106 replies to this topic

[Carl G]

I don't think trolling is going on; I think some good discussion is.  There has been more genuine discussion / argument / counter-argument here that I've seen just about anywhere.

 

Thank you guys for helping to educate me.

[2 Aces]

I don't think trolling is going on; I think some good discussion is.  There has been more genuine discussion / argument / counter-argument here that I've seen just about anywhere.

Yeah, I suppose...if you like 4 solid pages of repetition...to each his own..

[Chris]

I don't think trolling is going on; I think some good discussion is.  There has been more genuine discussion / argument / counter-argument here that I've seen just about anywhere.

 

Thank you guys for helping to educate me.

Thanks Carl.....!

 

Yeah, I suppose...if you like 4 solid pages of repetition...to each his own..

 

Yep, I can lead them to water but can't make them drink.....   I'll chill for awhile and release some more CO2 into the atmosphere tomorrow night when I open that nice bottle of Korbel Champagne...!

Chris

[The Average Joe]

Joe,  the inconsistency of your posts is a little irritating.  I'll cite one example:

 

In one post you say, "...there is no EVIDENCE to support your claim that CO2 is an evil greenhouse gas..."

 

In a more recent post, you say, "I never asked for evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.  I'm well aware of that property."

 

Make up your mind.

 

Look,  it's clear we'll never agree.  Maybe we should get together in 10 years and see what's going on with these issues.  I'm patient and can wait.  Talk to you then.

I stand corrected. Here is my whole quote

"Again, your argument falls flat because there is no EVIDENCE to support your claim that CO2 is an evil greenhouse gas that forces temperatures to increase, especially in observed concentrations."

I wasn't clear in my statement.  Yes, I am aware CO2 is a greenhouse gas. No, I wasn't asking to see see evidence of its "evilness" (but if you have some I would be happy to look at it).  I was making a statement about the hyperbole from the warmists and the lack of direct global evidence for their theory. I.e. if CO2 goes up, it forces temperature up.

 

Since you don't want to play anymore, I'll just say that warming isn't bad, it beats cooling by a mile. CO2 is not harmful, it's great for plants and marine life. "Ideal" numbers for temperature and CO2 concentration are arbitrary and meaningless, and the planet will be fine no matter what we do. We are the ones who have to adapt to what IT does.

 

If I had to guess, I'd place the responsibility for warming at 40% solar variation, 30% orbital variation (Milankovitch cycles), 20% unknown/unknowable/miscellaneous factors, 5% Co2 forcing and 5% cosmic radiation (which affects cloud formation). YMMV.

 

See ya in ten years. Even though I don't think the proof will be in by then, I'll still let you buy me a Guinness!

[ducky]

I've been enjoying the civil conversation.  I don't think there's any trolling.  Please carry on.

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Mr. Duck,  as pointed out, any further conversation is probably repetitive.  Some ask for "evidence", I post links to hard evidence, and then no one reads them.  Or they start to read them, realize the technical ideas are beyond their ability to understand, and then say "forget it".  The conversation should now go beyond the validity of whether GW is real or not.  There is clear evidence all around that the climate is in a higher state of turmoil than in recent history.  Some claim it can't be GW because GW is a "fabricated fairy tale".  But they never suggest what the cause actually is.  there is a simple principle of logic --->  If you think an answer is wrong, then you have to know the right answer.  If I tell you there are 500 jelly beans in a jar, and you say, "That's wrong", then you have to know how many jelly beans are actually in the jar.  Otherwise you have no basis to challenge my number.  Folks who challenge GW never seem to offer another reason for the gyrations we're seeing in the climate now.  My concern is the economics of it all.  We're seeing the problems today...literally today.  There is unprecedented flooding along the Mississippi this week (December?) that will cost $billions to fix.  Who will pay?  Things like this will strain our economics substantially.

[Chris]

Mr. Duck,  as pointed out, any further conversation is probably repetitive.  Some ask for "evidence", I post links to hard evidence, and then no one reads them.  Or they start to read them, realize the technical ideas are beyond their ability to understand, and then say "forget it".  

Yep, I hate that when people ignore stuff you post up.....!  Like below....  And it must be hard to be the smartest guy in the room, I feel for you.   And glad you joined up to set us all straight on that big science and math stuff that we just don't understand.      Chris

 

50 million years ago, CO2 at about 500 ppm...
100 million years ago, CO2 at about 1800 ppm....
200 million years ago, CO2 at about 1500 ppm....
300 million years ago, CO2 at about 300 ppm....
400 million years ago, CO2 at about 3500 ppm...
500 million years ago, CO2 at about 4800 ppm....

[The Average Joe]

  If I tell you there are 500 jelly beans in a jar, and you say, "That's wrong", then you have to know how many jelly beans are actually in the jar.  Otherwise you have no basis to challenge my number. 

 

You are telling us that CO2 change will offer catastrophic climate change. The onus is on YOU to prove your theory, not on us to disprove it. Otherwise, anyone could make any claim, no matter how outrageous, and then claim that it is up to someone else to disprove it. That is not how science works.  Although, to be honest, it is pretty easy to offer other potential forces for climate change.  Which we have. 

 

Folks who challenge GW never seem to offer another reason for the gyrations we're seeing in the climate now. 

 

Ummm, I just offered at least  a half dozen on the preceding pages.Current climate is no more volatile than usual. In fact, based on hurricane and tornado data, things are actually pretty quiet. 

 

My concern is the economics of it all.  We're seeing the problems today...literally today.  There is unprecedented flooding along the Mississippi this week (December?)

 

I really hate it when warmists use the word "unprecedented" as a throwaway to bolster their argument. The flooding is NOT unprecedented. On the Mississippi River alone, there have been 7 "Great" floods in the last 150 years, or about once every 20 years.  There have been many more not as catastrophic.  http://www.srh.noaa....s_flood_history

In addition, this is not an "unprecedented" drought in CA as some have claimed.  We have had century long droughts in the past. There is also not "unprecedented" warming globally.  We have had just as rapid (geologically speaking) increases and decreases in the past.

 

See, warmists like to set up a no lose scenario for their theory. If the weather is hotter than "normal," they say it is GW, if the weather is colder than "normal," they say it is climate change. If we have more hurricanes one year, it is climate change. If we have less hurricanes, it is climate disruption. All of that is bunk.  Any change has to be compared to historical data, not cousin Bob who can't remember it ever being this warm on Christmas. Human lifetimes are a blink in geologic time. In my short lifetime alone I have been warned of oil running out in 20 years (that was 40 years ago), and warned of an oil glut. I have been warned of a coming ice age, and I have been warned of cataclysmic heating. I have been warned of mass starvation from the population bomb, and I have been warned that worldwide people are getting too fat.

None of that matters. Only evidence matters. I can believe something based on what others believe, I can believe something based on inference and intuition, but in the end, what I believe to be true must be reconciled with reality. The IPCC climate models have proven to be woefully inaccurate when reconciled with reality. At some point, any honest scientist has to admit there are errors with their models, and therefore, their claims of catastrophe must be reevaluated..

[ducky]

Mr. Duck,  as pointed out, any further conversation is probably repetitive.  Some ask for "evidence", I post links to hard evidence, and then no one reads them.  Or they start to read them, realize the technical ideas are beyond their ability to understand, and then say "forget it".  The conversation should now go beyond the validity of whether GW is real or not.  There is clear evidence all around that the climate is in a higher state of turmoil than in recent history.  Some claim it can't be GW because GW is a "fabricated fairy tale".  But they never suggest what the cause actually is.  there is a simple principle of logic --->  If you think an answer is wrong, then you have to know the right answer.  If I tell you there are 500 jelly beans in a jar, and you say, "That's wrong", then you have to know how many jelly beans are actually in the jar.  Otherwise you have no basis to challenge my number.  Folks who challenge GW never seem to offer another reason for the gyrations we're seeing in the climate now.  My concern is the economics of it all.  We're seeing the problems today...literally today.  There is unprecedented flooding along the Mississippi this week (December?) that will cost $billions to fix.  Who will pay?  Things like this will strain our economics substantially.

 

 

Mr. Grumpy,

I'm not sure I agree with your jelly bean analogy.  I wouldn't have to actually know how many jelly beans are in the jar to say, "That's incorrect," to your proclamation that there are 500 jelly beans in the jar if I've been in the room longer than you and know that either the jar didn't start out empty and there are more than 500 jelly beans in the jar or that people had been coming in and out grabbing handfuls of jelly beans before you entered the room so that the count is actually less than 500 jelly beans.

 

I'm not saying the planet isn't changing.  I'm not saying we don't need to do something about pollution.   I just don't want to see a rush to "fix" things without knowing if those fixes are more feel-good than actually doing good.  MTBE comes to mind.  I am also worried about the economics, but I don't see how throwing money at the government is going to fix things.  The fixes need to be based on as much research as the theory of GW.  

 

Is the flooding of the Mississippi really unprecedented?  Are hurricanes unprecedented?

 

I still think you have been having a good discussion here and am learning from it.  I like both sides to a story.

Regards,

Ms. Duck

[Chris]

Joe, off the charts buddy....!   Off the charts...!   Chris

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Hello Ms Duck,  Sorry I got your gender wrong at the beginning.  The jelly bean scenario is valid, until you add a bunch of extra parameters, as you did.  Then the answer might be different.  No argument.  Is Mississippi flooding unprecedented?  No.  But Mississippi flooding IN DECEMBER is unprecedented.  Spring flooding along the Mississippi is common.  With December flooding, however, one could speculate there are now two flood seasons along the Mississippi that will result in a dramatic increase of damage and the costs to repair it.  Again, a serious economic problem.   Don't worry about spending in a rush to "fix" stuff.  Most monies spent in the name of climate change, or GW, or whatever you want to call it will be reactionary.  America isn't so good at preventative spending.  We don't spend $$$ to fix stuff until it's horribly broken and approaching a crisis.  Take a look at our highways for an example.

[GrumpyOldGuy]

All new science goes through three stages:

 

1)  It's absurd and crazy

2)  It could be true, but it's not significant

3)  "We knew it all along"

 

I'm done.

[Chris]

All new science goes through three stages:

 

1)  It's absurd and crazy

2)  It could be true, but it's not significant

3)  "We knew it all along"

 

I'm done.

The Five Stages of Cultism

 

STEP 1: KEEP IT VAGUE; KEEP IT SIMPLE.

The alarmist position tends to emphasize (to the exclusion of other factors in the most extreme cases) the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and only give other factors that can impact the earth temperature changes (like the sun) a passive and even dismissive look. They tell people that the oracle of the computer models predict the future of earth. But they keep the complexities and limitations of computer modeling and statistical methods (such as data mining and curve fitting) hidden because they “complicate” the issues as do factors other than CO2. It’s easier to mobilize people on the basis of a simple solution to a simple clear-cut problem, which climate science is not.  Compare the scientific content of Al Gore’s website to that of groups opposing the alarmist position

 

STEP 2: EMPHASIZE THE VISUAL AND SENSUAL OVER THE INTELLECTUAL.

Alarmist appeal to fears and emotions. Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” uses images of mundane environmental occurrences (the breaking off of ice from Antarctica) to the extraordinary (Hurricane Katrina) as “proof” of extreme climate change. Appeal to animal lovers telling them of coming extinctions and showing polar bears. And then tell it’s all the fault of CO2 and mostly human emissions of CO2. Like Mr. Gore, many environmentalist shy away from the full on scientific debate and give little if any proof of all this apocalyptic events to come.  And whenever a report proving some widely held assumption wrong, it gets buried in academic journals.

 

STEP 3: BORROW THE FORMS OF ORGANIZED RELIGION

The proselytizing about the coming apocalypse using armies of true believing unqualified volunteers is reminiscent of the way early Christianity or current Islam spreads. The zealotry and redeeming actions that individuals must flagellate themselves with are constantly preached. Even the medieval indulgences sold by the Church and the Mulla's have resurfaced in the form of carbon emission offsets. And of course, lets not forget the High Holidays such as Earth Day.

 

STEP 4: DESGUISE YOUR SOURCE OF INCOME

Alarmist cry that all those who oppose their view are being financed by the evil oil, energy, and automotive multinational corporations. They moan that any research that gives evidence that makes their claims doubtful is being paid with blood money. This of course takes the attention from the billions of dollars that are being provided by governments to research the effects of global warming on everything, but anyone who dissents get’s their funding cut. All the fear mongering pressures politicians to provide all this earmarked taxpayer money.

 

STEP 5: SET UP AN US-THEM DYNAMIC

As mentioned above, anyone who opposes the alarmist view is demonized as Deniers (equating them to the neo-nazis)  and many even ask for charges of crimes against humanity for them.  They claim any unbeliever or non supporter of their views be tried and jailed.   Sound familiar lately folks.....?  Put me and Joe in jail for our lack of belief in AGW and our possession of guns to boot....!  Maybe put us in those "re-education camps" like they did in Cambodia or Vietnam after we left when the democratic congress cut off the funds and left 3 million Southern Vietnamese to die........

[Chris]

All new science goes through three stages:

 

1)  It's absurd and crazy

2)  It could be true, but it's not significant

3)  "We knew it all along"

 

I'm done.

Yep, done you are........!   Like all of the other AGW fan boys who have come before you here over the many years...........   All theory, no data..  No proof.......   None whatsoever that man is causing this current climate change or fluctuations that you claim are extraordinary and significant.........   CO2 is so evil....!  OMG...!  More than ISIS or Putin.....!   Prove it...!   All smoke and mirror distractions.  Just constant, non substantive, long winded retorts to our real science, charts, data, timelines, and actual Earth history.......   The total picture is what you fail to see....   Which, unfortunately, for political reasons, you progressive, global warming, AGW fascists continue to fight and subvert the real science every day, and with the liberal press and world wide web conveniently tucked into your back pocket.   Makes it hard on us "deniers" but we win every time in the end........   Chris

 

Again, I think the US government should start making CO2 generators to catch the Earth up to historical trends, time is a wasting..........  We should have started yesterday.

 

50 million years ago, CO2 at about 500 ppm...
100 million years ago, CO2 at about 1800 ppm....
200 million years ago, CO2 at about 1500 ppm....
300 million years ago, CO2 at about 300 ppm....
400 million years ago, CO2 at about 3500 ppm...
500 million years ago, CO2 at about 4800 ppm....

[apeman45]

Chris - It's pretty easy to cut and paste from the internet.  Thank you for pointing out that all your arguments have pretty much followed your 5 stages of cultism.  That's why this argument has become pointless.

 

Right back at ya brother!

 

 

Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists

Often when people are first faced with an inconvenient problem, the immediate reaction involves denying its existence. For a long time climate contrarians denied that the planet was warming. Usually this involves disputing the accuracy of the surface temperature record, given that the data clearly indicate rapid warming. 

In the 1990s, Christy and Spencer created a data set of lower atmosphere temperatures using measurements from satellite instruments. These initially seemed to indicate that the atmosphere was not warming, leading Christy, Spencer, and their fellow contrarians to declare that the problem didn't exist. Unfortunately, it turned out that their data set contained several biases that added an artificial cooling trend, and once those were corrected, it was revealed that the lower atmosphere was warming at a rate consistent with surface temperature measurements.

Most climate contrarians have come to accept that the planet has warmed significantly. Unfortunately many have regressed back into Stage 1 denial through the new myth that global warming magically stopped 15 years ago (most recently exemplified by David Rose in the Mail on Sunday). The error in that argument involves ignoring about 98 percent of the warming of the planet, most of which goes into heating the oceans. When we account for all of the data, global warming actually appears to be accelerating.

 Global heat accumulation data, from Nuccitelli et al. (2012) SkepticalScience.com

David Rose also doubled-down on his Arctic sea ice decline denial this weekend, suggesting melts in the 1920s were just as large as today's. Sorry David, the data debunk your denial again.

 Average July through September Arctic sea ice extent 1870–2008 from the University of Illinois (Walsh & Chapman 2001 updated to 2008) and observational data from NSIDC for 2009–2012. SkepticalScience.com Stage 2: Deny We're the Cause

Once people move beyond denying that the problem exists, they often move to the next stage, denying that we're responsible. John Christy and Roy Spencer took this approach by disputing the accuracy of global climate models in The Daily Mail and The Christian Post, respectively. Spencer was quite explicit about this:

...we deny "that most [current climate change] is human-caused, and that it is a threat to future generations that must be addressed by the global community."

Christy and Spencer made their case by comparing the outputs of 73 climate models to satellite temperature measurements, and showing that the models seemed to predict more warming than has been observed. But the comparison was not of surface temperatures, or of the lowermost layer of the atmosphere, or even any measurement global average temperatures. They specifically looked at measurements of the temperature of the middle troposphere (TMT) in the tropics.

There's certainly nothing wrong with examining this particular subset of temperature data, but it's a bit of an odd choice on the face of it. The real problem lies in the fact that satellite measurements of TMT are highly uncertain. In fact, estimates of the TMT trend by different scientific groups vary wildly, despite using the same raw satellite data. 

Another problem is that the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere) is cooling – an expected consequence of the increased greenhouse effect. But some of the cooling stratosphere bleeds into the TMT data, leading to another cool bias. While there is a discrepancy between model simulations and measurements of tropical troposphere temperatures, it's not clear how much (if any) is due to the models being wrong, and how much is due to errors in the measurements. As a U.S. Climate Change Science Program report co-authored by John Christy concluded,

"This difference between models and observations may arise from errors that are common to all models, from errors in the observational data sets, or from a combination of these factors. The second explanation is favored, but the issue is still open."

However, in mainstream media interviews and editorials, Christy and Spencer always fail to mention the possibility that the problem could lie more in the measurements than the models, which frankly is intellectually dishonest. Additionally, climate models have done very well in projecting long-term global surface temperature changes.

Stage 2b: Consensus Denial

In Murdoch's The Australian, Andrew Montford took a different approach to deny that we're the cause of the problem, attacking the expert consensus on human-caused global warming. Specifically he attacked the Cook et al. (2013) study finding 97 percent consensus on this question in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

In order to deny the consensus, Montford employed the Climategate strategy, using material stolen during a hacking of the private Skeptical Science discussion forum. He then pulled quotes out of context to claim the study was "a public relations exercise," because we discussed how to effectively communicate our consensus results. In reality, the comments Montford used to support this argument were made after we had preliminary results reviewing nearly 14,000 peer-reviewed abstracts that found only 24 rejecting the human-caused global warming consensus.

Montford's article demonstrates the inherent dangers in quoting illegally obtained private correspondence. First, there is the obvious ethical issue of republishing private correspondence obtained through an illegal act. Second, using isolated quotes extracted from private conversations runs the risk of taking comments out of context and misrepresenting the facts. 

In any case, we have set up a public ratings system so that anybody can read and rate the scientific abstracts. If you don't believe the vast body of evidence of an expert consensus on human-caused global warming, test it for yourself. Moreover, the scientist ratings of their own papers – independent of our abstract ratings – also resulted in a 97 percent consensus.

Stage 3: Deny It's a Problem

Advertisement

 

 

Once they've progressed through the first two stages and admitted global warming is happening and human-caused, contrarians generally move on to Stage 3, denying it's a problem. Lomborg and Ridley did their best Tony the Tigerimpressions in The Washington Post and Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, respectively, arguing that global warming is 'Grrrrreat!' (or at least nothing to worry about). 

I've previously discussed why this argument is a complete risk management failure. When faced with a potentially catastrophic outcome for something as important as the global climate, it's a no-brainer to take action to make sure we avoid that possible outcome. Moreover, Lomborg's and Ridley's arguments are based on cherry picking data. For example, Lomborg talks about how droughts have not worsened in the United States, according to the IPCC, but fails to mention that the IPCC predicts that US droughts will intensify over the next century.

In his editorial, Ridley takes a rosy view about the impact of climate change on crop yields that is not supported by the scientific research. He argues that climate impacts won't be bad in a middle-of-the-road emissions scenario, but as Climate Progress reports, the scientist on whose work Ridley based this argument previously explained,

"In his article, Mr. Ridley is just plain wrong about future global warming."

Moreover, by painting an unjustifiably rosy picture and thus misleading the public, he's helping to ensure that we'll blow past that middling greenhouse gas emissions scenario (which requires significant emissions reductions efforts) and commit ourselves to much worse climate change consequences.

Stage 4: Deny We can Solve It

Advertisement

In his editorial, Roy Spencer bounced between the second and fourth stages of global warming denial, also claiming that solving the problem is too expensive and will hurt the poor. In reality the opposite is true. 

Spencer specifically attacked renewable energy like wind power as being too expensive. In reality, wind power is already cheaper than coal, even without considering the added climate damage costs from coal carbon emissions. When including those very real costs, solar power is also already cheaper than coal. Additionally, the poorest countries are generally the most vulnerable to climate change. Listening to Spencer and continuing to cause rapid climate change is what will really hurt the poor.

Stage 5: It's too Late

Stage 5 global warming denial involves arguing that it's too late to solve the problem, so we shouldn't bother trying (though few climate contrarians have reached this level). Unfortunately this stage can be self-fulfilling. If we wait too long to address the problem, we may end up committing ourselves to catastrophic climate change.

The good news is that we still have time to avoid a catastrophic outcome. The more emissions reductions we can achieve, the less the impacts of climate change will be. The challenge lies in achieving those greenhouse gas emissions reductions when Rupert Murdoch's media empire and other news outlets are spreading climate misinformation and denial.