piscator wrote:there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that we can and do control "weather", whether we like it or not despite the circular reasoning of denialists
I don't seem to hear many denialists referring to weather except in cases where they mistakenly point to it as an indicator of no warming. For the most part, denialists seek to either deny that warming is hapening at all or, if they agree that warming is indeed happening, they deny that's its cause is anthropogenic and attempt to attribute the cause to some other factor, such as changes in the sun's radiance.
are you in the US?
As a matter of fact, no, I'm not.
How would it matter if it mattered at all?
piscator wrote:
My reference to humans being unable to control the weather pertained to any conscious or purposeful attempt to do so, which is I think where Mysturgi was coming from as well. There may well be unconscious things we do that have an affect on weather, emitting aerosols for example or particulates, but those are not things we do as part of any intended effort to control weather and are, rather, byproducts of other things we do purposefully.
my response was not directed at your post, but at the argument that is often made of, "Well, we can't change the weather, so let's not get too worked up about climate change"
and while it's true that we don't have much control over weather, it does not necessarily follow that we have no control over climate in the long term and that we should stick to the practices and business models that evidently have caused some concern in the science community
I think "some concern" is a vast understatement.
It doesn't seem we have any real disagreement here. By and large we cannot control weather; weather events do not indicate climate except in the most general of ways. We can affect climate and in fact are doing so, the evidence is everywhere around us, especially in high latitudes and in the Arctic but also in the mid-latitude cryosphere.
piscator wrote:there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that we can and do control "weather", whether we like it or not despite the circular reasoning of denialists
I don't seem to hear many denialists referring to weather except in cases where they mistakenly point to it as an indicator of no warming. For the most part, denialists seek to either deny that warming is hapening at all or, if they agree that warming is indeed happening, they deny that's its cause is anthropogenic and attempt to attribute the cause to some other factor, such as changes in the sun's radiance.
are you in the US?
As a matter of fact, no, I'm not.
How would it matter if it mattered at all?
piscator wrote:
My reference to humans being unable to control the weather pertained to any conscious or purposeful attempt to do so, which is I think where Mysturgi was coming from as well. There may well be unconscious things we do that have an affect on weather, emitting aerosols for example or particulates, but those are not things we do as part of any intended effort to control weather and are, rather, byproducts of other things we do purposefully.
my response was not directed at your post, but at the argument that is often made of, "Well, we can't change the weather, so let's not get too worked up about climate change"
and while it's true that we don't have much control over weather, it does not necessarily follow that we have no control over climate in the long term and that we should stick to the practices and business models that evidently have caused some concern in the science community
I think "some concern" is a vast understatement.
It doesn't seem we have any real disagreement here. By and large we cannot control weather; weather events do not indicate climate except in the most general of ways. We can affect climate and in fact are doing so, the evidence is everywhere around us, especially in high latitudes and in the Arctic but also in the mid-latitude cryosphere.
indeed, and i think we can both agree that "weather" is a bit of a non sequitur in a discussion of climate change, regardless of how often it seems to be slipped in by deniers and the denialist industry
piscator wrote:there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that we can and do control "weather", whether we like it or not
despite the circular reasoning of denialists
When I read that statement, I thought it was so wrong, I could only think of 6 possible explanations for it, but if I laid them out here, most of them could be construed as personal attacks, so let's just say that IMHO, that is a ridiculous statement.
The two explanations I could think of that could not be construed as personal attacks were:
English is not your first language
It's a trap!
Since reading further, I have pretty much ruled out the first one. Now that I've "taken the bait" we'll see...
We cannot control the weather (or the climate).
We influence the weather (and the climate).
We affect the weather (and the climate).
We are having a debate on the internet. You have mentioned my name (note spelling! ) Therefore the evidence shows that I am affecting your behaviour.
I am not controlling you.
I am influencing your thoughts and actions. I am not controlling them.
piscator wrote:there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that we can and do control "weather", whether we like it or not despite the circular reasoning of denialists
I don't seem to hear many denialists referring to weather except in cases where they mistakenly point to it as an indicator of no warming. For the most part, denialists seek to either deny that warming is hapening at all or, if they agree that warming is indeed happening, they deny that's its cause is anthropogenic and attempt to attribute the cause to some other factor, such as changes in the sun's radiance.
are you in he US?
My reference to humans being unable to control the weather pertained to any conscious or purposeful attempt to do so, which is I think where Mysturgi was coming from as well. There may well be unconscious things we do that have an affect on weather, emitting aerosols for example or particulates, but those are not things we do as part of any intended effort to control weather and are, rather, byproducts of other things we do purposefully.
my response was not directed at your post, but at the argument that is often made of, "Well, we can't change the weather, so let's not get too worked up about climate change"
and while it's true that we don't have much control over weather, it does not necessarily follow that we have no control over climate in the long term and that we should stick to the practices and business models that evidently have caused some concern in the science community
Is this some sort of tag-team wrestling thing? If so, you're wrestling a strawman.
I don't seem to hear many denialists referring to weather except in cases where they mistakenly point to it as an indicator of no warming. For the most part, denialists seek to either deny that warming is hapening at all or, if they agree that warming is indeed happening, they deny that's its cause is anthropogenic and attempt to attribute the cause to some other factor, such as changes in the sun's radiance.
Has anyone made such an argument in this thread? If so, I missed it.
my response was not directed at your post, but at the argument that is often made of, "Well, we can't change the weather, so let's not get too worked up about climate change"
and while it's true that we don't have much control over weather, it does not necessarily follow that we have no control over climate in the long term and that we should stick to the practices and business models that evidently have caused some concern in the science community
Has anyone made such an argument in this thread? If so, I missed it.
Mysturji wrote:I'm not saying that we should just give up - far from it: Pollution is a bad thing. Let's do as little of it as we can. Recycling is a good thing. Let's do as much of it as we can. I recycle. I don't litter. I try not to be wasteful, and I like cuddly, furry animals (although I do eat some of them).
Let's take care of our environment, because shitting on your kitchen table is a stupid thing to do...
But let's be realistic about what we can hope to accomplish.
If a storm is coming, [snip sarcasm]...
You buy an umbrella. You fix your roof. You improve the drainage around your house. You shore up your sea-wall defences. You think about what crops will grow better in the changing climate and start planting them.
Instead of trying to stop the unstoppable and avoid the inevitable, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
If indeed, mankind's contribution to global warming is as significant as many are saying (and I'm not saying it isn't, though IMHO it is sometimes exaggerated)...
If indeed, the Earth is not able to maintain it's own stability in the face of our actions (and I'm not counting on it, but it's possible)...
If indeed there are only Ten Years to Save The Planet...
If indeed we are approaching the "tipping point"...
Then we're in deep shit no matter what we do.
We are not going to reverse the environmental effects of 250 years of industrialisation in a decade. Not only because we can't, but because to come anywhere near to achieving that in anything remotely close to that timescale would mean everyone making significant personal sacrifices for the greater good - even if they all believed the extent of the danger and our ability to do anything about it.
Bottom line: You CAN'T save the planet, because people are selfish bastards, and they won't let you.
So let's stop pretending. Let's stop wasting precious time and resources, and redirect our efforts. Most of them anyway.
Let's keep trying to reduce our emmissions, let's keep searching for and developing alternative, cleaner sources of energy. In a couple of hundred years or so, we probably can reverse the environmental effects of 250 years of industrialisation, and that will help speed the planet's recovery by maybe another 100 years or so, and that will be a good thing.
But that's long term, and it's extremely unlikely to show any significant benefits until well after the shit has hit the fan.
It seems to me that environmentalists are so focussed on cleaning up the mess, they forgot about the minor problem of being in the splatter zone.
We WILL survive it, as a species. We aren't the most successful vertebrates on the planet for no reason. We will adapt to our changing environment and survive as a species, though it may not be pleasant and our civilisation may be in for a bumpy ride.
So let's prepare for it.
Edit: And since everybody else seems to be doing it...
Sir Figg Newton wrote:If I have seen further than others, it is only because I am surrounded by midgets.
Cormac wrote:Doom predictors have been with humans right through our history. They are like the proverbial stopped clock - right twice a day, but not due to the efficacy of their prescience.
About me: If I had my way I'd buy a few acres of land and an old tractor. I'd drive the old tractor around the land and passers-by would stop to ask me what kind of crop I was farming. "Crop?" I'd say, "Crops are work, I'm planting ideas."
mysruji wrote:Edit: And since everybody else seems to be doing it...
Excellent! Could use more death banjo, of course, but what couldn't?
mysturji wrote:When I read that statement, I thought it was so wrong, I could only think of 6 possible explanations for it, but if I laid them out here, most of them could be construed as personal attacks, so let's just say that IMHO, that is a ridiculous statement.
The two explanations I could think of that could not be construed as personal attacks were:
English is not your first language
It's a trap!
Since reading further, I have pretty much ruled out the first one. Now that I've "taken the bait" we'll see...
We cannot control the weather (or the climate).
We influence the weather (and the climate).
We affect the weather (and the climate).
A little pedantic, but I get your point. What about cloud seeding though?
If indeed, mankind's contribution to global warming is as significant as many are saying (and I'm not saying it isn't, though IMHO it is sometimes exaggerated)...
If indeed, the Earth is not able to maintain it's own stability in the face of our actions (and I'm not counting on it, but it's possible)...
If indeed there are only Ten Years to Save The Planet...
If indeed we are approaching the "tipping point"...
Then we're in deep shit no matter what we do.
We are not going to reverse the environmental effects of 250 years of industrialisation in a decade. Not only because we can't, but because to come anywhere near to achieving that in anything remotely close to that timescale would mean everyone making significant personal sacrifices for the greater good - even if they all believed the extent of the danger and our ability to do anything about it.
Bottom line: You CAN'T save the planet, because people are selfish bastards, and they won't let you.
So let's stop pretending. Let's stop wasting precious time and resources, and redirect our efforts. Most of them anyway.
Let's keep trying to reduce our emmissions, let's keep searching for and developing alternative, cleaner sources of energy. In a couple of hundred years or so, we probably can reverse the environmental effects of 250 years of industrialisation, and that will help speed the planet's recovery by maybe another 100 years or so, and that will be a good thing.
But that's long term, and it's extremely unlikely to show any significant benefits until well after the shit has hit the fan.
It seems to me that environmentalists are so focussed on cleaning up the mess, they forgot about the minor problem of being in the splatter zone.
We WILL survive it, as a species. We aren't the most successful vertebrates on the planet for no reason. We will adapt to our changing environment and survive as a species, though it may not be pleasant and our civilisation may be in for a bumpy ride.
So let's prepare for it.
I guess my first point would be that those preparations are closely related to reducing our carbon footprint anyway. Green technologies tend to be suitable for off-grid use, the grid being one of our vulnerabilities. They tend not rely on a major infrastructure, think eco-diesel and local food production. They tend to lend themselves to a variety of uses, think wind-power.
My second point would be that most greener technologies offer an immediate benefit anyway. Weather-proofing homes and buildings saves money and makes them more comfortable. More efficient vehicles save money. Better public transit reduces traffic congestion. The whole reduce, re-use, recycle thing saves money and, likely more importantly, results in things that aren't like everything else.
So by working on things right now, we improve our present quality of life.
piscator wrote:there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that we can and do control "weather", whether we like it or not
despite the circular reasoning of denialists
When I read that statement, I thought it was so wrong, I could only think of 6 possible explanations for it, but if I laid them out here, most of them could be construed as personal attacks, so let's just say that IMHO, that is a ridiculous statement.
The two explanations I could think of that could not be construed as personal attacks were:
English is not your first language
It's a trap!
Since reading further, I have pretty much ruled out the first one. Now that I've "taken the bait" we'll see...
We cannot control the weather (or the climate).
We influence the weather (and the climate).
We affect the weather (and the climate).
i thought i noted that 'weather' is something of a non sequitur wrt climate?
weather and climate are not equivalent terms; they are not even synonymous
you seem to take an atomistic view of climate to make the grand assumption that since we can't manipulate weather to your satisfaction, then the same must be true for climate
this a classic fallacy of composition, about as true as saying that since we lack the ability to manipulate the probability cloud of electrons in atoms of iron, there's no sense in trying to build an engine
weather is not climate, and makes a poor model of climate, which is probably at the root of why you have problems with mankind trying to mitigate our impact on climate
it may be cold in your flat, but that has trivial applicability to climate science, which incorporates terms like albedo and ocean temps and Greenhouse Effect and much larger values of t than 'weather' or 'room temperature'
in essence, your points are like the blind man holding on to the elephant's tail and saying, 'I don't understand all the fuss about this little skinny little thing with a tuft of hair on the end - why worry about it?" - you are apparently taking one small term of the elephant that is climate science and trying to extrapolate a model whereby it's just fine to do nothing but ignore the smell and sanguinely await the inevitable
piscator wrote:there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that we can and do control "weather", whether we like it or not
despite the circular reasoning of denialists
When I read that statement, I thought it was so wrong, I could only think of 6 possible explanations for it, but if I laid them out here, most of them could be construed as personal attacks, so let's just say that IMHO, that is a ridiculous statement.
The two explanations I could think of that could not be construed as personal attacks were:
English is not your first language
It's a trap!
Since reading further, I have pretty much ruled out the first one. Now that I've "taken the bait" we'll see...
We cannot control the weather (or the climate).
We influence the weather (and the climate).
We affect the weather (and the climate).
i thought i noted that 'weather' is something of a non sequitur wrt climate?
weather and climate are not equivalent terms; they are not even synonymous
you seem to take an atomistic view of climate to make the grand assumption that since we can't manipulate weather to your satisfaction, then the same must be true for climate
this a classic fallacy of composition, about as true as saying that since we lack the ability to manipulate the probability cloud of electrons in atoms of iron, there's no sense in trying to build an engine
weather is not climate, and makes a poor model of climate, which is probably at the root of why you have problems with mankind trying to mitigate our impact on climate
it may be cold in your flat, but that has trivial applicability to climate science, which incorporates terms like albedo and ocean temps and Greenhouse Effect and much larger values of t than 'weather' or 'room temperature'
in essence, your points are like the blind man holding on to the elephant's tail and saying, 'I don't understand all the fuss about this little skinny little thing with a tuft of hair on the end - why worry about it?" - you are apparently taking one small term of the elephant that is climate science and trying to extrapolate a model whereby it's just fine to do nothing but ignore the smell and sanguinely await the inevitable.
It appears to me you two (Mysturgi and yourself) have gotten off on the wrong foot because of your original comment, which does strike as being a bit discombooberated, if I may say so. Let's repeat it here,
piscator wrote:there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that we can and do control "weather", whether we like it or not despite the circular reasoning of denialists
It's hard for me to parse this and come up with any meaningful interpretation of what you intended to say.
You put weather in quotes, which tells me the word didn't quite satisfy what you intended to convey in the first part of your sentence.
Empiracle evidence usually demonstrates, it doesn't usually "suggest."
I'm not quite sure what you were driving at in the second part of the sentence vis-a-vis what you intended to convey in the first part.
Perhaps you might revisit this comment and parse it for us. I think that would help clarify the matter.
As for my own view, I see weather as comprising the component parts of climate; and in fact, the World Meterological Organization (WMO), the body that sets the standards in these things, deems climate to be the average weather of a 30-year period or more, but not less than.
Hence weather is clearly involved with climate and is part and parcel of it. It's just that we usually refer to weather in terms of its one-off events as opposed to any longer term notions.
Man does affect the weather, albeit not in its one-off events (except in cases of cloud seeding); man's effects on weather occur as a result of his incremental changes to the atmosphere's composition, which in our time means his emissions of GHGs, which act to push temperatures up slowly over time and hence alter weather over those longer periods.
I think at bottom there's no real disagreement here, but our language has left us a bit adrift.
perhaps i should have said, "weather" to denote the flawed use of weather in reference to climate instead of being lazy and saying 'weather'?
if the subject is climate change, then talking about weather is about as flawed as talking about how cold it is in your flat, as the confusion and subsequent angst over my apparent wrongheadedness and "mistaken terminology" aptly demonstrate
if you are going to talk about climate, then please talk about climate
if you are going to talk about weather, then please find some weather thread and talk about the weather
please don't misdirect a discussion of climate change and climatology with a lot of mistaken references to weather in key places unless you just don't get the difference or have an ulterior motive
and please don't waste a lot of time becoming excited about a deliberate and calculated misdirect that apparently flew right over your head unless you want me to take great pains to point out how you are committing the same error by relying so much on the term "weather" to base disagreements with the science of climatology and its conclusions
i'm sorry the medicine tastes bad when you are asked to swallow it, but the moral is that i'm making a substantive point about the misuse of the word "weather" in a discussion of climate science and its conclusions by using the exact same error i seek to illustrate
and once i drive this point well home, you will be amazed at how often you'll see distinction-blurring wordplay between "weather" and "climate" used by those who seek to deny the sound scientific conclusions and implications of climatology
if you improperly evaluate a term in an equation, the math will return an incorrect answer no matter how correctly you you did everything else - GIGO
About me: If I had my way I'd buy a few acres of land and an old tractor. I'd drive the old tractor around the land and passers-by would stop to ask me what kind of crop I was farming. "Crop?" I'd say, "Crops are work, I'm planting ideas."
Fact-Man wrote:...
As for my own view, I see weather as comprising the component parts of climate; and in fact, the World Meterological Organization (WMO), the body that sets the standards in these things, deems climate to be the average weather of a 30-year period or more, but not less than.
Hence weather is clearly involved with climate and is part and parcel of it. It's just that we usually refer to weather in terms of its one-off events as opposed to any longer term notions.
Man does affect the weather, albeit not in its one-off events (except in cases of cloud seeding); man's effects on weather occur as a result of his incremental changes to the atmosphere's composition, which in our time means his emissions of GHGs, which act to push temperatures up slowly over time and hence alter weather over those longer periods.
I think at bottom there's no real disagreement here, but our language has left us a bit adrift.
Onward!
now, having expanded my little polynomial, i'd like to emphasize that i understand that weather is integral to climatology and i agree with most of Mystrugi's and your points, but not necessarily the conclusion that there's little we can do
i also think you disregard the happy side effects of maybe getting the world on a more sustainable energy paradigm and pulling on the same rope for the first time in human history in the process of objectively tackling a worldwide problem
onward indeed! your and Mysturji's brand of knowledgeable skepticism is very much needed for an informed dialectic
Just catching up with this thread after a bit of a hiatus involving eye surgery (can only do a limited amount of posting at the moment...)
As a mod, glad to see everybody playing nice in the Ratz tradition...
Anybody read anything by Ian Plimer, an Aussie geologist famous in his day as a great enemy of creationists, now firmly in the climate change sceptic camp...
piscator wrote:
now, having expanded my little polynomial, i'd like to emphasize that i understand that weather is integral to climatology and i agree with most of Mystrugi's and your points, but not necessarily the conclusion that there's little we can do
i also think you disregard the happy side effects of maybe getting the world on a more sustainable energy paradigm and pulling on the same rope for the first time in human history in the process of objectively tackling a worldwide problem.
I've not seen any reason to doubt your understanding of the difference between weather and climate, despite the fact that your polynomial seemed a bit discombooberated. You had made it clear in earlier posts.
piscator wrote:
Onward indeed! your and Mysturji's brand of knowledgeable skepticism is very much needed for an informed dialectic
I'm no skeptic in the sense of the skepticism we see in the denialosphere, which appears rather obviously to be almost exclusively driven by the huge corporate $$$ that are at stake in the issue.
I'm satisfied that the AGW theory of global warming is at bottom good science, with some further developments yet to come that will make it even better and will resolve remaining questions, such as the climate system's sensitivity to GHGs and the role that clouds play in warming, among others.
Over the coming decade I think we'll see significant enhancements in the resolution at which descriptions of the warming phenomena can be elaborated and from that we'll see better predictive capabilities arise. But even given that, the IPCC stated in AR4 that its forecasts were at a 95 per cent confidence level, which seems to be sufficiently high to base action upon ... action we have yet to take in strongly meaningful ways.
The problem lies in the relationship between our economic schemata and what the science is telling us we have to do, in which the former lacks the flexibility to support the action we must take and so we take none, while having to fight against the doubts and confusion sown by corporate interests, who seek to maintain the status quo.
Hence it becomes much more of an economic problem, as opposed to a scientific problem. The great bulk of the world's scientists and policymakers have accepted AGW science and wish now to move on and take the action that it tells us is necessary. But the economic problem is severe in that our economic schemata isn't sufficiently flexible or resilient to allow that action to be implemented ... without causing some rather severe economic dislocations and losses to occur.
So that's where the rubber meets the road on this thing. We may find that we'll be forced to make fundamental changes to our economic schemata if it's unable in its present form to facilitate the action we need to take. It seems doubtful we'd hang on to an economy that prevents us from saving the world from some pretty severe consequences that will come in the not too distant future if we don't act soon.
Policymakers and politicians alike have been wringing their hands and pulling their hair out as they try unsuccessfuly to find ways to make our current economic schemata adapt itself to the new reality the science has brought to us. At some point the science will overwhelm the economic blockage, in some form or other, and force policymakers and politicians to make whatever changes in economy that will allow us to proceed apace and take the action that's dictated by the science.
JimC wrote:Just catching up with this thread after a bit of a hiatus involving eye surgery (can only do a limited amount of posting at the moment...)
As a mod, glad to see everybody playing nice in the Ratz tradition...
Anybody read anything by Ian Plimer, an Aussie geologist famous in his day as a great enemy of creationists, now firmly in the climate change skeptic camp.
I'd hardly waste my time reading Plimer. He's an Australian geologist who sits on the boards of three different mining companies, which I presume are doing coal.
Any geologist with that big an interest in coal mining doesn't strike me as being someone who could speak objectively on the question of global warming. Plimer has published 40 scientific papers and a half dozen books, only one book of which had to do with climate change or climate science, and it was not well received.
Plimer is listed as an "Allied Expert" for a Canadian group called the "Natural Resource Stewardship Project," (NRSP) a lobby organization that refuses to disclose its funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball.
An October 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article on who funds the NRSP, states that "a confidentiality agreement doesn't allow him [Tom Harris] to say whether energy companies are funding his group."
Tim Ball is a notorious denier who ran around for years claiming to be the first Canadian climatologist, a claim that was later refuted by facts and evidence.
Investigators from http://www.deSmogblog.com recently uncovered information that two of the three Directors on the board of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project are senior executives of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto based lobby firm that specializes in “energy, environment and ethics.”
A search of 22,000 academic journals shows that Plimer has published more than 40 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, mainly on the subject of ore deposits.
Plimer is not well qualified to speak on GW or CC.
I hope your recovery from eye surgery goes well.
Last edited by Fact-Man on Sun Mar 07, 2010 11:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Fact-Man wrote:
I'm no skeptic in the sense of the skepticism we see in the denialosphere, which appears rather obviously to be almost exclusively driven by the huge corporate $$$ that are at stake in the issue.
please forgive me for lumping you (and Mysturji) in with the Daily Fail/American "Culture Warrior" crowd
in mitigation, such as it is, i'm used to being mobbed by peasants with pitchforks and broad brushes are economical in that situation
and it got us to your excellent post without a lot of bullshitting around about scientific methodology and stats and papers written by meteorologists with axes to grind and $$ to make
another log on the bonfire of empirical evidence to support the Big Bait theory...
I'm satisfied that the AGW theory of global warming is at bottom good science, with some further developments yet to come that will make it even better and will resolve remaining questions, such as the climate system's sensitivity to GHGs and the role that clouds play in warming, among others.
Over the coming decade I think we'll see significant enhancements in the resolution at which descriptions of the warming phenomena can be elaborated and from that we'll see better predictive capabilities arise. But even given that, the IPCC stated in AR4 that its forecasts were at a 95 per cent confidence level, which seems to be sufficiently high to base action upon ... action we have yet to take in strongly meaningful ways.
The problem lies in the relationship between our economic schemata and what the science is telling us we have to do, in which the former lacks the flexibility to support the action we must take and so we take none, while having to fight against the doubts and confusion sown by corporate interests, who seek to maintain the status quo.
Hence it becomes much more of an economic problem, as opposed to a scientific problem. The great bulk of the world's scientists and policymakers have accepted AGW science and wish now to move on and take the action that it tells us is necessary. But the economic problem is severe in that our economic schemata isn't sufficiently flexible or resilient to allow that action to be implemented ... without causing some rather severe economic dislocations and losses to occur.
So that's where the rubber meets the road on this thing. We may find that we'll be forced to make fundamental changes to our economic schemata if it's unable in its present form to facilitate the action we need to take. It seems doubtful we'd hang on to an economy that prevents us from saving the world from some pretty severe consequences that will come in the not too distant future if we don't act soon.
Policymakers and politicians alike have been wringing their hands and pulling their hair out as they try unsuccessfuly to find ways to make our current economic schemata adapt itself to the new reality the science has brought to us. At some point the science will overwhelm the economic blockage, in some form or other, and force policymakers and politicians to make whatever changes in economy that will allow us to proceed apace and take the action that's dictated by the science.
i think you are spot on that AGW is indeed the Tragedy of the Commons writ large, and i think it's important to point out that 40+ years of political philosophy, game theory, and evolutionary biology have yielded essentially 2 ways out of the trap: enlightened self interest of rational agents, and the superior force of enlightened external agents
the common denominator is, of course, enlightenment
which sort of brings us back to the OP and the "What, me worry?" approach i've criticized
clearly, the way to get rational agents off dead center is to make it in their own best interests to do so
JimC wrote:Just catching up with this thread after a bit of a hiatus involving eye surgery (can only do a limited amount of posting at the moment...)
As a mod, glad to see everybody playing nice in the Ratz tradition...
Anybody read anything by Ian Plimer, an Aussie geologist famous in his day as a great enemy of creationists, now firmly in the climate change skeptic camp.
I'd hardly waste my time reading Plimer. He's an Australian geologist who sits on the boards of three different mining companies, which I presume are doing coal.
Any geologist with that big an interest in coal mining doesn't strike me as being someone who could speak objectively on the question of global warming. Plimer has published 40 scientific papers and a half dozen books, only one book of which had to do with climate change or climate science, and it was not well received.
Plimer is listed as an "Allied Expert" for a Canadian group called the "Natural Resource Stewardship Project," (NRSP) a lobby organization that refuses to disclose its funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball.
An October 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article on who funds the NRSP, states that "a confidentiality agreement doesn't allow him [Tom Harris] to say whether energy companies are funding his group."
Tim Ball is a notorious denier who ran around for years claiming to be the first Canadian climatologist, a claim that was later refuted by facts and evidence.
Investigators from http://www.deSmogblog.com recently uncovered information that two of the three Directors on the board of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project are senior executives of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto based lobby firm that specializes in “energy, environment and ethics.”
A search of 22,000 academic journals shows that Plimer has published more than 40 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, mainly on the subject of ore deposits.
Plimer is not well qualified to speak on GW or CC.
I hope your recovery from eye surgery goes well.
I'm getting there little by little - reading mainly by one eye at the moment, which is a little weird...
Yes, I gather he is very active in the corporate world of the Australian resources sector, so he has a financial interest in not rocking the boat...
) Therefore the evidence shows that I am affecting your behaviour.
