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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The Thread Where Everyone Argues If Man-Induced Climate Change Is Real
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
I was using 'theory' in a more general sense, no need to be quite so picky.
Well, if you use a phrase lack "poor science" in describing a theory, I assumed you were using 'theory' in the sense of scientific theory. And, for that matter 'poor science' in relation to standard assessments of the quality of scientific work. I'm not sure how anyone reading your posts could have assumed anything different.
quote:
I'm not disputing climate modelling is good science, I'm certainly beginning to argue that science driven by an agenda which deliberately disregards available data can ever produce anything but garbage out.
But, by definition, science driven by any agenda other than seeking to understand the nature of physical reality isn't good science. If you're right that climate modelling is driven by some political agenda (or, indeed philosophical or religious) then you can't claim it to be good science. And, by definition, good science will consider all relevant data (that data may then be rejected for various reasons that relate to how well founded it is). If you're right that climate scientists deliberately disregard available data then, again, you can't claim that climate modelling is good science.
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Above I linked a page for you to read asking for your comments
Here it is again: http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/
Sorry, I didn't have time to look over that yesterday, which is why I didn't reply to it. My first thoughts on that paper are that he doesn't seem to be saying anything that any half-decent glaciologist would already know. It quite often happens when someone outwith a particular discipline (though he does have extensive glaciology experience, he's primarily a radiological protection scientist) starts looking at published data from that discipline, as he hasn't spent years studying the field he doesn't realise that the obvious problems with data analysis haven't already been addressed and incorporated into the analysis, or at least into the uncertainties associated with the analysis. Second, I notice his one citation for "glaciologists attempting to prove the correction" is for his own individual work without any comment on whether others have tried to replicate his work.
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Why didn't the IPCC take this into consideration?
How do you know they didn't? It's old work, and as it presents apparently serious problems with the way ice-core data is analysed relevant to many different fields of study using that data must surely be known by scientists in the relevant disciplines. It's not my field and I don't have time to do any literature search to find out how it's been addressed by the glaciology community (and, doing a search outwith one's own discipline is difficult anyway), but I assume it has been addressed.
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The IPCC claim that we now have the highest temperatures for two millenniums is also strongly disputed. I noticed on a wiki page that Mann wrote a letter in 2006 in which he brought attention to the title of his paper, is this backtracking now?
Mann's protagonist duo, McIntyre and McKitrick, have a web page here on the history of this argument: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html
The discussion about the "hockey stick" has been ongoing and lively since the publication of the 2001 IPCC reports (and, indeed, before that). I've not got time to got through recent IPCC publications just now, but I did read somewhere following the release of the summary a few weeks ago that the report includes considerable discussion of the "hockey stick", precisely because it has been so heavily investigated. The conclusion is that the evidence for the "hockey stick" is far stronger than against.
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Why should I believe the IPCC reports when the consensus pre the global warming theory from many and varied sources showed distinct variations in temperature, distinctive enough to be called the Medieval Warm followed by a mini ice age which only finished in the 1800's?.
Yes, there were such variations in temperature. The IPCC acknowledges that. I still don't see why they're relevant. They're relatively small, and slow changing, climatic variations largely limited to one part of the global. The more recent changes are
a) larger: recent temperature increases are approximately 1°C above a long term average I just estimated from this plot compared to the MWP of about 0.3°C above that and LIA about 0.5°C below.
b) much more rapid: the WMP peaked after about 400 years, the recent increase has only been going for about 100 years and is already twice the increase above that long-term mean.
c) global in extent: we're seeing definite warming in all parts of the world (with small parts bucking that trend due to particular geographical circumstances), the MWP and LIE were almost exclusively associated with Europe.
d) associated with a substantial increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, with associated mechanism for further warming, that were largely absent in the earlier MWP.
I'm going to skip over a set of quotes and links to CO2science.org. Why? Because I can't be bothered to read stuff on a website for an organisation that well known to be neither objective nor impartial, nor even one that draws expertise from relevant disciplines. I guess I'd better justify that. CO2science is funded, in part at least, by oil companies; that certainly puts a big question mark over their impartiality and objectivity. Their scientific advisors include soil scientists, plant biologists, consultants to "energy and natural resource companies", plasma physicists, agriculturalists - but only one climatologist (and, he's basically just the guy that collects meteorological data for Oregon). Hardly the sort of expertise one would expect for an organisation that claims to speak authoritatively on the subject of climate change.
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You keep mentioning this "last 50 years" - if there is anything of minute proportion in our atmosphere to be concerned about I think we should be wondering what atom bombs and nuclear testing and the casual use of such in conventional war heads as in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan and Iraq has had on us, the earth and its inhabitants - and, any idea how much of the CO2 was created by wars over the last century?
Those all sound like anthropological inputs to the environment to me. For the sake of this discussion I'm not sure if it makes that much difference why we're burning fossil fuels and otherwise polluting the globe. As it happens, I'm all in favour of taking steps to reduce the chances of wars - if that reduces fossil fuel use int he process then it's a bonus.
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Anyway, my basic argument as it's developed here is that climate change is our norm, and our contribution no different in category than breathing out and farting of other animals populating the earth in the past and now gone forever after being a small blip in a very long period of time...
Well, certainly climate change is the norm. The climate is a complex system of feedback loops subject to non-linear dynamics. As such, change is pretty much inevitable. The question is, are the current changes similar to other changes (such as the MWP and LIA) that have natural causes or not? The answer is clearly "not" - they're much larger than anything other than the end of a glaciation, much more rapid and at the wrong time to be associated with a natural process (a change of similar magnitude to the end of a glaciation when we're not in a glaciation is just not normal for the climate over the last several million years).
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The point is that if one's base line is the Medieval Warm which many others show to have been much warmer than today then the IPCC chosen data is a different base line.
OK, this is my very last comment about baselines. Because I simply don't have the time to keep banging my head against a brick wall. Go back to the plot from wikipedia I just linked to again. We could follow the IPCC and state that current temperatures are 0.4°C above the 1961-1990 mean. That in my mind is reasonable - it's a period for which we have good global coverage of instrumental measurements so don't need to rely on proxies, it's a period within the memory of most people (the "we don't get as much snow as when I were a lad" argument) and so is readily understandable to most people, and it's a period when the global climate was relatively stable.
But, we could just as easily say the current temperature is 1.2°C above the coldest part of the LIE. Or, 0.5°C above the warmest part of the MWP. Or, 14°C above the freezing point of water. It makes no difference, it's still the same temperature, still the same rate of increase.
[got my coding a bit wrong]
[ 21. February 2007, 11:32: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Following a selection of 1970's quotes about global cooling ... quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
So where's all the data supporting this gone now?
Did they say anything about CO2 levels? Why were they so sure that temperatures had actually dropped in the twentieth century? Etc.
The data is still there on record. What has happened is that as more data was collected what at first appeared to be an increase in temperature through the late 1960s well within the uncertainties of the very slow downward trend turned out to be the first stages of a significant upward trend. In the early 70's that wouldn't have been obvious without a crystal ball. Even in the 1970's, good instrumental data on the global climate only went back a few decades so they were working with a less than perfect data set for the assessment of long-term changes.
And, yes, even then scientists were aware of CO2. Many of the scientific papers predicting further cooling had phrases like "in the absense of large increases in CO2 atmospheric concentrations". There were definite uncertainties about how CO2 was going to change at the time. The rate of future CO2 emissions from human activity was assumed to be low by todays standards - it was a time when it wasn't clear how long cheap fossil fuels would be available, coal was predicted to run out quickly and oil was suddenly unreliable (remember the fuel crises?) and it was the halcyon days of nuclear power that was going to be "too cheap to meter". And, it was even less clear how the biosphere would respond to fossil carbon in the atmosphere - was photosynthesis going to increase and simply mop it all up?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Noiseboy
Shipmate
# 11982
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Posted
On the 70's cooling quotes, none of these are from peer-reviewed science journals (if you want to read how Newsweek by its own admission got it's facts hopelessly wrong, read here and here). Peer reviewed science never advocated a dramatic near-future global cooling theory. If you are serious about investigating ACC - or any science for that matter - you have to disregard the popular media and stick to peer-reviewed papers and peer-reviewed scientists' discussion.
Meanwhile, you still haven't attempted to answer the question of why every government in the world is now convinced by the science, despite in some cases spending many years denying ACC (and having strong motives to do so). A conspiracy theory only works if there is a motive - you have to provide one that includes the USA, China and France.
Doesn't it occur to you that you may - just may - have missed something that all the governments of the world and all the climate scientists of the world haven't?
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Well, if you use a phrase lack "poor science" in describing a theory, I assumed you were using 'theory' in the sense of scientific theory. And, for that matter 'poor science' in relation to standard assessments of the quality of scientific work. I'm not sure how anyone reading your posts could have assumed anything different.
OK, let me rephrase that. The Global Warming theory based on Mann's data is not even a theory constructed as it is on flawed data and altogether bad science for disregarding data contradicting the global warming scare fantasy.
quote:
But, by definition, science driven by any agenda other than seeking to understand the nature of physical reality isn't good science. If you're right that climate modelling is driven by some political agenda (or, indeed philosophical or religious) then you can't claim it to be good science. And, by definition, good science will consider all relevant data (that data may then be rejected for various reasons that relate to how well founded it is). If you're right that climate scientists deliberately disregard available data then, again, you can't claim that climate modelling is good science.
Well then there's an awful lot of bad science going on in this field.
I think climate modelling is still very much in its infancy and so an exciting time to be working on it, but it seems to me rather a lot of scientists think they are walking when actually they haven't yet got out of the pram.
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[Re http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/Why didn't the IPCC take this into consideration?
quote:
How do you know they didn't? It's old work, and as it presents apparently serious problems with the way ice-core data is analysed relevant to many different fields of study using that data must surely be known by scientists in the relevant disciplines. It's not my field and I don't have time to do any literature search to find out how it's been addressed by the glaciology community (and, doing a search outwith one's own discipline is difficult anyway), but I assume it has been addressed.
Er, 1997 old for such a 40 year study?! This conclusion utterly destroys the one thing you've been using here to brow beat me into accepting CO2 as the gun and man as the culprit pulling the trigger! ...I think it bad science to continue promoting your view without answering it since this contradicts the basic premise of an unprecedented rise of 80ppm etc., etc.
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The discussion about the "hockey stick" has been ongoing and lively since the publication of the 2001 IPCC reports (and, indeed, before that). I've not got time to got through recent IPCC publications just now, but I did read somewhere following the release of the summary a few weeks ago that the report includes considerable discussion of the "hockey stick", precisely because it has been so heavily investigated. The conclusion is that the evidence for the "hockey stick" is far stronger than against.
Not what I've been reading, I think it's so far from off course from common findings from field data as to be thoroughly discredited, pretty obvious really when you compare his time line with already well established and continually being affirmed data, from tree, ice core samples and so on.
http://www.lavacap.com/climate1.htm
quote:
Why should I believe the IPCC reports when the consensus pre the global warming theory from many and varied sources showed distinct variations in temperature, distinctive enough to be called the Medieval Warm followed by a mini ice age which only finished in the 1800's?.
quote:
Yes, there were such variations in temperature. The IPCC acknowledges that. I still don't see why they're relevant. They're relatively small, and slow changing, climatic variations largely limited to one part of the global.
As above, this is so far off beam it's ridiculous. These changes were dramatic, the Medieval Warm Periiod created a considerably different climate in the Northern hemisphere to what we have now, it was hotter than now - stuff grew in the north where it doesn't grow today. It was followed by the Mini Ice Age which again radically changed the northern climate. We are still in the warm up coming out of the MIA and haven't yet reached the temperature of the MWP.
quote:
The more recent changes are
a) larger: recent temperature increases are approximately 1°C above a long term average I just estimated from this plot compared to the MWP of about 0.3°C above that and LIA about 0.5°C below.
b) much more rapid: the WMP peaked after about 400 years, the recent increase has only been going for about 100 years and is already twice the increase above that long-term mean.
c) global in extent: we're seeing definite warming in all parts of the world (with small parts bucking that trend due to particular geographical circumstances), the MWP and LIE were almost exclusively associated with Europe.
d) associated with a substantial increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, with associated mechanism for further warming, that were largely absent in the earlier MWP.
Interesting graph, would you re-do the calculation taking out the disputed Mann line?
Ah, forget it, (just been looking up Hughes and Diaz as a start to finding out about the others), too complicated I think as the data contains IPCC biased contributors, and one has shown he is prepared to tailor his science to his agenda.
From a presentation given on the Hockey Stick Debate:
quote:
D. Deming, Science 1995“With the publication of the article in Science [in 1995], I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
quote:
An uninformed reader would be forgiven for interpreting the similarity between the 1000-year temperature curve of Mann et al.and a variety of others also representing either temperature change over the NH as a whole or a large part of it (see the figure) as strong corroboration of their general validity …. Unfortunately, very few of the series are truly independent: There is a degree of common input to virtually every one, because there are still only a small number of long, well-dated, high-resolution proxy records. Briffa and Osborn, Science [1999]
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:-ZAQ_O_siyEJ:www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/316.pdf+hughes+and+Diaz&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2
[www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/316.pdf]
Anyway, back to your "C" - I'm beginning to wonder if the fear about global warming isn't 'caucasian' led - but I'll come back to that when I can get to answer your next post.
Re "D" - As before, you have yet to show me actual data about rises in CO2.
But: Of interest is an observation on CO2 in Antartic data, where CO2 is shown to decrease slowly as temperatures fall and to rise rapidly when warming begins. See posts 108 and 110 on http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/
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I'm going to skip over a set of quotes and links to CO2science.org. Why? Because I can't be bothered to read stuff on a website for an organisation that well known to be neither objective nor impartial, nor even one that draws expertise from relevant disciplines. I guess I'd better justify that. CO2science is funded, in part at least, by oil companies; that certainly puts a big question mark over their impartiality and objectivity. Their scientific advisors include soil scientists, plant biologists, consultants to "energy and natural resource companies", plasma physicists, agriculturalists - but only one climatologist (and, he's basically just the guy that collects meteorological data for Oregon). Hardly the sort of expertise one would expect for an organisation that claims to speak authoritatively on the subject of climate change.
Strange attitude for a scientist. There's a wealth of information on that site - surely if there are genuine studies of interest to climatologists and they're not being taken into consideration then one needs to ask, why not?
Hmm, I wrote the above before exploring Hughes and Diaz et al as a start to finding out more about the other timelines, see above. So, why should I trust IPCC not to be biased? The more I explore this subject the less impressed I am with their work and the integrity of their contributors, and I'm rapidly thinking that "corrupt data" might be more than simply ignoring conflicting evidence...
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Those all sound like anthropological inputs to the environment to me. For the sake of this discussion I'm not sure if it makes that much difference why we're burning fossil fuels and otherwise polluting the globe. As it happens, I'm all in favour of taking steps to reduce the chances of wars - if that reduces fossil fuel use int he process then it's a bonus.[qb][quote]
But how much have wars contributed to the rise of CO2?
[QUOTE][qb]Well, certainly climate change is the norm. The climate is a complex system of feedback loops subject to non-linear dynamics. As such, change is pretty much inevitable. The question is, are the current changes similar to other changes (such as the MWP and LIA) that have natural causes or not? The answer is clearly "not" - they're much larger than anything other than the end of a glaciation, much more rapid and at the wrong time to be associated with a natural process (a change of similar magnitude to the end of a glaciation when we're not in a glaciation is just not normal for the climate over the last several million years).
Seems to me from what I've read on glaciation that such rises and drops are normal and what we're in now is the end of an interglacial in a continuing temperature drop from the peak it reached from its mid term (10ky), and this I'll also add to when I get to reply to your last post.
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OK, this is my very last comment about baselines. Because I simply don't have the time to keep banging my head against a brick wall. Go back to the plot from wikipedia I just linked to again. We could follow the IPCC and state that current temperatures are 0.4°C above the 1961-1990 mean. That in my mind is reasonable - it's a period for which we have good global coverage of instrumental measurements so don't need to rely on proxies, it's a period within the memory of most people (the "we don't get as much snow as when I were a lad" argument) and so is readily understandable to most people, and it's a period when the global climate was relatively stable.
But, we could just as easily say the current temperature is 1.2°C above the coldest part of the LIE. Or, 0.5°C above the warmest part of the MWP. Or, 14°C above the freezing point of water. It makes no difference, it's still the same temperature, still the same rate of increase.
OK, and my last comment on baselines. Firstly, the general public is presented with the scare tactic of greatly increased temperatures since the Industrial Revolution and this is against a period which was dramatically colder in the major industrialised nations BECAUSE it was a MINI ICE AGE. If it had been insignificantly colder why would it have come to be called such a thing? Of course it is hotter now because we're still coming out of it.
Secondly, a base line which contrary to the mass of field observations and presenting a practically non existent change in what are well known to be dramatically different climates of the MWP and MIA is a different base line, measuring present temperatures against such claimed non events makes no sense at all.
I'm disputing the accuracy of your base line.
What are you interested in here? To understand our climate or to prove a theory regardless of the supposed objectivity scientists claim to have?
Myrrh
Posts: 4467 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
Myrrh, earlier on this thread I used to read all the wacko sites you quoted but I can't be bothered any more. Your silly assertions that the massed climate scientists of the world are ignoring the truth, discarding real data and perpetrating some conspiracy (to what purpose we can only wonder) and we're all being conned seems... well (I'm bending over backwards to be civil) ... rather unlikely.
I think now anyone reading this thread just scrolls past your clearly deluded assertions and waits for Alan who is someone who really does know a little bit (understatement) about science to utterly destroy your arguments and pisses all over you intellectually. It's become entertainment.
Thank God you don't have any influence in the real world.
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Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
-> pisses all over your arguments
too late!
Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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Noiseboy
Shipmate
# 11982
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Posted
Again, Myrrh has ignored the central and most crucial question of why we - the humble laypeople - should believe the analysis of someone who starting looking into this subject a week ago rather than the thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to studying the science.
Myrrh - I'll assume that your persistence in refusing to answer the point of any conspiracy between all the world's governments and scientists is because you have no answer. My suspicion is that - for whatever reason - you believe because you want to believe. For anyone to take you seriously, you need to demonstrate why the peer-review process is terminally faulty - if you do so, you qualify for the bonus of bringing down all science. Over to you.
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
OK, let me rephrase that. The Global Warming theory based on Mann's data is not even a theory constructed as it is on flawed data and altogether bad science for disregarding data contradicting the global warming scare fantasy.
The observations of recent anomalous global warming is based on more than the findings of a single scientist. It's based on the observations of 1000s of scientists in many different countries, using different methods. Some of that data shows the recent warming to be stronger, other data shows it to be weaker. Some data shows features like the LIA and MWP more clearly than other data. All of that data is included in the assessments of what's happening - to do otherwise makes the whole exercise meaningless. To quote the IPCC SPM, quote:
Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years. Some recent studies indicate greater variability in Northern Hemisphere temperatures than suggested in the [2001 report], particularly finding that cooler periods existed in the 12 to 14th, 17th, and 19th centuries.
Does that sound like they're ignoring data that shows cooler periods for the LIA?
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Well then there's an awful lot of bad science going on in this field.
I quite agree. But, which science is bad - the science that takes all the available data into consideration, or the oil-producer funded research that seeks to do little more than rubbish the majority of the data that shows an anomalous rise in global temperatures in recent years?
quote:
Er, 1997 old for such a 40 year study?! This conclusion utterly destroys the one thing you've been using here to brow beat me into accepting CO2 as the gun and man as the culprit pulling the trigger!
Ten year old studies are fairly old in a rapidly moving field. Especially studies that purport to demonstrate major procedural problems with the collection of primary data - such studies are always examined carefully by good scientists in the field. And, everything I've seen of the work of bodies such as the IPCC is that they're careful to assess all data, especially that data which contradicts their findings. The main criticism I've seen of the IPCC from climate scientists is that the recent report cuts out data that shows that the changes observed or predicted are going to be more extreme, rather than less.
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quote:
The discussion about the "hockey stick" has been ongoing and lively since the publication of the 2001 IPCC reports (and, indeed, before that). I've not got time to got through recent IPCC publications just now, but I did read somewhere following the release of the summary a few weeks ago that the report includes considerable discussion of the "hockey stick", precisely because it has been so heavily investigated. The conclusion is that the evidence for the "hockey stick" is far stronger than against.
Not what I've been reading
Then you really need to read some more. Try this Nature article about how the US NAS last year affirmed that the "hockey stick" is an accurate description of recent climate (even though it criticizes the way the graph has sometimes been used. Note that it says the hockey stick "has coloured the climate-change debate for nearly a decade". It really has been discussed to death. The way that the IPCC SPM puts it is "Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years." ... ie: the hockey stick still holds true.
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I'm going to skip over a set of quotes and links to CO2science.org. Why? Because I can't be bothered to read stuff on a website for an organisation that well known to be neither objective nor impartial, nor even one that draws expertise from relevant disciplines.
Strange attitude for a scientist. There's a wealth of information on that site - surely if there are genuine studies of interest to climatologists and they're not being taken into consideration then one needs to ask, why not?
Why do you think that that's strange? Scientists are inundated with information. We simply can't read and assimilate everything, and apply common-sense filters to make the task manageable. The first filter is relevance - if you can't cope with papers in your own field, don't start trying to read tons of stuff from other fields. The second is the source - papers in peer reviewed journals are more likely to be good than other stuff, and some journals are better than others. In the case of the website in question, if their data is any good it'll be published in the peer reviewed journals that the top researchers in the field contribute to and read. If the studies there aren't being taken into consideration (and, it's quite possible that they are being considered) it's going to be largely because they're not good enough science to get into the top peer reviewed publications.
quote:
What are you interested in here? To understand our climate or to prove a theory regardless of the supposed objectivity scientists claim to have?
Here, I'm interested in discussing the causes of climate change. I don't have to prove a theory, that's more than adequately done (to the extent that any theory can be 'proved') by 1000s of scientists in more relevant fields of study than mine.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
you have yet to show me actual data about rises in CO2.
For the long term record, this plot from the 2001 IPCC Scientific Basis report shows the correlation between temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations over several glaciations and interglacials.
For more recent periods, this plot shows CO2 concentrations, in particular note (b) which shows the CO2 concentrations since 800AD from ice cores. Now, compare that to this plot of northern hemisphere temperatures. I couldn't find a plot with both together, but put the two side by side and you'll see a remarkable correspondance. Exactly as you'd expect from the physics that says "more CO2 = more heating".
Incidentally, you'll see that the temperature plot (yes, that's the famous 'hockey stick') shows the very downward general trend to 1900 that you were earlier claiming proved global cooling. Just so you know that the IPCC didn't ignore that data either.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Why do you think that that's strange? Scientists are inundated with information. We simply can't read and assimilate everything, and apply common-sense filters to make the task manageable. The first filter is relevance - if you can't cope with papers in your own field, don't start trying to read tons of stuff from other fields. The second is the source - papers in peer reviewed journals are more likely to be good than other stuff, and some journals are better than others. In the case of the website in question, if their data is any good it'll be published in the peer reviewed journals that the top researchers in the field contribute to and read. If the studies there aren't being taken into consideration (and, it's quite possible that they are being considered) it's going to be largely because they're not good enough science to get into the top peer reviewed publications.
I think that goes right to the heart of not only public confusion/misinformation about climiate change, but on many other scientific subjects that are politically charged--embryonic stem cells research comes to mind. The general public has a poor understanding of both the scientific method and the peer review process. Thus, when you have one or two people with PhD after their name on a talking heads show going off about ignored research, the Joe Public doesn't understand why that may be the case.
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
The general public has a poor understanding of both the scientific method and the peer review process.
Sometimes even practicing scientists have a poor understanding of the scientific method. You can succeed quite well in science working under an illusion that totally objective empirical data exist, or that a piece of data that contradicts a theory automatically falsifies that theory. Though, the peer review process is much more clearly understood by scientists - once you've had a paper rejected, or even accepted but subject to major correction, then you know how hard getting stuff published can be.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
Again, Myrrh has ignored the central and most crucial question of why we - the humble laypeople - should believe the analysis of someone who starting looking into this subject a week ago rather than the thousands of people who have dedicated their lives to studying the science.
Myrrh - I'll assume that your persistence in refusing to answer the point of any conspiracy between all the world's governments and scientists is because you have no answer. My suspicion is that - for whatever reason - you believe because you want to believe. For anyone to take you seriously, you need to demonstrate why the peer-review process is terminally faulty - if you do so, you qualify for the bonus of bringing down all science. Over to you.
Noiseboy - I haven't been deliberately avoiding answering anything, I have had a problem with finding the time to work on this and organise the wealth of material I've found which shows the real cause of 'global warming' - the general human proclivity to jump onto bandwagons to promote themselves or their pet causes, not that I'm disparaging pet causes per se, but it takes only a few to become the loudest voices moving whole populations into irrational and, our history is proof enough, often very evil acts - your assertion that world wide government participation is proof that global warming is a reality is tempting the use of examples which might encourage some to invoke Godwin's law, but, I haven't seen any real proof of such a creature as would fit 'conspiracy theory', which assumes some intelligence directing and manipulating everyone for its own purpose, but rather the more prosaic dumb and dumber scenario of various interests making use of an idea which in turn has generated its own energy in gathering momentum and still producing high levels of CO2 in the hot air promoting fear of the wrong threat which itself could be only farting in the wind of change which may rather be bringing global cooling.
As a 'humble lay person' I take umbrage with your implication that makes us incapable of analysing the situation for ourselves, it's become very clear even after so short a foray into this murky world that there are also "thousands who have dedicated their lives to studying this" who give a completly different picture. This could only not matter to you if you have your own interest prompting the use of ear plugs every time you hear them.
The common error in such arguments is to attribute, as has been done here, falsity to conflicting information if the source is one that might obviously be thought of as biased by those claiming their own view correct - try and resist doing that, as I hope you will in future resist the urge to insult me by equating neophyte with stupidity and I will resist thinking false any data you produce as the product of gullible wagon pushers, because this tends to block objectivity. Certainly, if it can be shown that any particular bias is affecting an actual change to the data then it should be noted, but learning is best done in maintaining an attitude of open inquiry, and I joined in this discussion to learn, as I said. In other words, I prefer information rather than insults to support any position in this.
What is this mythical beast "peer review" you claim supports your position? Saying one's data has such a thing isn't proof that one has it.
There are many who say the IPCC's bias has taken it over the edge into deceit. This if true could be evidence that the promotion of their view overrides real science and consequently their data should be discounted entirely if wanting to understand climate.
Some accusations here: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/hot.htm United Nations' Experts Doctor Evidence
'Hot Politics' by James M. Sheehan (July 1996)
And the example as given by Chris Landsea in his letter of resignation from the IPCC posted to 45 of his colleagues.
You of course are at perfect liberty to believe that the IPCC data are true and not produced driven by its own agenda, but Chris Landsea resigned because his work was discounted in the IPCC's interest to promote its hobby horse and worse, shows complete disregard for the integrity of a contributor - that is not objective science, but manipulative deceit.
Since this is proof the IPCC has shown itself willing to pervert truth for its agenda it is only sensible to be wary of taking at face value information coming from it, if one's interest is in understanding climate, as mine is.
Myrrh
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and thanks for all the fish
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Though, the peer review process is much more clearly understood by scientists
The misery, the tyranny, the abject failure... yes, I understand it well.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Noiseboy
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# 11982
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Posted
Myrrh - if my last posting was indeed offensive I apologise. It came from frustration that you persistently ignored the fundamental questions I put to you, and drawing inference from the refusal to engage. Since you have now answered some of these questions, we can now continue a debate.
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
As a 'humble lay person' I take umbrage with your implication that makes us incapable of analysing the situation for ourselves, it's become very clear even after so short a foray into this murky world that there are also "thousands who have dedicated their lives to studying this" who give a completly different picture. This could only not matter to you if you have your own interest prompting the use of ear plugs every time you hear them.
I'll ignore the jibes here, and focus on our mutual roles as lay people in the science. We can indeed look up the science ourselves, but (unless you are far more qualified in this field than I am) we must tread with care. It is possible that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists and unanimity of governmental advisors have got their collective intellectual knickers in a twist. But being that you and I have studied this subject for a few hours and others have for many thousands, I have to adopt a base position of intellectual humility until I see strong evidence of a systematic weakness.
You cite the IPCC process as systematic weakness. Again, if this is true I have to ask the question - why are countries such as America not shouting this blatant ploticization from the rooftops? By contrast, they now say the argument is "beyond debate" and accept the IPCC's conclusions. You have still not addressed this central question, unless your answer really is "dumb and dumber". At this point, we are left with the notion that the overwhelming majority of scientists and every single world government from every political ideology is stupid. Hmm.
BTW, your example of Chris Landsea concerns Hurricane strength which the IPCC still acknowleges is nowhere near as certain as ACC (see Wikipedia summary).
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
What is this mythical beast "peer review" you claim supports your position?
Here is how peer review works.
Here is Science Journal's meta analysis of 928 peer reviewed journals on climate change. The number who contradict ACC - 0. Even if you reject everything the IPCC does, this still lies in your path. And even if you ever find one subsequently supporting your view, that would make it at the most 0.1% of peer reviewed journals. The summary Science article also helpfully points out all other other organisations that have backed ACC.
Hope this helps.
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Noiseboy
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# 11982
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Posted
Being as it seems so obviously relevent to this thread, I Thought I'd get in first before a documentary is shown on UK Channel 4 on Thursday 8th March. It is called The Great Climate Change Swindle, and as the title suggests, puts forward the theory that the whole ACC thing is a load of old tosh.
It might be helpful ahead of time to know the background of the film's director, Martin Durkin. Durkin has a somewhat dubious track record with Channel 4 documentaries. In 1999, he made one about breast implants which claimed that they actually reduced the risk of breast cancer (in the face of all the available science, the BBC already rejected the idea, unsurprisingly). One of the programme's researchers resigned in protest during pre-production at Durkin's ignorance. After transmission, two contributors Sally Kirkland and Ilena Rosenthal from the Humantics Foundation for Women Breast Implants, wrote to the Guardian "...it appears that the American silicone manufacturers' highly financed PR campaign to hide the real dangers of breast implants of all kinds has now been exported to Britain and broadcast by C4/Equinox."
In 2000 he made a documentary on genetic engineering (Modified Truth) for the Equinox strand - one of the participants (a geneticist called Dr Mae-Wan Ho) said “I feel completely betrayed and misled. They did not tell me it was going to be an attack on my position.” Perhaps Perhaps Durkin's piece de resistance (well, until now, that is) was 1997's Against Nature - again for the ever-Durkin-tolerant Channel 4. The programme put forward the idea that environmentalists in general were bad for science. After an investigation by the Independent Television Commission, Channel 4 had to broadcast a prime-time apology, which stated: 'Comparison of the unedited and edited transcripts confirmed that the editing of the interviews with [the environmentalists who contributed] had indeed distorted or misrepresented their known views. It was also found that the production company had misled them... as to the format, subject matter and purpose of these programs.'
Following his stellar track record, Channel 4 has decided to give Durkin some more money. The result - "The Great Climate Change Swindle" - is broadcast next week. I hope the ITC (or rather Ofcom as they are now) are ready.
So what can we expect from the documentary? Well, for one thing it conatins an interview with Paul Reiter. Reiter is an "eminent scientist" who was involved with the IPCC, but he reports that he resigned after they ignored his input which contradicted the so-called consensus. He scoffs "consensus is the stuff of politics, not science" - an odd statement that puts the theory of evolution in apparent jeapordy, among thousands of others. He goes on to claim that he forced the IPCC to remove his name after he threated legal action - "that's how they make it seem like all the top scientists agreed. It's not true". Pretty damning stuff. It would, however, be slightly more damning if Reiter was not involved with no less than four separate organisations that receive funding from ExxonMobil.
The central claim of the documentary, apparently, regards the famous Hockey Stick graph showing a dramatic recent rise in global temperatures. The claim is that original paper which produced the graph contained an error in the data - so therefore ACC doesn't exist. Unfortunately, numerous other independent researchers have all subsequently come to exactly the same hockey stick conclusion, and the source of their claim was debunked 18 months ago (source) .The documentary will also claim that the sun's rays are causing global warming, despite this actually only accounting for a tiny percentage of the actual change according to the consensus of genuine climate scientists.
No doubt those who have motives for denying ACC will lap up this documentary anyway, despite the track record of the director (already censured by the ITC for misrepresentation) and the participants (funded by the oil lobby). No doubt they will still ignore the actual work of genuine, independent science. But I thought I'd write this for anyone else who might see the film and get confused by what appears to be conflicting information against the consensus. After all, It's always worth knowing in advance if you think you are going to be lied to.
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Noiseboy
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# 11982
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
While I'm hesitant to re-open the debate, UK readers of this thread may be interested in a programme on Channel 4 tonight called the The Great Global Warming Swindle.
I'll be watching with interest.
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Indeed... and excuse the lack of modesty, but do make sure you read the preceeding post!
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Clint Boggis
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# 633
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Posted
No, just reminding people.
Oh alright. It's embarassing to have one's stupidity pointed out in public. I thought I'd read the end the thread last time I was here but clearly not.
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Zealot en vacance
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# 9795
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Posted
The C4 prog. The bit that got my attention was the african guy near the close talking about the misery of 2 billion people living without electrical power; and that the climate change agenda was effectively pressuring their governments to keep things that way. Cheap electricity for all: lets start a campaign.
FWIW, it is not my field but I don't believe the man-induced climate change story. Not that I think it is a good idea to needlessly pollute or be wasteful, simply that mankind's efforts are not on a scale large enough to seriously upset the environment. Who remembers Milankovitch cycles; remains the best explanation for large scale fluctuations in global climate purely from natural causes. We are currently in an ice age: permanent polar ice is unusual in the Earth's geological history; normally the climate is significantly warmer.
As for 'the scientific consensus'. During my schooldays the orthodoxy on geomorphology was a theory known as 'orogenic uplift'. Large and authoratative tomes on this subject were in print, and this was taught as doctrine. Poor Alfred Wegener with his idea of 'continental drift' was laughed at. Midway through an examination course, the doctrine changed, the old books were literally thrown out, new texts were introduced; and the instruction was: forget it all, revision to 'the truth'. Incidentally, the mechanism of plate tectonics has much to say on long term variation in climate...
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He said, "Love one another".
Posts: 2014 | From: Surface of planet Earth | Registered: Jul 2005
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Noiseboy
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# 11982
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Posted
Apologies in advance - I think this will be a long one.
The Great Climate Change Swindle was a stunning piece of television - persuasive and compelling. It brilliantly anticipated all the obvious - and correct - charges which would be levelled at it, and even more brilliantly turned the tables to make it seem that the mainstream view is not only corrupt, but unethical. The average punter had absolutely no hope of deciphering the spin from the substance, and will doubtless conclude that, at the very least, there is no smoke without fire.
This film will be talked about in the same revered tones that made Loose Change, the 9/11 documentary claiming a US government conspiracy was at the heart of the atrocities, such a phenomenon. With it, it shares the beautiful illusion that we all want to hear - "it's OK, you're not mad, everything you have been told is wrong. The world is not chaotic and disordered, it is in fact being manipulated by a small group of people for machievellian ends". It represents the lone voice of reason in a world that appears to be horribly lurching out of control. There will be many who will forever cite The Great Climate Change Swindle as their turning point, when they stopped listening to any "official" line.
There are three main elements to the film's compelling argument:
1 - the science behind anthropogenic climate change is fatally flawed;
2 - the apparent consensus in scientific opinion has been manipulated by money interests to systematically marginalise any views of discontent, and
3 - the effect of this will be to wreak devastation on the most vulnerable people in the world.
The clever trick that writer / director Martin Durkin has pulled off with a flourish that would make Derran Brown sick with jealousy, is that he has hijacked the three genuine elements of anthropogenic climate change:
1 - the science behind the denial of anthropogenic climate change is fatally flawed;
2 - the consensus in scientific opinion has come about despite phenomenal money interests (mainly from the oil industry) to alter it, and
3 - the effect of anthropogenic climate change will be to wreak devastation on the most vulnerable people in the world.
It is a perfect fit. And the only truly genuine line in the film comes at the beginning, a major clue when the narrator intones "you are being told lies".
So, a few notes on those three planks to Durkin's argument. On point one, the science, the GCCS presented a view so breathtakingly simple that it's a wonder no-one has thought of it before - it's all because of sunspots. Oddly enough, people have thought of it before. It has been studied, analysed, and built into the climate models used widely today. Despite what the graphs appeared to show in the programme, Cosmic rays are nothing like a match with experimental data (the final chart on this page shows the actual data from the last 30 years, inconveniently showing no rise in cosmic ray activity at all). There is a sound scientific reason behind why CO2 often lags behind temperature rise. Climate models factor in sun activity, the earth's varying orbit, ocean activity, greenhouse gasses and many other factors besides.
The really clever stuff starts around part 2 though, when they put forward a bizarre theory that - of all people - Margaret Thatcher put down a bung to get funding for research on climate change so she could push through her plans for nuclear power. This (somehow) translated to every government in the world pushing for evidence - no matter how dodgy - despite any public proclamations to the contrary, or business interests that were against environmental action. Then the GCCS pulled off its coup de grace by laughing at how absurd it was to think that the programme's own contributors are paid by the oil industry.
Well, I haven't had much time to dig too far, but the majority of names that came through have indeed been involved in the oil industry. John Christy, the "lead IPCC author" is involved in no less than 4 organisations that are funded by ExxonMobil (one could be unfortunate, but 4 is surely careless). Frederick Seitz, the other whistleblower for the corrupt IPCC, can teach Christy a thing or two, as he is involved in a staggering 8 ExxonMobil funded organisations. Frederick Singer has another 4. Roy spencer has a couple, and adds one (The Heartland Institute) that receives tobacco sposorship - and to this day claim that threats to health of smoking are exaggerated. Time forbids me from checking out any more of the contributors.
Of course, they risked being rumbled by then going for the big one - fighting anthropogenic climate change is unethical. We were shown impoverished Africans given paltry solar panels and told to lump it. So rather than question why this specific provision was inadequate, it was cited as evidence that they needed more oil. Which, given the interests of the contributors, is perhaps not too surprising.
The Union of Concerned Scientists produced a report a couple of months ago at the extent of the company's reach, and their ability to manipulate. This - whether overtly or covertly - is surely their finest hour. It's a shame that Channel 4 were their willing accomplices. And, to my mind, an even greater shame that an argument that had been won on merit has now been needlessly knocked back, potentially futher jeapordising the world's future.
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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JonahMan
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# 12126
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Posted
Just to add to the above, today's New Scientist magazine has an article reporting claims that the Climate Change report was 'watered down' in between the version that the scientists wrote and the final version that was agreed by the representatives of more than 100 governments. The text of the article is on on the New Scientist website
though you can only read the whole thing if you are a subscriber.
The document analysing the changes made between the two versions is at this site
In other words, if there was political interference (which has not been confirmed but does not seem improbable) it was not to promote the IPCC conclusions but to dilute and minimise them (as you'd imagine with oil interests etc being heavily involved with the governments of some of the countries). It seems hard to believe that governments would invent something like climate change and simultaneously try to minimise the predicted effects - unless of course this is all part of an even more cunning global conspiracy ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Jonah
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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Littlelady
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# 9616
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Posted
Here's my take on the programme as a skeptic (and I agree with Noiseboy, it was compelling television).
There was so much information offered in this programme that it is difficult to encapsulate it. The following broad issues were covered (aside from the science, which I'll come to last).
The history of the movement. This section opened by referring to a BBC TV programme aired in 1974 called The Weather Machine. At that time, global cooling was the mainstream imminent disaster story. Nigel Calder, who was responsible for this programme, included in it the apparently lone voice of Bert Bolain (sp?), a Swedish scientist who suggested that manmade CO2 could help warm up the climate and thus divert the imminent catastrophe. Calder claimed on the programme that he was critised for allowing this lone voice to be heard (Noiseboy - perhaps lone voices can be good predictors!). Five years later Thatcher was in power and she was the first in the UK to offer government money to investigate manmade global warming. She wanted to promote the nuclear option (I already knew this) due to her distrust of coal (thanks to the miners strikes) and oil (due to instability in the Middle East - does that sound familiar?). The programme was essentially a British view of the rise of the manmade global warming lobby.
The politics of the movement. From the 1990s onwards, manmade global warming has become the position to take. A quote from one of the contributing scientists (I missed his name): "All [scientists are] competing for funds and if your field is the focus of concern you'll have less work in rationalising why your field should be funded". Huge sums of government money apparently go into manmade global warming research. Additionally, Professor Writer (sp?) (credentials include WHO expert advisory) claimed that 15 key statements were removed from the IPCC report which all expressed skepticism of one facet of manmade global warming or another. His own related to the claim that manmade global warming will see tropical diseases spreading northwards. However, mosquitos, for example, have all along been present in temperate climates and even the arctic. His statement to this effect was not included in the IPCC report yet his name remained as an author suggesting he approved the mainstream view. He had to threaten legal action to get it removed. I have to confess that such comments as his fed into my skepticsm concerning the objectivity of the IPCC report.
The media attitude towards the movement. I probably don't need to say much about this since I think most thinking people are skeptical about how the media presents manmade global warming (or most other subjects!), but Nigel Calder's comments were interesting, including his claim that the media reports are getting "shriller and shriller", possibly to ensure environmental journalists keep their jobs!
The environmentalists attitude towards the movement. The programme suggested that environmentalists claimed a huge victory when George Bush turned. Environmentalists are, of course, thrilled about the success of the manmade global warming position: they have been advocating anti-industrialisation and anti-globalisation for a long time. These claims were made by Patrick Moore, a former Chair of Greenpeace. He stated that when he left Greenpeace they were advocating a worldwide ban on chlorine. He figured they were going too far.
The effect of the manmade global warming movement upon the developing world. This was the part of the programme which affected me the strongest. I have been a long-time carer for the continent of Africa, not in a colonial, paternalistic context but as a Westerner who often feels helpless amidst the catastrophes (natural and otherwise) that often befall the peoples of this vast continent. Patrick Moore and others pointed out that the West is now pressurising developing nations not to use their coal and oil resources to create (cheaper) electricity but instead to look to (more expensive and less efficient) alternatives such as solar and wind power. An example was given of the practice whereby poor families would burn wood or animal dung in their homes in order to heat them and cook food. Yet indoor smoke causes cancer and lung disease. No cheap electricity means no safe heating or cooking, no refrigeration for food, no lighting, etc.
In addition, a hospital was featured which used two solar panels to power a fridge and lighting. They could not use both at the same time and the expense of more solar panels was too great for the hospital. As one contributor stated "The developing world is coming under intense pressure not to develop". Yet the African dream (as opposed to the Western one) is to develop. An African contributor suggested that they are being told they must have expensive solar/wind power but not the cheaper electricity and gas, while Europe and the USA enjoy the benefits of cheaper electricity and gas, and have done for years.
For a while now I have believed the UK appears to have 'forgotten' Africa's present needs in favour of its obsession with manmade global warming. This part of the progamme fed into that and also left me with the uneasy feeling that, once again, the West is attempting to dictate to Africa (and others in the developing world) what they should and shouldn't do in yet another round of cultural colonialism.
And as for the science ... . As I have openly stated already, I'm not a scientist. So I don't claim to know who is a 'real' expert and who isn't, or what the science actually means.
Contrary to what Noiseboy seemed to imply in an earlier thread, there was a diversity of expert opinion referred to in the programme (with credentials cited) - climate scientists, geologists, oceanographers, physicists (from Harvard and otherwise), former environmentalists, the Head of the International Arctic Research Centre. Three of them made clear they were not funded by either the gas or oil sectors! To a non-scientist like me, they appeared to be as valid a list of experts as those produced by the pro-manmade climate change lobby.
So far as the science was concerned, as suggested by Noiseboy the sun was given as a reason for climate change (along with solar wind, the sun's effect on the ocean, natural sources of CO2, etc - the point being that there are many factors to consider when projecting climate change). There was also examination of how models were used and the reliability of models generally. In addition, the notion of CO2 causing global warming was debunked. Instead, the reverse was proposed: that global warming produced a rise in CO2.
As I said earlier, there was so much in this programme - it's spread was huge - that it is very hard to give it credit. It was a superb programme and had me hooked from beginning to end. Not least because I found it refreshing to actually hear the other side of the debate at last!
Whether the pro-lobby have got it right or not I don't know. What I do know, however, is that the programme simply confirmed what I already believed about the political issues, the media hysteria and the potential impact on the developing world. As I think I said earlier on this thread (or maybe on another of the climate change threads), I really do think that science needs to detach itself from politics. I think its credibility, regardless of the issue, is undermined by its link (either obvious or overt) to politics and lobby groups. I would agree with something Noiseboy cited in an earlier post: consensus is about politics, not science.
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'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Dave Marshall
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# 7533
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Posted
Hmmm. Who to believe?
[cross-posted with Littlelady]
[ 08. March 2007, 23:39: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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John Spears
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# 11694
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Posted
I thought the interview with Patrick Moore was probably the most interesting part of the programme. It obviously is "holy writ" for some people and closely tied in with a lot of other anti-industrial ideas.
After being completely shown up when I started ascting like an authority on the subject after watching "Bowling for Columbine" (only to find out that a great deal of it was bunk) I'm rather wary of the power of documentaries to teach. It has always seemed unlikely to me that if humans produce so little of the co2 in the environement (As a percentage) that this would have any effect on the climate at all but frankly I don't know. It seems to me that climate science is one of the most open and speculative fields of science about.......
It is worth considering that both sides have 'something to gain' however.
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Noiseboy
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# 11982
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Posted
Littlelady - we've disagreed violently in the past and of course I disagree with your conclusions here, but that was a really well put together post. Fair dinkum.
With the cold light of day, some things have hit me with greater force that are patently absurd. When it comes down to it, the programme said that the science comes down to one thing - sunspots. It plotted a graph so obvious that a 10 year old could see the correlation. Doesn't it strike anybody as, well, a bit odd that information this old and a conclusion this obvious has somehow eluded the thousands of professionals in the field?
The only answer - of course - is that it is a giant conspiracy. Again, I think of Loose Change (the notorious 9/11 conspiracy documentary). It all sounds very convincing until you start asking the big questions - what DID happen to the plane and passengers that didn't hit the Pentagon? If Bush & Co can blow up the WTC with immaculate precision, how come they failed to plant a single WMD in Iraq? It is, of course, nonsense.
So now we are faced with the proposition that the IPCC and indeed an entire branch of science involving every country in the world are in on a grand conspiracy to keep us from the truth. Why? To put up taxes, stupid! It's great that China, the USA and France all settled their differences to scheme together on this brilliant conspiracy.
Or... just maybe... does this strike anyone else as being as ludicrous as Loose Change?
Littlelady's comments were excellent, so I will steal her headings for a few extra comments:
The History Of The Movement. Once again, we retread the myth that the scientific community thought there was an impending ice age in the 1970s (and we have a daft Horizon documentary, as innacrute then as they frequently are now, to illustrate). No peer reviewed publication ever asserted this, it was simply popular press distortions. Real Climate has an excellent summary - if anyone has any evidence that any of that is incorrect, then they must say so. I challenged this weeks ago, and thus far no-one has come forward.
The Politics Of The Movement. There has been a marked transition in the last couple of years on this. Until then - certainly during the 1990s - to call yourself green was to be unelectable. Since in more recent years politicians of every persuasion now back the theory of ACC, isn't it likely that the arguments themselves have been persusasive?
The Media Attitude Towards The Movement. Again, this has consistently been hostile to ACC. While the famous 2003 Science Journal meta-analysis of 928 peer-reveiwed papers showing that 0% contradicted ACC, a similar meta-analysis of popular media reports showed that 50% of them were hostile. The media (again, until very very recently) have been actively hostile whereas the science is consensus.
The Environmentalists Attitude Towards The Movement. Not much to say here, so:
The effect of the manmade global warming movement upon the developing world. This was unquestionably the programme's greatest gall. To not merely dismiss the arguments of those who accept ACC but actually say that only to deny is ethical shows breathtaking ambition. Funnily enough, the oil industry - who throughout the debates on ACC have consistently denigrated the arguments - stand to benefit from this position.
In summary, in a fight between independent scientists and the world's largest corporation, I have a hunch where any genuine conspiracy is likely to lie.
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Dave Marshall
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# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
In summary, in a fight between independent scientists and the world's largest corporation, I have a hunch where any genuine conspiracy is likely to lie.
We all have hunches, though.
Yours may be right, but from the evidence you've given I'm unable to verify that because either a) I don't have the expertese to interpret your links, or b) your claims don't necessarily show what you say they do. An example of a) would be this and this. An example of b) would be your characterisation of Martin Durkin. If you're presenting a fair picture of his track record, that does not necessarily mean this particular program is not fair or accurate.
I'm not as naive as to think that political shennigans and undue influence aren't likely to or don't in fact occur wherever there's serious money. Of course the oil industry wields enormous influence. But what exactly would you expect them to do in the face world-wide efforts to demonise use of the resource from which they make their money? I'd have thought, even if they were scrupulously honest, they would be investing whatever it takes to ensure that the case against oil was not overstated. Which would mean recruiting the most and the best scientists around.
The fact that contributors to the GCCS program work for oil industry funded organisations does not show those people are corrupt or that their science is wrong. It's just where the money is. Yes, it's important to know that, but then to watch out for bias and recognise what their science will not be showing, not assume their work has no value.
As far as I can tell the whole industry funding of science is seriously problematic. I'm not sure the best way to address that. But you sound like a lobbyist, or a campaigner with an agenda, not an impartial source of information. I appreciate the background you provide, but I find you're efforts to discredit this particular program unconvincing.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Littlelady
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# 9616
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Posted
Noiseboy, there are just three things in your post I'd like to pick up on.
Firstly, this:
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
The only answer - of course - is that it is a giant conspiracy.
Yet you keep linking the skeptical scientists with the oil industry! Is that not a sign of a conspiracy theorist at work? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Princess Diana died because her driver was pissed and driving too fast on a French road. 9/11 happened because some bastard extremists wanted to kill Westerners. Climate change has become part of the populist environmental lobby, a movement that has been growing since the 1990s. That bit I don't need any TV programme to tell me - like you, I've watched it develop. The difference between us is that you've been convinced of its validity somewhere down the line and I haven't. But I remember just a couple of years ago when we were all supposed to be making poverty history or before then saving rainforests. In a few years' time it may be that only the die-hard environmentalists care about their carbon footprints (I'm still trying to figure out in practical terms what that slogan actually means!). The rest of the Western world might have moved on to some other obsession.
Secondly, this:
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
Since in more recent years politicians of every persuasion now back the theory of ACC, isn't it likely that the arguments themselves have been persusasive?
Totally not! You seem to have this somewhat naive view that if politicians are backing something, the something they are backing must actually be persuasive. Methinks you may forget that politicians are plugged into the mood of the electorate. They have votes to win. Granted, some politicians will be genuinely convinced of manmade global warming. Others will not but they don't want to signal their own political death.
I am naturally suspicious of anything the politicians appear to universally back. Something simply does not ring true when politicians of all political shades and nationalities are speaking with one voice. It means that somewhere, someone is not being entirely honest. And that's no conspiracy theory: it's basic political awareness.
Thirdly, this:
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
Funnily enough, the oil industry - who throughout the debates on ACC have consistently denigrated the arguments - stand to benefit from this position.
So what? What's the concern here for you? That the oil industry is squashed at all costs or that the people of Africa are lifted out of their tough and painful lives in the way that they themselves see fit?
And if the African people all buy wind turbines and solar panels, do you think they are home made? Of course not. There is this growing industry - with all that brings - encouraging all this environmental awareness: the wind turbine and solar panel producing companies. Industry will always benefit; it's just a question of which one. Personally, I couldn't care less. I care more about people being given an opportunity to live without extreme hardship. What about you?
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'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
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Posted
I think there are two different arguments going on here, and it's important that they aren't confused.
One is about whether climate change is caused by humans, or rather to what extent it is. Note that no-one is denying that global warming/climate change is actually happening, the diagreements (within the IPCC and amongst climate change scientists and others).
The second is what you do about it. It is obviously possible to come up with solutions to man-made climate change which increase equity in the world and decrease poverty, just as it is possible to come up with solutions which are inequitable and unjust (such as preventing poor countries developing). Equally it is possible to believe that climate change isn't caused by humans but act in ways which either harm or help people in poverty.
Personally I believe that the evidence for man-made climate change is too strong to ignore, and that we (collectively) need to deal with it effectively. However it is also important to make sure that solutions help poor people help themselves, and enable them to use the natural resources of their countries to improve the quality of their lives. This might mean, for example, helpign them develop solar power industries which are affordable for ordinary people. I certainly wouldn't agree with forcing expensive foreign/western techonology on them which would increase both dependency and debt.
But that is a different argument, and an important one. I think that in spite of odd bits of climate change scepticism that argument has been settled (though alternative viewpoints should certainly be heard and argued with properly - where the arguers are honest useful points come out). How we try to reach the millenium development goals and combat poverty given the reality of climate change is the issue of real importance now.
Jonah
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
LittleLady. They just don't have the wiring for it, the gene. Or we don't. They do not give a damn that Rachel Carson killed 50 million Africans and counting. They are utterly unmoved by that. It's unreal. Abstract. Ah well. They are not to blame. We don't understand. We ARE to blame. We drive blithely! Don't we KNOW? I'm causing drought in Niger by typing this!
There's a corner of my office that's sacred because it has RECYLING scrawled on the pile of garbage there.
They are utterly incapable of doing any dialectical work, whether on overwhelming biblical sexual ethics with a superior antithesis or noticing that sunspots correlate with temperature via cosmic ray induced cloud formation in a far more convincing way than a rise in the tiny fraction of a percent of the atmosphere represented by anthropogenic CO2.
There's no soundness in them LittleLady. Hippies, Marxists, anti-Americans, hypocrites. Any morality other than a personal one will do. You know the sort. It's all very eschatological.
It has NOTHING to do with science. This has very thing to do with the decline of the West, of Christianity, Satan's wrath as his hour glass drains. Of our faithless dispositions. The sermon on the mount scares me far more than global warming.
Global warming? It's the SUN wot done it.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
They do not give a damn that Rachel Carson killed 50 million Africans and counting.
Because she didn't. quote:
However, DDT has never been banned for use against Malaria in the tropics. In many developing countries, spraying programs (especially using DDT) were stopped due to concerns over safety and environmental effects, as well as problems in administrative, managerial and financial implementation. Efforts were shifted from spraying to the use of bednets impregnated with insecticides. ...
Although the publication of Silent Spring undoubtedly influenced the U.S. ban on DDT in 1972, the reduced usage of DDT in malaria eradication began the decade before because of the emergence of DDT-resistant mosquitoes. ...
One old study that attempts to quantify the lives saved due to banning agricultural use of DDT, and thereby the spread of DDT resistance, has been published in the scientific literature: "Correlating the use of DDT in El Salvador with renewed malaria transmission, it can be estimated that at current rates each kilo of insecticide added to the environment will generate 105 new cases of malaria."[67]
DDT
Screaming something repeatedly does not make it true. OliviaG
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Oh, they didn't die then? And things are a tad more complicated in reality than here? If we kill a billion people in the name of the precautionary principle can we comfort our selves that we SAVED two billion? Denying something because we're nice doesn't make it go away. Liking spectacled owls as much as people doesn't make us sane.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If we kill a billion people in the name of the precautionary principle can we comfort our selves that we SAVED two billion?
Yes, prescisely.
The precautionary principle was referred to on the C4 programme. It seems to be applied quite a lot in the UK at the moment. It's a good tool of control: no-one can deny that something bad might happen if we do (or don't do) this or that or the other.
But meanwhile, what about the things happening now?
quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
I think there are two different arguments going on here, and it's important that they aren't confused.
I disagree. The argument is whether climate change is manmade in origin or not. The C4 programme was extremely good at highlighting the role various players have taken in communicating the message that it's all humanity's fault. It's not the first time a lobby has gained momentum and it won't be the last. But without the central tenet of the lobby, that climate change is manmade, the whole thing falls apart and there is no actual point in discussing 'what can be done' because there is nothing that can be done. If climate change is a solely natural phenomenon then my guess is we're helpless to stop it (assuming, of course, that stopping it would be a good idea - and 'only' scientific models tell us that it is).
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'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
OK OG. One must defer to science. To the truth. And I apologise. It seems that nothing damnwell works. Which doesn't surprise me. I'm talking DDT here, not AGW. I'm open to reason on that too, but it will have to be superior: not to mine but to astrophysics'.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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lapsed heathen
Hurler on the ditch
# 4403
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Posted
Having watched C4 program and gotten angered by it's desperate attempt to confuse and mislead the viewer, I almost went over to the dark side and supported the green evangelists.
It took several cups of tea to calm me down. What is so difficult about the globe is getting hotter, the temp rise is corespondent with rises in co2, we are the main source of the extra co2 in the last hundred years, what should we do about it?
Why do we wast time pushing our agendas "hurray for our side". Peak Oil will end the co2 thingy real soon. The tech exists to deal with any problem the warming produces, Why are we auguring instead of doing something. Reducing emissions is not what needs to be done, were past that already and it'll happen anyway as oil becomes more expensive. We need to get on with safeguarding fresh water, building dams and levies against the rise in sea leavel. Did we learn nothing from New Orleans?
I'm sick of the argument and see no hope of anything worthwhile being done until a few million people die. This is like a bad bend on the road, everybody knows the danger but until someone dies nothing will be done.
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"We are the Easter people and our song is Alleluia"
Posts: 1361 | From: Marble county | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lapsed heathen:
The tech exists to deal with any problem the warming produces
It does? Where is it?
And, even if it does exist, how much will it cost? A whole lot more than some modest steps to reduce CO2 emissions now I'll bet. In many cases we can reduce CO2 emissions and save money at the same time, it's just more convenient not to turn the TV off completely.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lapsed heathen:
... everybody knows the danger ...
This is where you are mistaken.
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'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Noiseboy
Shipmate
# 11982
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Posted
JonahMan - wise words indeed. It is, however, rather difficult to have a measured, reasonable debate. Fair enough, as Dave Marshall points out, just because the director has made a slew of discredited documentaries and fallen foul of the ITC for misrepresentation in the past, he
won't necessarily do so again (however suspicious one might be).
But alas, it does look like he is up to his old tricks again. A graph of 20th Century global temperatures used in the programme and sourced as "NASA" appears to be a fabrication, and certainly not from NASA. Likewise the sunspot graphs have been altered to fit the polemic, and crucial recent data that totally contradicts the theory omitted. So it is no exaggeration that the science case of the programme appears to be built on verifiable lies. Fair enough, Dave Marshall, that the science involved in the relationship between CO2 and temperature is complicated (ironically exactly as Al Gore said in his film), but the temperature lag has been understood since at least 2004 and it entirely consistent with how CO2 warming is thought to occur.
The least surprising development of the year is that some of the contributors are now disowning the programme. Carl Wunsch, Professor of Physical Oceanography and contributor to the GCCS:
posted on a climate forum yesterday quote:
Carl Wunsch:
...the context was not at all what we had agreed on. Was billed as a balanced discussion of the threat of global warming As I began to see ads for the program, I realized I'd been duped.
As to what he really thinks, from a column for the Royal Society he wrote in 2006:
quote:
Carl Wunsch:
It is probably true that most scientists would assign a very high probability that human-induced change is already strongly present in the climate system, while at the same time agreeing that clear-cut proof is not now available and may not be available for a long-time to come, if ever. Public policy has to be made on the basis of probabilities, not firm proof.
So Dave Marshall, I think the time for benefit of the doubt for Martin Durkin has passed.
Littlelady, unless I missed it, you don't suggest how a conspiracy between all the world's governments might work. Being suspicious in a vague sense isn't really enough is it? Sorry to repeat the question yet again, but what on Earth would make the governments and journalists of the entire world unite to tell a lie? Does China really need green public votes? By the way, you are right that I might have a propensity towards a smaller and demonstrable conspiracy of my own in ExxonMobil, but this is the subject of extensive public record and the focus of a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, so it at least has some substance (and motive). Meanwhile. if anyone fancies a genuine laugh at the patenly absurd idea of the biggest and most nonsensical conspiracy of all time, Adam Smith in the Oh My God Guardian has a very funny op-ed piece today.
By contrast, allegations that the IPCC exists merely to create its own branch of science and surpresses contrary information is not even substantial enough to be called thin. As this week's New Scientist reports, evidence HAS emerged of governemental interferece in the IPCC 4th assessment report summary for policymakers, but it goes the other way. In comparisons between the final draft composed entirely by the scientific community and the final released version vetted by the world governments, a large number of subtle but significant alterations were made to remove some of the specific science that pointed towards feedbacks and sea level rises, resulting in higher temperature rises. The released document, the IPCC lead authors maintain, does not compromise the science, but IPCC referee Peter Wadhams of Cambridge Univerity disagrees and is openly critical of politicisation of the scientific process. A story unresolved but worth watching... at the very least it is clear that some climate scientists are still under presssure from their own governments to be as conservative as possible.
As to the African issue, this is complex. In the example used in the GCCS, how much would it cost to connect a remote community to their national grid? I've no doubt that some conventional fuel sources will, for now, be essential in African development. But in remote communities, renewable sources could be a lifesaver. The crucial point in the specific example in the programme, as I made in the original review, is that their current solar provision is hoplessly inadequate. Why not increase their renewable provision to a realistic level? (BTW - since a small fridge consumes about 400w and a low energy lightbulb about 11W, I think the whole illustration was extremely fishy.... why could the fridge always run OK but not with another 11W added on? Comments please...)
Oh, and one other salient point that the GCCS failed to mention is that the Kyoto protocol excludes developing countries, so they've built a straw man anyway.
It's worth pointing out a few more areas where the GCCS deceived its audience. It claimed that the troposphere was not warming - in fact it is
(apparently there was a debate about this in the last decade based on faulty data, now resolved). They also said that the upper atmosphere should be warming too - er, no it shouldn't since the whole point is that
greenhouse gasses reflect heat back to Earth. Then there's volcanos, which we were told counted for way more than man's CO2 emissions. In the last 50 years, this is false. Etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, blah.
Much was made in the programme (and in subsequent discussion) of the argument "great scott, just look how big the sun is / isn't it arrogant to think lil' ol' man can affect the environment". Well, well done us cos we can. Smog and aerosols (and the ozone layer) are examples. As an aside, in one remarkable study, US temperatures on September 12th 2001 were affected by the abscence of skyborne airlines following the previous day's atroctities. The climate (note - not merely the temperature on that particular day which would be silly) increased by 1 degree, a figure without parallel since measurements began. Airlines appear to have a dramatic appreciable effect on the climate. ( Link to Nature journal, but subscription needed.)
The Great Global Warming Swindle was so persuasive, yet so riddled with demonstrable falsehoods (never mind subjective personal opinion), that I've really got to write to Ofcom to look at all this. I hope Carl Wunsch does also. No doubt some would see any ruling as supression of the truth. In fact, yet again (after breast cancer, GM crops and - oh, the environment), Martin Durkin has demonstrated that he is the master of deception.
[ 10. March 2007, 15:21: Message edited by: Noiseboy ]
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
I'm an ex total skeptic and now a mild skeptic. so here's my take on the C4 programme.
A lot of the program was balls. They had 90 minutes to examine the scientific arguments and spent almost half of it on weird conspiracy theories, and the assertion that scientists were trying to fuck Africa by selling them clunky solar panels and stopping them getting at their oil. I don't think I'm exaggerating the nastiness of the accusation.
Now it may well be that some politicians may be using the bandwagon to screw the third world and to raise taxes, and we need to watch them. But that has zero to do with the value of the science. So why spend so much time on it? You can't believably claim that the scientific establishment is hoodwinking us and hiding the science, and then spend half your time dredging up the odd loony who used to believe in an incipient ice-age, and creating risible conspiracy theories about an unholy alliance between Maggie Thatcher and Greenpeace. And the arguments were so black and white, that the programme is really asking us to believe that the majority of practising climate scientists are fools or knaves, or both. Not easy to accept.
The main hole is the scientific argument was the lack of recent detailed data on sun-spots, since I think it is admitted on all sides that the very recent warming has been excessive. Is there a corresponding recent surge in sun-spot activity? I doubt it, since it was not mentioned.
Even so, I think some valid points were made, and it is obvious that there are some scientists of genuine eminence in the contrarian camp. These were far more creidlbe than the odd Lecturer in Geology at East Cheam Poly who is occasionally dragged out by the young-earth creationists. And on a recent news item, a fully paid-up member of the Orthodox Scientific Community explained that the actual certainty level was nearer 80% than 100%. Many scientists are pissed off about the media hype, and I've heard several of them say so.
Just concentrate on the question: Is it right that the west should greatly reduce it's dependence on fossil fuels? If yes, go do it. What the Chinese, Indians and Africans do is up to them, and doesn't define our ethical duty.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We're ALL mistaken. Always have been. Always will be. I remember the '70s global cooling scare. The utter nonsense I was fed by Gordon Rattray-Taylor and above all Paul Ehrlich about pollution, resources, population. Malthusian, linear nonsense all of it.
I'm wrong. I think Iraq is the turning point. I think the morally collapsing, meaningless, purposeless, materialist West is going to force an Islamic response in to the vacuum to eschatological proportions. I'm bound to be wrong. Hope so.
Yeah global warming's happening, probably. Accelerated anthropogenically? Possibly. CFCs and the ozone hole WAS pretty eye-brow raising. Sorted. Whatever we think, we're wrong. All of us. The scientists, the politicians. Us plebs. Wrong. Deceived. Seduced. Distracted. To any thing but the truth. Our truths, our realities are lying illusions. If the globe is warming there is NOTHING we can do about it that will help. Nothing. Any thing we do will harm. Any thing we don't do will harm. This is a true Devil's alternative. Just like being sucked in to Iraq, which I was stupid enough to endorse, fully, proudly, in my name.
NOTHING will change until we we come off the end of the rope and cry out to God with no agenda but utter desperation as we fall to our death.
These are the end of days kiddies and because we don't like the way veal is raised and the church is abandoning the nasty bits of the faith once delivered isn't going to spare us. It's accelerating the process.
His kingdom come.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
Well, I watched it but it didn't really work for me. I smiled a couple of times but it didn't really make me laugh at all though it sort of had the 'feel' of a real documentary.
Poor stuff.
.
Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
Littlelady, unless I missed it, you don't suggest how a conspiracy between all the world's governments might work. Being suspicious in a vague sense isn't really enough is it?
You missed it because it wasn't there: it's you who keeps talking about conspiracy, not me! I've just mentioned a healthy suspicion of apparent political consensus. And yes, that's plenty enough, though possibly not for fundamentalists.
quote:
Sorry to repeat the question yet again, but what on Earth would make the governments and journalists of the entire world unite to tell a lie? Does China really need green public votes?
"The entire world" C'mon Noiseboy. That's a bit melodramatic! China needs to be pals with the West - it's doing very well thanks to all that Western investment. Self-interest is usually a good motivator when forming alliances.
quote:
It's worth pointing out a few more areas where the GCCS deceived its audience. It claimed that the troposphere was not warming - in fact it is
By you're own admission you're not a scientist, Noiseboy. Therefore, how can you possibly say 'in fact' about the science? You simply believe one interpretation of the science, that's all. Same with your politicians, who largely are not scientists either, and the media nuts, and the majority of the UK population I should think as well.
quote:
The Great Global Warming Swindle was so persuasive, yet so riddled with demonstrable falsehoods (never mind subjective personal opinion), that I've really got to write to Ofcom to look at all this.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) Go Noiseboy!
Maybe C4 will do what the Telegraph did a few years ago when they were naughty boys and girls by suggesting that secondhand smoke wasn't quite as dangerous as it was being portrayed, ie words to the effect of "Sorry kids, we were so irresponsible in today's Nanny State to dare suggest there was an alternative view. Sorry. We'll stay in our rooms now and say nothing more."
However, I hope C4 have got more balls than that. It is C4 after all; being controversial was its original reason for being. I'd hate this awful culture which seems to have afflicted my country lately to change that. If it does, I'll emigrate.
PS: Do you seriously believe that someone who knew they were contributing to a programme called 'The Great Climate Change Swindle' would for one minute believe they were contributing to a balanced programme? I suspect a case of covering one's ass going on. Perhaps things got a little hot for Carl Wunsch on his forum.
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'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
But alas, it does look like [director Martin Durkin] is up to his old tricks again. A graph of 20th Century global temperatures used in the programme and sourced as "NASA" appears to be a fabrication, and certainly not from NASA.
Fair enough.
quote:
Likewise the sunspot graphs have been altered to fit the polemic, and crucial recent data that totally contradicts the theory omitted.
Again, fair enough.
quote:
So it is no exaggeration that the science case of the programme appears to be built on verifiable lies.
You may be right. My point is, how can I find out for myself without having to take your word for it? Why should I believe you rather than someone who's created what you've acknowledged was a compelling TV programme for a national TV station?
quote:
Fair enough, Dave Marshall, that the science involved in the relationship between CO2 and temperature is complicated (ironically exactly as Al Gore said in his film), but the temperature lag has been understood since at least 2004 and it entirely consistent with how CO2 warming is thought to occur.
Understood for a whole two years, huh? Great, then can you explain it in terms I can understand? What I picked up from the programme was that there's agreement about an 800 year lag between increased CO2 levels and global temperature rise. How then can we say that the current rise is down to increased CO2 resulting from human activity in the last, what shall we say for arguments sake, 200 years?
quote:
The least surprising development of the year is that some of the contributors are now disowning the programme. Carl Wunsch, Professor of Physical Oceanography and contributor to the GCCS:
[snipped one contributor's reservations and comments]
So Dave Marshall, I think the time for benefit of the doubt for Martin Durkin has passed.
Noiseboy, you're making unsubstantiated and inflated claims. As I've said before, I don't know if you're right, only that you seem to very much want me and others to believe you because... you say so?
To keep this a reasonable length I won't go through your whole post. But if the first link in your next section is anything to go by, you're only quoting others who are doing exactly the same as you - mounting a propaganda campaign.
quote:
The Great Global Warming Swindle was so persuasive, yet so riddled with demonstrable falsehoods (never mind subjective personal opinion), that I've really got to write to Ofcom to look at all this.
I'll be very interested in their response. Because as far as I've worked through this last post of yours, you have not demonstrated any falsehood and have offered nothing more by way of evidence than personal opinion you happen to agree with.
quote:
yet again (after breast cancer, GM crops and - oh, the environment), Martin Durkin has demonstrated that he is the master of deception.
Remind me again. How exactly is anyone here supposed to know that for example Martin Durkin hasn't sacked you in the past for poor research work and you're not simply involved in a personal feud with him?
[cross-posted - again - with Littlelady]
[ 10. March 2007, 22:55: Message edited by: Dave Marshall ]
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
But alas, it does look like [director Martin Durkin] is up to his old tricks again. A graph of 20th Century global temperatures used in the programme and sourced as "NASA" appears to be a fabrication, and certainly not from NASA.
Fair enough.
Actually, is this fair enough? If a TV programme clearly identifies a source for data when in fact it is not the source, aren't there legal implications? Just wondering ...
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'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
The fair enough was meant as a kind of 'OK, you've said that' marker as a lead in to my complaint a bit further down.
But you're right. I didn't mean to endorse what he was complaining about.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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Noiseboy
Shipmate
# 11982
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Posted
No time for anything other than the briefest of responses. Dave Marshall - are you saying you won't believe Carl Wunsch's own words because you can't verify them? And v v v v v briefly - CO2 is a feedback agent that works in tandem with other warming. So if general warming begins through other sources (the ocean, say), CO2 amplifies.
Little Lady - again, you dodge the point. No, sayin "the whole world" is not melodramatic, it is entirely accurate. The programme called itself a "swindle", and said we are being told lies? What on Earth is that if not conspiracy? Forgive, but a certain amount of waking up and coffee smelling is called for.
Posts: 512 | From: Tonbridge | Registered: Oct 2006
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Littlelady
Shipmate
# 9616
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Noiseboy:
No, sayin "the whole world" is not melodramatic, it is entirely accurate.
I doubt you could ever verify that. I haven't heard any opinion from Lichstenstein for instance or Lesotho ...
quote:
The programme called itself a "swindle", and said we are being told lies? What on Earth is that if not conspiracy?
An opinion?
We're talking about a movement here, a lobby, not a conspiracy. There is a manmade global warming movement/lobby. Movements begin (often in obscurity) and gain momentum (or not). They can become mainstream - for a while anyway. As they make this transition, different players become involved: politicians, the media, interest groups, individual activists, bandwagon jumpers, whatever. It's not exactly a new phenomenon. Someone suggested on the 'Wilberfarce' thread that the anti-slave trade/slavery movement was the first example of such in the UK. Had that movement taken place today there would have been all the same players involved.
The difference between that movement and this for me is that I believe the slave trade/slavery to be utterly wrong, so I'd be a total fundamentalist in favour of abolishing it. I don't happen to believe that humankind causes global warming. I have no idea what causes global warming, since I can't verify any of the science as I'm not a scientist.
It's you who keeps thinking and talking conspiracy, not me. I just think movement or lobby, and I respond accordingly.
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'When ideas fail, words come in very handy' ~ Goethe
Posts: 3737 | From: home of the best Rugby League team in the universe | Registered: Jun 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The quote (which I knew, I knew, me, me, me) is "Religion: Man's attempt to communicate with the weather" (graffito, London), I attributed it to Huxley (T.H.) or Russell (B.). But I can't establish that.
Any more than AGW can be established. Oh yes it can. Oh no it can't. You're talking gibberish. Your research is invalid/lawed/superceded. Those astrophysicists at Harvard are wrong/right and stupid/brilliant and bad/good and agendaist/objective and do/n't love their grandchildren. The documentary is full of lies and made up pictures because I say so. It's obvious.
Really.
It's the SUN wot dun it.
Someone PLEASE do the intellectual work of overturning the earlier and therefore valid synthesis that temperature and sunspots and solar wind and cosmic radiation and cloud formation and albedo explain it all by orders of magnitude more credibly than CO2. Please. Or just point me to a man who can or who has.
And dare I say Milankovitch cycles? Longer term I realise. But testable. Over 20-50,000 years or so.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
I don't happen to believe that humankind causes global warming. I have no idea what causes global warming, since I can't verify any of the science as I'm not a scientist.
An agnostic position on the subject because "I'm not a scientist, and can't verify the science" has some logic to it. Though, the logical corollary to that is to trust those who can verify the science (in this case that'll be the IPCC and similar national bodies advising national governments).
To admit to not being able to assess the science, but then still take a position against that science seems somewhat strange.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
the logical corollary to that is to trust those who can verify the science (in this case that'll be the IPCC and similar national bodies advising national governments).
The problem is that governments (or at least this UK government) don't as far as I can tell have a good track record when it comes to making objective, best-science based decisions. For understandable if no less unwelcome reasons, pretty much all policy is heavily influenced by short-term political considerations. Will this, as part of our whole package, get us elected next time.
If government is relying on the IPCC, it's hard not to suspect that at least to some degree it's because the IPCC are providing support for their policies rather than the other way round. So I and I guess others tend to rely on what filters through the media and make a broad judgement based on a balance of credibility in what's presented.
This particular programme addressed questions I was actually asking. Noiseboy asserts the programme maker is "a master of deception" and mostly sidelines the actual scientific issues. I'm asking why I should agree with his take on all this. So far, his answer has really only been 'because I say so'.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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