appear to be exaggerated.
Fact-Man wrote:
This is illustrated by more recent discussions involving the notion that the IPCC may have been too conservative in its predictions, which does now appear to be the case.
I'll wait for the data on that.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
Mann's graph (the so-called hockey stick) was notable because of the rate of change it depicts, which is what gives it its very steep rise after about 2000. As you say, our climate changes constantly, it is a dynamic system that's not ever in a steady-state condition. But, and this is a huge but, it only changes very slowly. For example, it only took about a 7C increase in earth's mean annual temperature (MAT) to bring an end to the last Ice Age, but that increase unfolded over a period of several tens of thousands of years.
The AVERAGE goes up and down long term over long periods of time, but there are spikes and valleys above and below the trending mean. That means that one year or decade can be cooler or warmer than another by a lot. But the average temperature trends more slowly.
Spikes and valleys rarely exceed swings of more than 1.5 degree C year-over.
But, they sometimes do. It's just like how we are told we can't judge declining temperatures based on relatively short periods of time. By the same token, one can't judge rising temperatures based on relatively short periods of time.
Fact-Man wrote:
See in "Current GISS Global Surface Temperature Analysis" by J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York, USA, available for download as a PDF from:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper ... ft0319.pdf
This is an interesting paper because it reviews and illustrates the datasets, methods, and procedures employed to measure global temperature. Which is a very complex beast.
And, up until VERY recently, an extremely inaccurate beast.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
What's crucial about climate change today is the rapidity with which it is occurring, as much as the absolute increases in temperature we're likely to see and have in fact already seen. More than a seventh of the 7C rise that ended the last Ice Age has occurred just since 1900, and IPCC's projections show us hitting somewhere between a 2C and a 6C or 7C rise rise by the year 2100. The pace of that change is at rocket speed compared to what happened several thousand years ago to end the last Ice Age.
So regardless of the degree of exaggeration in Mann's hockey stick graph, we are facing a wholly unprecedented rate of increase in earth's MAT, who's absolute number is literally gargantuan in scale, albeit it's expressed in digits that we normally associate with small changes, that is, between 2 and 7C degrees.
Then why would someone exaggerate the hockey stick graph?
A denier or any Mann detractor might exaggerate it to make it appear to be wrong.
No, the hockey stick graph was, apparently, shown to be based on improper methodology, etc., according to the article, and was wrong in the sense of exaggerating the upswing.
Fact-Man wrote:
I’m sure that Mann does not think he exaggerated anything when he prepared it. The last several decades of his data came directly from the instrumented record, how exaggerated could it be? His pre-instrumented record data came from analyses of tree ring data. Apparently, some deniers claim that his method of splicing these two datasets is where the exaggeration occurs, an argument that never made any sense to me, nor to any mainstream climatologist or science organization.
Professor David Hand does."The particular technique they used exaggerated the size of the blade at the end of the hockey stick. Had they used an appropriate technique the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller," he said. "The change in temperature is not as great over the 20th century compared to the past as suggested by the Mann paper."
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
Some of the best scientists in the world have predicted this rise of between 2 and 7C by the year 2100 and they've assigned a 95% probability to its occurrence (see in IPCC's AR4). That should be good enough for anybody to accept, ninety-five per cent probability is a very high number, and it wasn't just picked out of the air, it was derived through very careful scientific analysis and evaluation.
If you agree that warming is happening this tells me you must have some understanding of AGW theory ("I don't accept things at face value") and if this is indeed the case then you have everything you need to join the fight to reduce emissions and do so rapidly and meaningfully, which means at least by 50% in 2050.
I have no problem with reducing emissions. I do have a problem with some methods that have been asserted for doing that.
Reducing emissions is a very thorny problem if it is to be done within the context of the existing economic schema, which presents obstacles that are nearly impossible to overcome. This is why the schemes we’ve seen to date are so poor and doing the job. Many of them are nothing more than money grubbing schemes. I don’t think the question has been addressed in any serious way yet, we’re just dancing round the edges of it. But the day is coming when we’ll have to get serious about it, and it isn’t very far off, a decade at most.
The answer is - stop burning as much fossil fuels. Dramatically reduce that. In order to do that, we have replace the energy with energy from another source(s): nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, thermodynamic, and hydroelectric. Generate vast amounts of electricity, and power most things, including automobiles with electricity.
The thing is, the political groups have other agendas at work, some of which involve redistribution of wealth and a change in human lifestyle. They are pissing in the wind there, and just holding up the show, IMHO. What we need is a Manhattan Project for clean nuclear power, and generate gobs and gobs of it, and we should also expand the solar and wind power, etc., to make other groups happy. But, nuclear power is the only viable option for producing the amount of power that could replace the amount of power we get from fossil fuels - in my humble opinion.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
As for policymakers, your notion of them is all whacked out. Leading countries mainstain climate change agencies who send people to the IPCC to review, edit, and comment on their reporting. These are policymakers.
Not in the United States. In the US, policy is chiefly made by legislators. Executive agencies carry out the legislative policy within the parameters of their delegated authority. People sent by the US to the IPCC are "policy-carry-outers" and not "policy-makers."
Actually, the US has one of the better and more capable climate science communities within its government, mainly at NASA and at DOE and NOAA. But it is equally true that, while this community is consulted by legislators, it is also mostly been ignored over the years on the crucial points. But this can’t go on much longer. In the end, we cannot allow economics to trump the science.
Once again, though, the policy is made by the legislators, which is why they are ignoring the scientists. But, nevertheless, the answer is quite simple. If pollution from fossil fuels is causing global warming, then we have to stop burning fossil fuels. But, the reality is that we need the power, and we're not going voluntarily give up modern life for some agrarian hippie utopia. So, the only answer to provide another source for the same, or more, amount of power. We can take steps at conservation of energy, which will help, but that doesn't change the reality that we need massive amounts of other sources of energy. Mainly, nuclear is the answer, with a combination of solar, wind, tidal, hydroelectric, etc. alternative options factored in as well.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
They are typically very well informed on the subject and exceedingly capable at apprehending the science.
No doubt.
Yes.
It's not the scientists I'm worried about, it's the interest groups.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
IPCC's AR's (assessment reports) have all been subjected to review, edit, and comemnt by these kinds of folks, especially perhaps the "Guide for Policymakers" volume that's included with every AR. These agencies receive IPCC AR's and use them in a disciplined way to formulate their recommended climate policies. They coordinate with each other, too.
Politicians do not of course always adopt climate policies that are recommended by these cadres, but blame them, not the policymakers if you feel the policies that are or have been adopted are insufficient.
I do.
Me too. We are doing essentially nothing about curbing emissions,
That's not true. Automobiles are far cleaner than they were 30 years ago. What comes out of a new car's tailpipe is not very dirty at all.
Fact-Man wrote:
and the window of time we have in which to act is an incredibly shrinking window, closing very quickly. We have about a decade.
There's the doomsday claim. I'm not sure where you get the "we have a bout a decade" from, but I heard that in 1995 too.
Fact-Man wrote:
If we don’t institute a major effort to cut emissions by 2020 we might as well not do anything, because there will be enough C02 in the atmosphere by that time to inevitably cause intolerable warming by the year 2100.
I don't know what study says that. I freely admit you may no much more than I about it. I just haven't seen it.
But, I have the answer: Build enough nuclear power plants in the US, Canada and Mexico to power 70% of our energy needs, and get the balance from solar, wind, tidal, hydroelectic and some burning of fossil fuels which we get from our own lands.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
You also appear to be misinformed regarding the costs that will associate with reducing emissions.
I made no assertion about the costs that would be associated with reducing emissions, so it could not possibly appear that I am misinformed in that regard.
You made a comment about not wanting to spend gobs of money. It’s not worth going back to find it.
Well, I never want to waste money.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
Although probably large, they are not draconian nor are they beyond our means.
That would be, of course, a matter of opinion. How much do you estimate the cost would be?
I have no idea.
Then you don't know that it wouldn't be draconian or beyond our means.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
Besides, what's it worth to prevent a significant rise in earth's MAT?
I don't know. Have any estimates been made? Any cost/benefit analysis?
Not much work has been done along these lines, everyone seems afraid to tackle it or do not feel they have a mandate to tackle it. One Brit economist did a study and ended up estimating it’ll cost two per cent of GDP over some extnded period.
I can tell you exactly how those initial studies will come out. They'll have glamorous conclusions about how "modest" and "manageable" the costs will be to combat the "disastrous" and "civilization threatening" problem. Subsequent studies will call foul and claim they are not taking into account all the applicable costs. The left will line up with the former, and the right will line up with the latter, and we'll have a battle of the experts and finger pointing.
Fact-Man wrote:
It’s not an easy undertaking to develop such numbers, as you might imagine, way too many variables involved.
Yes.
Fact-Man wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Fact-Man wrote:
Maybe we should send the bill to Exxon and the fossil fuel industry, eh?
Exxon and the fuel industry do not operate in a vacuum. People drive cars, and use the goods produced in factories. The advancements of the last 200 years would not have been possible without the oil industry, so it would not be truly reflective of the cost/benefit analysis to just send them the bill without crediting them for the benefits to civilization that fossil fuel production have provided. I realize it is in vogue to demonize fossil fuels as the worst thing that ever happened to the US, and to phrase it in alarmist terms that we are "hooked" (like an addict) on fossil fuels, but the marked increase in standard of living is directly due to the discovery and processing of fossil fuels: light, heat, food, communication, travel, community -- all are based on our ability to produce and use energy. And most of our energy, about 85%, comes from fossil fuel. (Another 8% comes from nuclear power, and 7 % from all other sources, mostly hydroelectric power and wood.)
The vast amount of energy placed at the disposal of humanity, through fire, could be, and was, used to revolutionize the nature of our existence. - Isaac Asimov
Fire enabled man to go global. Nor has the importance of fire diminished with time; rather the reverse. Wood was undoubtedly the first fuel used in building and maintaining a fire. Coal took primacy of place in the 17th century, joined by gas and oil in the 20th. Without it, we would not be able to, now, talk of changing over to nuclear and other alternative fuels to generate the power we need to sustain our standard of living (which in the West allows the common person to live as comfortably, and in some ways much better, than Kings and Queens prior to the industrial revolution).
Well, that’s one view, there are others.
As always.
Fact-Man wrote:
For one thing nobody but the fossil fuel industry, led by Exxon, has spent $millions to confuse the public about global warming, as a leaked Exxon memo said, “Our mission is to sow doubt and confusion among the public.”
Well, the other side exaggerates and "tricks the numbers" etc., and Al Gore makes movies.
Fact-Man wrote:
And this they have done and in spades, and they have succeeded, the public is confused, more so today that at any time.
The general public hardly knows who the Vice President is.
Fact-Man wrote:
Many lawmakers are confused.
Of course. It's a difficult topic, and so many biased and self-interested parties are fucking with both sides of the issue, that one always needs to be careful.
Fact-Man wrote:
Denialism has become an industrial scale movement,
As has the doomsday industry.
Fact-Man wrote:
pounding the science and its practitioner’s beyond all reason and decorum, a dirty, sordid undertaking similar to the way the tobacco industry denied that smoking is a health risk (and using some of the same people and PR firms to do it). Big Tobacco got away with it for 60 years, fossil fuel has gotten away with it for 25 years, same program, same techniques.
Their efforts have cost us 25 years during which we could have been acting.
Doing what, exactly? What would he have done?
Fact-Man wrote:
Instead, we did nothing, and now we find ourselves way behind the eight ball. Senator James Inhoff (R – Okalhoma) a big supporter of the oil industry, has investigations going on against 17 of our best climate scientists, intending to charge them with fraud and other crimes.
Well, have they committed fraud and other crimes? If not, they ought to sue for abuse of process. If they have, then they're not good scientists.
Fact-Man wrote:
Al Gore went to the Science Teacher’s Association of America (STAA) and offered them 50,000 copies of his movie on DVD gratis, if they’d distribute them to their members for showing in High School science classes. They turned him down. Puzzled, Gore looked into it. He discovered that Exxon was funding the STAA to the tune of $5million a year while providing them with tons of anti-global warming materials for handout to science students, and they had threatened the STAA with cutting off this funding if they accepted Gore’s gift.
Al Gore's movie is hype.
Fact-Man wrote:
The war on climate science is a sordid, hardball affair, filled with stories like this. It makes it difficult to impossible for those who are informed about it to have any sympathy whatsoever for the fossil fuel industry, which such persons see a an enemy of the people and of all that’s right and reasonable.
They have endangered the lives of everyone and threatened the planet. They should be charged with crimes and imprisoned.
And yes they do operate in a vacume, a virtual one anyway. Consumers have no idea what they’re doing, they are asleep at the wheel, behaving mostly in an autonomic mode, reacting to massive advertising and promotion, buying whatever’s presented to them without so much as a single critical thought. Given full knowledge no sane person would drive a gas guzzler, yet millions do exactly that. We burn 13 million bbls of oil every day just to commute back and forth to work, which is 60 per cent of what we burn in total.
Your comments are quite clearly from an underinformed persona,
No they don't. Stop being patronizing.
Fact-Man wrote:
speaking like a dope who has no clue.
Please identify the specific statement of mine that was false. Let's talk about it. Or, are you castigating me for something I didn't say? Something you assume I believe?
Fact-Man wrote:
Well, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger, you’re in league with tens of millions of others who, thanks to the denialism of Exxon and Big Coal, don’t have a clue about what’s really going on either, about the war on science that’s being waged by these interests, and waged fiercely and intensely, using draconian methods and every trick in the propagandist’s handbook. You’re just another victim of that propaganda.
I'm not a victim of any propaganda, but I'm not an alarmist either.
Fact-Man wrote:
I don’t say these things to be disparaging, you are as innocent as everyone else, but the sad fact is you don’t know what the hell is going on and that’s purposeful. They don’t want you to know, and hence you don’t.
But, you are privy to the secret knowledge...
Fact-Man wrote:
Meanwhile, we continue to spew many thousands of gigatons of C02 into the atmosphere each passing year, pushing the density of this gas higher and higher in the atmosphere, now already 100 ppm over the natural background level and fast headed for much more than that.
Even if we somehow magically stopped emitting today there’s enough C02 in the atmosphere to push earth’s mean annual temperature up by some 2 degrees C in the year 2100. That will force ocean levels to rise as more and more of the cryosphere melts, drowning countries like Tuvalu and the Maldives and low lying islands and coastal areas the world over. The Dutch are freaked out about this and are spending $billions to shore up their defenses against an encroaching sea. And the ocean is acidifying at an alarming rate (the ocean absorbs much of the C02 we produce), threatening all oceanic life that builds a shell and corals.
I guess we're fucked then. So, we better buy what you're selling now, right now, buy buy buy - or, it'll be too late - don't wanna miss this deal....won't be available tomorrow...
Fact-Man wrote:
We aren’t going to stop emitting, not if the fossil fuel industry has its way (and so far it is having its way), so we’re not looking at a 2C increase in the year 2100, we're looking at more than that, up to as high as a 7C rise. And that will be an unmitigated disaster for civilization, as we know it.
Well, if people in the "green" movement really thought that, then they would stop emitting now. You don't see Al Gore or those like him doing it, do you? He and they are some of the biggest polluters on the planet. If someone REALLY thinks we have 80 or so years left to live, then they're not going to keep driving their cars, they're going to act like it. They don't.
Fact-Man wrote:
I don’t particularly enjoy being the bearer of bad news, but the truth is the truth and the facts are the facts and the evidence is the evidence, and none of it can be denied. We have to face it and do something about it or we will be toast, quite literally.
What do you want to do about it?
Fact-Man wrote:
Enjoy your day.
ditto
