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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: Is "climate change" being used to bring in a global Govenment?
Hiro's Leap

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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn:
CO2 has increased from zero-ish to zero-ish, while water remains the earth's favourite greenhouse gas. CO2 is zero-ish because of photosynthesis and other natural chemical processes that remove CO2 from the air.

There are a number of problems with this.
  1. "Zero-ish" is just rhetoric. Zero-ish strychnine (or even caffeine) can have a significant effect.
  2. Water vapour accounts for about two-thirds of the greenhouse effect, but that doesn't make the other gases trivial.
  3. Photosynthesis only has a limited ability to remove CO2 (otherwise CO2 levels wouldn't be rising).
  4. Chemical weathering will remove CO2 eventually, but that's after 100,000+ years.

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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
How hard can getting an international consensus of scientists actually be?

If it's easy, let's try an experiment. Prove your point by achieving an international consensus among contemporary scientists about something that is demonstrably untrue. Here's how. Let us know when you've done it [Big Grin]

Sure, there are some eco-fundamentalists out there - you get fruitcakes in every big human group. My point, when asking the question ... 'how many religions can say that their truth claims are supported by a global scientific consensus?' ... was that it's hard to sustain a case that belief in climate science is 'quasi-religious', rather than based on, well, science.

Trying to paint climate sceptics as victims of mad religious zealous won't work. Your opponent is not Fred Phelps, he is Alan Cresswell.

quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
If there's one thing I've learnt from gay rights and anti-racism campaigning, it's that those in the majority aren't always in the right. See the Wikipedia article.

Sure, truth isn't determined by a majority vote. However, climate sceptics' attempt to paint themselves as a 'victims persecuted by the majority' won't work, either. 'I'm a victim, therefore my claims are true' isn't convincing. Even if it was, at least some evidence of victimisation points the other way.

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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Myrrh
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quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
How hard can getting an international consensus of scientists actually be?

If it's easy, let's try an experiment. Prove your point by achieving an international consensus among contemporary scientists about something that is demonstrably untrue. Here's how. Let us know when you've done it [Big Grin]


Hmm, consensus achieved by consistently denying access to the raw data and methodology and logs for the hard to keep up with changes re-adjusting same for checking isn't science. So consensus of which group?

Like these?: Frightened to death

From a discussion on the Mauna Loa fudging of data, a comment on the Salmonella Scare in the UK, those who lived through it will remember the panic created and millions of chickens killed and government warnings about eating raw eggs and the dangers of mayonnaise and new recipes using powdered eggs and the downfall of Edwina Currie.

quote:
If there is data manipulation, it would not be a new phenomenon in the “scare” dynamic. In my studies of the first prominent UK scare – the “salmonella in eggs” scare in 1988-9, I caught out a leading government epidemiologist “reinterpreting” figures in a food poisoning outbreak to turn it from “unknown origin” into a definite egg case. Unfortunately for the man, he had already released the “uncorrected” data, to which we had access.

In my review of 60 official “egg” outbreaks – peer reviewed for my PhD – only four could be reliably attributed to eggs. Richard North Unaccountable data changes

These scares have only a limited shelf life, can't keep the excitement going when you've killed all the chickens, but global warming has all the ingredients for a show that will run and run and run. Fear, guilt, recriminations, opportunities for righteous anger and greater taxation, and wow, even a new commodity to be traded - It's not joe bloggs making millions of dollars on the back of promoting it - and we'll all be dead anyway before the computer models show their predictions for 2100 were wrong.

And yes, where government control can be imposed without argument then every kind of abuse of our freedoms can be implemented.

It isn't science when open debate isn't allowed, it is religious persecution.


The heretic

Myrrh

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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
It isn't science when open debate isn't allowed, it is religious persecution.

You're 'openly debating' it here. In what sense is what you are doing 'not allowed'? How, specifically, have you been persecuted for expressing your views?

As I showed, some journalists repeatedly express climate sceptic views. They are 'openly debating' this issue constantly. In what sense are they 'not allowed' to do so? What specific persecution have they suffered?

If anyone has been 'not allowed' to openly debate this issue, evidence suggests that they are climate scientists, not climate sceptics. Which side in this debate has really been affected by 'government control [that] can be imposed without argument' (as you put it)...?

"Philip Cooney, a senior White House aide who previously worked at the American Petroleum Institute, admitted to Congress that he had made hundreds of changes to government reports about climate change on behalf of the Bush government.

Among other changes, he had struck out evidence that glaciers were retreating and inserted phrases suggesting that there was serious scientific doubt about global warming." (source)

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
[...] where government control can be imposed without argument then every kind of abuse of our freedoms can be implemented.

[...]it is religious persecution.

Your persecution meter needs new batteries.

What were you just saying about not scaring people without good reason?

If the Government wants us to rely more on alternative fuels and fly less, I don't imagine that the Bond-villain dictators of the world will feel inspired to use this terrifying new form of persecution in order to strike fear into their populations.

Can you imagine it?

Dictator: ... and we will have more wind farms, energy efficient light bulbs and better bus services! Mwahahaha! We will give you money to help you insulate your lofts! Cower before my mighty reign of terror!

People: Help! Run for the hills! We're done for!

No, I don't think so.

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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Dumpling Jeff
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I think it's unfair of climate change skeptics to use the normal scientific language uncertainty as an excuse to discard the science while at the same time complaining that the "religious" types make wild claims they can't back up.

Which do you want, carefully delineated data, or political correct certainty?

Glenn wrote,
quote:
CO2 has increased from zero-ish to zero-ish, while water remains the earth's favourite greenhouse gas. CO2 is zero-ish because of photosynthesis and other natural chemical processes that remove CO2 from the air.
Why doesn't water count? We have irrigated deserts. Why wouldn't this lead to a greater greenhouse effect? Or doesn't that count as human induced climate change?

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"There merely seems to be something rather glib in defending the police without question one moment and calling the Crusades-- or war in general-- bad the next. The second may be an extension of the first." - Alogon

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Myrrh
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quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
It isn't science when open debate isn't allowed, it is religious persecution.

You're 'openly debating' it here. In what sense is what you are doing 'not allowed'? How, specifically, have you been persecuted for expressing your views?
I should have written "when open scientific debate isn't allowed".

See my last post on: Eat your dog to save the earth


Scientists withholding and manipulating data are not scientists, scientists whose societies have been hijacked do not have access to open scientific debate.

RE the OP, for interest - The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming Scam

I haven't checked this out any further. Leave it you.

Bye.

Myrrh

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and thanks for all the fish

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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
I should have written "when open scientific debate isn't allowed".

If only open scientific debate was allowed, and if climate scientists were allowed to do their work without political interference, we'd be better informed.

These scientists have published lots of research in peer-reviewed journals. Climate sceptics are free to carry out their own research, get it published in the same journals - and have an open debate. If there is science to be done to support the sceptics' case, no-one is stopping sceptics from doing that. You're not victims. No-one is persecuting you.

Some climate sceptics today seem to be using the same tactics that sceptics of the theory that smoking causes cancer used to use.

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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Dumpling Jeff
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One thing in the proposed treaty's favor is it's insistence on scientific evidence. If science is currently being manipulated as Myrrh suggests, then when that becomes clear the treaty will support the new scientific paradigm instead.

In fact, the Party (Conference of Parties) line is quite adjustable for future facts. It finally provides an answer to the problem of how democracies deal with technical issues. The science is what the Party decides is right after examining the data.

People either become funders and pay their fair share or they live with a NAMA handed down to them by scientists who have a better idea of what's going on.

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"There merely seems to be something rather glib in defending the police without question one moment and calling the Crusades-- or war in general-- bad the next. The second may be an extension of the first." - Alogon

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Barnabas62
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There are multiple causations involved in climate change. And it is by no means clear at this stage which if any is the most important. Dogmatic assertions are not helpful. But a proper examination of the question "Is there anything we can do to alleviate potentially deleterious effects?" is obviously worthwhile.

A proper consideration of that question is not helped by shouting the odds.

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

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Hiro's Leap

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quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
RE the OP, for interest - The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming Scam

I haven't checked this out any further. Leave it you.

If you can't be bothered to read it, why link to it? Why do you think this contributes anything to the conversation? Quoting other random websites at length isn't debate. It kills debate.

But let's see what the bloggers at Libertarian Alliance have to say anyway...
quote:
Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate.
What dramatic turn to a colder climate? Here's the data from NASA. (You could perhaps argue the warming has slowed recently - although that's debatable - but there's certainly no dramatic cooling.)
quote:
These two research papers became the bedrock of the science of global warming, even though they offered no proof that carbon dioxide was in fact a greenhouse gas.
[Killing me]
People have known CO2 was a greenhouse gas since the late 19th century. There's no question about it whatsoever.
quote:
Cars and factories and power plants were filling the air with all sorts of pollutants. There was a valid and serious concern about the health consequences of this pollution and a strong environmental movement was developing to demand action.
The irony of this is that industry fought these measures, just like now. With hindsight we can see they were wrong, that cleaning up smog wasn't so hard, costs were over-estimated and the benefits were well worth it. But industrial groups with a financial stake threw up exactly the same arguments as they're doing now.
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Glenn
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I think the credibility of global warming is manufactured. I'll happily look at the raw data, if someone will show me where it is. I have looked for it, but had no luck. Perhaps I gave up too easily. I think we're expected to believe someone's interpretation of a graph. Example, I recall hearing about some data that was taken inside a city and used as proof that temperatures are going up over decades, everywhere. Scepticism is good.

Those who have declared a consensus are now labelling others, who object to fraud, as naysayers. I say the onus is still where it was before the alleged consensus.

Who can tell me something about Al Gore that might make me think he has an ulterior motive, perhaps beyond money?

Water vapour accounts for two thirds of the greenhouse effect? Is there some raw data on that?

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We are interested in evidence to support that which we already believe.

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Myrrh
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quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
RE the OP, for interest - The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming Scam

I haven't checked this out any further. Leave it you.

If you can't be bothered to read it, why link to it? Why do you think this contributes anything to the conversation? Quoting other random websites at length isn't debate. It kills debate.
What is the matter with you, Hiro? Don't you ever read what I say before jumping to prejudiced conclusions?

I posted it because I had read it and I posted it because there is something in it relevant to the OP.

I haven't checked any further about what is mentioned there. Relevant to the OP.

Myrrh


Glenn - good luck trying to getting information about water vapour from agw's, they don't include water vapour in their modelling, except as an amplifier of CO2, though if pushed they will admit it is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2

Because a nutshell, post 3

and, Water Vapor Explained

More about the water vapour debacle in the list of articles.

Al Gore, see the link I posted re the OP. He was a student of Revelle and completely enamoured of his theory and ran with it. Revelle's change of mind and attempts to stop the growing bandwagon was put down by Gore by attributing it to senility.

He's still just as passionate about it, from a few minutes of an interview I caught recently. Famously he said the science was settled and there was nothing more to discuss, so he doesn't want anyone rocking his boat. That he's made many millions from all this is, I think, by the by, it's his belief in it that still seems to motivate him.


Myrrh


RE OP and Maurice Strong who set up the IPCC, there's more on how he used it in the list of articles on the nov55 site, from someone who was there from the beginning.

Myrrh

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Myrrh
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OK, I couldn't resist. Maurice Strong - an article from 1997


Who is Maurice Strong?

Fascinating stuff.

quote:
The concept of global governance has been fermenting for some time. In 1991, the Club of Rome (of which Strong is, of course, a member) issued a report called The First Global Revolution, which asserted that current problems "are essentially global and cannot be solved through individual country initiatives [which] gives a greatly enhanced importance to the United Nations and other international systems." Also in 1991 Strong claimed that the Earth Summit, of which he was Secretary General, would play an important role in "reforming and strengthening the United Nations as the centerpiece of the emerging system of democratic global governance." In 1995, in Our Global Neighborhood, the CGG agreed: "It is our firm conclusion that the United Nations must continue to play a central role in global governance."

Americans should be worried by the Commission's recommendations: for instance, that some UN activities be funded through taxes on foreign-exchange transactions and multinational corporations. Economist James Tobin estimates that a 0.5 per cent tax on foreign-exchange transactions would raise $1.5 trillion annually -- nearly equivalent to the U.S. federal budget.

It also recommended that "user fees" might be imposed on companies operating in the "global commons." Such fees might be collected on international airline tickets, ocean shipping, deep-sea fishing, activities in Antarctica, geostationary satellite orbits, and electromagnetic spectrum. But the big enchilada is carbon taxes, which would be levied on all fuels made from coal, oil, and natural gas. "A carbon tax," the report deadpans, ". . . would yield very large revenues indeed." Given the UN's record of empire-building and corruption, Cato's Ted Carpenter warns: "One can only imagine the degree of mischief it could get into if it had independent sources of revenue."

Myrrh

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and thanks for all the fish

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MerlintheMad
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quote:
Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
OP question: answer: Yes....

How? Please give details in your explanation so I may follow your steps of reasoning and evidence. Ta.
A "consortium" of jealous nations always have it in for the USA; every detail of change suggested targets the bad American lifestyle as the cause of climate change. It is not shown to be humans causing climate change, at, all. The consensus of UN backed scientists that said "AGW" originally have backed off and called it "ACC" instead; so that no matter what the planet's climate does, it is a negative "change" and it is caused by evil capitalist living standards. "They" want the USA to pay for the privilege of being top-nation, and all other developed nations are to chip into the kitty, from which developing nations will draw to upgrade themselves. It is a contemplated forced "tax" of nations who have to supply nations who have not; all in the name of reductions to "save the planet."

The proposals are unreasonable; e.g. requiring the USA to return to 1960's level emissions, even though our population has more than doubled in the meantime. We could satisfy Kyoto, et al. ANY drawn up reduction measures, simply by cutting off all food aid to foreign countries: the stopping of all that extra food production and transportation would account for an enormous amount of our so-called carbon debt....

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Dumpling Jeff
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Merlin, the U.S. is more easily capable of returning to pre 1960 level emissions than other countries (except maybe France). We choose not to because our leaders stay in power by controlling energy sources. We have abandoned cheap, clean nuclear power in favor of coal.

Well that choice is going to cost us, as we knew it would. We have been living at the whim of our energy producers for too long. This treaty replaces that bunch with another bunch.

Is it full of opportunities for graft? Yes. Is it a new form of world government? Yes. Is it worse than what it's replacing? I don't know.

We currently live in a world controlled by a shadow government run by OPEC and their ilk. Perhaps rule by power mad scientists is worse. Perhaps it's not. But Bush and his friends really screwed the pooch so people want something new.

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"There merely seems to be something rather glib in defending the police without question one moment and calling the Crusades-- or war in general-- bad the next. The second may be an extension of the first." - Alogon

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Hiro's Leap

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quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
I posted it because I had read it and I posted it because there is something in it relevant to the OP.

If you'd read it, that's even worse. Do you stand by the author's claim that Revelle should have proved CO2 is a greenhouse gas? And did you notice that even this conspiracy theorist article has to admit "carbon dioxide has increased from 215 to 385 parts per million", contradicting claims you're making here?

There are intelligent sceptics around, and there are real issues worth discussing. Regurgitating paranoid anti-AGW websites, regardless of how flawed the claims or biased the authors, doesn't further the discussion IMO.

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Curiosity killed ...

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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn:
I think the credibility of global warming is manufactured. I'll happily look at the raw data, if someone will show me where it is. I have looked for it, but had no luck. Perhaps I gave up too easily. I think we're expected to believe someone's interpretation of a graph. Example, I recall hearing about some data that was taken inside a city and used as proof that temperatures are going up over decades, everywhere. Scepticism is good.

mmm - the link I posted earlier is to a lot of anecdotal evidence of climate change, and not in cities - you know the sort of raw data you're asking for, in the making. Discussion paper on climate change (pdf)

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

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Alan Cresswell

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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn:
I think the credibility of global warming is manufactured. I'll happily look at the raw data, if someone will show me where it is.

The actual raw data is probably almost impossible for those not actually involved in the research to access. For a start, there'll be vast quantities of it - do you have any idea how much web server space the entire database of met station data for the UK would occupy, every single reading ever taken? Add in millions of paleoclimate estimates, satellite data, experimental climate data, other historic records ... even if all that raw data was readily available to the public virtually no-one would be able to make use of it. Most of the peer reviewed papers will be in subscription journals, OK if you're at a university which has paid the subscription but less useful for others. Many are appearing on institutional repositories that are openly accessible as "authors final versions" though.

Summaries of those data sets and papers are more readily available though, The IPCC technical reports will have graphs of minimally processed data (I'm talking about the actual full reports, and their technical annexes, not the 'sumary for policy makers' versions). Those are on the IPCC website, and often reproduced elsewhere - I think NOAA has many of them. A bit of looking around will find them.

quote:
Example, I recall hearing about some data that was taken inside a city and used as proof that temperatures are going up over decades, everywhere.
It is a big problem. Many weather stations were, and are, located in places like university campuses - often when built in large open areas but now often in cities as the urban area expanded to encompass them. Scientists try to locate new stations where their measurements are generally representative of the local area ... but it's very difficult to do that and ensure the local area doesn't change (even fences around stations to keep animals from interfering with the instruments can be a problem if plants grow up inside the fence where there's now no grazing). And, of course, a modern well placed weather station put up 10 years ago will only give 10 years worth of data ... to get the longer term instrumental record you need to rely on instruments that are currently poorly located, records from amateurs with instruments that may not be well calibrated and other imperfect data. There are plenty of mathematical and statistical techniques that can be applied to extract the full value from that raw data, and it's a problem that's widely recognised - climate scientists don't need some crank to tell them that they have data from cities which are recognised as being heat islands.

quote:

Water vapour accounts for two thirds of the greenhouse effect? Is there some raw data on that?

Water vapour is a very powerful greenhouse gas. And, there's a lot of it in the atmosphere. So, yes it is a very significant contribution to the greenhouse effect. However, it has a very short residence time in the atmosphere and the distribution (in time and location) is highly variable. Also, it responds very quickly to temperature changes - where surface water is present a temperature rise quickly raises humidity, humid air loses water vapour very quickly as it cools - it is therefore a very important rapid feedback mechanism that can quite simply be modelled as an amplification of other changes. It is, of course, a bit more complex than that because one of the places where water vapour will condense is in the upper atmosphere to form clouds - which both insulate the earth at night and shade us during the day (there's still a bit of a debate about whether more clouds will be a net cooling or warming effect, it depends a lot on what sort of clouds and when they're present ... but the fact that the question isn't yet settled implies that the effects of clouds isn't very strong in either direction). And, clouds result in rain and snow that are also important climate variables.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Alwyn
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Thank you, Myrrh, for explaining more of your thinking and for the links. Let me see if I understand your position.

You're saying that there is no science proving that climate change occurs because of human activity. You see (if you agree with the Libertarian Alliance comments that you linked to) climate change as an attempt by environmentalists to sustain their movement and for Maurice Strong to "fulfill his dream of one-world government". For you (or at least, for the Libertarian Alliance), this is "bad science [...] driving big government". Have I represented your view correctly? I may well have missed significant points.

Maybe I'm just realising the importance of this particular thread title now (I'm a slow learner, sometimes.) How much of the concern of sceptics linked to a perception that climate science is a Trojan Horse for bigger government and higher taxes?

When climate scientists talk about their evidence, are climate sceptics simply hearing demands for bigger government and higher taxes? Maybe both sides feel that they're not being heard about issues that matter.

Suppose that measures to reduce climate change could be achieved through private initiatives and voluntary action. Suppose climate change measures could be introduced without significant tax increases. How much difference (if any) would that make to sceptics' level of concern about climate science?

[ 13. November 2009, 10:00: Message edited by: Alwyn ]

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
It's unrealistic to expect everyone to become scientists - but, given that we're not all scientists, it's also unrealistic to expect everyone to sustain a belief that they are individually responsible for saving the world, if they don't understand the reasons why it matters. When people fail to see the evidence that their own change in personal emissions makes any difference, you can't blame them for being sceptical.

It is true that we can see the roots of environmental movements in some types of apocalyptic thought. (A reason why the conspiracy theory that it's all rooted in the interests of well-known big government apostles such as Margaret Thatcher is just so off the mark.) But if it were true you'd expect those environmentalist communities to act as canaries - they would be picking up on it first. Also, there's a lot of Romantic thought in the environmental movement. Some Romantics such as Blake might have had links with apocalyptic movements, but others not.

There's apocalyptic thought and apocalyptic thought. The environmentalist movements and the Biblical millennialist movements in modern society tend to be pretty much hostile to each other. The one's putting forward the idea that there's nothing we can do about it, and to be honest it's really a good thing; the other is putting forward the idea that if we abandon modern civilization and go back to nature we can avoid the catastrophe, which will be a really bad thing.

Ideas get out of the wilder apocalyptic communities and into mainstream discourse with considerable difficulty. That this one has done so must suggest that there's something to it.

I am trying to think whether it's possible to systematize how to distinguish between someone who is a crank and someone who isn't. It's not just the consensus. Ken and Alan Cresswell are pretty clearly not cranks. I don't think it's just their rhetorical self-presentation, or rather the rhetoric reflects a way of thinking that isn't easily impressed by bad reasoning.

As for individual action, none of us are in an individual position to do very much about it. In part, it's a tragedy of collective action and free-riding. Cutting down individual power consumption is a good first step. It's only really effective if a large percentage of our society does it, and at the moment only those who are individually highly motivated by the thought of anthropogenic climate change itself are doing that. The other problem is that a lot of the action that needs to be taken is at collective scales, and the progress there is painfully slow. (If the world's governments were really in a conspiracy to foist climate change upon us, then you'd think government action would be more than grudging and half-hearted.)

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Alan Cresswell

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quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
How much of the concern of sceptics linked to a perception that climate science is a Trojan Horse for bigger government and higher taxes?

I suspect you may be onto something there. Certainly it does seem that many of the most vocal organisations on the 'sceptic' side of the argument also argue against big government or high taxes.

And, some of the arguments that are made only really make sense within that context. For example, it seems totally irrelevant to me that someone advocating action to reduce carbon emissions also advocates the development of a global government. The two just don't seem to be related, the science isn't affected by the politics. And, the politics doesn't depend on climate science. There are good reasons to advocate a global government that don't mention climate change, and carbom emission reductions can occur without a global government. That whole line of argument doesn't even make any sense to me; but I can see that it might be highly persuasive in debating with people who are already highly suspicious of big government.

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Hiro's Leap

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I am trying to think whether it's possible to systematize how to distinguish between someone who is a crank and someone who isn't. It's not just the consensus.

I'd be very wary about describing any professional scientist as a crank, even the ones whose views I disagree strongly with. Scientific theories get overturned, and someone once considered a crank can become highly respected when they're proved right. Of course, they usually aren't right, but it's not for me to make that call.

(That said, scientists can have strong personal biases without being cranks. I'm wary when they make controversial pronouncements about subjects in which they have very little relevant expertise.)

Crank bloggers are much easier to spot. They pounce on anything to support their case, they make glaring mistakes about the science, and they think everyone's in a giant conspiracy. They usually have strong ideological convictions and exhibit similar behaviour on a range of subjects.

As for apocalyptic ideas, ultimately I don't particularly care what Al Gore or environmentalists say. I'm worried because so many relevant scientists seem to be:
quote:
Asked what temperature rise was most likely [this century], 84 of the 182 specialists (46%) who answered the question said it would reach 3-4C by the end of the century; 47 (26%) suggested a rise of 2-3C, while a handful said 6C or more. While 24 experts predicted a catastrophic rise of 4-5C, just 18 thought it would stay at 2C or under.

Some of those surveyed who said the 2C target would be met confessed they did so more out of hope rather than belief. "As a mother of young children I choose to believe this, and work hard toward it," one said.

"This optimism is not primarily due to scientific facts, but to hope," said another.

i.e. less than 10% thought we'd keep warming under 2C, and they were being optimistic. And I worry because of stuff like this:
quote:
Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming.
[...]
"Civilisation developed, and constructed extensive infrastructure, during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end," the scientists warn. Humanity cannot afford to burn the Earth's remaining underground reserves of fossil fuel. "To do so would guarantee dramatic climate change, yielding a different planet from the one on which civilisation developed and for which extensive physical infrastructure has been built," they say.

Al Gore I can happily ignore. These scientists I can't.
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Dumpling Jeff
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Alan, when I want data I don't mean all the data points. I want to know how these climate models work. What assumptions were make? What equations were used?

The case of clouds seems highly relevant. Clouds reflect during the day and insulate at night (and some during the day of course). How does rising temperature affect cloud formation at night?

Does snow do more insulation or reflection? I would think it insulates more since it happens in the winter when there's less sun per unit area. Is there data to support this? If so does the opening of arctic ice act as a giant radiator?

Does the rise in temperatures affect desert regions? The popular idea is that they become drier. From recent years I would say the desert belt is instead shifting north a little. How does this affect the greenhouse effect?

In the end water vapor dominates the greenhouse effect (far more than two thirds). How does the amplification effect of carbon dioxide work? Does it actually reduce the desert areas? Does it raise the humidity during the key winter months at the poles? Does it aid in the uptake of water over the oceans?

What are the equations being used and what experimental evidence supports them?

I don't expect you to answer these questions, but is there somewhere to find them?

Every day the media hits me with hundreds of adverts saying "trust me". Skepticism when scientists say the same thing is only natural.

--------------------
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aumbry
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
It's unrealistic to expect everyone to become scientists - but, given that we're not all scientists, it's also unrealistic to expect everyone to sustain a belief that they are individually responsible for saving the world, if they don't understand the reasons why it matters. When people fail to see the evidence that their own change in personal emissions makes any difference, you can't blame them for being sceptical.

It is true that we can see the roots of environmental movements in some types of apocalyptic thought. (A reason why the conspiracy theory that it's all rooted in the interests of well-known big government apostles such as Margaret Thatcher is just so off the mark.) But if it were true you'd expect those environmentalist communities to act as canaries - they would be picking up on it first. Also, there's a lot of Romantic thought in the environmental movement. Some Romantics such as Blake might have had links with apocalyptic movements, but others not.

There's apocalyptic thought and apocalyptic thought. The environmentalist movements and the Biblical millennialist movements in modern society tend to be pretty much hostile to each other. The one's putting forward the idea that there's nothing we can do about it, and to be honest it's really a good thing; the other is putting forward the idea that if we abandon modern civilization and go back to nature we can avoid the catastrophe, which will be a really bad thing.

Ideas get out of the wilder apocalyptic communities and into mainstream discourse with considerable difficulty. That this one has done so must suggest that there's something to it.

I am trying to think whether it's possible to systematize how to distinguish between someone who is a crank and someone who isn't. It's not just the consensus. Ken and Alan Cresswell are pretty clearly not cranks. I don't think it's just their rhetorical self-presentation, or rather the rhetoric reflects a way of thinking that isn't easily impressed by bad reasoning.

As for individual action, none of us are in an individual position to do very much about it. In part, it's a tragedy of collective action and free-riding. Cutting down individual power consumption is a good first step. It's only really effective if a large percentage of our society does it, and at the moment only those who are individually highly motivated by the thought of anthropogenic climate change itself are doing that. The other problem is that a lot of the action that needs to be taken is at collective scales, and the progress there is painfully slow. (If the world's governments were really in a conspiracy to foist climate change upon us, then you'd think government action would be more than grudging and half-hearted.)

The trouble is that the experts are just as likely to fall for the mob psychology as the man in the mob. I recall that for the two or three years before 2000 we were told how planes would fall out of the sky, power stations would break down and basically more or less all the gadgets of the modern world would stop functioning due to the Millennium Bug. Doubtless a lot of this hyperbole was down to newspaper sensationalism but I don't recall many computer experts saying it was all tosh. Needless to say governments and industry spent billions on this scare and in reality the problem was miniscule.

Computer experts now say that it was all too overblown and that the panic was unnecessary.

I suspect that there are a good number of scientists who have similar views on manmade global warming but they dare not speak out for the fear that they will be tarred as idiots and their sources of funding stopped.

Unfortunately too many people are taken in by the likes of George Mombiot and in the end the real damage will be done to Environmentalism for over-egging this particular one.

[ 13. November 2009, 13:58: Message edited by: aumbry ]

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
I recall that for the two or three years before 2000 we were told how planes would fall out of the sky, power stations would break down and basically more or less all the gadgets of the modern world would stop functioning due to the Millennium Bug. Doubtless a lot of this hyperbole was down to newspaper sensationalism but I don't recall many computer experts saying it was all tosh. Needless to say governments and industry spent billions on this scare and in reality the problem was miniscule.

Yes, a lot of the hyperbole was down to newspaper sensationalism.
I was working for a computer company in the run-up to AD 2000. Our programs had the potential to get a lot of data fouled up at the turn of the millennium. It wouldn't have caused any loss of life, but it would have caused a certain amount of bureaucratic hassle. They didn't foul up any data or cause any bureaucratic hassle though - because we updated them.

Government and media say action must be taken.
Action is taken.
Nothing happens.

From merely the above three events, you do not know whether the government and media were wrong or whether the action was effective.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Mr Clingford
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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Unfortunately too many people are taken in by the likes of George Mombiot and in the end the real damage will be done to Environmentalism for over-egging this particular one.

Would you provide examples of Monbiot's deceptions.

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If only.

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Hiro's Leap

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
From merely the above three events, you do not know whether the government and media were wrong or whether the action was effective.

I agree with aumbry. AFAIK, countries which spent very little money on the millennium bug suffered few consequences.

One significant difference between that and climate change is that the climate scientists aren't saying "This is a problem, we will fix it". They're saying "You need to get someone else to fix it." The funding will go to engineers developing new transmission networks or geothermal power plants, not the climate scientists. If they wanted funded, they'd fake uncertainty not over-confidence.

[ 13. November 2009, 15:07: Message edited by: Hiro's Leap ]

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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Unfortunately too many people are taken in by the likes of George Mombiot [...]

Yeah, don't you hate it when people are 'taken in' by intelligent, multi award-winning journalists whose work is recognised by several universities and who take the time to research and think about what they write:

"[George Monbiot] has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics), Oxford Brookes (planning) and East London (environmental science). He has honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews and the University of Essex and an Honorary Fellowship from Cardiff University.

In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has also won the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize for his screenplay The Norwegian, a Sony Award for radio production, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award." (source; see also his Wikipedia entry)

[ 13. November 2009, 15:25: Message edited by: Alwyn ]

--------------------
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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aumbry
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quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Unfortunately too many people are taken in by the likes of George Mombiot [...]

Yeah, don't you hate it when people are 'taken in' by intelligent, multi award-winning journalists whose work is recognised by several universities and who take the time to research and think about what they write:

"[George Monbiot] has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics), Oxford Brookes (planning) and East London (environmental science). He has honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews and the University of Essex and an Honorary Fellowship from Cardiff University.

In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has also won the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize for his screenplay The Norwegian, a Sony Award for radio production, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award." (source; see also his Wikipedia entry)

So what? He is a climate change polemicist like Al Gore and no doubt there are plenty of institutions who have showered honours on him too. Otherwise his basic qualification is a second class degree in Zoology and that achieved after receiving a highly advantaged education.
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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
So what?

So, unlike some journalists, he thinks about the issues and provides evidence for his arguments. Perhaps you prefer to be 'taken in' by people like Michael Crichton and Ian Plimer?

quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
He is a climate change polemicist

Shall we disregard the views of everyone who has strong views and expresses them? That argument works both ways.

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?

Climate sceptics claim that climate scientists ...
- aren't supported by the science
- defend a 'quasi-religious' view
- are polemicists

... pot, meet kettle [Big Grin]

--------------------
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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aumbry
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Have a look at his own website if you think he is a paragon of balanced argument: "transatlantic flights as unacceptable as child abuse"

Julie Burchill had Mombiot's number. He is basically a type of privileged Englishman educated beyond his intelligence who believes he has the right to tell others what they can and can't do whilst his own indulging in flights and cars overrides environmental considerations because what HE does is so important.

Before the collapse of "scientific socialism" he would have postured from the viewpoint of nannying leftism - now he finds more fruitful ground in the purlieus of environmentalism.

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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
[...]if you think he is a paragon of balanced argument

So he uses hyberbole. So did Jesus. Shall we disregard the Sermon on the Mount now?

quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Julie Burchill had Mombiot's number.

Is that the same Julie Birchill who has described her own writing as "the writing equivalent of screaming and throwing things" (Source, under the heading 'Views and reputation')? A couple of minutes ago, you didn't like polemicists. So now we're back to contrarians who think that shouting down climate science is the moral equivalent of standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square.

--------------------
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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aumbry
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Just had a laugh reading Mombiot's site. In 1999 he seemed to be revelling in destruction wrought by global warming - really quite obscene in his enthusiasm.

Based on his descriptions of the effects of warming 10 years ago I should expect to fry when I go out the front door today - but in fact it is pissing with rain and freezing cold.

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Alwyn
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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Just had a laugh [...]

Yeah, me too.

quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
[...] it is pissing with rain and freezing cold [...]

Yeah, yeah.

--------------------
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

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Mr Clingford
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So Aumbry, would you provide an example of Monbiot's deceptions. Just a solid example we can look at.

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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.

If only.

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Alan Cresswell

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quote:
Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
Alan, when I want data I don't mean all the data points. I want to know how these climate models work. What assumptions were make? What equations were used?

If you're interested in presentation of raw temperature measurement data, then you probably need to look for something like the Hadley Centre in the UK. Indeed, enter "hadley climate research unit" into Google and top of the list is Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia who have worked with Hadley in compiling a database of temperature measurements. This page would seem to be exactly the sort of thing you're looking for - average monthly temperatures for 5x5° grids since 1850, with a summary of what was done to get that data and citations of relevant papers giving more detail on the methodology.

I can't immediately find that sort of detail for the Hadley climate models that are used for predicting future climate changes for different scenarios. This Met Office page has a very brief summary, there are papers describing the simulation (for example this one), but you'll need a subscription to actually read most of them I'm afraid.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Dumpling Jeff
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Thank you Alan. I'll poke around some.

It's times like these I wish I was rich. I can't afford the subscriptions.

--------------------
"There merely seems to be something rather glib in defending the police without question one moment and calling the Crusades-- or war in general-- bad the next. The second may be an extension of the first." - Alogon

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Hiro's Leap

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Jeff, it might not have the technical details you're interested in, but I found Spencer Weart's site extremely helpful, in this case:The author is a historian and a physicist, and he gives an extremely thorough explanation of how the various models evolved.

If you want to play with source code, Weart mentions some models are available. Be aware that the full GCMs are mammoth. Hansen released his code after some prodding, and last I heard there was a group of sceptic programmers picking through it to try and find errors. (Fair play to them.)

If you want more detail than Weart, you're probably best looking for an introductory text book or two. There's a free one online, originally used in a Masters course. It's well beyond me.

[ 13. November 2009, 19:23: Message edited by: Hiro's Leap ]

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JoannaP
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quote:
Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
We currently live in a world controlled by a shadow government run by OPEC and their ilk. Perhaps rule by power mad scientists is worse. Perhaps it's not. But Bush and his friends really screwed the pooch so people want something new.

Well if the world is run by OPEC then we really are screwed (regardless of what Dubya did to Barney)!!

--------------------
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"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin

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Inger
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I have lurked on the Ship for a very long time (by the way, I think you should have a standard acronym for this phrase à la ITTWACW, since it seems to be used by virtually every new member). I'm finally prompted to join because I think there is one point in this debate I can throw some light on, even if I never post again. [Biased]

It's about the change in usage from 'global warming' to 'climate change'. Clearly the IPCC used it from the start, but I think it's true that in common parlance GW was commoner until some years ago. But contrary to what is regularly asserted by sceptics, this change, far from originating in green circles, was deliberately promoted by the Bush administration, so comes very much from the opposite camp.

It appears to date back to 2002, to a notorious memo from Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, to the Bush administration. In it he advocated the use of 'climate change' instead of 'global warming':

“Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming
within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.”

“Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”

“It’s time for us to start talking about ‘climate change’ instead of global warming and ‘conservation’ instead of preservation. ‘Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming’. As one focus group participant noted, climate change 'sounds like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.’ While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.”

(From the memo; my emphasis)

"The phrase "global warming" appeared frequently in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during 2002, when the memo was produced"

From the Guardian

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning myself, that CC sounds less frightening than GW, but that's another matter. It does seem to me reasonable to talk of 'climate change caused by global warming', since warming may not be a universal outcome, at least initially.

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Myrrh
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quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
I posted it because I had read it and I posted it because there is something in it relevant to the OP.

If you'd read it, that's even worse.
? The OP is "Is climate change being used to bring in a global Government".

quote:
Do you stand by the author's claim that Revelle should have proved CO2 is a greenhouse gas?
Yes.

Hence back to my one question which continues to go unanswered because agw's don't have an answer. "Prove that CO2 drives global warming".


quote:
And did you notice that even this conspiracy theorist article has to admit "carbon dioxide has increased from 215 to 385 parts per million", contradicting claims you're making here?
He's taking those figures from Keeling, the sentence preceding it. I on the other hand have explored this a bit more. His argument is that it hasn't been proved a greenhouse gas and anyway these figures are miniscule and irrelevant, and, his main point is that Revelle changed his mind about all this, but, the bandwagon had got rolling, his fervent disciple was unstoppable, and along came a man from the UN with his own agenda, global government. Who used it as did others with their own agendas, against the environmentalists who objected to nuclear power stations, for example.

Can you prove CO2 drives global warming? Can Alan? Ken?

Is there anyone here who can prove it? Conclusively?

If you can't then what are you all doing arguing that it can?


Let me put it another way, is there anyone who can disprove the arguments that it can't? There seem to be rather a lot of these and they make more sense to me, uneducated as I am in climatology, than rants that CO2 drives global warming when the only correlation between the two shows CO2 lags temperature rises by around 800 years. Consistently. For hundreds of thousands of years.

Maybe it was promoted first by creationists who can't admit to any period existing before 6,000 years ago?


CO2 Absorption Spectrum - There is no Valid Mechanism for CO2 Creating Global Warming

CO2 Charlatanism


You have a go.


quote:
There are intelligent sceptics around, and there are real issues worth discussing. Regurgitating paranoid anti-AGW websites, regardless of how flawed the claims or biased the authors, doesn't further the discussion IMO.
Let me know when you've proved it does, won't you?

Myrrh


quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
Thank you, Myrrh, for explaining more of your thinking and for the links. Let me see if I understand your position.

You're saying that there is no science proving that climate change occurs because of human activity. You see (if you agree with the Libertarian Alliance comments that you linked to) climate change as an attempt by environmentalists to sustain their movement and for Maurice Strong to "fulfill his dream of one-world government". For you (or at least, for the Libertarian Alliance), this is "bad science [...] driving big government". Have I represented your view correctly? I may well have missed significant points.

I think this is just big government discovering it had science which would suit its agenda, from Revelle's work and the Al Gore devotee. Strong set up the IPCC at the UN to show how it worked and the first report I think was a genuine attempt to get to grips with all these ideas about climate. All this took time, and Al Gore dismissed Revelle's concerns as senility and ploughed on because he believed in it, it appears to me.

Scientists working on this from different fields were I think genuine at first. The conclusion the first report came to that there wasn't a problem was then deliberately exised and this new mantra agw put in its place. This is when Strong began creating bad science to suit his agenda.

This is when the Hockey Schtick was produced to back it up and when, forget his name, the head at the time before the mantra was substituted, was pensioned off. From that point those organising at the top became a coterie with the same agenda which became more and more adept at promoting their agenda by peer reviewing each others work and excluding and bad mouthing any scientist who objected, until it was safer for them not to raise their heads above the parapet. And of course that too grew as all kinds of other agendas came into play.

What's interesting here for me is that I didn't know about the Strong and world government connection, I'd got fed up with the subject and stopped exploring it. Although I had wondered briefly how it could have been so well organised. How something as flawed as the HS contrary to everything known about our climate history and then conclusively proved a con could still keep being promoted by them. Strong makes sense of this.


quote:
Maybe I'm just realising the importance of this particular thread title now (I'm a slow learner, sometimes.) How much of the concern of sceptics linked to a perception that climate science is a Trojan Horse for bigger government and higher taxes?
That wasn't my interest in it. I had never given the subject any thought until I found, from Hiro's earlier thread, that there were arguments about it. I think, from the quite extensive searches I've made, that those objecting are doing so because the science stinks. Anyone who has made an objective attempt to look at this already has a good idea of what is likely to happen to our climate and perhaps it's this which has made us strangely philosophical about any problem the 'world government' thinks it can impose on us..


quote:
When climate scientists talk about their evidence, are climate sceptics simply hearing demands for bigger government and higher taxes? Maybe both sides feel that they're not being heard about issues that matter.
Oh, we're certainly hearing that too.


quote:
Suppose that measures to reduce climate change could be achieved through private initiatives and voluntary action. Suppose climate change measures could be introduced without significant tax increases. How much difference (if any) would that make to sceptics' level of concern about climate science?
None at all.

This isn't science, that's proved conclusively by the scientists who object the Al Gore's pronouncement that 'it's settled'. But, as those who have been working for years in climate and meteorology have found, such as in the AMS, their thousands of numbers don't count when the control at the top has been compromised. They are still teaching it doesn't exist, why would they want to produce young meteorolgists who don't have any concept of climate?, but they're unable to change the policy making at the top which makes pronouncements on the world stage. Hansen and other agw's getting their highest awards.

Odd how the only satellite sent up to measure CO2 crashed, so soon after showing what?

Anyway, there is definitely some real heavyweight control at the top, whether or not these same people will be able to create a global government remains to be seen, but meanwhile, it's still worth pointing out the science behind it is non-existent and suggestions for getting rid of the IPCC welcome - IPCC


Myrrh

--------------------
and thanks for all the fish

Posts: 4467 | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
quote:
Do you stand by the author's claim that Revelle should have proved CO2 is a greenhouse gas?
Yes.

Hence back to my one question which continues to go unanswered because agw's don't have an answer. "Prove that CO2 drives global warming".

You should be aware that "is CO2 a greenhouse gas?" and "does CO2 drive global warming?" are different questions. You'd probably save a lot of confusion if you don't conflate the two questions too much.

A simple experiment that I'd expect most people to be able to do in their home (if they can source a few components) will show that CO2 absorbs IR, and if you have a spectroscopy system you can even measure what IR wavelengths are most strongly absorbed. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the experiment doesn't allow any other interpretation.

Whether CO2 drives global warming requires additional data and interpretation. How much of the earths black-body IR radiation is absorbed at different altitudes? How much of a contribution to the greenhouse effect does CO2 make in relation to other gases? What mechanisms are there to control CO2 concentrations, and how fast do they react to changing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere? These are the questions, and others like them, that climate scientists grapple with ... and reach the conclusion that CO2 is a major driver of global warming and associated climate changes.

quote:
Let me put it another way, is there anyone who can disprove the arguments that it can't? There seem to be rather a lot of these and they make more sense to me, uneducated as I am in climatology, than rants that CO2 drives global warming when the only correlation between the two shows CO2 lags temperature rises by around 800 years. Consistently. For hundreds of thousands of years.
Do you really want me to repeat what I've said several times before? Do I? Oh, what the heck ...

Without human input, the main source/sink for CO2 is the oceans. Surface waters exchange CO2 with the atmosphere, with an equilibrium dependent upon the water temperature (correlated to air temperature) - cooler water holds more CO2 than warmer. Deep ocean circulation patterns take surface water to deep oceans, taking the CO2 with it. When deep waters return to the surface their CO2 concentrations will re-equilibrate with the atmosphere; if the air's warmer than when the water was subducted it'll release CO2, if the air's colder then it'll absorb more CO2. Thus, the oceans provide a very powerful feedback mechanism amplifying changes in the atmospheric temperature, with a lag related to the time it takes water to circulate from surface to depth and back again - several centuries.

If you introduce another carbon source to the equation (ie: burning fossil fuels) then the situation changes. A fairly simple model with a single dominant source/sink on a 500-800 lag feedback isn't going to be valid when you introduce another very large source. Fortunately for us, the oceans still act as a sink (a combination of the fortuitous slightly warmer than average, albeit colder than today, temperatures 500-1000 years ago and the very much larger atmospheric CO2 concentration today) and make a big contribution to removing about 50% of the CO2 we emit from burning fossil fuels and deforestation etc.

quote:
CO2 Absorption Spectrum - There is no Valid Mechanism for CO2 Creating Global Warming

CO2 Charlatanism


You have a go.

I had a look at the first link (plus hunting out a bit of info on the author - who, it turns out, has a biological science background and is a "pre-1980 type of liberal, which means promotion of equal opportunity. What's good for the lower classes is good for everyone" ... which to me sounds like someone in favour of bigger government and internationalism, but that may be because he seems to be more of a socialist than a free-market capitalist). He seems to have failed to grasp some simple science. Let me explain.

He makes a statement about the short range of IR in CO2 at atmospheric concentrations. I don't have the IR absorption characteristics of CO2 to hand, but I'm not going to dispute that if he acknowledges that that's only true for some parts of the IR spectrum - large arts of the IR spectrum are totally absorbed by the atmosphere. The important thing to remember is that that absorbed energy is largely re-irradiated as black-body radiation (reflecting the air temperature at that height). That re-irradiation is going to be omni-directional, so a lot of it comes back to earth and the air acts as a blanket. But, a lot of it is towards space. So, even with total IR absorption over short ranges the atmosphere would still radiate heat back into space (good thing too, or we'd fry). Of course, there are large parts of the IR spectrum that are effectively unabsorbed by the atmosphere (sum of all gases including water, methane, CO2, etc); some of the re-irradiated black-body spectrum will be in that part of the spectrum.

quote:
quote:
Maybe I'm just realising the importance of this particular thread title now (I'm a slow learner, sometimes.) How much of the concern of sceptics linked to a perception that climate science is a Trojan Horse for bigger government and higher taxes?
That wasn't my interest in it. I had never given the subject any thought until I found, from Hiro's earlier thread, that there were arguments about it. I think, from the quite extensive searches I've made, that those objecting are doing so because the science stinks.
And, many of us knowing that the science is sound and conclusive feel there has to be some other factor at play that justifies various people in looking for the minor flaws and bits of work still not done and on the basis of finding some small holes shout that the whole thing is wrong. I admit the science isn't complete, science never is.

I'd always thought the biggest reason for people desperately seeking anything to try and deny the obvious truth is that there was a demand on their money - oil and coal industries, and others such as car manufacturers, were seeing a potential loss of market. I know others were concerned about increased taxation to pay for carbon cuts (although, if the science is right the current costs of carbon emission reductions would be peanuts compared to adaptation to a warmer globe). It never really occured to me that some people would be desperate to undermine the science because they were seeing a 'global government' agenda.

--------------------
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  |  IP: Logged
Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290

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It would be interesting to see how what is described in this article is related to a deep plot to foist either "socialist" or "global" government on us.

Unless you see any attempt to do cooperative things in various places is a threat.

Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961

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Also, we observe animal habits and movements are changing; various species are living further north where it is cooler etc.

Evidently the global conspiracy has got to the animals as well.

--------------------
Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.

If only.

Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
moron
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# 206

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quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Anyway, there is definitely some real heavyweight control at the top

Could we show a little respect for the former Vice President, please?

It may be a glandular problem.

Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Dumpling Jeff
Shipmate
# 12766

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Alan, my concern has been two fold. The first is the global government angle.

Powerful men have historically used hysteria to take freedom from people. They have shown little regard for truth, decency, or the lives of the commoners. Even revolutions started for good causes often (usually?) end up with a Napoleon or Stalin in charge. I don't think human nature has magically changed so that this isn't a danger.

The second is the use of complex models to represent things we don't fully understand. As an engineer working on DARPA contracts I work with complex models all the time. None of them are as complex as our climate though. Even so about two thirds of them turn out to be wrong. Project after project turns out to not work because some small, unseen, insurmountable problem shows up.

Of course one of the saving graces of the proposed climate treaty is the desire to stop burning fossil fuels. Stopping isn't the same as active interference. Also the means are admirable even if it turns out to have little bearing on climate change.

Hydrocarbons are wonderful things from an engineering point of view. They provide thousands of valuable lubricants and plastics. Burning them all is wasteful. Other solutions need to be found.

I would like to see stronger language preventing the rise of a dictatorship though. The ill defined conference of parties is given way too much power. Who are these people and how are they governed?

Also the social rights are made paramount over the classical rights for reasons that seem to have little to do with climate change. Why is that?

Myrrh, your CO2 Absorption Spectrum link makes some errors that appear intentional. First the graph is labeled wrong in a seriously misleading manner. Second the CO2 spectrums will not be little blocks, they will spread out some just as the black body radiation does.

Finally (and this might be simple ignorance) the energy in a photon goes up as the wavelength shortens. If the wavelength ever did reach zero, as shown on your linked graph, the energy would be infinite. This is important because much of the actual energy is clustered near the CO2 blocking frequencies.

In any case the idea is that a small change in temperature brought on by more CO2 is amplified by water vapor which is by far the dominant greenhouse gas. This is because warm air holds more water vapor.

I can't accept that at face value because any warming at all (even a sunny day) would lead to runaway warming if it were true. There must be other factors at play. Until we have a complete understanding of why this doesn't happen, we don't understand the system.

To me there seems to be a complex interplay between oceans and deserts (particularly northern deserts). Ocean currents might drive historical climate change by changing desert sizes. A warm current near a desert might bring rain (and vapor) which increases the desert temperature while a cool one would bring dryer air.

Our irrigation of deserts seems to me to be at least as likely a culprit for global warming. Vast stretches of central Asia and North America have been irrigated raising the local humidity (I assume).

If this is the cause (or a major contributing factor) we need to decide which is more important, protecting low lying areas or eating. I know many environmental types would chose a static environment over people's lives, but I don't. There is the real possibility that global warming is inevitable and we need to deal with it.

This is where the treaty might be a mistake. Under the treaty we would be legally required to reduce our world population by force. Our large agricultural belts growing wheat would need to be shut down. Northern dry land crops such as oats and barley would be limited while wetland crops such as rice and sugar could continue. We might even need to poison large areas turning them to deserts.

Of course this would be insane, but so was Stalin's deliberately starving his farmers to death. Stranger things have happened when law and politics interact.

The presence of ice at the poles raises the albedo (reflection) thus warming the earth. It warms (instead of cooling it as many climate change advocates assume) because little light falls on the poles anyway so a higher albedo means less black body radiation.

This leaves the possibility that the massive antarctic ice sheets serve as a feedback mechanism by insulating when it gets cold and radiating when it warms.

All the studies I've seen decry the loss of polar ice, but this may be a good thing. I think it needs more study.

Still, overall I support the proposed treaty with some modifications and clarifications.

--------------------
"There merely seems to be something rather glib in defending the police without question one moment and calling the Crusades-- or war in general-- bad the next. The second may be an extension of the first." - Alogon

Posts: 2572 | From: Nomad | Registered: Jun 2007  |  IP: Logged
Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380

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quote:
Originally posted by Inger:
I have lurked on the Ship for a very long time (by the way, I think you should have a standard acronym for this phrase à la ITTWACW, since it seems to be used by virtually every new member).

Welcome to the Ship, Inger. Good idea - we could have an acronym for that.

quote:
Originally posted by Inger:
It's about the change in usage from 'global warming' to 'climate change'. [...] But contrary to what is regularly asserted by sceptics, this change, far from originating in green circles, was deliberately promoted by the Bush administration, so comes very much from the opposite camp.

An interesting point - I hadn't heard that. I thought that the idea behind the shift was that 'climate change' more accurately reflected what is likely to happen - 'rare' extreme weather events happening more frequently and being worse.

quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
... the science stinks ...

Thank you, Myrrh, for your response. What about:-

1. The precautionary principle

If I'm wrong, I'll look stupid. If you're wrong, and if we don't act, what will happen? Does that bother you?

2. The effects of climate change that are visible now

If you search online for 'visible effects of climate change' there are some interesting results, such as:-

- report on visible effects of climate change in US

- 2009 Statement by Faith Leaders referring to the "already visible effects of global heating"

- Effects of climate change are visible in Greenland and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Also, in Michael Northcott's book A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming he mentions "more violent storms in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans" as being "almost certainly" due to climate change (p. 19). He adds that there is "growing evidence that climate change has contributed to "the increased frequency and severity of drought in sub-Saharan and South Africa" (p. 31).

--------------------
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
quote:
Do you stand by the author's claim that Revelle should have proved CO2 is a greenhouse gas?
Yes.

Hence back to my one question which continues to go unanswered because agw's don't have an answer. "Prove that CO2 drives global warming".

You should be aware that "is CO2 a greenhouse gas?" and "does CO2 drive global warming?" are different questions. You'd probably save a lot of confusion if you don't conflate the two questions too much.

A simple experiment that I'd expect most people to be able to do in their home (if they can source a few components) will show that CO2 absorbs IR, and if you have a spectroscopy system you can even measure what IR wavelengths are most strongly absorbed. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the experiment doesn't allow any other interpretation.

I've phrased my question the way I have deliberately, because it takes account of these effects. I'm saying yes to Revelle should have proved it was a greenhouse gas because these affects are limited and unable to function as a driving force for greater production of heat the greater the amount of CO2, which is what is used in computer models. To equate it to the force of the sun which is what greenhouses are designed to capture is absurd. If you care to experiment with a greenhouse and pump CO2 into it you'll find as those actually doing this, to obtain better plant growth as CO2 is food, that its effects are limited. It doesn't hold that the more CO2 is pumped in the greater the heat generated, all other conditions being equal.


A greenhouse is designed for a specific purpose, to obtain heat for growing plants in a cold climate, we don't need such things in any of the vast areas of the world where this isn't a problem. Especially in those areas where we have lots of water, the main greenhouse gas, and lots of heat, the sun, so lush growth and even several crop seasons in one year possible because of this.

Why anyone living in such countries and enjoying the great benefits of same would take the frigid northern thinking of agw as a problem to be solved is beyond me, I doubt there are many who do.


quote:
Whether CO2 drives global warming requires additional data and interpretation.
Stop right there. Read what you've just written. This is what finally pissed me off when you went through it with me the first time.

If you can't see how unconscionable this statement is while agw fundies continue to rage and drive us all to distraction with their club wielding tactics in every area of our lives by claiming they have precisely solved this by stating right is on their side because categorically the science is settled and attacking all those scientists saying hold your horses then, as before, there's no further discussion possible. Don't you dare call that science.

Prove it drives global warming first!

I'm still waiting.


Myrrh

Posts: 4467 | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
Dumpling Jeff
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# 12766

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Alwyn, if the climate change advocates are wrong we will have cost people their lives work wasted on combatting a nonexistent problem. We will have denied freedom to people who deserve it. Trillions of dollars that could have been spent relieving suffering through medical or scientific advances in other areas will be gone, as well as the natural resources we spend on the problem.

All of this seems to be being spent to limit flooding in coastal areas. Four or five degrees global warming will make huge areas in Canada and Russia that are currently unproductive because of the cold into useful farm land. Deserts will be reduced as well (since it is basically the reduction in deserts that drives the warming).

For all the talk about the poor being most affected, in my view coastal areas are the playgrounds for rich people. The poor living in these areas will be hit hard because they have fewer options than the rich. This is a tragedy. But it will be offset by the poor in the interior seeing the value of their land rise.

Yes, global warming is a bad thing, but it's not the end of the world. The precautionary principal works both ways.

--------------------
"There merely seems to be something rather glib in defending the police without question one moment and calling the Crusades-- or war in general-- bad the next. The second may be an extension of the first." - Alogon

Posts: 2572 | From: Nomad | Registered: Jun 2007  |  IP: Logged



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