…and this is a 
This is an excellent response to the furious and unfounded assertions of the right-wing denialists that have followed from the release of private email by climate change scientists.
I'm on a couple of private mailing lists where we exchange views on evolution, and <shock horror> we actually argue it times, and sometimes even disagree heatedly with one another. That climate scientists hash out disagreements in vigorous private debate is no surprise, and no sign of either a conspiracy or intent to mislead the public.
Environment
Comments
Posted by: The Science Pundit
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December 5, 2009 12:19 PM
This is the best smackdown of he denialists over the "Climategate" emails--in video format--that I've seen so far. potholer does an excellent job!
Posted by: 386sx | December 5, 2009 12:27 PM
Wow, they sure are getting all "whoopy doo daw wahooooooooo" about this, aren't they?
Posted by: JRM | December 5, 2009 12:34 PM
Boy, howdy, I don't think that solves the problem that they tried to fudge the data to give additional credibility to tree-ring analysis.
There's also been some pretty severe pressure on those who believe climate change will be more moderate.
Sure, this doesn't change the whole game - there's are fairly robust findings that man has generated some degree of global warming - but if you're going to pick on Glen Beck and Alex Jones as your opponents, that's picking on straw men. Noted right-wing nutball Jon Stewart, as well as several noted climatologists and other scientists from other fields have criticized the science - or lack thereof - shown in the e-mails.
--JRM
Posted by: Q.E.D
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December 5, 2009 12:38 PM
Anyone noticed that the climate change "skeptics" are very much like creationists? Any new fact is viewed and distorted by the prism of their pre-existing worldview. These are the same people who think science is a godless,lefty-liberal conspiracy leading the Nation to rack and ruin. But when science appears, however tenuously, to support their worldview then they claim it is an unimpeachable authority and we must all bow down to the evidence. Next week science will show new evidence that contradicts their worldiew and it will be a godless,lefty-liberal conspiracy leading the Nation to rack and ruin.
Anyone know who hacked the information?
Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 12:39 PM
Wait, what?
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 12:40 PM
My biggest concern in all of this is the possible effect such a story will have on the public's trust in scientific projects and science in general.
With the evolution "debate" continuing with religious fundamentalists, the last thing the scientific community needs is the whole process of the scientific method coming into question by even more people.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 12:46 PM
They didn't.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 12:46 PM
The emails are prosaic banter, the sort of thing that people on every side of every debate do every day.
The problem for AGW alarmists is not this hysterical response to Climategate or a youtube video's hysterical response to the hysterical response. The problem is that credible AGW skeptics (routinely dismissed as "deniers"), like Seitz, Christy and Lomborg, do not deny an anthropogenic CO2 increase, do not deny an increase in global average temperature measurements in the last three decades of the twentieth century and do not even deny the plausibility of some connection between the former and the latter. This "denial" is nothing but a straw man.
The skeptics rather dispute models assuming positive feedbacks and forecasting, only via these positive feedbacks, a rapid and dramatic acceleration of the warming in the 21st century. The problem is that increased CO2 concentration, alone, does not imply catastrophic warming melting Greenland and flooding Manhattan.
A degree of warming with these catastrophic effects requires an extremely unstable climate, wherein a slight warming from a CO2-induced greenhouse effect tips the climate over a critical threshold triggering a runaway greenhouse effect as water vapor concentration increases.
The problem is that various measurements don't support this theory. The problem is that a runaway greenhouse effect is not observed. The problem is that measured global average temperature increase is not accelerating as a matter of fact. The problem is that every passing year without any increase makes a 4-6 degree C increase in global average temperature over the 21st century less plausible. The problem is that the IPCC itself puts the rate of increase in the last three decades of the 20th century (ignoring the first decade of the 21st century which shows no warming at all) in a range it calls "environmentally sustainable".
The problem is that scientific measurements show no sign of a falling sky as a consequence of the anthropogenic CO2 increase, which AGW skeptics do not deny. We have many sound reasons to search for alternatives to fossil fuels, but a Global Warming catastrophe doesn't seem to be one of them at the moment, based on credible, empirical science, as opposed to dubious, theoretical models of an extremely complex, chaotic, global climate.
But the politics rolls on regardless, and Climategate is only one more example of it, along with drowning Manhattanites and polar bears.
Posted by: Q.E.D
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December 5, 2009 12:48 PM
Jynx @ 6
Very unfortunately the right wing are past masters at creating doubt and controversy. The Becks, Limbaughs and O'Reilly's will repeat "climatgate" and "global warming conspiracy" until they attain meme status amongst their tens of millions of listeners. The right wingnuts will buy it unconditionally because it fits their worldview.
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." - Mark Twain
Posted by: The Science Pundit
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December 5, 2009 12:48 PM
@Josh
JRM was trying to be ironic since Jon Stewart had made some comments indicating that he (like most of the right wing media, apparently) just took the quote-mined email segments at face value without understanding what was actually going on (Stewart could have benefitted from watching this video). In short, by accusing the videomaker of chasing a strawman by going after only right wing pundits, JRM has created his own strawman by holding up similarly disinformed commentators as an example of the variety of people who "see" the nefariousness in those emails.
@JRM
I notice that you didn't address a single substantive point from the video.
Posted by: ScruffyDan | December 5, 2009 12:52 PM
"I'm on a couple of private mailing lists where we exchange views on evolution"
I am am willing to bet that sometimes you say some nasty things about creationists also. Which obviously is proof a a giant conspiracy in biology:)
Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 12:53 PM
Ahhh, okay. I must have missed those Jon Stewart moments.
Posted by: James T | December 5, 2009 12:53 PM
>I'm on a couple of private mailing lists
BRB, hacking PZ's computer. Get ready for EvolutionGate!
--actually, we could probably quote mine the hell out of PZ's blog to the same effect as the climategate emails--
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 12:57 PM
It's been done. Steel toecaps ring a bell?
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 12:57 PM
Beck, Limbaugh and O'Reilly routinely nauseate me, when I bother to listen to them, hardly ever, but when did doubt become a problem for skeptics?
Posted by: Apprentice to Darth Holden | December 5, 2009 1:03 PM
The climate change "skeptics" are right wing idiots who are first and foremost authoritarians who want black and white answers to every thing. The climate scientists are, erm, scientists, they question authority constantly.
This drives right wingers fundamentally nuts. They imagine some dogma being handed down on what is climate change and react accordingly when they see dissent, which is the heart and soul of the scientific method, which they have a fundamental aversion to, because it's anti-authoritarian in nature.
And, yes, they're much like the "Intelligent Design" assclowns who are creationists in lab coats, hoping the lab coats will divert our attention from their rigidly authoritarian recieved wisdom mindset.
Posted by: gerryfromktown | December 5, 2009 1:03 PM
Thank you Martin Brock for injecting some clear headed thinking into this debate. Its rather shocking to here the term "denier" being thrown at people who in some cases are only stating facts.
Your dissection of the problems the data pose for a runaway global warmning scenario is particularly helpful:
About the only thing postive about the mudslinging match is that the data over the next two decades will resolve some of the current disputes (and no doubt lead to new disputes).
As to the leaked emails, I find it hard to accept that these are only "vigorous private debates". They are more than that - in several cases there is demonstrable evidence of attempts to suppress access to data. Data that were paid for by public funds.
Posted by: Benjamin Franz | December 5, 2009 1:04 PM
There is a difference between honest skepticism and manufactured doubt: "So, why *hasn't* Glen Beck denied he raped and murdered a girl...."
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 1:05 PM
Martin Brock @ 15
"...but when did doubt become a problem for skeptics?"
When it's Jon Q. Public doubting the veracity of the scientific method and therefore scientific projects all over the world because of the fallout "climategate".
Make no mistake, this WILL be spun (by at least a few) into a "reason" for doubting the truth-value of science in general, rather than simply some specific claims made by some AGW alarmists.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 1:11 PM
Hey, JRM and Martin Brock, all of this has been being discussed all over ScienceBlogs and Real Climate for weeks now. You can't tell me you didn't even once click on an item in the "top 5 most active" or "editors' picks" or "readers' picks" lists. You have no excuse for the ignorance on which you build your arguments.
A runaway greenhouse? Like on Venus? I have to resort to poorly translated Viennese: did they shit into your brain?
Dude, Greenland was ice-free and the sea level was twenty-two meters above today's just 400,000 years ago. Runaway greenhouse my ass!
This is only a political issue in the USA. Elsewhere the parties at most disagree on what should be done about AGW, not whether it exists.
Posted by: SteveWW | December 5, 2009 1:12 PM
Let’s say we take CO2 concentrations up to 550 ppm by 2100 (level 2 scenario from the US Climate Change Science Program.) With that concentration, there would be a ~70% chance of temperatures reaching 2-3°C higher global average than without human GHGs and ~10% chance of 3-4°C (cite (http://globalchange.mit.edu/resources/gamble/policy.html).)
Or we could say we take CO2 concentrations as high as anyone (including, to my mind, inactivists) could want – somewhere around 700-900 ppm. Then there would a ~1% chance of temperatures reaching 2-3°C higher than preindustrial global averages without GHGs, and a ~12% chance of 3-4°C higher, and ~78% chance of >4°C higher (cite (http://globalchange.mit.edu/resources/gamble/policy.html).)
At the 2-3°C change level we have:
*Droughts that expose 0.4 to 1.7 billion people to water scarcity.
*An additional 3 million people at risk of flooding.
*An increase in the agricultural productivity in wealthy nations such as Canada and Russia, and a decrease in agricultural productivity in poor tropical nations such as Congo (both of ‘em,) India, and Peru.
*Bleaching a majority of the world’s coral reefs with negative consequences for communities that rely on them for fishing and tourism.
*Rapid increase in frequency and breadth of heat waves with attendant crop failures and forest fires.
*Widespread deglaciation of the ice sheets on Greenland and the West Antarctic.
*High risk of extinction for 20-30% of the planet’s species.
At the 3-4°C change level we have:
*High probability of total melting of Greenland’s and West Antarctica’s ice sheets.
*Falling global food production – no longer to wealthy northern nations enjoy and increase.
*Tens of millions more exposed to increased flooding risk.
*Hundreds of millions to a billon more exposed to increased water scarcity.
*Ecosystems on land may completely switch from soaking up atmospheric carbon to a net balance of adding carbon to the atmosphere.
*Widespread complete elimination of coral reefs.
(the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report, WGII, chapters 19 & 20, especially tables 19.1 and 20.4.)
The moving of denial from "AGW isn't human caused" to "AGW won't have any bad effects" is pretty unconvincing given how dependent systems, especially biological systems, are on temperature ranges.
Posted by: abb3w
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December 5, 2009 1:12 PM
PZ: I'm on a couple of private mailing lists where we exchange views on evolution, and we actually argue it times, and sometimes even disagree heatedly with one another.
So, there's dissent within the evilutionist conspiracy? The creationists will be overjoyed. =Þ
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 5, 2009 1:13 PM
When the "doubt" about a scientific question has a socio-political rationale.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 1:13 PM
To people who had no legitimate need for that data. What's the problem? Do you also object to Richard Lenski's response to Andrew Schlafly's frivolous requests?
Posted by: Jarred C.
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December 5, 2009 1:13 PM
It makes it difficult to explain what is going on in the emails when some people firmly believe that the emails show intentionally deleted data, and fudges data.
I've even seen some hand-wave away explanations, because they believe that the CRU data is representative of all climate data, and therefore the entire field is debunk (Just like how DI claimed that all science was debunk due to the emails).
Of course, when others explain that CRU is not the holder of the original data, and it is therefore not their responsibility to keep the data, these deniers don't listen. When others explain that the "fudged data" wasn't actually used in any scientific journals (to my knowledge) and is therefore irrelevant, these deniers don't listen. And when others explain that all the rest of the data out there follows the same trends, data from other organizations completed separated from CRU, these deniers claim (without proof) that those other organizations all received their data from CRU, thereby claiming that those other organizations are wrong as well.
Some people were convinced before the whole affair happened.
Posted by: DavidCOG
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December 5, 2009 1:18 PM
Josh:
> > Noted right-wing nutball Jon Stewart...
> Wait, what?
It's true - as far as global warming goes. Stewart has embraced his inner right-winger and swallowed the ExxonMobil-approved propaganda.
He seems to be slightly coy and embarrassed about it, but he's definitely joined the Stupid Gang on this issue.
Posted by: wackadoodle | December 5, 2009 1:18 PM
FACT: just about every single person cheering over these E-mails would be throwing a bitchfit if someone ILLEGALLY HACKED into the E-mail servers of the deniers, or FOX new, or the GOP. They'd be going apeshit over how horribly wrong this is and how you obviously can't trust E-mails that we're illegally stolen from their owners.
But this proves their point, if you don't read anything but a single paragraph hacked away from any context and ignore the over 90% of climatologists who accept global warming, so the fact that its ILLEGAL doesn't bother them in the least.
Posted by: Aquaria | December 5, 2009 1:18 PM
There's doubt, and then there's being a sodding crank, Martin Brock--like...well, like you, for instance.
What a tiresome git you are, always shitting in the canapes then having the nerve to complain about how bad they taste. Don't like the canapes? Then leave them alone and bugger off.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 1:20 PM
AGW alarmists clearly have a socio-political rationale. Attributing this rationale to one side of the debate and not the other also has a socio-political rationale.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 1:20 PM
The problem is that various measurements don't support this theory.
They certainly do you lying febrile twit :
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/dessler09.pdf
The problem is that a runaway greenhouse effect is not observed.
That's because it hasn't happened yet you retard, it's predicted to happen, by theory, simulation and observations, if greenhouse emissions continue on well into the future. Google PETM.
Posted by: Tim | December 5, 2009 1:20 PM
You know, it seems to me that if someone hacked years worth of my, and my friends, emails and then publicized the facts through the media, and then used their perfidious deed to bolster idiotic points that I in no way support, I would be pissed.
Why is the FBI not looking into this?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne
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December 5, 2009 1:20 PM
Add to them the waverers who were just looking for an excuse, and there are more than enough people, in every country that matters, to make it pretty certain that no effective action will be taken before it's far to late to avoid catastrophe. I'm not normally a fatalist, but this time I believe we're well and truly fucked. Our descendants, or however many manage to survive, will curse our memory as long as our species continues to exist at all.
Posted by: nejishiki | December 5, 2009 1:21 PM
quoth MB
Without theory, all we have are the data in front of us; we cannot extrapolate to ten or twenty years in the future. Even the skeptics have theoretical models, just ones that show different scenarios.
Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 1:22 PM
Huh--then my earlier comment was on point. I have missed those particular Stewart moments.
Thanks for the rather depressing head's up.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 1:22 PM
Why is the FBI not looking into this?
Because it happened in England. If the hack originated in the US then presumably they will get involved. The person or persons who funded or performed this hack should be very afraid.
Posted by: Q.E.D
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December 5, 2009 1:23 PM
Martin Brock @ 15
"when did doubt become a problem for skeptics?"
what I said was: "Very unfortunately, the right wing are past masters at CREATING doubt and controversy." (emphasis mine)
In the context of what I wrote I thought it was pretty clear that I was talking about manufactured, engineered, made up out of whole cloth doubt. Such "doubt" is created against the overwhelming weight of evidence by people with a particular worldiew to flog. Like the tobacco industry created doubts that cigarettes cause cancer. Like holocaust deniers create doubt that the Nazis murdered millions of Jews in gas chambers(amongst others). Just to be clear Martin, not calling climate change "skeptics" Nazis or tobacco lobbyists - wouldn't want you to get "confused" about my point and quote mine out of context - again.
Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 1:29 PM
Steve, if it makes you feel any better, the world will probably have to deal with very real and deadly water resource availability/distribution issues before we face lots of the more dire predicted consequences of a rapidly warmed globe.
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 1:32 PM
Hey, everyone; I know that emotions tend to run high with discussions centered around these kinds of topics but could we all try to be a bit more respectful of each other while making comments?
Calling someone a lying twit, ect. is really not very constructive and reflects poorly on the person making said comment.
Some of us disagree and that's fine. Can we just try to be less like fundamentalists burning each others' books and more like congenial skeptics peacefully discussing the issues?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 5, 2009 1:33 PM
No, Martin Brock, the AGW folks do not start with a socio-political basis, unlike you deniers. You're afraid the consequences of dealing with AGW will result in radical changes to your lifestyle, so you and your fellow deniers pretend AGW doesn't exist.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 1:34 PM
I'm happy enough with respect being the default position. It can be lost through one's actions, however, and talking bollocks because you haven't bothered to look into something properly tends to annoy people.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 1:35 PM
Hey, everyone; I know that emotions tend to run high with discussions centered around these kinds of topics but could we all try to be a bit more respectful of each other while making comments?
Go fuck yourself. What you propose is accommodation of assholes. That makes you the asshole, not us.
Posted by: Owen | December 5, 2009 1:35 PM
I think it's the created, aka manufactured, doubt that is a problem.
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM | December 5, 2009 1:35 PM
Jon Stewart has not joined the right wing on this one. It was a case of Faux News cropping the end of that clip. Liked the bit about skull fucking polar bears. That joke blows up the idea that Stewart joined in with the deniers.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 1:36 PM
AGW alarmists clearly have a socio-political rationale. Attributing this rationale to one side of the debate and not the other also has a socio-political rationale.
There's no "debate", fuckwit, any more than there is one over whether evolution occurred.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 1:36 PM
That was not a runaway greenhouse effect, and it's nothing short of stupid to call it one.
(But yes, the PETM is relevant here, even though a repetition of it is not a likely scenario.)
So? What such rationale can everyone who can read and write, except for American right-wingers, have in common? I'm waiting for suggestions.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 1:40 PM
Hey, everyone; I know that emotions tend to run high with discussions centered around these kinds of topics but could we all try to be a bit more respectful of each other while making comments?
Kindly fuck off, you clueless pompous jackass.
Calling someone a lying twit, ect. is really not very constructive and reflects poorly on the person making said comment.
No, your failure to grasp that Martin Brock really is a lying twit reflects poorly on you.
Posted by: Owen | December 5, 2009 1:41 PM
I saw the show where Jon Stewart commented and it appeared to me that he was mostly saying, becareful what you say when you're working on something that is important...
Posted by: horace | December 5, 2009 1:42 PM
I don't know anything about climate science, and I KNOW that I don't know anything about climate science. I do know a bit about scientist though, as I am a microbiologist. I have read the e-mails, some of them actually reflect well on these scientists (I found one in which they warn about overstating the greenhouse effect). Having said that, there is clear evidence that these guys were trying to corrupt the peer review process by shunning journals that published articles that they disagreed with.
Whatever you think about greenhouse warming this is wrong. And as for comments about the public loosing faith in scientists, we don't deserve their faith if we behave like this.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 1:42 PM
I find it hard to accept that these are only "vigorous private debates".
I find it hard to accept that you have an IQ over room temperature.
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 1:42 PM
Thomas Lee @ 41
Although you are free to disagree with my call for mutual respect, I would like to point out how your comment proves my point.
It is certainly possible to state your disagreement with someone without resorting to insults such as "go fuck yourself".
This is simply un-called for.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 1:43 PM
Your link provides no evidence for its assertion of "virtual certainty". The sort of "evidence" you link here is par for the course in this debate. Its certitude is dubious.
Predictions are a dime a dozen, and observations do not support the predictions in fact. You can toss out ad hominems like "retard", like anyone else in Sunday School, but your vague, hysterical assertions of catastrophe at some indeterminate point in the future are not empirical measurements.
But even if a water vapor feedback doubles the greenhouse effect of CO2, which is very far from "virtually certain", 2-3 degs C of warming still is not the 4-6 degs predicted by alarmists. The fourth IPCC assessment describes a 1.1-2.9 deg C increase with "global environmental sustainability".
No one denies that climate is not a dynamic system, but its chaotic complexity belies your certitude.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 1:44 PM
I would like to point out how your comment proves my point.
A moronic claim.
This is simply un-called for.
No one cares whether you called for it, asshole.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 1:45 PM
No one denies that climate is a dynamic system.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 1:45 PM
Bollocks. That particular discussion regarded what to do about a journal whose AGW-sceptic editor had given crap papers a pass, prompting the resignation of three other editors in protest. They were talking about what do do about a corruption of the peer review process, not how to corrupt it themselves.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 1:45 PM
I personally have been trying for several years. Still I'm confronted with the same old Dunning-Kruger effect –people using their lack of knowledge as a basis for arguments, as if it were knowledge. Still I'm confronted with people who believe the USA is the whole world. Still I'm confronted with people who don't bother doing anything about their lack of knowledge, even though all that knowledge is at most five clicks away.
No, scientists do not undergo the full kolinahr as part of their training. I personally am pretty much at the end of my patience.
Posted by: nejishiki | December 5, 2009 1:46 PM
If this were a normal scientific issue, a little affair like this would mean nothing in the long run. Physicists sometimes have to wait decades for support for their theories. In the long run, the data generally point in one direction, the opposition retires and younger scientists follow the consensus. But we're not talking beak sizes on finch's here; we are talking about potential catastrophe that must be avoided immediately. Don't worry about the science though: since it seems like human activities won't change anytime soon, we will be given a chance to see who was right all along.
Posted by: horace | December 5, 2009 1:46 PM
No, Martin Brock, the AGW folks do not start with a socio-political basis, unlike you deniers. You're afraid the consequences of dealing with AGW will result in radical changes to your lifestyle, so you and your fellow deniers pretend AGW doesn't exist.
Whether or not global warming is happening we will need to make major changes in the way we live because of shortages of fossil fuels, larger populations and ocean acidification. At least some of these are probably real threats. Making these changes intelligently means that we need to conduct science calmly. And we need to deserve the publics respect much more than we need the respect itself.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 1:47 PM
And as for comments about the public loosing faith in scientists, we don't deserve their faith if we behave like this.
That is just so retarded.
Posted by: horace | December 5, 2009 1:48 PM
>No, Martin Brock, the AGW folks do not start with >a socio-political basis, unlike you deniers. >You're afraid the consequences of dealing with AGW >will result in radical changes to your lifestyle, >so you and your fellow deniers pretend AGW doesn't >exist.
Whether or not global warming is happening we will need to make major changes in the way we live because of shortages of fossil fuels, larger populations and ocean acidification. At least some of these are probably real threats. Making these changes intelligently means that we need to conduct science calmly. And we need to deserve the publics respect much more than we need the respect itself.
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 1:49 PM
truth machine @ 52 and 46
Thank you for taking the time to read my comments. I greatly appreciate your willingness to use careful, controlled logic as the basis for your responses such as, "asshole" and "jackass".
Is there perhaps anything else you would like to say?
Posted by: Michael Hawkins | December 5, 2009 1:49 PM
He's just trying to trick us with intelligence and competency.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 1:50 PM
That was not a runaway greenhouse effect, and it's nothing short of stupid to call it one.
Oh really? I guess that depends on your definition of 'runaway' doesn't it. I will patiently await the arrival of the hoards of PZ dictionary quoters.
PETM wasn't a runaway for several reasons, first of all that it didn't persist beyond 100,000 years, in other words, is subsided back to equilibrium naturally. We don't have that luxury today, our current spike is an order of magnitude faster than the PETM, exceeded only by a cosmic impact spike.
Secondly, it indeed depends on your definition of runaway. If you associate runaway with the end result being the boiling of all our oceans and eventually loss of that water vapor to space, then yes, we aren't going into runaway during the next millennium. Whew. That was a close one! All climatology and planetary science certainly is now falsified, huh? And if you define runaway as the nearly geological instantaneous conversion of all of our oceans to glaciers and ice sheets, then I guess we're safe there too, huh?
But if you define runaway as the continued pumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the subsequent natural emissions of methane from the biosphere from the initial warming, and carbon dioxide from the decomposition of limestone as a result of the acidifcation of the oceans, and the thermal turnover of the oceans themselves, within the next century, and if emissions continue, through the next millennium, then we're well on our way to a runaway global warming that will result in a sixty meter sea level rise at the very least, and a complete stripping of the planet in an attempt by nine billion humans to adapt to that easily predicted scenario. But don't worry, the inevitable wars and strife will prevent that from happening. That should be a lot of fun as well.
Do yourself a favor and grow fucking up.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 1:51 PM
I don't understand you. My point is that the "socio-political rationale" of Glen Beck and the rest is no more relevant than Al Gore's rationale for a 20 foot rise in sea level flooding Manhattan and driving polar bears to extinction. No credible science suggests a 20 foot rise in sea level, and the one foot rise that credible science suggests is possible over the next century is neither unprecedented nor terribly alarming.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 5, 2009 1:51 PM
Jynx, don't want to be called an asshole, stop being one. And you are being one by denying the facts. The TruthMachine calls it as he sees it.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 1:52 PM
I greatly appreciate your willingness to use careful, controlled logic
It's what I'm known for and how I earned my OM.
Is there perhaps anything else you would like to say?
Yes: you're a pompous ass who has nothing useful to contribute, so instead you express concern about people's "tone" -- it's ad hominem in nature. Go find some other blog to be parental on.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 1:53 PM
Is there perhaps anything else you would like to say?
Sure, when you have some actual science to present to us besides the hippy dippy Utopian crap on your website, I'd be happy to critique to pleasantly.
But only if it lives up to my high standards of excellence. The people we are dealing with don't play by the rules of rationality if you haven't noticed that yet, and accommodation is a failure.
When one experiment fails, we try others.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 1:54 PM
What? How does that work? Reviewers aren't somehow tied to journals. ~:-| Instead, when you submit a manuscript, you are supposed to include a list of potential reviewers, which the editors then take as suggestions.
So... what on the planet do you mean?
(...Comment 54 probably makes that question superfluous, but I still don't understand how it would even be possible to corrupt the peer-review process by picking & choosing in which peer-reviewed journal one publishes. It just doesn't compute.)
Especially not the models used by the IPCC!
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 1:55 PM
Nerd of Redhead @ 64
Perhaps I'm missing something...what facts am I denying, exactly? Where in all of my posts here have I "denied the facts"?
Posted by: guthrie
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December 5, 2009 1:57 PM
JRM #3 - No, there is no evidence anyone fudged tree ring data.
Also, as a cherry picked seleciton of illegally obtained e-mails, I wouldn't expect them to show any science anyway. There could be 2,000,000 stolen e-mails showing them calmly discussing science, but they've selected some from a 10 year period specifically for political purposes.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 1:57 PM
Far from pretending that anthropogenic CO2 increase, a global temperature increase and even a connection between the two exists, I explicitly acknowledge all three, as do skeptics like Christy.
The problem for alarmists is that these facts are not alarming. I don't fear them, because they aren't fearsome. I also don't fear some radical change in my lifestyle upon adopting an incredibly corporatist, global cap and trade regime, that London entitlement traders are chomping at the bit to impose, because that's not about to happen either. I'm not panicked by any of it. It's more amusing than terrifying.
Posted by: Inti | December 5, 2009 1:57 PM
Yet another case of scientific processes misunderstood by the average masses. Just like the "it's just a theory" argument against evolution.
People who have no understanding of how science works and who aren't willing to even try to understand just shouldn't look at the inner workings of the scientific community. They think scientists are all hand in hand, sure of themselves with rock-hard convictions (which is actually what THEY themselves are).
And when they eventually find out that there ARE disagreements and debates in the scientific community, they think that discredits the whole of science when it actually legitimizes it.
That's what makes them nitwits.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 1:57 PM
You haven't been around here very long, eh?
Posted by: llewelly | December 5, 2009 1:59 PM
Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 1:43 PM:
In fact they do.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 5, 2009 2:00 PM
Jynx, the only fact you missed is that tone trolls like you will be abused until you stop. That is hard fact around here. So, either put up with the abuse, or take your vapors to another blog. Run along little troll...
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 2:00 PM
Still I'm confronted with the same old Dunning-Kruger effect –people using their lack of knowledge as a basis for arguments, as if it were knowledge.
But you haven't applied the criteria to yourself have you. Your gaps in knowledge and expertise are both glaring and obvious to anyone even casually familiar to the planetary science and theoretical physics.
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 2:02 PM
Thomas Lee said:
"Sure, when you have some actual science to present to us besides the hippy dippy Utopian crap on your website..."
What "Utopian crap" are you referring to? My website seeks to provide a waystation of sorts for those living in or near the Texas panhandle to escape the pressures associated with living in such a place while being an atheist.
We meet weekly at a coffee shop to provide each other with companionship away from all of our evangelical neighbors. Do you consider this excercise "Utopian"? Why?
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 2:02 PM
...is possible?
Could you qualify this clause by putting it in some temporal context? As written it's foolish.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 2:03 PM
You haven't been around here very long, eh?
Exactly. Jynx waltzes in here with no understanding of the culture and tries to impose hsr own views:
Fallacious views, as has been noted here repeatedly: contempt and reason are not mutually exclusive.
Posted by: horace | December 5, 2009 2:03 PM
(...Comment 54 probably makes that question superfluous, but I still don't understand how it would even be possible to corrupt the peer-review process by picking & choosing in which peer-reviewed journal one publishes. It just doesn't compute.)
These guys were saying that they would boycott a journal completely (both in publications and citations) if they allowed a paper that they disagreed with to be published. They also talked about approaching the publishers. All this because a reviewer was allowing the publication of papers that they disagreed with. Even if their science was completely accurate this is wrong.
Finally there are a lot of remarks here about right wingers e.g.
>This drives right wingers fundamentally nuts. >They imagine some dogma being handed down on >what is climate change and react accordingly >when they see dissent, which is the heart and >soul of the scientific method, which they have a >fundamental aversion to, because it's >anti->authoritarian in nature.
Say that the climate change is as serious a problem as several posters here suggest. To solve this problem you will need to get everyone onside, that includes right wingers, muslim religious fundis (like the Iranians, Saudis), the Russians, Chinese. American Right wingers will be the least of your problems, you need to learn how to deal with them with respect.
Posted by: llewelly | December 5, 2009 2:04 PM
Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 1:43 PM:
Chaos has much less importance for climate prediction.
Posted by: gerryfromktown | December 5, 2009 2:04 PM
Truthmachine @49
I wrote:
and you responded:
Nice answer, thanks for the lucid clarity. You haven't yet called me a denier though. Go ahead, you know you want to.
As to my claim, over at RealClimate I see that no one has yet posted a response to this comment:
Here we have a young, serious PhD student, looking for raw data that is being deliberately withheld.
This is not good.
Anyone genuinely interested in data analysis and not ideology would find it hard to accept this email as simply "vigorous internal debate".
Especially truthseekers.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 2:04 PM
These models make incredibly simple, dynamic assumptions about a very credibly complex, but very poorly understood, dynamic system, and Nature will contradict the models again and again. Maybe She'll be worse than predicted, but given the well established, human bias toward catastrophic predictions, I doubt it.
Posted by: 386sx | December 5, 2009 2:04 PM
With the evolution "debate" continuing with religious fundamentalists, the last thing the scientific community needs is the whole process of the scientific method coming into question by even more people.
I agree. The scientific method shouldn't be coming into question by even more people. Let the scientific community alone, and let the people eat cake. And ice cream!! I have an invisiblr frog named "Billy"!!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 2:06 PM
I would. I'd like to urge you to read comment 55.
Of course. What else would be called "runaway"?
What?
AFAIK, no climatologist has ever claimed we're going to have a runaway greenhouse effect. I'm accusing Martin Brock of building a strawman, you see.
Well, they can't, because there just aren't enough fossil fuels. Unless some kind of methane outgassing happens, I don't think East Antarctica will become ice-free.
All the rest becoming ice-free is of course horrible enough – 22 m increase in sea level is unmitigated horror.
Do yourself a favor and explain yourself clearly the first time around next time.
20 feet is how much again, 6 m? Has anyone claimed that? That's not going to happen unless, or rather until, the entire ice shield of Greenland melts – and that'll take a couple of centuries.
I'm not familiar with Gore outside his involvement in the US elections of 2004. He's not a climatologist in any case. :-|
Posted by: Louis | December 5, 2009 2:06 PM
There are sceptics, there are also denialists.
The sceptic changes her/his mind when faced with the available evidence (and changes it again if the evidence changes). It's perfectly reasonable to be a sceptic, even if you are ignorant of a field (i.e. your scepticism is based on ignorance). Scepticism about a subject, and ignorance of a subject, is correctable by exposure to the data.*
The denialist makes any excuse to maintain their position. The denialist is heavily into bullshit** because the denialist is not interested in, or perhaps even not aware of, the evidence. Denialists can be easily demonstrated to have at best a superficial interest in the details of the evidence and available data.
It doesn't surprise me that those shouting the loudest about the "Climategate" scandal fall more into the denialist camp than the sceptic camp. I'm sick of dealing with denialists. Sceptics are at least interesting.
Louis
*It's not someone else's job to do this for you however. Like all things in life, you get out what you put in. Your education is your responsibility. Sometimes, just sometimes, if someone tells you you are wrong, you are. Of course sometimes you're not.
**See Harry G Frankfurt's excellent (and funny) "On Bullshit". Bullshitting is not the same thing as lying. A liar knows the "truth" and seeks to hide it. A bullshitter is not interested in the "truth", they have a different motivation. A bullshitter will do anything to "win" an argument, the "truth" be damned. Sorry for the abundance of scare quotes, but there's a book behind each word so surrounded! ;-)
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
|
December 5, 2009 2:07 PM
horace #57
Point the first: When you quote somebody please indicate that you are quoting. Using <blockquote>text</blockquote> is the most common method on this blog, but <i>italics</i> and even "text" are acceptable.
Point the second:
Some hackers stole a bunch of emails. Are we supposed to respect thieves? Out of context quotes from these emails are used by AGW deniers for socio-political reasons. Are we supposed to respect these quote miners?
Posted by: Q.E.D
|
December 5, 2009 2:07 PM
"It's what I'm known for and how I earned my OM."
Please excuse my ignorance but what is an "OM"? I live in London and Brits just love lots of alphabet-soup credentials after their names.
Q.E.D, J.D., CIArb,
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 5, 2009 2:08 PM
Wake me when MB finally says something we think is cogent. I need a good nap...
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 2:09 PM
Nice answer, thanks for the lucid clarity.
The answer was appropriate to the immense stupidity of your expressed difficulty.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 2:10 PM
Do you consider this exercise "Utopian"? Why?
Because it doesn't confront and address clear and present dangers and threats 'to civilization' 'from civilization', and a scientific and technical manner. Coffee is good though. The global worldwide transport of coffee from the low and mid latitudes to the high latitudes is a pretty good metric of the state of civilization IMO. So at least you got that right. When the state of Texas starts growing their own coffee, then I'll start to cut you some slack.
Unfortunately, drought will nip that in the bud.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 2:11 PM
Actually, a highly chaotic system is exactly what the most alarming AGW models presume. They predict large long-term changes from small initial changes through feedbacks. The problem is that the global climate is far more complex than the models, and we have little reason to expect the chaotic characteristics of the models to match the chaotic characteristics of the climate. Some effect not incorporated in the models, like Lindzen's iris, can have long-term consequences not predicted by the models, and we have no reason to expect these feedbacks to be positive in terms of global average temperature.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 2:11 PM
Please excuse my ignorance but what is an "OM"?
See the Commenters link at the top of this page.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 2:12 PM
Congratulations on ignoring the context, even after it was pointed out to you.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 2:16 PM
Bollocks. Most of the raw data used in HadCRUT is freely available online from GHCN. The remaining 2% or so is commercial data from various met offices around the globe, and are not CRU's to give. There's enough available for replication, which is all that matters.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 2:18 PM
Anyone genuinely interested in data analysis and not ideology would find it hard to accept this email as simply "vigorous internal debate".
Especially truthseekers.
The truth is that whatever human behavior is revealed by these emails has nothing whatsoever to do with the facts of AGW; it's a red herring employed by deniers.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 2:18 PM
AFAIK, no climatologist has ever claimed we're going to have a runaway greenhouse effect.
That's because they don't extrapolate to the inevitable conclusion of continued combustion of carbon to finality. And they don't define runaway greenhouse as 'Venus'. Most of them don't consider much past the century or millenium.
Well, they can't, because there just aren't enough fossil fuels. Unless some kind of methane outgassing happens, I don't think East Antarctica will become ice-free.
And of course nobody predicts any methane outgassing, and nobody suggests that Antarctica was ever ice free. Indeed, nobody admits that our current greenhouse gas spike is AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE AT LEAST faster than the PETM, right?
You are a shallow thinking febrile denialist twit.
All the rest becoming ice-free is of course horrible enough – 22 m increase in sea level is unmitigated horror.
And of course, sea level rise with just 'magically' stop at 22 meters, right?
You think academics are immune to Dunning-Kruger?
Dude, whatever you do, keep poster here! You're an eminently adequate if not perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect afflicting academics.
Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 2:20 PM
truth machine said:
"Jynx waltzes in here with no understanding of the culture and tries to impose hsr own views:"
I see. My apologies if my my call for mutual respect during discussions is not part of the "culture" here. Please forgive my intrusion.
If you should change your mind and would like to engage in discussion with others which (mostly) lacks personal attacks and needless threats, please feel free to join us.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 2:21 PM
I overlooked the polar bears. Driving them to extinction in the wild is very easy: just wait till all the Arctic sea ice melts. That's due in a few decades, judging from current developments – earlier than the IPCC report of 2007 predicted.
Please elaborate.
It would be rather odd if we kindly ignore comment 54.
The Russians and the Chinese are on board alredy, and the Muslim fundies don't contribute much to the emissions. That leaves the US right-wingers... who, incidentally, are off the right margin of the map in most other democratic countries.
You're another one of those who should have spent more time surfing ScienceBlogs and Real Climate last week. I recommend you do it now. Bye-bye.
Details, please. General wishy-washy pessimism is not an argument.
(And about nature... I was told "don't anthropomorphize her, she hates that." ;-) )
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 2:25 PM
20 feet is how much again, 6 m? Has anyone claimed that? That's not going to happen unless, or rather until, the entire ice shield of Greenland melts – and that'll take a couple of centuries.
Dunning-Kruger again for you.
EVERYONE predicts well in excess of 20 feet of sea level rise if emissions persist. Or are you predicting that TIME ITSELF will slow down or stop?
You are fast approaching Dunning-Kruger perfection.
Nobody predicts you will reach that, and your only hope is to attempt to educate yourself outside of your narrow domain of knowledge. We shall await evidence that you will indeed attempt to do that.
Posted by: Nick | December 5, 2009 2:31 PM
Tricks to hide the decline?
The reason it is important is that because the tree proxies haven't reproduced the last 50 years of temperature measurement, its a prefectly rational reason to say that the the historical temperature record where based on tree ring data is wrong.
That's the science. The fiddling of temperature records to hide this is the fraud.
Nick
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 2:31 PM
Not for a few centuries, which is precisely what David said.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 2:32 PM
Precisely what temperature records have been fiddled, and how? Be specific.
Posted by: nejishiki | December 5, 2009 2:39 PM
@ MB #91
Positive feedback is not chaotic. You can make useful predictions in the case of, say a simple autocatalytic reaction operating in a finite reservoir. Are you sure you understand these terms as well as you think you do?
From an older textbook on Mechanics by Synge and Griffith:
"In fact mechanics - and indeed all theoretical science - is a game of mathematical make-believe. We say: If the earth were a homogeneous rigid ellipsoid acted on by such and such forces, how would it behave? Working out the answers to this question, we compare our results with observation. If there is agreement, we say we have chosen a good model; if disagreement, then the models or the laws assumed are bad."
You can't get away from simplification; that's what makes things intelligible. It is always the case that you must either accept the model as it is, improve it, or go through the nearly impossible task of trying to show that no model is possible. It can't simply be dismissed as "chaotic."
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 2:43 PM
Not for a few centuries, which is precisely what David said.
No he did not. He appended that arbitrary time criterion after I confronted him and his arbitrary and unrecognized (Dunning-Kruger) preconceptions.
Why impose arbitrary chronological restrictions on the debate? I agree thought that a 'Venus' type runaway taking hundreds of millions of years is unlikely, because the immediate effect of global warming (I impose no arbitrary time constraints) will be the severe reduction of human population, if not outright extinction, and then the warming spike will be allowed to naturally relax back to equilibrium of hundreds of thousands of years. However, I posit that even a few intelligent humans with continued access to modern scientific knowledge and techniques could still easily wreak havoc on a natural biosystem if their behavior is not constrained by the laws and regulations of civilizations. We saw that in paleo-Australia.
If you guys can't even regulate your science here, how do you think you're going to be able to cope with the religious and teabagging nutjobs then, let alone the fabulously funded wealthy deniers?
Posted by: Epikt | December 5, 2009 2:44 PM
Martin Brock:
The Seitz who was also a shill for the tobacco companies? The Seitz who, as far back as 1989, was described by an attorney for Big Tobacco as "quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice"? The Seitz who hadn't done research in many decades? The Seitz who provided the cover letter and supporting article for an anti-AGW petition that was circulated in the nineties? That article was presented so as to fraudulently suggest (same format and typography, fake citation information) that it had been published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the NAS when, in fact, it had not. The NAS itself was sufficiently upset by this that they issued an explicit disclaimer.
Look, I understand that the number of scientists who are both qualified to comment on, and fundamentally skeptical of, AGW is very small, and you have to scramble to give your arguments even pseudocredibility, but, really--Seitz?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 2:45 PM
its a prefectly rational reason to say that the the historical temperature record where based on tree ring data is wrong.
And of course it HAS to be either wrong or right.
The dictionary is always right!
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 2:48 PM
I just reread all of his comments in this thread. I suggest you do the same. You're misrepresenting his position.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 2:56 PM
You're misrepresenting his position.
No I am not. We're already committed to a PETM. For those of you, like David, who still believe that time will magically stop in 2100 or even the year 3000, I suggest you start educating yourself here :
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html
It is no longer sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they must be eliminated to zero, and then the carbon dioxide concentration in excess of about 300 to 350 ppm must be PHYSICALLY or BIOLOGICALLY removed from the atmosphere. I reiterate, you are in outright denial of the actual situation on the ground and in the literature. As a result of the latest shenanigans, the scientific community (which excludes you apparently) is in painful recognition of that now.
Posted by: Vole | December 5, 2009 2:57 PM
On Newsnight, BBC2, last night we had Prof Andrew Watson from UEA up against a loud gentleman called Marc Morano, who I believe is quite well known on the far side of the pond. The debate didn't advance matters much, but the end of it was priceless. On the final shot of Prof Watson, rather than saying "Good night" or something, he quietly gave us his opinion of his opponent: "What an arsehole!" I'd like to think it's to the BBC's credit that they let this through. More likely, they just didn't notice.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 3:00 PM
The problem is actually that you and Martin are both either dishonest or ignorant.
Climate science doesn't predict a "runaway greenhouse effect".
Posted by: Pensnest | December 5, 2009 3:03 PM
and the reason I know it is because liberals are behind it!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA....
*draws breath*
Ow. Laughing for five minutes without a respite is hard work.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 3:04 PM
The Seitz who graduated Princeton, was a distinguish professor of Physics, president of the National Academy of Sciences for seven years and all the rest. "Shill for the tobacco companies" is just your simplistic political characterization with no bearing on any science. Yes, really, Seitz and really John Christy and Richard Lindzen and Spencer, Lomborg and others.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 3:05 PM
Not for a few centuries, which is precisely what David said.
You have an odd notion of precision. David said that a 20 ft rise won't happen until the entire ice shield of Greenland melts -- he never said anything about "well in excess of 20 feet of sea level rise if emissions persist".
Posted by: G.D. | December 5, 2009 3:05 PM
Still living in the 50s? It may come as a shock to you, but both the Russians and the Chinese are actually being very sensible and taking global warming seriously, as they are for most other matters when it comes to humanism, reason and sustainable development. The U.S. is not at all the world leader when it comes to rationality and reason, quite the opposite.
Posted by: nejishiki | December 5, 2009 3:06 PM
@ #108
A paper by Susan Solomon, contributed by Susan Solomon.
*Sigh*... PNAS.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 3:07 PM
Yes, you are, you bloody idiot.
Am I? Exactly what am I denying? Be specific.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 3:09 PM
Climate science doesn't predict a "runaway greenhouse effect".
Indeed it doesn't, it predicts another PETM over the next millennium, which will be 'locked in' over the next century, if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced to zero and the excess carbon dioxide is not scrubbed from the atmosphere. We are already well on our way. I called that a 'runaway global warming', easily achievable on our current GHG emissions path.
This is precisely what David et al. are trying to obfuscate with their scientific denial.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 3:10 PM
P.S. Here is Gore himself on sea level rise:
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 3:11 PM
Which is kind of the point. The statements:
and:
are not inconsistent.
Posted by: Doug | December 5, 2009 3:12 PM
"The Seitz who graduated Princeton, was a distinguish professor of Physics, president of the National Academy of Sciences for seven years and all the rest."
He's certainly the same Seitz who was a pioneer in solid state physics, not an atmospheric physicist or a meteorologist. I am both of those things, and I would never dream of entering a discussion over superconductors, simply because I don't know enough. Seitz was a great scientist and a good person, but that does not mean that his opinions on AGW were anything but opinions.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 3:12 PM
Depends on which "scientists" you ask.
I'm not suggesting that all climate scientists, or even most credible AGW researchers, are hysterical alarmists, and I don't believe so, but we aren't discussing science here at all. This youtube video has nothing to do with science. It's a lot of talk radio personalities blowing off steam. So what?
The most alarming AGW models do predict a four or five fold increase in the rate of warming, measured by global average surface temperature, during the 21st century, and this prediction does involve a feedback in which a degree or so of warming from an anthropogenic CO2-induced greenhouse effect warms oceans, increases water vapor concentration and thus increases warming from a water vapor-induced greenhouse effect which in turn warms oceans more and so on. I'm hardly making that up.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 3:13 PM
It's wrong for scientists to avoid poor-quality journals and to publish in high-quality journals instead?
That's news to me.
As all rationale people know, in the case of the journal in question (Climate Research), the editor-in-chief Van Storch and half of the editorial board resigned in protest because THEY AGREED that the article in question was absolute crap and should never have been published.
Later the publisher conceeded that the paper was crap and should never have been published (Soon and Baliunas 2003).
"Climate Research has become crap, let's publish in Nature (or some other journal which upholds high standards) instead!" is not, as you claim, an attempt to "corrupt the peer review process".
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 3:16 PM
Nor is 'de Freitas is a dishonest hack and should be removed,' for that matter. Not that anything said in those e-mails rose to quite that level, IIRC.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 3:18 PM
*Sigh*
That's really profound, especially with your astute follow up with ... nothing!
David said that a 20 ft rise won't happen until the entire ice shield of Greenland melts
I guess you missed the fact that Greenland is melting. Do you think it will 'magically' stop melting when GHG concentration is still rising? The only thing that could possibly stop it from melting now is a temporary reversal of the thermohaline circulation, caused by the melting of Greenland ice itself, or the reversal and reduction of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, neither of which David is familiar with, understands, or is willing or able to accomplish. Thus he just diminishes the truth.
-- he never said anything about "well in excess of 20 feet of sea level rise if emissions persist".
No, I did, in order to reveal his subtle contrarianism and denial. And yours too. The biggest single impediment to solving this problem is not the religionists, libertarian teabaggers or wealthy media, IT or industrialists, it's liberal scientists JUST LIKE YOU. That's how bad this is.
It's scientific denial all across the spectrum. You are the problem, not the solution.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 3:20 PM
You really do have a reading comprehension problem, don't you?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 3:21 PM
Yes, you are, you bloody idiot.
I think not. David said
"That was not a runaway greenhouse effect, and it's nothing short of stupid to call it one.
(But yes, the PETM is relevant here, even though a repetition of it is not a likely scenario.)"
which is the point that they are in disagreement over.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 3:23 PM
You really do have a reading comprehension problem, don't you?
No I do not. I do have a low level of intolerance for uninformed assholes who comment outside of their narrow range of specialty, though. David was talking out of his ass, and I called him on it. Nothing more, nothing less. If you do then same, you'll get the same treatment.
Posted by: ian | December 5, 2009 3:24 PM
Toronto, December 5th... still no snow this year. Sunny, cool, not exactly shorts weather but then again my physique is long since past beefcake status. At the breakfast table reading yet another poll on global warning... yet another poll which asks whether the reader believes in or doubts the existence of global warming, missing the bigger question: Global warning, for or against?
Posted by: Dr. P | December 5, 2009 3:24 PM
So....you're telling me that climate systems are irreducibly complex?....just wondering...or is there some quantifiable way we can measure that the "simple dynamic assumptions" are wrong? Citations to those studies that measure this error would be helpful.Posted by: Dr. P | December 5, 2009 3:27 PM
I might add, I'm not a climatologist,just a layman attempting to understand the framework of the argument for my own edification.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 3:28 PM
He's certainly the same Seitz who was a pioneer in solid state physics, not an atmospheric physicist or a meteorologist. I am both of those things, and I would never dream of entering a discussion over superconductors, simply because I don't know enough.
A discussion of global climate is a discussion of countless, wildly divergent, highly complex subjects, from glaciation to ocean currents to cloud formation, maybe even the interaction of the ionosphere with solar radiation.
He's more entitled to an opinion than most, but I agree with you here. I don't agree that anyone else has a firm grasp on the future of global, climate change.
Colin Powell didn't had a firm grasp on Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, despite being a credible authority on the subject when he totally mischaracterized the situation in 2003. He presumably believed what he was saying at the time, but he wasn't disinterested, and other credible authorities, like Scott Ritter and other weapons inspectors, knew Powell's "proof" of WMD was bunk. I don't have much faith in this sort of thing. If you want me to believe the sky is falling, I expect some very solid evidence.
Posted by: guthrie
|
December 5, 2009 3:29 PM
Lomborg, if his own pronouncements are to be believed, agrees with the IPCC climate projections. His job is to cause delay by pushing false dilemmas. Therefore I don't see why MArtin Brock brackets him with the like of Christy and Seitz.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 3:30 PM
Or if you ask them in, say, 2009 rather than, say, 1992.
A lot's been learned in the intervening 17 years.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 3:32 PM
Let me address the revelation that real temperatures were used to hide a decline. One thing I noted is that the debunkers keep overlooking the phrase "real temperatures". Instead they glom onto the phrase "hide a decline" without considering what is being talked about there. What decline? Where was such a decline indicated? If the decline was real how would real temperatures, real data hide it. Wouldn't real data reinforce the conclusion instead. That is, if the apparent decline were real wouldn't accurate data support the conclusion?
As I understand it the two refer to, respectively, direct temperature observations, and inferred temperatures deferred from the study of tree rings from the times in question. Where, I might add, such contemporaneous records are available. Direct observation says one thing, inference says quite another. What we learn is that our interpretation of what the tree rings had to say was wrong, and when mistakes become apparent in science they need to be corrected.
As you can see, as with creationists and birthers AGW deniers are engaged in the same wilfull misreading of what their opposition says, and the same pernicious quote mining. Using data to hide something does not mean what was hidden suddenly becomes true, were it true in the first place then data would support it and so illuminate it instead of obscuring it.
(I'll be posting a rewrite at my blog after I've composed it, typed it up, embedded the video PZ included up above, and picked up a few things from the store. So patience is warranted."
Posted by: wiley | December 5, 2009 3:32 PM
No evidence of "Global Warming" in this propaganda piece, just graphs that show Climate Change is the result of natural cycles (esp. La Nina/ El Nino), and no indication that anthropogenic CO2 has any detectable climatic effect. Is this such a 'tragedy', FHS?
The emails highlighted here indicate a willingness by the CRU director to hoodwink the public ('hide the decline'), and it matters not that they're discussing tree-ring data rather than temperatures. All the news that's fit to print, but only the evidence that will convince us that ACC is 'real'. No conspiracy or intent to mislead the public? Athobots & Evotards might be gullible enough to swallow that, but not this little black skeptical duck.
The level of disagreement tends to indicate that there are climate skeptics within the Climate Change community itself. In fact the IPCC's 4th assessment is less than 100% certain of AGW/CC. So why disparage Joe Public for being a climate skeptic?
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 3:32 PM
Thomas Lee Elifritz, sorry, I vote for your having a reading comprehension problem.
You're turning into Mark (some people familiar with Real Climate, Deltoid, etc will understand my meaning).
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 3:34 PM
What a moronic strawman. Of course they aren't inconsistent, but your claim that I criticized was not that they are not inconsistent, but that they say "precisely" the same thing, asswipe. The statements aren't even about the same thing, and the difference seems to have sailed right over your head: Elifritz is talking about the consequence of persistent emissions -- the melting of the Greenland ice shield is just one consequence of that. David's views might be consistent with Elifritz's statemen or or they may not, but he never said so explicitly -- instead he said that there's no "runaway" greenhouse scenario, that it's stupid to say that PETM was one, and that PETM isn't likely to to reoccur -- that all suggests an inconsistency between their positions.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 3:37 PM
It's not the point I picked up Thomas on.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 3:40 PM
Good. Who was your post #124 directed at, and why? Who 'missed the fact that Greenland is melting,' and how did you arrive at that conclusion?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 3:40 PM
-- he never said anything about "well in excess of 20 feet of sea level rise if emissions persist".
No, I did, in order to reveal his subtle contrarianism and denial. And yours too.
Um, you're quoting me (quoting you) in support of your claim, so Martin M is certainly right that you have a reading comprehension problem -- but so does Martin M with his moronic claim about what David "precisely" said.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 3:40 PM
Wiley, #135
Wiley, you ignorant slut. How do you use real data to hide anything? If one was talking about something that was accurate wouldn't real data reinforce that? The decline in question was only an apparent decline arising from a misinterpretation of the pattern of growth in trees in the recent past. Direct contemporary observations of temperatures contradicted findings based on studying those tree rings. Insofar as the interpretations are wrong, relying on them is wrong and can poison any study and discussion of the phenomenon in question. It would be like relying on old trappers' tales on wolverines when performing observations on the bluffmeister of the north.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 3:43 PM
Come on, it only started freezing over 45 million years ago. The PETM was 55 million years ago.
I've read about that before, but can it get as high as the PETM? Are there enough fossil fuels? Is there evidence that seafloor methane clathrate deposits are unstable enough? I'm not saying the latter couldn't happen, but it's not probable judging from what I've read.
Though... I forgot about the methane clathrates in the permafrost. Are those included in the IPCC models? If not, it has to be feared they underestimate the warming.
Now I understand – I insulted you, so you misunderstood which side I'm on! Congratulations on your logic. <applause>
<facepalm>
To quote from the post itself:
That's what I'm doing with you here, even though you don't seem to notice.
WTF? I said no such thing. I only said this is what we got last time when Greenland and West Antarctica were ice-free. If the heat stays on, East Antarctica will contribute more...
You still haven't read comment 55, have you.
Because everyone does. Practically all I read about climate models stops at the year 2100 or 2200 at the most. Therefore I took it for granted that you would understand that "has anyone claimed that" meant "has anyone claimed that the sea level will increase by 6 m till 2100 or 2200". No, nobody has predicted that. It will increase by more than that till 2700 or something if Greenland keeps melting at its current rate (never mind West Antarctica).
Having read the abstract, I find absolutely nothing surprising in it – except that their predictions for what would happen at 1,000 ppm seem extremely low. The first few figures in the paper (I really can't judge the others) look entirely reasonable to me. (Scary as they are! A meter of sea level rise from thermal expansion of the ocean alone!)
I think you underestimate the PETM rather drastically. There's a lot of space between today's climate – or that of last interglacial (100,000 years ago), or even that of three interglacials ago (400,000 years ago) – and the PETM, or even the temperature levels from which the PETM started.
I fully expect serious sea level rises in this millennium, probably even this century. I fear for the entire country of Bangladesh*, and the Nile delta* and... insert joke about southern Florida here, and northern Germany, and so on. But the PETM is simply something different.
Four extra °C in global average annual temperature is not the PETM. Not even close. It's horrible enough by far, but it's not the PETM.
* Well, actually, "thanks" to the stupid, stupid dams along the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Nile, all those areas are toast anyway. Just not quite as quickly as if there were no warming.
Indeed you're not, but that's still not a runaway warming. It's not even the PETM.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 3:44 PM
Correction: Greenland's icecap is melting, not Greenland itself. If Greenland itself were melting it would be a tectonic event instead of a climatological one, and likely part of a series of events forcing great changes in the Arctic/North Atlantic region.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 3:45 PM
It's not the point I picked up Thomas on.
You have failed to understand the dispute and claimed that two very different (but indeed not inconsistent) statements say "precisely" the same thing.
Posted by: PZ Myers
|
December 5, 2009 3:46 PM
No, that isn't corruption, that's reasonable. There are journals that are mismanaged or are under biased editorial control, and it is entirely fair for scientists to discuss the ill-repute of these bad journals and recommend boycotting them.
I don't know the climate science journals, but we have an egregious situation like that in evolutionary biology. There is a journal called Rivista di Biologia, which has become the house organ for creationists. They publish the most astoundingly bad crap. At this point, no credible scientist would even try to publish in such a cesspool, and we're quite open about it.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 3:47 PM
And that till 2200, as I forgot to add.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 3:48 PM
No. You're telling me that climate systems are irreducible complex?
We can pay careful attention to the specific predictions of specific models, and we can compare the specific predictions with observations; however, some systems really are chaotic, and chaotic systems are not predictable. "Irreducible complexity" has nothing to do with it. Three perfectly rigid spheres interacting gravitationally can be a chaotic, dynamic system.
A study of this kind requires a sufficiently specific prediction. Do you have one?
We know that the same measurements of global average temperature that increased in the last three decades of the 20th century have not increased in the 21st century. Where are the AGW models predicting this plateau in the measurements before the fact?
I'm not asking for post facto story telling here. I'm asking for a paper published before 2000 predicting no rise in global average temperature measurements in this decade, as part of a longer term prediction of vastly accelerated warming later in the century. That's how science is supposed to work, isn't it?
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 3:51 PM
Now I understand – I insulted you, so you misunderstood which side I'm on!
I think that's a large part of it. And he thinks that Martin wrote something I wrote, so he took it as being against him and as evidence that its author is also a denialist, in direct contradiction of the actual content.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 3:55 PM
David, #146
"And that not until 2200, as I forgot to add."
Is that more what you were trying to say?
Posted by: Epikt | December 5, 2009 3:55 PM
Martin Brock:
So your idea of an authority is somebody whose specialty was condensed matter physics, not climate science; who hasn't been an active researcher in many decades; who has spent the past forty years or so as an administrator/lobbyist, and who was considered an embarrassment by the people considering funding him.
Arguments from authority work better, or at least less badly, when they reference actual authorities.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | December 5, 2009 3:58 PM
JRM said, before disappearing into the abyss:
Did you look at the video? Then you haven't read the e-mails, right?
They didn't try to "fudge" any data. The issue is this (which you might have picked up had you read the e-mails): In an attempt to list several lines of concurring data on a chart, there's a difficulty with the tree-ring stuff. After about 1960 it shows temperatures declining. Now, there were thermometers in 1960, and every year since, and so we know what the the temperatures were.
Temperatures actually rose after 1960. You wish to deny it, but those are the facts (dispute it, you fecocephalic boor, I dare you). So, rather than post known-to-be-incorrect data, they "fudged" by substituting in actual temperature measurements. You know, the accurate, known stuff.
Here's the funny part: The resulting chart, with the "fudged" data, was wrong.
Here's the "Holy-Mother-of-God-Jesus-Mohammed-and-Buddha: The-Universe-is-trying-to-send-us-a-message" moment for you, especially, JRM: The chart projected temperatures for the future that were lower than the actual temperatures.
That's right: The chart showed global warming to be less serious than it really is.
So, after fudging the data, Mother Nature, God, the Universe, whatever power you wish to invoke, defied the scientists and warmed the Earth more than they projected.
These e-mails show chiefly that denialists don't even have shit for brains, since most shitheads could figure that out.
The universe is, indeed, sending us a message: The Earth's atmosphere is warming and is going to cook Rush Limbaugh's fat goose.
(You thought I was going to insult denialists, or say the message was we should dump them on some thinning Arctic ice, didn't you.)
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 4:00 PM
I didn't introduce the term into the AGW debate. I linked one alarmist article using it above. Here's another. Call it "amplified greenhouse effect" or whatever you like. The point is that anthropogenic CO2 alone does warm the globe by 4-6 degs C in a century in these models.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 4:06 PM
Nobody said it will stop. That's why I put "unless, or or rather until" into comment 84.
Not that it matters, but what makes you think so? Can he really have believed his utterly laughable PowerPoint presentation?
He was lying, and it was painfully obvious for the entire world to see (I remember sitting in front of the TV and feeling, well, painful). That's why he stepped back fairly soon and campaigned for Obama last year.
Then why was 2003 about as hot as the extreme El Niño year 1998?
Go read.
There is no such thing as 100 % certainty in science.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 4:07 PM
I listed Seitz along with Christy, Lindzen, Spencer (all climate scientists) and others, because Seitz is identified with the issue and was President of the National Academy of Sciences. You focus on Seitz, because you think his other associations ("shill for tobacco companies" and the rest) make him an easy target in some political guilt-by-association game. Don't care.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 4:13 PM
You are correct that the two statements do not say precisely the same thing. I apologise for not explicitly stating that in my previous comment to you. I was trying to explain that my issue with Thomas is that he appears to be imputing to David a position which David has not expressed, either implicitly or explicitly. There is certainly an inconsistency in their positions; I just think that Thomas has attacked one particular point of inconsistency which exists only in his mind.
As to whether or not I claimed that the two statements were precisely the same thing, I have to reject that charge. It's the timescale of a few centuries which is precisely what David said, not the entire sentence that I quoted from Thomas, plus that timescale. There are certainly clearer ways I could have phrased that, but I don't agree that your reading of my statement is the only valid one. I am not, however, an expert on grammar, so I'm open to correction on that point.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 4:14 PM
It doesn't matter, but I wrote "presumably believed". I presume him innocent of deliberate deception, for the same reason that I'd presume you innocent of murder if I sat on your jury.
Where is the evidence that he knowingly deceived in the '03 U.N. presentation? Has he admitted it? That he stepped back and campaigned for Obama is no evidence.
Posted by: Andyo
|
December 5, 2009 4:17 PM
Yeah, I got that too after some of Thomas's posts. The fact that his quoting is confusing also didn't help. All the Dunning-Kruger accusations weren't making any sense to me.I don't know where or how Thomas got the feeling Martin and David were denialists...
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 4:19 PM
There is no such thing as 100 % certainty in science.
Or in any other empirical prediction, yet idiotic lying hypocrites like wiley have no trouble acting on such predictions in their day-to-day lives.
Posted by: Samizdat | December 5, 2009 4:21 PM
furious and unfounded assertions of the right-wing denialists
...what about us left-wing denialists?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 4:22 PM
Comment 146 contained a typo in HTML and was therefore truncated. It should have read:
===================
Fine. Now, what makes you think the climate is such a system?
Why is it possible to make models of the climate 100 million years ago? Crude models, sure, but still models that fit the geological record.
Do we?
That was from Greenpeace! And the next one you link to is from globalpolicy.org! I was talking about climatologists! That should have been obvious.
Perhaps a bit much for a single century, but neither impossible nor a runaway warming.
"Runaway greenhouse effect" means it get so hot it doesn't rain anymore.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 4:23 PM
Come on, it only started freezing over 45 million years ago. The PETM was 55 million years ago.
Since you are clearly talking out your ass again, I do hope you won't mind if I don't bother to read your screed. Antarctica wasn't even in position 45 million years ago, 'freezing' is a naive and indeed mind bogglingly simplistic description of Antarctic continental glaciation, which didn't happen until the continent fully arrived in the polar vicinity 35 million years ago, during the so called 'Eocene-Oligocene' transition event, which may have been closely related to the opening of the Drake passage, although this chronology is highly debated currently. Again, you well you can freely talk out your ass by making a not even superficial perusal of the actual peer reviewed literature. Any 'freezing' that took place in the area 45 million years ago is more adequately described in the literature as 'ice rafting'.
Any idiot can wiki and google this stuff, but it takes a real scientist to slog though entire papers by the hundreds. You are not that person. I could post numerous links but the moderation would simply eat my post, and debating your stupidity is rapidly becoming unproductive for me.
Nobody is calling for a PETM 'this century'. You are seriously diminishing the science by repeating this lie. What many people are saying is that another PETM is now inevitable, unless very drastic action is taken in the next decade. Your continued imposition or arbitrary time lines puts you firmly into the pseudoscience regime here.
Again, I reiterate, please keep posting here. You are making my case rather nicely, I have to admit. You're a great example of an outright and easily identified scientific bullshitter.
But the PETM is simply something different.
Indeed it is, from a chronological perspective what we are headed for is roughly ten times more extreme than the PETM.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 4:24 PM
Some IPCC projections run relatively simple models as far as 3000, IIRC. Try Chapter 10 of the AR4 WG1 report.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 4:26 PM
"Runaway greenhouse effect" means it get so hot it doesn't rain anymore.
Cuz some guy said so on a blog somewhere, of course.
You shit really does stink, David.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 4:26 PM
It's by far the most parsimonious inference (...in shorter words: he can't possibly have been that stupid, having displayed much greater intellect both before and after). That's all.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 4:33 PM
You are correct that the two statements do not say precisely the same thing.
They don't say even close to the same thing. David in essence agreed with Brock that Gore was being alarmist (a bogus charge, FWIW) if he was claiming that 20 ft waves were going to swamp Manhattan, because that won't happen unless/until the Greenland ice shield melts, " and that'll take a couple of centuries". This has nothing to do with Thomas's assertion that "EVERYONE predicts well in excess of 20 feet of sea level rise if emissions persist". Thomas foolishly took David's statement as inconsistent with his own, and you foolishly claimed they say "precisely" the same thing.
It's the timescale of a few centuries which is precisely what David said
What a ridiculous dodge. The timescale modifies something very different -- David was referring to when the Greenland ice shield would melt, producing a 20 foot rise in sea level, whereas Thomas referred to rises of well in excess of 20 feet.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 4:36 PM
*peeks into thread*
oh my FUCKING god, it's Martin "homophobia is genetic" Brock and Tommy the Elf in the same thread. the paranoia is mindnumbing:
seriously? the whole fucking world, including all the experts in the relevant field, is sociopolitically motivated to do... what? fucking paranoid, to believe the whole world is conspiring against you for no reason.Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 4:38 PM
Where is the evidence that he knowingly deceived in the '03 U.N. presentation? Has he admitted it?
You really don't know? The man was throwing documents into the air the night before, saying ""I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."
Posted by: Dentroman | December 5, 2009 4:38 PM
No it doesn't. I means that the climate is further promoting it's own warming in a vicious cycle.(for example, the liberation of CO2 in permafrost raising CO2 levels, and contributing to a average temperature increase, thus releasing more permafrost.) Any climatologist who defined Runaway Greenhouse effect that way would be fired in short order, or at least laughed out of the room.
Stop spouting nonsense.
Dentroman
Posted by: Andyo
|
December 5, 2009 4:39 PM
Oh dog, how to I miss those threads?Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 4:43 PM
Thomas foolishly took David's statement as inconsistent with his own, and you foolishly claimed they say "precisely" the same thing.
No I didn't. I simply used my statement to point out that David is CLEARLY TALKING OUT HIS ASS. He hasn't listed a single bit of evidence to support any of his assertions. He is proselytizing, much in the same manner of a religious nutbag or libertarian teabagger. Not a single thing he says is consistent or verifiable, in particular, that the melting of Greenland ice sheet will take centuries. He is literally pulling his times and magnitudes right out of his ass, which is indicative of someone with a moderate amount of minimal science education but totally unfamiliar with the specialized literature - a bullshitter.
All of my assertions have been open ended. I don't pretend to know in advance exactly where the hurricane will hit, but I know there is a hurricane out there, and I know where the direction, intensity and landfall predictions have been trending over time, and I am watching them carefully so that I may rush my preparations to completion. That involves actually reading the peer reviewed literature that I am interested in.
Posted by: wiley | December 5, 2009 4:46 PM
Yet more indications of a willingness to mislead the public:
Tom Wigley describes a figure as 'very decepetive' and some presentations of IPCC climate models as 'dishonest':
> On Oct 14, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Tom Wigley wrote:
> > Mike,
> >
> > The Figure you sent is very deceptive. As an example, historical
> > runs with PCM look as though they match observations—but the
> > match is a fluke. PCM has no indirect aerosol forcing and a low
> > climate sensitivity—compensating errors. In my (perhaps too
> > harsh)
> > view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model
> > results by individual authors and by IPCC. This is why I still use
> > results from MAGICC to compare with observed temperatures. At least
> > here I can assess how sensitive matches are to sensitivity and
> > forcing assumptions/uncertainties.
> >
> > Tom.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 5, 2009 4:49 PM
Thomas, that means it started "freezing over" (a phrase) 45 mya. Your spittle-flecked "refutation" and name-calling seem pretty silly with that in mind.
And the word "runaway" clearly inplies a positive-feednack process (as Dentroman points out), and unless something interrupts the loop, David's extrapolation (not definition) seems reasonable.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 5, 2009 4:50 PM
Wiley, still not making your point, which lacks evidence. Citing the peer reviewed literature would be evidence. Quoting an idjit like yourself is meaningless. You are just the shit stain under the boulder of evidence as it splats you down. You politics and paranoia don't help you see the critical things. You add nothing to the debate, since you have nothing cogent or relevant.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 4:52 PM
No I didn't. I simply used my statement to point out that David is CLEARLY TALKING OUT HIS ASS.
Your statement was a non sequitur and didn't point out any such thing.
Not a single thing he says is consistent or verifiable, in particular, that the melting of Greenland ice sheet will take centuries.
I agree that he doesn't substantiate that claim (nor do I think it can be substantiated), but your retort, "EVERYONE predicts well in excess of 20 feet of sea level rise if emissions persist. Or are you predicting that TIME ITSELF will slow down or stop?" doesn't address it.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 4:56 PM
you're ignorant and arrogant. here's some definitions of "runaway greenhouse effect:--A runaway greenhouse effect occurs when, on a planet with substantial reserves of greenhouse gases in liquid or solid form, some forcing occurs to begin to gasify them, leading via positive feedback to complete gasification of these reserves. -- http://wapedia.mobi/en/Runaway_greenhouse_effect
--It would become a runaway greenhouse effect if the rising temperature approached the boiling point of water, because then the oceans would begin to convert to water vapor, the water vapor would increase the effectiveness of heat trapping and accelerate the greenhouse effect, this would cause the temperature to rise further, thus causing the oceans to evaporate faster, etc., etc. (This type of runaway is also called a "positive feedback loop".) When the oceans were gone the atmosphere would finally stabilize at a much higher temperature and at much higher density, because all the water would now be in the atmosphere. -- http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/venus/greenhouse.html
--When the concentration of a greenhouse gas (A) is itself a function of temperature, there is a positive feedback from the increase in another greenhouse gas (B), whereby increase in B increases the temperature which, in turn, increases the concentration of A, which increases temperatures further. -- http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/9120/greenhouse-effect.html
so, as everybody with a brain can see, the working definition of a runaway greenhouse effect is one that creates an endless positive feedback loop via evaporation of liquids into greenhouse gasses; i.e. what David said.
idiot.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 4:56 PM
And the word "runaway" clearly inplies a positive-feednack process (as Dentroman points out), and unless something interrupts the loop, David's extrapolation (not definition) seems reasonable.
Um, Dentroman just said that David is spouting nonsense.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 5:00 PM
Thomas, that means it started "freezing over" (a phrase) 45 mya. Your spittle-flecked "refutation" and name-calling seem pretty silly with that in mind
Sure, if you're a minimally educated non critically thinking ignorant cretin, I'm sure that sounds fine, but for someone like me an actual referral to actual literature which you have read in its entirety would be a basic starting point. You could spend years hanging out with Foraminifera freaks at a world class marine biology research lab as well, and discussing the motivations for their work in depth.
And the word "runaway" clearly inplies a positive-feednack process (as Dentroman points out), and unless something interrupts the loop, David's extrapolation (not definition) seems reasonable.
Sure, if you want to pull claims out of your ass in order to obfuscate the discussion, I'm sure that would work fine for you as well. You'll just have to excuse me if I demand excellence and precision in the discussion, and when that is not easily attained, then base my extrapolations on opened ended speculation of what the commonly accepted credible consensus theories predict, based upon published paleogeological and paleobiological proxy surveys and evidence on what we think has happened in the past. David clearly has done nothing of the sort here. Yet you still support him? What does that make you? A shill?
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 5:02 PM
that should have been "...evaporation of liquids into greenhouse gasses until all the liquids are gone"
which obviously would include rain, because it would be too hot for water to condensate and fall down as liquid.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 5:03 PM
you're ignorant and arrogant. here's some definitions of "runaway greenhouse effect:
Ding! We have the first dictionary quoter of this thread! Congratulations, you win ... a prize!
Any suggestions?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:03 PM
Of course it was. It has been over the South Pole for over twice that long. West Antarctica only
froze overacquired an ice shield 35 million years ago, when the connection to South America broke, allowing the circumpolar current to get established, which has prevented warm currents from reaching Antarctica ever since.East Antarctica appears to have started acquiring an ice shield 10 million years earlier, when Australia broke off and allowed part of the circumpolar current to establish itself.
I am the paleontologist here, not you.
The paper you linked to does not say this.
"Runaway" always means that a process goes on and on without reaching an equilibrium.
Except when the term is misused.
If that's all that goes on, with no negative feedbacks in place, then, yes, that's runaway warming. It's not what's going on, however.
The first paper I found on this on my harddisk is:
Jonathan M. Gregory, Philippe Huybrechts & Sarah C. B. Raper: Threatened loss of the Greenland ice sheet, Nature 428, 616 (8 April 2004)
Because it's a Brief Communication, it has no abstract, so here's the first paragraph:
The paper goes on to cite the 2001 IPCC report as saying that a warming of 8 °C would make "most of the ice sheet disappear[...] over the next 1,000 years" according to a Journal of Climatology paper from 1999.
I remember reading a paper that says it would take a few hundred years less. I'll look for it tomorrow (it's 11 pm over here). But there simply is no anywhere-near-realistic way such a mass of ice could melt in one century or less.
You didn't even ask for citations. Instead, you simply assert that I must be wrong. Do you know what that makes you?
Give us some context.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 5, 2009 5:03 PM
I know. But afaict he was the first to allude to runaway = positive feedback (i.e. "vicious cycle").
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:05 PM
Oh yeah, sorry. I did mean it started {freezing over} 45 Ma ago, not that it started freezing {over 45 Ma ago}. Reading that again, I see how I completely failed to disambiguate this – it would be unambiguous when spoken, but isn't when written. I apologize.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 5, 2009 5:07 PM
um, no, but maybe "a minimally educated non critically thinking ignorant cretin."
If it's "supporting him" to point out your obvious misinterpretations, then yeah, I'm supporting him. In part because you're obnoxious.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 5:07 PM
#179
care to prove where the definition and application of it was wrong?
can't?
then I suppose you stop pretending like you know what you're talking about. David was correct in what he said, and you were not.
Posted by: wiley | December 5, 2009 5:08 PM
Nerd, have you no idea of the irreparable damage this crisis is impacting on the good name of 'Peer Reviewed' Science? Its over for the Warmies; they've hit an iceberg and I believe the 'hack' was an inside job by a skeptic who has looked at the evidence and found that ACC is a crock, and he also has no confidence in the IPCC's 'peer review' system, hence the leaked emails.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | December 5, 2009 5:12 PM
JRM said, before disappearing into the abyss:
Did you look at the video? Then you haven't read the e-mails, right?
They didn't try to "fudge" any data. The issue is this (which you might have picked up had you read the e-mails): In an attempt to list several lines of concurring data on a chart, there's a difficulty with the tree-ring stuff. After about 1960 it shows temperatures declining. Now, there were thermometers in 1960, and every year since, and so we know what the the temperatures were.
Temperatures actually rose after 1960. You wish to deny it, but those are the facts (dispute it, you fecocephalic boor, I dare you). So, rather than post known-to-be-incorrect data, they "fudged" by substituting in actual temperature measurements. You know, the accurate, known stuff.
Here's the funny part: The resulting chart, with the "fudged" data, was wrong.
Here's the "Holy-Mother-of-God-Jesus-Mohammed-and-Buddha: The-Universe-is-trying-to-send-us-a-message" moment for you, especially, JRM: The chart projected temperatures for the future that were lower than the actual temperatures.
That's right: The chart showed global warming to be less serious than it really is.
So, after fudging the data, Mother Nature, God, the Universe, whatever power you wish to invoke, defied the scientists and warmed the Earth more than they projected.
These e-mails show chiefly that denialists don't even have shit for brains, since most shitheads could figure that out.
The universe is, indeed, sending us a message: The Earth's atmosphere is warming and is going to cook Rush Limbaugh's fat goose.
(You thought I was going to insult denialists, or say the message was we should dump them on some thinning Arctic ice, didn't you.)
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 5, 2009 5:13 PM
Pitiful musings of an ignorant sheep. It was the Illuminati, natch.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:15 PM
Those aren't dictionaries. Two of them are encyclopedias, and the one that is hosted at phys.utk.edu is part of a lecture syllabus.
<sigh>
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 5, 2009 5:16 PM
Wiley the fool, you may think so, but science will not give up on peer review, and it is still the gold standard. It is also obvious you don't understand what you are talking about. Sorry, there is no conspiracy, which makes everything you say looneytunes. And any system can be hacked. I have seen no smoking gun, because I know how science works. You can keep lying to yourself, but stop lying to us. We will call you what you are. A fuckwit is a polite term.Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 5:21 PM
West Antarctica only froze over acquired an ice shield 35 million years ago
Really! Are you sure it wasn't 35,000,1000 years ago? Or 34,999,000 years ago? Or maybe it was 33,550,000 Mya? What a fucking bullshitter you are. Nothing you say is credible.
I am the paleontologist here, not you.
Indeed, you are the bullshitting paleontologist here, not me.
I remember reading a paper that says it would take a few hundred years less.
I remember a report that hurricane Charlie was going to hit St. Petersburg at category three intensity, but it actually hit Punta Gorda at category four.
You could read this paper. Seismic reflection is a new and extremely useful technique for discerning ice sheet chronology, and has also recently been applied to the 'Lake Superior' Laurentide problem.
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/5/467
And you could compare those results with the proxies by reading Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World (2008) starting at page 55.
Or, you could continue talking out your ass.
You choice. Sooner or later I'll get bored.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | December 5, 2009 5:22 PM
Given the fact that we know that someone hacked RealClimate's server and uploaded the stolen files to it, what justifications do you have for thinking that the actual act of stealing the data wasn't also done by hacking?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:22 PM
I have enough of your inability to find ScienceBlogs entries. Read this, moron. And this, and this, and so on and so forth. Have a nice Sunday.
There isn't even such a thing as a peer-review system. Organizations don't get their own. You send a manuscript in for publication, and the editor sends it on to some of your colleagues that the editor chooses. They write up what's wrong with the manuscript, send those reports back to the editor, and the editor decides whether to let you correct the mistakes or to reject the manuscript altogether.
I'm speaking from experience, having published 4 papers so far. You, as is pretty clear, wouldn't know peer review if it bit you in the proverbial ass.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 5:24 PM
care to prove where the definition and application of it was wrong?
can't?
then I suppose you stop pretending like you know what you're talking about. David was correct in what he said, and you were not.
And we have BOTH kinds of music here too, Country AND Western!
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 5:24 PM
do you have a point, or do you just enjoy being a pain in the ass? because that right there was just a pile of pointless bull.Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 5:25 PM
Uh, actually, yes it was.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 5, 2009 5:28 PM
alright, #193 answered my question in #194; tommy the elf doesn't have anything of substance to contribute, he's just being a contrarian and possibly paranoid douche-canoe who likes to see/hear himself talk.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 5:31 PM
I believe the 'hack' was an inside job by a skeptic who has looked at the evidence and found that ACC is a crock, and he also has no confidence in the IPCC's 'peer review' system, hence the leaked emails.
That belief is one of many indications that you are a cretin.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:31 PM
Clarification of things that vile-y probably doesn't understand:
===========================
Fuck you. You know full well that I'm rounding to the next 5 million years. Stop lying.
And? The abstract says there was already inland ice in West Antarctica in the Oligocene. The Oligocene started when?
I don't have access to the rest of the paper here at home. See you Monday.
If it's not in Google Books or something, I can't get it anytime soon.
Posted by: Knockgoats | December 5, 2009 5:34 PM
Hey, it's wiley the lying cowardly little shit! Hi, wiley the lying cowardly little shit! Now, wiley the lying cowardly little shit, you think I'm going to ask you again whether an 11-year-old raped and impregnated by her father should be allowed an abortion. However, I'm not. I'm simply going to point out that on the thread An Australian double standard, you referred to abortion as "murder of unborn humans", and bloviated about "innocent unborn humans awaiting execution". Now, if you had actually believed those words reflected reality, you would of course have replied "No" to that question without hesitation or wriggling, the first time I asked it. After all, no-one could think the murder or execution of an innocent person could possibly be justified to save this unfortunate 11-year-old from her plight. So this was simply a pack of lies, wiley: dishonest, inflammatory rhetoric. You're a dog's turd, wiley - and one that any self-respecting dog would be thoroughly and rightly ashamed of producing.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 5:35 PM
I agree that he doesn't substantiate that claim (nor do I think it can be substantiated)
I take that back; sorry David.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 5:38 PM
The abstract says there was already inland ice in West Antarctica in the Oligocene.
Actually, no it says something entirely different.
The Oligocene started when?
33.55 Mya apparently.
If it's not in Google Books or something, I can't get it anytime soon.
That's weird that you say that, because I found it online in a few seconds. At the very least it convinced me that my understanding of Antarctic ice sheet origin and evolution was seriously flawed.
Are you the kind of person that can admit that? The only reason I pursued this is that it's relevant to another hypothesis of mine, which may in fact be entirely falsified by new research. That's my goal, if you haven't noticed, to falsify my hypotheses at a minimal cost to by checkbook.
I'm not quite sure what your goal is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the elucidation of truth.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:40 PM
Eocene world map, Oligocene world map, for that matter early Late Cretaceous world map. All with Antarctica in position over the South Pole (though the last barely so).
Check out the homepage.
Posted by: Torrie | December 5, 2009 5:40 PM
i posted on here and now it's gone
Posted by: Ema Nymton | December 5, 2009 5:42 PM
Gee.
Did anyone else notice that Martin Brock is a dumbass?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:53 PM
Really? How have I misinterpreted the following sentence?
Which is almost 34, and thus indistinguishable from my rounded 35. :-|
(The link I gave says 33.9 ± 0.1, which is even closer, not that it matters.)
I didn't – Google finds so many library catalogues and stuff that it's not on the first 5 pages of the 26,900 results, and Google Books finds it but says "no preview available" and doesn't let me see any of it. I'd be grateful for a direct link.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 5, 2009 5:54 PM
torrie, did your post (i assume that's what "it" refers to) have a lot of links in it?
sometimes, posts get caught in moderation for too many links, or accidental inclusion of flagged words. things never emerge from moderation. so if that's what happened to your post, it's dead.
Posted by: Knockgoats | December 5, 2009 5:55 PM
AGW alarmists clearly have a socio-political rationale. - Martin Brock
Those "AGW alarmists" include almost all the relevant scientific experts. Of course they have a socio-political rationale - they don't want global socio-political chaos as a result of rapid anthropogenic climate change, you unspeakably stupid fuckwit.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:56 PM
Because you're a spammer, asshole. :-) Not everyone here is an American and needs a cheap dentist...
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 5:56 PM
David, you posted some links to some weird maps with no correlation to the peer reviewed literature, and I posted a new and definitive National Academies review article with numerous links to the peer reviewed literature, which I read and then admitted that my understanding of Antarctic ice sheet origin and evolution was somewhat out of date. And in fact I learned something about the rapidity of ice sheet formation and continuity, and another application of seismic acoustic sounding spectroscopy which could very well help me verify or refute another contentious hypothesis of mine, which is directly applicable to the global warming climate change problem. That's why I post here, to learn things.
That being said, that doesn't make any the more 'right' than it makes my claims any the more 'wrong'. It only furthers the science, and illustrates the need for quantitative historical precision and qualitative trend recognition for future predictions. The trends in climate science are clear for anyone who is genuinely interested to see, much greater positive feedback participation, greater than expected sea level rises, numerous trigger points, many as yet unidentified, and a clear need for GHG remediation in addition to reduction and elimination. You are sitting on the wrong side of the fence on this.
You are disingenuous at the very least, and actively participating in scientific denial. I admit I can't understand your motivations at all. Maybe someone else can enlighten me, I vaguely only remember David as an obvious crank here.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 5:58 PM
bah, that's what i get for not looking at people's name-links. i ended up talking to a spammer. now i feel dirty
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 5:59 PM
Look at the link in torrie's name.
Fuck chaos. They don't want tens or hundreds of millions of people to die from flooding, starvation, and the like.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 5, 2009 6:03 PM
yes we know this. this stands in no relation to the fact that you're a paranoid, rambling, asshole with delusions of grandour. ROTFL... "everybody who doesn't admire my obvious superior smarts must be an AGW denier!!!!"idiot
Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 6:04 PM
Discussion/Conclusions section of Sorlien et al. 2007:
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 5, 2009 6:05 PM
note to self: type slower :-p
grandeur, not grandour; and there's one comma too many in there, too
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 6:08 PM
I said "check out the homepage" and even provided a direct link to it.
More paleogeographic maps: http://www.scotese.com – look at that guy's publication record (strangely, the most recent papers are at the bottom of the page), and then check out his early Late Cretaceous map where Antarctica is in its current place.
Yes, you did. It just doesn't support your point.
I don't disagree with any of this.
Really, I still think you completely misjudged me just because I used the word "stupid" way back in comment 45 in a discussion on terminology.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 6:09 PM
And we have are first cut and paste artist presentation of this thread! Prizes all around.
David, another few seconds of searching around found this interesting animation :
Power Point Antarctic Continental Drift Animation
You can clearly see the opening of the Drake passage at around 34 Mya, which was my understanding of this previous to this little online learning session.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 6:18 PM
So that paper supports the presence of inland ice in West Antarctica all the way to the early-late Oligocene boundary (28.4 ± 0.1 Ma ago) or the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (33.9 ± 0.1 Ma ago). Thanks, Josh!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 6:23 PM
You say that as if it were a bad thing.
I basically asked for it. I said, after all, that I only have access to the abstract here at home. "See you Monday" I wrote.
That's exactly the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, within the current uncertainty of dating.
Can't you provide a link to Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World (2008)?
Posted by: Pygmy Loris | December 5, 2009 6:24 PM
Did anyone see Al Gore on SNL a couple of weeks ago? He was pretty good.
link
Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 6:27 PM
Yes.
http://www.stratigraphy.org/upload/ISChart2009.pdf
http://www.geosociety.org/science/timescale/timescl.pdf
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 6:27 PM
Really, I still think you completely misjudged me just because I used the word "stupid" way back in comment 45 in a discussion on terminology.
Not at all, David, your continued posting has only reinforced my case that you continue to minimize, deny and rebuke the seriousness of the problem with first year college 101 course examples, as opposed to my serious, penetrating and unabated searching and presentation of the results of the most state of the art peer review scientific literature and references. It's two different approaches to science, and I don't claim they are the only approaches. My approach is aggressive by necessity, and your approach is weak and naive. I posit, as PZ does, that the aggressive and in your face approach to the publication and promotion of the most immediate and dire problems of science is the right approach, and this email hack only confirms that general hypothesis. I also posit and give your example (your postings) of the problems of denial in the so called 'established' scientific research community and their laissez faire and lackadaisical approach to nuttery and pseudo science, and my entire ten year posting history also confirms the validity of my approach.
I don't ignore the nuts, because they might be giants, but I also don't accommodate them when they are clearly demonstrated not be be the intellectual giants the imagine themselves to be. Just as I don't accommodate mediocrity in the sciences. It works both ways, in addition to a multiplicity of other ways as well. I don't claim to be an intellectual giant, but I'm not going to sit around and tolerate the kind of first year college mediocrity that people like you display when you comment out of your area of expertise, or like myself when I comment on out of date understanding of the issues. When I catch myself doing that, I get out there and solve the problem. I catch myself doing it because I'm rational and I constantly apply the Baez crackpot index as well as the Dunning-Kruger effect ... to myself.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 6:29 PM
*falls over laughing hysterically*Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 6:29 PM
Can't you provide a link to Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World (2008)?
Are you unable to cut and paste that into the search bar, or are you just anti-google? Try Bing or Yahoo.
Posted by: Kel, OM | December 5, 2009 6:30 PM
That was great, love the McExpert comment.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 6:31 PM
reading comprehension not your forte, huh? read this again:Posted by: Kel, OM | December 5, 2009 6:32 PM
Isn't it a bit hard to apply the Dunning Kruger effect to yourself? Well beyond the general sense of "I'm not really an expert on this subject" anywayPosted by: Joseph | December 5, 2009 6:36 PM
There's evidence that they tried some artificial corrections in code, marked with all-caps comments ("VERY ARTIFICIAL!!"). There's no evidence at all that they published these corrections/tests.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 6:41 PM
Isn't it a bit hard to apply the Dunning Kruger effect to yourself? Well beyond the general sense of "I'm not really an expert on this subject" anyway
So how long does it take an ordinary critical thinker with a broad foundational science education to read and understand the science behind the expert results with the totality of human knowledge at your fingertips, and numerous supercomputers sitting around in every room in the house? I don't claim to be an expert at anything except scientific research, and even then I'm losing my edge because I have to solve problems day by day as a result of the neglect of science in America over the last thirty years. I take on these kinds of problems, because they're mine.
It's a lot easier than you think for someone like me, who had to learn it the hard old fashioned way, than for somebody like David who was spoon fed everything he knows, or thinks he knows.
Dunning-Kruger is Baez redux for scientists.
Posted by: Josh
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December 5, 2009 6:43 PM
Are you asking me?
Which paper do you want? It's an edited conference proceedings volume.
For example, here is the Francis et al. (2008) article (the first one I found).
http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~ashworth/Francisetal_2008.pdf
Incidentally, their results are congruent with the onset of Antarctic ice sheets in the late Eocene or perhaps earliest Oligocene.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 6:45 PM
No. There is no consensus in favor of the theorized AGW catastrophe. The oft-repeated "consensus" asserts no more than an anthropogenic increase in CO2 concentration attributable largely to fossil fuels, a modest rise in average global temperature measurements in the last three decades of the 20th century and some connection between the former and the latter as a consequence of a CO2-induced greenhouse effect. I learned all of these facts from skeptics themselves during the debate over the Kyoto Protocols in the nineties.
That's the entirety of the only "consensus" I've seen demonstrated by any careful polling of climate scientists anywhere. In fact, widely cited polls are even less specific. The Doran survey is often cited, but the survey explores nothing alarming at all.
The Earth is warmer than it was in the nineteenth century, and human activity has something to do with it. That's it. So what? The Doran survey doesn't even quantify warming or specify "human activity" , much less inquire about models of future climate change or catastrophic effects or anything similar. This "consensus" is hardly news, because credible skeptics have conceded all of these facts for decades.
If you have evidence of some other "consensus" of "almost all relevant scientific experts", I'd like to see it. If the sky is really falling, if global, socio-political chaos is really imminent, where is your evidence? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Posted by: Carlie | December 5, 2009 6:47 PM
You see, David, Thomas is SERIOUS and PENETRATING.
I'd define him more as scattershot and sloppy, but that's just me. I don't know nothin' 'bout no climate science. (although I'm pretty damned sure I know where Antarctica's been for the last 50 million years)
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 6:50 PM
Wait, was he pissing at me about copying that discussion section?
You did basically ask for it. Geology is behind a firewall. I didn't bother to search for the paper (I didn't figure anyone would read it anyway). Rather, as I subscribe to Geology, I figured the simplest thing to do was just download the damn .pdf and copy the discussion, which is what I did.
That's somehow out of line or worthy of ridicule? What the fuck?
Posted by: Carlie | December 5, 2009 6:50 PM
Isn't it a bit hard to apply the Dunning Kruger effect to yourself? Well beyond the general sense of "I'm not really an expert on this subject" anyway
That would be a weird positive feedback loop creating an even stronger effect, wouldn't it?
I know that many people feel that they know more than they really know, therefore I do know that I am subject to this possibility, which means that I know more than I might even think I know about it, which means I really, really do know it.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 6:58 PM
Any of you global warming retards heard of the ICE AGE? The ice age peaked about 20K years ago and has been on the decline ever since. Why don't you clowns put your damn thesauruses away and use a little common sense. Your use of fancy words doesn't disguise your stupidity.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 7:03 PM
Yes, Bill. You caught us retards. Thanks for your major revelation that the planet would currently still be warming even if we never burned a single lump of coal. Thanks. None of us knew that.
Posted by: Joseph | December 5, 2009 7:05 PM
Has it been on the decline at a rate of 2C/century ever since? Wait, no, that would make the current temperature about 400C.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 7:13 PM
Josh,
We humans should all commit suicide and leave a note apologizing to the polar bears and fishies for how we nearly ruined their earth.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 7:14 PM
you first, bill.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 7:16 PM
2C/century. Words.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 7:17 PM
Numbers, actually. Did you have a point?
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 7:18 PM
Bill, tell that loudly to the Christians who think that the polar bears are here for our amusement.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 7:21 PM
My apologies. I've only been following this thread in a half-assed fashion. It seems that Thomas wanted this paper thrown out there.
Miller et al. 2008
http://geology.rutgers.edu/kgmpdf/08-Miller.PNASAnt.pdf
They're arguing for glaciations on Anarctica earlier than ~34Ma. I've only skimmed the paper, but it seems as though their stretching Eocene glaciations into actual ice sheet development (the two aren't the same thing), but again--I've only skimmed the paper.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 7:21 PM
Why do you "scientists" use Centigrade to report your brilliant findings? Why not use Farenheit? I know, its easier to hide your bullshit behind off the wall units of measure. If you spread the word that the earth was warming at a rate of 4F per century, that would be the last day that anyone would listen to your silly crap. Get a job.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 7:25 PM
Ah. Parody.
I hope.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 5, 2009 7:26 PM
ROTFLMAOit's because the USA is not the whole world. the rest of us prefers sane measuring units.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 7:27 PM
I'm the one who brought up Bangladesh and several other areas that will be in serious trouble before the end of the century.
You brought up the PETM instead. I pointed out that it's highly improbable that we'll get those conditions back. The geography is wrong for it (around Antarctica notably), there's no evidence so far that there are lots of unstable methane clathrates around, and while the current increase in greenhouse gases is incredibly fast, it can't go on for a sufficiently long time to reach PETM levels, because Peak Oil is around the corner and even coal won't last for centuries anymore.
So how come you accuse me of denying anything?
Yeah, two so far.
Why don't you post something on how likely a PETM redux is? Why don't you even try to either defend or retract your claim that the Solomon et al. paper predicts such a thing?
And I don't, or what?
Of course I do. You're trying to shoehorn me into a very strange category.
Neither do I. Hence the "stupid" in comment 45, and the rest of my discussion with you.
Hello? I described at quite some length what happened when I fed it both into Google and into Google Books.
I'll try Bing and Yahoo! tomorrow if the link in comment 229 turns out to be insufficient.
What a silly inference. I've spent hours and hours surfing the net just for the fun of it, and "fun" often means "primary literature" to a nerd like me. I've also read several papers on the PETM because I had to give a talk on it in a course called "Catastrophic Geology".
Which catastrophe exactly? Sea level rise of 1 m by 2100? Sea level rise of 3 m by 2100? How much drought where? Complete melting of the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica within this millennium? PETM redux?
That's not even remotely true. 8000 years ago it was considerably warmer than 80 or 800 years ago. The end of the last ice age was an event that took just a few decades and happened about 11,000 years ago.
You should get out less and read more about paleoclimatology.
The Dunning-Kruger effect has been mentioned pretty often in this thread. You exhibit it: you believe everyone knows just as little as you do.
Posted by: Randomfactor | December 5, 2009 7:29 PM
Ah. Parody.
Poerody?
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 7:30 PM
You folks are obviously intelligent. Use it constructively.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 7:31 PM
Also, the good Mr Fahrenheit had an extra silent h in his name...
Posted by: Andyo
|
December 5, 2009 7:35 PM
Now with bill angus there's a proper Dunning-Kruger case if I ever saw one in this thread.
Posted by: Katkinkate | December 5, 2009 7:36 PM
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM @ 20 "This is only a political issue in the USA. Elsewhere the parties at most disagree on what should be done about AGW, not whether it exists."
That may be true in general, David, but the internet has made the American madness freely accessible to the world and the 'AGW denial' seems to have gone viral here in Australia. Along with all the other great american 'debates' (evolution vs creationism, 911 conspiracies, moon landing conspiracies, islamic terrorism).
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 7:38 PM
Can't we just send a deep sea diver to tbe bottom of the ocean and open the drain for awhile? Has anyone thought of that? Why can't any of you fancy word guys come up with ideas like this??
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 7:39 PM
Hey David, the Miller et al. (2008) paper is an interesting read. I'm not sure I agree with everything they're saying yet (I want to dig into some of their references), but they're saying some interesting stuff. I haven't really followed the greenhouse ice in antartica question since the Moriya et al. (2007) paper, which I'm also going to re-read.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 5, 2009 7:39 PM
They do it just to confuse you, Bill. Every year there's a secret scientist convention where one of the topics is "What can we do to confuse Bill Angus?"
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 5, 2009 7:40 PM
The trends in climate science are clear for anyone who is genuinely interested to see, much greater positive feedback participation, greater than expected sea level rises, numerous trigger points, many as yet unidentified, and a clear need for GHG remediation in addition to reduction and elimination.
Yup.
You are sitting on the wrong side of the fence on this.
One of several unsupported, irrational, and apparently erroneous inferences you have made.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 7:46 PM
The rate since the seventies is closer to 1.6C/century, and attributing all of it to CO2 is a stretch, particularly since the similar warming at the beginning of the century is not related to anthropogenic greenhouse warming. The earlier warming could be related to other human activity, but other human induced warming does not imply a runaway effect, like your 400C rise.
Even if the temperature continues rising at 1.6C/century for another century, though it hasn't risen in this decade, the rise is not catastrophic, doesn't raise sea level 20 feet or anything similar. Current measured sea level rise, extrapolated similarly, is more less than a foot in a century. The sorts of climate change we actually observe are well within humanity's capacity to adapt, and effects changes are not necessarily negative at all, much less catastrophic. There's no rational justification for panic or extreme measures that likely wouldn't slow warming much anyway.
Posted by: Mike | December 5, 2009 7:49 PM
Good video. I love it when hack nitwits are shown for the fools they are. Good on the poster. =)
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 7:50 PM
I will enlighten you to one fact that you are apparently not aware of. Research funding is easily and quickly available to those whose "findings" will push the agenda. Keep this in mind when someone is telling you about all these papers published by Mr. et al and others.
Posted by: Will | December 5, 2009 8:05 PM
That those advocating AGW are, in this debate, bringing up right wing fanatics, guns and religion is pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Quit obscuring the argument. Clearly, this is about a world view not just for the denialists, this is about a world view for those concerned about global warming.
Stick to the topic on hand unless you have nothing to say about the topic on hand. You only do the conservative fanatics justice. Why must we become the silly, pathetic, ideologues we despise?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 5, 2009 8:05 PM
I apologize for comments 208 and 211, and indirectly 210. Judging from this thread, Torrie is an entirely serious commenter. Years of spam in my e-mail has made me paranoid about certain keywords.
bill angus, you're pretty funny (I'm still smiling over comments 252 and 258), but the problem with this kind of joke is that it can't be sustained. So better stop.
This uninformed claim has been thrashed to fine flour on Deltoid and probably one or two other ScienceBlogs over the last few months, and probably Real Climate, too. Have a nice Sunday.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 8:08 PM
Yes, there are a gazillion "research" dollars easily obtainable for those who will continue to flood us with this nonsense. We can thank Al Gore, the inventor of the internet and anthropogenic global warming. (anthropogenic? come on guys, this type of word doesn't impress anyone, please)
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 8:13 PM
Good question.
Why expect a sea level rise of 1 m by 2100? The trend throughout the 20th century was more like 20 centimeters per century and shows little sign of accelerating. Why expect this rate to increase more than five fold in this century, much more than five fold really because the rate must be five times greater on the average during this century for sea level to rise so much, and the rate is nowhere near five times greater now.
Why expect the rate to increase more than fifteen fold in this century?
You tell me. I don't have Cassandra's crystal ball.
Why limit ourselves to climate catastrophes? Why not another Tunguska-like event over a heavily populated area? That could kill millions. Why not two of them? We had one in the 20th century. Maybe two in a century is not so unlikely.
Why not a major earthquake along the San Andreas fault devastating much of the west coast of the U.S.?
Why not a major eruption of the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone?
Why not a nuclear war and nuclear winter?
Why not global starvation as we run out of natural gas and can't synthesize nitrogen fertilizers anymore?
Why not a global pandemic spread by increasing human mobility? Why not another infection as fatal as HIV and with a similar latency but far more contagious? How improbable is that?
Don't we need global organizations with trillion dollar budgets over the century to protect us from all of these possible calamities? Really. These events are not outside the realm of possibility at all.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 8:14 PM
Don't hide your bullshit behind fancy words. Oh yeah, if you were to use common, understandable vernacular, you would get flushed. You are no smarter than me or anyone else.
Posted by: guthrie
|
December 5, 2009 8:18 PM
Martin Brock #256 makes a number of major errors:
"The rate since the seventies is closer to 1.6C/century, and attributing all of it to CO2 is a stretch,"
No, its the truth (scientific truth), as established in various papers over the years.
"particularly since the similar warming at the beginning of the century is not related to anthropogenic greenhouse warming."
This fact is well known and the warming established as being mostly solar. CO2 (and other gases) forcing was much less at the start of the 20th century.
"The earlier warming could be related to other human activity, but other human induced warming does not imply a runaway effect, like your 400C rise."
What 400C rise are you on about?
"Even if the temperature continues rising at 1.6C/century for another century, though it hasn't risen in this decade,"
The trend is measured over 30 years and shows a clear upwards trend, and you can only make it constant this decade if you ignore 2005, like a good scientist would. Not.
"the rise is not catastrophic, doesn't raise sea level 20 feet or anything similar."
Given that we would be stuck with the higher temps for a century or three, we can expect the 20 foot rise over several centuries. And the expected rise will begin to have an effect this century.
"The sorts of climate change we actually observe are well within humanity's capacity to adapt,"
Climate change is only just beggining. Claiming that what we have seen now is ok, is like jumping off a tall building and saying "its going just fine" as you pass the 5th floor.
"and effects changes are not necessarily negative at all, much less catastrophic."
That is not at all clear from the science. Got any evidence to back you up?
"There's no rational justification for panic or extreme measures that likely wouldn't slow warming much anyway."
Whats extreme about 80% cuts in CO2 emissions in 40 years? Which would slow warming an appreciable amount, not to mention the acidifying ocean.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 8:18 PM
Here are the figures. Explain to me how the claim has been thrashed to fine flour.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 8:19 PM
Let's just wrap ourselves in bubble wrap and ride this baby out! Who knows what calamity will befall us? Oh the misery of it all.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 8:20 PM
Wow. I left for a bit, and it looks like Thomas Lee Elifritz really is the new Mark.
That's not a compliment, Thomas Lee Elifritz.
Posted by: guthrie
|
December 5, 2009 8:20 PM
As for funding, the AEI was offering $10,000 for essays critical of AGW and the IPCC back in 2006:
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/AEI.pdf
Remind me again who has all the money?
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 8:25 PM
Well, these two aren't hyperbole. We're pretty certain that they're going to happen. Neither is really worth stewing over, though, since the solutions* to these two threats aren't really practical.
*Beyond what earthquake engineering is being done.
Posted by: MartinM | December 5, 2009 8:25 PM
Try working out the error bars on those linear trends.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 8:25 PM
"No, its the truth (scientific truth), as established in various papers over the years"
hey guthrie, these "papers" would be best used to wipe ones ass.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 8:27 PM
Josh, The solution to the so-called AGW IS practical??
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 8:28 PM
Martin Brock's link defines "this decade" to have begun in October, 2000.
Here we have "this decade" starting in January, 2000, seemingly more reasonable to me.
Perhaps Martin didn't choose to start his plot at january, 2000 because it really hasn't cooled this decade.
Regardless, anyone with any comprehension of statistics understands that when screwing with end points causes a linear regression to flip from negative to positive, you've got a significance issue. In particular, this little exercise should make understandable the reason why WMO set the 30 year standard for looking at trends.
Posted by: Brad | December 5, 2009 8:30 PM
Thanks for learnin me a new word, PZ. I hadn't seen "febrile" before. Thanks also to Bill Angus and others for demonstrating its meaning.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 8:33 PM
I gotta go guys, South Park is on. Get back with ya soon!
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 8:34 PM
*shrug*
I'm not sure what the solution is. I do know, however, that at some point we are going to have to move away from oil, natural gas, and coal. That's a simple observation. And it's an observation that, ultimately, is completely divorced from CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
Posted by: bill angus | December 5, 2009 8:41 PM
"at some point we are going to have to move away from oil, natural gas, and coal."
not practical.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 8:44 PM
No, the degree of warming attributable to CO2 alone is a scientific controversy. Most climatologists agree that some warming is attributable to a CO2-induced greenhouse effect, but Truth is harder to come by than you imagine.
Read the post I quoted.
I never deny a 30 year trend. I don't even assert significance over this decade, but here are the data from four different measurements, all including 2005, so I don't know what you're talking about.
I see no evidence of a rise of 20 feet even over a millenium, but even if such a rise occurs, much more than climate changes over a millenium, so I'm not panicking. Human civilization will be unrecognizable to us in another millenium. "An effect this century" doesn't alarm me either. I expect countless effects this century. You need something more specific to alarm me.
No. There's a world of difference between what we see now and falling off a tall building. Surely, you can make this distinction.
You're asking me to prove a negative. You're asserting a catastrophe and then laying on me the burden of proving you wrong. Positive effects of increased CO2 concentration, like increased crop yields, are well established. It's just factually incorrect to say that increased CO2 concentration has no possible benefits.
If expecting an 80% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050 makes you feel better, you can expect it. I don't know how much harm it would do. I doubt the harm of not doing it, and I imagine many harms of regulatory regimes like cap and trade. The corporatist potential of cap and trade is impossible to dismiss.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 8:46 PM
Once again, "this decade" didn't start in October, 2000. It started in January, 2000.
Nor is nine years actually ten years, if that's the use of "this decade" you're trying to use.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
|
December 5, 2009 8:55 PM
bill angus #263
My cat is smarter than you.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 9:01 PM
there's no evidence so far that there are lots of unstable methane clathrates around, and while the current increase in greenhouse gases is incredibly fast, it can't go on for a sufficiently long time to reach PETM levels
Cuz some guy says so on the 'intertoobz'.
I love it when cranks use the term 'no evidence'.
I retract what I said. You don't need Dunning-Kruger, you need Baez. Desperately.
I can also recommend sci.skeptic for you. They're gonna love you over there.
That's not a compliment, Thomas Lee Elifritz.
Can you explain to me why I should give a fuck what you say about me good or bad, again, because I must have missed the part where I should care.
Posted by: jojame | December 5, 2009 9:04 PM
If this is the best defense of the e-mails there is then you know you're in trouble.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 5, 2009 9:04 PM
Once upon a time I had a certain level of respect for you. If you don't mind the loss of that respect, fine. Be an ass who intentionally misconstrues what others write. Be a Mark. Be a bigger fuckhead than Mark, if you want.
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | December 5, 2009 9:07 PM
We just need to make more, right?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 9:10 PM
I don't know nothin' 'bout no climate science. (although I'm pretty damned sure I know where Antarctica's been for the last 50 million years)
Then tell us where it has been, all that time, exactly. I'm pretty sure it has been pretty close to Tierra del Fuego most of that time according to the billion year power point animation of its movement. Just as I'm sure South America has been pretty close to North America near the Isthmus of Panama all of that time too. It's amazing the amount of rapid changes in climate and flora and fauna that even very small movements of continents can create when connections are made or broken, dontcha think? Now get out there and 'geterdone'!
You betcha. Darn tootin.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 9:15 PM
Be a Mark. Be a bigger fuckhead than Mark, if you want.
I guess I don't have to explain to you that I could not give a fuck who 'Mark' is, and why you have an 'email problem' where no problem actually exists.
I won't bother to explain to you either why I don't think you so called 'climate scientists' will ever grow a set of balls either. You'll just have to figure that out for yourself, I have much bigger fish to fry. If a thousand posts on climate science blogs doesn't do it, that you probably never will figure out what works. Hint : performing the same experiment over and over and expecting different results is known as 'irrationatity' in the intellectual world I inhabit.
Posted by: Rick Heller | December 5, 2009 9:16 PM
There is a convergence between those who deny evolution and those who deny anthropogenic global warming, as shown by a Pew Poll that shows 84 percent of scientists believe in AGW and 87 percent in natural selection (that seems kinda low).
There are a few libertarians among the global warming skeptics who probably believe in evolution, but these are true believers of a different kind. Real skeptics like Michael Shermer flipped to accepting AGW.
The idea that scientists are faking data in order to get rich off grants is absurd. The idea that radio personalities and PR people are getting rich by smearing scientists is not so absurd.
Posted by: Carlie | December 5, 2009 9:23 PM
Thomas, you seem to have missed the fact that you are not the only scientist on this thread, and are not the only scientist who has studied global climate change. If you'd get over yourself for a second, you might be able to participate in an actual discussion.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 9:25 PM
Once upon a time I had a certain level of respect for you.
But now you have the evangelical Christian Barton Paul Levinson on your side! He will save you with his pleasant and effective debating skills, eh, O' so astute 'trapper of wild animals'?
Hint : I neither want nor need your respect. Your respect is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for my understanding of the physical world.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 5, 2009 9:26 PM
Do you have actual literature citations for that?
And define close. How far away is it now?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 9:33 PM
Thomas, you seem to have missed the fact that you are not the only scientist on this thread, and are not the only scientist who has studied global climate change. If you'd get over yourself for a second, you might be able to participate in an actual discussion.
Why should I discuss climate science when I can actively research it, right here and now as this so called discussion proceeds? The level of discussion here has barely elevated itself above the noise. Discussion would require the ability to post rapid fire multiple links, which this software doesn't support. Hopefully NatGeo or whoever will fix that, but this is terrible blog software, and itself has only gotten to the point of minimal usefulness.
And I notice no actual climate scientists have arrived here yet. You totally misunderstand how I operate. That vast majority of people here are lurkers, for the obvious reasons. I'm posting for their benefit, not yours. And I'm pretty sure you totally misunderstand how my publishing effort proceeds as well. You don't get the ear of the President, who is the person that counts here, by simply publishing peer reviewed scientific papers.
And surely you know I do have the ear of the president and his entire staff, and everyone else who matters in Washington (I'm not referring to our elected senators and representatives either).
Now, let's talk ... weatherization ... and jobs.
Do you get it, yet? Somehow, I doubt it, but I have a bad habit of giving people the benefit of doubt ... until they open their fucking mouths.
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | December 5, 2009 9:43 PM
Shermer is intelligent, and a prominent skeptic, and does lots of great work, but to be an environmental "skeptic" in 2006, against the prevalent scientific opinion, when you know the basic science that would make it so, but you are not an expert in that field and are not aware of a credible mechanism that would prevent it happening - that is shameful.
Damn right he flipped. Eventually.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 9:43 PM
And define close. How far away is it now?
Far enough to make the roaring forties one hell of a ride, and the fifties furious. Why don't you post a free use version of that paper, maybe Geology will sue you. I'm more interested in the Andrill stuff, and Nature has a much better free use policy. I guess I'll just have to wait for National Geographic cleans up the mess that has become science blogs software before I can start posting multiple links and start doing real time science in the manner in which I have been accustomed to lately, and then you can look at all the lovely full page ads and stuff. That whole getting out into the cold and driving and walking miles to the University research libraries is so ... eighties.
Dontcha just love the commercialization and politicization of science?
Posted by: Rorschach | December 5, 2009 9:55 PM
Kw*k, is that you ??
TLE, if you're so darn important and in the ear of the President, maybe you shouldn't be wasting your time on weblogs and go back to saving the planet instead.
Posted by: Valkyrie | December 5, 2009 9:56 PM
So here's something I found interesting. Some AGW-is-fake conspiracy theorist says that the scientists were going to "Add in the real temps... to hide the decline in world temperature."
Add the real temperature. To hide the real temperature.
Show the temperature trend. To hide the temperature trend.
Does he hear the words coming out of his mouth? Even without knowing anything else about the emails, anyone with more than two functioning brain cells should see the problem here.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 9:58 PM
if you're so darn important and in the ear of the President, maybe you shouldn't be wasting your time on weblogs and go back to saving the planet instead.
Because this is so entertaining as well as productive, considering the number of lurkers outnumber the number of posters by orders of magnitude. National Geographic Magazine agrees.
And besides, you retards won't do anything at all unless it is entertaining.
Posted by: Carlie | December 5, 2009 10:11 PM
Interesting that someone who thinks that this blogging software is sub-par because he can't do "multiple rapid-fire links" himself has a web page that appears to be entirely broken.
And perhaps you have the ear of the president, but you work in what, superconductivity? That's... not climatology.
I'm not really seeing a lot of evidence of your science credentials, here. Unfortunately my main database gateway is down at the moment, but I'm not having any luck finding you in the ones I can get to, except for one paper on superconductivity and the periodic table. So I'm a little confused as to why you're painting yourself as such an expert who is head and shoulders above everyone else here, especially since you've been insulting scientists whose fields are much closer to the subject than yours.
Posted by: Hank Roberts | December 5, 2009 10:23 PM
> totally misunderstand how I operate
http://www.google.com/search?q=elifritz+cosmic+lifeform
Search for a pattern.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 10:28 PM
Elifritz,
A directory of files does not a web site make. There are free content management systems out there, and even sites that will host them for you.
Posted by: Carlie | December 5, 2009 10:30 PM
and everyone else who matters in Washington (I'm not referring to our elected senators and representatives either).
The Illuminati?
The Freemasons?
The Scientologists?
The Salahis?
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 5, 2009 10:33 PM
Illuminati, for sure.
Posted by: Epikt | December 5, 2009 10:35 PM
Martin Brock:
Lindzen's hypothesis--that the iris effect leads to a fairly strong negative feedback--hasn't been widely supported despite a number of attempts to replicate the results. At this point it seems likely that the relevant feedback is small and positive.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 10:39 PM
Tommy boy,
Wikipedia aint never heard of ya.. And you a famous scientist and all that.
OTOH Google has about 2500 entries on you, which makes you 'bout as famous as me (Google "mythusmage" for details). If that don't deflate your ego. :)
Posted by: Valkyrie | December 5, 2009 10:44 PM
Maybe I shouldn't get involved here, but...
As a (mostly)lurker, I would like to point out that you come off as an ass. David is a regular who often makes interesting and informative comments, as is, in fact, pretty much everyone else you've managed to piss off since you started commenting. Your complaint about the inability to post rapid-fire links (cramping your scientific style?) is silly. This is a blog. Its purpose is discussion; posts that are just long lists of links are likely to be spam.
And anyway, informal discussion is valuable. Sometimes the peer-reviewed literature isn't enough, especially for non-experts. Discussion allows us to clarify information that may be confusing to someone not familiar with the field. Perhaps the language used in that clarification is not precise enough for your discerning taste, but if everyone comes away with the right idea, then it was worth it.
And stop talking about what a serious researcher you are. It's pompous.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 10:46 PM
BTW, the fourth listing in the Google list shows one Andrew Langer's exposure to Tommy Boy. I think David Marjanovic will be pleased to learn that TB (for his blatherings are quite consumptive) has refrained (so far) from calling him a "science nigger".
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 11:05 PM
What, no wiki page? I am outraged! And no crank.net listing either! Not even a usenet crackpot listing.
Just a single funniest post ever nomination. Oh my.
Posted by: mythusmage
|
December 5, 2009 11:06 PM
Correction: Googling "mythusmage" gives you about 88,000 results, though the first link listed is to a site I have no control over. As you can see, not only am I better known than TB, somebody thinks it's actualy worth their while to pretend to be me. :)
Yo, Consumptive, anybody try pretending to be you?
Posted by: Epikt | December 5, 2009 11:08 PM
Carlie, re Elifritz:
If you can eventually get into Elifritz's "website," have a look at Academic Record.doc, assuming he doesn't take it down.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 11:08 PM
TLE has so far refrained ...
Are you gonna report me to the thought police?
Or the speech police?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 11:09 PM
I'm not really seeing a lot of evidence of your science credentials
OMG! Ding ding ding ... we have our first credentialist of the thread! Cigars all around.
Posted by: Bobber
|
December 5, 2009 11:13 PM
Oooooooohhhhkay....
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 5, 2009 11:19 PM
According to Spencer et al. in Geophysical Research Letters 34, '07 and Lindzen et al. in Geophysical Research Letters 36, '09 the effect is negative. I don't know the basis for your sense of likelihood.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 5, 2009 11:19 PM
@308:
quoted for, uh, grins, I guess
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 5, 2009 11:22 PM
Ibid.:
w...wow
Posted by: EricB | December 5, 2009 11:27 PM
Sent an email to Glenn Beck for a response to this WONDERFUL video...I doubt I get a response, but I sure would love to hear his befuddling response....it should be a gem.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 5, 2009 11:28 PM
You guys are really missing out on how science progresses, and that is the whole point of the email post. Science mostly operates in the background just like this, people haggling over the little details.
David waves his arms furiously and says no PETM like temperature spike will be recorded on the ambient climate, I say it will, with the usual caveats that it's a lot cooler now, Antarctica is in place, and it's happening at a rate 10 times or more faster.
David gives us a bunch of college level posters and I dig down deep into the muck and dredge up some conference papers. Who ya gonna believe.
Who ya gonna call. Compare Milankovitch forcing and peninsular isolation to supervolcanoes and industrialization, or even cosmic impacts. Think about what happens when glacial lakes burst their dams, whether it be by natural catastrophe or bolide. Think about Greenland and West Antarctica melting over short geological time. And then compare those models with what we can see happening today, oceanic current dynamics, atmospheric wind dynamics, methane outgassing, ocean acidification and rapid carbon conversion. The various models are consistent from whatever particular approach you take in analyzing the geological forces involved and the statistics worked over the observations, we are headed for a massive atmospheric and geochemical spike in climate if we continue on the emissions path we are on. Some may call that fun, as if seasonal fluctuations and ordinary storms aren't hard enough. Most people's problem is that when you talk about one hundred years, they just don't care anymore. That's the bottom line right there.
So have fun deluding yourself that most good science and engineering doesn't involve a bunch of contentious emails and shouting matches, particularly when it comes to public policy.
Anybody watch Holdren and Lubchenko the other day? Live, in real time on the intertoobz. What a hoot.
Posted by: Epikt | December 5, 2009 11:37 PM
Martin Brock:
A half-dozen or so publications by people who aren't Lindzen or Spencer. I'm not going to look them up right now, given how late is. If I'm feeling civil in the morning, I'll post them.
Posted by: Epikt | December 5, 2009 11:46 PM
For now, there's this, with references at the end. It's rather old, and I have some newer stuff floating around somewhere.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 12:04 AM
The previous link began in October because I copied it from another page and didn't notice. Here are the series starting from January. The rate is significantly less than the post '70 trend and hardly seems greater than zero statistically. The LLS software at WoodForTrees.org doesn't display a standard deviation for the slope.
A significant increase certainly occurred in these measurements in the late 20th century. No one disputes this fact. You could say that the increase extended into 2000, but the assertion is practically meaningless, because a year is not enough time to measure a significant trend in these data. The previous link seems to start after "the end of the increase", but this "end" has no definite, statistically significant point in time, and I'm not making an issue of it. I just didn't notice the October start.
The warming has certainly declined significantly over a decade. This change in the measurements is no longer controversial. AGW modelers must explain it now, because they didn't predict it.
"This decade" refers to the current decade, that began in January, 2000. The data at WoodForTrees.org are continually updated, so the series extend further now than the last time I had this discussion and reach practically to the end of 2009. We see practically a complete decade, the decreased warming is very apparent and significant, and hardly any significant warming is measured. I don't pretend to predict the next decade.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 12:18 AM
Thank you so much, so why did you post claims linking to 2000.75, which any child understands is not January?
Liar.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 12:20 AM
Oh gosh, you copied something from a lying fuckwad, and didn't notice, because you don't fucking care.
OK.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 12:24 AM
Thank you for agreeing that it's insignificant, statistically, which is why the WMO way back in 195x chose 30 years as it's trend length.
Because, like, dude, even if you're a fucking idiot, climate scientists understand that La Niña and El Niño events happen.
And that we've just come through a La Niña event ...
And that we're in a solar minimum (separate issue, but if it's "all the sun", why is this decade the warmest on record???)
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 12:24 AM
Being not Lindzen and Spencer is irrelevant. Fu et al. also found a negative but smaller feedback in '02 shortly after Lindzen proposed the effect. Interest in the effect is increasing again now, because new observations need an explanation. I'm not suggesting that Lindzen has found the Truth, and I don't believe he has.
I'd still like to see an AGW model predicting this decade before it started. I doubt that any model can meaningfully predict global climate change decades in the future, with or without Lindzen's effect, but I expect a confirmation bias in models attempting to predict AGW.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 12:28 AM
Typical goal-post move ... first it was "cooling, not warming" now he says, "less warming".
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 12:33 AM
Of course, models never have said they'll predict any individual La Niña events.
Yet, the 2000 decade is the warmest on record ... how exactly does this increase in warming on a decadal timescale disprove models???
You've been pawned over previous bullshit, maybe it's time for you to join the circle-jerk at Watts' blog, or McI's.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 12:37 AM
But of course, you don't ask that Lindzen et al make such model predictions, since they have none, yet you are all like "he proves models wrong!"
Classic denialism - you insist on a higher standard for those you disagree with, than you do for Lindzen et al (despite sympathetic attempts to back up his claims with observation).
Tch, tch, you're a denier.
Posted by: Dave | December 6, 2009 12:43 AM
An e-mail to a friend:
Hi!!
Regarding global warming, we talk about who to believe. Sometimes people are easier to believe when they are well spoken or charismatic. Take Al Gore or David Suzuki for example.
Have you ever read McLeans Mark Steyn? Here's another intelligent person who has no problem speaking his mind. He is on the "other" side though. So if, like me, you are somewhat undecided on the whole climate change issue .... what are you supposed to think after reading an article like this, and as importantly, reading the comments section?
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/03/the-science-of-global-warming/
Dave :)
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 12:45 AM
So I'm happy to wait another 30 years before committing a trillion dollars to avoiding a hypothetical catastrophe based on a single 30 year measurement that doesn't indicate catastrophic warming anyway.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 12:50 AM
Of course, I do. I never say that Lindzen "proves models wrong". I doubt the models with or without Lindzen's effect. You simply ignore the statement. You only bicker with yourself here.
Posted by: wiley | December 6, 2009 12:55 AM
@#199
I can see the topic has you rattled, if not totally unhinged. Have you got blood on your hands; in need of forgiveness? Does your gaze ever descend on your only son, making you wonder how you could have allowed/ordered the execution of (another) one so innocent? God himself would know how you feel about that. Guilt is a bad trip, but the remedy is at hand.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 12:57 AM
Thanks for all your free advice guys, but I went through all that markup text editor, static, dynamic, java script kiddie, cgi, php, AJAX, apache, canned content, wordpress phase stuff already. A flashy website does not a scientist make. Anybody wanna buy a couple of domain names, real cheap?
I'm only interested in spamming you for fun, thanks! I just like to take a dive back into the pool every once in a while, that swimming around in the ocean for a living is for the dolphins, and the sharks.
Weatherization and jobs. Think it through, you can do it. How does one go about influencing policy, anyways. Now try to imagine hot water without electricity and natural gas. Then you will know why America is so far behind in competitiveness.
Posted by: Dave | December 6, 2009 1:05 AM
GAWD Thomas
I hope you're not Canadian. We've enough idiots bashing Americans with pompous unearned arrogance up here already.
Dave
Posted by: evil9000
|
December 6, 2009 1:10 AM
Nice, can you find the next video which explains a couple more of these silly things away, like:
1. Trying to avoid FOI requests
2. Deleting data to do with FOI requests
3. Telling about 10 people to delete anything to do with a specific FOI request
4. Organising the dismissal of science journal editors who publish skeptical papers
5. Trying to "hide" the Medeval Warming period
6. Colluding to change the meaning of 'peer review' for the climate science field
Looking forward to more 'sane' programming on this blog soon! :-)
Posted by: Kel, OM | December 6, 2009 1:22 AM
Yes, because a vast conspiracy is much more applicable than simply those who aren't climate scientists for the most part misrepresenting things they don't academically understand...Posted by: Steven Sullivan | December 6, 2009 1:23 AM
"I'm not quite sure what your goal is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the elucidation of truth."
Are you a hopeless hair-trigger crank, Mr. Elfritz? Because you sure are coming off like one.
David M. is basically on *your side* of the AGW 'debate', you fool.
Posted by: Dave | December 6, 2009 1:28 AM
I agree evil9000 I am quite unsure as who to believe anymore, but these questions need to be addressed. I've noticed that it seems to have been settled by the people who are "global warming mongers" (for there is always to extreme camps isn't there?) that it was "obviously" a hacker with denialist intentions rather than an insider who was disconcerted by what he felt was wrong that leaked these e-mails. Who leaked the e-mails? Or who hacked them? There are more than enough fair questions that PZ and his minions ignore that make one even more suspicious. Why are they withholding information? Why are the manipulating information? How do we know the information they are providing is accurate?
Over and above all that. What are the solutions being presented at Copenhagen? Will we have a say in whether or not these solutions appear valid?
Dave
Dave
Posted by: wiley | December 6, 2009 1:30 AM
@#333
Good points, evil9000. I expect the blog's mainstream residents to respond with the usual balance of invective and abuse any time soon, and who can blame them, they only closing ranks around their fellow Liars For Gaia.
Posted by: Kel, OM | December 6, 2009 1:30 AM
The problem with non-renewable energies is eventually they run out... Switching to renewable energy sources is inevitable eventually.Posted by: Kel, OM | December 6, 2009 1:34 AM
So basically anyone who points out that the "scepticism" surrounding the significance of the emails is grasping at straws is nothing more than being "Liars For Gaia"? You'd think that there was something really damning in those emails, not a few sentences that could be taken as bad but real smoking gun evidence. Yet pointing out that there's insufficient evidence to justify calling this smoking gun evidence?Shit wiley, you've caught us out... *roll*
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
|
December 6, 2009 1:43 AM
Oh my. Da cranks du jour are still ravin' on about this hilariously weak tea?
Man. All this shit 'bout some stolen, cherry-picked smack found in the stolen email of a couple of harassed-by-disingenuous-wanks-unto-death climate scientists... I mean, wow, guys...
I mean, what... have they nothin' better to do with their time? I mean, I'd think they'd be goin' on and on about how global mean temperatures aren't rising, the cryosphere isn't melting, and CO2 concentrations aren't increasing... and... erm...
Oh. Right. And that'd be because global mean temperatures are rising*, as is the sea level**, the cryosphere is melting***, and 2005 CO2 concentrations were at levels far outside the natural range for the past 650,000 years... And more recent reports are really no prettier...
(/Guess in those circumstances, they probably would figure they're better off talking about email, wouldn't they?)
*For instance, 11 of the 12 years 1996-2006 were among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record (since 1850), the linear warming trend from 1956-2005 was nearly twice that for 1906-2005.
**Global average annual sea level increase 1.8mm from 1961 to 2003, 3.1 1993 to 2003, tho' we can still reasonably hope the latter might just be more a short term blib, at least.
***Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk 2.7% per decade since 1978, mountain glaciers and snow cover on average have declined in both hemispheres.
(All figures IPCC AR4)
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 1:46 AM
The decreased warming over this decade is significant, statistically, so I don't agree. You presumably intended to say that the decrease is not significant in terms of AGW, because other statistically significant effects, like la Nina and the solar minimum, can counter a longer term AGW trend over a decade. I don't disagree, but other effects could counter the assumptions of AGW models over decades as well.
My only assumption is that anthropogenic CO2 alone does not warm the globe a lot and that global climate is much more complex than these models. I don't pretend to know which effects on global temperature will be most significant in the future. I only assume that you don't know either.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 2:01 AM
Except that credible skeptics of catastrophic climate change don't deny any of it. They only dispute the catastrophic spin. Christy agrees with everything you've written here, but he adds that observed rates of warming and sea level rise are not alarming and antartic ice is not shrinking.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 2:13 AM
The peak production of conventional oil in the foreseeable future seems a more credible proposition than catastrophic climate change. I won't be shocked to see $100/barrel oil and $4.00/gallon gasoline again in the near future.
Posted by: Utakata | December 6, 2009 2:37 AM
@ Kel, OM #339
...ROFL? :)
*Liars for Gia* I like how they are now lumping us with New Agers...when we couldn't disagree with NA's more. This only shows how silly and irrational these so called "global warming skeptics" have become...they stoop to name calling instead of actually bringing in credible evidence that may give us pause.
Posted by: Vene
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December 6, 2009 2:41 AM
What I want from the denialists is a model other than rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to explain this.
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM | December 6, 2009 3:09 AM
Utakata, wiley is a godbot of the lowest class. He cannot think of outside of his own little boundaries, therefore he can only describe atheists in religious terms. Also, I think he is a little tired of being called a liar for jesus and is trying to turn the tables. Supergenius lacks the intellectual muscle to do so.
Posted by: Andyo
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December 6, 2009 4:18 AM
Seems all denialists fall into the same pattern sooner or later. They get criticized for their idiotic religious faith, suddenly atheism is "just another religion". They get called Liars for Jesus, and then, we are Liars for Gaia.
Invent your own insults you disingenuous bastards.
Posted by: Andyo
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December 6, 2009 4:27 AM
Where the F did this one come from?
Posted by: Rorschach | December 6, 2009 4:44 AM
God knows.....
Posted by: Knockgoats | December 6, 2009 5:01 AM
Ah, I see we have a pile of stinking racist filth visiting. Hi, pile of stinking racist filth!
wiley@330,
Wrong, pusbucket. I am responsible for exactly one pregnancy, which produced my much-loved son. I just loathe lying, cowardly little shits like you.
Posted by: John Morales | December 6, 2009 5:25 AM
This C_K specimen is particularly weird.
Posted by: Knockgoats | December 6, 2009 5:27 AM
evil9000,
An investigation has been launched, headed by Sir Muir Russell http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/dec/homepagenews/CRUreview. No doubt if this fails to substantiate the most absurd claims, it will simply be dismissed.
1. Trying to avoid FOI requests
Like most serious climate scientists, the CRU people have been continually harassed by demands for data from people who don't know how to use it, and in most cases have no no intention of doing so: as soon as they get it, they move on to the next demand. The intention is simply to waste climate scientist's time. FOI requests were refused in some cases because the data was from national weather bureau that had not given permission for its release.
2. Deleting data to do with FOI requests
No evidence this has happened that I am aware with. The only data deleted was deleted in the 1980s, when the CRU moved premises, long before this harassment began. This data was from weather stations around the world, and should be recoverable. If you can remember back to the 1980s, you will know that large datasets then took up a lot of tape storage.
3. Telling about 10 people to delete anything to do with a specific FOI request
Telling people to delete emails (there is no evidence they did so) may have been wrong, but is neither criminal nor scientific fraud. In view of the criminal hacking that has recently occurred, and the lies and distortions resulting from it, it might have been sensible to delete all emails once no longer of current interest.
4. Organising the dismissal of science journal editors who publish skeptical papers
If an editor consistently prints below-standard papers, they are not doing their job. If any editor was forced to leave simply for printing papers that disagreed with the consensus, that is certainly wrong.
5. Trying to "hide" the Medeval Warming period
No evidence any such thing happened.
6. Colluding to change the meaning of 'peer review' for the climate science field
The two papers referred to appeared in the IPCC 2007 report, so if this comment was meant seriously, it was not followed up, or the attempt failed.
In summary, I'm not claiming there was no misconduct at all at CRU; I don't know, and will wait for the inquiry report. However, it is already fairly clear that nothing can be substantiated that is in any way comparable with the denialist lies and distortions that have followed the hacking - the absurd claims that climate science as a whole is a gigantic conspiracy, and that AGW has been disproved. It remains the case that the only crime for which there is evidence is the hacking and publication of the emails.
Posted by: Andyo
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December 6, 2009 5:29 AM
Methinks someone went to the kook repository and called in a couple of their guys.
Posted by: John Morales | December 6, 2009 5:40 AM
C_K @356, it's an idiom.
Posted by: John Morales | December 6, 2009 5:45 AM
Nah, you're a troll. And an inferior one, to boot.
Posted by: Rorschach | December 6, 2009 5:47 AM
The thread clearly has been taken over by lunatics...unfortunate that..
Posted by: Frank | December 6, 2009 5:52 AM
Oh noes! Concern Trolls ARE CONCERNED.
Posted by: John Morales | December 6, 2009 6:08 AM
I've been watching potholer54's videos on climate change, and found them most informative.
I do wish some of the denialists would look at them before repeating refuted claims.
Posted by: maureen brian | December 6, 2009 6:12 AM
After 360-odd posts I have no idea what Thomas Lee Elifritz is trying to communicate to us. His ego keeps getting in the way.
So, only slightly off topic, allow me to recommend something in the tradition of Michael Faraday and at the very place where he began communicating science to a mixed audience of scientists and lay people.
Yes, I know it is basic - it's part of the series for the kids!
It also fits very nicely with one of our more recent discussions.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 6, 2009 6:24 AM
Just what this thread needed, a racist spewing his hatred.
Posted by: guthrie
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December 6, 2009 6:31 AM
"No, the degree of warming attributable to CO2 alone is a scientific controversy. Most climatologists agree that some warming is attributable to a CO2-induced greenhouse effect, but Truth is harder to come by than you imagine."
No, the actual fact is that warming is attributed to a variety of gases, including CO2 and methane, and there are the usual estimates of their effect plus error bars. Its not due to the sun, cosmic rays, of people leaving their fan heaters on all night. Why you continue to dance around this problem is not clear at all.
"I never deny a 30 year trend. I don't even assert significance over this decade, but here are the data from four different measurements, all including 2005, so I don't know what you're talking about."
I'm talking about the irrelevance of moaning about how the temps havn't risen over 10 years.
"I see no evidence of a rise of 20 feet even over a millenium, but even if such a rise occurs, much more than climate changes over a millenium, so I'm not panicking. Human civilization will be unrecognizable to us in another millenium. "An effect this century" doesn't alarm me either. I expect countless effects this century. You need something more specific to alarm me."
I'm not out to alarm you. WE can expect 20 foot rise in the next few hundred years, and we can also expect dangerous oceanic acidification within this century as well. I'm sure human society will be very different in 1000 years, but whether we'll be extinct or living in an SF utopia, who knows. But leaving the problem till then is not an option.
"No. There's a world of difference between what we see now and falling off a tall building. Surely, you can make this distinction."
Nope, there is no distinction in terms of accumulating dangers in our future. The whole point is that it is a metaphor.
"You're asking me to prove a negative. You're asserting a catastrophe and then laying on me the burden of proving you wrong. Positive effects of increased CO2 concentration, like increased crop yields, are well established. It's just factually incorrect to say that increased CO2 concentration has no possible benefits."
So you don't want to prove a negative, then provide a line of evidence? Why, how kind of you. Unfortunatley that line of evidence is shot to bits, in that plants have different responses to co2 dependong on the lack of other variables such as water. And some, like Kudzu, really like more CO2. Did I mention ocean acidification? And the melting glaciers which feed rivers in highly populated parts of the world like India? Or the loss of winter ice and permafrost which will increase coastal erosion in many northern parts of the world, or of course simply the warmer times which will cause different problems to the cold. The Stern report certainly didn't come out saying that AGW will be lovely. I've never heard of a well done report which says AGW will be wonderful.
"If expecting an 80% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050 makes you feel better, you can expect it. I don't know how much harm it would do. I doubt the harm of not doing it, and I imagine many harms of regulatory regimes like cap and trade. The corporatist potential of cap and trade is impossible to dismiss."
Thats why I want a carbon tax. With of course proper democratic control of gvt in the first place.
For someone who knows so little you're sure certain about a lot of things.
Posted by: ad | December 6, 2009 6:43 AM
> Posted by: Vene Author Profile Page | December 6, 2009 2:41 AM
>
> What I want from the denialists is a model other > than rising atmospheric carbon dioxide > concentration to explain this.
It's called the "Hide The Decline" model, you nitwit. That very graph is what it's all about!
Posted by: Knockgoats | December 6, 2009 7:03 AM
ad,
You're the nitwit here. The "hide the decline" comment referred to a specific, known problem with a subset of tree-ring proxies for recent temperatures, and the "trick" was openly described in the peer-reviewed literature, which you would hardly do if the aim was to distort the data. The record of temperatures from before instrumental results is (necessarily) reconstructed from proxies, of which a wide range are used. If you take out all the tree-ring proxies, the results are effectively unchanged - hence we have good evidence that in general tree-ring proxies work well; but it is known, and discussed in the literature, that they have not shown the expected pattern since 1960. The "hide the decline" comment, by the way, was made in 1999, so has no relevance to (false) denialist claims that warming has ended. The matter is discussed, with references, here. now, how about that model that can account for 20th century temperature changes without attributing much of the change to increased greenhouse gas concentrations?
Posted by: Knockgoats | December 6, 2009 7:17 AM
Regarding global warming, we talk about who to believe. - Dave
Well personally, Dave, I go with the people who actually know the science in detail - you, know, climate scientists, the vast majority of whom agree that anthropogenic climate change is real, and an urgent problem. Or you could try the AAAS, AAG, just about every other relevant US scientific association, the national scientific associations of the G8 plus China, India and Brazil, the editors of Nature and Science...
Or you can go with a very few climate scientists, none of whom has produced a coherent alternative hypotheses, and large numbers of fossil fuel industry shills, and paranoid loonies like Mark Steyn. Your choice.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 8:07 AM
Yawn, that was a good nap. Since nobody woke me up, I presume that MB still has not made a cogent remark. What a waste of bandwidth.
Posted by: Joseph | December 6, 2009 8:15 AM
It simply is not. In GISSTemp, the slope is positive, even if you start at 1998, a very warm year. In the other databases, the slope might be negative, but I'm quite certain the range of statistical significance is not all negative, even if you use monthly data. I could double-check.
Either way, if you look at 11-year trends historically, they can deviate from the long-term trend by as much as (+/-) 2.7C/century.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
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December 6, 2009 8:48 AM
#342:
Re '...except that credible skeptics...'
... y'know, Brock, I've noticed something amusing about you: it does seem terribly important to you to appear to have something to say about certain points--and will happily compose a 'response' to that purpose...
... which all too frequently doesn't, actually, in any way address it...
Funny, that. It's almost like it's more important to you to make noise and attempt to confuse the discussion than actually to say anything.
And speaking of:
Well, when you think about it, this is the whole strategy around this issue.
As in: no, the science isn't going their way, so they'll just keep spouting noise. Tonally plausible 'let's keep some controversy/overstated doubt alive', raving rabid crazy 'it's all a conspiracy' (even tho' nothing of substance anywhere says this) or just outright racist batshittery--whatever, it's all good.
Make noise, drown out discussion, make it as difficult as possible for a reasoned reader to put it all together, form a sensible picture, here...
(/Gee. Ya'd almost think that was the purpose here or somethin'.)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 9:09 AM
That's the difference between climate, the long term expectation, and weather, the short term results effected by lots of things. The deniers can't seem to grasp this very simple concept.Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 6, 2009 9:14 AM
TLE, you can post up to four links at once, as you should have noticed by just looking at my comments, and as I demonstrate again below.
What? "Limit"? The question we're discussing here is whether we should do anything about the climate at all, I thought?
It goes without saying that I agree that all the other possibilities you mention are real – even though not all of them are equally probable, and even though we can't really do anything about, say, Yellowstone except trying to predict when it'll blow up and trying to evacuate tens of millions of people in time. :-|
Read this, this and the link therein, this, and the two links in this here... sorry, it's not the last few months but the last few years. Can't post more than four links and haven't looked at Real Climate.
Bullshit. When you give plants more CO2, those that can use it at all invest more in the vegetative parts (stalks, leaves). We eat the seeds instead.
This comes from at least one experiment. Does your claim come from anything but intuition?
Care to address a single of my points? Huh?
What about the Nature paper I cited? And when will you finally acknowledge that the PNAS paper you cited doesn't support your point?!?
I agree it will get hot – the global annual average temperature is rising and will rise a few °C more. Where do you get the magnitude from that would make that a PETM redux? Where are the numbers? Why don't you cite any?
Who except the denialists has claimed it doesn't???
I, for one, have personally witnessed a shouting match between two scientists (which defused when one of them mentioned evidence). This sort of thing is not very common, but of course it occurs, and there's little reason why it shouldn't. :-|
What's a trillion dollars these days? The Iraq war has cost more than three terabucks so far.
And what do you mean by "catastrophic warming"? Do you mean it'll get warm enough for horrible effects (like a sea level rise of tens of centimeters), or do you mean it has to be very quick? The latter is not likely. The former is practically certain.
Who is David Suzuki? Never heard of him.
We absolutely do not talk about who to believe. This is science here, not a mutual appreciation society. People don't even enter the question. We talk about the facts and how to interpret them.
Very well said. That's a great way to put it.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 9:25 AM
He's a Canadian naturlist who has done a lot of science shows for CBC. Saw him when I lived in Da UP, where we got TV feed from Canada.Posted by: Sarmatae | December 6, 2009 9:49 AM
Took forever to get through this comment section whew!
I need to say outright where I stand on global warming, that I am not centrist on the issue of climate change. I come down firmly on the side that that the science behind the global warming hypothesis is about as a credible piece of science that there is out there. But notice that I still use hypothesis, because it is far from a slam dunk as to the exact causes of global warming. I think it is dangerous for people to label the science of global warming a complete theory as of yet. I think there is no doubt that global warming is happening and that co2 emissions have been a contributing factor.
Now on to the e-mails. It is obvious to whomever has taken the time to actually read all the e-mails themselves, I have. Rather than take someone else's interpretation as gospel in a youtube video. That there is a problem and that these e-mails are damaging to global warming research. Or rather the image of global warming research. Potholer is quite right that these e-mails have no pertinence to the actual truth of the science behind global warming. But they are problematical as an insight into the politicizing of the scientific method and peer review process.
With few exceptions here, I don't see much honesty as of yet here about the problems these e-mails really entail. There will be and should be an investigation, as it is clear there is manipulation of information going on. To those who hold the scientific method and peer review as dear and of ultimate importance to the future of humanity, as I do, you should be outraged as to what has transpired here. When sociopolitical considerations are put ahead of the truth of pure science. Not to make a pariah out of these scientists but a message should be sent that this type of manipulation of the scientific method and peer review process should not go without consequences. It is an opportune time to send a message that politicizing science through manipulation and suppression may have consequences.
If you wish to have the evidence of manipulation and suppression, which I know many will call for here, read the e-mails. It's there and it's obvious, though a little tedious to go through.
Posted by: Mark | December 6, 2009 9:53 AM
p0wned!!!
Posted by: Michael Ralston | December 6, 2009 10:13 AM
You know what's damaging the image of global warming research? The massive propaganda campaign against it. I don't care about the "image" of science when it comes to determining reality. The image only matters when it comes to convincing people to take actions consistent with reality. If something is damaging the image, it's unfortunate - but it's only unfortunate because people will do stupid things because of it. Like, say, not acting against climate change. That would be a really stupid thing to do.
It's not obvious to me. Care to cite a specific email or two that doesn't need to be taken out of context? If it's so obvious, this should be easy. But you already knew people were going to ask for this, you admitted to that. So really you're just trying to throw up a smokescreen here, because you don't want to believe that we might have to take steps that would result in you maybe wanting to drive a little less.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
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December 6, 2009 10:17 AM
Sarmatae at 371, briefly:
1) I don't really have a huge problem with there being an investigation, on that basis, or into questions around potential breaches on FOI. I'm a layman in that latter field especially, but if law enforcement thinks there's enough there to take a look, I'd hardly be the one to gainsay them.
2) That said, from what I have seen so far (skimmed a bit, and of course have heard tonnes of this web chatter), I think it's more than jumping the gun to assume anything much is really there on either. And absent your providing more specifics, I'm pretty much still there.
Specifically on peer review, it seems to me, sure, there were folk among those whose email has been stolen who were pretty convinced there was some junk science it was appropriate to treat as junk science, and the paper that we keep hearing about was in fact generally rubbished by the wider community shortly thereafter.
(/... so, shorter: if saying 'Holy fuck that's some stupid shit... Keep it the hell away from me and any journal I want to be associated with' is a crime, well man, don't let them take you alive.)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 10:26 AM
Ah, it's nice to see I'm not the only one to smell the original definition of the concern troll.
If there were any smoking guns, I think they would have been presented to us by now. The fact that they haven't, and everything is well explained, say by a journal behaving in an unscientific manner and being called on it by the scientists, doesn't damage anything.
Peer review occurs as part of the process of reviewing a paper for publication. After a paper is submitted, the editor will send out the paper to a number (usually three, may be more or less depending on the paper) for review. (I've been on both ends of the review process.) The reviewers check the paper for following the rules of science, that the data appears to support the conclusion, and that the citations are appropriate without any glaring omissions. The deniers problems is that they keep trying to use weather to refute climate, and that is unscientific, so they can't get published. Peer review is not scientists talking amongst themselves, which is what idjits like our boulder splatted troll and his ilk seems to think.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 10:55 AM
After 360-odd posts I have no idea what Thomas Lee Elifritz is trying to communicate to us. His ego keeps getting in the way.
It's very simple Maureen, I'm encouraging people like you and David M. to POST, thereby revealing the ignorance of so called 'scientists' of physics in general, in particular, classical dynamics.
I can just see you guys flailing around with quantum mechanics. But do keep posting, David is making my case rather nicely every time he opens his mouth he reveals his gaping ignorance and lack of understanding of even the most basic concepts.
Remember now, post often on this thread, and say anything that comes to your mind. It's all good.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 11:00 AM
David M. is basically on *your side* of the AGW 'debate', you fool.
That's weird that you say that because there is no 'debate' anymore. I'm just taunting David to get him to post more and more, making himself look ever more the fool to people who understand and read volumes and volumes of peer reviewed science every day.
It's great fun. So speak up, often and loudly.
Posted by: Sarmatae | December 6, 2009 11:08 AM
@ Michael Ralston | December 6, 2009 10:13 AM
I'd have to agree to disagree there. Alex Jones fans aside there is little the kooks like him and Glenn Beck can really do to damage genuine scientific research, they are just pissing into the wind. The real danger is subverting the scientific process from the inside, from credible and trusted sources. So again I have to respectfully disagree there. I am not speaking about street cred here. Or talking points on a political pundit show to convince people one way or another. I am talking about scientific credibility as a source of "unbiased" truth. Clearly that is not the case in the e-mails. No exactly if you read only a select few e-mails then you are in fact taking those out of context, which is why I suggest if anyone want to know exactly what is being talked about then read them all. It took me a few days of reading on and off bit I got through them. Some are nonsensical, some are digressing conversations. It would in fact be very difficult, tedious and in fact not conducive to a full honest understanding of what those e-mails entail to cherry pick some examples. As you could not accept an interpretation of exactly what they mean without a full reading of all the emails for context.Read them all yourself. If you come out of it with a different understanding than mine, then power to you. Myself I was pretty upset by the whole lot and I am not some climate denier looking for a conspiracy of climate denial. The fact is that I had more trust in the scientific method and if this is an example of the behavior and practices of "top scientists" well then I suppose a re-examination of my trust in that process is in order. It seems to be as messy and as "science based" as a politically motivated movement. I had always held the ideal that Science is not a matter of opinion; it is a question of data. Climate change is an issue for evidence not personal opinion or ideology.
Posted by: Jon | December 6, 2009 11:10 AM
Y'know, there is a kind of arrogance that is sometimes entertaining (say, the one exhibited by Hitchens). But, TLE, you just come across as a pompous idiot with nothing worth saying. You're right, there is no debate, it's always been you and your weird ego jerking off.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 11:27 AM
But, TLE, you just come across as a pompous idiot with nothing worth saying.
There is nothing much worth saying to YOU PEOPLE, and I am of the opinion that David is the pompous boob here, so I guess we agree to disagree.
Are you even reading what David is saying. He is demanding probabilities of events that haven't happened yet, when clearly I am speaking of forcings and feedbacks for events that have already happened.
He wants answers, and anyone with any brains at all would just enter 'PETM forcings" into the search bar and all kinds of interesting things would come right up, people talking about forcings and feedbacks known and unknown, proxy data, model runs, etc., you think all this discussion is in the peer reviewed literature? Peer reviewed journals talk about RESULTS, the vast majority of the work goes on behind the scenes, and then a bunch of ignorant boobs come along, epitomized by David M, himself, and think they have all the answers, and when they don't, demand the entire data set and want the supercomputers delivered to their homes, as if they had the faintest idea how this kind of work proceeds. So keep up the good work. This is great fun. I wouldn't miss David's posts for anything, not even stimulus funds!
Posted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 11:30 AM
Thomas, you can check my commenting history - I don't think I've ever brought up credentials before. I only did this time because you're spending a lot of energy claiming that you're the only one who's a real scientist here, and everyone else is getting their information from the internet. So in this case, it's relevant, not an ad hominem attack. I did, however, delete the part of that post I started to make with a link to a description of you using homophobic and amazingly racist terms on other sites, since that was.
Also, it's funny that you claim to be above the inanity of making flashy webpages, when your home page is a universe background with an earth and an unauthorized Calvin and Hobbes reprint. Very Geocities.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 11:45 AM
Then you don't understand the context of the e-mails. Context, such as a journal publishing garbage. Such journals are rightfully shunned by the community, and they start to only publish garbage. Your lack on context makes you appear to be a concern troll. We scientist aren't worried.You are not coming across as an AGW believer.I don't see your problem. Science is not a truly pristine business. It does get messy at times, particularly early in the process, but then that is true of every endeavor. But, by the time the papers are written and reviewed the bad stuff is weeded out, and good science is presented. I still don't see your problem? Is it that scientists are real, messy people with opinions and egos? And no data has been destroyed. The ignored data was bad data. Happens all the time.Posted by: Kristjan Wager | December 6, 2009 11:46 AM
The scientific research might not be damaged by Beck and his irk, but neither is scientific research damaged by the misconduct by any given scientist, as has been demonstrated by how little impact revelation of real misconduct by scientists in the past.
AGW in the public, and especially political, sphere is no longer about the science - the denialists lost that battle a long time ago - rather it's about politics. In the US a well-oiled propaganda machine has been working non-stop to discredit the science and scientists in the public sphere in order to keep the politicians from taking the necessary steps to stop AGW.
During the Bush administration, the denialists had help on the inside - this is no longer the case. Which might explain why they are now becoming more and more desperate, using illegal means to obtain material which they then distort in order to smear scientists.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 11:47 AM
I only did this time because you're spending a lot of energy claiming that you're the only one who's a real scientist here
No, I'm pretty much the only one POSTING who has read the literature to any depth, and is familiar with the computational representation of classical dynamical systems involving components with well understood physical and chemical properties.
That's all. I'd love to see other people comment on things like peninsular and isthmus isolation, that's just something I was exploring yesterday, but certainly the PETM is worth revisiting, considering that historical TRENDS of commonly bantered climate simulations and observations have not been particularly optimistic for civilization.
Check with David, he's got all the answers!
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 11:53 AM
I did, however, delete the part of that post I started to make with a link to a description of you using homophobic and amazingly racist terms on other sites, since that was.
I am surprised that they have not EXPUNGED those words from the dictionary yet. We need less words.
Besides dude, Langer indeed was what I called him. If you can't stand the heat, you need to get out of the kitchen. And if you need to prostitute yourself on the streets of science, someone's gonna call it.
Will deny, for money.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 6, 2009 11:55 AM
Tom, I expect I speak for all of us here at Pharyngula when I offer you my sincere thanks for interrupting your important scientific work and taking time out from poring through reams and reams of peer-reviewed scientific literature to come over here and troll. It really means a lot for an autodidactic intellect like yourself to pay any attention at all to us--what was it?--yes, "minimally educated non critically thinking ignorant cretin[s]," and I want you to know that the offerings you have deigned to hand down to us on this thread will be bookmarked, re-read, and--I'll say it--cherished for a long, long time to come. So thank you, Thomas Lee Elifritz. Thank you.
Posted by: Garry Scholey | December 6, 2009 11:55 AM
Posted by Sarmatae:
"Now on to the e-mails. It is obvious to whomever has taken the time to actually read all the e-mails themselves.."
There is what, 65 MB of text, so if you've read ALL the emails inquestion you'll have taken a very long time.
"I have."
Good for you, old bean!
"Rather than take someone else's interpretation as gospel in a youtube video."
You thought you'd give us your own interpretation, so we can take it as gospel.
"That there is a problem and that these e-mails are damaging to global warming research."
So should we take that as gospel too?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 12:01 PM
Very Geocities.
I guess you just can't see the satire of not wanting to dick around with some 10 year old static HTML from data sets (I have IA-32 and 64 bit extensions as well) that has been javascripted, pdf's, html'd, AJAXed, and SQLed into more bizarre forms than I can remember, nor even want to remember. Oh, the horror.
Posted by: horace | December 6, 2009 12:03 PM
Some of you guys stayed up until 2 in the morning to post on this thread, on a saturday night too !!!!
Whether we think anthropogenic global warming is happening or not I think that we can agree that there is some uncertainty about it. Even restricting ourselves to those that are completely sure that it is happening (not me, I am a global warming agnostic) I think that they could agree that it is uncertain how serious the effects will be. There may be other problems (running out of fossil fuels, food shortages) that are more serious. This is why it is important to conduct the debate as cleanly as possible.
If scientists disagree with a published paper, they should do so by publically stating their reasons. They should not blacklist the journal that publishes the paper by refusing to cite any article published in it. Even if the paper that they disagree with is crap this sets an ugly precident, sooner or later people will use these methods to supress papers that are of genuine value.
To the warmers credit they are people on your side who see this and are calling for an inquiry into the behaviour of these guys.
Finally there is room for honest people on both sides of this issue. Can you really be sure that the medieval warming period was not warmer than it is now ? Not balance of the probablilities sure but sure in the way that you believe in evolution rather than creationism ? Think about ideas like continental drift and glaciation and how they were originally treated by the scientific mainstream, or better still the number of human chromosomes. Scientific opinion has been spectacularly wrong in the past.
There are a lot of measures that we can take that will reduce carbon dioxide output that will have other benefits as well. We need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels anyway, so a lot of this debate is academic.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 12:10 PM
So thank you, Thomas Lee Elifritz. Thank you.
It's all good, Sven DiMilo, and although I enjoyed your significant contributions to the discussion here as well, I regret that I won't be revisiting this thread much, if at all, so I will miss your critical insights into the computational and dynamical modeling of physical and chemical systems.
In the future I look forward to the active and enthusiastic discussion of astrodynamical and condensed matter systems as well. I can't wait until PZ starts talking about the SHC and the 'god particle', David's insights should be crucial.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 12:11 PM
These allusions to some vague gestalt appreciation of the emails are absurd. What are the major issues you found in your alleged reading? In which of the emails are these illustrated most clearly? Are they different from the ones that have been discussed here? What is the context? Identify the emails and provide quotations and context. You've written much in your comments and said nothing of any substance. I would think that if you really are outraged, as you say, you would want to point people to the the most outrageous aspects.
And the idea of centrism as a scientific position is ludicrous.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 6, 2009 12:16 PM
But of course, most of the "debate" is anything but "academic." It's fueled in large part by those with a short-term self-interest in avoiding such obviously prudent "measures" for as long as possible.
?
Posted by: Imback | December 6, 2009 12:19 PM
Sarmatae:
So you read the whole selectively hacked and released set of emails quite out of context yourself. You have been baited and hooked by the denialist disinformation campaign.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 12:21 PM
They don't need to. If journals refuse to listen to their editor and peer reviewers, they deserve to be shunned. Because that means that the journal is no longer to be trusted. And bad science papers suffer the death that no one pays any attention to it. Which is why knowing the citation record of paper is important.The two sides are the science, and the political dweebs who might have to actually do something. There is no real dissension on the science except by crackpots using crackpot logic.It also corrects itself when it is wrong. But that requires evidence, not bombast. Do you have any conclusive evidence? If no, you have nothing further to say.Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 12:22 PM
*goes to get denialism bingo card*
Posted by: horace | December 6, 2009 12:25 PM
Even if you think that the idea of anthropogenic global warming is a total fraud many of the measures that we would take to reduce CO2 emissions also make sense in terms of reducing our dependence on middle eastern oil, soil erosion etc.
Posted by: Garry Scholey | December 6, 2009 12:26 PM
horace posted:
"Scientific opinion has been spectacularly wrong in the past. "
No doubt your opinion, horace, has been spectacularly wrong in the past. Can you then be sure of your own opinion? Can we?
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | December 6, 2009 12:27 PM
I was totally won over to AGW by the raw charisma of Al Gore. Yup.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 6, 2009 12:28 PM
Never mind, I looked it up. That was a technological limitation. But of course scientists are wrong, a lot of times, for that and other reasons. Then somebody corects them by solving the problem of technology or logic.
Posted by: Joseph | December 6, 2009 12:31 PM
We can't be 100% certain, but that misses the point. The way temperatures increased before the MWP and decreased afterward is not comparable to the current rate of temperature change. We're talking an order of magnitude difference. The current 'climate event' truly is unique.
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | December 6, 2009 12:33 PM
Only the uninformed and the kooks are uncertain that it is happening. Then there are those who "are uncertain it is happening."
I didn't read the rest of your post.
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/climate_change_101
Posted by: Wonko the Sane | December 6, 2009 12:39 PM
To all those that can't be persuaded to listen to scientists, maybe they would care to listen to economic reasoning. Go and ask the insurance companies for squids sake:
http://www.munichre.com/en/press/press_releases/2009/2009_11_26_press_release.aspx
From the press release statement of one of the largest insurance companies:
It will be far more costly not to do anything. Also, I fail to see what is so bad about pushing human technology to the next level on a global scale.
Posted by: Horace | December 6, 2009 12:39 PM
Sven, yes science is over the long term self correcting. But the more open and clean the debate is the faster this happens. I would read the E-mails for yourself. These guys may have been on the right side of the debate, I don't know anything about climatology. What is very clear though is that they used underhand methods to suppress debate and prevent access to data. There were references to yanking the Ph.D. of someone who opposed them, refusals to cite journals in which had published articles that they disagreed with (not the article itself, but ANY article that appeared in the journal), attempts to intimidate publishers. Perhaps you can defend these methods, but if they are defensible and normal the public should know that this is how science is carried out.
Spend some time on the E-mails, I think (hope) you will be surprised. I have seen some pretty foul stuff in my field but nothing like this.
Posted by: MartinM | December 6, 2009 12:43 PM
Horace, specifics or kindly shut the fuck up.
Posted by: DJ | December 6, 2009 12:50 PM
I thought I recognized the style of Tommy Lee... he was here trolling on memorial day:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/war_is_no_place_for_the_delude.php#comment-1658164
Still as crazy and contrary as ever. I wonder what he means when he says "And surely you know I do have the ear of the president and his entire staff, and everyone else who matters in Washington (I'm not referring to our elected senators and representatives either)."?
I suspect he is on a watchlist of some kind perhaps? Judging by his postings in the memorial day thread he clearly would not be considered as an advisor to any President of the United States.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 12:59 PM
I don't have time to waste. If you had a smoking gun, and were a man of honor and integrity, you would either show that evidence, or shut the fuck up. Only liars and conmen keep talking nonsense. So, which are you? Put up, shut up, or be recognized as a bullshitter. And nothing you mentioned is anything other than the usual blather when people get upset, even seen here. Get the picture?Posted by: Rainer Borchers | December 6, 2009 1:06 PM
I am still having problem with anthropomorphic climate change. A) The original observations are not available for review. B)The biggest reason, solar input/output is not counted, or is considered "minimal" in the findings. C)Biggest reason, all solar planets have experienced the same percentage increase in temperature as the Earth did for the same period. I am not saying we should pollute the planet, but I think we need to realized that the earth's natural state is extremes. Humans have just been lucky these past 10K years. BTW, if anyone could give a reasonable explanation of the above, without going into alarmist BS, I would be happy to hear it.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 1:06 PM
I suspect he is on a watchlist of some kind perhaps?
No doubt the thought and speech police have me under constant surveillance.
Judging by his postings in the memorial day thread he clearly would not be considered as an advisor to any President of the United States.
Are you saying the president and his advisory staff can't read? Or maybe they just troll internet forums as well. I guess you missed the White house lawn star party, the Augustine committee hearings, numerous congressional and senate hearings, the Educate to Innovate speech, and are watching the NASA Ares I debacle closely, right? Are you interested in the ongoing White House Interagency space policy review? Are you looking at the possibilities of the uncoming JOBS Inititiative? Are you proposing anything to anybody? Are you commenting? Writing any position papers? Speak up. Speak your mind. Are ya fer WAR er agin it? Are ya FER global warming or are ya AGIN it!
Is Al Gore fat, or what? How are you going to influence the Fat Award selection award committee members if you aren't nominating any awardees, proposing any ideas or writing any 'white' papers?
Even a 'black' paper would work with these people right now. I'm glad I'm not them, they couldn't PAY me to run for public office or advise for this kind of job. I can just hear the kind of language those guys must be using privately. You know who I'm talking about, Obama, et al.
One thing I know, one hundred years from now, unless you do something extraordinarily heroic or incredible right now, and during the next ten years, your grandchildren will indeed be very very conservative, and still pining for the good old days. That's why I'm giving it away for free.
That heroic act won't be fighting religious nuts in some mountains or desert on the other side of the world, trust me. They're just pissing in the wind.
Posted by: DJ | December 6, 2009 1:06 PM
Ooh! This one by TLE is my absolute fav!:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/war_is_no_place_for_the_delude.php#comment-1656525
Sorry to go so OT, but that dude is a fool. Arrogance seems to get in the way of his statements and that is a shame since we are basically in agreement on the issue of AGW.
Posted by: MartinM | December 6, 2009 1:09 PM
Perhaps you could start by supporting your three claims with some facts?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 1:09 PM
I suspect he is on a watchlist of some kind perhaps?
No doubt the thought and speech police have me under constant surveillance. Stay away from me or you might be seen hanging around with me. Plus, there is the paparazzi, they're everywhere. Plus numerous PIs, the lawyers and the groupies.
Judging by his postings in the memorial day thread he clearly would not be considered as an advisor to any President of the United States.
Are you saying the president and his advisory staff can't read? Or maybe they just troll internet forums as well. I guess you missed the White house lawn star party, the Augustine committee hearings, numerous congressional and senate hearings, the Educate to Innovate speech, and are watching the NASA Ares I debacle closely, right? Are you interested in the ongoing White House Interagency space policy review? Are you looking at the possibilities of the uncoming JOBS Initiative? Are you proposing anything to anybody? Are you commenting? Writing any position papers? Speak up. Speak your mind. Are ya fer WAR er agin it? Are ya FER global warming or are ya AGIN it!
Is Al Gore fat, or what? How are you going to influence the Fat Award selection award committee members if you aren't nominating any awardees, proposing any ideas or writing any 'white' papers?
Even a 'black' paper would work with these people right now. I'm glad I'm not them, they couldn't PAY me to run for public office or advise for this kind of job. I can just hear the kind of language those guys must be using privately. You know who I'm talking about, Obama, et al.
One thing I know, one hundred years from now, unless you do something extraordinarily heroic or incredible right now, and during the next ten years, your grandchildren will indeed be very very conservative, and still pining for the good old days. That's why I'm giving it away for free.
That heroic act won't be fighting religious nuts in some mountains or desert on the other side of the world, trust me. They're just pissing in the wind. It's a shame, I admit, but that's just the cost of doing business.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 1:12 PM
I can imagine.
Posted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 1:15 PM
Ooo, I wondered how long it would take to provoke Thomas into spewing some real vile. Here we go.
Please, Thomas, enlighten us more about the fat and black people!
Horace, I can understand the concern, but take a good look into the accusations. For example, a Ph.D. cannot be yanked. It simply can't, unless it's shown that the entire thing was completely fabricated. Now, people can disparage a person's degree, and say they had no business getting one, and that it's meaningless, but there literally isn't a mechanism to revoke one except under extremely dire circumstances. (See: Wise, Kurt for an example of someone who most people would agree should not have his degree, yet he retains it).
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 1:17 PM
Scientists aren't so dumb as to miss this. It turns out not be significant over the time period they were looking at by the models. That's a moldy strawman argument.Try the peer reviewed primary scientific literature. Not the bombast created by the deniers. They are stoopid, and scientists are smart. Keep that in mind...Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 1:27 PM
Why are you talking about 'degrees' and not science and technology, mathematics and engineering? I though we were talking about real degrees here, in Kelvin's. Oh, I forgot, it's cold and snowing and so Al Gore is fat. And since I use the words fat, retard, black and nigger that makes me an intolerant racist. You sure got me there, I'm totally agin ignorant American rednecks and bible thumpers and apathetic knowitall liberal curmudgeon scientists. The world would be a much better place if I just respected their beliefs and talk nicely to them, especially people who are PAID to muddy up that waters with idiotic PR and sloppy thinking.
Michael Griffin has a lot of degrees. He's a 'rocket scientist'. I don't have any degrees, I'm just some guy on the internet. Michael Griffin has 'THE ANSWER', I just have a couple of ideas.
Who you gonna call. Roger Pielke Jr.? You betcha.
Posted by: DJ | December 6, 2009 1:32 PM
LOL@415,
The crazy train has left the station.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 6, 2009 1:32 PM
TLE = Trolis Pozemyje!
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 1:39 PM
The crazy train has left the station.
No, the crazy train has just arrived here, and I'm confident that I am eviscerating you in the eyes of the lurkers here who count, and are in any position to effect any significant or even minor near term changes of direction in the course of human events.
So any further insightful thoughts you might have on the situation would still be much appreciated, and perhaps this thread will break the 1000 post mark.
Posted by: DJ | December 6, 2009 1:43 PM
@415,
Kelvin is not utilized in terms of degrees, as it is an absolute unit of measure and not in reference to something else like Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are... Or was this simply the point in the thread where you go completely off the rails and just throw random silliness at us all? What happened to your carefully constructed insulting posts from further up the comment thread? Any more of that coming?
Posted by: pough | December 6, 2009 1:45 PM
I'd say there was clear evidence they were shunning journals that had corrupted the peer review process. If allowing clearly flawed papers into a journal for ideological reasons is not a corruption of peer review, then you have a point. Otherwise...
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 6, 2009 1:47 PM
quoted for the lulzPosted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 1:48 PM
I think my work here is done. Unless Thomas would like to tell us more about how the Man is keeping him down and the PC police won't let him "keep it real"?
Posted by: DJ | December 6, 2009 1:48 PM
No doubt you are confident, that is what makes it all so humorous. I certainly cannot add anything to the discussion of AGW, but I can point and laugh along with all the rest at your pompous self-assurance.
Keep churning it out. Its good stuff.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 1:55 PM
Kelvin is not utilized in terms of degrees
Wonderful bit of trivia, DJ, next time I read a cold atomic gas paper I'll be sure to covert the absolute temperatures into relative temperatures for you.
Same with music, mathematics and generalized coordinates, I'm be sure to covert all my units and metrics into your nomenclature and notation, and even simple mechanicals models will be calculated with general relativistic techniques.
And all those climate, ab initio quantum chemical, statistical and astrodynamical models need to be rewritten into C++, post haste.
I'll be sure never to use FORTH again too. And who needs supercomputers, in the future everything will be multicore. The future seems so wonderful, why would anyone want to go back to the good old days, anyways.
Posted by: HOrace | December 6, 2009 2:01 PM
Hi Carlie,
not sure what is going on in the other postings, but to respond to your point.
A scientist from Wisconsin published a paper that the guys at East Anglia disagreed with. One of them brought up the fact that they thought that the material for his Ph.D. thesis was dodgy, and suggested trying to revoke it. They did not go through with this fortunatly.
As for specific citations of what was written, I have them on my work computer and will post tomorrow if this thread is still going.
In the meantime I would refer you to Anthropogenic Climate Change Believers who are not impressed with what they read in the E-mails, but still believe in climate change.
http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/lane_wallace/2009/12/scientists_in_the_bunker.php
http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/more_on_climategate.php
Posted by: Imback | December 6, 2009 2:02 PM
Rainer Borchers:
Nope. See http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov for example. They have the bulk of the data, from which global warming can be demonstrated. The little bit they don't have is privately held (by the military, commercial entities, or small countries) and can't be publicly released for one reason or another.
Nope. See section 2.7 of http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf (PDF).
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 2:05 PM
I think my work here is done.
Since you haven't actually shown us any of your scientific work, just offhand I suppose I would disagree with that. But whatever trips your trigger.
But do feel free to stop back and post again. Unless your imaginary 'the man' is 'keeping your down'.
Posted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 2:18 PM
Since you haven't actually shown us any of your scientific work, just offhand I suppose I would disagree with that. But whatever trips your trigger.
You miss my intention. I specifically said at the beginning that I didn't want to comment on climate change because it's not my field of study; my only initial purpose was to tease out whether you had any justifiable reason for your attitude. (answer: no) Then I added trying to goad you into starting any racist/homophobic diatribes, just to see if what I'd read about you before was correct. #411 and #415 indicate that it was.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 2:20 PM
I explicitly concede an anthropogenic CO2 increase, and I don't say a word about the sun, cosmic rays or people leaving their fans on at night. Why confuse your words with mine?
No. You're talking about the sun, cosmic rays and people leaving their fans on at night. The record is indisputable. The temps haven't risen significantly in this decade, and the change from previous decades is statistically significant. We can argue about the cause and effect, but the measurement has changed significantly as a matter of fact.
Then you haven't failed.
Your crystal ball is clearer than mine. I see no rate of sea level rise consistent with this forecast presently.
I take this assertion more seriously, largely because I haven't examined it thoroughly, but we're discussing AGW here, not Anthropogenic Ocean Acidification. You can always toss out another looming catastrophe that I'm not prepared to discuss. I list half a dozen others above. I'll stick with AGW.
I doubt that humanity will be extinct in a thousand years, but I'm reasonably sure that I will be. You may assert this point and defend the assertion if you like. "Leaving the problem alone" is incredibly vague. Not adopting a global cap and trade regime, and various other specific proposals, is certainly an option.
I don't pretend to have any definitive proof that the globe will not warm catastrophically in the future. If you think this absence of evidence proves you "right" and justifies some massive intervention, you may think so.
That some plants like more CO2 is precisely my point. If have some evidence that only "bad plants" like more CO2, you may present it.
You did.
Melting glaciers are a perennial issue in this debate, along with an incomprehensibly long list of looming catastrophes, but the list of looming catastrophes extends far beyond climate change. Why limit yourself? Why not a global, trillion dollar regime to combat coming global pandemics and the rest? I can't prove that these catastrophes won't occur either.
Stern isn't satisfied with a trillion dollars. He wants a few percent of global output, and the percentage rises continually, like the forecasts of global temperature. Fortunately, measured temperature does not.
I prefer a flat carbon tax to cap and trade, if we must have one or the other, but either reform implies a massive regulatory bureaucracy deciding how much carbon various industries actually emit, and the whole idea of it alarms me more than any evidence of AGW catastrophe I've seen. Decrees from a few hundred platitudinous politicians lording over hundreds of millions of people from some central chamber is not my idea of "democracy", but that's another debate.
In reality, I don't claim much certainy at all. The record is clear on this point, whether or not you acknowledge it. I claim only that you lack certainty, and you construe this claim as an assertion of certainy on my part.
Posted by: MartinM | December 6, 2009 2:21 PM
Here's the email Horace is alluding to in #425. You'll notice that it doesn't actually suggest trying to revoke Pat Michaels' PhD at all.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 2:27 PM
Of course it will still be "going" - it'll be right here for you to post on, and I'm sure that even if no one's posted for a while people will see the new comment and return to respond. So by all means do post those citations tomorrow. (No excuses, now.)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 2:28 PM
MartinM, thanks. The gun appears to have a case of barrel droop...
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 2:28 PM
You miss my intention.
If your intention is to influence the global world dictionary word expungment committee, then you need to start putting your scientific position paper together real soon now. For greater persuasive effect be sure to self publish it on the internet and not in any established dictionary word expungement journals, nobody reads or understands that stuff, the arguments are just too complicated, and they've had to resort to computer models to determine which words are 'good' and which words are 'bad', and what their absolute precise meanings are.
Posted by: Jon | December 6, 2009 2:35 PM
TLE, I rest my case. I'm not commenting on who is factually correct here (not a climate scientist). David has been arguing his case here without having to resort to idiotic (and laughable*) grandstanding. I guess your brilliance is so dazzling that it has you blinded.
*White House insider? Did you really think that anybody would believe that smack in the middle of a SIWOTI event?
Posted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 2:39 PM
If your intention is to influence the global world dictionary word expungment committee, then you need to start putting your scientific position paper together real soon now.
No, I just explained it. My intention was to show that you are a blowhard who doesn't know his ass from a paleogeographic reconstruction of Antarctica in the early Eocene, and also a bigot.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 6, 2009 2:39 PM
TLE has taken no trouble to hide the fact that he is trolling. He has been explicit.
why feed it?
Posted by: DJ | December 6, 2009 2:41 PM
I've heard smoking can cause that...
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 2:42 PM
David has been arguing his case here without having to resort to idiotic (and laughable*) grandstanding
His technique is generally referred to as 'armwaving' on the back room email internet forum science talk circuit. Of course those kinds of statements are unacceptable in the politically correct peer reviewed scientific journal literature.
I guess your brilliance is so dazzling that it has you blinded.
Your right, I can no longer see the search bar and the keyboard keys, I'm gonna need a braille keyboard and some text to voice and voice to text translators.
I just can't wait until Google comes out with their universal Rosetta Stone translator and people start swearing at each other in their native languages. There are going to be some wonderfully interesting and complex geopoltical misunderstandings that come out of that thing.
The future is gonna be great fun, trust me.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 2:42 PM
A positive slope is not a statistically significant slope. We agree that "this decade" starts in January 2000.
The slopes are not significantly negative either, and I never say they are. I only say that the slope is significantly lower than in the previous three decades and does not differ significantly from zero in this decade.
Check my post, and you'll see that I never say anything about a significantly negative slope. I say only that the slopes don't differ significantly from zero and are significantly lower than the slopes from the previous three decades.
The "long term trend" attributed to AGW, excluding the current decade, is only three decades long, and variations are not only statistical. They're attributable to countless influences on the measurements other than AGW, like the el Nino and la Nina effects, as you say. That's the point. You don't understand all of these effects, because no one understands all of the effects, yet alarming AGW models presume to forecast the measurements a century and more into the future.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 2:48 PM
Horace, it wasn't only the people e-mailing who were disgusted by Climate Research.
Half of the editorial board - including the editor-in-chief, the "hockey stick skeptic" Hans Van Storch - resigned in disgust.
And later, the publisher admitted that they'd allowed crap to be published.
Why should scientists support a journal that allows crap to be published? The right thing to do is to make clear it's publishing crap, and avoid it. If you publish in a journal that publishes crap, well, it hurts your reputation as well. Of course they'll avoid such journals.
I don't buy or read the Wall Street Journal because of the crap they publish in their editorial section. Is this unethical of me?
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 6, 2009 2:49 PM
you know what I just realized? TLE is probably exactly the sort of kook that spams the e-mail accounts of scientists & politicians with his "brilliant discoveries"; you know, the stuff PZ posts under "I get e-mail".Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 2:50 PM
My intention was to show that you are a blowhard who doesn't know his ass from a paleogeographic reconstruction of Antarctica in the early Eocene
I also find that hard to believe when I posted links to the most modern and accurate graphical reproduction of the continental evolution of Antarctica I could find, along with the most modern discussion of the paleoproxy reconstructions of the relevant late Eocene situation that I could find, read them, and then appropriately modified my understanding of the situation of Antarctica as an insular ice sheet covered continent with regards to a PETM like spike onto the ambient Holocene climate.
And I did it in real time on the internet for the whole world to observe and possibly revisit in the future. I haven't even formulated a hypothesis yet on the subject. This is just basic information gathering on a subject that is current, relevant and evolving. Of course. the first thing I'll try to do when I finally get around to formulating any hypotheses is try to destroy it, so if you could help me with that it would greatly reduce my costs. If not, smear and fear always work too, along with any tin foil hat conspiracies you can dream up. Any dirt you have on me will work too.
Thanks!
Posted by: Horace | December 6, 2009 2:51 PM
>You may be interesting in this snippet of information about
>Pat Michaels. Perhaps the University of Wisconsin ought to
>open up a public comment period to decide whether Pat >Michaels,PhD needs re-assessing?
MartinM,, Thank you for finding the E-mail. Doesn't the above suggest to you that they were considering pulling strings to have Pat Michaels Ph.D. yanked ?
Posted by: Andyo
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December 6, 2009 2:51 PM
I've been following this thread since yesterday, and I have had nothing to do. I went out yesterday for about 2 1/2 hours. TLE was here before I was, and has been posting throughout almost non-stop, barring some sleep time (I presume).
What the fuck are you doing, NOT, helping the President save the world? Didn't you learn anything from Spiderman 2?
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 2:54 PM
Do you actually believe that the *copies* of raw data that CRU hasn't kept around are "the original observations"? The original observations in these datasets are the sheets of paper lying in the basements of national met organizations around the world.
Other copies of most of that are available - about 95% of that dataset are available online at GHCN, and are updated daily. Go download it yourself. The 5% or so that CRU is not allowed to release is available from the various national met offices (spain, etc).
And, of course, that's just one dataset out of hundreds or thousands that point to global warming.
Of course it's counted. As far as being "considered minimal" - we *measure* solar output, very accurately, and have for decades. Are you suggesting we should ignore measurements and just make shit up to fit your opinion that it's the sun?
This statement is simply false. Look it up yourself.
Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 2:56 PM
Yet, it's the warmest decade in the instrumental record (it's safe to say that, now, with less than a month left in the decade).
Posted by: Jon | December 6, 2009 2:56 PM
Oh, dear. He's foaming at the mouth now.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 6, 2009 2:56 PM
Nope. Not with the words "public inquiry". No pulling of strings with public inquiry. Unless, of course, you bought the conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker.Posted by: dhogaza | December 6, 2009 3:01 PM
Well, he links to his website, which is chock full of interesting documents, so you can judge for yourself :)
Feel free to tell us what you think afterwards!
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 6, 2009 3:03 PM
I am still having problem with anthropomorphic climate change.
It's remarkable how ready some people are to admit that they are ignoramuses and cretins.
Posted by: MartinM | December 6, 2009 3:10 PM
I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting that either. The whole thing reads more like 'ha ha, Pat Michaels sucks' to me.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 6, 2009 3:12 PM
One of them brought up the fact that they thought that the material for his Ph.D. thesis was dodgy, and suggested trying to revoke it.
You're a liar or stupid (or both; the latter is actually well-established). They suggested that perhaps there should be a public comment period to decide whether Pat Michaels, PhD needs re-assessing.
They did not go through with this fortunatly.
Why is that fortunate? Do you have any substantive objection to what that email says?
Doesn't the above suggest to you that they were considering pulling strings to have Pat Michaels Ph.D. yanked ?
No, because I have an IQ above room temperature and can understand plain English.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 3:15 PM
No one disputes that global average temperature measurements increased during the 20th century. "Warmest decade in the instrumental record" is only another way of stating the same fact. A static climate with a stable average temperature is not the AGW-skeptics' assertion. Skeptics assert that catastrophic consequences do not follow the degree of warming observed and do not even follow a simple extrapolation of this warming, and they claim that forecasts of vastly more rapid warming are based on highly questionable assumptions.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 6, 2009 3:16 PM
I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting that either. The whole thing reads more like 'ha ha, Pat Michaels sucks' to me.
While indeed the email looks like casual banter about what would be appropriate for someone who sucks, much as one often finds here about actions that no one seriously intends to carry out, what they say in that email does suggest that a review of Pat Michaels' Ph.D work really would be appropriate.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 3:19 PM
I know. I can't remember the last time, if ever, I read where a degree was pulled. And if it was, the only way would be deliberate falsification of the data, and conclusive evidence to support the allegation.Posted by: Horace | December 6, 2009 3:22 PM
>>Doesn't the above suggest to you that they were considering >>pulling strings to have Pat Michaels Ph.D. yanked ?
>Nope. Not with the words "public inquiry". No pulling of strings >with public inquiry. Unless, of course, you bought the conspiracy >theory hook, line, and sinker.
My understanding is that Pat Michaels attempted to
"muddy the waters of scientific discourse, while sliming leaders
of the international climate science community and questioning their motives" (in the words of the E-mail below). This was because Pat Michaels was claiming that there were problems with UEAs data, in that some of it had been deleted, this meant that an EPA hearing should be reopened.
One of the responses to this (that was not carried out fortunately) was to contact the University of Wisconsin with questions about the validity of Pat Michaels thesis. This seems unusual to me as his thesis had no direct bearing on the question at hand. This is how the public thinks that scientific disputes are resolved; reading these E-mails should enlighten them. A link to the correspondence below.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1055&filename=1255538481.txt
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 6, 2009 3:23 PM
Horace, specifics or kindly shut the fuck up.
We have the specifics, and it is clear that Horace is a sack of intellectually dishonest conspiracy-mongering troll shit.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 3:25 PM
Yawn Horace, your gun not only has a case of limp barrel, its bullets are made of ice, which melted and soaked the gunpowder. And the primer expired. In other words, you have nothing, and it's time to shut the fuck up on this issue. It means nothing.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 6, 2009 3:25 PM
My understanding
The understanding of an intellectually dishonest cretin.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 6, 2009 3:30 PM
Every post from horace, starting with #48, has been idiotic trollery. If he really is a microbiologist, we should all work to have his degree revoked.
Posted by: horace | December 6, 2009 3:43 PM
Dear truth machine,
thank you for having taken the time to read all of my postings and for your insightful comments.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 3:54 PM
Horace, did you read that whole page? It's clear that Michaels and the CEI with their little petition were in fact trying to "muddy the waters of scientific discourse, while sliming leaders of the international climate science community and questioning their motives." Pretty infuriating. They were responded to publicly in a way that made clear what was wrong with their claims - the data hadn't been destroyed and were in any case by no means the sole evidence.
The public inquiry suggestion - however serious or unserious it may have been* - was, it appears, in response to the CEI/Michaels petition: "The Competitive Enterprise Institute a vocal foe of EPAs efforts to finalize its endangerment finding petitioned the agency this week to reopen the public comment period on the proposal,..." It looks like he was saying, "Well maybe we should petition to open a public comment period for Michaels' research, since his thesis analysis was shitty." There's no suggestion of what you're claiming.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 4:01 PM
Horace, smart man. Even though you were attempting to be snide, you were being truthful. And never argue with the Truth Machine, OM.SC, I think Horace is too busy pushing his agenda to really think about what he is saying, or why.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 4:02 PM
This whole libertarian manufactured "debate" about global warwing is getting so tiresome.
"Deniers" moved successively from there's no GW, to, ok there is but it's not human caused, to, ok it is but it won't be as bad as those alarming scientists who want to install a socialist new world order say.
To a healthy human brain, other than that of a deluded nitwit libertarian such as Martin Brock or Rush Limbaugh, it shouldn't be very difficult to analyse the whole conundrum and take the appropriate decision :
1. you know that we have a mega-problem with the rapid depletion of our reserves in fossil fuel energy. You know that at the rate we're consuming these resources today, we most probably won't have enough to finish the century.
2. you know that a vast majority of the world's most renowned and esteemed scientists in the relevant fields agree that the rate at which we are consuming these resources today will cause a sufficiently rapid warming of the earth's surface temperature that will have catastrophic consequences for a sizeable proportion of the human population before the end of this century.
3. you know that there are a few "non alarming" scientists who do not agree with 2. They think the warming will be sufficiently slow to not have any catastrophic consequences for humans in the future. We'll have time to adapt, they say.
So why would you want to choose to believe only the non alarming scientists ? I mean, you got to have a particularly deranged and perverse mind to conclude like Martin Brock that we don't need to bother about our wasteful habits and not drastically try to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and emmission of the corresponding gases.
See, those deluded libertarian nitwits such as Martin Brock and Rush Limbaugh are so full of their pathetic ideal of Aynrandish world where free markets dominate everything. So they have absolutely no clue how to face this mega problem of too rapid fossil fuel depletion and emmissions. No, this won't get solved thanks to the invisible hand, we do need some form of world government to adopt the necessary policies. So they choose to ignore it, and they choose to believe only the minority of non alarming scientists (as if it's a question of choice !).
And in any case, what do they care, these selfish pigs ? Even if this has catastrophic consequences for a few billion poor coloured people during this century?
Heck, if you think like Rush Limbaugh, that healthcare is like a house on the beach, you get it if you "deserve" it, and only the chosen people are worthy of surviving on this planet.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 4:16 PM
Neg! When did you come back? Welcome home. :)
BTW,
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/01/completely_evil_institute.php
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute
Posted by: Horace | December 6, 2009 4:16 PM
First it did turn out that a lot of raw data had been discarded as Michael's suggested.
Second, negentropyeater, it is possible to have doubts about global warming and still think that we are running out of oil and acidifying the oceans. Or believe in Global warming and think that we have plenty of oil left to destroy the planet with. You can also be left or right wing and be on either side of these issues. When debate becomes politically polarized it is more important for scientists to try to be objective and not assume motives for those who disagree with them. The E-mails show how politicized this dispute has become and the importance of making the science as transparent and unbiased as possible.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | December 6, 2009 4:21 PM
Rush Limbaugh; surely this man is the tao of stupid. Not even the seemingly limitless potential of natural selection or the moron-manufacturing production line of right wing US media could conceivably create a purer strain of idiot.
Any greater a concentration of 'teh stoopid' in one place would surely create some kind of nitwit singularity and destroy us all, just like the Large Hadron Collider did . . . err, wait a second. No, that whole Cern bit was more hysterical media nonsense of the kind that Limbugh regularly spews from his bloated cakehole. My bad.
Posted by: MartinM | December 6, 2009 4:23 PM
Bollocks. CRU's copy of other people's raw data was discarded. The raw data still exists, and the vast majority of it is freely available.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 4:27 PM
It already is. The opaqueness comes from the deniers, who refuse to publish in the peer reviewed journals, but just muddy the waters with inane accusation like yours. You are a proven bullshitter since you failed the put up or shut up test. Science and scientists have your number Horace. And science, with its repeated checks, will be right in the long run, unlike you, without and checks.Posted by: Knockgoats | December 6, 2009 4:30 PM
When debate becomes politically polarized it is more important for scientists to try to be objective and not assume motives for those who disagree with them. - Horace
This simply misrepresents the position. The very few climate scientists who do not accept the consensus have completely failed to produce a coherent alternative: thus there is no scientific debate on the reality and importance of anthropogenic climate change - as far as a scientific issue can be, it's settled. Nor is the attribution of motives to the denialists assumed - rather, it is based on copious evidence of their bad faith. Their harassment may have led some CRU scientists to do things they should not have done - that remains to be seen.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 4:30 PM
Martin Brock,
And you're not presuming to forecast that the warming is going to be sufficiently slow not to have to worry about it ?
Why, knowing that we also have an alarming problem with rapid resources depletion, are you choosing to believe the models of the very few non alarming climate scientists and not the models of the very many alarming ones ?
What's your agenda ?
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 4:36 PM
Even if that were true, and you've provided no evidence for it other than assertion (he describes any missing data in those emails; it certainly was not "a lot," you liar), it wouldn't change the fact that confirming and related analyses were done by numerous other independent bodies which are listed there. It's an obviously sleazy attempt to introduce a red herring on the part of corporate-funded ideologues and their paid shill, and has nothing to do with scientific accuracy.
Are you going to acknowledge that
is, in terms of their actual discussion, a fabrication on your part? If not, you're a slimeball and unworthy of continuing a conversation with. They did not talk about this, and it would have made no sense. As has been pointed out to you, doctorates aren't revoked like that.
Actually, having a little more of the context I think what he mentioned (even if it was meant seriously) was a pretty measured response to accusations of scientific fraud. That would be a lot to put up with on a daily basis, and they shouldn't have to.
There may indeed be objectionable things in these emails, but this isn't one of them as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 4:37 PM
He's a stoopid liberturd/looneytarian. Stoopid, and vocal. I killfiled him a while back, as he is a pretentious fool, with no redeeming cogency.Welcome back. You have been missed.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 4:46 PM
Horace,
No, the emails show that the side that's grounded in reality is getting very, very, tired of the nitwits who believe in fairyland.
The science has been transparent and unbiased all the time : there's a significant probability that the resulting warming of our wasteful habits is going to have catastrophic consequences for a sizeable proportion of humanity during this century. The science is not certain about it. But knowing that we also have a serious problem with rapid resource depletion, it shouldn't be difficult for anybody with half a brain to conclude that we need to seriously do something about our wasteful habits.
Posted by: maureen brian | December 6, 2009 4:49 PM
Sorry, folks, I'm just back home to my computer.
See, Thomas Lee Elifritz @ 376, you are an idiot! Only an idiot would make the assumption, contrary to the available evidence, that I am a scientist. I have made no such claim, nor have I posted anything which could possibly mislead even the dimmest into thinking so for a second.
I do, though, know how to use Google Scholar. I ran you through it, then I tried David Marjanović. 'Nuff said?
As for quantum mechanics, I don't even go there.
What I was for my working life was a communicator, made a reasonable living at it then retired to a small historic house in the country. Some of that communication involved the presentation of complex data and the recognition that the same "fact" presented in different styles can and does convey entirely different messages to the human brain.
I tell you again, you are no communicator. You don't even work out who it is you are talking to before you start blustering and you have totally missed the idea that communication is always a two-way process.
And for the others - remember that the UK Met Office is putting on line this week 150 years' worth of the raw data from 1000 data collection points. The press release is here.
Persons on both sides - sides? - of the case are advised that they will need to bring their own shovel to work their way through it!
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 6, 2009 5:00 PM
No. I don't know how the global climate will change in the future.
I don't believe non-alarming models. I don't believe that any model can effectively predict global climate a century from now. Extrapolating trends can be useful for short-term planning, but I don't pretend to know the future, especially the future of extremely complex systems like the global climate.
Resource depletion is a separate issue. I expect investments in alternative energy sources, automobiles and other technology using alternative energy, more efficient energy use and the rest. I don't know precisely what form these innovations will take, but I might be driving an Aptera a decade from now, and I think that's great. In a few decades, I might power my car from a nuclear power plant the size of a hot tub buried a hundred yards from my subdivision. These innovations are already under development and approaching the market in the near future. Resource depletion doesn't alarm me either, because human beings can adapt to change.
I already drive a Mazda 3 and live in a small, energy efficient condo four tenths of a mile from my work. No international treaty or Federal standards led me to make these choices.
I'm following an interesting scientific controversy, and I'm skeptical of catastrophic prognostication accompanying calls for trillion dollar legislative programs. What's yours?
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 5:01 PM
SC, Nerd,
thx for the welcome back. God, I missed Pharyngula. Been pretty busy this year with some political stuff in France.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | December 6, 2009 5:03 PM
RealClimate has also created a page with links to data.
All of that data has, contrary to the claims of the denialists, been available all the time. People just had to look for it, and not just demand that others did the work for them.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 5:16 PM
Negentropyeater, we have a long running open thread going, that started with a persistent YEC creobot, but has continued on its own. Every thousand posts PZ starts us up a new one. Don't try all of it in one sitting (13,000+ posts according to Sven).
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 5:29 PM
Martin Brock,
So why did you start this discussion with your first post (#8):
a Global Warming catastrophe doesn't seem to be one of them at the moment, based on credible, empirical science, as opposed to dubious, theoretical models of an extremely complex, chaotic, global climate.
Why do you wish to separate it ?
And what about the tens of millions who drive gas guzling SUVs, live in McMansions and waste ten times more fossil fuels than any average human being on this planet ? What is going to make them make a different choice ?
There's no scientific controversy. It's always been very clear that the degree of catastrophy produced by AGW within the next century or two was uncertain. There's only a "controversy" in the heads of the deluded libertarian brains who can't seem to come up with a very simple decision making process.Posted by: Feynmaniac, OM | December 6, 2009 5:37 PM
Welcome back negentropyeater!
Posted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 5:40 PM
I'm just going to go over here in the corner and do a happy dance to see that negentropyeater is back. Don't mind me.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 5:46 PM
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 6:01 PM
Nerd,
sounds like Pharyngula is still as much fun as it was a year ago.
Carlie, Feynmaniac,
thx
Posted by: Bingo | December 6, 2009 6:24 PM
Those CRU emails are not private emails.
The UEA’s FOI guidance to staff specifically states that all e-mails are potentially subject to release under FOI legislation. Staff are adviced to act acordingly.
Sure it is illegal and no doubt the hacker/leaker will be taken to court when caught.
Funny how some of them was so sure they have deleted the emails LOL ... emails are stored in the email server and even if you delete it in the email server, there will still be lots of tape backups.
Corporate and big organisations don't lose emails, ever!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 6, 2009 6:25 PM
Sarmatae, I think you haven't followed some of the links in this thread, like those in comment 192...
The difference between hypothesis and theory is one of size, not of certainty. The phlogiston theory of combustion is a theory, even though it's wrong, because it applied to, well, all combustion and some other processes.
Whuuuut?
Where does quantum mechanics come into climatology? What does even ordinary fluid dynamics have to do with it, as long as we're not trying to make models of heat transport in atmosphere and hydrosphere (and we're not in this thread)?
That makes you a troll. Trolling is a bannable offense, as is wanking.
That you're a troll explains very nicely why you haven't even tried to find a paper that predicts a PETM redux or anything similar. I suppose I can give up waiting...
Then what the fuck are you doing in this thread?
Oh, yeah, I forgot: trolling.
Are there really no methods papers in climatology (don't the results papers at least have methods sections!?!), or are you talking out of your ass?
Questions, questions. So difficult to answer.
Trying to categorize me again, myopic moron. If I think I have all the answers, why do I even ask questions at all? Have I ever asked for datasets?
Rhetorical questions, rhetorical questions. So difficult to answer.
Oyyyyyyyy, a troll that threatens to leave! Let me make a prediction based on Shaker's Law*.
* "Anyone claiming to leave an internet community/forum will return, and the more vehemently and vocally they proclaim it, the sooner they'll be back. – Named after 'Shaker', one of the first moderator[s] on the Richard Dawkins Forum." Quoted from a comment pretty far down here.
Actually, don't bother. You were already back in comment 408 (no more than 18 comments later). And 411, basically repeating comment 408. And 415. And 418, where you commit an... interesting logical fallacy, the argument from imaginary popularity, argumentum ad populum in capite tuo: "the lurkers support my opinion, therefore it's true") – dude, is that embarrassing for you. And 424, where you somehow manage entirely miss the point that it's Kelvin and not degrees Kelvin. And 427. And 433. And 438. And 442.
That's nine times within fifty comments. That you call "I won't be revisiting this thread much"? ROTFL.
You're becoming the entertainer here.
What "extremely dire" means, however, depends strongly on the country.
If you can, check out the Nature paper I cited in comment 180. When the ice sheet of Greenland will have finished melting, that alone will raise the sea level by 7 (not just 6) m, and this happening in less than the next 1,000 years is just about inevitable.
So that it chokes. (Check out the links at the bottom of that post.)
Let the trollboy dance!
Except you didn't post a link to it. Josh did in comment 229.
Of course, that's not horribly relevant, because I'm not any more of a climatologist than you are, or than TLE is.
Plus, I already brought up the three-trillion-dollar war in Iraq. What's a terabuck these days...? A question of political will, nothing more.
Quite so. As SC said: welcome home.
Posted by: Kel, OM | December 6, 2009 6:26 PM
Come now negentropyeater, the military budget actually does something. If the world decided not to spend a trillion dollars a year on weaponry and military conquest, then all a crazed dictator would need is a pointed stick...
Posted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 6:39 PM
What "extremely dire" means, however, depends strongly on the country.
True, but remember here in the good ol' US of A we can't even get basic literacy standards passed. For some reason we've taken the whole personal freedom idea and soldered it directly onto education in such a way that makes it verboten to closely scrutinize anyone's educational methods. Make a school adhere to specific educational standards? Hell no!
Posted by: Damian | December 6, 2009 6:49 PM
This was said by Eric at RealClimate:
Posted by: Owlmirror | December 6, 2009 6:54 PM
Welcome back negentropyeater!
----
Troll tries to swallow Pharyngula. Pharyngula too SIWOTI!. Troll chokes. Dies.
Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 7:20 PM
Regarding this issue, this post explains part of the problem:
http://www.isegoria.net/2009/08/soviet-science.htm
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 7:30 PM
[Evidently, some have taken the post's title as an invitation...]
So, Robert, do you have anything specific to say about this specific issue? Anything at all?
Make a concrete claim. Support it with evidence. Not so difficult, really.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 7:34 PM
Sure, but it'd do the same thing if we spent only a small fraction of it.Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 7:34 PM
Only difficult if you know you are simply a bullshitter trying to muddy the waters. But the waters look very clear to me, with a pile of bullshit well away from the water. Something called physical evidence, and peer reviewed citations...Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 7:43 PM
sc says
So you don't think government bureaucracies have an agenda? Ever heard of the "iron law of bureaucracy"?
Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 7:46 PM
Nerd Redhead says:
Such peer reviewed citations aren't very useful if they're compromised.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 7:50 PM
I'm a sociologist, and well familiar with Michels' ideas. It's the "iron law of oligarchy," you ignoramus, and irrelevant here.
I've italicized "specific" twice. Put up or shut up.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 7:54 PM
But, compared to your unsubstantiated accusations, they are gold. Where is your evidence, other than in your delusional conspiracy soaked mind? Blather = fool. Evidence means someone to be worthy of discussion. So far, you are a delusional fool.Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 7:56 PM
That makes you a troll. Trolling is a bannable offense, as is wanking.
And try as I might, I can't get PZ to ban me. It's quite possible that PZ agrees with my technique.
As for as the links go, I'm beginning to think the software can distinguish between straight links and links like this and this, which I referenced as page 55 of the Antarctica: Keystone of a Changing World 2008 in the National Acadamies online version, which is easily found here just by typing in some simple keywords in the search bar. Perhaps google knows your IP and feeds you nonsense on purpose, since you seem to enjoy is so much. What you need to do is complain directly to Dr. Myers, I'm sure he'll consider your request to ban me, since I'm all for it too.
In the meantime, do an experiment and google 'Antarctica Continental Drift' and see what you get, mindful that Sergey and Larry et al. are always dicking around with their algorithms.
Posted by: Kel, OM | December 6, 2009 7:59 PM
That's crazy talk. You're just inviting the crazed dictators of Mexico to invade America armed with nothing but a cactus bush. And those Canadians? They'll have old moose bones covered in maple syrup. You better pray there's a hockey game on that day...Once the coconut bombs start coming via raft for Cuba, you'll be wishing that the US would go back to spending more than half a trillion dollars a year. This whole thing is MAD!
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 8:09 PM
I do, though, know how to use Google Scholar. I ran you through it, then I tried David Marjanović. 'Nuff said?
But did you click on my link and read anything there? And did you consider the knowledge of classical dynamics rendered in modern geometric forms, and the quantum mechanical origin of ordinary physical properties of gases and condensed matter systems which is necessary but not sufficient to computationally analyze, develop and execute modern models of complex dynamical systems? You think these models and programs are one man or one women shows perhaps? The only person I know of that could even remotely pull something like that off is someone like Martin Schweiger. We all drool with the prospect of getting a programmer like that on our teams.
Or is his knowledge of the origin of amphibians sufficient for your purposes of scientific judgment, in lieu of say, his statements here? Or did he just sway you with his extensive knowledge of physics? So what is it? Perhaps your are just easily persuaded by David's muscular arm waving and his silver tongued flim flam.
David is a bullshitter, easily identified as such.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 6, 2009 8:12 PM
Okay, I did. This was on the first page of links:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/historical.html
Posted by: Carlie | December 6, 2009 8:19 PM
Perhaps your are just easily persuaded by David's muscular arm waving and his silver tongued flim flam.
Although I'm sure David does have muscular arms and a silver tongue, and knows how to use them to his benefit, he generally persuades people here by backing up what he says. That way, even people who disagree with him do so on the merits of the argument rather than baseless assertions. Amazingly enough, he usually manages to do it without being an asshole, too.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 6, 2009 8:21 PM
I didn't see anything for the next several pages of links that had plate reconstructions. But that's probably because your search terms were "Antarctica Continental Drift." Why the hell would you be using continental drift in your search? Why not search under some useful terms like "Antarctica Eocene Paleogeography" or "Antarctica Eocene Plate Reconstructions?"
Do an image search or a scholar search using "Antarctica Eocene Paleogeography" perhaps? Some interesting stuff if you do that.
Posted by: WowbaggerOM
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December 6, 2009 8:22 PM
Probably that damnable butterfly...
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 8:27 PM
When I search I almost invariably get different results, there is nothing new there, running algorithm modifications, cloud computing etc. For David to claim he can't find something is ludicrous, and when I can't find something because google is barfing up obvious spam, which it does occasionally when using unusual keywords, then I keep trying until I get what I am looking for, or I switch search engines until I can get a handle on it.
And David, this thread isn't near 1000 posts yet, which is the limit of my serious interest here. I'm sure I'll have forgotten all about this by mid week, and you'll still be obsessing over it years later. Your worldview is only mildly interesting.
And when David is long forgotten, cranks will be easily remembered by the ignorant masses. So get out there and publish mediocre and forgettable papers, we need that kind of incremental science.
It takes all kinds. Your kind is especially entertaining for my kind of satire and humor.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | December 6, 2009 8:30 PM
How do you know aboot the moose bones?!
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 8:32 PM
Why the hell would you be using continental drift in your search? Why not search under some useful terms like "Antarctica Eocene Paleogeography" or "Antarctica Eocene Plate Reconstructions?"
You know your right, now that I think about it, everyone should act, look and think JUST LIKE YOU!
I can't believe I missed that. You are one persuasive scientist.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 6, 2009 8:35 PM
Page 35 (18 of the .pdf):
http://www.geodynamics.no/guest/BAT_Torsvik.pdf
Figure 6 (refers to the Lazarus and Caulet (1993) paper):
http://www.polar.pan.pl/ppr26/ppr26-003.pdf
Figure 1:
http://www.unc.edu/~lswagner/AllenArmstrong2008.pdf
Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 8:47 PM
sc says:
Oh really, then state it then if you think I meant "iron law of oligarchy" instead of "iron law of bureaucracy". And the government bureaucracies that fund this research is pretty damned relevant you fuckhead.
Nerd Redhead says:
So government bureaucracies willingly fund research that leads to the reduction of the power of that bureaucracy? What universe are you living on?
Posted by: Wonko the Sane | December 6, 2009 8:48 PM
And now for something completely different: if you killfile the Elfs on the thread, there would be 54 less comments, yet the amount of interesting information would remain the same. Sorry for interrupting, but even someone generally only lurking can only take so much until the vanity-meter overloads.
"Pompous, conceited and stupid is no way to go through life, son" To paraphrase Dean Vernon Wormer.
Posted by: Owlmirror | December 6, 2009 8:50 PM
Everyone should act, look and think in a knowledgeable and well-informed manner? Yes, I quite agree.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 8:52 PM
As I said, blather. That is all ideologues like you have. If you had any true physical evidence you would have presented it first thing. Now you are a proven liar and bullshitter by not shutting the fuck up. Welcome to real science.Posted by: Andyo
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December 6, 2009 8:53 PM
Is that your answer? Way to derail with a meaningless, conspiracy soaked answer.
Posted by: Josh
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December 6, 2009 8:53 PM
Figure 1:
http://doos.misu.su.se/pap/paleo2004.pdf
Figure 1:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/ea/of2007-1047ea202.pdf
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 8:54 PM
You're a fool and a waste of time.
Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 8:55 PM
wonko says:
Examples of government bureaucracies willingly funding research that leads to the reduction of those bureaucracies would be very interesting information indeed.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 8:56 PM
I know. I only read his first post or two, then put him in the same category as MB. A pretentious person with delusions of adequacy. I saved myself a lot of time reading, since I essentially skipped every TLE post, and MB is killfiled. From the responses, they haven't said that much worth discussing.Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 8:57 PM
sc said:
Then state it you coward.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 8:58 PM
Sorry Kel, but Mexican cactus bush, Canadian moose bones (covered with maple syrup or not), and Cuban coconut bombs will get instantaneously crushed by the fantastic power of American pumpkin missiles.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 9:01 PM
Oh! We're talking scifi!
Make a specific argument, Robert, or go away.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:02 PM
You are fool. Period, end of story. So, be a man of honor and integrity, and shut the fuck up. Or, show youself to be a liar and bullshitter by continuing with nothing but insinuations.Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 9:03 PM
andyo says:
I guess oil companies and government bureaucracies don't have self-interests. Your denial of human nature is pathetic.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 9:04 PM
Here is another recent discussion of gateways, although addressing a more recent era. I was rather more interested in the Drake passage event as it relates to the final isolation of Antarctica and the establishment of the circumpolar current, but there is no doubt deep ocean currents are going to be the primary driver of the steplike nature of the warming, whether indirectly by driving atmospheric currents, or directly by oceanic thermal oscillations. Thus I am more concerned with events like the PETM, which have the potential to thermally overturn the oceans, and wreak temporary (in geological terms) havoc on the climate. The primary difference between the PETM and now is that we have large ice sheets, although we have considerably fewer ones than we did only 15 thousand years ago. And the largest one we have is thermally somewhat isolated near the south pole, with a robust circumpolar airflow and currents. That's going to slow things down a little, and by a little I also mean in geological terms.
But, get this, with the advent of quantum mechanics and advanced orbital rocketry, we can get out there with instruments and measure the effects like sea level rise and ice loss to a very high precision, should America decide to give up on religious and political nuttery and embrace science. From the comments here, from established and published scientists no less, that seems more and more improbable by the day. It's that close.
Troll tries to swallow Pharyngula. Pharyngula too SIWOTI!. Troll chokes. Dies.
Such violence! How much TV do you watch?
Get out there on Memorial Day and GLORIFY!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:05 PM
Still no evidence Robert, just blather. You are a good liar and bullshitter.
Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 9:08 PM
nerd redhead says:
You're no man of honor and integrity. I've debated your previous posts on other threads before.
And I was replying to someone else dipshit.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 9:10 PM
Robert,
Do you have anything of substance to say at all? Anything?
Ideas about how certain (forms of) organizations work are only relevant if we're trying to understand or explain actual behavior that's been documented. But you haven't pointed to any actual, specific behavior. You need to do that if you want anyone to take you seriously.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:10 PM
Still no evidence you liar and bullshitter. You have nothing cogent to say to us. And you know it. You just have attitude.Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 9:12 PM
Redhead, Sc and other statists:
You have no evidence that government bureaucracies willingly fund research that leads to the reduction of those bureaucracies.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 6, 2009 9:15 PM
Thomas, I'll check that paper out tomorrow.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:15 PM
Robert, either put up or shut the fuck up. Your accusations are meaningless, just like a godbot giving testament without showing conclusive evidence his deity exists. You have nothing but attitude.Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 9:21 PM
So nothing. Pathetic.
What research are you talking about? How, specifically, has it been warped to foster the perpetuation of an agency? How is that illustrated in these particular emails? Give specifics.
People like you would be funny if you had no effect on policy.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 6, 2009 9:21 PM
Robert, or
... how it's much easier to imagine a vast world conspiracy between the governments of all nations and the majority of the world's scientists to impose a new world order of social reengineering and wealth redistribution, than that there are millions of libertarians nitwits and other free market ideologues who refuse to deal with environemental issues and resource depletion and change their wasteful habits...
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 6, 2009 9:21 PM
Josh, the final comments of PA4026 are particularly interesting, but again, I am interested more in things that are happening or can happen on decadal, centennial and millennial scales, such as the PETM, the Younger Dryas, the Neocene (you say anthropocene, I say neocene) etc., things that we know happened and we know are happening now. But thanks again for taking the time to dredge up the goods. Unfortunately, I'm just a lowly troll, and have a limited time to go through those particular controversies, being engaged in controversies of my own, but thank you again for bringing it to my attention. I do hope continental margin erosion doesn't become an active and efficient positive feedback in the near future. That would be bad.
Posted by: Kel, OM | December 6, 2009 9:24 PM
And so the next arms race begins...Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 9:25 PM
nerd redhead says:
You state that you and other leftists on this site will only accept peer reviewed data, any peer reviewed literature. Then you call me a liar when I said that you and other leftists on this site will only accept peer reviewed data that is politically correct. The link I showed didn't ring your bell did it?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/researchers_nightmares.php#comment-2103238
Perhaps this will help:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/crank_science_is_as_crank_scie.php#comment-1867539
Because you got real nasty after I did show it on a thread months before the climategate scandal.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 9:27 PM
Nitwit.
Posted by: Greg V | December 6, 2009 9:29 PM
I found another good video rebuttal to this climate gate nonsense: http://wp.me/pGfKp-1U
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:31 PM
No, it had to be scientifically peer reviewed. Peer review by liberturds doesn't ensure scientific quality. Quit lying to yourself, so you can quit lying to us.Scientific peer review is not ideologically driven, except that reality appears to have a left wing bias. That is because we don't lie to ourselves and invent conspiracies where none exist. You are the delusional evidenceless fool. Time to fade into the bandwidth. You have nothing cogent to offer.Posted by: AJ Milne OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:33 PM
Since the 'the data are deleted and so we can't even verify the results' meme is still being pushed by various none too well-informed puppets, I'll repeat this link from MMFA on the basics re those reports:
Conservative media hype misleading report suggesting CRU destroyed raw climate data
... note also that, with the exception of certain data protected under various NDA-type deals with supplying governments, generally a lot of this data is now and always has been available. Just not terribly conveniently.
... and note finally that reports circulating that the scientists are doing an 'about face' on making the sets available in the wake of the email theft are also misleading. They've posted some links to data that were already available, and re-emphasized, in doing so, the fact that they were already available.
Shorter: the 'ZOMG Conspiracy!' wanks screamed 'Give us the data!', and the scientists said, 'Look, ya dumbfucks, same as always, what's available is right there on publicly-accessible servers.', and the dumbfucks then crowed 'Ha! Made ya blink!'
(/... In a rough approximation of the general quality of the bizarrely disjoint logical flow characterizing their spambot-like bombing of sane discussion everywhere else--including this thread--with non sequiturs strongly suggesting the spy drama they're watching in their head bears no resemblance to the systematic campaign of haraassment and minsinformation the rest of the world is seeing, come to think of it.)
Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 9:33 PM
sc says:
Hey, let me play that game too!
"Fascist!"
Let me get this straight,
so...
Research funded by private industry = bad.
Research funded by government bureaucracy = good.
Does that logic make any sense?
Posted by: Andyo
|
December 6, 2009 9:34 PM
Who said that, you dumbass? Way to derail even more the original question, what was it?And maybe, just maybe, smart people in governments realize that it's on their own self interest to pursue green technology and green science. That the Bush government pretty much didn't is a good indication.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 9:35 PM
So, what's the coherent alternative? Give a concrete explanation with scientific citations.
Thanks.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:38 PM
Ditto, but the citations should be to the peer reviewed scientific literature.Posted by: Andyo
|
December 6, 2009 9:39 PM
I think you misquoted, SC, he just said there is none.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 9:42 PM
You're such a fucking idiot. It was your game. You called me a statist, which was laughably wrong.
It matters not, as you haven't demonstrated that to be anyone's logic. Point out the flaws in the actual concrete science and describe your actual concrete alternatives. Or go away.
Posted by: Robert | December 6, 2009 9:42 PM
andyo says:
As long as the tech doesn't lead to the reduction of the bureaucracy.
Maybe you shouldn't answer for other people instead of using the standard leftist mob debate tactics.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 9:45 PM
I was quoting KG.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:45 PM
Aw, c'mon, SC...
I mean, ya gotta admit, it would be kinda nifty somehow managing to be an anarchist 'statist'...
(/Sorta like when Russell heard he might get himself a shrine in China... making him some variety of god: 'Very chic for an atheist'.)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 9:46 PM
You need a tin foil hat and a lead lined basement. I hear the black helicopter are headed your way. Looneytunes claim.Posted by: Kel, OM | December 6, 2009 9:51 PM
Thread is a reminder of why libertarian arseholes piss me off so much. Also a reminder of a libertarian essay sent to me about environmental policy which basically came to the point "Yes, libertarianism can't help the environment. But neither can the system we have now."
And they call Marxism a religion...
Posted by: Zarquon | December 6, 2009 9:53 PM
At least Robert is usefully supplying a great example of the term "febrile".
Posted by: Andyo
|
December 6, 2009 9:54 PM
OH THE CONSPIRACY!Maybe you shouldn't answer for other people instead of using the standard leftist mob debate tactics.YOU were asked the question, you numbnuts. Where is the evidence of all the stupid paranoid crap you're claiming?
Posted by: Andyo
|
December 6, 2009 9:57 PM
that should be:
YOU were asked the question, you numbnuts. Where is the evidence of all the stupid paranoid crap you're claiming?Posted by: Bart | December 6, 2009 10:20 PM
#6Posted by: Jynx | December 5, 2009 12:40 PM
"With the evolution "debate" continuing with religious fundamentalists, the last thing the scientific community needs is the whole process of the scientific method coming into question by even more people."
Yep, which is why biologists, in particular, should be hopping mad that the extreme enviro lobby hocked their credibility and bet it on a singular roll of the dice. Or maybe not, since they were not wholly innocent in the transaction.
Everyone knew it was a gamble. They said outright that the consequences were too dire to wait for proof positive. People who want something really badly, and are open to gambling, often make such rationalizations before they lose everything.
But, did any of the major science organizations object to the bet that was placed using their assets? No, they were right there in the front row, screaming "rooolllllll sevens!"
You play, you pay. Maybe next time, they will be a little wiser about voluntarily floating their livelihoods to speculators.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
December 6, 2009 10:23 PM
Is Bart talking about science? because quite frankly, it resembles the situation of science not at all, but does pretty well mirror the current state of the economy...
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 6, 2009 10:24 PM
No credibility has been hocked. What part of reality don't you understand? You only wish it had been hocked.There were no speculators. Just good science. Which doesn't agree with your agenda, therefore, instead of you being wrong, it must the those nasty, but honest, scientists.Posted by: SC, OM | December 6, 2009 10:25 PM
What, precisely, are you talking about? Be fucking specific.
Posted by: steve | December 6, 2009 10:26 PM
@ negentropyeater
As a deluded nitwit libertarian myself, I take exception to you calling Rush Limbaugh a libertarian.
Yes, the Republicans have been sounding more libertarianish lately on a few issues. This happens every time they are out of power. Don't worry only the youngest nitwits among us will be fooled.
Same thing happens with the Democrats. Still waitin for some role back of the police state Obama was talking about.
As far as that other guy, Martin Brock. I have never heard of him. That whole nitwit thing showing through I guess.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
|
December 6, 2009 10:32 PM
#555...
Oooooooh... 'extreme enviro lobby'...
(Stamps... excitedly checks card...)
BINGO!
(/Yeah, that's right, suckas... that toaster oven grand prize is now mine!)
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 6, 2009 11:59 PM
I have no experience in climatology, and really no ability to weigh the primary literature meaningfully. I will say that if government funding agencies are supporting an ideology, I wish to Christ they would communicate that ideology with me, so I could cash in.
This is only the testimony of one anonymous scientist, but when I review grants and sit on panels for the NSF , I don't receive any rubric dealing with ideology. I am asked only to weigh the intellectual merit and the broader impacts of a proposal. Proposals that receive very positive reviews from a panel of 5-10 scientists tend to get funded. That's the whole deal. It is a cold, harsh process that has brought me no end of heartache. However, I can say that ALL of the reviews I have ever received (no matter how myopic or misguided) have been a judgement on these criteria. I fail to detect an ideological trend.
Posted by: Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM | December 7, 2009 12:02 AM
Oh. Here is a name I have not seen in a while. Hello, Negentropyeater! Stick around a while!
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 7, 2009 12:03 AM
Also--if the NSF is choosing me based on some ideological profile, I would be surprised as hell. I have in all my years failed to develop a very coherent worldview. The fact that I am chosen at all seems random and desparate.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | December 7, 2009 12:41 AM
Ah. But you would say that, if you were part of the conspiracy, wouldn't you?
I can't help wonder how anyone can think that there exist a global conspiracy, in which the US, China, the EU, Russia, the African countries etc. all have joined together to deceived the world. Why would they bother? If they could make such a conspiracy, they could just force people to do what they want them to.
Also, people seem to have forgotten the very science unfriendly Bush administration, which tried to suppress people like Hansen. Back then, it was definitely safer for your career to not be a scientist who was vocal on AGW.
Posted by: Steven Sullivan | December 7, 2009 1:56 AM
I wrote:
":David M. is basically on *your side* of the AGW 'debate', you fool."
Thomas Elifritz replied:
"That's weird that you say that because there is no 'debate' anymore."
I put that word in quotes for a reason, you insufferable asshole.
Posted by: John Morales | December 7, 2009 3:16 AM
Robert @495 rhetorically asks:
SC @497 responds: I'm a sociologist, and well familiar with Michels' ideas. It's the "iron law of oligarchy," you ignoramus, and irrelevant here.
I suspect SC is approaching this from an academic/political perspective, whilst Robert instead refers to a populist perspective (i.e. they're talking past each other on this).
Note that Jerry Pournelle (whom I have been following for years) is a climate change skeptic.
Posted by: John Scanlon, FCD | December 7, 2009 3:27 AM
TLE claims to know all about Dunning-Kruger:
Hahahahaha!
Posted by: krc [clowersnet.net]
|
December 7, 2009 4:09 AM
Thomas Lee Elifritz (#388):
What exactly is that last bit supposed to mean? What does the instruction set have to do with data in HTML form?
It is pretty easy to convert html into a pdf. If you start with the data in a decent form, you can easily output it in html, pdf or just about any other form you want. I also wouldn't call pdf, html or "SQL" (presumably you mean it was in a relational database that understood SQL) "bizarre forms". And of course Javascript and AJAX are not forms that data could really be in... unless you actually stored the data as magic values in JS, but no one would do that.
Posted by: maureen brian | December 7, 2009 4:40 AM
@ 501
"But did you click on my link and read anything there?"
No, I fucking didn't. I already said I'm not a scientist. Besides, if you wrote there as you write here would I be any the wiser once I had read it?
If you sincerely believe that either superconductors or bismuth is the key to the whole climate question then why are you here wittering? Why are you not in Copenhagen this morning explaining that to 190+ high-level delegations?
As for David Marjanović, I've been reading him for a couple of years now. Sometimes the sheer detail is a bit much but he also has a sense of humour, great self-awareness and working in his third - or is it your fourth, David? - language he does a better job of communicating both facts and ideas than you ever will.
Posted by: Josh
|
December 7, 2009 5:49 AM
Yes, I'm aware that your interests were largely elsewhere. My only point in any of the citations that I've posted in this thread has been to clear up issues concerning the timing of the Eocene/Oligocene Boundary, and the paleogeographic placement of the antarctic landmass ~the late Eocene.
For the record, I never referred to you as a troll.
Oh, and, not that it matters, but I call it Neogene. I'm not sure who really uses Neocene anymore.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 7, 2009 6:26 AM
Fxed. WTF is a "populist perspective"? We already have terms that get at such issues (goal displacement, bureaucratic inertia). To call anything social an "iron law" is a rhetorical gambit to begin with, but this is pure rhetoric on his part. I'm not talking past the nitwit. I asked him above to point to something empirical and specific in this case that he was explaining in terms of this alleged "iron law" or that illustrated it in action, and he did not respond. (Not to mention that even if he could, it would say nothing about the science.) He didn't even specify which bureaucracy he was supposedly talking about (EAU, CRU, EPA - what?). All these people - most of whom probably couldn't define "bureaucracy" if their life depended on it, but know that many people have mental associations with the term - are trying to do is throw out scary-sounding language to further disparage climate scientists. They know they don't have the science on their side; these dishonest tactics are all they've got.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 7, 2009 6:30 AM
Grr.
Fixed."
Too early.
Posted by: John Morales | December 7, 2009 6:53 AM
SC @571, quite so, I expressed myself badly.
I guess my main point was that "the iron law of bureaucracy" is an extant expression which has weight in libertarian circles and a particular meaning, but one with which you were apparently unfamiliar.
My feeble effort at concisely referring to cynical suspicion of governmental bodies by common people.
Posted by: SC, OM | December 7, 2009 7:02 AM
Yes, I realized that above. In true propertarian form, they manage to be both sociologically stupid and rhetorically sly.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 10:47 AM
My only point in any of the citations that I've posted in this thread has been to clear up issues concerning the timing of the Eocene/Oligocene Boundary, and the paleogeographic placement of the antarctic landmass ~the late Eocene.
That's fine, and my comment about being 'fully in position' was referring to existing as an isolated land mass with the ability to sustain circumpolar currents. Clearly my understanding of this weird phenomenon was incomplete, and I made a diligent effort to improve it, and I thank you for bringing the various controversies to my attention. I know how the REAL TROLLS here would (are) picking the terminology apart with their expert knowledge of the notation and with trivial dictionary quotes, and will enforce their pathetically authoritarian perspective of the language by EXPUNGING improper vocabulary from LANGUAGE ITSELF. So be sure to petition them for my banishment as I'm sure they sit on the thought and speech police commissions as well. This kind of behavior can't go on.
As I said, I've found what I needed to know (with your help) about these so called 'gateways' and the relationship that an iced over antarctica might have in staving off a PETM like event, which will surely happen if carbon dioxide emissions continue to spike into the near geological future.
It's going to be quite a ride, and most people don't really understand the limited ability of the ice sheet to put this off for a few decades or centuries, and their response to limited forcings.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 10:50 AM
"But did you click on my link and read anything there?"
No, I fucking didn't.
Ok then. There you have it.
Ignorance is curable. Stupidity is not.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2009 10:51 AM
Happy to help when possible. I still fully intend on reading that last paper you linked to; haven't yet gotten to it.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 10:55 AM
http://reason.com/blog/2009/12/07/publics-absolute-lack-of-inter
this might help some you understand the skepticism out there. Not of the professional deniers per se, but of your average person who is very meh towards AGW these days.
since its from a Libertarian publication, and Good People dont want to burn their eyes out over there, I'll cut and paste a good graf.
"Americans are rightly skeptical not of climate change per se, but of obviously politicized areas of science. We thankfully do not live in a world of lab-coat-wearing experts who dictate the Truth to us anymore. Any number of bogus scientific discoveries has cured us of such faith and so has decades of politicians lying to us about everything from the Gulf of Tonkin incident to the meaning of the word is to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the pressing need for the feds to run GM. This sort of doubt has added support to what Ron Bailey has called "policy nihilism," a very rational belief that policies designed to mitigate climate change will be far, far worse than simply dealing with changed climates."
Posted by: maureen brian | December 7, 2009 11:01 AM
Aw, diddums!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 7, 2009 11:01 AM
Why not? Didn't you read this?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 7, 2009 11:06 AM
Being from a liberturdian publication, it didn't take long to see the deliberate lies. First of all, science is not political. The data is what it is. So the science of climate change says AGW is occuring. Nor does science ever proclaim the Truth. Only the truth with a small t, and subject to change with more evidence. Usually the changes are minor, and not anything major.The politics of what to do to alleviate AGW has nothing to do with the science that showed that it is occuring. Some of the models scientists developed can help politicians to decide on courses of action, but that isn't up to the scientists, and we know it. Liberturds think everything is politically motivated. It isn't.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 11:11 AM
Ding! We've got our first script kiddie on the thread! Data is ... well ... it's a tautology.
The presentation of data is a programming art. That requires hardware, which requires condensed matter physics, which requires physics, which requires biology and ... ultimately ... sex. Which involves fucking. Which ultimately resulted in Pharyngula.
Clearly Dr. Myers is the pinnacle of evolution on this planet. Crappy programming languages for data presentation was just a very short phase I went through quite a while ago. I prefer to simulate object oriented programming constructs with FORTH.
Unfortunately, FORTH has a problem in that it is still a threaded programming language with limited applicability in the modern world of large fast supercomputers. Programming languages was just another phase I went through even longer ago after I learned how to hand compile and build a complete FORTH nucleus and operating system, and studied in extensively in the context of self recompiling data structures, like ... DNA or something.
Building actual computers was a phase I went through decades ago after I learned regulated DC power supplies and RF when I was a child, before I studied combinatory and mathematical logic (lambda calculus et al. and then the various machine languages of the day, or year.
Now you idiots can obsess over me for years as much as I care, but I'm moving on to new things. Hopefully none of my future endeavors will involve ever more nutty programming languages that require teams of programmers gobbled up by the goobles.
So good luck with the trolling goobers and gomers!
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 11:15 AM
Nerd of Redhead, you cannot read.
The quote, which you can read for yourself in its original, says 'obviously politicized areas of science' not 'science is political'.
AGW has become politicized, both for and against. Data, real data, cannot be politicized. How data is handled and distributed can, and in the CRU case, did. And I mean both sides of it: the hack, the FOIA requests, and the threats to delete, harass, and obfuscate.
And so your average person shrugs his shoulders, and recounts the last time the Media-governmental complex hoodwinked him, probably last week sometime, and says the hell with it, "I oppose".
No policy is sometimes better than bad policy.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2009 11:26 AM
Plenty of others were calling him on it. I didn't see the need.
Posted by: Joseph | December 7, 2009 11:44 AM
The "trick" is nothing but a legitimate technique called left censoring, which is used in epidemiology. I bet even the CRU scientists didn't know this :)
I explain it here.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
December 7, 2009 11:45 AM
Ah, poor Matt. I see no problems with anything in the e-mails. They are just people annoyed at being harrassed and pestered by the likes of you. I only see liberturds trying to cause problems for science where they don't exist. And the biggest problems with the liberturds is that they think they are the smartest people around. They aren't by a long shot, and they lie constantly to attempt to maintain their politics. And to ignore the science or try to smear the scientists is just stupid. A bad policy that is trying to do good is still better than doing nothing.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 11:47 AM
Thanks to TLE for the links to the Antarctica conference volume. I didn't find it because I searched for "Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World (2008)".
I'm surprised that you searched for "continental drift", though. Nobody uses that term anymore except when talking about the history of science, because the theory of plate tectonics (first published in the 1960s) is pretty different from Wegener's original continental drift.
More later, don't have time to read any of that now.
English is my second language. I suppose that explains something. :-)
But can they continue to spike into the near geological future?
Peak Oil is due soon. Even without it, the oil would only last a few decades anymore. Coal is expected to last longer, but not much more than a century either.
Feedbacks from ocean acidification dissolving limestone… can it really get that far? It's not like there were no reefs in the Mesozoic.
Seafloor methane clathrates going up, like they apparently did at the PETM? Some research into the probability of this was done late last decade; the last I heard was that the deposits are fairly stable and not at serious risk. If they were, surely something would have been published about that…?
The permafrost melting and releasing the methane from its clathrates is a more serious risk. But, if nothing else, that isn't that much methane.
So… what have I overlooked? How do you justify that "surely" in the quote above?
You made the claim, you have to supply the evidence.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 11:52 AM
So… what have I overlooked?
Nothing. You've got the situation totally under control. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 11:58 AM
"Pinnacle of evolution" is like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously". Better trolls, please.
Shaker's Law striking again! And this time it's really a prediction on my part. This is becoming fun. :-)
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 12:02 PM
And while I type, he's baaaaaack! Look, he's even so kind as to answer my question… in the "not" mode.
Dude, you have fallen among the scientists. When you aren't understood, it is your fault because you failed to express yourself clearly enough. That's how it's handled in peer review, that's how it's handled in science in general.
Put up or shut up. It's that simple.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 12:17 PM
Put up or shut up. It's that simple.
There is no need to, David, you've already got all the answers. Nor is there any need to shut up, so do keep posting, and I disrespectfully decline your request to 'shut up'. But thanks for asking.
Or demanding, such as it is.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 12:22 PM
So you announce you want to leave, but you don't leave. You announce I have all the answers, yet I have questions, which you refuse to answer – you even refuse to defend you own points.
Dance, trollboy! Dance!
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 12:30 PM
Dance, trollboy! Dance!
Classic. That was so easy.
Posted by: Owlmirror | December 7, 2009 12:49 PM
Still choking, I see.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 1:18 PM
Still choking, I see.
Still imagining things, I see. Remember now, NO UPSIDE DOWN AMERICAN FLAGS! It's strictly VERBOTEN.
Worship your nation several times daily!
Posted by: darth_borehd | December 7, 2009 1:39 PM
Why is it that climate chnage deniers are often conservative republicans? What exactly do they have against science?
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 1:39 PM
and this is where the elf misses the point where most of the posters on this thread aren't American. surprise surprise
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 1:43 PM
science, being closely related to reality, has a liberal bias :-)Posted by: Owlmirror | December 7, 2009 1:48 PM
Still choking, I see.
Please, do go into the light.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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December 7, 2009 1:54 PM
Matt,
Please, tell me what is "political" about 3 consecutive decades, each warmer than the last (on average), about a simultaneously warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere, about more than 10 separate lines of evidence all showing CO2 sensitivity must be more than 2 degrees per doubling (and all, independently, favoring ~3 per doubling)...
Science is about evidence, and no amount of character assassination can make it go away.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2009 2:00 PM
Thinking makes the baby Jesus cry.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 2:03 PM
Nerd, if it were just Libertarians skeptical of AGW, you'd not have a PR problem on your hands. Just not that many of us wise guys. Reason mag does not have a very large distribution, to say the least.
As it were, the general public, not very libertarian by any standard, is turning against the idea of mitigating AGW. The CRU folks havent helped things much. We Bad Guys find this all humorous, but not very heartening. Not too worry Nerd, In no time we'll have a global economy controlling AGW mitigation plan. We're gonna control the climate by controlling people, dont'cha know. Nothing too complex, we've got the can-do spirit, plus we really, really want to do good.
And you know, if the military gets to blow off unintentional killings, I can see how the Greens could feel entitled to drain the substance out of the worlds economy. Why shouldnt you all be entitled to some collateral damage to call your own?
No worries, Nerd. You will get what you're after eventually. It will be expensive, wasteful, and do very little good. You will cheer.
Posted by: krc [clowersnet.net]
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December 7, 2009 2:08 PM
Thomas Lee Elifritz (#582):
Is that directed at my post? Or was there some other post I overlooked? I ask because although your post is programming related (and my post seems to be the only other programming related post), your post doesn't really answer an of my questions or even seem to relate other than in the most general way.
As far as Forth not being that great for parallel processing, have you looked at Joy? I don't know that much about it, but it apparently has a fair number of similarities to Forth, but it is a functional language, which of course are generally amiable to parallelism.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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December 7, 2009 2:11 PM
Matt, did you have anything substantive to say, or are you just going to spout of about "greenies" and "commies"?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 2:11 PM
Please, do go into the light.
See how easy it is for an experienced and educated troll like myself to almost EFFORTLESSLY get you to reveal your desire, inclination and deep infatuation with violence and death? Play video games much?
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 2:15 PM
you mean the same general public that thinks Obama was born in Kenya...? because your ability to buy another plasma TV is more important than preventing the death or displacement of everyone living on an island, all of Bangladesh, etc.You're a selfish, arrogant prick.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 2:20 PM
ray_in_dilbert
Personally im a mild skeptic at most of the existence of AGW. From what I can tell of the CRU debacle, it doesnt contradict the larger consensus. Usually, not always, the consensus ends up being the correct answer in science. I know that.
The larger issue, and by that I mean the proposed responses to AGW, has become politicized, on both sides of the aisle I hasten to add. You dont deny that do you? Recording a temperature reading is not political. The speculation over what it portends and what we should do about it is where the politics comes in.
My skepticism lies there. The original questions: 1) is CC happening and 2) are humans causing/contributing? I believe are probably yes.
But there are many more questions not answered: 3) is it on net necessarily a bad thing? 4) Can we stop it? 4) Would our limited resources be best spent on cleanup so on after the fact? 6) Given that economic prosperity has brought more well being to the greatest number around the world, How do we know the methods we choose to stop it wont do more harm than good given that they will depress the worlds economy?
and, as a purely political question: 7) Why is it that so many of the AGW fixes proposed resemble what socialists wanted to do with the economy long before AGW was even an issue?
All that said, I still believe we ought to tax gasoline in America at a much higher rate and invest in green - tech. Even if AGW doesnt deliver a catastrophe we've got Peak Oil at some point in the future and of course our miserable dependence on Those Who Would Destroy us. Im just far from ready to have our economy commanded and controlled from Copenhagen.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 2:26 PM
I haven't looked at Joy, but I'll check it out. I do know the gobbles have been trying to tie up a lot of loose ends (and there are a lot of them as you well know) with a variety of modern data presentation techniques, with something called 'Go'. I rarely use FORTH for anything but hardware lately, and I don't pretend to be able to predict where modern computer language evolution will go even in the near future.
It's a jungle out there. I try to focus more on the data structure and representation as it comes out of the instrument so that further processing is easier. Post processing and presentation is way down on my list. But I also understand the need for corporate entities to 'make a buck' with some of this stuff. Thus I stick with what I know, which is a proprietary geometric theory that came out of my lambda calculus and differential geometry years. It works for me. Forth was a quick and easy way to implement it on the logical and algebraic scale, but it utterly fails when it comes to most modern numerical and computational algorithms, so I guess it's still a work in progress and unfinished, as most of my stuff is.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 2:29 PM
then you don't know much about the correlation between wealth and well-being. The correlation between higher average income and higher well-being in a country drops off and pretty much disappears after an average income of about $20000/year, at which point other things start mattering more. Which means that the West, which is getting richer, doesn't need to (and could even handle getting somewhat poorer), while the rest of the world, which could use to get richer still, isn't because they're already dealing with the fallout of global change.or what did you think triggered the violence in Darfur?
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 2:30 PM
"you mean the same general public that thinks Obama was born in Kenya...?"
Jadehaw, no.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121105095
In a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, climate comes in dead last, No. 20 of the 20 big issues of concern to America.
Posted by: DaveH_of_Lundun | December 7, 2009 2:33 PM
What you meant:
because that's not the impression I get of the UK public at all. It's probably not the case in the rest of Europe either.
Incidentally, today in the biggest selling tabloid:
THE crucial Copenhagen climate summit starts today - and these maps show why it HAS to succeed.
(For those unfamiliar with it, The Sun is not a liberal organ)
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 2:36 PM
"Which means that the West, which is getting richer, doesn't need to (and could even handle getting somewhat poorer), "
And see Jadehawk, this is really where you lose the average person. As a PR strategy, you really ought to keep these Marxist outbursts to yourself. You'll do better with the average American if he doesnt connect the dots between that statement and Greens proposed AGW responses. A little secret between us, Jadehawk, the average person has the old-fashioned belief that it is up to him or her to decide how much richer or poorer he or she 'needs' or 'could even handle'. I know its tough to get your head around.
I always knew I wasnt average, but, anecdotally, I am much, much happier since my salary has doubled since my early twenties. Maybe more than twice as happy.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 2:44 PM
you meant "the average person has been drilled to believe that there's nothing more important to their happiness than 'keeping up with the Joneses'"; that's not the same. And even despite that consumerist addiction, over half of all people would be willing to make less if it also meant being higher up on the social scale. most people understand full well that money isn't everything, but they aren't being given the information to know what else there is (or are being told that everything else is a job for their church)and if you really think people decide for themselves how much wealth is enough, you're fucking clueless about how humans work.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 2:50 PM
Ah, Matt. Still missing the point with your bombast. I recognize the symptoms. I was in college when the campus radicalization dthat occured during the Nam war. You sound just like the radicals, spewing your rhetorical nonsense while trying to sound mainstream and rational. I see through that.
I have only argued the science, and the trashing of the honest scientists doing their job properly. People like you seem to feel if you don't like the politics of the problem that the science has exposed, trash the scientists instead of proposing your own agendas. As long as the honest scientists are being trashed, I will not listen to anything that the trashing side has to say.
Here's a couple of reasons I don't think much of what you say. The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act did a lot to clean up the environment, and cost a lot less than the alarmists like you projected. Rivers that caught fire now support fish. A dead Great Lake came back to life. The air in many urban areas is now breathable, and one can even see the stars in some the cities. The ban on CFC's has caused the ozone hole at the south pole to stabilize and show signs that it might decrease in the future. So efforts for the environment are effective.
Matt, I'm not after anything. I'm an old fart, and won't live to see things change much with respect to AGW. But, I would like to think that humanity is doing its job for protecting itself and the wildlife in the world by not making matters worse. Libertarians and wingnuts will mortgage their soul avoid taking any action at the moment, and are willing to leave it to their descendents to take action. The sooner actions are started, the easier it is to avoid larger scales problems down the road.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 2:50 PM
"if it also meant being higher up on the social scale."
hmmmm, maybe you're on to something. Tell me Jadehawk, are you smart enough to raise us up the social scale? On the great question "who shall decide", could it be You, the pure and benevolent Jadehawk?
"if you really think people decide for themselves how much wealth is enough, you're fucking clueless about how humans work."
Yes, yes I think you might be the one. We must Impeach Obama immediately Please Jadehawk, you Understand People. Ergo, you should take the worlds wealth and redistribute it as you see fit to each according to their need. We await our higher place on the social scale.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | December 7, 2009 2:58 PM
Thomas:
I know in advance that this will bounce off your head, but it may be worth saying for others' benefit:
Ignorance is curable, but not usually by sending laypersons to highly technical information which they lack the tools to properly understand and evaluate.
Now, I anticipate that you will declare any such lack of tools to be the very definition of stupidity, but you're wrong about that. The world is full of technical specialities that even the very smartest among us could not be expected to understand without subject-matter-specific training and predicate knowledge. Not everybody can be a technical expert, and pretty much nobody can be a technical expert on everything (including you, despite your evident opinion to the contrary).
My observation is that very smart people, specifically because they're very smart, are peculiarly liable to the error of convincing themselves that they understand things they're actually not equipped to understand... making them vulnerable to plausible-sounding crackpots and scammers.
Thus, I think maureen brian's refusal, as a self-described nonscientist, to go chasing primary sources (even on the dubious assumption that that's what was at the end of your links) is not stupidity so much as it is wisdom. Those of us who are interested, intelligent, technically literate laypersons do have a place in the discussion, but it's not the same place as the technical experts, and it isn't properly informed by the same types of sources.
Of course, you express more or less the same indiscriminate contempt for experts and laypeople alike, not to mention pretty much everyone who isn't you. That doesn't have any place in the discussion, IMHO.
Posted by: SporkLift Driver | December 7, 2009 2:59 PM
Does anybody bother to read these comments? You all sound like a bunch of Young Earth Creationists, completely faith based arguements here.
Posted by: Owlmirror | December 7, 2009 3:03 PM
See how easy it is for me to get for an experienced and educated troll like yourself to demonstrate that he's still choking?
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 3:05 PM
That doesn't have any place in the discussion, IMHO.
Then by all means, petition Dr. Myers to BAN me.
After all, I am in complete agreement that you should be allowed to make any comments you wish here in addition to petitioning Dr. Myers to ban me and certainly I agree it is well within Dr. Myers right to ban me here. Really, this is a non problem.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 3:07 PM
Hey Nerd, take your points on the environmental actions of the past. Some success there, no doubt.
But do you concede these points?
Controlling the earths climate is exponentially more complex than __________ (with any of your examples)
There are numerous examples of government trying to fix a problem and making it worse, or causing other problems in the process.
Again, Im not proposing we do absolutely nothing. I support monies for continued research into AGW. I think no matter what comes of said research we should raise the Gasoline tax in America and use the cash to fund other green incentives/green energy research, as it addresses other more tangible issues we face as well.
What I do not support is the idea of Cap and Trade which I predict will be the biggest money waste we've ever seen. One reason for this belief would be the Oil for Food in Iraq Fiasco. Go back and look at how that thing all worked out.
The problem is handing over mind-boggling amounts of money, via cap n trade credits, to human, all to human, bureaucrats. Contrary to Jadehawks assertion that people dont really want money, the incentives to fraud are enormous. I will bet any money we will see fraud that dwarfs Oil for Food ripoff. Furthermore I predict it wont do what it intends to do, not if AGW is real.
Why dont we start putting money into a kitty now to help the Bangladeshis move to higher ground if things really do get bad? In the meantime we could earn interest on it.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 3:10 PM
Hey, Elf! How come you suddenly switched the topic to Moron-American flag worshippers? There aren't many of those around cyber-here, as you would have imagined had your ego not got in the way. (I, for one, am not even an American… and worshipping the Austrian flag would be too obviously ridiculous, so I don't do that either! LOL!)
Make good on your promise to leave, or I shall
feedtaunt you again! :-D :-D :-DConspiracy theory much?
And fear. Man, did Jadehawk manage to press your buttons. <whew> I'm impressed. She reduced you to gibbering madness by comment 615!
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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December 7, 2009 3:13 PM
Matt says, "In a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, climate comes in dead last, No. 20 of the 20 big issues of concern to America."
I'm sorry, Matt, but when I got my PhD in physics, they never taught us that physical reality gives a flying fuck what the American people think.
And pray, where is your evidence that dealing with climate change will derail or even significantly damage economic posperity in the long run? It will be challenging, but do you really think that market economies are so fragile that they can't function unless floated on a sea of oil?
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 3:17 PM
#615 = conclusive evidence that matt doesn't give a fuck about reality whenever it happens to conflict with his ideology.
no surprise there.
Posted by: Sven DIMilo | December 7, 2009 3:21 PM
care to offer a specific example of such an arguement [sic]?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 3:21 PM
Do you have any idea what amount of taxes is slapped on gasoline in Europe?
Now, you'll probably bring up the argument that in the USA it's much more necessary to have a car and use it often because little other transportation is available. That other transportation is something your taxpayer organization* should invest in. In fact, a pretty impressive plan comparable to the French TGV network (which is just awesome, talking from experience) was circulated shortly after the election and claimed to be something Obama wanted to implement…
* Also called The United States of America. Or "the government" if you're a libertarian.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 3:22 PM
Make good on your promise to leave
Patience, grasshopper. But now that I think about it, banishment isn't even sufficient. You need to petition NatGeo and ScienceBlogs to EXPUNGE my posts from the record completely, and then you can all celebrate that by burning the data with a cleverly constructed random number generator. Be sure to use only the most loyal tea vetted by the values of your national clan suitably blessed with the holy flag, and make sure the water is boiling when you brew it.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | December 7, 2009 3:23 PM
Josh (@601):
Wait, doesn't that mean that thinking and masturbation are the same thing? Nah, couldn't be: I'd be much smarter than I am if that were the case! ;^)
David (@621):
Oh, please do! And while you're at it, could you fart in his general direction? Nobody could deserve it more richly.
Thomas:
I'd much rather have you start making sense... but since that seems unlikely, I wouldn't argue against a ban. It's PZ's blog, however, and I suspect for the time being he's willing to keep you around for sport.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 3:24 PM
Ray, at 622, that commet was in reference to the changing public opinion on the importance of AGW. It was once in the top 7-8, now its down to 20.
And of course you care about American opinion. If its in your favor, you'll get what you want much faster. If not, it'll take a little longer but you'll still get it.
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 7, 2009 3:32 PM
"Then by all means, petition Dr. Myers to BAN me.
After all, I am in complete agreement that you should be allowed to make any comments you wish here in addition to petitioning Dr. Myers to ban me and certainly I agree it is well within Dr. Myers right to ban me here. Really, this is a non problem."
I think what you really meant to say was "Blah blah blah squirt splash blah blah blather blah blah blather blah squirt splash, I'm a douche". Just trying to help get this across to the stupid lay people here.
I sympathize, and I totally understand your frustration, TLE. I had the ear of a past president. In a box. Under my bed. Garfield's ear, I think it was. It's a lot of pressure, especially when you are the most important researcher and setter of science standards in the world. Like I was. In my own head anyway.
And when you leave here (because eventually you will get bored of the noobs), I will obsess about you. You will probably join David Mathews (and I guess his band) in your search for more intelligent life in other parts of the cosmos. I'll miss you. And I don't think I'm the only one.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 3:33 PM
"And pray, where is your evidence that dealing with climate change will derail or even significantly damage economic posperity in the long run? It will be challenging, but do you really think that market economies are so fragile that they can't function unless floated on a sea of oil?"
to take your first question first, it is you who needs to provide evidence that it wont derail the economy, not the other way around, because it is you who wants to radically alter a good thing. The capitalist status quo is working great, IMO, Id like to see it spread to more countries, voluntarily of course.
second, market economies will of course continue to function. The Irish selling potatoes to England while they starved is technically a functioning economy. But to your point about oil, yes its far and away the most important commodity in the world. That seems obvious. The change away from it is not guaranteed to be a smooth one, hence my support for a Gasoline tax. We might as well start ourselves to the process. Having said all that, nothing is more healthy for a nation than prosperity. We dont want to kill the goose in the process.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 3:35 PM
Ah Matt, still not getting it. You will notice two things. Science, scientists, and I, don't give a shit what you, and your liberturd friends think. And it is an absolute falsehood to think that we should. And that is utterly and totally irrelevant to the debasing of honest scientists, which is my concer. I have not made or supported any proposals made for AGW alleviation. But, if we are going to start, we should start now.
My concern has always been with the science, which is solid that AGW is occurring. Your failure to provide any peer reviewed papers saying otherwise confirms that it is occurring. There are no bought scientists. Nothing but false accusations here. Once a scientist gets a reputation for being bought they loose credibility. They need credibility as science requires honesty in their professional dealings. There is no conspiracy to get government jobs. Most academics have no interest in paper pushing. Scientists are also people, who get irritated by the constant harassment of those who disagree with them for silly reasons. Like not being able to differentiate weather from climate.
So, show me where the science is wrong from the peer reviewed literature.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2009 3:35 PM
Bill, that was the thread that you just won.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 3:38 PM
oh yeah. because evscuating all endangered coastal regions, as well as all desertified regions is gonna be so much cheaper (and maybe even profitable!) than investing in getting off oil and introducing a universal carbon tax.you're immensely ignorant, matt.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 3:39 PM
like I said. completely ignorant of everything beyond his own backyard.Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 3:40 PM
Thanks for sharing, Antiochus Epiphanes, and I'll be sure to incorporate your great insights into the effects of short term greenhouse gas spiking into the atmosphere of life bearing industrialized and overpopulated terrestrial planets with existent continental ice sheets. A real winner there.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 3:45 PM
Bill, that was the thread that you just won.
What did he win Josh? A Nobel prize? or an OM.
From now on I'm calling the 'OM' a Mosley, in honor the the significance and magnitude of the 'award'.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | December 7, 2009 3:46 PM
Josh:
Funny, I was think Antiochus Epiphanes had won it (@629).
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 7, 2009 3:47 PM
An acknowledgment would be great. A number of great pan-galactic journals have recently switched to tesselated publishing grids....basically, you distort these tiny Calabi-Yau dimensions so that your publication hits the internet years before you gathered the data. Don't worry. It's peer-reviewed by your fellow galacticon geniuses.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | December 7, 2009 3:49 PM
Arrggh! @637, it should, of course, have been...
I hope that doesn't reflect badly on how well I do that other thing!
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 3:50 PM
Nerd, I said in my early post that I believe the consensus on AGW to be probably the truth.
Now, at CRU I see evidence of some scientists behaving in bad faith. Given the political stakes in the proposed response we have every right to see the work of CRU and all the rest. When scientists talk about deleting emails to hide things from investigations, this is bad. When the programmer screaming that the whole database is junk and he cant get to the original data, this as also bad. Sorry but we are not just going to trust you on this. Too much at stake.
But nowhere in my posts do you see any conspiracy theory BS. I dont believe that AGW is some hoax for jobs or prestige or anything else. I do think it curious all the AGW solutions sound like recycled socialist dogma from the 70's, but as you say, Nature cares not for politics. AGW may well be real and the truth should never be held responsible for its adherents.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2009 3:52 PM
Shit, I never even read #629... I just wrote #632 and popped out.
Personally, I was envisioning a finger or three of a nice single malt, but whatever...
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 3:56 PM
--The capitalist status quo is working great, IMO, Id like to see it spread to more countries, voluntarily of course.
"like I said. completely ignorant of everything beyond his own backyard."
Jadehawk, I was just in Africa. They really, really tried hard at selling me things at markets and in the street. I bought a few things I didnt need, and gave them this stuff they wanted badly called money in return. They would then take the money I gave them and buy disposable cellphones and food and stuff. I also read many stories about this stuff called oil they have in the ground over there. Seems they are selling it to some people calling themselves 'The Chinese'. I thought about asking these Africans if it would really make them happy to sell this stuff. I thought about pointing out to them a study about how more money only brings about a 'false conciousness', but I didnt want to get punched.
Outside my backyard, the markets churn and churn.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 3:58 PM
Great stuff, Antiochus Epiphanes! Be sure to petition for the defunding and banning of microlensing spectroscopy in the future as well, because we can't have any dirty little secrets getting out to the flag worshiping general public.
Posted by: maureen brian | December 7, 2009 3:58 PM
Bill Dauphin OM,
I might begin to love you but one of the joys of being an old duffer - hi, Nerd - is that finally, after all those decades, you get to decide what goes into your own head. This will be lost on some above but my current intellectual project - deliberate pomposity there - is to understand better the developments in the criminal law in England and Wales during C17 and C18. I'll be back onto that as soon as I've made the last of the Christmas presents.
And, Matt, you're off your head. By year two of the famine the entire potato crop in Ireland had failed. It was the English and Anglo-Irish who were growing corn and selling it to England. So, which potatoes were they selling?
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 7, 2009 4:03 PM
#643
We talking about the flag of Retardon 9? I assume that is your home planet.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 4:04 PM
they sure do. and what do you think they are churning? human lives. capitalism works (for a very narrow definition of "work") precisely because it allows some to take stuff from others. the only way the rest of the world could attain the wealth that the West currently enjoys is by conquering it violently and then stealing their resources; i.e. precisely the same way the West got as rich as it is.Capitalism has been forced upon the whole world. But just because it's there, doesn't mean it makes the world better.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 4:06 PM
Maureen, I dont claim an expert on this, and it looks like I conflated potatoes with food. Point still stands I think though, the economy was still functioning and people were selling food even though people were starving.
A quote from Cecil Woodham-Smith in (1962) The Great Hunger: Ireland
"the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 4:08 PM
Matt, still no smoking gun, one researcher out of hundreds is meaningless. And personally I believe that the e-mails have been tampered with in order to make the scientists look bad. Prove me wrong. :) I just don't believe anything a liar and bullshitter like you says. You have said nothing cogent all day. And there is no way without government interference that things will change. I can live with it.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 4:10 PM
and how many of them make the aforementioned $20000? and how many of them ever will?the answer is that none of them will unless they violently destroy the West and take over. that's what capitalism is. endless competition and conquest, wealth over the dead bodies of those without power.
but hey, it works great
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 4:17 PM
In Jadehawks tender mind:
Markets = oven and bodies = fuel.
Bill Gates Khan, become death, pleated khaki attired Destroyer of worlds.
And now poor old reasonable RedHeadNerd wants me to prove there is no chinese teapot orbiting Mars.
Alas, there is just no reasoning with scientists sometimes.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 4:27 PM
We talking about the flag of Retardon 9? I assume that is your home planet.
Sorry, retard, I don't worship flags or crackers, I just desecrate them, by eating said crackers for burning calories to stay warm, and make clothing out of the flags. When things get really rough, I might consider burning your patriotic national flags for residual heat, since they are invariably inedible.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | December 7, 2009 4:27 PM
Based on #650, I'm beginning to wonder if Matt might not really be some sort of postmodernist poet/performance artist, using us as his canvas, instead of the trollish nutjob he otherwise appears to be.
Any thoughts on this possibility from the sane contingent?
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 4:29 PM
Because a Global Warming catastrophe doesn't seem to be one of them at the moment. That I don't know the future is no reason to suppose a frightening future. Observed consequences of the anthropogenic CO2 accumulation are not alarming. Only forecasts of far more warming than we observe are alarming.
The issues are separate because AGW can warm the Earth catastrophically without depletion of fossil fuels and fossil fuels can be depleted without a catastrophic warming of the Earth. The issues are separate whether or not I wish to separate them.
As oil is depleted, higher prices will drive people toward alternatives. I made some of these choices last year when the price of gasoline was over $4.00/gallon.
Credible scientists concede the considerable uncertainty, but there is always controversy.
Your emotional reaction to simplistic ideological categories in your head is irrelevant.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 4:30 PM
none of them will unless they violently destroy the West and take over
Would you like that? Be honest, I dare you.
South Korea improved its lot by quite a bit in the last few decades. Refresh my memory on all the bodies they needed to feed into the oven of free markets in order to do that. A list will suffice, countries, estimated body counts. You know the stuff I mean; evidence.
North Korea has killed a few of its people though. Wont let them leave Seems to believe it needs them, needs their physical presence. Hmmm.
Little real world science experiment in economics between North and South Korea. Id call it nice, if it werent for so many in living hell up North. It ought to be a powerful enough example to drill through your ideologically reinforced defenses and get some purchase in the thinking parts of your brain.
Posted by: maureen brian | December 7, 2009 4:35 PM
Matt, if you've got Cecil Woodham-Smith to hand - mine's in the next room - please have another look, especially at some of the arguments being made against using those resources to prevent the deaths of the locals.
There is a terrible resonance between them and case being made for doing nothing about climate change unless and until the situation becomes unbearable for the richer people in the richer countries. Give it another go, please, it's a great book.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 4:38 PM
I doubt that you know the inevitability of Greenland's melting in the next 1000 years, but if this melting and a seven meter rise in sea level is inevitable in the next 1000 years, why should I worry about it now? It's inevitable. I suppose the Sun will grow to a red giant and boil away the oceans some day, but I'm not worried about that either.
If you're saying that Greenland melts and sea level rises seven meters in the next thousand years only if the U.S. doesn't adopt some policy in the next ten years, I'm even more skeptical.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 4:42 PM
projection is not your friend. totalitarian isolationist state vs. USA-sponsored democracy...hmm... what does that have to do with anything?on the other hand, when you look at more social democracies vs. more capitalist democracies, you find that people in the former are physically and mentally healthier, happier, are less likely to be victims of crimes, much more likely to have savings rather than be in debt, etc., and all that at much lower income levels, smaller GDP(PPP) per capita, smaller carbon footprint, and lesser negative impact on the economies of the developing world.
hmmm.....
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | December 7, 2009 4:54 PM
Clearly the best plan of interplanetary conquest, Lord Spasticoid. Crackers, then flags. Got it.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 4:58 PM
Jadehawk it is you spouting foolishness about the evils of capitalism. North Korea is free from that. South Korea is not. Currently people from the North try to escape to the South, not the other way around.
Im still waiting on that list of bodies that South Korea needed to feed into the oven of markets in order to improve itself. Oh wait
"totalitarian isolationist state vs. USA-sponsored democracy...hmm... what does that have to do with anything? "
lemme guess, the USA did their killing for them.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 5:03 PM
"There is a terrible resonance between them and case being made for doing nothing about climate change unless and until the situation becomes unbearable for the richer people in the richer countries."
For or against, it wasnt really my point. I suspect we are making way too much of this, but my point was merely that markets continued to function even under these horrible conditions, not whether it was a good or bad thing. That was the question posed to me.
Nor is it my position that we should wait until things get bad for Rich Countries before we react to AGW. I meant my proposal about Bangladesh. If the seas rise in America, I know we'll be able to deal, we're quite rich. Bangladesh is another matter and we'd be wrong not to help them.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 5:09 PM
Clearly the best plan of interplanetary conquest, Lord Spasticoid. Crackers, then flags. Got it.
It worked well enough on Earth.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 5:10 PM
North Korea isn't free from anything, least of all global capitalism, since it is surrounded by it on all sides.
Also, I note you're refusing to address my points. I'll take that as a sign that you have nothing to refute my points with
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 5:13 PM
New Orleans would like a word with you about that...Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 5:15 PM
Bill at #652, quit flirting with me, they'll never forgive you.
Scuse the ignorance, but what is the consensus definition of a troll anyway?
Seems sometimes it is used to describe someone who says something for argument and reaction, but does not necessarily believe what he says
Other times it seems to mean someone who takes an unpopular position on a comment thread.
well, I'm the latter. I do admit mildly enjoying stirring you all up now and then, but is that so wrong? Do you all really want to live in a self-satisfied echo chamber?
In the case of this particular thread, I can understand being called a troll. It as about Climate Change deniers, and while Im arguing with you, particularly about what we should do about it, I am not a denyer. AGW is probably true.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 5:22 PM
"New Orleans would like a word with you about that... "
Good point Jadehawk, a government run retaining seawall failed and people drowned and property was ruined. And, there was no company to sue for breach of contract. Thanks for reminding me not to trust my gov. to save me.
While we're on the topic of New Orleans, what say we kick around the idea of rebuilding the city above sea level. Its not like we dont have the room.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 5:27 PM
you're right. that totally explains why the evil socialist Netherlands are so shitty at flood management.or maybe it was because people like you refuse to give proper funding into infrastructure until it's too late.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2009 5:34 PM
Because Americans are too fucking thickheaded to contemplate the notion that there are places where, even though we really want to put a city on/in them, we shouldn't.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 5:39 PM
I can't download a Brief Communication at Nature without paying for it, but you can read Otto-Bliesner et al. at Science: 24 Mar '06, without paying. They perform a similar analysis and conclude that Greenland melting contributes 3.4m to sea level rise over 3000 years "if predicted future climate change comes to pass". They don't call this change "just about inevitable" as you do or even "probable" as Gregory et al. do. Their assertion is hypothetical.
If particular warming predictions are true, then Greenland melts over 3000 years and contributes 3.4m to sea level, but this hypothetical implies no probability of the sea level rise without a probability of the predicted warming, so it adds nothing to the assertions of the climate change, in terms of alarming consequences, even if the hypothetical is true. The likelihood of the alarming warming is hardly a settled question, and even if it were, I have no clue what human civilization will look like in 3000 years.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 5:42 PM
Id like to see the New Orleans seawall funded alright, first and foremost by the people who live there and benefit from it. There is no reason the federal gov. should be paying for this. It is not a public good for all Americans.
I suppose a case could be made that the federal gov. built Mississippi waterway caused much of the problems New Orleans faces, as straightening the last leg of the river deprives New Orleans of the sediment which used to keep it above sea level.
another one of those unintended consequences.
The Netherlands has increased the size of its country by something like half via flood management. Its probably the most important thing the Dutch gov. does. Also, the Netherlands is not sinking like New Orleans is.
America is really big and we dont need anymore landmass. If we had more space, property values would go down, and we'd probably just buy bigger houses further away from each other, and bigger cars to drive back and forth these distances, in greater comfort. Churn churn.
If we put our minds to it, I suspect we could build a decent seawall. But its not that important, nationally, and it would be cheaper in the long run to move New Orleans 10 miles north to higher, and unsinking, ground. I would personally be for the Federal government helping to pay for this.
Cost vs Benefit. How things work in the market based world, Jadehawk.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 5:45 PM
probably also doesn't help that the matt-equivalents in NO would be getting all huffy about someone suggesting that they shouldn't rebuild in exactly the same spot as before. After all, "the average person has the old-fashioned belief that it is up to him or her to decide" where they want to live, and if they want to live in a sinkhole, they have the godgiven right to do so, and no ebil gubmint crony can tell them otherwise! harumph!Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 5:53 PM
Heh, Jadehawk, your ignorance of America has caught up to you. No biggie, you're not a citizen.
I know this because you've inadvertently sided with the evil, market based Republicans in their suggestions with what to do with N.O. The Jadehawk I know is not a heretic.
Its funny though, because its sort of a double-blind test. You were blindfolded in a way, and your common sense tastebuds led you to the Republican flavored plan. Doesnt taste so bad, does it?
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 5:53 PM
What I do know is that sea level rose roughly 20 cm/century during the 20th, and this rise was fairly consistent throughout the century, including the early decades before any greenhouse warming from anthropogenic CO2 could have occurred. The simplest, linear extrapolation of this trend suggests 6m of sea level rise over 3000 years. If I accept this extrapolation for the sake of discussion, I don't know why it's alarming.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 5:54 PM
precisely the attitude that has up to this day failed to create a halfway decent river-containment systme along the Mississippi. It's fucking embarrassing that the richest country in the world can't manage such a basic task because everybody only wants to help themselves, rather than understanding that this is a community issue. idiot. most of the Netherlands is below sea-level. "sinking" has nothing to do with it. As for "most important thing"...well, it's rather amazing how they manage to not only do that, but also offer free education for all their citizens, cheap healthcare for everybody, well-build infrastructure beyond just the dikes, etc. The wonders that can be accomplished when a society realized that government is a tool, not the enemy to be destroyed at all costs. what the everglorious fuck does that have to do with anything. evidence says different. yup. and human lives are cheap.Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 5:56 PM
re #671: holy fuck, you're dense... can't even tell when I'm making fun of you, can you.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 6:04 PM
It's always good for the liberturds to post here on occasion. It allows us to reconfirm that they are still morally bankrupt, have no redeeming policies, their arrogance extends well beyond their capabilities, and their infantile unquestioned belief in the free market is delusional thinking at its best.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 6:08 PM
re #671: holy fuck, you're dense... can't even tell when I'm making fun of you, can you.
The solution to that is to be funnier.
New Orleans is sinking. Read some Coastal Geomorphology. The mud below the city is roughly mayonnaise density a good ways down. For a long time this didnt matter too much because the southern tail of the MS river was allowed to swish back and forth across the delta, replenishing the soils. Then we straightened the tail end of the MS. No more replenishment = slowly sinking.
Yes, The Netherlands is below sea level. It is not sinking like N.O. The underlying geology is not the same. So flood management is not directly comparable between the two
Plus, we are comparing the future of a city to the future of a country. Of course flood management is more important to the Dutch gov. than it is to us. We can pick up N.O. and move it for much cheaper. The Netherlands have no place to go but into the sea.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 6:08 PM
also, I find it amusing that you think party affiliation means anything. Should the Republicans ever come up with a sensible, realistic actually helpful and non-obstructionist plan for anything (and the long-term willingness to fund it, which I've yet to see in any Republican about any project that doesn't involve guns or corn), I wouldn't have a problem supporting it.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 6:14 PM
when sea-levels are rising, that's equivalent to sinking. what's your point again? but since you and your libertarian buddies have done your very best to destroy political will in this country, it would never actually happen. Even if this project ever got off the ground, the moment it hit the first snag the Republicans would declare it another horribly failed government program that needs defunding to pay for tax-breaks. It's how politics in your country works, because you and the mythos of "rugged individuality" have effectively destroyed it, and the Republicans are usually happy to go with that flow (while the Democrats lack the spine to rebuild political will)Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 6:17 PM
>>>yup. and human lives are cheap.
Defend this comment you little child. You would have people rebuild in this shitty, sinking place for a city which is frequented by Hurricanes (another minor difference between N.O. and Amsterdam)
I would have the Federal government pay for the residents of N.O. to move to a safer, unsinking place (not a Libertarian position, I need to explain to RedHeadNerd).
Your policy, when we follow it, and we fucking will, will lead the same, if not worse fucking problems. Think about it, this thread is about climate change, and you believe its going to cause the seas to rise, and you would have us rebuild underneath sea level, when theres plenty of fucking room 10 miles north. WTF Jadehawk.
Would you have the precious Bangladeshis build a city under sea level right now or would you say, hey guys, maybe the top of that hill looks a little better, all things considered.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 6:19 PM
oh, do tell me, what is "my policy"?idiot.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 6:26 PM
I understand this is beyond your grasp, but while the evacuation and rebuilding of a single city is feasible, but not likely in the American political system because it has been severely compromised by libertarians and other government-haters, the evacuation of large chunks of the world is not.You cannot successfully evacuate billions of people, for any money in the world. You have said repeatedly in this thread that economies are more important than the lives of people (see idiotic comments about potato famine). Your unwillingness to understand that the drowning of Bangladesh, most island-states and many coastal areas, as well as the ever-faster desertification of arable land, will cost untold numbers people their lives. Instead, you're talking about effects of anti-AGW policies on economies.
Tell me, what economy is worth the lives of millions, or even billions of people?
Posted by: Josh
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December 7, 2009 6:38 PM
New Orleans is not a simple problem, and it's not simply the result of levee construction and channelizing (although the reduction of sediment loads in the delta channels is a huge part of it). There is also the problem on on-delta canals and other delta development that has reduced the amount of storm surge attenuation that the delta is capable of. Parts of the city have been at or below sea level pretty much since the place was settled; the current subsidence is simply aggravating an already existing problem.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 7, 2009 6:46 PM
New Orleans is where it is because that's as far up the Mississippi as ocean-going ships can travel. Barges from as far away as Pittsburgh, Chicago and Sioux City, Iowa can make it easily to New Orleans. Water transportation is the cheapest means of moving goods, particularly bulk cargo, from place to place.
Cities don't appear because someone decides "let's build a city here." Cities happen because there's some benefit for having a city there. Unless something drastic happens to the Mississippi River, there will always be a large city at its mouth. Because of the geography of the Mississippi delta, that city will be at sea level.
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 6:47 PM
---You have said repeatedly in this thread that economies are more important than the lives of people (see idiotic comments about potato famine)
This is a lie. I said markets continue to work even when people are under horrible duress.
---Tell me, what economy is worth the lives of millions, or even billions of people?
Poor, doe-eyed Jadehawk. The economy is the lives of billions of people. Its the sum total of people pursuing that ever elusive happiness you spoke of earlier. There's no separating the two, try as you might.
---You cannot successfully evacuate billions of people, for any money in the world.
Im surprised at your doubt, given as you are to the can do spirit of science. You evidently believe we can indirectly control something as complex as the earths climate by controlling the economic activity (of some people), yet you dont think we can get people to evacuate a flooding area? Be hella costly sure, and we'd lose an awful lot of infrastructure, but suggesting that billions will die because of it, that it just cant be done? Piffle. Another example of the fear mongering average folks just dont go in for. Score -1 on your PR gambit, and I dont think I need to remind you, your team just cant afford too many more hits like this.
Jadehawk, when you go to the beach, and the big, big waves come, do you open your eyes and let it smack you in the face, or do you run back to mommies side where the water doesnt reach?
Posted by: Matt | December 7, 2009 6:53 PM
---Unless something drastic happens to the Mississippi River, there will always be a large city at its mouth.
Tis, you are right, except that something drastic did happen to the river. The Army Corps of Engineers got together and straightened the thing to a good ways north of where N.O. now sits. Look for yourself on google earth and you will see the huge port for natural gas, oil tankers, etc. This is where the vast majority of sea commerce comes through now, not the old city docks.
I feel for the people of N.O. We ought to help them. We ought to be smart about how we help them.
Posted by: Thomas Lee Elifritz | December 7, 2009 6:55 PM
I can't download a Brief Communication at Nature without paying
Here is the press release for yet another article that you won't be able to read or understand, that indicates that the trends are moving in a radically different direction and with wildly less optimistic results than you suggest.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 7, 2009 7:02 PM
you were talking about exports out of Ireland during the potato famine, and a few similar situations. It's not my fault you don't realize that this is precisely what "economies are more important than the lives of people" means; these economies continued to "work" precisely because people were let to starve by those well enough off to feed them, because exporting was more important to the Empire than those stoopid starving Irish peasants. Show any evidence at all that anti-AGW proposals will cause world-wide starvation, and you might have a point. until then, it's the ability of Americans and Europeans to buy plasma TV's, cars, the 10th pair of shoes et cetera vs. losing your entire country to the waves or the desert.Seriously, do you really fucking think it's easier and cheaper and less likely to cause deaths to try to evacuate almost half the world (to where, may I ask?) than it is to impose a carbon tax and introduce steady-state economies in the richest countries?
and are you even aware of the current conflicts that climate change is causing? I don't see you offering to pay to evacuate Darfur because of the perma-drought that caused the current conflict. But those lives don't matter to you, because they're not part of your precious economy, huh?
Posted by: Josh
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December 7, 2009 7:10 PM
You're right, of course, and my snarky comment didn't reflect that. We also didn't know then what we do now.
Posted by: Menyambal | December 7, 2009 7:15 PM
I love how the folks that are in deep denial about the fact of global warming manage to keep their delusions going through some first-class cognitive dissonance. It should be sad, but I do have to laugh, however bitterly.
It seems to them that we cannot afford to do anything to prevent global warming, because doing so would crash our economy. But somehow, if global warning were to occur, we could deal with it without crashing our economy. They say that stopping the burning-up as fuel of the petroleum from which our ubiquitous plastics are made would be bad, bad bad, but hoicking up New Orleans and moving all its petrol processors to high ground would be an acceptable scenario.
Weird, I say, weird, but morbidly fascinating.
By the way, science doesn't have a "can-do attitude". Science doesn't have an attitude at all. Well, extremely-mellow laid-backness, maybe.
Posted by: WowbaggerOM
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December 7, 2009 7:24 PM
I believe the power generated by cognitive dissonance will be the ultimate renewable energy source in the future. All we've got to do is work out a way to harness it.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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December 7, 2009 7:29 PM
Martin Brock, you lying cretin.
It really pisses me off when people misrepresent scientific research. It's what creationists do. It's what you've done. You say:
I read the paper. I'm no climatologist, but even with a superficial read, I can see that you've garbled the work.
That 3000 years comes from a test of their climate model, comparing the fit of events in the last interglacial to their simulation. What they say is that it works, and accurately represents past climate changes.
They do put an estimated limit of a 3.4 meter contribution to sea level if the Greenland ice melts (which is no small matter, you know). They are most definitely NOT arguing that this problem will be stretched out over 3000 years. Here's the conclusion of the paper:
The emphasis is mine. You apparently need some help comprehending the work. Did you even read it?
Perhaps you can inform us whether it was dishonesty or stupidity that compelled you to distort the conclusion of the paper. It might be a factor in whether I ban your lying ass or not.
Posted by: Qwerty
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December 7, 2009 7:31 PM
Ahhh, just like creationists, the global-warming conspiracy believers love to quote mine stuff out of context.
My thinking is that they'll finally realize the scientists are correct when it's way too late to solve the problem of man's carbon emissions.
Great post PZ!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 7:35 PM
Yawn, a liberturd AGW denier lying? Or misrepresenting the science? Shocked! Shocked I say!. Well, it just confirms the stereotype.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 7:39 PM
You already know that I won't be able to read or understand the article, though you hardly know me from Adam, so your credulity is very evident.
The article you link asserts that temperature in the past has been substantially higher in the past despite lower levels of CO2. The article suggests that the climate is therefore more sensitive to CO2 than previously thought, but this conclusion assumes that CO2 concentration alone accounts for global temperature. What is the evidence for this assumption? I suppose global temperature has many determinants other than CO2 concentration. This article could as easily be evidence that some other determinant of temperature dominates CO2 concentration.
Posted by: Rutee | December 7, 2009 7:55 PM
Oh, man. I keep forgetting there are idiots who think the only two economic systems you can ever choose from are free market capitalism and a Command Economy.
Protip: The Cold War is over.
Posted by: Ace | December 7, 2009 8:02 PM
I really find it unbelievable that all you self named climate experts and follower of the latest imagined cure all religion of AGW have analyzed the "Jiggered" data and call it just discussion among colleagues on how can we get the data to support the actual results and the brash changes are just A-okay. Then ignore and deny the newly released data from Australia and New Zea land. NASA has yet to comply with any F.I.A. requests for their wizardry on the data here or on several planets. I am sure that they will, since they have had plenty of advance notice and the power to invoke national security come up with a reasonable explanation for why what we see is not what is really happening or some other we had out fingers crossed tale while we spewed trash that the tax payers paid for out to you Then to call requests for original data as requests for trivial bit of information which they couldn't supply because they didn't have room for it. I would love to see any PHD committees with any integrity faces when you tried sell them on that 'the dog ate my homework' line when you handed in your thesis. My high school biology teacher would have thrown my paper away without the required footnotes of citations and where my data could be found for his review. Keep George Soros in mind as the titular head and money supply of this global wealth redistribution scam. I sure look forward to being told by the new world government that my house is too warm and I need to walk to work more because my Carbon credits don't cover what some bushmen in Africa camp fire put out
and I will be fined to cover his actions as well as my own.
Out.
Posted by: steve | December 7, 2009 8:03 PM
What is going to happen if the liars win the debate in the minds of the public?
Should the public be ignored? Is democracy more or less important then the correct answer on AGW?
Tough question, I think I would have to side with democracy and hope things change before it is too late.
Posted by: Rutee | December 7, 2009 8:09 PM
What will happen if, in the public's e ye, the anti global warming folks win?
We're boned. Find an inland, elevated city you like, and stay there.
Oh, and just to throw an economic tidbit out there:
If the seas rise just 5 meters, the city of Miami alone will suffer 2 trillion dollars dollars. That is /one/ coastal city, and it's not even the biggest one. Add the costs of property destruction to the costs of evacuation, if you want to consider /that/ little scenario.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2009 8:11 PM
There is another paper from that same issue of Science, but the same folks, that's also relevant here (Indeed, kind of surprising it wasn't noted).
Jonathan T. Overpeck, et al., 2006, Paleoclimatic Evidence for Future Ice-Sheet Instability and Rapid Sea-Level Rise. Science 311:1747-1750.
Abstract:
Conclusions:
Posted by: MartinM | December 7, 2009 8:12 PM
You think that might be something to do with the fact that it's already publically available?
Idiot.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 8:16 PM
You relish this kind of thing, but it lends no credibility to your assertions. By conventional standards, the ad hominem indicates only your preference for personal attack over substance and thus lowers your credibility.
They say, "... the Greenland Ice Sheet and other circum-Arctic ice fields likely contributed 2.2 to 3.4 meters of sea-level rise during the Last Interglaciation ..." and "... our results give a likely Arctic (including Greenland) contribution to LIG sea-level rise above modern day of no more than 3.4 m." They are discussing the past and not the future, but the relevance of these results to future climate change is the point of the article.
If I've misrepresented "3000 years", I thank you for correcting me, but the point of showing that their model "works" is to support its relevance to future climate change. The article is explicit on this point.
They say, "In approximately 2000 years, the GIS has retreated such that Dye-3 becomes ice-free, in agreement with LIG paleorecords (Fig. 3A) (11–13). In this configuration, Greenland and the western Arctic icefields contribute 2.2 m of sea-level rise; this is the minimum sea-level rise that the Arctic likely contributed during the LIG. After an additional millennium, the simulated LIG surface drawdown at the paleodivide is 570 m, near the constraint provided by ice-core data (10). This minimal GIS configuration (Fig. 3B) yields a maximum Arctic sea-level contribution of 3.4 m."
They seem to be discussing a 3.4m sea level rise over 3000 years attributable to melting of the Arctic (including Greenland) here.
This statement has nothing to do with the 3.4m sea level rise. The article in no way suggests a sea level rise of remotely this magnitude over the next century. It only suggests that a "substantial" effect is possible "if predicted future climate change comes to pass". I never suggest anything else.
I quoted a portion of it myself. Maybe you didn't notice. You aren't concerned with my comprehension here. You're only interested in pretending to substantiate your incredible assertion that you somehow know the state of my mind.
If I misrepresented the assertion of a relationship between the 3000 years and the 3.4m sea level rise, I appreciate the correction; however, I'm not sure I have. I have no control over who you ban. It's your blog. You'll do what you want.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 8:18 PM
Science isn't a democracy (except internally), and its conclusions are up for public vote. What part of that don't your understand?Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 8:21 PM
Dang, posted too fast. #702
and its conclusions are'nt up for public vote.
Posted by: Rutee | December 7, 2009 8:25 PM
@#702: He wasn't saying that Climate Change stops being real, contingent on a democratic vote. He's just asking "What do we do if Climate Change loses democratically?" It's a valid question, because it's still going to happen. That makes figuring out what to do somewhat relative.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 8:28 PM
Rutee, I've never argued the politics of global warming, just the science. And many AGW deniers think the science is up for vote...
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 8:34 PM
You're right, of course, and my snarky comment didn't reflect that. We also didn't know then what we do now.
I can't look it up at a quarter past 2 at night, but there was someone who saw the place and said, before the city was founded, that it shouldn't be founded there because it was just too dangerous flood-wise.
Some Republican suggested to abandon Norquist's Bathtub while it was still full and rebuild elsewhere. That triggered a storm of outrage about how callous it was to the refugees from Lake George. It was callous. It was also overdue by centuries. :-|
It does – only none of them is changing right now.
Another paper I need to find again... oh, wait, found it on my harddisk.
A. Berger & M. F. Loutre: An exceptionally long interglacial ahead? Science 297, 1287–1288 (23 August 2002)
Short answer: Yes, the sun does, but insolation will hardly change at all over the next 25,000 years, then increase a little, and then in 50,000 years a decrease will trigger the next ice age (unless the current CO2 emissions suffice to prevent even that).
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 8:47 PM
Also, if I misrepresented a comparison between the modeled proxies of 3000 years during the last interglacial and the next 3000 years, I appreciate that correction too. Like I said, I'm happy to discuss speculation about sea level changes over the next thousand years, but I don't know why these changes should alarm me.
Posted by: Martin Brock | December 7, 2009 8:51 PM
How do you know? Some determinant that you don't understand could be changing. I suppose the global climate is more complex than you suppose. That's all.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 8:58 PM
Shit, blockquote fail in my previous comment – the first two paragraphs should be two nested quotes. I don't call my own comments "snarky"...
I think some of us have just used too few terms for the spectrum. For instance, Jadehawk above restricted "capitalism" to systems with a less regulated market than you can find in most or all of the EU, making her look like a communist – at least to Matt, who promptly rushed to defend "capitalism" by mentioning North Korea.
What have you smoked, and can I get it legally in the aforementioned Netherlands?
And back then, folks, Greenland was not entirely ice-free. The ice sheet was smaller, but it was still there. That's why the drill cores go back to 250,000 years ago.
Previous interglacial redux by 2100? Now that's scary.
Fuck.
That would be bad.
Well, first of all, "argumentum ad hominem" and "insult" are not synonyms. Look it up already.
Furthermore, you seem to labor under the assumption that scientists undergo the full kolinahr as part of their training... as if you hadn't read comment 55.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | December 7, 2009 9:02 PM
Speaking of blockquote fail, two quotes in my previous comment should be doubly indented, like the one above them is...
I cited the paper...
Then why can past climates be simulated so well? Sire, je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse. Bonne nuit, quoi.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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December 7, 2009 9:03 PM
You did it again!
That quote from the article refers to the agreement in their simulation to the actual data from the last interglacial (LIG). It is not saying that the Greenland ice sheet will retreat in 2000 years. It's saying that their simulation of the last interglacial shows a 2K year retreat, just as happened.
I've decided that it's pretty clear: you're just plain stupid. Do not cite, and especially do not distort, science papers that you lack the brains to comprehend.
Right now, everyone can read your comments here in the context of the demonstrated fact that you're a fucking idiot.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 9:24 PM
That's why he has been in the killfile for while. To get out, the words "I've been stupid and wrong" are a start...Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 7, 2009 9:25 PM
"Martin Brock, you lying cretin."
You relish this kind of thing, but it lends no credibility to your assertions. By conventional standards, the ad hominem indicates only your preference for personal attack over substance and thus lowers your credibility.
Truthful observations do not lower one's credibility.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 7, 2009 9:28 PM
Ace #696
Thanks, Ace, for showing that your objections to AGW aren't scientific but economic. Matt has similar complaints. Unfortunately, Martin Brock isn't as honest. At least Thomas Lee Elifritz preoccupied with making an ass of himself.
Posted by: steve | December 7, 2009 9:44 PM
Thanks Rupee. I'll take "Were boned." as a vote for democracy. Redhead didn't really offer an opinion on the question I asked, so I won't count it as a vote.
Were boned, but democracy : 2
something else : 0
undecided : 0
others as needed : 0
Posted by: Rutee | December 7, 2009 10:29 PM
#715 That's not quite my choice, I just don't think there's an option. I can leave, but that doesn't make the US stop spewing CO2.
Posted by: steve | December 7, 2009 10:42 PM
Ok, sorry Rupee. Maybe the phrasing is wrong. If you would prefer something else let me know. For now, I am alone.
keep trying, but democracy:1
something else:0
undecided:0
others as needed:0
Also, I will attempt to rephrase the question more precisely.
What happens if the liers manage to convince the general public, and win overwelmingly in elections? Do we ignore the results of a democratic election?
Posted by: steve | December 7, 2009 10:58 PM
Doh! I mean Rutee not Rupee.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 7, 2009 11:13 PM
Steve, the wife is the Redhead. I'm the Nerd.
I don't want to give up our representative (not a true democracy) system. The science will always be there. Orlando may be beach front property before idjits like Matt finally acknowledge something bad is happening.
Posted by: steve | December 7, 2009 11:52 PM
Ok, thanks Nerd, I will put you down for democracy then.
What happens if the liars manage to convince the general public, and win overwelmingly in elections? Do we ignore the results of a democratic election?
keep trying, but representative democracy:2
something else:0
undecided:0
others as needed:0
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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December 8, 2009 5:57 AM
Steve,
If the liars win we keep trying. If they keep winning, then evolution takes its course and intelligence on Earth is a failed experiment. After all, if we only use our rational faculties to rationalize, they do not confer much of an advantage.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 8, 2009 6:18 AM
I see no reason to believe this.
I don' think they'll win. They might manage to delay the whole thing by another few years, but you'll see how fast the general public will move at the next leg up of ONSE or the next spike in the price of gasoline.
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 8, 2009 6:21 AM
sorry, ENSO
Posted by: WowbaggerOM
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December 8, 2009 6:30 AM
David Marjanović cites TV Tropes in a Pharyngula post?
Gold.
Posted by: Knockgoats | December 8, 2009 7:13 AM
How do you know? Some determinant that you don't understand could be changing. I suppose the global climate is more complex than you suppose. That's all.
Right, it could all be down to the leprechauns, eh Martin? As has been noted, the models reproduce paleoclimatic changes, as well as 20th century ones, well. BTW, the estimates of climate sensitivity are derived primarily from paleoclimatic data, not from models. Milankovich cycles could not bring the Earth out of ice ages without substantial positive feedback. Suppose, however, that there are substantial gaps in current knowledge that seriously affect projections? Why do you assume that the outcome will be less serious than expected, not more so? Actually, I know the answer to that: as a glibertarian, you simply cannot accept that AGW is a problem demanding, at the least, concerted international intervention in the sacred Market.
Posted by: steve | December 8, 2009 7:52 AM
K, thanks a_ray, and negen seems to agree.
What happens if the liars manage to convince the general public, and win overwelmingly in elections? Do we ignore the results of a democratic election?
keep trying, but representative democracy:4
something else:0
undecided:0
others as needed:0
Posted by: SC, OM | December 8, 2009 9:04 AM
steve,
I suppose you would have considered it a great victory for democracy if the British had voted to continue to hold India as a colony. That's not how democracy works. Why don't you ask your question when we have a global democracy? When the people on other continents who are being and will be most affected by AGW have a say in how much we continue to spew into the air and whether our orgy of consumption and destruction should continue?
"Your average person" and "the general public" aren't in the US, but many in the US are fighting back against the global corporate kleptocracy alongside people around the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxjZ0MMTaBo
The more I see, the more convinced I am that we need a profound transformation in our relationship with the rest of the natural world. Industrial capitalism has been absurdly destructive. We can't go on like this. I don't think the rest of the world is going to let the planet-destroyers take everything, including them and future generations, down without a fight. And yes, I think that's a good thing.
So put me down for a "yes to real, global democracy, in which people who are being affected by political/economic decisions participate in making them." Thanks.
Posted by: Carlie | December 8, 2009 9:47 AM
Much as I think Scott Adams is a stupid ass, Dilbert nails it this time. Time to pass out the thimble caps.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 8, 2009 11:38 AM
weeeeeell, I did mean a bit more than that. Of course the American laissez-faire capitalism is worst, and it would be great it the U.S. could catch up with Europe on basic social care; but in view of climate change, resource depletion, and giving the rest of the world an actual chance at achieving prosperity, we'd have to do a bit more than just that. After all, Europe is almost as guilty as the States for spewing greenhouse gasses and enriching itself to the disadvantage of poor countries. To effectively and realistically fight that, rich western countries would have to end the Age of Consumerism, and get their economies to a point where people have and use things, rather than consuming them (think of it as replacing plastic cutlery, which will be thrown out after a single use, with the family silver, which will be inherited from generation to generation).Posted by: Matt | December 8, 2009 11:50 AM
'Of course the American laissez-faire capitalism is worst....Europe is almost as guilty as the States'
Kim Jong Ill: Green Icon for the 21st century. His people dont eat much meat, ascetically eschew Plasma TVs, and thoughtfully own one or no pairs of shoes.
What is North Korea's carbon footprint I wonder? If the rest of the world followed suit, would we still survive AGW?
'think of it as replacing plastic cutlery, which will be thrown out after a single use, with the family silver, which will be inherited from generation to generation'
Plastic cutlery? You really need to tone up your America hating, this will not do. Once a year that stuff comes out, maybe, at our NASCAR sponsored July 4th shindigs.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 8, 2009 11:56 AM
do you have a point, or just a pavlovian reaction to the word "capitalism"?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 8, 2009 12:09 PM
Yawn, Matt again with nothing scientific, just liberturd political nonsense. I think he knows he can't successfully dispute the science, so rather than doing the honorable thing and just stop posting, he has to go for snark and evasion. Makes him sound like a total jerk.
Posted by: Matt | December 8, 2009 12:11 PM
---do you have a point, or just a pavlovian reaction to the word "capitalism"?
My point is your ego is tremendous. You believe you've absorbed all the relevant information in the world to go around making sweeping pronouncements about what levels of capitalism other people should or should not have. The market economy is the sum of all that information, and it changes constantly. No single human being could ever know it all. You think you do.
And so I mock large egos.
The chaotic market economy is an insult to intellectuals, and I do not use that term pejoratively. They believe they can understand the economy in its entirety and re-order it, to better (as defined by them) ends. They routinely fail, see the recent housing crash in America for one example.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 8, 2009 12:15 PM
that would be a "no" then
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 8, 2009 12:25 PM
Yawn, a liberturd spounting morally bankrupt liberturd nonsense. Looks like another threadjacking in progress.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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December 8, 2009 12:32 PM
Matt, if you want people to take you seriously, then you need to get serious and stop flailing at straw men of your own construction.
No one advocates North-Korean-style communism except for the North Korean leaders. To pretend that such a dystopia is the only alternative to the status quo is simply absurd.
And again, the physics is utterly indifferent to your preference. If you don't like the policies proposed, then maybe you ought to learn enough about the science to propose workable solutions that are more palatable to you. All you do by rejecting good science is leave your seat empty at the negotiating table. Ray
Posted by: Matt | December 8, 2009 12:42 PM
'he knows he can't successfully dispute the science'
Nerd, this has been a theme in your posts and Ive ignored it, thinking you might read my original posts. Let me say it again: Im not an AGW denier. I dont think its a hoax, I dont think its a jobs program. I think its probably real.
I do doubt the accuracy of speculative models as to what the future brings. It could be worse, it could be better. Or it could be like Y2K, a whole lot of (justified, I thought) worry about not much.
It does bother me when Harry the beleaguered CRU DBA says the original data cannot be accessed. You know science Nerd, others ought to be able to reproduce your results.
It does bother me when the head of the CRU talks of deleting emails. We get to see your work. If we dont get to see it, we're not going to trust you.
I do note the occasional human tendency towards apocalyptic scenarios since the beginning of time. Most of these, it needs not be said, do not come true. Scientists are also human, and occasionally subject to these same tendencies.
I do note the overlap in the control freak political tendencies of those most loudly worrying about AGW and proposing radical market re-ordering, with what they've always wanted to do with the economy anyways.
I do think lifting people out of poverty is the best way to increase happiness and health. I dont think command and control economies do this very well. I pick on Jadehawk about this because according to her, the U.S. and Europe dont do a very good job and keeping their people 'happy'. Well, I look down towards the other ends of the ideological/market extreme. I see Africa, and not alot of happy people. I see North Korea, pure misery. Do you have an example of the perfectly tuned economy balancing freedom, happiness, and carbon emissions? Im all ears. But if Jadehawk's mentality is the harbinger of the worlds economic trajectory, we are doomed.
I note that through the history of science, the consensus view tends to be the correct one. I fully expect we'll gain a better understanding of the earth's climate as time goes on and some of more hysterical pronouncements will turn out to be false.
I also know that the science behind todays understanding of the climate will be the foundation of tomorrows and much will be retained.
So, yes, Ive got questions, largely related to what we ought to do about AGW, not whether if its occuring. Because what we ought to do is more than a scientific question, its a human question also. Humans in all their imperfect nature must be considered here.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 8, 2009 12:52 PM
your inability to think in anything other than political extremes is neither my fault nor my problem. the same goes for your inability to address the points I've actually made rather than straw-points from the "what evil commie liberals think" drawer of the libertarian mind.Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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December 8, 2009 12:54 PM
2 things about the above quote:
First, it's good that you readily admit that AGW is happening, and while I appreciate your skepticism of predicted models, you do admit that the outcome could be better, or could be worse. My question for you is, which eventuality would it be more prudent to prepare for and take the most action towards? And, should economic concerns really have any place at that discussion table? The the extent that they ultimately dictate that eventual climate-driven policies?
Second: your point about Y2K is a pretty good example, as it goes... I've been in the IT field for 20 years and I remember this well. And believe me, the outcome turning out to be much ado about nothing was not as a result of IT professionals standing around waiting to see what happened. We spent thousands of hours identifying the problems, and hundreds of thousands more preparing and implementing solutions. Had we taken the approach to Y2K that some seem to be advocating with AGW, we might have actually had an epic-level catastrophe on our hands.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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December 8, 2009 12:58 PM
Shit... proofreading fail!
This line in my above comment #739:
"The the extent that they ultimately dictate that eventual climate-driven policies?"
Should read, in comprehensible English:
"To the extent that they ultimately dictate any eventual climate-driven policies?"
Typing and eating at the same time... I don't recommend it...
Posted by: Matt | December 8, 2009 1:04 PM
Celtic Evolution, I appreciate your questions and will answer. Busy now, check back in an hour.
Posted by: Rutee | December 8, 2009 1:10 PM
Hey, Matt. Does the Libertarian Solution even consider little things like the destruction of trillions upon trillions of dollars of property, and the loss of tons of necessary port infrastructure?
Posted by: Rutee | December 8, 2009 1:17 PM
Heck, add in the cost of rebuilding to all that, and that lots of countries are already in a position where space is a premium.
I'm willing to bet that, before counting on any environmental factor that you literally can not put a price on (Desertification, or the loss of freshwater sources due to the rising salt-water), doing something about the problem is monumentally cheaper then /rebuilding the property of billions, and the import/export infrastructure that has helped drive entire nations.
Posted by: Paul | December 8, 2009 1:35 PM
Do you understand what "representative democracy" means?
We don't vote on what the government does based on scientific data. We vote on representatives that (ideally) will agree with us and advocate our beliefs on our behalf. As such, I would very much keep our representative democracy while petitioning our representatives to follow the science where it leads, even if a majority of their constituents disagree. I see it as no different than how I would petition them to end government discrimination based on race even if 51% of their constituents were racist.
Representative Democracy is not mob rule by proxy. Go back to school, please.
Posted by: Josh | December 8, 2009 1:49 PM
Okay, this needs clearing up.
Our sources of freshwater are a in lot of trouble.
Not many of them are in trouble because of sea-level rise (most salt water intrusion problems are not due to marine inundation, but rather are due to rates of extraction being higher than rates of recharge in aquifers that are proximal to freshwater/saltwater boundaries).
Posted by: Josh | December 8, 2009 1:54 PM
Fuck.
"...are in a lot of trouble."
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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December 8, 2009 1:54 PM
Matt,
Just curious. WHY do you think the Y2K issue didn't have serious consequences? Do you think it just happened magically? I can assure you it did not. A lot of people worked for many years to ameliorate the worst of the issues. Problems do not solve themselves. You need smart people working on them.
And while you allude to the travails of Ian "Harry" Harris, it's interesting that you avoid telling the end of the story--that he successfully validated the database.
And, pray, why should I let some ignorant food tube read my email? Why should I as a scientist be presumed to be dishonest just for doing my job? READ THE FUCKING PAPERS!!! Or if you can't be bothered to learn enough science to understand the science then LISTEN TO THE PREPONDERANCE OF EXPERTS!!
And with regard to apocalyptic predictions, pray, where are scientists in large numbers prone to panic about threats? Hell, if the apocalypse came, most scientists I know would be studying it--dung samples from the horses of the four horsemen, testin the blade on Death's scythe...
And again, since when does scientific evidence--or for that matter, the physical world--care about political ideology.
You say, "I fully expect we'll gain a better understanding of the earth's climate as time goes on and some of more hysterical pronouncements will turn out to be false."
Really? And on what do you base this sanguinity? Do you even know why scientists are concerned? Ever hear of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)? It wasn't a fun time to be alive.
Ever hear of Sweden? France? How about China pulling a billion peasants toward prosperity with a command economy. And again, WTF does politics have to do with scientific evidence?
And actually, the human aspects of climate change may turn out to be very simple, reducing to a single question:
Will human civilization continue, or will our population crash and reduce us to living in small bands of hunter gathers with a total global population of about 100000 individuals?
Posted by: Matt | December 8, 2009 3:06 PM
----And, should economic concerns really have any place at that discussion table to the extent that they ultimately dictate any eventual climate-driven policies?
I would not use the word 'dictate', but absolutely they should have a head place at the table. Foremost because free economics confers health and well being on individuals who practice it. Do you disagree? There are numerous natural
experiments in history. East/West Germany and North/South Korea being two excellent examples. Furthermore, proposed AGW responses tend to all be economic in nature. In other words, it is your side mostly suggesting economic responses to
dictate climate change response policies. Economics is the study of human behavior. A robust economic system is a good indicator of robust human civilization.
Celtic, remember what we are discussing. We know that the climate changes drastically over time without our intervention. What we want to do is keep the climate within livable parameters. Livable refers to human beings. We are talking about climate change and stability as it relates to human security, therfore we must weigh the relative value of AGW remedies as they relate to human security. It wouldnt do us much good if we tried to avoid one potential
catastrophe and we brought another one on ourselves. We've seen other human made catastrophes in this century, and they came about when a few people convinced of their own goodness tried to regulate the economy. Stalin and Mao didnt try to starve people, they did it accidentally and in the name of their own deluded good intentions. That is a probably a Godwin of sorts. I dont believe Western Technocrats are as ideological, stubborn, and stupid as Stalin and Mao. I dont think if
Copenhagen Consensus gets it way that we'll all starve to death. Its is worth remembering, though, that this is not the first or last time we've seen human beings convinced of their righteousness and demanding economic control over others. When it is given (or taken), it rarely ends well.
I support a nice size gasoline tax in America. (As an aside, Id love to see a robust economic study of the past year around the world. How much did the slowdown in the worlds economy reduce Co2 emissions for that year? This information seems relevant. Aside #2, assuming the economic slowdown did reduce co2 somewhat, why is it that so many who otherwise support AGW want to stimulate the economy back to the previous higher-C02 emitting levels?) Yes, I prefer this tax to be administered by American politicians, at least mildly accountable to American citizens. I believe that smaller gov. is preferable to large. I go to my condo meetings every month, sometimes my association does things I ask them to do. Ive written my congressman a few times, he wrote me back once. Ive never bothered to email the President. I dont know how Id get in touch with the Global Economy Directors in Copenhagen if I had a little question about things, and somehow I dont think they'd answer anyway. Get my drift?
Somebody asked me a minute ago about the trillions in coastal property around the world. Good question. Part of the answer has to be (unsubsidized) insurance. Id be awfully curious how the worlds actuarial community scores sea-level rise, they tend to be pretty decent at these things.
----Second: your point about Y2K is a pretty good example, as it goes... I've been in the IT field for 20 years and I remember this well. And believe me, the outcome turning out to be much ado about nothing was not as a result of IT professionals standing around waiting to see what happened. We spent thousands of hours identifying the problems, and hundreds of thousands more preparing and implementing solutions. Had we taken the approach to Y2K that some seem to be
advocating with AGW, we might have actually had an epic-level catastrophe on our hands.
This is something Id like to know much more about, and maybe you can tell me. I lived with a Software Engineer roommate in those days, a cold-eyed fella not given to hysterics. He solemnly assured me we were going to see major problems. I had a week of food tucked away and a few other security related items. I watched the celebrations in Australia on tv that afternoon with much interest, though, by the actual arrival of New Years that year, most of the steam had gone out of the Y2k mania.
I remember in the summer of 1999 seeing spreadsheets being passed around indicating where different countries were in their response to Y2k. Seems the U.S. was towards the top, Austrailia I think towards the bottom... whatever.
My question is this: Are you telling me we, globally, fixed the problem?
I think I read of one person having an issue at an ATM in Jersey, maybe another person with a billing issue, but ultimately I heard of no serious problems related to y2k anywhere in the world. I know a bit about computers. I know you dont halfway fix a bug, its either fixed or not. A bit simplistic maybe, but it seems to me that most countries around the world were lucky if they addressed half of their projected bugs going in, and yet nothing much happened. Did we reach some world-wide critical mass in this response? I believe im correct in saying that fail-over systems were not used, that IT systems didnt even fail over. I believe im correct in saying some poor countries, less dependant on computers overall but still with IT systems, hardly addressed y2k at all, and yet there was no 'epic-level catastrophe' in their countries either. Why not? Ive yet to read a definitive answer on this.
I note that computer systems are less complex than the worlds climate.
If I might plumb your mind a minute, What do you make of the human behavioral observations ive noted here, and in other posts? What do you think of Jadehawks comment that, after 20,000$ (or was it Euro?) happiness no longer increases? I find it an incredible conincidence that not just AGW, but (according to Jadehawk) the problem of human happiness can be solved at just the precise per capita income! And its the same level! Do you find this just slightly messianic?
What do you make of SC OM's comments offhandedly discussing violent war between the 'planet-destroyers' and the planet-savers (I presume)? Do you get my point that these human tendencies, expressed here by Jadehawk and SC, have been
expressed many times throughout history? The details change but the script is the same. Over and over again we see: the messiah, the pure, the heretics, the scapegoats, and the purge.
I guess ultimately I'm telling you that human beings scare me more than a changing climate, particularly ones with a high righteousness to humility ratio.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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December 8, 2009 3:55 PM
Matt -
On your first part... I guess I pretty much expected the response you gave based on what I've read from your other posts. I fully, wholeheartedly, and in every other way disagree with your premise regarding the role economics should play in determining solutions for AGW. I think you are severely overstating things with your Mao / Stalin examples with regards to environmental policy.
That's a little egotistical... my concerns regarding AGW and the environment go far outside of the "as it effects humanity" spectrum. More than just the human species at stake here. It would be naive and myopic to not realize that effects on all aspects of the environment will in some way directly and drastically effect us. I'm not saying you are necessarily ignorant of this, but your statement here is a little "species-centric" for my comfort.
Couldn't disagree more. See above comments.
Well, obviously... but what isn't obvious, to me anyhow, is any evidence of how any of the proposed solutions to drastically cut FF use and carbon emissions would result in such a catastrophe, other than loud, hyperbolic cries that it might.
This isn't a matter of attitude Matt... righteousness has nothing to do with it... this is a real problem with a realimpact if steps are not taken. And frankly, as long as you live in a tax-based democracy, your government already has a level economic control, most of which is used for the common good. You overstate the problem with more hyperbole while again (subtly) referring back to your Mao / Stalin analogies, which I'm sorry but are terribly out of place in this discussion.
On to the next item, regarding Y2K...
Short answer: Yes. Allow me to repeat... Literally millions of man hours were spent in the effort to fix the Y2K issues. In every IT department I knew of (I was doing application consulting at the time, I'm now a network manager) every single application was reviewed... every line of code scrutinized... there really would have been some pretty serious consequences if not for those efforts. Would it have reached the apocalyptic proportions being touted by some? Probably not... but it would have been a major catastrophe... I know the financial sector would have taken a huge hit, and much of the efforts were geared towards banking and financial applications. So it's no exaggeration to say that it was a lot of hard work and planning that made it such a non-event.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 8, 2009 4:29 PM
you filthy liar, I said no such thing. That you can present it as such, when all I did was tell you the statistical fact that correlation between social health & happiness and national average income disappears around $20000, speaks very badly of your honesty; or your reading comprehension; or both.Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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December 8, 2009 4:44 PM
Jadehawk -
I intentionally did not respond to Matt's question in his post regarding your comment, because I didn't think he represented what you were saying even remotely accurately... I figured you'd be by eventually to set it straight.
Posted by: Matt | December 8, 2009 4:46 PM
---Short answer: Yes. Allow me to repeat...
Celtic, Im moderately aware of the American effort. Folks I knew working on it did not describe as being completely fixed "every program...every line scrutinized", but they said we'd made a huge effort.
But I specifically asked if the problem was fixed 'globally'. And you say yes. Im sure the answer is more complicated, but still you say short-answer, yes.
Wikipedia tells me otherwise. I click on the links and the news stories tell me the same things. Specifically modern countries like Italy, China, and Russia did very little to mitigate their problems. And yet no disaster. No problems at all really. Now that I know you worked on y2k, Id like to know how you think that came to be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Government_responses
Again, its relevance to AGW science is negligible. Its relevance as an example of people to get caught up in things, good, well-meaning people, with the best intentions and a high desire for long-term survival, is excellent.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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December 8, 2009 5:08 PM
This is totally misrepresented. You've taken a small section from the article, that indicates specific report from a US Senate Committee singled out Italy, China, and Russia as "poorly prepared" (an obvious political maneuver to most observers), and rephrased it as "those countries did very little to mitigate their problems"... it does not make that statement anywhere. There's a huge difference between "took a far more limited remediation effort" (what Wiki states) and "did very little to mitigate" (what you state).
Like every country, Russia, China and Italy took serious steps to mitigate Y2K effects... they did not put the priority on it that the US and other European countries did, and perhaps the US and much of the international community DID err on the side of caution... prepared for the worst. And again, I'd like you to point out to me why this was not the prudent course of action.
For you to try and take the position that certain countries did little or nothing and just sat back and waited is disingenuous. They followed the guidelines set forth by the international committee... the lack of problems, in my opinion, is a reflection of the efforts to prevent them, not a result of there never having been a problem.
Posted by: Matt | December 8, 2009 5:33 PM
---There's a huge difference between "took a far more limited remediation effort" (what Wiki states) and "did very little to mitigate" (what you state).
'limited remediation effort'(what Wiki states) means to me they didnt fix all, or even near all, their project bugs. Do you think thats a fair analysis of that statement? Seems to me it means they were taking more of a wait and see attitude to the problem. My point stands: not every country fixed every bug ahead of time.
If it isnt fair, then what does 'limited remediation effort' mean in this context, as opposed to America who took a much more robust remediation effort (which I translate to mean America fixed more of its bugs ahead of time)?
And if it is a fair analysis, then why didnt they experience any problems?
---the lack of problems, in my opinion, is a reflection of the efforts to prevent them, not a result of there never having been a problem.
But there were different efforts around the world. So which efforts are you referring too? Americas? Italy's? Russia's? All responded to different degrees, and yet same result.
You say in America we went through 'every line, every program'. I take you at your word, but it doesnt look like everyone around the world did the same. Why the same outcome? Could it be you dont completely know? How would you score your own certainty in your answers?
Posted by: steve | December 8, 2009 6:51 PM
@SC,OM not sure how to take that. So, I will mark it as you asked. I didn't intend my question to necessarily be aimed at a U.S. result only. But, it is probably most pertinent. So, I will do so.
@Paul, thanks.
Below I make another attempt at defining the question more narrowly. If you would like to change or remove your vote because of this, let me know. Note, I don't intend that you have to be a U.S. resident to answer the question.
"What happens if the liars manage to convince the U.S. electorate, and win overwelmingly in elections? Do we ignore the results of a democratic election?"
keep trying, but representative democracy: 5
yes, to real gobal democracy: 1
something else:0
undecided:0
others as needed:0
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 8, 2009 7:24 PM
Matt,
I don't know how to measure freedom and happiness, but the average standard of living in Sweden, France and Germany is similar to that of the USA (with less inequality), whilst they emit about half the amount of GHG per capita.
If the USA could cut its emissions in half within the next decade, that would be a good start.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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December 8, 2009 8:38 PM
it's actually higher; not only in financial terms (Germany and France top the list of average private savings rate at 10% and 13% of income, respectively), but in matters of mental and physical health, violent crimes, childrens' welfare, education, social mobility, etc. they score better than the USA by such a huge margin (especially Sweden), it's not even funny.oh yeah and steve, if you like, you can count my vote for "yes, to real golbal democracy", too :-)
Posted by: steve | December 8, 2009 8:53 PM
@Jadehawk, thanks
"What happens if the liars manage to convince the U.S. electorate, and win overwelmingly in elections? Do we ignore the results of a democratic election?"
keep trying, but representative democracy: 5
yes, to real gobal democracy: 2
something else:0
undecided:0
others as needed:0
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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December 8, 2009 8:55 PM
Why is it that libertards see economics in black and white? Libertards see only laissez faire, free market capitalism or a Stalinist strictly controlled economy.
Never mind, they're libertards, economic illiterates who, when given a choice between the real world and ideology, pick ideology every time.
And yes, I'm talking about you, Matt.
Posted by: Ace | December 8, 2009 10:17 PM
Martin M. I am confused by the ending of your post #700 Are you trying to laying claim to the title or is it just what everyone calls you?
Idiot. Please don't take it personally. I realize that your religion requires that the first place a Believer who is questioned or presented with an alternative point of view in any way must go to is insulting the questioner. I am really awed with your super sense of superiority that you even lowered yourself to respond to my comments.
I will listen to, enjoy and tolerate any insults you can toss up. Being lied to or served up a steaming pile of BS on a Frisbee is where I will stop being tolerant. I truly believe everyone should be allowed to live in their own perfect fantasy world no matter how ridiculous I might find it!
I am truly amazed by the immense ego that came along with being the larger brained Ape. Being at the top of the food chain somehow makes you and the other selective observers think one species can influence or control a system that has existed for many millions of years without and with humans and their nasty invention. And also believe that a model of the Troposphere, where all earths weather takes place can predict what is going to happen even 10 seconds ahead. Too many variances happening all at once.
You and The AL must have a plan how to stop all the other lower life forms from respiring in order to get them to stop their rampant uncontrolled breathing, to limit their, according you and The Master poet, climate expert, NASA data interpreter privy to all of that especially the readily available goods, and really only qualified to speak on the virtues of dropping out of divinity school and buying your way back in to Harvard and just an all around GAS BAG know it all, Al Gore, the gas that will end all life as we know it before we know it. But it will surely result in much less money being removed from peoples pockets and into his so I guess his press is not really on for that scheme.
Tell me all about it!!!!!!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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December 8, 2009 10:27 PM
Yawn, another denier with no evidence, just attitude. Very disappointing. It would be nice to find one with real peer reviewed evidence and no attitude. Let the evidence speak for itself. Which leaves Ace out. Just another attitude without evidence. Boring trash.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 9, 2009 12:28 AM
I know a bit about computers. I know you dont halfway fix a bug, its either fixed or not.
Your knowledge of computers, like your knowledge of AGW and Y2K and economics and much, is as deep as what one finds on the back of a crackerjack box. Aside from the fact that many bug fixes don't handle all cases, or involve tradeoffs where a greater flaw is replaced with a lesser flaw, or the fix unintentionally introduces a new bug or unmasks an old bug that also needs to be fixed, Y2K was a matter of many bugs, in numerous programs,all over the globe, all a result of the same sort of flaw -- the first two digits of dates were assumed to be 19.
Imbecile.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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December 9, 2009 12:43 AM
I read a fascinating article in Harper's a month or two ago called "The Cold We Caused," which made a circumstantial case for the Little Ice Age having been caused in large part by humans. How? By dying in huge numbers in the Black Death and other medieval plagues, as well as eurogenic epidemics in the New World. This would have been followed by widespread revegetation and reforestation of fields formerly cleared for agriculture, reducing atmospheric CO2 enough to cool the global climate.
I now see this idea is mentioned at 'kipedia
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 9, 2009 12:53 AM
Ace = Dunning-Kruger Effect in action.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 9, 2009 1:23 AM
Wikipedia tells me otherwise.
Here's what Wikipedia tells people who aren't febrile nitwits:
and
Also the article distinguishes between
Nonetheless,
Again, its relevance to AGW science is negligible.
To say the least.
Its relevance as an example of people to get caught up in things, good, well-meaning people, with the best intentions and a high desire for long-term survival, is excellent.
Disingenuous git; the only possible relevance here is to AGW, and that's how you bogusly applied it:
it could be like Y2K, a whole lot of (justified, I thought) worry about not much
With $300B spent, Y2K was not "not much", but is also nothing like AGW in terms of the structure of the problem or the magnitude of the consequences. And reputable people akin to Ross Anderson aren't saying the threat of AGW is overblown and it's not a matter of scaremongering by the media, which follows the corporate playbook and plays down the science and trumps up "controversy" and "debate" and irrelevant bullshit about "Climategate".
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | December 9, 2009 2:35 AM
The idea that China did nothing to fix the Y2K problem is rather amusing. It's the same country which forced everyone involved in fixing the problem at airports and other related systems to be on flights in the air when the crossover happened.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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December 9, 2009 9:24 PM
What else?
Also, you have three guesses as to where I know TV Tropes from.
Very well said.
Er, what? No, China hasn't had a command economy for decades (since Deng Xiaoping), and that's why they don't have famines anymore.
They do now have 200 million more or less unemployed people, however.
Who is "we", and what, if anything, does it mean to "ignore the results of a democratic election"???
Www... wow. That is one single sentence. :-o
– Breathing is offset by photosynthesis. Also, you're stupid.
– Stop pretending that Gore is a climatologist or something. He hasn't published a single paper on the subject. Your fascination with him is not merely unhealthy, it's also utterly beside the point. Makes you look rather insane.
– Six exclamation marks. What I just said.
Posted by: Shadowjack
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December 10, 2009 2:50 PM
Can anyone please tell me which scientific papers give the most direct evidence that CO2 is leading to global warming?
Posted by: Stephen Wells
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December 10, 2009 6:43 PM
@768: Arrhenius wrote a good paper on the subject in 1896, you should check it out. Then you can look for the paper that most directly establishes that the earth goes round the sun!
Posted by: Shadowjack
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December 11, 2009 4:04 AM
Stephen you've got me on the wrong side of the fence. I'm not a denialist. I accept CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But I'm looking for some papers to counter this quote by a someone trying to cast doubt on the science. Here is the quote:
"What you seem to be missing here is that all of our data of the historical PAST shows no cause-effect between temperature and CO2 concentrations. Actually, that is not true either… there is a strong correlation, but it is the other way around. In the past, temperature variations were followed about 800 years later by CO2 concentrations. All the evidence we had showed that temperature drove CO2, not the other way around.
So it is the idea that CO2 can cause temperature shifts that is actually the extraordinary claim, and the claim that goes against all PAST evidence.
Did you get that? The CO2 warming theory is the extraordinary claim. The claim that has to prove itself. Not the other way around."
I'm trying to speculate why there would be a gap between a warm period and 800 to a thousand years afterward a surge in CO2 levels.
A period of warmth would lead to an increase in water evaporation would it not? This in turn would lead to more rain, which has CO2 dissolved in it. Which would lead to more rock erosion, which releases more calcium from those rocks.The dissolved CO2 reacts with the calcium from the eroded rocks, which would sooner or later reduce CO2. Less CO2 equals less erosion. Less erosion means less weathering, and CO2 builds up in the atmosphere again.
Is that a plausible rebuttal to the quote above?
Posted by: Stephen Wells
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December 11, 2009 6:06 AM
@770: I was a little snarky but I genuinely do think you should look up the Arrhenius paper, you will find it wonderful ammunition.
The error in the argument you quote is simply this: the proposition that increased atmospheric CO2 leads to global warming is not a historical conclusion from climate reconstructions; it is a prediction based on the physical properties of the CO2 molecule. The fact that, historically, a warming of the earth can lead to subsequent CO2 increase (e.g. due to mobilisation of frozen carbon sources) is utterly unconnected to the current mechanism of warming. Engaging them with stuff about erosion is simply a distraction; they probably know that.
The situation is really quite simple. Earth is warmed by the light from the Sun, mostly in the visible spectrum. Earth cools by infra-red radiation. CO2 is transparent to visible light but absorbs infra-red light. Increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere reduces heat loss from the earth; so we get warmer. This is about as difficult or controversial as the proposition that if I drop this teacup off the roof, it will break when it hits the ground. Historically, I've never dropped this cup before- so what?
We've known about this mechanism for more than a century- hence the reference I gave. The guy claiming that CO2-induced warming is an extraordinary claim is, effectively, claiming that if I insulate my house and don't turn down the heating, it's extraordinary to claim that my house will get warmer!
Earlier in the thread I believe we had the wonderful analogy; billions of people have died in the past for all sorts of natural reasons; therefore you can't possibly blame me and my smoking gun for this bullet-riddled corpse here.
Posted by: John Morales
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December 11, 2009 5:41 PM
Shadowjack, the 800-year lag is mentioned in the series of videos of which the one featured in the post is sixth.
Look at the part beginning in the sixth minute of the first video.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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December 11, 2009 6:38 PM
As has been explained several times on this thread, CO2 is a feedback on temperature. When Milanković cycles end an ice age, the extra heat from the sun thaws permafrost and warms the oceans, leading to outgassing of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2), which leads to more warming, and so on till a new equilibrium is reached.
This is why ice ages take so long – the change in insolation must be big enough to trigger the feedback – and why glacials and interglacials are so much of an either-or phenomenon instead of arbitrary points in a continuum.
This time around, however, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is increasing for reasons other than temperature. That's extremely rare in the Earth's history. I think the last times were 55 million years ago, when something (changing sea currents?) apparently led to massive outgassing of methane from clathrates in the sea floor, and 67 to 63 million years ago, when the Seychelles broke off of India during a couple of flood basalt eruption episodes (CO2 comes out of volcanoes). Both of those times, the global annual average temperature rose considerably as a result.
This time it's us. The temperature, and the sea level, have already started rising.
And the permafrost soils have started melting, giving off methane... the feedback is coming. Let's hope it'll be small this time.
Posted by: llewelly
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December 11, 2009 7:07 PM
The relevant real climate links on the lag between CO2 and temperature:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/hot-off-the-projector-3-atmospheric-co2-to-800-kyr-ago/
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a_ray_in_dilbert_space#6e51c
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December 11, 2009 9:09 PM
Shadowjack,
There aren't really any peer-reviewed papers as such countering the "CO2-lags warming" meme, because it is precisely what you'd predict given the consensus theory of climate.
The CO2 has to come from somewhere, right? Well, if you have warming after an ice age (google Milankovitch cycles), eventually the permafrost starts to thaw and outgasses the CO2 that was trapped there. The released CO2 intensifies and prolongs the warming. In this case, the cause of the initial warming is increased insolation due to small changes in Earth's orbit around the Sun, and CO2 is a feedback that causes more warming.
Like most denialist talking points, this one winds up being a bit of an own goal. Eventually, we will warm the planet sufficiently to release the CO2 now frozen in the tundra, and that will further intensify the warming, probably making it irremediable--Oops! What can I say, these guys are kinda stupid.
Posted by: Shadowjack
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December 12, 2009 7:30 AM
"Like most denialist talking points, this one winds up being a bit of an own goal. Eventually, we will warm the planet sufficiently to release the CO2 now frozen in the tundra, and that will further intensify the warming, probably making it irremediable--Oops! What can I say, these guys are kinda stupid."
CO2 may not be the nastiest GHG but frozen under the tundra there is plenty of methane, which is nasty. Plus ocean warming may release methane clathrates further exacerbating global warming.
Thanks for your help everyone.
Posted by: opit | December 16, 2009 1:26 AM
At least I won't have to worry about refuting intelligently made points here. I have rarely heard such concentrated drivel in the overuse and constant pounding of strawman argumentation and logical fallacies.
The basis of any discussion is mutual respect ansd consideration. Good luck with that idea !
Posted by: Woozle
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December 17, 2009 7:09 PM
@opit: I can't tell which side of this argument you're attacking; the few comments above yours look pretty reasonable. Could you clarify?