Every silver lining has its cloud and the climate-energy bill is no exception

After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists -- a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.
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No. You'd simply have to believe that man has nothing to do with any of it. Not a difficult prospect, considering that man doesn't.

Ribbyt: That still doesn't explain how so many scientists could get it so wrong. If you believe that man has nothing to do with it, then in order to reconcile scientific opinion with your views, you have to appeal to conspiracy.

The problem isn't the scientists.

It's the apocalyptic hysteria coupled with proposals that will do nothing significant to reduce emissions, but that will benefit a poweful minority.

Cap and trade is just another government created financial bubble in the making. A few rich people will get even richer by impoverishing everyone else. The only effect on emissions will be to move the point of origin around.

If ribbyt is willing to risk New Orleans, Miami, much of Manhattan, and the entire countries of Bangladesh and the Netherlands on this assertion, I hope he/she has the money to relocate all those people.

It's possible the science is wrong. But the policy of reducing climate-forcing chemical emissions is not about guarantees, it's about risk. Climate legislation is climate insurance. It lessens the risk of severe consequences at a known cost. That's how this effort needs to be described.

ribbyt-

What part of climate change do you disagree with? That CO2 is a greenhouse gas or that doubling that gas in the atmosphere can cause problems?

Why settle for the truth when you have a comfortable illusion?

I am minded of the world political stage of the 1930s. Nevill Chamberlain said it for us all: "I believe it is comfort for our time." Anyone who disagreed and favored taking steps to head off disaster was reviled as an alarmist.

What part of climate change do you disagree with? That CO2 is a greenhouse gas or that doubling that gas in the atmosphere can cause problems?

Posted by: backpacker | June 29, 2009 1:17 PM
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I disagree that man can control the temperature of the planet with his CO2. There is no correlation between the Industrial Revolution and warming of the planet.

As new data of leveling and cooling has poured in, the movement has acknowledged this by changing it's name from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change".

Cooling is warming. So is warming. So is stronger hurricanes. And so is weaker ones. So are more of them and so are less. This is truly silly stuff. Of course I don't "agree" with it.

Ribbyt: That still doesn't explain how so many scientists could get it so wrong. If you believe that man has nothing to do with it, then in order to reconcile scientific opinion with your views, you have to appeal to conspiracy.
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Scientific "consensus" on this subject is a lie. You don't need a conspiracy to tell a lie or to get people to believe it.

But to maintain a lie, especially in a self-correcting process such as science, you need to have deliberate, long-term cover-ups of data and suppression of analysis -- to wit, a conspiracy.

For instance, ever looked into Philip Cooney?

As new data of leveling and cooling has poured in, the movement has acknowledged this by changing it's name from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change".

What do you think the "CC" stands for in "IPCC", which was founded in 1988 (long before the "current cooling trend").

Compare, meanwhile, with the Luntz memo of 2002, which explicitly warned Republicans to use "climate change" instead of "global warming". It also said to emphasize the uncertainty when speaking to the public, which seems silly to anyone who understands science, since science is always inherently uncertain.

Your argument, like Luntz and Cooney, is fundamentally dishonest.

Hi James,
There's a fair bit in the book that addresses your question. It's out July 13. Let me just give another twist on your last statement: "if we do manage to get a climate bill through Congress, it will be despite, not because of, the news media." They're a very, very large party in this.

"F" global warming.... this is America "F" everybody else. I like my cheap energy. Maybe people in those poorer nations should rise up and do something good for themselfs for once.

Not to mention Global warming is a joke. Ive seen alot of reports saying we are on the verge of an ice age. How come there isnt a web site dealing in just the specifics of the climate of the earth for say the last 1000 years..... the problem is they cant really. Weve prolly only had acurate reading for the last 15 years.. Im speaking on a global scale. The tempature on one side of the planet can vary quite a bit from the other.

Is there a climate-change denialism version of Poe's Law?

no, y'all have got it backwards.

to believe in "global warming" is to believe that there is an international group of people who know more about stuff than not just me, but all my friends, and my preacher, and folks that appear on TV! that can't be true. and to believe that anybody can actually understand that stuff. can't be true. hell, i make a good living, and all the folks i know think i'm pretty sharp, and i can't make head nor tail out of all that "stratosphere, ice core, solar output, infrared" stuff. so there's no way you're going to convince me that there's not only a whole bunch of people who understand it, but that they're mostly in agreement about it. no way. if there were anything to worry about, the guys i know are smart would tell me about it.

Is there a climate-change denialism version of Poe's Law?

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Not sure, but the Godwin's law version is whenever anyone invokes Al Gore.

I see the geniuses here don't want to address the complete lack of correlation between the Industrial Revolution and "Warming". Understandable; It does kinda put the "climate change" argument into a food processor and chop it up in tiny unrecognizable pieces.

But go ahead and mention a "preacher" again... that'll show those backwards hick redneck nonbelievers!

I am a scientist and I consider the anthropogenic theory of global warming the biggest scientific fraud of all time. A former believer in AGW, I came to this conclusion after lengthy study and reading of the original scientific data sources and. I began my career by studying chemical engineering and later took a BS in geological engineering and an MS in geology. I can assure you that I know more about the topic of global warming, and the pseudo science behind it, than you do (or 99.999% of the population, movie stars and politicians included).
The following three simple observations demolish the warming argument.
1.VP Gore has it backwards. The geologic (ice) record shows that the CO2 level of the atmosphere increase AFTER warming has already occurred (in response to the warming of the oceans â which as a consequence exsolve CO2 gas â any freshman physics student understands this concept). VP Gore egregiously misrepresents this well documented correlation by implying the CO2 drives temperature when in fact the opposite is true. This is simple fraud. VP Goreâs incorrect association is the very foundation upon which the AGW theory is built.
2.The infamous âhockey stickâ diagram that purports to show an unprecedented and alarming period of warming is a fraud. The data was cherry picked and messaged to get the desired result. Scores of studies (as well as an unbiased reading of history) show that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today. The authors of the âhockey stickâ cooked the data to eliminate this inconvenient truth.
3.Satellite measurements show that the earth has been cooling since 2001. How inconvenient for those computer models.
The earthâs climate has been fluctuating for over 4,000,000,000,000 years (give or take a few). Like the stock market, it will continue to fluctuate with or without our puny anthropogenic inputs. The current warming trend, which began 200 years ago, may continue or abate. However, the current solar cycle (market by a decrease in sun spot activity and a diminishment of the solar wind) suggests that we experience a cooling trend in the immediate future.
I know many other scientists who share my opinion. We are people of good will and are solid professionals with no political axes to grind. Nor are we in the thrall of evil hydrocarbon centric industries. Scientific inquiry should be a dispassionate pursuit, but the debate on AGW has descended into a shrillness of rhetoric that is usually reserved for excommunications and other religious denunciations. That alone should be a red flag.

Even people who claim to be "scientists" often show how severely limited their scientific education really is. As an example: claiming that the earth's climate has been fluctuating for a very long time, like a period that is 250 times older than the age of the universe (give or take a few). Many people who deny global warming or climate change (call it what you want, but it's happening) seem to make the same plea: "My mind is made up (and so is my preacher's). Please don't try to confuse us with the facts." Science is always provisional, but always willing to learn something new if the new ideas give a practical useful slant on things. Religion deals with an absolute kind of "knowledge" that needs to backtrack every so often to avoid looking silly in light of new knowledge.

"I know more about the topic of global warming... than you"

That's an interesting claim. As a scientist, I presume you have the data to back it up? How did you quantify your knowledge and how did you measure mine? Do you also think a degree in geology makes you infallible? For the record I am also a scientist and I say your appeal to your own authority shows you do not think like a scientist but like a very bad rhetorician.

The CO2 lag does not demolish the global warming argument.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-t…

Claiming another scientist's work is 'fraud' is hardly a "dispassionate pursuit" of science. They probably didn't cover component analysis in your statistics for geologists class. But I wouldn't assume such a learned scientist as yourself has any incompetencies. So, in your own words, explain why you think that component analysis is a form of "cherry picking." Perhaps you can make a substantial contribution to the field of statistics.

"Satellite measurements show that the earth has been cooling..."

For such a knowledgeable scientist you have a very imprecise way of speaking. Recent satellite data show a slight cooling trend in the lower atmosphere. That is not at all the same as "the earth is cooling." No reputable scientist would leap to the conclusion that if the lower atmosphere is cooling that must mean the entire Earth is cooling. But then you are only a geologist. I suppose allowances must be made.

BTW: My own degrees are in psychology and information science, which just goes to show that one need not be a climate scientist to understand the issues. Do the names Kruger and Dunning mean anything to you?

Leonard Karr @ #15:

Aside from your obvious "argument from (presumed) authority," I wonder how much you really have studied the topic. Further, there are a number of really smart people who, through no fault of their own, have difficulty wrapping their minds around this concept (Dyson comes to mind).

I find it telling, therefore, that you have cited three well-studied and thoroughly debunked claims...

1. The claim about CO2 trailing temperatures is based primarily on a misunderstanding about the relation between the two. CO2 is, first and foremost, a powerful greenhouse gas. What is conveniently not mentioned about the relationship is that for millions of years there was no industry to churn out any additional quantity, so all fluctuations were due to naturally-directed trapping and releasing. Increased temperatures from other processes will result in a thawing of the areas that hold CO2 naturally, causing them to release it, which in turn has a positive-feedback effect in raising more temperatures. The claim that CO2 initiates the effect is false, as climatologists will tell you, but it is advanced by AGW deniers as a straw man argument. This natural relationship, however, has been influenced by human production of CO2, and now we are seeing the effect of that increase as it creates its well-known temperature increases without the corresponding natural shift. This is the very heart of why it is anthropogenic global warming - we have in effect removed the earth from its normal cycle (where other data suggests we should still be getting much colder).
2. The "hockey stick" was certainly never perfect, but it didn't need to be. It was much better than the previous studies in that it incorporated more data, not less. Before that, the reports used data almost exclusively from Europe - and even then usually from England. Interestingly, it is that earlier, clearly non-representative data that you depend on, since it is the only data that even shows a "medieval warming period" or a "little ice age" at all. Since then, numerous studies have reconstructed the data, using many different independent lines of evidence and much more complete data sets, and while they don't precisely match every bump on the "hockey stick" they overwhelmingly confirm its overall predictions and observations (to include the complete disappearance of your vaunted medieval warming). The original team has even gone back and reconstructed its data based on the very recommendations the scientific community made to make it more accurate, and extended its data set out another seven hundred years, with the same overall results.
3. Satellite data is but one form, and it is interesting that you would cherry-pick there to make a claim otherwise not backed. Usually the claim is that 1998 was the warmest recent year, not 2001, but they are close enough here that it makes no difference. Heat can be stored in numerous places, and can shift around between them. The air, the surface, and (especially in the case of our vast oceans) under the surface are all part of that system, and satellite data only measures one. The shifting of those temperatures from one storage medium to another is well-known, and is well represented in the models (for example, El Nino/La Nina). Additionally, the models are but one part of a larger collection of ever-growing evidence, which is increasingly supplemented by direct observation, and to assume that any minor error in those models (especially when the error isn't there, as in now) somehow invalidates the entire field is ridiculous.

So far you're 0/3. What else do you have?

The earthâs climate has been fluctuating for over 4,000,000,000,000 years (give or take a few). Like the stock market, it will continue to fluctuate with or without our puny anthropogenic inputs. The current warming trend, which began 200 years ago, may continue or abate. However, the current solar cycle (market by a decrease in sun spot activity and a diminishment of the solar wind) suggests that we experience a cooling trend in the immediate future.

Aside from overstating the climate lifespan by roughly 1000 times, you make a fallacy in assuming a priori that such anthropogenic inputs are "puny." This is exactly what the data is increasingly showing to not be the case.

Further, the solar cycle was low even as temperatures continued to rise in the 90's, and newer data suggests the forcing effect from the sun has historically been extremely weak.

I know many other scientists who share my opinion. We are people of good will and are solid professionals with no political axes to grind. Nor are we in the thrall of evil hydrocarbon centric industries.

Again, appeal to authority. Are these scientists climate experts? Hobbyists? Can you really be sure there are no axes to grind? If you have no data to present and your criticism of the actual data depends on erecting a straw man, then the net effect is that you don't get taken seriously no matter how noble you may be.

You last state that science should be a dispassionate pursuit. I could not disagree more strongly. It is the passion to understand the world around us, the excitement of sharing the discovery, and the concern for what it means about our lives that motivates a committed scientist. It is that same passion that will make them sit up and take notice when true contradictory data emerges, and embrace that new knowledge as closer to the truth. The shrillness of rhetoric you claim to so deplore is being hurled at us (fraud/hoax/job security/etc), not by us. When we have to get to the point of calling someone a denier, it is because that is exactly what they have done - they have denied (at minimum) either the copious evidence or the natural conclusions drawn from it, and hold onto their position with all the intensity (and lack of honesty) of a "true believer."

For more on the specific three points mentioned above, see the following videos as an introduction:

CO2 Leading vs. following - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJeqgG3Tl8

Medieval Warming Period/"Hockey Stick" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrKfz8NjEzU

Supposed Cooling within the Last Decade - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y15UGhhRd6M

Science is always provisional, but always willing to learn something new if the new ideas give a practical useful slant on things. Religion deals with an absolute kind of "knowledge" that needs to backtrack every so often to avoid looking silly in light of new knowledge.
------------------------

And if this debate had anything to do with "science vs. religion", your amusingly dissonant take on the subject would be relevant. Meanwhile, any time anyone wants to visit the hard scientific non-religious fact, "The Industrial Revolution has not coincided with warming" is welcome to.

Leonard Karr @ #15:

Aside from your obvious "argument from (presumed) authority," I wonder how much you really have studied the topic. Further, there are a number of really smart people who, through no fault of their own, have difficulty wrapping their minds around this concept (Dyson comes to mind).

I find it telling, therefore, that you have cited three well-studied and thoroughly debunked claims...

1. The claim about CO2 trailing temperatures is based primarily on a misunderstanding about the relation between the two. CO2 is, first and foremost, a powerful greenhouse gas. What is conveniently not mentioned about the relationship is that for millions of years there was no industry to churn out any additional quantity, so all fluctuations were due to naturally-directed trapping and releasing. Increased temperatures from other processes will result in a thawing of the areas that hold CO2 naturally, causing them to release it, which in turn has a positive-feedback effect in raising more temperatures. The claim that CO2 initiates the effect is false, as climatologists will tell you, but it is advanced by AGW deniers as a straw man argument. This natural relationship, however, has been influenced by human production of CO2, and now we are seeing the effect of that increase as it creates its well-known temperature increases without the corresponding natural shift. This is the very heart of why it is anthropogenic global warming - we have in effect removed the earth from its normal cycle (where other data suggests we should still be getting much colder).
2. The "hockey stick" was certainly never perfect, but it didn't need to be. It was much better than the previous studies in that it incorporated more data, not less. Before that, the reports used data almost exclusively from Europe - and even then usually from England. Interestingly, it is that earlier, clearly non-representative data that you depend on, since it is the only data that even shows a "medieval warming period" or a "little ice age" at all. Since then, numerous studies have reconstructed the data, using many different independent lines of evidence and much more complete data sets, and while they don't precisely match every bump on the "hockey stick" they overwhelmingly confirm its overall predictions and observations (to include the complete disappearance of your vaunted medieval warming). The original team has even gone back and reconstructed its data based on the very recommendations the scientific community made to make it more accurate, and extended its data set out another seven hundred years, with the same overall results.
3. Satellite data is but one form, and it is interesting that you would cherry-pick there to make a claim otherwise not backed. Usually the claim is that 1998 was the warmest recent year, not 2001, but they are close enough here that it makes no difference. Heat can be stored in numerous places, and can shift around between them. The air, the surface, and (especially in the case of our vast oceans) under the surface are all part of that system, and satellite data only measures one. The shifting of those temperatures from one storage medium to another is well-known, and is well represented in the models (for example, El Nino/La Nina). Additionally, the models are but one part of a larger collection of ever-growing evidence, which is increasingly supplemented by direct observation, and to assume that any minor error in those models (especially when the error isn't there, as in now) somehow invalidates the entire field is ridiculous.

So far you're 0/3. What else do you have?

The earthâs climate has been fluctuating for over 4,000,000,000,000 years (give or take a few). Like the stock market, it will continue to fluctuate with or without our puny anthropogenic inputs. The current warming trend, which began 200 years ago, may continue or abate. However, the current solar cycle (market by a decrease in sun spot activity and a diminishment of the solar wind) suggests that we experience a cooling trend in the immediate future.

Aside from overstating the climate lifespan by roughly 1000 times, you make a fallacy in assuming a priori that such anthropogenic inputs are "puny." This is exactly what the data is increasingly showing to not be the case.

Further, the solar cycle was low even as temperatures continued to rise in the 90's, and newer data suggests the forcing effect from the sun has historically been extremely weak.

I know many other scientists who share my opinion. We are people of good will and are solid professionals with no political axes to grind. Nor are we in the thrall of evil hydrocarbon centric industries.

Again, appeal to authority. Are these scientists climate experts? Hobbyists? Can you really be sure there are no axes to grind? If you have no data to present and your criticism of the actual data depends on erecting a straw man, then the net effect is that you don't get taken seriously no matter how noble you may be.

You last state that science should be a dispassionate pursuit. I could not disagree more strongly. It is the passion to understand the world around us, the excitement of sharing the discovery, and the concern for what it means about our lives that motivates a committed scientist. It is that same passion that will make them sit up and take notice when true contradictory data emerges, and embrace that new knowledge as closer to the truth. The shrillness of rhetoric you claim to so deplore is being hurled at us (fraud/hoax/job security/etc), not by us. When we have to get to the point of calling someone a denier, it is because that is exactly what they have done - they have denied (at minimum) either the copious evidence or the natural conclusions drawn from it, and hold onto their position with all the intensity (and lack of honesty) of a "true believer."

For more on the specific three points mentioned above, see the following videos as an introduction:

CO2 Leading vs. following - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJeqgG3Tl8

Medieval Warming Period/"Hockey Stick" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrKfz8NjEzU

Supposed Cooling within the Last Decade - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y15UGhhRd6M