Open Thread 53

Has anybody noticed that Jeff Harvey writes fewer thousand-word posts at weekends when his university isn't paying him?

I wonder if he gives a guilty start when his Professor puts his head round the door. "Blogging again, Jeff? Haven't you got lectures to give?" "No, Prof! Just checking my e-mail!" "Now now, Jeff, I have internet access too, and you've written ten times more in your silly chatrooms than in the Journal of Ecology." "Er.... OK boss, point taken. It has become a bit of a compulsion lately. I promise to get some real work done soon." "See that you do, please. The OPCC needs big-guns like you to keep the gravy train rolling. The dozen numpties on Deltoid are NOT the target audience!"

Has anybody noticed that a sad little mental projectile vomiter Brent just can't seem to stop posting here?

Tell me, when was the last time you thought about fu*king your mother, Brent?

@Sigmund Freud

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But Brent is always an idiot.

This is true, Dave H.
But nevertheless, has Brent stopped thinking about fu*king his mother yet?
It's a simple yes or no question after all.

Yeah, but I don't have to MFS #68. The 'burden of proof' for AGW is on you. I'm advocating we do nothing whatsoever. It's by far the cheapest option too.

warren @ 183, you could start here

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o0l

then i suppose you might give a thought to the world environment if proliferation of these du factories goes into overdrive, do you for one moment think that this stuff is harmless in the hands of the greedy bastards that want to control the world ?

do you really think that you are safe from it ? if you do, your a dumb fuck !

do some research, see what the half life of it is, research how it can move from one place to the next, better, go and breath some, first hand experience is always the best way to learn

Predicted the Victorian floods in your modlin Timbo ?
Please refer to my previous 'predicciones' :-)
I'd sure like to hear from 'the great Flannery' now ! ;-)

Agree with sidcup...bleating and repetitive. Who the fuck does Montford think he is? Hard to say... clearly loves the sound of his own voice,but not much going on judging by his blog.

[This New Scientist article](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727754.200-time-to-blame-climat…) on the extent to which global warming can be blamed for individual weather events is interesting.

Our informal models of causation, which of course underlie (non-scientific) debate, aren't really adequate to this situation. If action A increases the probability of event B from 1% to 10%, is it true to say A caused B? Should the instigator of A be liable for 90% of the damage?

In the "Whatever Happened To..." department, I'd like to point out that today is the two-year anniversary of [Jennifer Marohasy's promise to explain to Tim how to graph temperatures](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/08/the_australians_war_on_science_…). I'm sure Jennifer will get to that any day now. Let's just hope Tim gives her a nice, prominent link.

Meanwhile, in other breaking news, it's now been eight months and eight days since UberGeek Hero Eric Raymond bought a new computer for that "Data Against Demogogues," project, where they're planning to do a little amateur climate modeling. [It must be hell setting up those dual-core machines, since they still apparently haven't progressed beyond the "playing with hardware" phase](http://data-n-demagogues.blogspot.com/).

E-mail exchanges with two people from climate 'skeptic' O'Sullivan's mass mailing list:

http://ijish.livejournal.com/16953.html

Tim occasionally has something on DDT, so I thought this report on insecticides would be of interest:

Seems colony collapse disorder is probably linked to neonicotinoid insecticides:

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/43568

http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/show-them-the-code

Here is something to listen out for on Monday. The BBCâs Roger Harrabin is doing a 2 part radio broadcaster called âUncertain Climateâ. The first part is trailed as follows:

In a special Radio 4 series the BBC's Environmental Analyst Roger Harrabin questions whether his own reporting - and that of others - has adequately told the whole story about global warming.

Roger Harrabin has reported on the climate for almost thirty years off and on, but last November while working on the "Climategate" emails story, he was prompted to look again at the basics of climate science.

He finds that the public under-estimate the degree of consensus among scientists that humans have already contributed towards the heating of the climate , and will almost certainly heat the climate more.

OK so far, but then it goes on:

But he also finds that politicians and the media often fail to convey the huge uncertainty over the extent of future climate change. Whilst the great majority of scientists fear that computer models suggest we are facing potentially catastrophic warming, some climate scientists think the warming will be restricted to a tolerable 1C or 1.5C.

That paragraph sounds like it could have been written by a denialist blogger. Harrabin interviews Blair, Nigel Lawson (why?), Bob Watson, Crispin Tickell and Steve McIntyre.

Sounds like it is going to be another case of false balance to me. Maybe part 2 will be better.

[Uncertain Climate](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tj525)

"some climate scientists think the warming will be restricted to a tolerable 4.5C or 6C."

Is just as accurate.

And more likely too. You'd only get 1C if there were no net feedbacks on CO2 increases/decreases, which makes the past inexplicable.

@8

Yeah, I have been listening to the trailers on Radio 4.
It's just after the Today programme.

It could be worthwhile bookmarking the BBCs complaints form page.

Wait until episode 2 or just fill the form in after episode 1?

Tim, thanks to you, I made the following metafilter post: http://www.metafilter.com/95160/Whackamole-climate-denialism

Talking of BBC Radio 4...

Was listening to 'Open Country' this morning about a farmer opposing a path through his farm. But the interesting thing was that he also was trying to prove that there was a public path that once went across the Thames and through the houses of parliament. A historian pointed out the Thames use to be very shallow in places, quite calm and people could walk across. eg. it was a lot easier to freeze over in the past than it would be today.

Which brings us to the denial 'mini-ice age' meme and paintings of the Thames freezing over.
The point being that temperatures wouldn't need to go so low in the past as they would today in order to freeze it.

Something to think about.

@Paul UK

Indeed. Before the Thames embankments were built/improved in the 19 century the river was wider and shallower than now and therefore more prone to freezing. In addition, Old London Bridge had very narrow arches restricting the flow of water, again making the Thames more prone to freezing. That bridge was replaced in the early 1800s.

The Thames used to freeze meme is a crock.

Bjorn Lomborg is up to his usual tricks: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lomborg63/English

Claims a 20 foot rise in sea level would result in only 16,000 square miles lost. Bullshit. A [**2** foot rise would lose 10,000 sq. miles](http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/coastal/index.html). And he ignores the land and cities lost to storm surges. He also ignores that much of the land lost will be fertile deltas and would have massive impacts on food production.

In a strong field of deniers and liars, I think I despise Lomborg the most....

What drives Lomborg? Is it pure ego?

I'm having fun with the morons over at climatechangefraud.com - the repetition of long-discredited denier talking-points is a hoot.

Has anyone besides me noticed that the same ol' memes, now all several years old, are still considered current by denier blogosphere dorks? It's hilarious.

@12

He also ignores the fact that millions of people would have to be relocated and new cities built on greenfield sites or farmland.

Here in the UK it's hard enough to find land for a few thousand homes.

Well it is intersting that SLR has slowed over the last several years.The data shows the long term rate is still less than 2 mm per year.Another interesting snippet is that satellite photos show that the Bangladesh delta is growing!

J Bowers:

> What drives Lomborg? Is it pure ego?

I think he just enjoys the attention it brings him - not to mention the $$$s he gets from it all. And as he is clearly unhindered by needing to tell the truth, he gets lots of attention and lots of $$$s.

~~~

Paul UK:

> Here in the UK it's hard enough to find land for a few thousand homes.

Indeed.

~~~

warren:

> ...SLR has slowed over the last several years.The data shows the long term rate is still less than 2 mm per year.

[...the most recent satellite and in situ data showed seas were now rising by more than 3mm a year â more than 50 per cent faster than the average for the 20th century](http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/sea-levels-risi…)

Nice try. No banana. Now slither off back to WattsUpMyArse or whatever cesspit you crawled out from.

Paul UK:

I didn't finish my "Indeed." And smaller, low-level islands are simply going to be lost completely - or become non-tenable because of salt water poisoning their fresh water supplies. Those people have nowhere to go.

No David,you are wrong.The SLR from 1993 to 2003 was at the faster rate.Since 2003 it has dropped below the historical rate.This consistent with what SLR has done for the last century.The rate increases,then decreases,increases,decreases.Historically it is around 1.8mm per year.Nothing to worry about.

From the blog of John O'Sullivan. Emphases mine.

> Thanks to that learned sceptic number cruncher, Lord Monckton, the former advisor to the British government, top lawyers are now perfecting their legal briefs to derail the eco-fascist juggernaut. The Al Bore's of that green world refused to heed their courtroom lessons from before and will now face even sterner consequences upon the emergence of the 'Climategate' scandal. [...]

> Now we get to delve into a conspiracy that is a theory no more. For once proof of a data fraud has been established we then look at the shady beneficiaries who have garnered academic privilege and government grants from such mischief. [...]

> This was always going to be for the greens a loose coalition of unlikely accomplices ranging from the extreme left of the communists at Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and the far right of the rich elite of Bilderberg, the Club of Rome, the Murdoch-moneyed mainstream media all cozied up with those self-serving politicians. We were able to expose the fragility of that axis of evil after Climategate and now on the world stage in Copenhagen the scam is unravelling in front of the eyes of the whole world.

O'Sullivan has a LinkedIn profile.

Shorter warren:

1. 1993--2003 is short term!
2. 2003--2010 is long term!
3. Therefore, let me conclude with a talking point.

Warren, you do realise that one way to play rubes is to confuse them with the peaks and troughs of noisy variation and cherry picking specific favourable points in order to do so?

But once you understand [what trends are](http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg) you can rise above such cheap barnamism.

Now can you please answer my points in the CO2 thread.

I believe that ice extent is about to measure below last year's minimum --

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

No more will Lord Monckton be able to claim the ice has recovered 24% in the last two years.
I suppose he can say the ice has recovered 24% minus "relapse" in the last three years etc until it eventually reaches the 2007 level, when he can claim that the ice "hasn't changed in X years".

Chek,the long term trend is 1.8mm per year.What can I say?The rate may rise due to glacier melt in Greenland etc,but again the rate is up for grabs.We dont know.However,greenland bore holes have shown that during the Holocene maximum,which lasted 4,000 years,greenland did not melt away.The high guesstimates by the IPCC are not accurate in my view.
PS I will go back to the CO2 thread and answer your questions.

And the recent change has been higher.

This is what happens when you take an increasingly steep slope and compare the overall average to the latter section of the slope.

Funny how the tooth polisher doesn't know what a curve looks like...

"The high guesstimates by the IPCC are not accurate in my view"

Yah, and your view is wrong.

You're welcome to view it that way, but it doesn't make it so.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.pdf

WOW,please link me to your source for the "recent change has been higher".My information tells me that the rate has slowed since 2003.However if you have contrary data,then I will stand corrected.
In any case,if we take the higher number-3mm per year,then what does that mean for this century?It means 27cm by 2100.This is not something to panic about,it is almost irrelevant.

[Sea level rise](http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.pdf)

warren, how come every statement YOU make is inerrant and valid and needs no proof, yet ANYONE ELSE gainsaying you have to prove each and every word to YOUR satisfaction (which is impossible to get since you deny anything is wrong)?

Martin,thank-you for that data.The SLR rate did rise in 2008/2009,and as of 2010 it may be falling again.I imagine that the recent El Nino had an effect on thermal expansion.

"and as of 2010 it may be falling again."

No, as of 2010 it cannot be said whether the sea level rise is falling. Just as you can't say that just because the dog has slowed down in the last five minutes that it is going to die tonight.

But it's never stopped you making s*t up before, has it.

"I imagine that the recent El Nino had an effect on thermal expansion."

Why? Do you like imagining how things are not a problem and it's all hunky-dory? If so, I wouldn't want you in the security services of any country (unless I want to invade it).

warren, look at the long term trend. The wiggles are immaterial (yep, ENSO among other things).

So, over the last century the rise was 1.6 mm/yr, and now we are already at 3 mm/yr. You really want to believe it will stop there? Remember what they told you in school, about what makes ice melt and water expand? There's more of that where this came from.

>*No David,you are wrong.The SLR from 1993 to 2003 was at the faster rate.Since 2003 it has dropped below the historical rate.This consistent with what SLR has done for the last century.The rate increases,then decreases,increases,decreases.Historically it is around 1.8mm per year.Nothing to worry about.*

Warren the old trend may have been 1.8mm per year, but acceleration has lifted the rate since 1990 to [3mm (+/- 0.4) per year](http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.pdf). I.e. every thing you claimed is wrong.

FWIW, sea-level data from Oz (CSIRO):

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html

Rate +3.2 mm/yr.

I think warren may be citing some misinformation that he may have read on Pielke Snr's blog, something which ThingsBreak (rightly) took Pielke to task for:

http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/hoisted-on-their-own-petard/

mapleleaf, a possibility.

warren, where did you get your misinformation on the rate drop since 2003? And just for curiosity, would you trust that source again?

Martin,I stand corrected on the recent rate increase.However it is only 16 years of data,and the longer term trend is yet to be seen.The rate drop of 2003-2008 was there to be seen in the data,however I do concede that it has increased since 2008.My overall point however,is that SLR wont be a probelm even at these higher rates.

If I told the Sunday Times I found the "Monckton Diaries" on eBay, would they publish them?

"However it is only 16 years of data,and the longer term trend is yet to be seen."

And again we see the tooth polisher state that when the trend is not in his favour, the 16 year period is not long enough, yet when the trend is apparently in his favour, there's no problem with 7 years, that's PLENTY of time to draw a valid conclusion.

Maybe we ought to call him Juno, the two-faced one. Twice the number of teeth to polish, though! Result!

>*I stand corrected on the recent rate increase.However it is only 16 years of data,and the longer term trend is yet to be seen.*

Once again Warren the uncertainty cuts both ways, just 16 years of data may mean things will be far worse than current estimate of 1-2 meters by 2100 (let alone the acceleration continuing post 2100).

Your bias is blinding.

>*My overall point however,is that SLR wont be a probelm even at these higher rates.*

Utter baseless and completely unsupported opinion, completely worthless. We are seeing a lot of this from you Warren.

Warren:
>In any case,if we take the higher number-3mm per year,then what does that mean for this century?It means 27cm by 2100.This is not something to panic about,it is almost irrelevant.

1. The prediction is that the rate will increase. Given the changes in ice extent, glaciers etc. that seems reasonable.

2. If it does remain at 3mm (that is a world average) it doesn't remove responsibility of current generations for their actions that cause future generations problems regarding sea defences and relocation.
I don't think you have a right to drown millions of peoples homes, whether that happens sooner or later.

@12, re Lomborg

A 20 ft rise? Holy crap! Part of my job involves knowing the height above mean sea level of many major cities and other areas. That would be absolutely disastrous worldwide in terms of physical and economic damage as well as human displacement. New Orleans would look like a teaspoonful of water on the bathroom floor compared to that!

The guy is an idiot.

WOW,the trend I always referred to was the long term trend of 1.8mm per year.I did not say that 2003 to 2008 was a trend.But,I have heard it said that climate trends are supposed to be 30 years or more.If that is so,then why is it wrong that a 16 year data set is not yet conclusive?
JAKERMAN,yes things may get worse,but the data[3mm per year]does not suggest that.You give a figure of 1-2 metres by 2100,so what must the rate be for this to happen?The rate is not 3mm per year,but 16 mm per year!!More than 5 times the current rate!Now if you have some numbers that show that 16mm per year is likely then I am with you.Your serve.You say my opinion is utterly baseless,completely unsupported and worthless.No it is not.Your own data source says so.[3mm per year]

University of Chicago has published videos of its global warming classes on Youtube. Very accessible now.

PHSC 13400: Global Warming

http://www.youtube.com/user/UChicago#g/c/FA75A0DDB89ACCD7

[Warren said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2759…) "but the data[3mm per year]does not suggest that"

One side effect of the melting sea ice at the poles is that there's less mass to buttress and hold the ice sheets on the landmasses there. This summer saw a 250 sq.Km chunk of glacier calve off Greenland, with plenty more where that came from.

Denialists cling to a lot of assumptions that trends will remain linear and manageable with no good reason.

Chek,yes glaciers are calving and breaking off.But the critical question is,how much is it contributing to SLR?I have seen various figures around,but they are generally .5mm to 1mm per year from glacier melt/calving.If you have some updated numbers please post them,but I think those numbers are fairly accurate.Again it gets down to a question of whether much higher melt rates are probable.As I posted previously,in order to have a SLR of 1.5 metres by 2100,the rate must be 16mm per year.So for glacier melt to play a big part,it may have to increase its rate by an order of magnitute.

re: warren@42

That would be 13mm on top of the existing 3mm.
Or a 4.3 fold increase on top of the existing rate. All this in 90 years.

From what I can gather sea levels were rising at about 1mm in 1920. So between then and now the rate has increased by 2 fold on top of the then 1mm, to 3mm.

So the last 90 years has doubled and the next 90 years is predicted to at least quadruple.

I'm not sure that is so amazing given what is expected to happen in the next 90 years if we don't cut emissions. The dynamics are changing in the areas and regions that matter, so the smaller changes that happened in the last 90 years are unlikely to continue in a linear fashion into the future.

warren:
>Chek,yes glaciers are calving and breaking off.But the critical question is,how much is it contributing to SLR?

A proportion is due to land based ice melting and a proportion is due to thermal expansion.

eg. land ice isn't the only issue.

Open thread and all, may I ask a question about politics? What is going on in Australia now?

As you probably guess, australian politics do not occupy the center of attention in the media of other countries.

IM, Labor and Greens have the same number of elected reps in our House of reps (73) as the Liberal-National coalition. 3 out of 4 independents are in a process of choosing who to back to become our next govt.

That doesn't looks good for Labour then, right?

Perhaps they should have kept Rudd

Quite a smack for Labor but the Greens gained a swing to them of more than double the swing of that gained by the conservative coalition. So nothing is clear in the message sent.

And just to add to the fun, one of the 73 nominated as coalition states definitely that he's not part of a coalition, he's WA National Party. He's opposed to the mining tax - but he's not said what his attitude is to the broadband network. Methinks someone's trying to have his cake and eat it too.

And the other independant, not part of the 3 amigos, is now stirring the pot talking about the Iraq war.

By the time this is done it'll look like the aftermath of a 5 year old's birthday party. Cake and jelly on the walls, burst balloons in every corner.

"WOW,the trend I always referred to was the long term trend of 1.8mm per year."

And so ignoring the FACT that if that trend is accelerating, the trend now is higher than that mean trend.

Your other quote here needs repeating, not that you'll deign to hear it:

30

"Martin,thank-you for that data.The SLR rate did rise in 2008/2009,and as of 2010 it may be falling again.I imagine that the recent El Nino had an effect on thermal expansion.

Posted by: warren | August 28, 2010 3:39 PM"

You don't seem to have any problem with ascribing a trend to 6 months of data when you think you can spin it as "no problem".

You're just a lying sack of shit, you tooth polisher.

Warren, there are [predictions](http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/slr/) which try to take all the factors into account, but as the uncertainty range shows, there are wide variations of possibility.

For example until it actually happened, nobody could have foreseen 10 years ago if that latest glacier block would be 1, 10 or 100 sq.km in size, until we saw 250sq.km break away.

> But,I have heard it said that climate trends are supposed to be
> 30 years or more.If that is so,then why is it wrong that a 16
> year data set is not yet conclusive?

Warren, the 30 years is for temperatures and the like. Sea level is an integrated quantity -- the rate corresponds to temperature. This makes the spectral behaviour very different. If you wanted to discern an increase in rate, yes then 30 years are needed (and the half-century between 1.6 and 3 mm/yr is more than enough!). But for the rate itself, 16 years definitely is enough.

@48, Aussie politics:

Well it's definitely a "hung parliament". As of today we're no closer to a result. No matter which side eventually gets to govern (assuming another election isn't called), they'll be a minority Government and will require the support of the "Independent" House members to pass legislation.

Certainly no-one was particularly happy with either major party. The Labor vote suffered due to factors (in no particular order) including: poorly executed economic stimulus packages, dumping climate action, late leadership coup just before the election where the PM was ousted by his own party, and some State politics.

Liberal (ie, conservative) Party vote wasn't that great considering the Labor instability they could've capitalised on. Many people see their leader, Abbott, as too far to the Right, and a bit of a religious zealot. Not a great look down under. Conservatives will of course vote for their party anyway, but many voters feel he's not the ideal choice.

Greens got a seat in the House of Reps for the first time ever.

The incumbent PM, Julia Gillard, continues to run the country until either side can convince the Governor General that it has the numbers to form Government (ie, has the support of the independents).

In other news, guess who has been bankrolling climate science denial?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

Evil billionaire libertarians! Now we know who Eric Raymond is working for.

What has happened to John MacLean's PhD? Does anyone know who his supervisor (if any) is ?

Coop (@57) here's your link to the [New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer)

Hey Derecho64 #14 - Ever noticed that those who don't hold with the 'global warming' line don't need to change their story every week to latch onto any given weather event that they can pin some fresh alarmism on ?
And, can anyone please tell me when it will start getting warm again. This current version of 'global warming' is all too cold for me ! :-)
And Tim I ain't goin away, it's too much fun to see how much you guys try justify your myopic view.

Lord Sidcup"6:
>Here is something to listen out for on Monday. The BBCâs Roger Harrabin is doing a 2 part radio broadcaster called âUncertain Climateâ.

Well I listened and I wasn't motivated to fill in the BBC complaints form, so it must have been OK :-)

Wonder if the second programme will be similar.

Actually because I wasn't tempted to throw something at the TV (listening via Freeview), I thought it was a bit boring.

"Ever noticed that those who don't hold with the 'global warming' line don't need to change their story every week to latch onto any given weather event that they can pin some fresh alarmism on ?"

No, but we've noticed that denialists will latch on to any cold weather as proof it isn't warming, even if it's only in their back garden.

And as for alarmism, look at all the shock stories about how AGW mitigation will send us BACK TO THE STONE AGE!!!

Heh, denialists. What loons, eh?

Lord Sidcup:
>Ever noticed that those who don't hold with the 'global warming' line don't need to change their story every week to latch onto any given weather event that they can pin some fresh alarmism on ?

and then:
>And, can anyone please tell me when it will start getting warm again.

Does your foot hurt?
Only you could be so incompetent.

My last comment should have been:

Billy Bob Hall:

>Ever noticed that those who don't hold with the 'global warming' line don't need to change their story every week to latch onto any given weather event that they can pin some fresh alarmism on ?

and then:

>And, can anyone please tell me when it will start getting warm again.

Does your foot hurt? Only you could be so incompetent.

Apologies to Lord Sidcup!

The Harrabin programme (see #6) wasn't much more than a whine about how everyone was to blame for the misinformation, on both sides of course, apart from the poor journalists. Key quote from the start was "The way we [journalists] are forced into extremes"! Hmmm, who's supposed to be doing the communicating here?

Interviewing Bob Watson Harrabin picked up on Watson saying something about "the consequences" of climate change rather than the potential consequences. "When people like you talk to people like me" [you don't make the potential part clear] - makes you wonder what he thinks people like him are. I'd have thought that 'people like him', environment reporters, shoud be informed enough to understand, as the scientists do, that the probabilities are assumed in any discussion of climate.

A complete failure to accept any responsibility on behalf of the media.

Sorry my last post referred to Billy Bob Hall and not Lord Sidcup.

Apologies to Lord Sidcup.

Paul, #63 seems a bit harsh on Lord Sidcup.

Billy Bob Hall,

Do you think you sound intelligent, original, challenging?

You sound like another sad deluded denier spouting the same crap without a single reference to back up their tired old arguments.

Does anyone like Warren consider what happens after 2100? Warming will all be over, icesheets stop melting, the 'imminent cooling' denialists have been insisting is just about to happen will be just about to happen? Or is it just to far away to give a s**t?
I'm so, so tired of the Warrens of the web for whom the only good climate science is that which reassures them that nothing need change. Meanwhile the powers of Oz are probably in agreement with him; wouldn't want to upset the fossil fuel industry by acting like there's even a small chance a world's worth of climate scientists could be correct.
I think we are collectively incapable of putting our grandkid's futures ahead of our immediate opportunities - until the heatwave that kills whole regions we won't act and then there'll still be calls to build more coal plants to power better airconditioners.

Billy Bob Hall -- "Ever noticed that those who don't hold with the 'global warming' line don't need to change their story every week..."

Beg to differ.

Week 1: "It's the Sun!"
Week 2: "It's cosmic rays!"
Week 3: "It's.... not warming!"

Paul UK

It was a little boring and also seemed a bit pointless to me. Maybe the point will become clearer in part 2. Lawson was rubbish (as ever) and Bob Watson will probably get quote-mined as saying climate will change 1 to 1.5 degrees (or whatever the range was in context).

My comment @ 64 was supposed to be a response to Billy Bob Hill.

Apologies to Lord Sidcup for the error.

I did write a response but for some reason my comment did not appear and awaits moderation??

Ok, so I'm incompetent.
Can't seem to get anything correct today. That should have been 'my comment @ 63'.

WOW,I have heard the expression acceleration in regards to sea level rise,but it really appears to be more of a step change around 1993,just when the satellite data started.But,whether there is an acceleration of the rate WITHIN this step change will have to be determined.

Anthony Watts has repeatedly "outed" or threatened to "outen" commenters on his blog that he did not agree with, asking them to use their real names. Now he has taken to ["outen" the monikers of people using their realname](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/29/gisstimating-1998/#comment-469579)
>__Günther Kirschbaum__ _says_:
>August 29, 2010 at 2:33 pm

>_Signs are funny things, depending on how they are displayed, people often interpret them different._

>Yes, thatâs your art isnât it, displaying it in such a way that people interpret it differently? Iâm already curious how you will display the Arctic non-recovery for people to interpret. Or will you wait for the refreeze to kick in and do your annual âlook how itâs growing!â-blog post?

>__REPLY:__ Well âNevenâ have a look at the next Sea Ice News, coming soon and read the graphs yourself. Howâs that secret forecast on your secret blog coming over there? â Anthony

"I have heard the expression acceleration in regards to sea level rise,but it really appears to be more of a step change around 1993"

Ah, there you go again, assuming that your visual cortex shapes reality.

"But,whether there is an acceleration of the rate WITHIN this step change will have to be determined."

Nope, it's already determined.

And are you finally going to recant your "and as of 2010 it may be falling again." in post #30, since there isn't even a whole year of 2010 yet?

Hmm?

[Judge sides with UVa in climate case, dismissing Cuccinelli demands](http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2010/aug/30/11/judge-sides-uva-clima…)

>In an opinion issued this morning, Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli failed to show a sufficient âreason to believeâ that UVa possessed any documents related to Mann that suggested a fraud occurred.

I see the IAC review of the IPCC is out. What a contrast between a detailed, nuanced, constructive report and the knee-jerk reactions from various media around the world.

The report expresses confidence in the achievements of the IPCC: "The Committee concludes that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has
served society well" but no-one reading any of the articles I've looked at so far would have any idea of this. 'Report slams IPCC' is the message being pumped out.

Controversy sells.

That's only if you're not allowed to show t*ts, mind.

Of course, controversy OVER t*ts sells even more (cf Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction causing people in Fox News to faint dead no air, and compare with Judy Finnigan's similar, but genuine, problem which caused merely chuckles in the UK.).

Controversy sells. Especially when it's giving a message your sponsors like.

Thanks Dave R @ 77 for that update.

Another attack on science defeated.

Of course I don't think we've heard the last from Cuccinelli by a long shot.

The only positive thing on the horizon is that his credibility will be in tatters with even many Republican supporters in a few years from now, after they realise how much taxpayer money he has spent while finding absolutely nothing.

Bjorn Lomborg is doing a U-turn with his next book, sorta kinda maybe: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/30/bjorn-lomborg-climate…

Hat tip: http://dymaxionworld.blogspot.com/2010/08/turns-out-bjorn-lomborg-is-da…

From the Lomborg story mentioned by Holly Stick (#82):

"Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes.

$US100 billion sounds like a lot, but the IMF reckons gross world product (GDP for the world) this year will be $US61,781.49 billion, so the cost according to Lomborg will work out to 0.16 per cent of world GDP.

Acording to Lomborg, according to that story.

The Australian Acadamy of Science has just published [this concise summary](http://www.science.org.au/reports/climatechange2010.pdf) of AGW.

Very nice summary. I've downloaded it for distribution to sceptical (and scientifically illiterate) relatives! Unfortunately, as we know, many "sceptics" won't let the plain-english truth get in the way of a good story.

Ken Fabos @69
Sadly I agree with you. The only way out that I see is for investment in nuclear electricity generation to succeed in making it cheaper and more acceptable than coal. Meanwhile China is building lots of mediocre nuclear plants and lots of coal power plants, and Iran is working hard to enhance the linkage between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. :-(

I'm sad that so many "greens" hate nuclear more than AGW. While the nuclear industry has been rent seeking and deceptive for most of their history, it seems the only globally applicable low greenhouse power solution. Mining and even contamination of Kakadu will do it less damage than 4 degrees of warming.

"I'm sad that so many "greens" hate nuclear more than AGW."

No, greens know nuclear is no answer to AGW. At best it is a band-aid on the problem, but it has the same problem as all non-renewables have: it will run out. It also falls down on the band-aid because it takes a long time to build more capacity.

"Mining and even contamination of Kakadu will do it less damage than 4 degrees of warming."

However, wind turbines, solar power, geothermal, tide and other renewable resources being exploited will do even less.

Maybe it's not so much "hate nuclear" as "hate sidestepping the issue and spending wasted money on a dead-end technology with known insurmountable problems".

funny post over at the [loon pond](http://loonpond.blogspot.com/2010/08/tim-blair-bjrn-lomborg-michael-han…) - Lomborg, Hanlon, Bob Carter, Bolt, Blair, something for everyone!

davidp and wow, do we really need another pro/anti nuke thing? Nobody gets convinced by some guy on the internet venting at some other guy in a comments thread.

Regards
Luke

No, we don't.

However, I didn't start it, did I?

And, frankly, the venting of some other guy about how they don't like to hear pro/anti nuclear comments isn't going to change anyone's mind, is it.

Roy Spencer wants to eliminate the IPCC.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/dump-the-ipcc-process-it-cannot-be-…

anti-science at its bests!

"Dump the IPCC process, it stands in the way of more global warming, which is what I and the others at the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance want."

Tea Party seeks candidates who say no to global warming and gay marriage

The email...
http://www.sanduskyregister.com/files/www2.sanduskyregister.com/file_at…

From: Jon Morrow
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:14:38 -0400
To:
Subject: Tea Party Voter Guide and Questionaire...get your candidates on it
[...]
2. The regulation of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere should be left to God and not government and I oppose all measures of Cap and Trade as well as the teaching of global warming theory in our schools.

Unbelievable.

Hmm, I don't know if this is significant in the denialosphere, but Bjorn Lomborg is no longer a climate skeptic?

Heads will explode :)

J Bowers [said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2765…) "Unbelievable."

But not unexpected.
Those who promote ignorance identify themselves as being on evolution's losing side.

silburnl, I changed my position in the last month or so, and want to work it through.

wow, 1. Everything in our economy is non-renewable so will run out. We need solutions for the next 50 years first.
2. Tide wrecks tidal esturies which are important for birdlife, so specific tide projects get opposed on environmental grounds too.
If we can find ways of making geothermal work economically in lots of places in most countries it can be part of a long term solution, but it's really immature at the moment except when the heat is really close to the surface, so I don't think it will be a serious part of the solution for 20 years at least, although its great for Iceland, NZ, and other countries with easy geothermal.

Rixaeton,
Interesting that now they call him "climate change sceptic" when his main line has been 'sure its happening a bit, but we should worry about 20 other things first'
Indeed Lomberg is "denying he was performing a U-turn"

Perhaps he is just re-positioning himself back into the center of the debate so he can screw things up again with suport for "climate engineering ideas such as cloud whitening" and other ways to avoid or delay cutting carbon emissions. Parts of the article give me that impression.

Spencer's choice of language and his countenance of the comments on his IPCC post show him to be a less-than-credible source for science.

Clearly, his political (and religious?) agenda has leaked into his scientific posturing.

This was 35 years ago today - Lord Ritchie Calder on the first edition of ABC's 'science show' warning of the perils of global warming:

[The Science Show](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2992897.htm#transcript)

Try again!

[The Science Show](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2992897.htm#t)

[Bob Katter is making](http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/01/2999212.htm) a very strong evidenced based argument (sarc).

Such as: climate scientist are *"stupid"* and Garnaut and Stern are *"lightweights"*. Obviously those claims require strong backing, so what does Katter provide?

Katter: *"Just to indicate how stupid those people are, there is a very unassailable scientific case that there ...will be a problem arising in the oceans. They don't mention that."*

Logic fails me here Bob!

Coldest winter in a half century in the Southern Hemisphere

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/mnx

cold and wet in oz,

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/mnv

ice cap"s" melting ? NUP !

worldwide GW ? NUP !

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/mnw

( I really doubt the red in that ! )

COME ON !!!!! where is all that massively accumulating greenhouse trapped heat ?

hahaha.... maybe it's lurking at the bottom of the ocean ? just waiting for the human weighted see-saw to gather a little more mass to explosively boil upwards in a pyrolytic apocalypse and
fry us all to hades........

oooooh, chewing nails.........

How's your free energy machine coming along Sunspot?

i don't have one jonny, but as i have said before...

"i do think it's time to revisit some of those old debunked patents."

nice graph this, if you can understand it ?

http://sc25.com/index.php?id=232

I had a look. So Adelaide had its coolest winter since 1997. Wasn't that during the drought?

I'm very happy that we have no water restrictions this year. What would make me contented, calm and satisfied would be to see a succession of 5 to 10 *above* average rainfall years. You know, sort of like a drought, but on the other side of the ledger.

I don't know how old you are, sunspot, but I am certainly old enough to remember winters of the 1950s. I even remember the River Murray flooding! The fact that this year we have a month that's wetter than a year I was 50 is pretty pathetic if you're talking climate.

yes adelady....

my family was driven from boundry bend because of drought, mouse & locust plagues and flooding from the murray, it can be tough on the land.

we've had mannnnny droughts,

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/mo0

I have to head out into cold sleet and rain now, brrrr......... bye

>*Coldest winter in a half century in the Southern Hemisphere*

Bull crap as usual from spotty. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vsh/from:1960

Yeah, I know about droughts. Spend most of your childhood summers in the Southern Flinders and you know about heat, dry, dust and drought.

One of my grandmothers was born during the 1896 drought, so her sensitive, thoughtful family named her N.... I.... Drought, I kid you not. (And to add insult to injury, her 10 brothers ignored her first 2 perfectly nice names and called her Druth, pronounced like Ruth. Horrors!)

"wow, 1. Everything in our economy is non-renewable so will run out."

Nope.

Steel.

Aluminium.

Water.

Sunlight.

Just a few of my favourite things. When the denialist bites...

You see, they are (apart from Sunlight) recyclable. Please show me how you recycle petrol.

"We need solutions for the next 50 years first."

And nuclear won't be available for half of that, so nukes are not the answer.

"2. Tide wrecks tidal esturies which are important for birdlife,"

Not as much as mining operations for uranium etc affect land based animals and habitats.

As for the rest, so? Not only one answer. But many.

"Rixaeton, Interesting that now they call him "climate change sceptic" "

"they" being denialists who like to point out how Lomberg's a skeptic.

Yes?

We may not be able to recycle petrol - and that's a real tragedy. Because we *can* recycle pretty well everything else that we can manufacture from the petroleum resource.

Wasting it by burning it in fire-based processes is the crudest, least sophisticated approach we could possibly devise for this wonderful stuff.

We really do behave like cavemen who've just discovered fire and go around burning everything in sight because we think we're so clever. We've just developed our skills in doing it bigger and faster than before - and call ourselves *advanced* hah!! into the bargain.

Jakerman:thank you for that summary from the AAC.Being a sceptic,I have my doubts about some of its conclusions.The reason is the language that the report uses.For example,
The word 'model'is used 21 times.The word 'likely' is used 22 times.Added to this are a very generous sprinkling of the following words:'could,expected,probably,may,suggest,projected,potential,uncertain,chance,estimate'.

112 warren -- "The reason is the language that the report uses.For example, The word 'model'is used 21 times.The word 'likely' is used 22 times.Added to this are a very generous sprinkling of..."

And that is precisely why you are thought of as a plastic sceptic. Fake, that is.

"For example, The word 'model'is used 21 times."

So? Scares you, does it?

you love models that turn satellite radiation intensity measurements into temperature profiles, though.

You like the cars that are designed by model. you like your computer which is designed by model. You accept the model of gravitation every time you decide not to jump out the office block window.

You accept the model of thermodynamics every time you boil a kettle. You accept the model of bulk strength of materials every time you are standing more than 4 feet above a solid surface or under a suspended surface weighing more than 500lbs.

But the mention of model 21 times in a report scares you???

"The word 'likely' is used 22 times."

So you have doubts because you've read "likely".

Crossing a busy road is likely to get you run over. It isn't certain.

Walking through Harlem with an offensive placard will likely get you stabbed and walking through Central Park at midnight with a wallet in your hand is likely to get you mugged.

Do you walk over busy roads because it's only "likely", walk in harlem dissing blacks and walk around Central Park at midnight flashing the cash because it's only "likely"?

Then again, if there weren't such words, you've said in the past that you cannot accept a report because it hides the uncertainties.

You insist on whatever requirement means you can deny a report you don't like.

"Being a sceptic"

No, you're not a skeptic. You're a denier.

Warren is simply carrying on his [denial tactic](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) of [emphasizing uncertainties](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) to avoid dealing with the preponderance of evidence.

[Here is a conclusion](http://www.science.org.au/reports/climatechange2010.pdf#page=16) that puts warren's appeal to uncertainty in its place:

>*uncertainties [..] work in both directions: there is a chance that climate change will be less severe than current best estimates, but there is also a roughly equal chance that it will be worse.*

Hey Wow, the venting hasn't started yet and I was hoping to forestall it, but since you are set on getting up for DavidP's tango I can't stop you.

Kudos to whichever of you who manages to come up with something that hasn't already been seen said a zillion times before, but I'm not holding my breath on that.

Regards
Luke

WOW,you used the correct word-MEASURMENTS.
Gravity is not a model my friend,it is a law.And the reason to not jump out of windows is because of the EVIDENCE of what happens to people who do.I accept the evidence of the boiling kettle.I accept the evidence of millions of people standing on or under solid surfaces."Crossing a busy road is likely to get you run over.It isn't certain". Yes but walking in front of speeding car does make it certain.
Iam not denying anything Mr WOW.I am saying that on available evidence we dont have a problem due to elevated CO2.I also dont see that we have problem due to global warming,whatever the cause is.

"WOW,you used the correct word-MEASURMENTS"

Here's some measurements:

[Global warming](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif)

[CO2 rising](http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/)

[And we have a mechanism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect)

"Gravity is not a model my friend,it is a law."

Nope, that model was created when they still thought they could know everything and called it a law. But it is a model.

I'm not surprised you have no clue about science, mind.

"And the reason to not jump out of windows is because of the EVIDENCE of what happens to people who do"

So only after we've destroyed the planet will you say "OK, my bad"???

What an arrogant arsehole you are.

"Yes but walking in front of speeding car does make it certain."

No it doesn't.

Car could miss.

So it's safe to walk in front of a speeding car because it could miss.

Go ahead, play with the traffic.

"I also dont see that we have problem due to global warming,whatever the cause is."

Aye, this is because you're in denial.

As well as being an arrogant arsehole you're a misanthrope. "I'm all right, hang the rest". THAT is your basis for your fervour and denial: YOU are OK and YOU will have to possibly pay for change and YOU don't want to.

Selfish, self-centred arrogant arsehole.

The complete denialist.

>*Gravity is not a model my friend,it is a law*

It was also a law before it got corrected. Is it still a law now that it breaks down at a quantum level?

"Hey Wow, the venting hasn't started yet and I was hoping to forestall it"

Hey, apologist slime, why did you not take davep to task when he attributed to OTHERS "their" thoughts and feelings rather than himself (the only person he has authority to explain the thoughts of)?

No, you waited until someone cut his arguments down then went all "moderate troll" to shut it out because the argument was failing.

Tough titty, kiddo.

WOW,firstly let me say that I am sorry that I have upset you about this subject.That was not my intention.Now for some things we agree on.1]Global warming-Yes,.75C[give or take]2]CO2 rising-Yes,270ppm to 393ppm.3]We have mechanism-Yes,but what we dont have is a verifiable number for how much of the recent warming is due to CO2.4]Car could miss-Yes,but I would not like to conduct the experiment based on the odds.
"Problem due to global warming". I am not in denial about this at all.Please give me an example of a problem we have now that is due to global warming.

>>*I also dont see that we have problem due to global warming,whatever the cause is.*

>Aye, this is because you're in denial.

>*I am not in denial about this at all.*

Warren is either a liar, or in denial of [his denial](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) (or both).

"but what we dont have is a verifiable number for how much of the recent warming is due to CO2.4]"

Yes we do.

Just not one you're willing to accept because you don't like it.

It's ~78% of the warming can be explained by CO2 levels.

"Yes,but I would not like to conduct the experiment based on the odds."

Why then do you discount the odds of being higher than 3C per doubling?

BECAUSE YOU'RE IN DENIAL.

"Please give me an example of a problem we have now that is due to global warming."

[here](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/12/heatwave-record-temperature…)

> Car could miss-Yes,but I would not like to conduct the experiment based on the odds.

That's precisely the stance of many climate scientists. One concern is that significantly negative consequences that can't be ruled out to any reasonable degree of certainty; indeed for some of them the chances seem to be somewhere between fairly and rather likely based on the current understanding we have. Contrast that with you [my emphasis]:

> Please give me an example of a problem we have **now** that is due to global warming.

...which you seem to think means we have no concern at all due to global warming.

It's a bit like the mechanic telling you that his *model* of brake wear indicates that unless you change the pads shortly you're going to lose braking power and my even crash - and you blow him off by saying "that's OK, right now my brakes still work".

(And that's without even discussing the now.)

" " Car could miss-Yes,but I would not like to conduct the experiment based on the odds."

That's precisely the stance of many climate scientists. "

And it is precisely the stance of denialists that you DO NOT apply your reasoning or criteria to your arguments if it doesn't lead to "AGW is not a problem".

The odds of being run over is considered but this doesn't mean you should consider the odds of AGW being a serious problem.

Go play with the traffic, warren. It's only likely to kill you.

WOW,you have to look at the probabilities of the 2 separate events.The history of pedestrians being killed by cars is extensive and well documented.The history of climate change is neither well understood nor well documented.The opinion is divided.Believers think the risk of CAGW is fairly high.Us sceptics think the risk is pretty low.There is no agreement on whether we will have a problem in the future.

>*Us sceptics think the risk is pretty low.*

Warren is determined to mischaracterize [his approach](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2766…). Warren to be a skeptic you need to practice skeptisim. You don't so you arn't.

"WOW,you have to look at the probabilities of the 2 separate events"

You do too.

Try it.

It's 50% likely that the earth will warm by more than 3C per doubling of CO2.

"The history of climate change is neither well understood nor well documented"

Really?

["I see no ships"](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm)

It's VERY well documented. You just don't like the results.

"Believers think the risk of CAGW is fairly high."

Only in the sense that believers in the heliocentric system think the risk of the sun coming up in the morning is pretty high.

Because there's actual evidence for that position, just like with AGW severe enough to mandate avoidance.

"Us sceptics think the risk is pretty low."

Only in the sense that Fundie Christians think the risk of them being caught out on the ground when The Rapture comes along is pretty low.

Based solely on personal preferences and bigotry, just like your insistence that AGW is no serious threat at all.

WOW,so where did you get the 78% number from.I would like to verify it.As for the recent heatwave in Russia,it was due to the persistence of a stationary high pressure system over the continent,it is impossible to ascibe the cause to .75 degrees of warming over the last 150 years.That is laughable.Otherwise how would we explain the longest recorded heatwave in Marble Bar[Australia in 1924]?Or the the record heatwaves in America in 1936-7?Or the massive heatwave in Seskatchewan in July 1937?

"WOW,so where did you get the 78% number from.I would like to verify it."

Will you answer my question if I do?

"As for the recent heatwave in Russia,it was due to the persistence of a stationary high pressure system over the continent"

Indeed it was. This often results in a heatwave.

Very infrequently a record breaking one.

"it is impossible to ascibe the cause to .75 degrees of warming over the last 150 years."

So when it gets hotter, this doesn't affect a heatwave?!?!?!?!

WOW,yes I will answer your question.Is it the one about 3C for a doubling?If so,then the answer is that the 3C idea comes from models which may or may not be accurate.On the other hand we have measured results that suggest sensitivity is only a fraction of this.
As for the heatwave thing,if it has only warmed .75C,then heatwave on average should only be .75 hotter,and it still leaves us with the problem of the causes of the historical heatwaves.

"If so,then the answer is that the 3C idea comes from models"

[It's been said before](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) No it isn't.

The models get the same as measurements do as their best composite guess.

"On the other hand we have measured results that suggest sensitivity is only a fraction of this."

Except those results [require COMPUTER MODELS!!!](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) and also do not stand up to [scrutiny](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…).

Funny how you specifically have been told this before, but on a different thread have "forgotten" it.

Funny how your memory works, isn't it.

Always forgetting the facts that prove you wrong...

WOW,the problem is that those model calculations is that they START with the model as the basis of their experiment.They then put real world data through to see what they get.If the assumptions put into the models are wrong or inaccurate,then the results are useless.On the otherhand,Lindzen and Spencer have started off with real world data and then tried to interpret it.Shaviv did a study which also came up with a sensitivity of .5C

Steve Easterbrook stops a wrongly worded news story dead in its tracks.

Climate scientists should not write their own software, says researcher

His polite response

"WOW,the problem is that those model calculations is that they START with the model as the basis of their experiment."

No they don't.

the problem is that you START with the assumption that they use models and are teh ebils.

"If the assumptions put into the models are wrong or inaccurate,then the results are useless."

Indeed. As happened with Lindzen & Choi and Spencer's paper.

However, all you've done is ASSUME that the assumptions put into the GCMs are wrong. Given you already ASSUMED incorrectly that the Paleo papers which used actual measurements used instead models as their starting point, we already have proof that your assumptions are faulty.

"Shaviv did a study which also came up with a sensitivity of .5C"

Which is wrong too.

> On the otherhand,Lindzen and Spencer have started off with real world data and then tried to interpret it.

And as I pointed out earlier, they don't appear to have interpreted it correctly. You appear unable to show that they are correct, or that the criticisms of their interpretations are unfounded, and yet you continue to imply that they are right. How do you know this?

On the other hand we have about a dozen different lines of evidence that point to equilibrium sensitivity of about 3 degrees C, and you are thus far unable to show why those are wrong, other than to imply that they are all based on models, which you appear to assert without evidence are *inherently* of no value. How do you know this?

Lotharssen: the problem is,is that the model results are all over the place.THey range between 1C and 8C.Which one is right?Schwartz[2009]arrived at a sensitivity of 1.9C +-1C.

"Which one is right?"

Well your exhortation of 0.5C is outside even that huge range.

And models may give that range, but measurements constrain that figure to within 2C and 4.5C per doubling.

And Schwartz' output agrees with a 3C per doubling.

WOW,can you send me the link for the 78% figure you quoted?Thanks.

When you find your figures I've asked for.

What is the number of extant species at one time in the paleo record when CO2 levels were much higher and what is the peak number of species in the Holocene (past 8000 years).

[As asked for here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…)

WOW,I have already told you that I dont have those numbers,and I have never claimed that I know them or have them.You on the other hand have made a statement that you say is fact,and I am asking to back it up.Would you like to do that now thank you.

"WOW,I have already told you that I dont have those numbers,and I have never claimed that I know them or have them."

Then I ask [again](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) How do you know that this:

"But it does not change the fact that most plant species evolved during peroids of higher CO2 levels"

is true?

If you don't know the numbers, you cannot claim that statement as "FACT".

Therefore it's merely supposition on your part.

WOW,go look up the geological/fossil record for yourself.

I thought you knew this stuff? You always seemed so *certain*...

Now you're saying it was all a *sham*??? That you *really* don't know what you're talking about???

Is this why you want *me* to do your homework for you???

At least you've admitted that this:

"But it does not change the fact that most plant species evolved during peroids of higher CO2 levels"

Was just unreferenced supposition on your part.

"But it does not change the fact that most plant species evolved during peroids of higher CO2 levels"

Last I read, grasses were confined strictly to the waterside and didn't start to thrive and spread until CO2 decreased. Coniferous plants and trees were doing very well up until then, though.

[Journalists have again forgotten](http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/09/01/1631229/Newspapers-Cut-Wikileak…) what journalism is.

There was a very similar problem IMO with "Climategate" as I've mentioned here before.

Much of the media's relish in throwing Phil Jones under the bus was because to fail to do so would put a crimp in the FOIA which journalists had put so much effort into getting on the books.

Therefore CRU *had* to be attacked for (legitimately) refusing FOIA vexatious requests. Why? Because if it was admitted FOIA was easily open for abuse, restraints could be gotten for it.

That the FOIA was trivially ignored "legitimately" by parliament and the Labour government of the time (e.g. blacking out residences of MPs on their expenses forms, blacking out the expense items themsevels "for security") may have made them oversensitive to any more loopholes to avoid it, but strangely enough, not much was done about these abuses of "security" exceptions.

The CRU, however, a much easier target. No chance of Tony hounding you out of your job there.

And the same going on here in the USA.

I attended a public discussion about climategate at the Tyndall Centre, University of Southampton, UK this week.

The panel included: Fred Pearce a popular UK science journalist, Professor Alan Thorpe Chief Executive of Natural Environment Research Council, Professor Mike Hulme from University of East Anglia and Nick Pigeon from University of Cardiff.

I have put a post on my blog:

http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.com/2010/09/climategate-and-ghost-t…

It seems to be confirmed that the unusually cold winter experienced by the US and Northern Europe was just a bit of a fluke:

[Huge snowfall caused by rare clash of weather events](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11152077)

Some news reports took the extreme cold weather as evidence against climate change.

By analysing 60 years of snowfall measurements and satellite data, researchers concluded the anomalous weather conditions were caused by an unusual combination of an El Nino event and the rare occurrence of a strongly negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

Who'd have thunk it?

Pearls of wisdom from our new resident non-expert:

*I also dont see that we have problem due to global warming, whatever the cause is*

*The opinion is divided.Believers think the risk of CAGW is fairly high. Us sceptics think the risk is pretty low*

First, on what empirical basis can you of all people downplay the current warming? You are not intellectually armed with enough knowledge to make such a claim. You are effectively speaking on the basis of your own puny knowledge base. Second, the opinion over GW is not divided. The vast majority of the scientific community, endorsed by every National Academy of Science in every country on Earth, has expressed serious concern over AGW.

By 'us sceptics', Warren means a very small number of scientists, some who are prominently on the corporate payroll, and a larger number of non-expert right wing pundits, apparently himself included. And most of them are not sceptical, they are in denial. Qualified scientists are always sceptical. But most of the denialists will never, ever change their views, no matter how much data comes in supporting evidence for AGW. The denialati are also twisting and distorting science to promote a pre-determined worldview.

This explains why very few of the denialati are well-published scientists, and why they either (1) ridicule studies with results that run counter with their views on web sites and the like, or else (2) why they take existing studies and distort the conclusions.

Trust Warren to pop up over here with his nonsense.

Wow, strange as it may seem you had already risen to davidp's coat-trailing by the time I read the thread. I tried to be even-handed in my initial intervention in order to cool the situation off but clearly I failed to communicate my intentions properly and I apologise for my failure.

Anyway your beef is with davidp and he seems happy to engage, so I'll bow out and let you two get on with it. He claims to have only recently come to his current position; if that's so, then you have an opportunity to reason him out of it.

Regards
Luke

"Wow, strange as it may seem you had already risen to davidp's coat-trailing by the time I read the thread."

Strange enough, that was my FREAKING POINT.

You only popped along with your "concern" after davidp projected onto others to denigrate them.

Yet, despite this having been seen, you wanted to be all "concerned" about talking about nuclear.

WHERE THE FRICK IS YOUR CONCERN FOR THE SMEAR????

Strange as it may seem, that is why I responded to davep's bullshit.

> ...the problem is,is that the model results are all over the place.

Yes, that's indeed a problem. For one thing, the sensitivity may turn out to be really high - which would really suck.

You still refuse to understand that a number of separate lines of evidence (not just GCMs) which all suggest the most likely value is around 3C, but it could be as low as maybe 1.5C if we're *really* lucky or as high as 8-10C or more if we're rather unlucky. Instead you claim that sensitivity **is** low (or even really low), based (as far as I can tell) on no robust evidence at all - and in opposition to a significant amount of evidence. The best explanation based on the evidence we actually have must go with the weight of evidence, not your wishful thinking.

Wow, as I said in my last, I tried to be even-handed and not point fingers in that first post. That was MY point. I'm sorry that it got you angry - it was not my intention and I apologise again for the offence so caused, but I felt that if I started chiding people for specific things they had written it would defeat the object of my posting.

Now you are claiming that davidp was smearing people and that's why you responded. He was certainly looking to get a rise from somebody with the phrasing he used, which was deplorable but I thought that if I could snuff things out at your initial response then that would have been good enough. He did the initial snark, but you got a response to register that the point wasn't uncontested and the rest of us didn't spend the next 48 hours wading through the pro/anti arguments again.

Clearly I was wrong and further posts from me on this subject aren't going to be helpful, so having explained my thinking I'll make this my last on the matter. Once again I apologise for presuming to get in between you and davidp, it's a tricky manoever to pull off at the best of times but it was my sincere hope that I could nip things off before the argument spiralled away.

I regret that I was not more skillful in executing my interjection but I will not apologise for trying.

Regards
Luke

"I tried to be even-handed and not point fingers in that first post."

You may well have tried.

You didn't succeed.

Nothing about the insertion of "hate" into the psyche of others done by dp. Just "no nuke discussion, dude".

If you want to limit JUST to the nuke discussion then you were IN THAT EXTREMELY NARROW WINDOW even handed.

But that's a bit like looking at Adolf's love for his Alsatian dogs and saying he was a lovely man.

Whoops, pointless Godwin there Wow.

Not if it shuts that thread down, Stu.

And Adolf DID love his dogs. Therefore, through that very specific window into his life, he was a good man.

Hence the use as an analogy here, Stu.

Phil Plait says "[don't be a dick](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/08/17/dont-be-a-dic…)"

>Not if it shuts that thread down, Stu.

Ah, the end justifies the means! (I'm being facetious, it's hardly the most nefarious 'means' ever ;-D)

Chris, Phil Plait sees himself as a debunker, communicator and educator rather than just a commentator, which is probably why he'd prefer people to not be dicks because emotions then dominate the discussion rather than cool logic.

On the other hand, people being dickish makes these discussions much more interesting. You can be outraged by dicks with opposing views and be dickish along with those you agree with. In some forums, that's pretty much an unspoken rule lest you be accused of tone trolling! I don't necessarily agree with that, but it is fun.

> because emotions then dominate the discussion rather than cool logic.

'course this rather requires that *both* interlocutors are using cool logic rather than base emotion.

Double Penetration's assertion of unpleasant motives of others because he espouses love for nuclear and seemingly hates "greenies" kind of belies that assertion on at least one side.

And it's always a good idea to be wary of those who *pretend* to moderation.

An equilateral triangle has nothing in the middle, but from the point of view of any of the three angles, they are the intermediate "moderate".

a) sometimes (quite often in my experience) moderation is NOT wanted. I want your car, you want to keep your car, so we find the "moderate" position where I use your car on the weekends.

b) sometimes (especially in tone trolls whose camoflage can be pierced by noting the partial blindness in their visualisation of the concerning actions) the person being "moderate" merely wants to appear moderate. This is why extremist "greenies" are MANDATORY. If you exclude them, then the extremest neo-con Randians are never excluded, are they. So the "moderate" position has shifted Rand-ways.

Be wary of people setting themselves up "moderate". If they're not lying, chances are they're wrong.

>Be wary of people setting themselves up "moderate". If they're not lying, chances are they're wrong.

Interesting stance. I believe I have a moderate view of nuclear power. It's not ideal, but it does work and we're going to have an energy gap here in the UK that renewables wont be able to fill in the requisite timeframe. So I'd rather have new nuclear power plants than new fossil fuel power plants, even though I don't really like nuclear power.

Does this position make me wrong, or perhaps does it not fall under your definition of moderate?

"Interesting stance. I believe I have a moderate view of nuclear power."

I think you have a view of nuclear power.

That's all.

And that's all it needs to be. Right or wrong, or a mixture of both, but it's still your view.

"It's not ideal, but it does work"

So do solar photovoltaics.

It's a statement that may be right, but like sil's extremely limited window, pretty damn pointless. Very much on the lines of "climate has always changed".

" and we're going to have an energy gap here in the UK that renewables wont be able to fill in the requisite timeframe."

Begging two questions here:

1) will there be? We use half per capita that the US does. Germany about 2/3rds the UK. Will there be an energy gap?

2) will renewables not be able to fill the gap? You sure?

OK, three:

3) Will nuclear be able to fill that gap? The current ones are expensive and not safe enough and the new designs are all promise, no pecker (France still pours lots of francs into the new designs and they STILL aren't working).

My view?

Nuclear will remain a niche power source and it deserves to be IN THE MIX.

But it isn't quick enough to be a short term solution and limited resources mean it isn't a long term one either.

Maybe the new designs will pan out and Thorium replace Uranium/Plutonium or Fusion will work.

But they don't yet and we need them to work NOW if we are going to use them to fill the (probably fictitious) energy gap.

"So I'd rather have new nuclear power plants than new fossil fuel power plants"

Another question begging statement. Why do we need new fossil fuel power plants? Why is the only option nukes or coal?

Your exclusion of a complete section of possibilities is why "moderate" is not the description you should be using.

"Does this position make me wrong, or perhaps does it not fall under your definition of moderate?"

The wrong bit is calling it "moderate". It's YOUR view.

That's all it has to be.

So why try to bolster it with "this is a moderate, reasonable view"? It stands or falls on its merits, not on the lack of merits of other ideas.

If you have to use it, maybe your idea isn't as strong as you like to imply.

warren:

what we dont have is a verifiable number for how much of the recent warming is due to CO2.

So what, pray tell, has caused any significant part of the warming since 1975 apart from GHG increases? And please, don't give us crap about solar or cosmic ray variation. The Sun's output and cosmic rays have virtually zero trend in the past 50 years.

>So why try to bolster it with "this is a moderate, reasonable view"? It stands or falls on its merits, not on the lack of merits of other ideas.

Right, I fully understand your point based on this sentence, and it's a good one.

Wow,

From the perspective of someone who has been following this debate and so far refraining from commenting, you do sound a bit like the majority of Australians of generation x and y: conditioned against the use of nuclear power. Your arguments so far have come across as ideological rather than scientific.

While currently nuclear power (in a deregulated market with no subsidies) is not competitive against coal and gas, it comes close to oil, and is very competitive against the current price of renewables.

Ask yourself a simple question. Try and detach yourself from any prejudice you have against nuclear power: what is the most important objective currently? Is it to cut carbon emmissions as quickly as possible without causing undue economic distress, or is it to equally propel renewables forward into the economically competitive arena?

If the goal is only to achieve cuts in carbon as quickly as possible, then to ignore nuclear power is simple denial. If you attach equal importance to forcing renewables to become competitive here and now, which is indeed a necessary (though arguably longer-term) outcome, then that changes the equation altogether, but with concommitant (and arguably unnecessary) economic pain.

As to what's better for the planet, look at Pripyat these days. The fact that it's totally unsuitable for human habitation has done wonders for the environment.

mfs, I'm a baby boomer rather than an x or y. And I have always been nervous, opposed to, or otherwise negative about nuclear. until recently.

However, France and Tennessee have both had shutdowns because of lack of suitable cooling water in rivers. So perhaps we put new plants only beside the ocean. And then they're more expensive because of defending against sea level rise. And so on.

I'm now back with a position that puts nuclear ahead of "clean coal" because safer nuclear is much nearer technologically speaking. But I suspect that the warming we've already signed up for will give us much more of the deserts for solar and wind from weather that we need for distributed power generation from renewables. And the shorter lead times are much more in line with how I'd like to see things go.

MFS, *my* opposition to nuclear power owes nothing whatsoever to conditioning, but is based on proper analysis: nuclear power is uninsurable, which means the risks are carried by the taxpayer and therefore not factored into the costs of nuclear power generation.

Decommissioning is not factored in, either, and it is a process which takes decades.

And emissions of radioactive waste is not factored in as a cost either - neither the daily emissions of "low-level" waste nor the less frequent emissions of untreatable "high-level" waste. And as that waste remains untreatable, the nuclear industry fails to factor in that as a cost either. You only have to look at the long-running hyper-expensive failure of the Yucca Mountain Repository - so far the world's only supposedly long-term nuclear storage site for high-level waste - to see that we are a long way off being able to deal in any meaningful way with high-level nuclear waste.

Not only that, but the companies that run nuclear power plants then hide from public scrutiny of their operations behind a facade of "national security".

If you compare the long list of known unknowns that apply to the nuclear industry to the spectrum of clean renewable options, it is astounding that any responsible government would continue to underfund research into these alternatives.

The pro-nuke fanatics are desperate to lock the taxpayer into an industry that will enable them to milk us dry, and they feel very threatened by an industry that can generate power without ultra-expensive technology and fuel, so that's why they come up with the smokescreen of bullshit such as "renewables can't provide baseload power" and so forth.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating nuclear, but neither do I have a preconception that it is unacceptable per se. It is one of many options. It needs to be debated, as you say, considering all the costs and all the problems as a whole. With the current 'not in my backyard' aproach to nuclear waste disposal, I don't see it happening in a hurry. To clarify, I wouldn't be happy to have it in my backyard either, though I grew up next to a nuclear power plant.

Clean coal certainly seems like a waste of money and wishful thinking. Carbon sequestration by injecting into deep porous rocks, as was being suggested a couple of years ago, seemed to me like the perfect large-scale example of 'sweeping it under the carpet'...

"nuclear power is uninsurable, which means the risks are carried by the taxpayer and therefore not factored into the costs of nuclear power generation."

It also means that the risks are too high for anyone to take on. Hence offload it to a future generation, suckers that they are.

Improve the ones we have by replacing them with better designs. Work on better designs, one of them may *become* the solution. But the solution of nuclear is decades away. And decades is decades too late.

Cheapest option is USE LESS. In fact it has a negative cost: you get to keep money you would have spent otherwise.

"you do sound a bit like the majority of Australians of generation x and y: conditioned against the use of nuclear power"

Well, I'm not.

But if I do, is this because

a) the majority of Australians of generation X and Y and myself are wrong

or

b) you're conditioned to be FOR nuclear and technological panaceas.

?

You're already on shaky ground with one assertion, MFS. Maybe there's more shake to come.

"While currently nuclear power (in a deregulated market with no subsidies) is not competitive against coal and gas, it comes close to oil, and is very competitive against the current price of renewables."

[Fail.])
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_gener…)

And note the cost for nuclear excludes the offloading of insurance and decommissioning costs.

Yes, seems like there IS more shake to come.

"If the goal is only to achieve cuts in carbon as quickly as possible, then to ignore nuclear power is simple denial"

Yup. More fail.

How about "use less"?

Nuclear power stations currently working are not going to be decommissioned and I'd like you to show where I or these Gen-X/Y ers have proclaimed this is what they mean when they say "nuclear is not the answer".

Ignoring the decades lead-time of nuclear and the running out of uranium and the lack of capacity of reprocessing which ALSO needs building up (and the risk of proliferation if you allow breeder reactors) is rank favouritism.

Ignoring that renewables are a viable option, cheaper than nuclear, gas and oil and in cases cheaper than coal is denial.

Ignoring that we WASTE energy profusely is denial and to do so to insist that we must have nukes a partisan favour that is inexplicable.

And Pripyat is not showing how nice nuclear power is when it goes BOOM but how BAD humanity is for wildlife when we live there.

As to how nice it is: [not so nice](http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/18/chernobyl-animals.html).

That you seem to think it's nice when nuclear power goes boom makes me doubt your sanity.

[Fail](http://www.sourcewatch.orgindex.php?title=Comparative_electrical_genera…)

trying again...

"Try and detach yourself from any prejudice you have against nuclear power: what is the most important objective currently? Is it to cut carbon emmissions as quickly as possible without causing undue economic distress, or is it to equally propel renewables forward into the economically competitive arena?"

Try and detatch yourself from your nuclear generation schtick.

What is the most important objective currently? Is it to cut emissions or build nuclear power plants?

Cutting emissions can be done by using less RIGHT NOW.

Lag time = 0 days.

Or is it to propel nuclear into the commercially competitive arena by ignoring the currently commercially advantageous renewables?

Lag time 10-50 years.

Wow,

>Try and detatch yourself from your nuclear generation schtick.

I'm not sure what generation you think I am, but don't jump to conclusions or you run the risk of being woefully wrong. I was born in the late 70s. Also don't box me into a stereotype. I don't know enough about nuclear power generation to have an opinion about it. Much of what little I know comes from pro-nuclear or green propaganda, and both are equally worthless.

But if I do, is this because
a) the majority of Australians of generation X and Y and myself are wrong
or
b) you're conditioned to be FOR nuclear and technological panaceas.

Nice strawman. Why the insistence on black and white? You're building up a fallacious argument with only two possibilities, one at each extreme. That the majority of Australians are opposed to nuclear power does not make them 'wrong'. Nor does it make people who are ambivalent like myself 'wrong'. You sound as if having anything other than your opinion is 'wrong'. The question about whether there ought to be a debate on the merits of nuclear power is a political one, not a scientific one. My opinion is that opposition to French hegemony in the Pacific (and nuclear testing) has a lot to do with the political expedience of condemning all things nuclear, and conditioning a generation to distrust it.

That you are not even willing to contemplate the possibility of nuclear power is telling, though, and only reinforces the appearance of bias. Maybe you know much more than the average person about the topic. Still, how can you truly have an open debate without putting all your options on the table?

You can tell people to use less till the cows come home. I'm not sure you'll get much of an outcome.

"I'm not sure what generation you think I am, but don't jump to conclusions or you run the risk of being woefully wrong."

MFS I showed exactly where your pro-nuke schtick is evidenced in.

Refusal to consider anything other than the false dichotomy of coal vs nuclear

Failure to check on the prices of renewables

and so on.

"Nice strawman. Why the insistence on black and white?"

May I say the same for your "is it about reducing co2 or refusing nuclear" strawman.

Funny how you spotted the false dichotomy there but "forgot" to look for it in your own work.

"That you are not even willing to contemplate the possibility of nuclear power is telling,"

that you cannot READ

> Improve the ones we have by replacing them with better designs. Work on better designs, one of them may become the solution. But the solution of nuclear is decades away. And decades is decades too late.

is telling.

But go ahead with ignoring what you don't like.

Nuclear is far more expensive than wind and more expensive than any other option EVEN WHEN UNINSURED.

Nuclear has many risks which are so risky NOBODY is willing to pony up for them.

Nuclear has decades ramp-up time if you refuse to accept reduction in waste and want to cut CO2 despite this.

And that people against nuclear as an option have a reason for it, even if you do not read them.

"Nor does it make people who are ambivalent like myself 'wrong'. "

No, but when you say things like:

> As to what's better for the planet, look at Pripyat these days. The fact that it's totally unsuitable for human habitation has done wonders for the environment.

makes you wrong in your assertion that you're "ambivalent".

And that isn't the only statement you've made that proves that assertion wrong. There are plenty more. But your ideology requires you to be the sane on in any nuke discussion and anyone who doesn't admit that to be insane.

I'm not buying it.

Australiaâs Radiation Cover Up

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o0a

and

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o0b

"It [nuclear power] is one of many options. It needs to be debated, as you say, considering all the costs and all the problems as a whole."

And the debate ends when all the costs and problems as a whole make that option unfeasible.

Yet you, MFS, come around and wail that the option must be considered and then state that it is the only option possible, all other ones impossible.

That you decide that renewables are not an option (despite getting the cost of them wrong, when cost is one of the few stated reasons for discarding them) without a blink, but when someone does the same (with more solid reasoning), you complain.

You are not "ambivalent".

The only reason why you insist on this is either to play the "I'm more reasonable than YOU" card (or up the stakes in a tit-for-tat that waters everything down to uselessness) or because you feel you need to hide your partisanship on the issue.

You don't.

You WANT nuclear. You want MORE of it. This is partisan, but it is YOUR view.

In trying to kid on you're unpartisan on this issue, you are unable to admit the problems with nuclear power as an option, therefore you not only give away your partisanship, but negate any honesty over any of your other points because you so clearly lied here.

By having to refuse to acknowledge the problems of nuclear you also are unable to *ameliorate* or avoid completely those problems, ensuring that that option NEVER becomes viable.

As illustration, why is nuclear fusion off the discussion? Why not ignore completely nuclear fission with its cost, resource limits and security concerns and go for the "nuclear fusion is better than fossil fuels" option?

Fusion.

The ONLY answer.

Wow,

I really don't see where you're coming from. Have you read my posts?

Yes, I have MFS.

Didn't you?

Here's a couple of highlights:

> ...conditioned against the use of nuclear power. Your arguments so far have come across as ideological rather than scientific.

> While currently nuclear power (in a deregulated market with no subsidies) is not competitive against coal and gas, it comes close to oil, and is very competitive against the current price of renewables.

This is [wrong](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_gener…), remember?

> Try and detach yourself from any prejudice you have against nuclear power:

> or is it to equally propel renewables forward into the economically competitive arena?

They already [are](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_gener…), remember?

> If the goal is only to achieve cuts in carbon as quickly as possible, then to ignore nuclear power is simple denial.

Now, compare that with a later comment when you're backpedaling to seem "ambivalent":

> It [nuclear power] is one of many options. It needs to be debated, as you say, considering all the costs and all the problems as a whole.

Yet you insist that if it's been considered and rejected, rejecting it is simple denial.

> If you attach equal importance to forcing renewables to become competitive here and now,

they [are](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_gener…).

And the horriffic

> As to what's better for the planet, look at Pripyat these days.

of course.

So, MFS, nuclear fusion.

The ONLY option.

Yes?

Wow, I am confused by your nuclear fusion point. Could you lay out more clearly what you are driving at with this please?

Regards
Luke

Hmm, I see.

You like to read between the lines at the risk of reading more than is there.

In #[173](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2771…) you say:

>May I say the same for your "is it about reducing co2 or refusing nuclear" strawman.

My [actual quote](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2770…) does not say that to me, apologies if it was misleading:
>what is the most important objective currently? Is it to cut carbon emmissions as quickly as possible without causing undue economic distress, or is it to equally propel renewables forward into the economically competitive arena?

It is not a rhetorical question. I don't have the answer to it. What is the most important objective, in your view? And how will simply telling people to use less accomplish it? And how does me asking this question make me an advocate for nuclear power? Are you saying my questions are invalid? When you link to references as you did before pointing out that renewables like wind ARE more competitive than nuclear, that's helpful. When you pretend you have any idea what I'm thinking or that I have a hidden meaning, and get aggresive as a result, that's out of line.

In # [174](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2771…):

>makes you wrong in your assertion that you're "ambivalent".

Again, you presume too much. Not that I'm likely to change your mind but I was trying to make the point that Chernobyl is first and foremost a tragedy for people, far more than the environment. I am embarassed to say the Discovery Channel, that you link to, was my original impression that the environment had improved at the Zone of Alienation after the accident, and articles such as [this one](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm). I was not aware of the research you pointed to. Not that any of this should imply that I support or am an advocate for nuclear power.

>But your ideology requires you to be the sane on in any nuke discussion and anyone who doesn't admit that to be insane.

Huh? What ideology? Do you really presume to know what my ideology is? Are you psychic? If you ask me directly rather than accuse me of imagined agendas, I can tell you what my ideology is: We need a carbon tax NOW and not simply an ETS. Usage of carbon needs to come to the level that renewables are cheaper to use. I am ambivalent about nuclear, having lived in a country that generates much of its power from it, but as I have clearly said I don't know nearly enough to advocate for its usage or against it. I don't understand your visceral opposition to it, and your attempts to find double meaning in my sentences in order to attack me makes me understand it even less. You have given a reference (thank you) showing that renewables are already cheaper than nuclear and, shock-horror, I accept that and have not argued with it.

From # [176](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2771…)

>Yet you, MFS, come around and wail that the option must be considered and then state that it is the only option possible, all other ones impossible.

>That you decide that renewables are not an option (despite getting the cost of them wrong, when cost is one of the few stated reasons for discarding them) without a blink, but when someone does the same (with more solid reasoning), you complain.

Straw man. You are reading WAY too much between the lines. Show me where I state that nuclear is the only option, or that renewables are not an option.

>because you feel you need to hide your partisanship on the issue. You don't. You WANT nuclear. You want MORE of it. This is partisan, but it is YOUR view.

You are confabulating and way out of line. You have pigeon-holed me into a person you have imagined me to be and and your whole view of what I have written is tinted by the glasses of bias against me that you are wearing.

>In trying to kid on you're unpartisan on this issue, you are unable to admit the problems with nuclear power as an option, therefore you not only give away your partisanship, but negate any honesty over any of your other points because you so clearly lied here.

Lied? Are you for real? In your mind maybe. Such accusations should be proferred with care, especially when you base them not on what I say but what you imagine that I'm thinking.

>As illustration, why is nuclear fusion off the discussion? Why not ignore completely nuclear fission with its cost, resource limits and security concerns and go for the "nuclear fusion is better than fossil fuels" option?

Indeed why is it? If we can make it work it may well be the answer.

Please stop trying to read double meanings into everything I write. When I [say directly](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2771…) that "I don't know enough about nuclear power generation to have an opinion about it. " or that I am not pro-nuclear, merely ambivalent, that is what I mean. There is no hidden meaning or doublespeak.

Instead of trying to imaging what I'm thinking try to hear what I'm saying.

Wow,

Comment in moderation, maybe too many links. Took too long to write to have another go tonight.

The short version says: Stop presuming you know who I am or what I think (you don't) and start reading what I actually said. Thanks for the links (I don't disagree with them) and I'm all for fusion when someone canmake it work.

Chris Oneil:We dont know what has caused the warming since 1975 because we dont know how the system works.CO2 ofcourse should play a part,but how much we dont know.The idea that CO2 drives climate is an assumption.

WOW,2 questions
1]how many people have been killed by nuclear power?
2]Which is currently cheaper and more reliable.Nuclear or renewables?

answers
1) irrelevant question
2) renewables

>*We dont know what has caused the warming since 1975 because we dont know how the system works.CO2 ofcourse should play a part,but how much we dont know.The idea that CO2 drives climate is an assumption.*

Same denial tactic from this [goose called warren](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2766…).

Warren you are projecting your denial, but most people are not effected the way you are. Most people accept the evidence.

"Stop presuming you know who I am or what I think "

I'm going on evidence available. And I've given plenty of evidence for it from your own mouth. You could clarify, but then you'd have to admit that nuclear isn't an option.

Why do you refuse to consider the fusion option, MFS? Refusing to consider it is just simple denial.

>*The idea that CO2 drives climate is an assumption.*

Just like the idea that light is a wave is an assumption. Both assumptions based on multiple lines of observed evidence.

Jeff Harvey:The emperical basis is that it has only risen .75 of a degree which you would not notice if it happened in your home or workplace.There is no climate problem that can be definitely attributed to that .75C rise.
There is no consensus!The Leipzig Declaration,The Manhattan Declaration,The Oregon Petition.Plus tens of thousands of scientists,many of whow have published in peer re-viewed science media.
Jeff,which scientists are "on the corporate payroll"?

"There is no consensus!The Leipzig Declaration,The Manhattan Declaration, The Oregon Petition."

This is me, pointing and laughing.

Regards
Luke

>*The emperical basis is that it has only risen .75 of a degree which you would not notice if it happened in your home or workplace* [is amplified in regions, and is already a scale as high or higher than anything in the previous 2 millennia.]

>*There is no climate problem that can be definitely attributed to that .75C rise*. [And no climate problem that can be excluded by the same test]

>*There is no* [a strong] *consensus!The Leipzig Declaration,The Manhattan Declaration,The Oregon Petition* [are complete jokes]. *Plus tens of thousands of scientists,many of whow have published in peer re-viewed science media* [which is a made up figure by people who can't fill a room with these supposedly credible scientist].

>*Jeff,which scientists are "on the corporate payroll"?*

Do some research warren:

http://rs.resalliance.org/2010/03/05/naomi-oreskes-of-merchants-of-doub…

http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-cover-up

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/exxon-con…

[More reading](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer) for Warren.

Did everyone catch the expose on Koch Industries in the New Yorker?

Jakerman:Still looking for the NAMES{and evidence] OF SCIENTISTS on the corporate payroll.A couple of million dollars from Exxon as opposed to 50 BILLION dollars[and counting]from governments and others.What ajoke!.If money corrupts,then anyone involved in government funded climate research is corrupt to the core.

"it has only risen .75 of a degree which you would not notice if it happened in your home or workplace"

Actually, *I* would. I have one instrument in my lab that makes a lot more noise when it gets a little warmer. It needs a lot of cooling, and even a 0.75 degrees increase is enough for its cooling to switch on more than at 0.75 degrees lower temperatures.

And 0.75 degrees increase is also enough to change a slightly damp and chilly room into a not so damp and not so chilly room, which I also notice (I checked, this morning I was cold behind my computer, but with a bit of sun the temp went up 0.5(!) degrees, which was enough for me to no longer feel cold.

Except, Warren, government money is paid to scientists from governments both conservative and liberal. They do not have political agendas with the science. If you believe that governments demand pro-AGW evidence to help them with their world domination schemes then a) they're not doing a very good job at opposing one world government, although according to your though process this is what every government in the world wants and b) you might as well believe that the Jews did 9/11 and Elvis shot JFK.

However, private corporations do have agendas - to protect their bottom line. As seen with the way smoking companies battled anti-smoking laws and diddled the science for years, they are not trustworthy when it comes to public safety over profit.

But hey! If you want to believe Exxon over climate scientist then you're an idiot.

warren:

We dont know what has caused the warming since 1975 because we dont know how the system works.

We know for certain that CO2 has directly produced a large fraction of the warming since 1975. You're saying that it's just an amazing co-incidence that the rest of the warming is produced by some completely unknown cause that just happens to come along at exactly the same time as the increase in CO2.

You can go on believing in amazing co-incidences if you want to but please, don't tell us that we are the ones who are believers. I think that word fits you much more accurately.

>"it has only risen .75 of a degree which you would not notice if it happened in your home or workplace"

I can't be bothered to check who wrote that, but 0.75 of degree would be noticeable although it would depend how fast it rose.

Humans don't live based on absolute temperature measurements, they live in a narrow band and sense quite small adjustments in that band.

Warren:
>A couple of million dollars from Exxon as opposed to 50 BILLION dollars[and counting]from governments and others.

And what are you suggesting by that remark?

I vote for my government and participate in consultations etc.
I don't get to vote for the Exxon board or any other company management.
And most companies are run as dictatorships with a top down hierarchy form of governance.
Have you ever told your boss that he has to change the way he works or else you won't vote for him again?

If you don't like democracy then find another planet to live on.

"My actual quote does not say that to me, apologies if it was misleading:

> what is the most important objective currently? Is it to cut carbon emmissions as quickly as possible without causing undue economic distress, or is it to equally propel renewables forward into the economically competitive arena?

It is not a rhetorical question. I don't have the answer to it"

Nope, it's a strawman.

The options are not just "cut emissions or propel renewables to competitive status".

Partly because it's NUCLEAR that nees propelling into commercial competitive status since currently it's a commercial failure.

And making nuclear power stations isn't curring CO2 emissions.

Cutting CO2 emissions is cutting CO2 emissions.

Which renewables do even better than Nuclear.

Though wasting less energy does better still.

So, yes, it IS a strawman since I've never said that we needed to propel renewables into commercial success. Partly because it already is.

It is also a false dichotomy since those are not the two only options, and this is partly due to one having NOTHING to do with the other. They are orthogonal and one is unnecessary.

Wow,

And again, this time highlighted:

>Is it to cut carbon emmissions as quickly as possible without causing undue economic distress, or is it to equally propel renewables forward into the economically competitive arena?

You're still trying to divine nefarious purposes in my posts. My post specifically sets it out like this because I CAN see scenarios where nuclear would not be an option, such as forcing more investment energy generation using renewable resources. Unless you have come to a conclusion that no further R&D is required to advance the area of renewables, then forcing investment by making ALL other options less competitive than they already are is one of the ways of achieving this.

>*Jakerman:Still looking for the NAMES{and evidence] OF SCIENTISTS on the corporate payroll.*

Warren read the evidence [I gave you](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2771…).

Fred Singer, Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow, William Nierenberg. Further more these ideologies didn't do primary research in their role for corporate think tanks.

>*A couple of million dollars from Exxon as opposed to 50 BILLION dollars[and counting]from governments and others.What ajoke!.*

Science cost serious money, but propaganda is cheap, tens of millions spent pushing ideological propaganda is disproportionately influential compared to tens of millions spend in primary research and publication of genuine science.

>*If money corrupts,then anyone involved in government funded climate research is corrupt to the core.*

Given that this money is spent on primary research, equipment, process, and only a fraction on salaries, your claim is empty. What are scientist paid for, striving for good process in search of truth.

What are ideologues at think tanks paid for? Meeting the needs of their ideologically allied donors.

If you want to compare where the real money driving incentive is, [try here](http://anarchist606.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-much-is-global-warming-den…).

> Except, Warren, government money is paid to scientists from governments both conservative and liberal.

And except, warren, that government money primarily goes to **understand** the earth and its climate and weather systems, regardless of the extent and severity of AGW - for reasons that are blindingly obvious to most. In other words, your implication that billions of dollars are ONLY being directed to the science purely because of concern about AGW is yet another form of Curtin-like false-accounting.

warren @193:

So given your equation that govt funding + scientists = corrupt scientists, can we assume you want all govt funding for research into cancer, genetics, organ transplant, disease transmission and agricultural productivity (among others) halted?

Oh, wait, I see - it's only>climate scientists who are on the take, right?

"And again, this time highlighted:"

And again, they have NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER.

And AGAIN, renewables are ALREADY [cheaper](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_gener…):

Coal:

* Coal Supercritical: 10.554
* Coal Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC): 11.481
* Coal IGCC with Carbon Capture & Storage (IGCC with CCS): 17.317

Alternatives:

* Biogas: 8.552
* Wind: 8.910
* Gas Combined Cycle: 9.382
* Geothermal: 10.182
* Hydroelectric: 10.527
* Concentrating solar thermal (CSP): 12.653
* Nuclear: 15.316
* Biomass: 16.485

Wind (Rewnewable) 8.91.

Nuclear (Nonrenewable): 15.316

Coal (Nonrenewable, reduced CO2): 10.554+

MAKE renewables commercial? They already are. The incumbents keep using their power to keep the new kid down.

"My post specifically sets it out like this because I CAN see scenarios where nuclear would not be an option"

Except you've only ever said that it MUST be used or fossil fuel stations.

Here you go AGAIN:

> If the goal is only to achieve cuts in carbon as quickly as possible, then to ignore nuclear power is simple denial

it's pretty sodding clear.

And what's this "nefarious" crap you're now complaining of? No nefariarity, just pointing out you're talking both bollocks and lies and trying to kid-on you're "ambivalent".

Where in that quote of yours does it look like you're ambivalent?

NO WHERE.

Wow,

As I already said in post [#181](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2771…), thank you for your reference. I have already said I was not aware of it, why the persistence?

When I say in [#200](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2773…) :
>"When you link to references as you did before pointing out that renewables like wind ARE more competitive than nuclear, that's helpful."

That means thank you for the reference... I accept what you're saying... Moving on...

My point in #200 is to defend myself of you accusations of making strawman arguments by showing that you misrepresented me and producing my actual quote to show this. I have not said or implied that renewable energy sources are less or more competitive than nuclear power since my original post, and I don't know exactly what you're trying to accomplish by continuing to imply that I have.

I'm not sure who or what I am in your mind's eye, but I assure you I am neither a concern troll nor a denier and I'm sure Lotharsson, Jeff, Bernard and others can attest to the fact, as we've wasted so much bandwith arguing together with the likes of [Curtin](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/tim_curtin_thread_now_a_live_s…) and [Brent](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man…). I am not a dog whistler nor interested in putting hidden messages on my posts.

If you could do me the favour of taking what I say plainly more seriously than what you think I mean we can all move on.

[Wow](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2773…).

Evidence please. Where is that bollocks? Do you claim to know what I mean better than I do?

>A couple of million dollars from Exxon as opposed to 50 BILLION dollars[and counting]from governments and others.

Where is this 50 billion dollars spent on climate change science?

Most of the science directly related to climate change is done on a shoe string. That's partly why the CRU got into trouble.

Yes a lot of money is spent on weather and climate science, but that isn't spent to prove AGW, it is spent to improve knowledge in general.

In any case if there was a conspiracy why would governments spend money on the CLOUDS experiment, which if skeptics are to be believed will prove AGW to be wrong!

208 The Ville -- "Where is this 50 billion dollars spent on climate change science?"

Orbiting the Earth or deep in the oceans. Not in the pockets of scientists or paying for their staff.

[COVERT OPERATIONS](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer):

>An advertisement cast the event as a populist uprising against vested corporate power. *âToday, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests,â* it said. *âBut you can do something about it.â* [...] âWhat they donât say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizensâ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.â

Evidence please. Where is that bollocks?

[here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2770…)

> While currently nuclear power (in a deregulated market with no subsidies) is not competitive against coal and gas, it comes close to oil, and is very competitive against the current price of renewables.

[again](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_gener…).

How many times do I have to show this????

Chris Oneil:"we know for certain that CO2 has produced..."
No,YOU know for certain chris,but unfortunatlely there is no emperical evidence to prove your claim.Even the IPCC admits that it doesn;t know for certain.IE "very likely"!!

Pauluk:The difference is is that when you buy a product or service from a company,you will generally get value for money.Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return.

>*The difference is is that when you buy a product or service from a company,you will generally get value for money.Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return.*

So [Paul's drawn](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2772…) warren into revealing his ideology, anti democratic ultra libertarian. Warren you have a lot in common with the [Koch brothers](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2774…).

Jakerman:You have missed the point entirely.Governments[of both sides]fund climate research.With that funding comes prestige,fame,first class travel,speaking engagements,extra staff yada,yada.And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party.

>*You have missed the point entirely.*

No, you've just failed to make a coherent point. Instead you're making ideological platitudes.

Scientist are motivated by truth seeking. Why work for a modest scientist wage if you are brilliantly bright and predominately motivate by money? It nonsensical that people driven by truth seeking would work against their prime goal.

WOW: your numbers for nuclear are not accurate,especially when they come from wikipedia.According to the World Nuclear Association,nuclear is between 2.9-8.2 cents/kWh.While wind is between 4.8-14.6 cents/kWh.

Jakerman:Truth seeking,like Jim Hanson yeah?Like Tim Flannery yeah?Michael Mann,GavinSchmidt,Phil Jones,Pauchuri,Schneider.All splendid fellows,honest as the day is long.Paul Ehrlich? Whoops!

>*your numbers for nuclear are not accurate,especially when they come from wikipedia.According to the World Nuclear Association,nuclear is between 2.9-8.2 cents/kWh.While wind is between 4.8-14.6 cents/kWh.*

Oh , well the WNA must be right. Which is why the WNA also compare their LCA to LCAs of PVs from the mid 1980s rather than modern PVs.

I guess for warren, profit seeking industry lobbies are to be trusted; yet truth seeking research scientist are corrupt.

> Even the IPCC admits that it doesn;t know for certain

So warren falls back to the favourite denialist trope - "anything less than 100% certainty is meaningless". A.k.a. it's still safe to smoke cigarettes because some people don't get ill from them, and when driving don't bother braking until you're 100% certain you're going to hit something you don't want to hit.

I'd really hate to see that attitude applied to the professional services warren delivers to his clients. I sincerely hope he thinks more rationally in that arena.

> Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return.

That's certainly arguable - for one thing, some outcomes government can deliver that private enterprise simply cannot so for those the question of who provides best value doesn't even arise. As someone better known than the average mope once said (more or less):

> "I like paying my taxes. With them I buy civilisation."

Furthermore, warren is using this argument to assert that government-funded research is inherently wasteful (and he implies it's *huge* waste, not a little bit). This argument is attractive on the surface (like "CO2 is plant food") until thought through a little bit.

He doesn't seem to recall that the argument that government is less efficient (in terms of pricing) than private enterprise (disregarding the contested nature of those claims) generally rests on the "self-evident" notion that it's the competition amongst enterprises that leads them to be more efficient, there's no competition amongst governments, therefore government *must* be less efficient. (We'll leave aside the issue of competition between successive governments, and other mechanisms driving government towards efficiency.)

Warren doesn't understand that there is fierce competition **amongst scientists** (including competition for government funding). This suggests government-funded science is likely to be quite efficient on the whole.

Warren also asserts:

> With that funding comes prestige,fame,first class travel,speaking engagements,extra staff yada,yada.

Warren, how many climate scientists can you name **who travel first class using their research funding**? Actual evidence please - not unsupported claims. FWIW, Brent (IIRC) could not name any when challenged on this point either.

And evidence for the rest would be good too. As far as I have noticed, **science funding** doesn't bring prestige or fame or speaking engagements to scientists - it is **defensible scientific results** that do that.

Most government-funded scientists could earn twice as much in private enterprise, and sidestep a whole bevy of funding pleadings and justifications and competition at the same time. They aren't in it for the money. They're in it because they want to understand how things work. Coincidentally, doing that is how you get acclaim from other scientists too.

However I agree that more funding would provide the means to hire extra staff. Warren seems to imply that's a bad or inefficient thing:

> When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party.

Trouble is, warren doesn't understand that to get funding you have to demonstrate that *you're scientifically competent and are doing useful work*. Remember that fierce competition for funding I mentioned?

Warren, have you ever tried to run a research group on government funding? Seriously? Or even looked at salaries for government-funded scientists? You imply you know a lot about it. I suspect you know nothing - perhaps less than nothing, because I reckon what you think you know is almost diametrically opposed to reality.

>*akerman:Truth seeking,like Jim Hanson yeah*

Yes exactly like Jim Hansen. And exactly [unlike you](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2766…).

> All splendid fellows,honest as the day is long.

Ah, now we have the desperate ad hom. Warren just *knows* the people he listed are dishonest scientific fr@uds who are milking the public teat for all they're worth and stashing the wealth...somewhere so out of sight no-one has ever seen it, even if he can't prove any of it. He knows it so deeply he uses their names as (to him) self-evident illustrations of fr@ud and waste.

And warren knows so much about it that he doesn't even know that Pachauri is not a scientist but an administrator, and that it's Hansen rather than Hanson!

These costs also should be added when considering nuclear power

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/o0l

After slandering Hansen et al, Warren just dug [his hole of dishonestly](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) even deeper [over here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…).

Spotty you do have a heart. My God those poor children, those poor families.

>Warren, how many climate scientists can you name who travel first class using their research funding?

Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares.

>*and that it's Hansen rather than Hanson!*

With one letter wrong somewhere, perhaps Warren is wanting to smear the Muppet's creator?

Warren:
>Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return.

But by what standards is that judged??
And what government?

I have worked in the commercial and public sector.
I also know a lot of people that do jobs in the commercial sector that have no real value and waste peoples money.
Some commercial jobs even damage the health of people.

It seems Warren, you have characteristics that make you inherently suspicious of government but are unwilling to make the same challenges of the commercial sector.

What value does someone have if they phone a home owner with the goal of replacing that persons perfectly satisfactory window frames?

You talk of waste, but you are blind to the waste that is all around us, all in the name of creating jobs, for no reason at all.

That smacks of ideology rather than rational assessment of individual situations.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

JBowers:Your one example is pitiful.TRy this small sample of conferences where hundreds and thousands of open mouths go.Bangkok[2008,2009],Bonn[2008,3in 2009],Accra[2008],Bali[2007],Melbourne[2007],Tianjin[2010],UN[3in 2010],Copenhagen[March 2009].And there are many many more if you care to look.How does your 1 scientist and a few school kiddies look now?

The Austrlian contingent at Copenhagen 2009 was over 100 people.It cost the ozzie taxpayer $2million!All for a failure.What a lovely return on investment!And we are going to do it all again in november at Cancun.

> TRy this small sample of conferences where hundreds and thousands of open mouths

No idea what warren is referring to, but there's still no evidence of first class fares for working scientists out of research funding.

> It cost the ozzie taxpayer $2million!All for a failure.What a lovely return on investment!

But it was a **success** in your ideology, warren - because you are **sure** AGW is nothing to be concerned about, so in your view any substantive agreement at Copenhagen would have been an egregious error.

Those mutually exclusive talking points are a real PITA to keep straight...

>*The Austrlian contingent at Copenhagen 2009 was over 100 people.It cost the ozzie taxpayer $2million!*

And our federal elections cost more than $150 million every 3 year. Democracy cost, consultation cost, international process cost. Did warren think that magic pixies develop polices and international agreements for us?

Big gap in your ideology framework there Warren.

warren:

"we know for certain that CO2 has produced..." No,YOU know for certain chris,but unfortunatlely there is no emperical evidence to prove your claim.Even the IPCC admits that it doesn;t know for certain.IE "very likely"!!

You've completely missed the point. I'm talking in that statement about the warming produced by CO2 on its own without any feedback. As Stefan Rahmstorf points out:

Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 (which amounts to a forcing of 3.7 W/m2) would result in 1°C global warming, which is easy to calculate and is undisputed.

As I said, we know for certain that this is producing warming, and you want us to believe that the rest of the warming is just an amazing co-incidence produced by some completely unknown cause that just happens to come along at exactly the same time as the increase in CO2.

All you've succeeded in doing is showing that you're thoroughly confused by the science and that to dispute the science the way you do requires someone such as yourself who is thoroughly confused by the science.

bigcitylib theorizes that the person(s) who cyber-attacked CRU originally planned to send a thread of e-mails to BBC's Paul Hudson, to rile him up into writing an article.

http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2010/08/cru-hack-sifting-through-ashes.h…

Here are some exclusive quotes by Kevin Trenberth: http://climatesight.org/2010/08/30/what-kevin-trenberth-has-to-say/

230 Warren -- "JBowers:Your one example is pitiful.TRy this small sample of conferences where hundreds and thousands of open mouths go."

How many scientists attended the list you regurgitated, Warren?

Dunno what planet Warren is on, but it's not the same one I inhabit.

Does he truly believe that private companies spend less on the conference gravy-train than governments? Yeah right. The thing my wife hates most about the corporate conferences she attends is that she can't play golf, and often feels left out!

Chris Oneil:"We know for certain..." No we dont,the theory suggests that we should see some warming from increased CO2 in the atmosphere,but how much we dont know.Ramsdorf is talking also about the laboratory situation.In the lab,yes a doubling does leed to a 1C temperature rise.Whether this will occur in the real world or not is still the subject of scientific inquiry.Chris correlation is not causation.We first need to know how the system works,and how to explain the other warmings ang coolings we have had before we start spending trillions on something that may be a non problem.

JBowers:Was it 14 thousand people that attended COP15 at Copenhagen?I am pretty sure that figure is accurate.COP11 in Montreal was attended by 10,000.The one I saw in Bangkok was 400-500.Davos in Melbourne was a couple of hundred.How many were scientists,I dont know but I am going to track it down.As for first class,by that I would mean airfares and hotel accomodation.For example,in copenhagen they booked out every hotel in the city and some in sweden.They had to import limosines from Germany.That must have rough.Also many cities are fiercely bidding for these conferences because they are such a money spinner.EG Qatar and Seoul for COP18 in 2012.And all on the taxpayers dime.LaDolce Vita.

Mike:If companies are spending money on conferences,then atleast they are spending their own money,not somebody elses.And if shareholders dont like it they can dump the company.

> Ramsdorf is talking also about the laboratory situation.In the lab,yes a doubling does leed to a 1C temperature rise.

You don't seem to comprehend that Chris was actually talking about the CO2-is-the-only-change effects - which can be seen in the laboratory. In other words, you can't decide whether you agree or disagree with him.

> As for first class,by that I would mean airfares and hotel accomodation.

So, when you said:

> With that funding comes ...first class travel...

...you didn't (and still don't) have **any** evidence of **research funding** going into first class airfares...so now you're shifting the goalposts to include hotel accommodation and perhaps later you'll quietly drop the notion of first class flights...?

And you're probably trying to shift the goalposts again if you can find any scientist who went to (say) COP15 even if you can't show that their travel was paid for out of research funding?

Seems like your original claims were a little larger than you can substantiate. And that you may even have been trying to fr@udulently pin the expenses of **politics** on science.

Never mind that:

> Those mutually exclusive talking points are a real PITA to keep straight...

...and that you have blithely ignored the observation that you're violently disagreeing with yourself.

> If companies are spending money on conferences,then atleast they are spending their own money,not somebody elses.

Inconveniently, they tend to pass on their expenses to consumers, thus spending someone else's money.

You might argue that competition between companies will keep those sorts of expenses down - but even then there are key industry conferences where any serious player needs to attend. There is no effective real competition on those expenses, therefore consumers pay. And they can't even dump the company for another one because all companies are doing it.

> And if shareholders dont like it they can dump the company.

Similarly, as I previously pointed out, if voters don't like the expenses incurred by government, they can dump the government.

BTW, I'm still waiting [for some answers](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2774…), warren.

And I assume that it's futile for you to recognise that there's no government-funded scientist "gravy train" for endorsing false science. For one thing the government would be deliriously happy if someone proved that AGW was merely a trivial concern - and the scientists involved would win **actual** fame and prestige and money in the form of a Nobel Prize - or two; and for another scientists get judged on the defensibility of their work. You might get away with faking outcomes for a few months or years, but you will eventually get caught out...

240 warren -- "JBowers:Was it 14 thousand people that attended COP15 at Copenhagen?I am pretty sure that figure is accurate."

But I didn't ask how many people attended. I was quite specific and there was no room for misinterpetation. I asked how many climate scientists attended. You have no idea yet claim scientists are on a taxpayer funded gravy train jetting off all over the world, specifying examples like Copenhagen. You have nothing but falsehoods and disinformation to offer.

Lotharrson:I did not say that their travel expenses were paid for out of their reseach funding.I said it eas paid for by the taxpayer.And I completely agree with you inregards to politics.The politicians would consume a far larger share of public wealth on this issue than the scientists.I also would not blame the majority of scientists,because afterall this is a government generated gravy train.I also did not say that scientists were endorsing false science.But along with the funding does come all of the perks I described.Ian Lowe went to Copenhagen,do you think he paid his own expenses?

JBowers:Yes you did ask a specific question and I intentionally qualified my response to it.I fully admit that I dont have extensive information on how many scientists have gone to these conferences,but surely you are not therefore going to claim that scientists DONT go to them.Tim Flannery went to Bali,for example.I will track some more info down.

JBowers:8 members of Climate Scientists Australia visited parliament house Canberra 2009.Taxpayers expense.CSA members also went to KPMG lunches in Sydney and Melbourne.The guardian conducted a poll at the March 2009 conference in Copenhagen.They said they interviewed 250 experts.Atleast 226 scientists went to Bali 2007.COP14 Poznan attracted 11,500 participants.I have no break down on how may were scientists,but if we were to follow the indicators from Bali and Copenhagen,then it should be ATLEAST 250.

Warren do you have an honesty problem or a problem with your short term memory?

Warren at post 215:

Jakerman:You have missed the point entirely.Governments[of both sides]fund climate research.With that funding comes prestige,fame,first class travel,

Warren at post 246:

Lotharrson:I did not say that their travel expenses were paid for out of their reseach (sic) funding.

No wonder I just direct "cheapshots" in your direction, I save my better ones for people more worthy of them.

248 warren -- "but if we were to follow the indicators from Bali and Copenhagen,then it should be ATLEAST 250."

Now demonstrate with evidence that there were 250 climate scientists, and they were paid for by the taxpayer.

Ian:I said "with" that funding,not "from"that funding.But where does the money for field trips come from?Ove Hoegh-Guldberg who works at UQ goes to the barrier reef all the time,as well as other international destinations.His field trips would almost certainly be paid out of his research budget.The point is irrelevant in any case.The point is that taxpayers are footing the bill,and that bill is growing.

JBowers:No I cannot demonstrate that.The information was that they were scientists or experts.Hundreds of scientists go to these conferences,but I am sure that you are not going to seriously suggest that they paid their own fares,booked their own accomodation,arranged transport,etc are you. And if they were not paid for by the taxpayer then who?One example is Ian Lowe who went to Copenhagen,and that was funded by the department of climate change in the Rudd government.

[Warren said: "The point is that taxpayers are footing the bill,and that bill is growing".](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2776…)

Yeah, it must really grate on you that it's very likely [you pesonally pay more tax than the corporations](http://bigthink.com/ideas/19511) for whose interests you're so valiantly fighting. Maybe they could pay their fair share of taxes so you wouldn't have to pay so much?
Or is that idea too communist?

Chek:Corporations pay as much tax as they are required to under the law.They are given tax incentives by governments to make investments and employ people.The government makes these laws to encourage corporations to keep re-investing their profits in the country.Businesses and companies create wealth and jobs,and the tax laws encourage them to continue doing that.

So stop complaining Warren!
If you feel your tax is growing, just tell yourself it's because you're paying the corporate portion too, and that's just how you like it.
Hell yes!

254 warren -- "They are given tax incentives by governments to make investments and employ people."

So much for the free market being able to support itself, then. I see in Alaska the oil companies pay so much tax there's no need for an income or sales tax there. On top of that, the citizens get an annual payout from the taxes on the oil companies ($3,000+) for doing nothing. Isn't that better known as "redistribution of the wealth"?

Worldwide, fossil fuel gets $500 billion a year in taxpayer subsidies.

252 warren -- "Hundreds of scientists go to these conferences,but I am sure that you are not going to seriously suggest that they paid their own fares,booked their own accomodation,arranged transport,etc are you."

So you don't know either way, but make claims of gravy trains still.

warren -- "One example is Ian Lowe who went to Copenhagen,"

The hypocrisy burns! What were you saying about the example of a climate scientist paying for his and his students air fares to the Arctic? Oh yes, "JBowers:Your one example is pitiful."

Pitiful indeed.

warren:

Chris Oneil:"We know for certain..." No we dont,the theory suggests that we should see some warming from increased CO2 in the atmosphere

That's exactly what I said (without the word "some")! If you didn't cut off the quote you might have a better chance of understanding what I said. Read the whole thing thing this time. I'll put the word "some" in it to make it easier for you:

"we know for certain that this is producing" some "warming, and you want us to believe that the rest of the warming is just an amazing co-incidence produced by some completely unknown cause that just happens to come along at exactly the same time as the increase in CO2."

Hey Warren, alternatively try and guess why most would rather stick a fork in their eye than divulge any personal information to creepy, two-faced Brent.
[This thread](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php) pretty much shows why Brent here is only slightly less trustworthy than a schizophrenic rattlesnake tweaked up on crystal meth, and [this one](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man…) illustrates the duplicitous creepiness.
Enjoy.

>*If companies are spending money on conferences,then atleast they are spending their own money,not somebody elses.*

Bollocks, they are also spending our natural capital and our social capital.

Brent #258 - You trot out the same old, sad distraction over and over.

It's a completely idiotic. Once upon a time I lived in an apartment in the city. For the last ten years I've lived rurally and are pretty self-sufficient. In a couple of years time, for various reasons, we'll probably need to move back to the city.

Meanwhile, the science, that you don't understand, is not influenced by my behaviour, and how I receive my electricity in an apartment continues to be about government policy not personal responsibility.

> I did not say that their travel expenses were paid for out of their reseach funding.

Flat-out lies. [You wrote](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2774…):

> Governments[of both sides]fund climate research.With that funding comes ... first class travel... And scientists on the government gravy train...

But I'm glad to see you admit (if only implicitly) that claim that research-funded first class travel was wrong, and thus demonstrate that your claim that scientists are on some sort of mythical "gravy train" is unsupported by that part of your claim.

But you'd have more credibility if you said "I was wrong about that" instead of trying to defend the falsehood.

I look forward to the admissions about the rest of your "gravy train" claim:

> Ove Hoegh-Guldberg who works at UQ goes to the barrier reef all the time,as well as other international destinations.

You are descending(?) into idiocy.

Of **course** his trips to the Barrier Reef are paid for out of research funding, as are trips to suitable scientific conferences - they are a **research expense**. They are NOT a "perk" (even under fringe benefits tax law, which is quite keen on taxing individuals for "perks"), because **he can't do his job without them**.

What a desperate and stupid attempt to back-pedal. Just for good measure, let's examine a related generalisation:

> But along with the funding does come all of the perks I described.

Once more, to make it clear. If it's a job requirement, it's not a "perk".

Lots and lots of corporations routinely pay business class international airfares for certain employee travel - **because** it's essential to get them where they need to be *in a highly functioning state*. Business class travel under those conditions is not a "perk"; it's a necessity for doing the job right. And the tax department agrees.

Feel free to point out that your definition of "gravy train" that includes "earning maybe half what they could earn in other employment" without making up even a small portion of the difference in taxable fringe benefits. (Feel free to quantify the taxable fringe benefits and report them here - bet you don't though.)

> Ian Lowe went to Copenhagen,do you think he paid his own expenses?

Do you think he was there **in his work capacity**, or was it just a holiday? Have you ever been to an industry or academic conference? Do you have any idea how intense they generally are and how utterly unlike a holiday?

This is a mind-bogglingly stupid line of argument for you to be making.

> I also did not say that scientists were endorsing false science.

**Bollocks!** [You quite clearly implied it]((http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2774…)):

> And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!

It's crystal clear you haven't got a leg to stand on.

Australian poltics is important. The big 4 countries fighting against AGW science for a while were the US, UK, Canada and Australia. On paper, 3 of the 4 have accepted reality, all but Canada. Australia is also a unique continent, and uniquely endangered.

Warren

In terms of the gravy train - I am currently at a conference overseas, so you probably assume that I am funded by the taxpayer? In fact I do contract research for the mining industry (helping them to reduce the environmental and other impacts of their activities). The income generated is reinvested in my work in less developed countries in Asia, and to pay for conferences. Again, this is a model that is followed by many of my colleagues.

The travel rules for my institution forbid business class travel and impose strict limits for subsistence and accommodation, even for the most esteemed professors. I only sit forward of the curtain when I am upgraded by the airline or use airmiles. A Holiday Inn is the top end for us.

Finally, note that most universities can function only because of the huge amounts of unpaid work done by academic staff. In my institution our payslips say we work 37.5 hours per week and get 5 weeks annual leave. Most staff work double that, and struggle to take 3 weeks leave. There are no overtime payments. For the most part, academic staff do teaching and admin in work hours, and their research in their own time. Essentially, research is hugely subsidised by the staff themselves (and by their families). It is the very opposite of a gravy train.

Warren simply has no clue what value the community gets from scientists.

For a number of reasons I chose to work part-time several years ago, and I find now that I work about 2 unpaid hours for every paid one. It's just how science functions, and I worked extra hours too when I was full-time... simple limits to available hours lowered the 2:1 ratio in that case... I certainly had almost no recreational time then.

My friends in the corporate world watch the clock. Come the end of the day, they leave on the dot, and any extra minute is counted as overtime or time-in-lieu. And for the pleasure of having better hours, and doing much less intellectually-taxing work, they are paid about 2.5 times more per hour than am I.

Warren, if it wasn't for the fact that I love scientific work, and that I have a far greater desire to do work that benefits the environment than I do for work that benefits my bank balance, I'd be through the door in a nanosecond. I might be altruistic, but I'm not stupid, and like all scientists it is something other than money that entices me to work where I do.

If society paid scientists as well as they paid corporate executives and shareholders for the same degree of productivity, my colleagues and I would all be driving rollers and having Elton John sing at our Sunday barbeques.

[GWB's nemesis](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2777…),

Could not have said it better myself.

warren, regarding your 'gravy train' comments, I ask you a question [I asked Brent](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man…) a while ago. He never could come up with an answer:

Do you know how much a scientist on the salary of a University or Government Institution earns? How much do you think said scientist could earn producing solid science disproving AGW (if he could produce solid science along these lines), on the employ of the fossil fuel industry?

Discuss.

The psychology of human response to climate change is high on the Australian media agenda this week.

The ABC's "All in the Mind" program [ran an interesting piece](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2010/2998311.htm) this week, and Stephen Schneider makes one of his last appearances on [tomorrow's edition of "Insight"](http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/302) on SBS.

I see reflections of some of our trolls in both cases...

Warren:

>Corporations pay as much tax as they are required to under the law.They are given tax incentives by governments to make investments and employ people.The government makes these laws to encourage corporations to keep re-investing their profits in the country.Businesses and companies create wealth and jobs,and the tax laws encourage them to continue doing that.

That is all very well. but not all profits and wealth are equal. Some businesses, as I stated previously are pointless, wasteful and damaging. The fact that they are allegedly self sustaining under current economic doctorine does not stand up to scrutiny once environmental long term impacts are analysed.
Such wastefulness IMO is just as bad as wasteful public sector jobs. Yet governments do little to reign in such wastefulness because such businesses 'are profitable'.
You are either naive or are ideology driven, if you attack one side whilst turning a blind eye to waste in the commercial sector.

> I ask you a question I asked Brent a while ago.

I recall that due to these questions - and some followup to ensure he didn't dodge them - Brent ultimately admitted that the "government-funded gravy train" concept was not motivating climate scientists to endorse (explicitly or by omission) science they didn't agree with; if only because the "government-funded gravy train" for scientists does not exist.

Further to [my comment about the Insight episode](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2777…) that is airing tomorrow night, it seems that cohenite, janama, and their button-clicking friends are infesting the comments section of the web page.

It's quite amazing how egregious their lies are, given that they have been set straight repeatedly in the past.

Someone needs to tap Cox on the shoulder and tell him that his lobby-group-cum-political-party floundered in the recent election...

Mike:If companies are spending money on conferences,then atleast they are spending their own money,not somebody elses.And if shareholders dont like it they can dump the company.

It is shareholder investment returns which they fritter away with every cent wasted.

You seriously believe the shareholders have any clue as to how much wastage there is?

...and of course, as pointed out numerous times above, the concept of a "gravy train" for scientists is quite laughable.

I shared a house for some years with a young professor for a major Sydney university. He drove one of the crappiest cars I've ever seen and never had any spare money for anything. Must've been spiriting away his millions under his bed, I suppose.

I also know a PhD microbiologist who became a flight attendant because the pay, travel, and working hours were far better serving tea & coffee at 35,000 feet than doing cutting edge medical research.

Bernard:

Further to my comment about the Insight episode that is airing tomorrow night

There's one comment there by Barbara Thomas I find particularly interesting. She says:

Should politicians establish that there is a need for a Carbon Tax, could someone please explain the nuts and bolts of this tax. An explaination to the Australian people as to just how they arrive at a level of taxation, ...

This is the "please explain the ETS" all over again. There was a lot of whinging about the lack of explanation of the ETS and exactly the same sort of whinging is going to happen with a Carbon tax.

For those trying to keep up, [warren explains on the "CO2 is Plant Food" crock thread](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…) that his use of the term "gravy train" with regard to climate scientists *doesn't* mean the acquisition of personal wealth but rather what warren deems to be perks (such as work travel)...

...which terminally weakens his argument that scientists are endorsing AGW when they don't believe it for the fabulous "perks" and the 50% of an industry salary they have to *forgo* in order to qualify for those meager "perks".

warren still hasn't shown that any of this travel is "first class" as originally claimed. Nor has he argued that the government should be taxing those "perks" as fringe benefits, despite implying that they are of sufficient value to the individual to get them to misrepresent their scientific beliefs. Admittedly that's a difficult argument to make when the employer fully deducts those expenses as a valid employment expense...

Jakerman:"Natural capital",Social capital"????
How about "fairy floss capital"?
Funny but I have never scene any of those terms used on a profit and loss statement.

GWB's nemesis:So who is paying for your current trip?Is it a private company,or a taxpayer supported institution?

The challenge of environmental accounting

Earth, Inc.

No, sorry, no fairy floss capital there.

Correction: "...seen..."

PLewis:It will still be fairy floss.The only REAL costs will be the ones that goverments impose on business through green legislation.Those costs will appear on balance sheets,and will then be passed on to the consumer.'Natural'and 'Social'will remain nebulous,warm and fuzzy ideas that bear no relation to the real world.

Shorter warren:

The so-called "ecosystem" is a Marxist construct. The only real thing that truly exists in this world is money. We don't need an ecosystem, we just need money!

Warren, my current trip is 100% funded from income generated from externally (industry) funded work. It is not costing the taxpayer a single penny. However, I also agree with other posters that attending a conference and then undertaking fieldwork is far from a "perk". Your conception of a gravy train remains utterly absurd.

GWB:Your evasion of the question makes me smell a rat.What is the name of your employer-that is,what is the name of the entity that will give you your group certificate for the work you are doing on this trip? A direct answer would be appreciated.

Frank:No frank,but the ecosystems of wealthier countries is better than that of poor countries.Nothing is more destructive to the natural world than poverty.

@273
QED. My example of the scientist (real smart and nice guy, incidentally) actually becoming a flight attendant so he actually could travel at company expense and stay in nice hotels! Though I personally felt that was a rather extreme job change to get travel perks. ;)

Shorter warren:

Richer countries have better ecosystems, therefore we should destroy ecosystems in order to get rich.

> What is the name of your employer-that is,what is the name of the entity that will give you your group certificate for the work you are doing on this trip?

Wow, that's creepy and more than a little stalkerish. The name itself is not germane to the discussion.

Seeing warren's arguing with GWB about warren-perceived allegedly-science-distorting "perks", here's a cut-and-paste of an observation I posted on the "CO2 is Plant Food" crock thread after Bernard J observed that [his friends in corporate jobs had much more in the way of perks](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/the_co2_is_plant_food_crock.php…):

> warren's argument - that perks mean that scientists will endorse something they don't think is supported by the evidence - applies in spades to scientists in the pay of industry. Not only do they have much better perks, they have much better salaries to protect to boot.

> So warren's logic means that warren must reserve a double dose of skepticism for any position held by scientists who derive perks and/or income from industry. And yet, strangely enough, I don't see warren campaigning against those particular positions on that basis. Hmmm.........

Good to know that Warren doesn't dispute that he wants "us to believe that the rest of the warming is just an amazing co-incidence produced by some completely unknown cause that just happens to come along at exactly the same time as the increase in CO2."

Warren can go on believing in amazing co-incidences if he wants to but please Warren, don't tell us that we are the ones who are believers. I think that word fits you much more accurately.

Looking for information on the distribution of Prunus padus & P. spinosa in Australia - anyone have any ideas where I could find it?

Thanks

Warren writes, "No frank,but the ecosystems of wealthier countries is better than that of poor countries".

This is pure garbage. On what basis do you evaluate ecosystem 'quality'? On the basis of a human-centered environment, and damn much of the native biodiversity that used to abound there? In the developed world we have ravaged our natural ecosystems; try finding a tree of primevel size in the eastern United States. It is virtually impossible. Try finding huge stands of tallgrass prairie in western North America. Overgrazing and introduced plants from Eurasia have ravaged the native biomes there.

Poverty in the south is largely the result of huge social injustices and disparities in wealth caused by overconsumption in the north. The current global economic system is more like a casino that is aimed to ensure that capital flows remain (or increase) in ways that increase poverty in the south but further enrich elites in the north. As leading African economist Samir Aman said at the World Social Forum at Puerto Allegre in 2003, the developed world is not so much interested in integrating the south culturally and economically into a world order as in looting their resources. This is what drives environmental damage in the underdeveloped nations. Influential planners and politicians from Kennan to Kissinger and from Brezinski to Nitze have openly talked about ways in which the U.S. should retain control over 'their resources' - meaning resources that just so happen to lie under the land masses of other countries in the south or in Eurasia. Kissinger and other senior U.S. politicians suggested 'depopulation' as a means of ensuring U.S. access to raw materials, whereas 'moderates' like Kennan argued that the U.S. would have to ignore noble ideas like 'democracy promotion' and 'altruism' in their foreign policy and think in terms of straight 'power concepts'.

Read declassified planning documents from the British government - as I have done - and the picture is similar. The real concern of these planners has been that governments in the south would embrace nationalistic governments that would interfere with the profit-making capacities of our corporations. Far from supporting democracy, these documents clearly show that rich, developed countries wanted to block moves that would bring true, bottom-up democratic reform, if this in any way threatened the exploitation of their resource base. Look at the Congo. One of the richest countries in terms of its mineral wealth, yet the vast majority of its population lives in absolute misery. Who controls the mineral wealth in the Congo? Thrity-eight coporations, all based in G-8 countries. This story is repeated throughout the south, where western governments support local elites who institute strict, 'top-down' forms of control.

Whenever I read Warren's posts, I cringe. Literally.

Climate inactivists ignore real anti-science PR machine, postulate unnamed 'warmist PR machine'

http://ijish.livejournal.com/17900.html

Frank: You forgot to mention how CRUhack Tom then tied himself up in knots trying to defend his position at Only In It For the Gold, in the process exposing his very real lack of understanding of the processes at play in the Antarctic and a penchant for not reading his own citations.

Jeff Harvey:"The current global economic system is more like a casino..." !!Be still my beating heart!Did Jeff Harvey actually say something that has a tinge of reality about it?I think he did!He probably does not know why,and the rest of his post is just leftist hogwash,but I have to give credit where it is due.Kudos Jeff.
PS What about the Imai[1984]study??

Warren,

Please lujde to the arguments I made that were 'leftish hogwash'. I provided actual examples and quotes from real people; you clearly you do not know much history and therefore pick and chooose the ideas that suit you. Anthing outside of this in your little myopic world is 'hogwash', and damn the evidence.

As for the Imai study, I have put that to bed on the C02 thread. As I said, the world is not made up of plants for humans to eat. Asymmetic effects on plant growth and quality - based on association-specific changes in primary and secondary metabolities within food webs as well as on differential growth patterns that will also affect interspecific competition make the results of closed studies on plant growth mute. I can tell that you are no scientist, because you have a pre-determined view of the world.

What exactly is your profession? You conveninetly avoided answering that.

hey akerz,

i thought you might want to have a look at this http://www.tinyurl.com.au/rym

skeptical science = crappy misinformation site

Spotty, as usual you are way off,

Form [Skeptical Science](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Pielke-Sr-and-scientific-equivocation-d…)

>*Dr. Pielke - thank you for your comments. I am obliged to point out, with the greatest respect, that my argument seems to be validated by what you have written. Given the range of discussions regarding measurement, metrication and analysis, it is clear there is much work to be done, and that there is considerable uncertainty about ocean heat, its distribution and effects. On that basis, I must ask you how you come to make such definitive statements about one five year period. Your claim that the oceans did not gain heat during this period may be correct, but it is hardly proven, and certainly not representative of any consensus among those with sufficient expertise, such as Trenberth and von Schuckmann.*

>*This point of course must lead to my second observation: you have not addressed here the remark that so concerns me, and that was central to my entire argument. If ocean heat is not yet well understood, and many other indicators of global warming show warming - the cryrosphere in particular - how can you claim, as you did yesterday on your own blog, that a disputed measure of OHC "...means that global warming halted on this time period". I do not find this claim at all convincing because you do not appear to have any evidence to support it (indeed the evidence, including your own comments here, suggest the assertion is flawed), and you have not addressed these points, which are the essential premises on which my argument stands.*

"WOW: your numbers for nuclear are not accurate,especially when they come from wikipedia"

No they don't.

They come from two studies.

Genuine scientific studies from people who do not profit from the energy source.

Where do you pull YOUR information from?

Anyone kn ow who this so-called 'climatologist', Anthony Cox is?

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3008509.htm

What does the Heartland Institute have to hide?

Disallow: http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/pdf/25725.pdf
Disallow: http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/pdf/25728.pdf

I posed my question directly to the Heartland Institute web site. Let's see what they do with it...

Petermann Ice Island - Now There Are Two
http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/petermann_ice_island_now_there_are…

"Petermann Ice Island (2010) has now broken into two parts.
[...]
The importance of the Petermann Glacier calving to climate science is not so much that it happened, but that it was predicted to happen. Quite a few predictions were made by people working independently as individuals or groups and using different techniques for prediction.
[...]
The incontestable fact that the calving was predicted using the scientific method - and that it happened - is a public demonstration of the power of science to predict the future. This evidence of the validity of the scientific method should be enough to convince any rational person that when climate scientists from the world's nations agree that the world's climate is changing, then it is changing."

> Anyone kn ow who this so-called 'climatologist', Anthony Cox is?

Isn't that our very own lawyer-turned-climate-pundit "cohenite"?

The biographical link (click on the author pictures) claims he has a degree in climatology - one does indeed wonder what it was and how much he learned, given the crap he comes out with here from time to time.

Climate inactivist Andrew Montford's report on his 'inquiry' into the "Climategate" inquiries is still nowhere in sight.

#302, J Bowers gave that information in the quote he put in that posting.

Now sod off onto your own thread.

@ 301

Montford's report is now available to download from the web-site of sham "educational" "charity" the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Predictably, Montford says none of the enquiries into the stolen emails was adequate, probably because none came to the conclusion he wanted. Remarkably, he claims the best enquiry was the one conduction by the politicians - the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. I haven't read the whole report (and might not bother to) but his conclusions include this sweeping claim:

None (of the enquiries) has managed to be objective and comprehensive. None has shown a serious concern for the truth.

Who the fuck does Montford think he is?

I got as far as p16 where Montford even now makes an attempted issue out of "trick to hide the decline" and repeats false accusations of deleting data and misleadingly splicing temperature records.

At that point I judged I was reading the work of a pimped up and paid for McCarthyite wannabee and declined to waste anymore time indulging Montford's tricks.

Judith Curry is probably nodding sagely somewhere. Somewhere she doesn't have to deal with actual scientist's objections to a flat-out if expected hatchet job by a low-level apparatchik pushing a tired narrative.

> Who the fuck does Montford think he is?

He thinks he's [Judith "unlike those scientists I am honest about climate science, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong" Curry](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/about_time.php#comment-2796015).

And just so we're clear that's not an actual JC quote.

Iâve skimmed through the 'report'. It is basically a re-hash of the evidence that was submitted by the anti- group that so failed to convince the enquiries, with lots of bad-mouthing and attempted smearing of panel members and scientists thrown in for good measure. Montford contorts stuff beyond all credibility in his effort to make his case. Divergent tree ring data isnât erroneous because the reason for tree ring divergence isnât understood! The section on Yamal is particularly wierd. Failure to publish David Holland's "potentially libellous" evidence gets mentioned a lot, but the penny doesn't drop that libellous = untrue. It will be interesting to see how much converage the report will get in the mainstream media. Delingpole and Booker will cover it of course.

The cognitive dissonance of AGW

There is a large cognitive dissonance required to be a true AGW believer, hence the comparison to religious beliefs. Take, for instance, the ability to simultaneously acknowledge that CO2 levels have been 10 to 20 times higher than the present during multiple periods of Earth's history without causing a 'tipping point' of no return, while retaining the belief that CO2 levels 10 to 20 times less are causing a 'tipping point' now. In fact, an entire ice age came and went with CO2 levels about 11 times higher than the present throughout the Ordovician period shown in the graphic below. The latest eco-scare-alert notes that Antarctica abruptly transitioned from a warm, subtropical hothouse to the present solid ice sheet during a period when CO2 levels exceeded those of today by 10 times.

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/s5f

Everybody by now is well used to your fairly frequent and pathetic attempts to view everything through your tunnel vision.

Monckton pulls the same stunt with his equatorial glacier routine. Perhaps you're soul mates.

You should leave the science (which is a means of discovering how the world works) to the grown ups spotty, it's way over your head

> There is a large cognitive dissonance required to be a true *reflexive* AGW *dis-*believer, hence the comparison to religious beliefs *other well-known forms of denialism*. Take, for instance, the ability to simultaneously acknowledge *point out* that CO2 levels have been 10 to 20 times higher than the present during multiple periods of Earth's history *yet ignore the dissonance of other large forcing differences during those periods. Take also the ability to continue to argue the complete fabrication that under climate science principles higher CO2 levels must inevitably cause* without causing a 'tipping point' of no return, *despite having been disabused of the notion many times in the past. Take also the even more ludicrous fabrication that climate scientists have* while retaining the belief that CO2 levels 10 to 20 times less are causing a 'tipping point' now *which relies on the oft-corrected but never absorbed fallacious conflation of "any positive feedback" with "runaway feedback".*

There, fixed some of it for you and removed the rest because it relied on the earlier fallacies.

For anyone still following along at home, Suibhne has popped up again on the G&T thread to [point out their response to Halpern et al's comment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/03/gerlich_and_tscheuschner_oh_my…).

I took a brief look at the first couple of pages and (noting that I'm not a physicist, and have only reached some 2nd year undergrad uni physics) I can't see how they can argue those pages with a straight face.

I've only skimmed a couple of pages of the rest, but some of their language also appears quite inappropriate and unprofessional:

> Let us start with Halpernâs favorite object of lust.

I imagine the reply to the reply - if anyone thinks it's worth bothering - will be interesting.

BHP boss says [Australia should take the lead on climate change, including looking beyond coal to other energy sources](http://www.smh.com.au/business/bhp-boss-dumps-on-future-of-coal-2010091…) - or risk being uncompetitive when global carbon prices kick in. But he also says that if Australia imposed a carbon price before a global agreement it would need to ensure business doesn't go to zero-carbon-price countries.

An industry association issued a corporate-speak statement in response.

I saw that. Looks positive. The one thing that perplexes me is his argument that we could have both a carbon tax and a trading system at the same time. Not convinced that's a very smart idea.

Wegman report update, part 2: GMU dissertation review

http://deepclimate.org/2010/01/06/wegman-and-rapp-on-proxies-a-divergen…

More questionable scholarship from team Wegman

Wegman Report co-author Yasmin Saidâs 2005 dissertation on the âecologyâ of alcohol consumption appears to presage some of the questionable scholarship techniques employed in the Wegman Report. And later dissertations from two other Wegman proteges, Walid Sharabati (2008) and Hadi Rezazad (2009), both have extensive passages that follow closely Wegman Reportâs social networks background section, which in turn is based on unattributed material from Wikipedia and two widely used text books. Thus, as in the case of Donald Rapp, there appears to be serial propagation of unattributed, âstriking similarâ material. Astonishingly, all three Wegman acolytes were honored with an annual GMU award for outstanding dissertations in statistics and computational science. However, a closer look betrays not only scholarship problems in the work, but clear failure in the PhD supervision process itself.

It may also be that some heat is being felt behind the scenes. For one thing, Saidâs 2005 dissertation was recently deleted from the George Mason University website. And around the same time, most traces of Saidâs eye-opening presentation on the Wegman panel process were also deliberately removed. That appears to be a clumsy attempt to cover up embarrassing details about the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee 2005-2006 climate investigation, including the key role of Republican staffer Peter Spencer, Representative âSmokyâ Joe Bartonâs long time point man on climate change issues.

Interesting case for the two-faced stance of the religious right. Often complain of people being shut up because they're disagreeing. Look [here](http://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks?gl=US&hl=en#p/u/5/pApEdyhH8rQ) about the bloggers who complain hugely about silencing criticism from themselves. Listen to the quotes from about 3:30. Especially 4:22. Fox should 'pro-actively undermine Rove given his obvious willingness to undermine "us"' (the conservative bloggers).

Test to see if I am still banned

All Hail the Free Market! The Heartland Institute joins the Islamophobia scene.

More of The Australian's war on science?

The Sydney Morning Herald [reports](http://www.smh.com.au/environment/big-business-backs-push-to-cut-carbon…) Big business *backs* push to cut carbon

>INDUSTRY groups are backing BHPâs push for rapid action to put a price on carbon emissions.

The Australian [says](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/business-condemns-carbon-pr…) Business *condemns* carbon price call

>MICHAEL Chaney has joined the chorus of business opposition to BHP Billiton chief Marius Kloppersâs call for a price on carbon.

Shorter The Australian:

>*Business is who or what we say it is*.

Macarthur Coal chairman Keith DeLacy, [says](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/business-condemns-carbon-pr…):

>*"We should not be looking at a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme in advance of the rest of the world," [...] "It will reduce our competitiveness and won't necessarily reduce carbon emissions."*

Shorter Coal Boss:

*The Coalition under Howard was promising a carbon price in th 2007 election that would have "reduce our competitiveness".*

Another Short Coal Boss:

*The GTS reduces our competativeness.*

In reality neither is true, as the price on carbon can be taken off exports and added to imports just as the GST is.

The Oz's go to man is [Michael Chaney](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chaney) director of Woodside Petroleum, the Centre For Independent [sic] Studies, And NAB.

Cheney says:

>*My concern about a carbon tax is that I'm not sure it would have much effect on your CO2 emissions," [...]"People may well just wear it. The price elasticity of petrol seems to be quite low. "There is a short-term effect when petrol prices go up, but people get used to it pretty quickly and they keep using what they used to be using.*

That contradicts a lot of the free market fundamentalism pushed out by his CIS think tank.

But it is also contradicted by the effect of higher petrol pricing in Europe:

>*Driving one mile in the United States currently requires 37 percent more fuel on average than in Europe, due to both the larger average size of vehicles and to less efficient engine technology. [McKinsey Institute 2007](http://www.compete.org/images/uploads/File/ESIS%20Progressive%20Downloa…)*

Markets respond to price signals, and entrepreneurs and investors likewise. Choices offered to consumers will change as the price signal invigorates the market.

As an additional note to my post @320, in [cross national studies](http://books.google.com.au/books?id=v0wl17mRuI8C&printsec=frontcover&dq…) it was found a price on carbon actually [improved competitiveness]( http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2010/2977448.htm).

I think its also interesting that a lot of companies want some sort of price signal on Carbon so that they can meet their social responsibility goals. Its not just a planning or energy security tool.

In terms of the often repeated line,

>We should not be looking at a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme in advance of the rest of the world [...] It will reduce our competitiveness

BHP are saying the reverse. Kloppers said, that if we don't anticipate a global price for carbon now when taking long dated decisions, it will have a competitive impact.

>*if we don't anticipate a global price for carbon now when taking long dated decisions, it will have a competitive impact.*

Capacity contraints are a growing issue. Investment in new generation plant is on hold until there is some semblance of price rangeability.

[This Crikey peice](http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/16/suddenly-the-climate-debate-is-goin…) on BHPs flip is worth a read.

From the Butte County Republican Party blog, which is maintained by none other than (!!!) Anthony Watts:

> You see, if I look at a ballot and I see the designation of "R" or "D," I may not know for sure what that candidate stands for, but at least I have an idea of their general views. Take away the designation and now I have very little to go on. The remedy to this of course is for voters to educate themselves better, but time is limited and the local races often go overlooked. [...]

> With all of this considered, the Butte County Republican Party recently decided to get more involved in local elections. We have been actively vetting candidates to determine whether or not they match our values and deserve our support. We have already made some endorsements this year and we plan to make more. We will do our best to publicize our endorsements so that the voting public will know where we stand and who we support.

An excellent article on carbon pricing:

http://inside.org.au/the-real-cost-of-carbon-pricing/

The "Global Cooling" conspiracy threat has widened to include the Bildeberg Group, according to James Delingpole.

No, really.

John, you might think a sad little wanabee [grunt](http://jamesdelingpole.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/delingpole004.jpg) like Delingpole might take some notice of what the US military [actually think](http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2007/2007-04-16-05.asp).
But of course he's just a little boy who'd rather play at safe conspiracies and dress up.

For those who do not usually listen to ABC's Counterpoint, [Aynsley Kellow was given a second chance to spruik his ideas](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2010/3020300.htm), (and his book) today.

It appears that he holds the rather curious opinion that he knows better than the climate scientists who practise science... He most especially appears to think that he has a better grasp of how scientists should conduct themselves in the domain of scientific self-assessment, than said scientists themselves do.

Yes, this is the arts graduate Aynsley Kellow, the Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen co-author Ansley Kellow.

This is the very definitely scientifically under-informed Ansley Kellow.

A warning - if one chooses to listen to his spiel, do not drink any beverages whilst doing so, and most especially do not drink them near one's computer.

chekieboy @ 328,

you believe anything authoritarian don't you !

unquestioning obedience eh !

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/w0q

akerz you must have done your life savings in the carbon market ? have you ever heard the saying, there is no use flogging a dead horse ?

If you want save the world what other bright ideas have you got ?

or......is that it ?

that's your one and only brain storm ?

burny, shoot's the messenger,

ansley didn't exactly say the word corruption

Sunny, there is an authority which is inherent in relevant, intelligent analysis of a shared situation with verifiable parameters.

You don't seem to know the difference as referenced by any number of the rubbishy links you constantly offer up, having accepted them as authoritative yourself.

There is a difference, although it may not be apparent to you.

Spotty reveals his [paranoid tendencies](http://www.tinyurl.com.au/w0q).

chekieboy @ 331 said 'Sunny, there is an authority which is inherent in relevant, intelligent analysis of a shared situation with verifiable parameters.'

Dream on chekieboy

'Cognitive biases in a consensus seeking environment can produce groupthink. Groupthink is a type of thought within a group whose members try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas that would challenge the consensus. Members of a group may avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of the consensus thinking.'

http://www.tinyurl.com.au/w1z

[Sunny said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2823…)"... without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas that would challenge the consensus".

Seems to me that given the rubbishy links you so eagerly post (some of which you haven't comprehended do not even support whatever case you happen to be making that day) that important clause describes you perfectly.

File under more denialist projection.

> Well that's where you have misunderstood me. I have mentioned neither removing the whole greenhouse effect, nor the magic 33C figure.

Well why are you asking me about YOUR model, Stu? I don't know what you are doing, do I.

*I* am talking about the 33C warmer that the earth is because of greenhouse gasses and their insulation effects.

If you want to talk about removing all CO2, then feel free, but I don't know what you're trying to do with it. If you want to run a complex model about feedbacks to find out what would happen if we changed CO2 alone, this has already been done and the response from denialists:

It's a computer model, therefore GIGO.

Well feel free to make a model up they will accept.

Me? I'll go with "we have 4x here in this atmosphere. Prove this is no longer the case". Which they may get 3x feedback, but they'll not be able to get 1x.

Wow, I'm of the opinion that YOUR model suffers because of the concerns I have raised. I have not constructed a model of my own, merely asked 'what if' questions of your model.

Perhaps I was right yesterday, when I said it really is too neat and simple.

/discussion.

> Wow, I'm of the opinion that YOUR model suffers because of the concerns I have raised.

I don't see how your proposition negates any significant portion.

If, for example, Lars had said it was "simplified", then I would have not responded because, yes, it IS simplified. But instead he went "over simplified" which asserts it is incorrect and quite severely so (pi is 22/7 is simplified, but is it *wrong*?), else there would be no need for "over".

It stands.

> Perhaps I was right yesterday, when I said it really is too neat and simple.

You're probably wrong. You're asserting without proof that just because it's neat and simplified, "it's too good to be true".

Prove it.

The independent errors go up with the geometrical representation of the longest diagonal line between the first and last point, each of which is at a right angle to a dimension of all the other points.

sqrt(2) for two independent errors

sqrt(3) for three

sqrt(4) for four

and so on.

So simple, it can't be true, can it? Too neat to be right, right?

No.

All you have, Stu is "well, you're not taking out the CO2 and working out what happens". Absent a big hoover that can discriminate against CO2 molecules in the atmosphere, we can't do that.

What we HAVE is the current climate. Where CO2 (the most prominent greenhouse gas forcing) is 1/4 of the effect of all the other bits.

Which leads to a sensitivity of 4x.

Prove it wrong.

You'll likely find it gets more nearly close to 3x.

But that isn't "over simplified" if it can, in a range of 1.5 to 6 with a modal value of 3, produce a statistically insignificant different value.

But prove it wrong.

Funny thing, it works. Explain why it works but is "over simplified" or "too neat and simple".

Sometimes the simple things are right.

But feel free to do the work and prove it oversimplified.

The reason I struggle with the simplicity of your model is that it breaks down if you have two different GHGs, each with the same radiative properties of CO2, and say each contributes 1/8th of the greenhouse effect (yes, another hypothetical).

Does that mean that climate sensitivity to each of these gases is 8x?

Why is that wrong? The sensitivity to methane is much higher than for CO2. You don't have a problem there.

If you increase the Unobtanium Gas, then other things will change.

You can either manufacture the gas and see how that turns out.

Or run a model (with assumptions)

Or look at how the system currently acted when it put it all toghether and did its stuff before you got here.

And that would indicate that, absent any strong proof otherwise, that doubling any one would increase temperatures 8x what they do.

But they contribute 1/2 as much current warming, so your direct effect is already half.

Net difference? Nothing.

James Hansen has been arrested for protesting before the White House or something:

http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/28/james-hansen-arrest-coal-protes/

Which media outlets are reporting this story?

>Why is that wrong? The sensitivity to methane is much higher than for CO2. You don't have a problem there.

>And that would indicate that, absent any strong proof otherwise, that doubling any one would increase temperatures 8x what they do.

When you say "8x what they do", you mean 8x the warming from that gas alone before feedbacks, correct? If you do not mean that, please clarify your statement ("8x what they do" isn't 100% clear) and disregard the following.

How can that possibly be? Using your method, the less of the greenhouse effect a gas is responsible for, the more its pre-feedback warming is amplified by feedbacks!

The sensitivity parameter of the climate to longwave forcing is, to first order, independent of the type of gas that does the absorbing so long as that gas is a well mixed GHG. The gas provides a radiative forcing, and that's what the climate responds to, and is how the equilibrium temperature change is altered by feedbacks.

So all of a sudden, just by virtue of only being responsible for 1/8th of the greenhouse effect, feedbacks are able to amplify the effect of the radiative forcing by 8 times instead of 4? The photons don't know which gas they were absorbed and re-emitted by. Climate sensitivity is broadly independent of the cause of the radiative forcing.

Seriously, how does this work??

Well Stu, they're all coupled. So if you up the "Blue" CO2 it upps the "Red" CO2 as well, both up the H2O and therefore you get a "sensitivity" of 8x for running up "Blue" CO2.

Remember, you made up this silly situation with your hypothetical.

>Well Stu, they're all coupled. So if you up the "Blue" CO2 it upps the "Red" CO2 as well, both up the H2O and therefore you get a "sensitivity" of 8x for running up "Blue" CO2.

So you're actually saying that the initial pre-feedback warming effect of, say, methane is amplified approximately 12x* by feedbacks? And yet the same feedbacks only amplify the pre-feedback warming of CO2 only 4x?

That's wrong. The pre-feedback warming is based on the blackbody response to the radiative forcing. The same feedbacks then act regardless of the source of the forcing. The sensitivity parameter is the same.

*using the approximation that methane is responsible for 1/12th of the greenhouse effect.

Nope.

You're OK with methane having a much bigger effect, so why the surprise?

> That's wrong. The pre-feedback warming is based on the blackbody response to the radiative forcing.

Didn't you read the post above yours?

Do so.

You know I'm not 'getting' this, so it would really help me if you answered the question I asked, as plainly and completely as possible; not just yes or nope:

>When you say "8x what they do", you mean 8x the warming from that gas alone before feedbacks, correct? ....So you're actually saying that the initial pre-feedback warming effect of, say, methane is amplified approximately 12x by feedbacks?

Because if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that climate feedbacks will NOT amplify the initial warming from methane by a factor of 12. That would imply that if you put enough extra methane into the atmosphere to get a pre-feedback warming of 1C (or, to put it another way, enough to cause 3.7W/m^2 radiative forcing), you would get an equilibrium warming of 12C.*

*For clarity's sake: this is ignoring that methane decays to CO2. We will keep methane steady at the new level and let CO2 be altered by feedbacks, not decay.

Hey, Deltois'd [mentioned at The Drum](http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3025826.htm) by Tim Dunlop in a great article about the quality of reporting at The Australian!

> When you say "8x what they do", you mean 8x the warming from that gas alone before feedbacks, correct?

yes.

> So you're actually saying that the initial pre-feedback warming effect of, say, methane is amplified approximately 12x by feedbacks?

No.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

You make up a hypothetical case then extend it back to where it isn't a hypothetical.

Go read that post #342 again.

In my hypothetical case the 'blue' CO2 is not tied in a 1 to 1 relationship with 'red' CO2. Why would it be? I never said, nor even implied, that it would be.

Increase 'blue' CO2 and 'red' would simply have the same response to warming as CO2 does in the real world. That does not occur on a 1:1 basis; an artificial injection of 100ppm would not be enough to cause the biosphere to outgas another 100ppm. In my hypothetical everything is the same as in reality, except the effect of CO2 is is made up by two different gases with similar properties to CO2. Why should the sensitivity to each be 8x? Yet that's following the same logic as sensitivity to CO2 in the real world being 4x!

So, upping blue CO2 does not cause 8x the warming, even though it is only 1/8th of the greenhouse effect; it causes 4x the warming, because it behaves like CO2, to which we know the sensitivity is somewhere near 4x the original warming (by other lines of evidence, I might add).

The amount that feedbacks will increase the warming from a greenhouse gas is dependent on the response of the climate system to the forcing that the gas provides. It is not dependent on the proportion of the greenhouse effect that gas originally provided.

Good grief.

It's not 3am in the kitchen after a party, Stu. If you want some intellectual stimulation, stick to the already interesting and complex realities. There's real meat there to get stuck into.

This sort of stuff is far too reminiscent of the far too much time I've spent with philosopher friends with faculties impaired by the combination of booze and fatigue.

Yes, but am I wrong? *strokes chin thoughtfully*

Look, Wow tried to convince me that the fact that CO2 makes up 1/4 of the greenhouse effect means that feedbacks amplify the initial warming 4x, simply due to the inverse of 4 being 1/4. I don't think that's a valid way to estimate sensitivity, and it's just coincidentally in the right ballpark.

You know the saying don't sweat the small stuff? I'm afraid I do... if the small stuff ain't right, what hope have we on the big stuff?

> Look, Wow tried to convince me that the fact that CO2 makes up 1/4 of the greenhouse effect means that feedbacks amplify the initial warming 4x

Except that isn't what I'm doing.

I'm showing that the current atmosphere and climate we have leads to a 4x amplification and that this hurdle needs to be overcome by anyone saying "we don't know what the sensitivity to change is" or "the sensitivity is a lot less than 2x".

If you want, show me your own one, but all you've managed so far is "Nah, you're wrong".

You wouldn't accept that as an opposition to the IPCC report saying "it's 3x" would you? So why use it yourself?

>>Look, Wow tried to convince me that the fact that CO2 makes up 1/4 of the greenhouse effect means that feedbacks amplify the initial warming 4x

>Except that isn't what I'm doing... I'm showing that the current atmosphere and climate we have leads to a 4x amplification...

Hmmm. It seems we're saying the same thing. I use the word feedbacks and you don't, but what else could amplify the initial effect but feedback mechanisms in our current atmosphere and climate?

Additionally, Wow has previously said:

>It is that 1/4 of 33C of warming from greenhouse gasses is CO2, therefore, from that actual visible measure the sensitivity of CO2 would be somewhere around 4x.

And he has sort of alluded to the crucial caveat that CO2 is the primary driver, and all else is feedback that exists because we have CO2; that would make perfect sense. Scale CO2 down to zero and you would have zero greenhouse effect. For every bit of warming you get from CO2, feedbacks amplify it 4 times. This is why in the other thread we were asking whether it's valid to assume zero greenhouse effect if there is zero CO2. This is why I asked how much greenhouse effect might be left if CO2 did not exist in the atmosphere.

But Wow never explicitely stated whether this is the assumption he's making. Should there be a significant greenhouse effect *sans* CO2, it skews the relationship away from 1:4 and so using this method to state that sensitivity is 4x is flawed. Perhaps not massively, but perhaps enough to make it invalid.

If Wow were to state that is an assumption he's making, I'll accept his explaination unhesitatingly.

Heavy snow across the world
http://www.planetski.eu/news/2089

I'll probably regret this...

FWIW (and since my name was mentioned at one point, and noting that I have no special expertise in the matter, and noting that I haven't followed the blow by blow details because I've been too busy)...I'm not sure I buy Wow's argument, and I think as stated it can be more unhelpful than helpful, depending on the audience.

Yes, it can be a good thought-provoking point for *some* types of "skeptics", but it quickly leads to a far larger morass for those types who have a modicum of knowledge and thought to draw upon. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - so they conclude (no doubt incorrectly) that your concern about climate sensitivity is bogus, and it gets even harder to shift them from that point of view despite all the other evidence that points to certain climate sensitivity ranges being most likely.

> I'm showing that the current atmosphere and climate we have leads to a 4x amplification...

I don't believe you are.

You're saying that it's widely accepted that the direct CO2 influence explains about 1/4 of the current warming...which is subtly different from showing that CO2 warming is amplified by 4 (or even approximately 4). In other words, your claim to be "showing" 4x amplification - as currently structured - *ONLY* holds if CO2 is both the ONLY driver AND is not also a feedback.

Yes, I believe you're not claiming that this "4x amplification" *directly* follows in your initial argument. But the way it's expressed it's really easy for most readers to think that you are - and rightly dismiss your argument as unsound - because you haven't laid out the argument for how you get from "the direct effect is 25%" to "so it's really hard to see how amplification could be much below about 3x, right?". And should you lay that argument out (attribution perhaps?), there will probably be any number of points that "skeptics" will - mostly wrongly - dispute.

FWIW I think Stu's argument about red and blue CO2 is entirely trenchant to *your argument as currently structured*. It illustrates that asserting that the "amplification" of any direct influence you care to name is approximately "total warming/direct influence" requires the presumption that the direct influence you are talking about is the *dominant* driver, i.e. responsible for most of the direct (non-feedback) warming. You are asserting or implying this to be true rather than demonstrating it.

And that's ignoring the complicating fact that in our climate system, CO2 is a feedback as well as a forcing (which would suggest that actual sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2 forcing is higher still - which may be true, but perversely makes it harder for "skeptics" to accept your point. But that's their problem, mostly.)

Further to my mention of [Ansley Kellow on Counterpoint this week](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2821…), the [transcript of the piece is now available](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2010/3020300.htm#transcri…).

He spends some considerable time misrepresenting a number of matters, from the investigations of "Climategate" and the IPCC's operation, to the Himalayan glacier error (which was correctly contradicted in subsequent paragraphs, if readers of the report were alert) and the garbage over the Amazon forest loss.

At one point there was this exchange:

Michael Duffy: There were concerns also with the way the IPCC responded when these errors were pointed out, weren't there.

Aynsley Kellow: Yes, Rajendra Pachauri, the leader of the IPCC, attacked the person in India who first pointed this out as practising voodoo science, and it was the usual kind of ad hominem attack. And of course there is this tendency to dismiss any critic as being a denier, which has politicised and made it difficult to conduct decent, critical scientific discussion, critical policy discussion, that you either accept the prevailing view of things or you get labelled a denier. Our former prime minister and our now former climate change minister used to use the word, and I've now got a rule of thumb that anyone who uses the word 'denier' should immediately not be listened to because they're not talking about science, there simply trying to use political rhetoric to marginalise dissenting voices, and that is not what science is about, it is inherently anti-science.

Quite simply, Kellow is blowing it from out of his backside. By Kellow's logic, if one engages a Creationist who denies evolution, and calls said Creationist on his/her denial of the science, then one is being anti-science.

Yeah, riiight...

Duffy makes much of Kellow's status as an expert reviewer of a Chapter of AR4. It is interesting to see the [IPCC's response to Kellow's comments](http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/AR4/FOD_COMMS/Ch19_FOD_comments.pdf) - do a search for 'Kellow' in the PDF and see how many times he was smacked down for his statements... Perhaps Kellow needs to walk a few minutes across the campus and talk with Nathan Bindoff, a quietly-spoken gentleman who was a coordinating lead author for the AR4 chapter on oceans, and who has rather a firm stance about non-scientists who presume that they understand science better that the scientists themselves.

Kellow would piss himself if he were to speak with Bindoff face-to-face. He certainly wouldn't have his crap left undeconstructed.

> You're saying that it's widely accepted that the direct CO2 influence explains about 1/4 of the current warming

No I'm not.

I'm saying that that 4x figure gives a barrier to an explanation of sensitivity significantly below it that hasn't yet been dealt with by denialists.

Or, indeed the pro side here.

Your problem seems to be that you don't like the idea and rather than coming up with a better one, want to shoot it down, and must ignore anything that finds for the case. Or, in most cases, making up what you think I'm saying then saying I'm saying it.

Find a better simple guess reliant on nothing other than logic and direct measurement and propose it or explain why the sensitivity is so very different from 4x, which (since the best guess for sensitivity is 2-4.5 is going to be quite difficult).

> And he has sort of alluded to the crucial caveat that CO2 is the primary driver, and all else is feedback that exists because we have CO2

Primary driver, yes.

"all else is feedback"?

No.

It makes no comment on that, merely waits for someone to come along and explain what is NOT feedback and how it affects that 4x.

NOT ONE OF YOU, not the denialists, not Stu, not Lotharius have managed to do that, never quantify the reduction (or, possibly, increase) to arrive at another figure.

NOT.

ONE.

OF.

YOU.

All you're doing is going "you're wrong" without explaining what's right.

It's a lot easier to kill ideas than to build ones of your own.

And the point of the measure I've given is to show how you need to explain what is wrong and what effect it has on the 4x sensitivity given in this simple example.

NOT ONE OF YOU complaining about it have bothered.

So, if this is the sort of proof you need,

Stu, you're wrong, your assertion about Methane is irrelevant. CO2 4x

Lotharius, you're wrong, your assertion of modicum of knowledge, you've never actually said anything of substance to prove it.

> All you're doing is going "you're wrong" without explaining what's right.

Firstly, of course! Your argument, yours to fix.

Secondly, I didn't go "you're wrong"; I went "the current version of that argument is unconvincing". Ponder how many ways that differs from your characterisation and how that might change your response.

Thirdly, of course! From my quick look at it, I think there **isn't any** "what's right" **until** you fix what's missing from the logic. Naturally opinions may differ on that point, but...:

Fourthly, I provided *reasons* why it was unconvincing to me, which would probably help anyone who felt like trying to improve it. Such as yourself, for example.

Fifthly, just to reiterate, there's never an onus on anyone who has good reason to find a particular argument unconvincing to fix it themselves, although they might choose to do so out of the goodness of their hearts, or something. In particular, this [my edit in bold]:

> ...quantify the reduction (or, possibly, increase) **[or justifiable reasonable likelihood bounds for the same]** to arrive at another figure.

is **your** responsibility. Complaining that no-one else has done this for you is not a good look.

And FWIW I believe you can do better than childish name-calling...

>I'll probably regret this...

I guess so!

Wow, of course it's easier to kill ideas than to build new ones. But we aren't trying to kill your idea, simply trying to understand the ramifications of taking your idea to its logical conclusions. This is what we (well, me mostly) have been trying to do, but you have interpreted this as "*Or, in most cases, making up what you think I'm saying then saying I'm saying it.*"

I think Lotharsson had a good point when he said:

>But the way it's expressed it's really easy for most readers to think that you are [claiming that this "4x amplification" directly follows in your initial argument] - and rightly dismiss your argument as unsound - because you haven't laid out the argument for how you get from "the direct effect is 25%" to "so it's really hard to see how amplification could be much below about 3x, right?".

Which is of course the first thing I said to you on the matter! Shouting at us isn't going to help us understand you. I have asked and now Lotharsson has asked: what is the reason, expressed explicitely and set-by-step if necessary, that the 25% direct effect leads to amplification being at least 3x? It may be intuitive to you, but you cannot assume the same of everyone else. And, as an example of it not being intuitive, you say:

"Primary driver - yes. All else is feedback - no". That makes no sense to me. If CO2 drives the magnitude of the greenhouse effect, how can all else (okay, let's change that to almost everything assuming small secondary drivers) *not* be feedback? If it is neither driver nor feedback, what is it? I do not understand you! You can't be more interested in shouting at me than explaining it clearly, right?

> Your problem seems to be that you don't like the idea and rather than coming up with a better one, want to shoot it down, and must ignore anything that finds for the case.

Your mind-reading and motive imputation skills here are no better than Brent or Tim Curtin's. And that should really give you pause for thought.

Just to be crystal clear - whether I *like* the idea or not, or whether I choose to try and improve it or not is irrelevant to the fact that I do not find your claim:

> ...that that 4x figure gives a barrier to an explanation of sensitivity significantly below it...

convincing, for reasons I have explained. I certainly may be wrong, but your argument has not yet convinced me of that.

And that should *also* give you pause if you're planning to try this argument on "skeptics".

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

There are two upcoming papers relevant to the feedback issue...

>A companion study led by GISS co-author Gavin Schmidt that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that carbon dioxide accounts for about 20 percent of the greenhouse effect, water vapor and clouds together account for 75 percent, and minor gases and aerosols make up the remaining five percent.
>
>However, it is the 25 percent non-condensing greenhouse gas component, which includes carbon dioxide, that is the key factor in sustaining Earth's greenhouse effect. By this accounting, carbon dioxide is responsible for 80 percent of the radiative forcing that sustains the Earth's greenhouse effect.

Thanks Dave.

This seems to answer exactly the question I've been asking:

>By this accounting, carbon dioxide is responsible for 80 percent of the radiative forcing that sustains the Earth's greenhouse effect.

Or, to put it another way, take out the CO2 and after equilibrium is reached you are left with just 20% of the original greenhouse effect.

Wow, do you think this affects your argument much, or is it still a close enough approximation?

I've realised another way to explain what I think is wrong about your argument, which is that it clearly depends on your 'starting position'. You say CO2 provides 1/4 of the forcing, meaning it has a 4x feedback factor. However if we were in a different situation with much less CO2, it would become apparent that CO2 provides much less than 1/4 of the forcing (if we keep our 20% non-CO2 forcing the same). Perhaps we're now in a position where CO2 provides only 1/8th of the forcing. But it's still CO2. Its feedback factor will be the same - there is no physical reason it would now have an 8x feedback factor.

This is why I think your argument results in an answer only coincidentally in the right ballpark, and as such it's misleading and not based on any physics I was ever taught - just the fact that 1/4 = 4 (a fact you drummed into me repeatedly).

Apologies - in the above read 'forcing' as 'total radiative effect of all GHGs'.

> I've realised another way to explain what I think is wrong about your argument

Nope, what you've found is another way of explaining what you think is wrong with what you think is my argument.

> You say CO2 provides 1/4 of the forcing, meaning it has a 4x feedback factor.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

What it means is you have to explain WHY IT ISN'T a 4x feedback.

If CO2 providing 1/4 of the total greenhouse forcing does not mean it has a 4x feedback factor, why should I have to explain why it isn't a 4x feedback factor?

And why did you present that as a full explanation for your argument in the first place?

I'm sorry Wow, you've reached new heights of incomprehensibility. For example, halocarbons provide maybe 1/50 of total GHG radiative forcing. The feedback factor to halocarbons should still be about 4x. Do I have to explain why it isn't a 50x feedback factor?

I don't think you two are as far apart as you seem. Stu, ISTM the objections you've mentioned are almost what Wow is saying they would need to provide to show a lower feedback factor.

Wow:
>What it means is you have to explain WHY IT ISN'T a 4x feedback.

I think it would be better if you said "CO2 accounts for 20%, so you have to explain why it isn't a 5X feedback." Then they could say "because the other non-condensing GHGs account for 5%, so really it's only 4X feedback."

Does that make sense?

You're right that Wow and I can't be too far from eachother on this issue, we both know CO2's initial effect is amplified by feedbacks.

However, we're working from the premise that CO2 provides 25% of the greenhouse effect and if it were the only non-condensible GHG that would mean it has 4x feedback (excluding albedo and, necessarily, carbon cycle changes). I'm wondering (please forgive me if this isn't true) if you have mixed up our assumed 25% direct contribution from CO2 with the 20% of the greenhouse effect that is left if CO2 is removed? Or some other reason why you didn't use 25% as the effect of CO2?

Because if CO2 is directly 25% of the greenhouse effect, and if you take it away 20% of the greenhouse effect is left, then doesn't that indicate CO2 has a 80/25 = 3.2x feedack factor?

That seems to be a fair way of estimating sensitivity, but note that to get a consistent answer you need to consider the proportion of the greenhouse effect that is left. It is not a matter of 1/4 = 4, which I maintain is too simple.

So, alluding to an earlier example, at the start of an icehouse earth scenario you might only have 20% of the greenhouse effect directly caused by CO2. Wow's method gives a 5x feedback factor. But if you remove all the CO2, you find that 34% of the greenhouse effect remains. 64/20 = 3.2x.

Obviously the error bars on this are determined by the errors on the estimate that CO2 directly makes up 25% of the current greenhouse effect and the estimate that 20% of the greenhouse effect would remain if there was no CO2. These errors would be fairly large and 3.2x feedback is just an estimate, but the only way to get a consistent answer if you want to apply this logic over a range of climates (which you surely do if we're dicussing climate change, yes?) is to consider how much of the greenhouse effect remains when you take out the CO2.

...erm, I should mention that the 34% in the above is just an estimate for the sake of argument.

>Or some other reason why you didn't use 25% as the effect of CO2?

That came from the article I quoted:

>A companion study led by GISS co-author Gavin Schmidt that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that carbon dioxide accounts for about 20 percent of the greenhouse effect

(the PDF for that is [here](http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=sc05400j), BTW).

The 20% left that they were talking about was due to the 5% forcing from the remainder of non-condensing GHGs plus the feedback on that.

Yep then we're on the same page.

My main quibble with Wow's argument is that it's only roughly applicable right now because of the exact configuration of the greenhouse effect, and even then it's an overestimation because of other non-condensible greenhouse gases.

Because these problems are (IMO) fairly easy to see, I don't think it's a useful argument against 'sceptics'.

Telling them that only about 20% of the greenhouse effect remains if CO2 is removed would be more useful, but they'll only crow 'GIGO' unfortunately.

>My main quibble with Wow's argument is that it's only roughly applicable right now because of the exact configuration of the greenhouse effect

No, you can approximate the feedback using 1 / {direct effect from all forcing GHGs} regardless of the proportions of the individual forcing GHGs.

If we had only two forcing GHGs, CO2 contributing 1/6 and CH4 contributing 1/12, that would still give 4X.

>Because these problems are (IMO) fairly easy to see, I don't think it's a useful argument

Stated the original way we start from 5X and the "problems" bring it down to 4X. Cutting out the middle step we start from 4X and there are no problems. The end result is the same, the first way just makes them work for it a bit.

>but they'll only crow 'GIGO' unfortunately.

To argue for a lower feedback by disputing the 20% (CO2) and 5% (other forcing GHGs) figures, they would have to argue for the direct effect of either CO2 or the other forcing GHGs (or both) being higher than we think, which is the opposite of what they usually claim. Although it would be nicer if we could get those figures in a luddite-friendly way.

>If we had only two forcing GHGs, CO2 contributing 1/6 and CH4 contributing 1/12, that would still give 4X.

Yep I agree, but I think this whole confusing business started because Wow was talking exclusively about CO2.

I asked, way back, how much greenhouse effect would be left if you took out all the CO2 and let the system equilibriate, as I figured this would be the main source of error in Wow's calculation (thanks again for providing a link). Had he been considering all non-condensible GHGs I could not have had that objection - the next source of error would then be how much greenhouse effect is left from the small amount of water vapour that would remain if there were no other GHGs, but this is evidently very small.

Cheers Stu. I don't know if Wow is still reading this but I think he could agree with that too.

> If we had only two forcing GHGs, CO2 contributing 1/6 and CH4 contributing 1/12, that would still give 4X.

Prove it.

Go on.

I don't think ANY of you understand a frigging word I've said, have you?

Here goes it again:

From a very simple point of proof, using only the measurements and basic science that there is no non-insane dispute of, we get a 4x feedback proposition.

Denialists continue to proclaim that "Ok, maybe there is CO2's warming effect, but it's less than 1x feedback".

If so, prove why we get a 4x from the current system and produce the answer of what it really is.

And you, Stu Pid, have not managed to do ANYTHING other than say "it's different" "you're wrong" and "it's too simple to be true" (the latter being a strawman in addition to not answering the point. then again it's not been about getting the point answered, has it, Stu Pid? It's been about how you're "nice and reasonable" and I'm "mean and nasty". Grow up, kid.)

And, Stu Pid, three people didn't understand your point in rebuttal to the original post on that, yet, for some reason, only one person "got nasty".

Maybe because you ignored anyone else and immediately proclaimed that *I* was the only one therefore I was wrong.

> Wow was talking exclusively about CO2.

No, I was talking about denialists and their insistence that CO2 has a low feedback.

Still you don't get it.

> If CO2 providing 1/4 of the total greenhouse forcing does not mean it has a 4x feedback factor, why should I have to explain why it isn't a 4x feedback factor?

Because you haven't explained why CO2 providing 1/4 of the total greenhouse forcing doesn't mean it hasn't got a 4x feedback factor.

You are making an a priori assumption that then leads to your conclusion.

This is called "circular logic".

>Because you haven't explained why CO2 providing 1/4 of the total greenhouse forcing doesn't mean it hasn't got a 4x feedback factor.

Oh, okay. Here's why:

Other non-consensible greenhouse gases contribute to the greenhouse effect. This means that the total greenhouse effect does not scale on a 1 to 4 basis with carbon dioxide. How could it, when if you scale it down to zero there is still some greenhouse effect left?

> Other non-consensible greenhouse gases contribute to the greenhouse effect.

Like H2O?

Methane turns into carbon dioxide. Methane produced by decay of plants and animals that grew from sequestering hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons produced from CO2 in the atmosphere.

Therefore your proof is no proof.

All I have to do is say "and those are feedbacks from more CO2".

Wow:

If we had only two forcing GHGs, CO2 contributing 1/6 and CH4 contributing 1/12, that would still give 4X.

Prove it.

Go on.

Ok.

If you add the two together that gives you the total contribution from the forcing GHGs. 1/6 + 1/12 = 1/4. So it's a reasonable first approximation that the feedback factor is 4X.

That's exactly the same as your original point, except using a hypothetical example where the proportions of the individual forcing GHGs are different.

I used that example because I wasn't sure whether Stu objected to the idea that we could estimate the feedback using 1 / {total contribution from all non-condensing GHGs}. It turned out he didn't object to that.

In your original, we just had CO2 contributing 1/4 and no other forcing GHGs, which as you said, suggests a 4X feedback factor.

In the recent paper mentioned above, we have CO2 contributing 1/5 and the other forcing GHGs combined contributing 1/20. This also gives the same result: 1/5 + 1/20 = 1/4.

>I don't think ANY of you understand a frigging word I've said, have you?

I don't think I've misunderstood your argument, which I thought was sound in principle.

It seemed from Stu's #371 that he accepted that too and just wanted all the forcing GHGs to be taken into account. Maybe I've misunderstood both of you. Or maybe you've misunderstood both of us. Who can tell anymore?

The only thing I don't understand is how you get your figure of a 25% contribution from CO2 "using only the measurements and basic science". Could you clarify that?

If you could use your method to get the same proportions as the paper mentioned above, or show that it is wrong, that would be even better.

Maybe you can give your answer, rather than the (much easier) denial you have given so far.

What is YOUR figure for the sensitivity?

> It seemed from Stu's #371 that he accepted that too and just wanted all the forcing GHGs to be taken into account.

And if he does that rigorously, then he'll get what..?

Now, is Roy Spencer doing this? No. He isn't even trying.

Oh, and #371 isn't Stu's first post on the subject. This started on another thread.

>Maybe you can give your answer, rather than the (much easier) denial you have given so far.

I'm not sure if that's @ me, but if so then you've definitely misunderstood what I'm saying. I've stated enough times that I think this method is valid for this purpose and that it gives a value of 4X.

>What is YOUR figure for the sensitivity?

["climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C, with a best estimate value of about 3°C."](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-4-5.html).

>And if he does that [all the forcing GHGs to be taken into account] rigorously, then he'll get what..?

4X. Neither Stu nor I object to that. And never mind the rigorously. Roughly will do for this, IMO.

> I'm not sure if that's @ me,

It was Stu.

> "climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C, with a best estimate value of about 3°C.".

Actually, modelling gives 1.5 to 6C.

> 4X. Neither Stu nor I object to that.

Uh, you'll need to read stupid's comments again:

> This means that the total greenhouse effect does not scale on a 1 to 4 basis with carbon dioxide.

> Wow, I'm of the opinion that YOUR model suffers because of the concerns I have raised.
> Perhaps I was right yesterday, when I said it really is too neat and simple.

Me:
>>Neither Stu nor I object to [all the forcing GHGs to be taken into account]

Wow:
>Uh, you'll need to read Stu's comments again:

Wow, earlier:
>>>Because you haven't explained why CO2 providing 1/4 of the total greenhouse forcing doesn't mean it hasn't got a 4x feedback factor.

Stu, in response:
>>__Other non-consensible greenhouse gases contribute to the greenhouse effect__. This means that the total greenhouse effect does not scale on a 1 to 4 basis with carbon dioxide. How could it, when if you scale it down to zero there is still some greenhouse effect left?

Which is correct. If CO2 contributed 1/4 and the other forcing GHGs contributed 1/20, that would give 3.3X.

[It appears](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/open_thread_53.php#comment-2875…) that instead, CO2 contributes 1/5 and the others contribute 1/20, which does give 4X.

Yes I'm happy with all Dave has said, although I will note a minor quibble in that he's only getting exactly the same 4x answer as Wow because of how the figures have fallen; Wow's 25% from CO2 is exactly the same as Dave's 25% from all non-consensible GHGs. Though now I'm pretty sure Wow is saying that the other 5% are pretty much feedbacks anyway via the carbon cycle.

If the 'denial' comment was directed at me I cannot see why; I have even presented an alternative calculation and got an answer of 3.2x feedback factor. Not so different, no denial, just a different method that, I thought, included more variables, was less simplistic, and therefore possibly closer to a true feedback value pre-albedo changes.

However that calculation did mix source material; Wow's original 25% from CO2 (I forget the exact source) and Schmidt et al's 20% left after CO2 is taken out.

I haven't been exercising denial of any kind, nor have I done nothing but simply point a finger at Wow and said 'you're wrong'. If I have been unclear at any point, maybe that's because my judgement was clouded when Wow pissed me right off.

> Stu, in response:

> > Other non-consensible greenhouse gases contribute to the greenhouse effect. This means that the total greenhouse effect does not scale on a 1 to 4 ba

me in response:

> Methane turns into carbon dioxide. Methane produced by decay of plants and animals that grew from sequestering hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons produced from CO2 in the atmosphere.

Why I'm so pissed off is because people here aren't reading what I'm saying, but what they think I'm saying.

Therefore you can't just wave your hand and say "this is because of other gasses".

And, Stu, again, it's 66% H2O, 34% Other, making 3:1 sensitivity.

So, if you include non-CO2, you don't get 4:1.

Which is irrelevant anyway because that's not what I'm asking you to do.

E.g. if you had turned around and said "Well, I think it's even more likely if you take all non-CO2 forcings you get 3:1 and that is a better starting point than 4:1" I wouldn't have anywhere near the problem with you I have.

But no, you go "It's wrong.".

It's easy to tear down something as long as you aren't fussed about building anything in its place.

Ask any denialist.

>E.g. if you had turned around and said "Well, I think it's even more likely if you take all non-CO2 forcings you get 3:1 and that is a better starting point than 4:1" I wouldn't have anywhere near the problem with you I have.

Well that's pretty much what I've been trying to say, so sorry I couldn't articulate it to your liking. But my posts do not just amount to 'It's wrong'; throughout I have been trying to explain what I thought was wrong and why. FWIW I think you got hot under the collar too quickly, shouted me down and just repeated the same point (that is, the point that had caused me concern in the first place). It was like trying to whack a square peg into a round hole with a frying pan.

But I'm not Stu PID. Don't be so damn childish.

Moving on:

I acknowledged your point about methane/carbon cycle in a post above. That much of the other non-condensible GHG longwave flux is feedback to CO2 is probably a reasonable assumption. I note, having had the time to read all of Schmidt et al., that their model does not use a carbon cycle. I also note that in the model they in fact do not let the model equilibriate after removing the CO2 - indeed, they only take the longwave flux over one year and find that it goes down by 14%; no doubt over time the reduction in water vapour etc would bring the total longwave forcing very significantly, but to what I don't know! And yet that elusive figure is still what I'm looking for.

The only hint is when they say

>Indeed, a model simulation performed with zero GHGs gives a global mean temperature changes of about â35°C and produces an ice covered planet

but, d'oh, that includes albedo feedback too, which we don't want. And it dunnae tell you whether they forced the model to have no WV, or let that happen by taking out all the non-condensible GHGs.

>And it dunnae tell you whether they forced the model to have no WV, or let that happen by taking out all the non-condensible GHGs.

They took out all the non-condensing GHGs and let it run for 50 simulation years. It's described in the other paper, which doesn't seem to be available online, but there's more information about it [here](http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/lacis_01/).

>After 50 years, the global temperature stands at -21 °C, a decrease by 34.8 °C. Atmospheric water vapor is at ~10% of the control climate value (22.6 to 2.2 mm). Global cloud cover increases from its 58% control value to more than 75%; the global sea ice fraction goes from 4.6% to 46.7%, causing the planetary albedo of Earth to increase from ~29% to 41.8%.

Grand - good stuff Dave.

Interesting for sure for understanding the greenhouse effect, but I realise how convoluted the thing I'm looking for is; no CO2 (or any non-condensible gases), but also no change in albedo. Such a thing of course is unphysical, but then so is calling the Earth a blackbody, which is just a tool/stepping stone to understanding radiation balance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.

213 Warren -- "Not so with governments,they take your money and give you something of less value in return."

Ah. Warren lets the cat out the bag at last.

226 The Ville -- "Well I know of one scientist (I think American) and his students that had to pay for their own air fares."

Here you go: Myth of the climate science gravy train: scientists studying Greenland forced to pay their own airfares

"Muenchow... was also reduced, because of a lack of funding, to paying his own airfare and that of his students to they could join up with a Canadian icebreaker on a joint research project in the Arctic."

So, Warren, what was that crap about gravy trains again? Oh yes, worth reposting to illustrate how you thoroughly shame and embarrass yourself...

215 Warren -- "And scientists on the government gravy train are going to say,"look guys we really dont have a problem"???Yeah right!Private companies care how their money is spent.When it comes to taxpayers money,its a never ending party."

Pure ignorance.