Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[FJAG]

All of which, incidentally, highlights why you should trust scientists on climate change: They know what they don't know and are honest about it . . .

Back in 2007 the Nobel committee awarded a shared Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC re climate change. IPCC's chairman wrote to IPCC affiliated academics that this "makes each of you Nobel Laureates." There were some 9,000 contributors to the report. Many of these individuals now refer to themselves, or allow themselves to be referred to as "Nobel Laureates. Several years later the Nobel committee made it clear that only IPCC as an organization had received the prize and not any individual. The IPCC posted a disclaimer on its web site that it was incorrect for any one official or scientist who worked on the report to call themselves a "Nobel Laureate". IPCC did not issue a press release or send a message to its contributors to correct their misunderstanding/misuse of the honour.

Honesty. Sorry. These folks are fallible people like all of us. I've had years of working on boards and committees and have long ago learned to watch out for people who volunteer to do a job. While many are individuals who truly want to help out and share the task, many are also there to pad their resumes or to try to influence/hijack the committee to propound their own particular agendas.

When it comes to honesty in science I have only one criteria. Scientists should never express their conclusions in absolute terms when the evidence is equivocal. I don't deny global warming. I don't deny that there are human generated greenhouse emissions which play a part in global warming. Where I see the problem is that there are many factors and effects that the band wagon scientists cannot explain (such as Antarctic ice recovery, lack of increased hurricanes, declining temperature rise in the face of increased CO2 levels and basically why their 2007 award winning computer models didn't work). The fact of the matter is that there has been climate change long before humans emitted greenhouse gases.

I say this half facetiously but the whole Climate Change rhetoric reminds me of the religious concept of "Intelligent Design". In Intelligent Design every time that a scientist cannot establish a clear link of evolutionary progression, the proponents say well that's clear proof of an intervention by an intelligent creator. Same for Global Warming. Any time its proponents can't find a clear scientific explanation for a warming trend, its written off as a result of human induced greenhouse gases. My hope is that there will now be more concerted study of the various anomalies recorded in the data and we can get on with "honest" scientists studying just what is really going on without all the scaremongering.

:stirpot:

[url}http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/09/26/9000-nobel-pretenders/[/url]

 

[Kilo_302]

Back in 2007 the Nobel committee awarded a shared Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC re climate change. IPCC's chairman wrote to IPCC affiliated academics that this "makes each of you Nobel Laureates." There were some 9,000 contributors to the report. Many of these individuals now refer to themselves, or allow themselves to be referred to as "Nobel Laureates. Several years later the Nobel committee made it clear that only IPCC as an organization had received the prize and not any individual. The IPCC posted a disclaimer on its web site that it was incorrect for any one official or scientist who worked on the report to call themselves a "Nobel Laureate". IPCC did not issue a press release or send a message to its contributors to correct their misunderstanding/misuse of the honour.

Honesty. Sorry. These folks are fallible people like all of us. I've had years of working on boards and committees and have long ago learned to watch out for people who volunteer to do a job. While many are individuals who truly want to help out and share the task, many are also there to pad their resumes or to try to influence/hijack the committee to propound their own particular agendas.

When it comes to honesty in science I have only one criteria. Scientists should never express their conclusions in absolute terms when the evidence is equivocal. I don't deny global warming. I don't deny that there are human generated greenhouse emissions which play a part in global warming. Where I see the problem is that there are many factors and effects that the band wagon scientists cannot explain (such as Antarctic ice recovery, lack of increased hurricanes, declining temperature rise in the face of increased CO2 levels and basically why their 2007 award winning computer models didn't work). The fact of the matter is that there has been climate change long before humans emitted greenhouse gases.

I say this half facetiously but the whole Climate Change rhetoric reminds me of the religious concept of "Intelligent Design". In Intelligent Design every time that a scientist cannot establish a clear link of evolutionary progression, the proponents say well that's clear proof of an intervention by an intelligent creator. Same for Global Warming. Any time its proponents can't find a clear scientific explanation for a warming trend, its written off as a result of human induced greenhouse gases. My hope is that there will now be more concerted study of the various anomalies recorded in the data and we can get on with "honest" scientists studying just what is really going on without all the scaremongering.

:stirpot:

[url}http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/09/26/9000-nobel-pretenders/[/url]

That is suggesting that you are somehow more qualified than thousands of scientists to interpret the data. There are plausible explanations for each of the trends you mentioned, but they aren't 100% on them, so they haven't published those theories yet. If you read the link I posted, and the others earlier on this thread, each of your points is addressed, and rebutted. You can still disagree, but that would mean you have access to information know else does?

 

[Jed]

Back in 2007 the Nobel committee awarded a shared Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC re climate change. IPCC's chairman wrote to IPCC affiliated academics that this "makes each of you Nobel Laureates." There were some 9,000 contributors to the report. Many of these individuals now refer to themselves, or allow themselves to be referred to as "Nobel Laureates. Several years later the Nobel committee made it clear that only IPCC as an organization had received the prize and not any individual. The IPCC posted a disclaimer on its web site that it was incorrect for any one official or scientist who worked on the report to call themselves a "Nobel Laureate". IPCC did not issue a press release or send a message to its contributors to correct their misunderstanding/misuse of the honour.

Honesty. Sorry. These folks are fallible people like all of us. I've had years of working on boards and committees and have long ago learned to watch out for people who volunteer to do a job. While many are individuals who truly want to help out and share the task, many are also there to pad their resumes or to try to influence/hijack the committee to propound their own particular agendas.

When it comes to honesty in science I have only one criteria. Scientists should never express their conclusions in absolute terms when the evidence is equivocal. I don't deny global warming. I don't deny that there are human generated greenhouse emissions which play a part in global warming. Where I see the problem is that there are many factors and effects that the band wagon scientists cannot explain (such as Antarctic ice recovery, lack of increased hurricanes, declining temperature rise in the face of increased CO2 levels and basically why their 2007 award winning computer models didn't work). The fact of the matter is that there has been climate change long before humans emitted greenhouse gases.

I say this half facetiously but the whole Climate Change rhetoric reminds me of the religious concept of "Intelligent Design". In Intelligent Design every time that a scientist cannot establish a clear link of evolutionary progression, the proponents say well that's clear proof of an intervention by an intelligent creator. Same for Global Warming. Any time its proponents can't find a clear scientific explanation for a warming trend, its written off as a result of human induced greenhouse gases. My hope is that there will now be more concerted study of the various anomalies recorded in the data and we can get on with "honest" scientists studying just what is really going on without all the scaremongering. :stirpot:

[url}http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/09/26/9000-nobel-pretenders/[/url]

Now that is a very apt analogy.

Just as I accept Darwin's teachings and yet at the same time have a strong faith and belief in God, I remain very sceptical of the consensus of these so called objective and critically thinking Climatology Scientists.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

That is suggesting that you are somehow more qualified than thousands of scientists to interpret the data. There are plausible explanations for each of the trends you mentioned, but they aren't 100% on them, so they haven't published those theories yet. If you read the link I posted, and the others earlier on this thread, each of your points is addressed, and rebutted. You can still disagree, but that would mean you have access to information know else does?

Perhaps if these thousands of scientists had been more outspoken when zealots hijacked the agenda, I might be more willing to trust their word now. Or are "deniers" still to be jailed?

Meh. Climates change.  By definition. 

Better to adapt, like our ancestors did after the last ice age.

 

[Nemo888]

The IPCC was 66% sure in 2001, 90% sure in 2007 and currently 95% certain.

If a panel of the world's best doctors were 95% sure you had terminal cancer that could be cured by simple lifestyle changes wouldn't you make them?

 

[FJAG]

That is suggesting that you are somehow more qualified than thousands of scientists to interpret the data. There are plausible explanations for each of the trends you mentioned, but they aren't 100% on them, so they haven't published those theories yet. If you read the link I posted, and the others earlier on this thread, each of your points is addressed, and rebutted. You can still disagree, but that would mean you have access to information know no else does?

FTFY

I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that I am suggestion that I am "somewhat more qualified than thousands of scientists". It's their computer models and predictions which fail to explain the data. I claim no expertise whatsoever.

I've been following the thread and the links (even yours to Chris Mooney at MotherJones - he's got a BA in English, not in science. He makes his living on the backs of controversial science and politics. I don't consider him an expert but just a reporter with an agenda who reports what he thinks is relevant.). The simple fact is that there is a lot of scientific literature out there, most pro, some con, and one has to take much of it on faith - but not blind faith. One ought to be sceptical, even in the face of consensus, when it is apparent that there are players in the game with vested interests.

I'm usually on the side of science without much scepticism, but let's face it in the history of science there have been literally thousands of cases of consensus on a scientific issue which subsequently fell to the wayside when better data became available. I sense--I don't say that I know, or even that I suspect--I just sense that there's more to Global Warming than the scientists have a handle on.

Maybe it's because in the 1970s I was told we'd run out of oil by 1984; or maybe its because I detest Gore so much that I was even glad to see that dimwit Bush beat him; all I know in the end is that if you're going to yell "Fire" in a crowded theatre, you'd better be sure that there are flames, not just a 0.12 degree rise in temperature a decade over the last seventy years (Oh yeah, except the last 15 years where the rate is only 0.05/decade).

Anyway, my post wasn't to call myself an expert on the topic but only to point out that a bunch of these folks called themselves, or let themselves be called Nobel Laureates when they had merely been one of thousands of scientists who contributed to a report that got the Peace Prize (and note it was the Peace Prize and not a scientific prize). It reminded me that academia was a "publish or perish" environment and that sometimes one had to take great care about the positions such folks take when they gang up on their dissenting peers--especially when you personally don't have the qualifications to interpret the data--and especially when billions or  trillions of dollars are at stake.

:cheers:

 

[FJAG]

The IPCC was 66% sure in 2001, 90% sure in 2007 and currently 95% certain.

If a panel of the world's best doctors were 95% sure you had terminal cancer that could be cured by simple lifestyle changes wouldn't you make them?

Your analogy fails on the words "simple lifestyle changes".

:cheers:

 

[Nemo888]

I said simple, not to be confused with easy. I lived off grid for a few years. It wasn't that bad. If my kids needed me to make that sacrifice so they could enjoy the same sustainable lifestyle I'd have to be a right prick to refuse. I'm not the last bloody generation on earth.

 

[a_majoor]

David Suzuki is exactly the reason we should be sckeptical.

As a geneticist who studied mutations in fruit flies, he is only qualified to speak on that subject as an expert. He is quite free to offer an opinion (as is everyone else), but having him claim some sort of special privilage or expertise isn't born out by the facts (see above for his embarrasing performance in Australia). Having him expound on climate as an expert makes as much sense as him coming to Gagetown and instructing on a machine gun course.

The vast majority of people involved are only offering opinions, not facts and analysis. And I note with interest that when people do look at facts and analysis (historical data like the European Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, real temperature data from 1998-present not matching the computer predictions, the actual amounts of arctic ice vs the predicted models, the temperature of other planets in the solar system etc.) they get shouted down the loudest, even though they are using the scientific method.

Makes you wonder....

 

[Kilo_302]

David Suzuki is exactly the reason we should be sckeptical.

As a geneticist who studied mutations in fruit flies, he is only qualified to speak on that subject as an expert. He is quite free to offer an opinion (as is everyone else), but having him claim some sort of special privilage or expertise isn't born out by the facts (see above for his embarrasing performance in Australia). Having him expound on climate as an expert makes as much sense as him coming to Gagetown and instructing on a machine gun course.

The vast majority of people involved are only offering opinions, not facts and analysis. And I note with interest that when people do look at facts and analysis (historical data like the European Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, real temperature data from 1998-present not matching the computer predictions, the actual amounts of arctic ice vs the predicted models, the temperature of other planets in the solar system etc.) they get shouted down the loudest, even though they are using the scientific method.

Makes you wonder....

Yes but the latest report addresses all the concerns you just raised. As do the links I have posted repeatedly in this thread. Everyone knows that the planet as not warmed as much in the last 15 years, and many believe that's because the oceans are bearing the brunt, and we do  not measure average global temperature in the ocean. And yes arctic ice extent is larger this year than it was the last. But we don't roll a dice 50 times and only measure the last 3 rolls to obtain an average number. This is pretty basic stuff here.

The latest report admits what we don't know, and is still unequivocal in its assertion that warming is caused by human activity and IS happening. Nothing I have seen on this thread suggests that anyone here is more qualified or has access to a different set of data than the likes of NASA or the Met. Are you suggesting that scientists are not aware of the European Warm period?

Though I have to admit it would be hilarious if Suzuki DID show up to Gagetown and turned out to be an expert machine gunner.

 

[Jed]

Yes but the latest report addresses all the concerns you just raised. As do the links I have posted repeatedly in this thread. Everyone knows that the planet as not warmed as much in the last 15 years, and many believe that's because the oceans are bearing the brunt, and we do  not measure average global temperature in the ocean. And yes arctic ice extent is larger this year than it was the last. But we don't roll a dice 50 times and only measure the last 3 rolls to obtain an average number. This is pretty basic stuff here.

The latest report admits what we don't know, and is still unequivocal in its assertion that warming is caused by human activity and IS happening. Nothing I have seen on this thread suggests that anyone here is more qualified or has access to a different set of data than the likes of NASA or the Met. Are you suggesting that scientists are not aware of the European Warm period?

Though I have to admit it would be hilarious if Suzuki DID show up to Gagetown and turned out to be an expert machine gunner.

If he does, let's appoint him NCO of the butt party.  8)

 

[Kilo_302]

Here is a link that I posted earlier. It refutes, I think, all of the main arguments against the notion of anthropomorphic climate change. I would encourage those of you who have reasonable science based arguments to find your argument at the link and read the associated rebuttal. The rebuttals are well sourced, using mainly scientific primary documents.

http://grist.org/series/skeptics/

Here also is a link to the executive summary from the latest IPCC report, just so we all know what we are referencing.

http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf

 

[FJAG]

Nothing I have seen on this thread suggests that anyone here is more qualified or has access to a different set of data than the likes of NASA or the Met.

The reason you don't see that is because none of us are trying to convince you of the rightness of our opinions. All we are doing is explaining why we are still sceptical.

I appreciate the fact that you feel a burning desire to convert us to the righteousness of your cause. I honestly don't mind it although some of the articles which you post like the one from grist.org remind me of those little Watchtower flyers that get passed out at the corner of the street to try to convert one to becoming a Jehovah's Witness. I give them about the same amount of credence (have you even noticed that the blogger who wrote those articles describes himself as a "Former musician, turned tree planter, turned software engineer" ?) 

That said I think, as a generality, most of us here on the dark side don't deny the general concepts of Global Warming. What we are is sceptical as to the drama it has engendered and whether it merits some of the extreme solutions being propounded. You'll have a hard row to hoe to get us on board.  :brickwall:

:cheers:

 

[Kirkhill]

You'll have a hard row to hoe to get us on board.

Today's Kirkhill Award for the most gloriously mixed metaphor goes to .....

;D  :cheers:

By the way I agree with your points.

 

[cavalryman]

That said I think, as a generality, most of us here on the dark side don't deny the general concepts of Global Warming. What we are is sceptical as to the drama it has engendered and whether it merits some of the extreme solutions being propounded. You'll have a hard row to hoe to get us on board.  :brickwall:

Very well said!  Probably the most accurate statement of the entire thread  ;D

 

[Kilo_302]

The reason you don't see that is because none of us are trying to convince you of the rightness of our opinions. All we are doing is explaining why we are still sceptical.

I appreciate the fact that you feel a burning desire to convert us to the righteousness of your cause. I honestly don't mind it although some of the articles which you post like the one from grist.org remind me of those little Watchtower flyers that get passed out at the corner of the street to try to convert one to becoming a Jehovah's Witness. I give them about the same amount of credence (have you even noticed that the blogger who wrote those articles describes himself as a "Former musician, turned tree planter, turned software engineer" ?) 

That said I think, as a generality, most of us here on the dark side don't deny the general concepts of Global Warming. What we are is sceptical as to the drama it has engendered and whether it merits some of the extreme solutions being propounded. You'll have a hard row to hoe to get us on board.  :brickwall:





:cheers:

I am certainly aware of the author's lack of credentials. What he has done is placed all the arguments in one place. But everything is sourced well, which is what I have been emphasizing.  I also don't think the solutions are all that extreme. If without climate concerns, emissions cause thousands of deaths, have been linked to respiratory illness and a host of other problems. Just today for example, a US study was released that found the cost of wind energy per kilowatt is cheaper than that of coal once other associated costs are counted. By embracing these "extreme" solutions we are really just improving the conditions in which we live. And still saving lives.

 

[Haletown]

the global warming thingy is so over, a dead end of public policy initiatives.  AR5 SPM gets released and within 24 hours is virtually out of the news cycle. 

Nobody gives  a crap anymore. The Euros are pulling back from their shoot  themselves in the foot energy policies, the world is just awash in hydrocarbons and ordinary people are beyond fed up with the incessent far mongering and green hysteria. Folks just want to get on with enjoying life rather than know-tow to some self anointed doomsday cultists who believe Al Gore made a truthful documentary.

You can believe the IPCC and their vaunted computer models or you can believe reality as measured by actual temperature data.  But you cannot believe both. 

Your choice, have a nice life.  And pray for Ontario because the nutters running that economy onto the rocks are still chugging from the global warming cup of climate hysteria.

Can't wait until w start shipping Alberta oil by rail to the BC coast and then over to China.  Going to make this lady reprise her angst that she felt when she was photographed at NDP HQ the night Christy Clark spanked the BC NDP.

 

[FJAG]

. . .  And pray for Ontario because the nutters running that economy onto the rocks are still chugging from the global warming cup of climate hysteria. . . .

Yes please do.

I live down here in SW Ontario on the shores of Lake Erie. From my front porch I can see 18 wind turbines, the closest is 750m away (I've measured it on Google Earth). I quite frankly don't mind them but am worried about how they impact my property value because quite a few people have concerns about them. (I can't hear them; I doubt that they impact my health with electro-magnetic radiation; and I figure any bird that flies into the blades will result in Darwinian natural selection in favour of those birds who don't)

What pisses me off the most is that their power costs Hydro One about four times as much as hydro/nuclear power and that, notwithstanding their proximity to my house, I have a monthly "delivery" cost on my hydro bill that typically exceeds my actual power consumption costs by about 10-15%.  :clubinhand:

 

[a_majoor]

I feel your pain FJAG.

Every day when I go down to the gym or over the causeway in Kingston I see the forest of wind turbines on Wolfe Island standing like the Martian Tripods from "War of the Worlds". There is one consant in my observations: they are usually still during peak demand times and are spinning merrily during off peak times.

I hope the State of New York is enjoying the $.04 KW/h price they are paying for the wind turbine energy, since we have to dump it during off peak times to keep the grid stable (even more ironic when there are two perfectly good thermal generators down the road that provide 8% of the entire grid demand for the Province), while consumers are stuck with paying  $.135 KWh for wind vice the $.08 KWh for conventional sources.

Kilo, once you track those price differentials and realize the ONLY reason they exist is to line the pockets of Green crony capitalists (or pay for their mistakes) then you will understand the real and deep opposition to global warming moonshine. Since the Vikings didn't cause global warming when they were farming Greenland, and NASA isn't causing Martian warming by idling their rovers, then it is a pretty big stretch to think that the smaller amounts of global warming in the 20th century have much, if anything, to do with human agency.

 

[Kilo_302]

I understand the aesthetic complaints about wind, my cottage is on the Bruce Peninnsula and there are plans for turbines right across the lake from us. It would spoil our view, and probably affect our property value. But isn't mountain top removal more radical? Or fracking (which can contaminate drinking water for miles around)? We like to have our energy "out of sight, out of mind" but that's not the reality for people who live close to these projects. There's also the argument to be made that seeing the source of our energy might push us to conserve (conserve...conservative?) a bit more.

On a related note, here's an article which points out how the latest conclusions of the IPCC are actually conservative, as they always have been:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/sep/27/ipcc-climate-change-report-global-warming