Global Warming - On Mars...

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
To reiterate, the original point was that the science is far from conclusive regarding anthropogenic global warming, and the prescriptions many would like foisted upon us dovetail a bit too neatly with various socialist/left-wing goals for my tastes. Particularly given the costs of some of the prescriptions.

vroom wrote:
Boston, you seem to be missing something from the get-go. Your source is clearly slanting things with language and innuendo.

Neither have I suggested that there is conclusive irrefutable proof of anything.

The point is that lining up concepts of environmentalism with wacko leftist viewpoints, so that it is easier to reject environmentalism, is what the original source document and yourself are gleefully doing.[/quote]

It wasn’t lining up the concepts – it was lining up the proposed solutions, which, you may have noticed, line up…

[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
Unless you were just going off on a random tangent and pontificating in the wind, one would presume you were tying “those that are afraid to realistically consider that mankind can do damage to his own environment are just as wacko” somehow, in some way, to the position actually taken in the original post.

Thus the “straw man” comment.

vroom wrote:
Dude, a strawman is when you create something false and ridiculous so you can knock it down.[/quote]

No.

Straw Man Definition: The author attacks an argument which is different from, and
usually weaker than, the opposition’s best argument.

Examples:

(i) People who opposed the Charlottown Accord probably just
wanted Quebec to separate. But we want Quebec to stay in
Canada.

(ii) We should have conscription. People don’t want to enter
the military because they find it an inconvenience. But they
should realize that there are more important things than
convenience.

Proof: Show that the opposition’s argument has been
misrepresented by showing that the opposition has a stronger
argument. Describe the stronger argument.
(Cedarblom and Paulsen: 138)

[quote]vroom wrote:
Are you suggesting that there are in fact not right wing wackos just as surely as there are left wing wackos?

What strawman would you suggest that I have set up?

I’ve certainly made a claim, and given that it contained “reasonably consider” it is one with a very low bar. Are you in fact unable to imagine that man is able to have an effect on his environment?

Did my statement apply to you? You tell me. I suggested there were people to which it applied… and you’ve gone off on some ridiculous strawman crusade.[/quote]

Your straw man consisted of trying to argue against some notion that the original post took a position that man could not affect his environment. At least that was how I read your post – but I’ll allow it may have been a non sequiter instead…

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Of course there are people with wacko prescriptions – and probably on both sides. But that was hardly the point.

vroom wrote:
That may not have been your point, but since when do I have to limit my responses to your viewpoint? That isn’t how the forums work…[/quote]

It should not be so hard to address the topic in the original post, should it? Particularly in the case in which you are making the first response… It’s not as if you got taken off track by some other responder spouting off his own hot air…

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I didn’t create a viewpoint – I pointed out the parallelism between the favored “fixes” for lowering CO2 and other socialist/left wing goals, and noted that the science as to the cause of global warming is still uncertain.

vroom wrote:
Here is where you start to go a little bit off the tracks, honestly.

The concept of favored fixes is purely nonsense. Who’s favored fixes? The fixes suggested by the fringe? The fixes suggested by mainstream people? The fixes suggested by right wing thinkers?[/quote]

How about the fixes proposed in the Kyoto protocols?

Are you really telling me that moving people away from cars and toward more use of mass transit is not a preferred fix? Or taxing gasoline use in order to restrict it?

[quote]vroom wrote:
No, this is the crux of my problem with the original post. The fixes suggested by the nutbars are promoted to favored fixes of all people leaning left, so that they can all be knocked aside.

Again, it is not responsible to argue in this fashion, as the original poster did, creating this strawman leftist viewpoint just so you can knock it down.

Hence my original reply, pointing out that there are right wing people who are just as silly in their arguments.

Again, you tell me whether or not you are in that group. If you cannot get to the point where you can use neutral tactics to discuss the issues, but instead are only able to strawman left viewpoints, then perhaps you do fit in that set.[/quote]

I agree that no one voted for the U.N. or anything, so establishing a de facto “favorite” may be tough, but the mandatory CO2 restrictions and new taxes certainly do seem favored to me.

Also, I can’t even find this “straw man leftist viewpoint” created by the original post to be knocked down – could you point it out for me more specifically?

Aside from that, to approach the original point from another direction, the point was that in an area in which the facts/science are unsettled, does it make sense to look at the incentives of those making the arguments? One certainly needs to look far and wide to find a bureaucrat who is not interested in expanding his power, or a leftist who doesn’t want to expand the power of the government to force citizens to make the “right” choices.

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Perhaps a non sequiter then?

vroom wrote:
Only if you are blind, willfully or otherwise.[/quote]

It is always such a chore to get you to address a point. If you don’t like the original point, why not address one of my rephrases of it?

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
For once I would like to discuss the actual point, rather than dither around with one of your “shades of gray” diatribes, the point of which is to seemingly to avoid the actual controversy or issue in order to go off on an extreme moderation bent.

vroom wrote:
I am discussing the main point. You’ve brought a bullshit post into the forums and then want to sit around and beat on liberals and left leaning people based on a strawman.

The fact that some pudnocker wrote a slanted piece that provides no details from which to argue the merit of his point really leaves us little to talk about.

Perhaps you simply can’t see the slant in your initial post because you think you are “level” when you are issuing strawman arguments against collective viewpoints to the left of yours?[/quote]

Feel free to address the main point any time…

22

[quote]pookie wrote:
…
As for the topic at hand, I used to be more on the side of the skeptic because I felt the science of GW was rather “soft.” Lately, some of the reports are getting rather difficult to dismiss. While man’s impact has been lowered from previous estimates, the confidence we have in the fact that the impact is really from man is extremely high.

Although I still think that we should favor easy, low cost solutions to start the whole process. Announcing massively expensive, all-encompassing plans scare people into inaction. More reasonable initiatives like “Ban-the-Bulb” or favoring geothermal energy stations would probably go over easier and procure more concrete results. A lot of people don’t like to see “economic costs” and “trillions” in the same sentence, especially if there’s a chance the science is incorrect.[/quote]

I don’t think most skeptics would disagree with reasonable initiatives like those. It’s the massively expensive, all-encompassing plans that seem harder to justify.

[quote]pookie wrote:
As for Mars, it doesn’t really provide for a good analogy with Earth. It’s thin atmosphere is 95% CO2… Venus also has a 95% CO2 atmosphere. The only thing we can conclude is that we don’t want the Earth to have a 95% CO2 atmosphere.
[/quote]

Definitely not a perfect analogy, but if increased solar energy were a single source causing warming on both planets, that would be something to consider – even if it meant considering what we could do about increased solar energy given our atmosphere, and whether money might be best spent on evacuating Bangladesh (for example) rather than on forced reduction of future growth.

23

[quote]lixy wrote:
A relatively recent story on Slashdot showed that

“According to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, oil company ExxonMobil ‘has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.’ The report compares the tactics employed by the oil giant to those used by the tobacco industry in previous decades, and identifies key individuals who have worked on both campaigns. Would a ‘global warming controversy’ exist without the millions of dollars spent by fossil fuel companies to discredit scientific conclusions?”

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/05/1827216[/quote]

Anywhere in that report did it mention Al Gore and how much money he paid to have that crapy “Inconvenient Truth” movie given an Oscar so he could go on TV and push his movie; well really push his run for the presidency? No? I guess only the oil companies are trying to fund their own PR and everyone else is squeaky clean! Right!

24

The one-size-fits-all all-encompassing solution fits no one and is a non-starter for enough important economies that we should simply admit it’s the wrong approach and find some better way.

That the sun factors in the equation is undeniable. The worrying part is that when we look at past periods of global warming, before man and industrialization, the high CO2 levels appeared towards the end of those periods. This time, the CO2 levels are already highly elevated at the beginning of the warming period.

Some models predict that at some point, the CO2 levels will reach a “feedback loop” level where they’ll keep increasing and warming the earth, which will in turn increase methane emissions (methane is even worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas) from the oceans and CO2, etc. Next thing you know, Venus has a twin sister. Some might like it hot, be we’re talking ridiculously hot.

So while some level of global warming might be unavoidable because the sun is not under our control (not yet), emitting high levels of CO2 could make a bad problem much worse. Maybe fatal.

25

[quote]pookie wrote:

Some models predict that at some point, the CO2 levels will reach a “feedback loop” level where they’ll keep increasing and warming the earth, which will in turn increase methane emissions (methane is even worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas) from the oceans and CO2, etc. Next thing you know, Venus has a twin sister. Some might like it hot, be we’re talking ridiculously hot.[/quote]

In the past, the IPCC has thrown out these models as unreliable and as of AR3 doesn’t account for ‘non-linear’ responses. And in spite of the recent additions of things like dynamic vegetation and global dimming on top of the virtual ignorance of cloud cover (relatively), lead me to believe the science is still pretty “soft”.

Equally plausible is that concentrations of atmospheric hydrocarbons, which increase with fossil fuel burning are largely unaccounted for, increase nucleation and provide greater cloud cover:

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i10/8510notw3.html

It’s a quite plausible and reasonable thing to say our planet is trending like another planet in the solar system, while it’s quite another to portray one planet’s atmosphere turning into another. Much like the ID/ET arguments of species evolving in parallel, but dogs not exactly turning into horses.

26

Pookie,

The newspaper stories do seem to claim we’re much more certain on the warming points, but whenever I read this blog, http://climatesci.colorado.edu , particularly threads like this, http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/03/05/an-error-in-the-2007-ipcc-statement-for-policymakers-on-the-2005-global-average-radiative-forcing/ , and see the debates among the heavyweights, I have my doubts reawakened about all the claimed measurements.

27

Also, here is another theory on solar causation that I find very interesting:

[i]The Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark has a more compelling and plausible alternate hypothesis for the sun’s influence on climate change, but it does not link solar irradiance. Instead, it is the varying strength of the sun’s magnetic field, which allows more or fewer cosmic rays to reach the earth’s lower atmosphere, forming more or less low-level cloud-cover.

There is a 92 per cent probability that the extent of low-level cloud-cover is linked to the secondary cosmic ray count. If the count is low, which it has been for most of the past hundred years because of the increased strength of the sun’s magnetic field, cloud-cover extent is reduced and the climate will warm.[/i]

Excerpted from a letter to the editor from Edward Mustard, former BBC Science Editor, published the London Telegraph, found here: Opinion - The Telegraph

28

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Pookie,

The newspaper stories do seem to claim we’re much more certain on the warming points, but whenever I read this blog, http://climatesci.colorado.edu , particularly threads like this, http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/03/05/an-error-in-the-2007-ipcc-statement-for-policymakers-on-the-2005-global-average-radiative-forcing/ , and see the debates among the heavyweights, I have my doubts reawakened about all the claimed measurements.[/quote]

That’s because journalists are usually full of shit.

If you want to find out the truth, you don’t read a watered down story in the paper.

There’s a reason newspapers are so cheap and disposable.

29

The month of Feb was colder then normal. In all seriousness how does this affect the theory of global warming or is new data not being considered? Is the model constantly updated or is the theory based on finite points of data?

Also if we are using this model to predict weather 100 years in the future I am going to assume the probability of it being accurate are small. Would it be more fair to test this model predicting the average temperature over the next three years within a certain degree of accuracy?

I would propose that if we can’t predict the weather over the next couple of years accurately then the chances of the same theory or model being accurate over 100 years would be less?

I’m not a scientist but I am trying to form an opinion on this matter.

30

hedo,

I think you’re asking someone to teach you how to golf in a lightning storm, but I’m game. I’m a scientist, but not a climatologist, so I’m no Jack Nicklaus, but I’ve at least swung a club once or twice (so to speak).

[quote]hedo wrote:
The month of Feb was colder then normal. In all seriousness how does this affect the theory of global warming or is new data not being considered? Is the model constantly updated or is the theory based on finite points of data?[/quote]

Yes, the models do get updated. And this is a point of contention with some of the skeptics (myself among them). If it were merely dumping new data into the model as it rolled in, that’s understandable. Unfortunately, these models are constantly being retooled, modified, and rerun to account for, not only new data, but new features and aspects of climate that we didn’t know about two decades ago, let alone 150 yrs. ago.

That said, one cold February in NJ doesn’t amount to a hill of beans compared to the globe over the last (or next) 150 yrs.

This isn’t technically correct. I’ll steal an analogy from realclimate.org and propose to you, two sets of dice. One set is “loaded” so that 6 comes up twice as often as the other set. Unfortunately, one or two rolls won’t tell me that. Even if I roll six times and the loaded dice gives me twice as many sixes, I can’t be sure that it wasn’t random chance. It’s only until I get into the hundreds of rolls that I can estimate, with a given confidence, that one set of dice is loaded and how loaded they are. Anything less than that number of rolls, and I’m either less confident in my estimate, my estimate becomes less accurate, or both. To add complexity to the situation, the less loaded the dice are, the more rolls I’ll need to establish the lower estimate with the same level of confidence.

With most simpler probability problems, we can roll “several sets of dice” or do the rolling in a fast, efficient manner. In climatology, we only have one earth and we haven’t yet figured out how to bend time, so we run computer models.

And as I was saying before, some of the skeptics among us believe that the models we keep running get updated and changed so often that their accuracy is dubious, like making a model of some dice and then discovering that the dice you’re trying to model have eight sides or some of the corners are always rounded off. It indicates that while your models may be good and correct, they don’t necessarily reflect reality and/or you don’t understand the real dice very well.

In accordance with the above, I disagree.

However, thematically and contextually, I agree. Other (more mature) sciences, using small numbers of Ford SUVs and tires or a relatively small patient populations can predict the whole world of tire blowouts or drug interactions. Models are being generated in these sciences that utilize fewer and fewer empirical units (people, cars, etc.) but they are still far from displacing them. If we could predict weather even one day in the future 95% of the time, many more people (myself included) would be much more confident in our ability predict 100 yrs. down the line. As it is, we can’t, or are just beginning to, predict hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, snowstorms, etc. in advance enough to save human lives. And as BB and others have pointed out, most of the lives saved from weather (or in the case of New Orleans, lost to weather) are the result of improvements (or again, not improving) in areas other than climatology/weather prediction.

Like I said, this is probably a lighting rod statement. I know a little more than some, less than some. I’m sure some will step up to correct me/us if we’re wrong. Additionally, I apologize if I’ve dumbed down or oversimplified anything.

Some obligatory links, not all of which I agree with (obviously):
http://www.climatologynews.com/
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/

http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://climexp.knmi.nl/examp.html

This last one contains an interesting page, title “Poor man’s global warming fingerprinting” here;

http://climexp.knmi.nl/examp.html#warming

Can’t make you an expert in one post (as I’m not one myself), but I hope this helped.

31

A nice little set of films on global warming that punches a few holes in the man-made causation idea:

Explanatory video in chunks

Also - during the 70’s weren’t we all worried about the incipient ice age?

32

[quote]lucasa wrote:
hedo,

I think you’re asking someone to teach you how to golf in a lightning storm, but I’m game. I’m a scientist, but not a climatologist, so I’m no Jack Nicklaus, but I’ve at least swung a club once or twice (so to speak).

hedo wrote:
The month of Feb was colder then normal. In all seriousness how does this affect the theory of global warming or is new data not being considered? Is the model constantly updated or is the theory based on finite points of data?

Yes, the models do get updated. And this is a point of contention with some of the skeptics (myself among them). If it were merely dumping new data into the model as it rolled in, that’s understandable. Unfortunately, these models are constantly being retooled, modified, and rerun to account for, not only new data, but new features and aspects of climate that we didn’t know about two decades ago, let alone 150 yrs. ago.

That said, one cold February in NJ doesn’t amount to a hill of beans compared to the globe over the last (or next) 150 yrs.

Also if we are using this model to predict weather 100 years in the future I am going to assume the probability of it being accurate are small. Would it be more fair to test this model predicting the average temperature over the next three years within a certain degree of accuracy?

This isn’t technically correct. I’ll steal an analogy from realclimate.org and propose to you, two sets of dice. One set is “loaded” so that 6 comes up twice as often as the other set. Unfortunately, one or two rolls won’t tell me that. Even if I roll six times and the loaded dice gives me twice as many sixes, I can’t be sure that it wasn’t random chance. It’s only until I get into the hundreds of rolls that I can estimate, with a given confidence, that one set of dice is loaded and how loaded they are. Anything less than that number of rolls, and I’m either less confident in my estimate, my estimate becomes less accurate, or both. To add complexity to the situation, the less loaded the dice are, the more rolls I’ll need to establish the lower estimate with the same level of confidence.

With most simpler probability problems, we can roll “several sets of dice” or do the rolling in a fast, efficient manner. In climatology, we only have one earth and we haven’t yet figured out how to bend time, so we run computer models.

And as I was saying before, some of the skeptics among us believe that the models we keep running get updated and changed so often that their accuracy is dubious, like making a model of some dice and then discovering that the dice you’re trying to model have eight sides or some of the corners are always rounded off. It indicates that while your models may be good and correct, they don’t necessarily reflect reality and/or you don’t understand the real dice very well.

I would propose that if we can’t predict the weather over the next couple of years accurately then the chances of the same theory or model being accurate over 100 years would be less?

In accordance with the above, I disagree.

However, thematically and contextually, I agree. Other (more mature) sciences, using small numbers of Ford SUVs and tires or a relatively small patient populations can predict the whole world of tire blowouts or drug interactions. Models are being generated in these sciences that utilize fewer and fewer empirical units (people, cars, etc.) but they are still far from displacing them. If we could predict weather even one day in the future 95% of the time, many more people (myself included) would be much more confident in our ability predict 100 yrs. down the line. As it is, we can’t, or are just beginning to, predict hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, snowstorms, etc. in advance enough to save human lives. And as BB and others have pointed out, most of the lives saved from weather (or in the case of New Orleans, lost to weather) are the result of improvements (or again, not improving) in areas other than climatology/weather prediction.

I’m not a scientist but I am trying to form an opinion on this matter.

Like I said, this is probably a lighting rod statement. I know a little more than some, less than some. I’m sure some will step up to correct me/us if we’re wrong. Additionally, I apologize if I’ve dumbed down or oversimplified anything.

Some obligatory links, not all of which I agree with (obviously):

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/

http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://climexp.knmi.nl/examp.html

This last one contains an interesting page, title “Poor man’s global warming fingerprinting” here;

http://climexp.knmi.nl/examp.html#warming

Can’t make you an expert in one post (as I’m not one myself), but I hope this helped.[/quote]

Thanks Lucassa…exactly what I was looking for.

33

Science is not conclusive.

So what?

Does this mean we should do nothing. And in 10 years, or perhaps longer, when science has come to a conclusion, we shrug and say: “well, it’s to late now to do anything about it”?

Some findings are not disputed. For instance, we know for a fact that the CO2 has risen in the 20th century from 280 ppm to 380 ppm.

It’s pretty clear that this will have consequences, if not now, then in the future.

This discussion is polluted by people with an obvious political agenda. They are willing to gamble with the future of the entire world. It’s the only planet we have and it didn’t come with a reset button.

Who gave you the right to gamble with my future? And also, wouldn’t it allow me to mess with yours?

34

There is no debate going on here. This is married couples squabbling. Bring up a specific piece of global warming evidence and debate it on its merits. Otherwise you are masturbating, throwing up propaganda from both sides.

35

[quote]pickapeck wrote:
There is no debate going on here. This is married couples squabbling. Bring up a specific piece of global warming evidence and debate it on its merits. Otherwise you are masturbating, throwing up propaganda from both sides.[/quote]

Please identify all sides of the debate.

And if you say its propaganda, that means you can tell the truth apart from the bullshit. So enlighten us.

What is the truth?

36

[quote]brucevangeorge wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Pookie,

The newspaper stories do seem to claim we’re much more certain on the warming points, but whenever I read this blog, http://climatesci.colorado.edu , particularly threads like this, http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/03/05/an-error-in-the-2007-ipcc-statement-for-policymakers-on-the-2005-global-average-radiative-forcing/ , and see the debates among the heavyweights, I have my doubts reawakened about all the claimed measurements.

That’s because journalists are usually full of shit.

If you want to find out the truth, you don’t read a watered down story in the paper.

There’s a reason newspapers are so cheap and disposable.
[/quote]

I’ll defer to you. I think your line of thought is correct, at least concerning the media.

37

[quote]Wreckless wrote:

This discussion is polluted by people with an obvious political agenda.[/quote]

You’re right, everybody here has an agenda except you. You’re just here to save the world.

Every time I hear it, I think I need to put it on a t-shirt; “Everybody has an agenda except me.”

Capitalists everywhere took the right to mess with your future. Under the tenets of capitalism you have every right to take it back. You’ll be hard pressed to do it and remain carbon neutral at the same time. Even more so in Belgium.

38

[quote]vroom wrote:
Boston, you add far too much to what I said. I said in essence that there are wacko viewpoints from both angles…[/quote]

Isn’t that what you always say? Mr. Moderate. I would be one of the extremist wacko’s you always rail against and I happen to think that YOU’RE wacked!

39

[quote]lucasa wrote:
Wreckless wrote:

This discussion is polluted by people with an obvious political agenda.

You’re right, everybody here has an agenda except you. You’re just here to save the world.

Every time I hear it, I think I need to put it on a t-shirt; “Everybody has an agenda except me.”

Who gave you the right to gamble with my future? And also, wouldn’t it allow me to mess with yours?

Capitalists everywhere took the right to mess with your future. Under the tenets of capitalism you have every right to take it back. You’ll be hard pressed to do it and remain carbon neutral at the same time. Even more so in Belgium.[/quote]

I have a political agenda when I caution people that it’s better to err on the safe side?

Does this also mean that I would have a political agenda when I warn people that they shouldn’t run a red light?

After all, there’s no guarantee that they would be killed when do.

And when I warn people not to gamble with my future, or I would start gambling with theirs, I was thinking more along the lines of forcing them to play Russian roulette. Like in the Deer Hunter. You know, put your money where your mouth is. Or more precisely, put your life where your money is.

Everybody who pollutes the debate with obvious bias, insisting on absolute and utter proof, would sign a paper that, should Global Warming be a proven fact in 10 years time, they’re willing to play 10 rounds of Russian roulette.

On the other hand, if in 10 years time Global Warming is proven to be just a bad dream, I will sell my car and use public transportation only.

Sounds fair eh?

40

[quote]Wreckless wrote:
…

And when I warn people not to gamble with my future, or I would start gambling with theirs, I was thinking more along the lines of forcing them to play Russian roulette. Like in the Deer Hunter. You know, put your money where your mouth is. Or more precisely, put your life where your money is.
…[/quote]

EXCERPT:

[i]The global warming “crisis” is misguided. In hubristically seeking to “control” climate, we foolishly abandon age-old adaptations to inexorable change. There is no way we can predictably manage this most complex of coupled, nonlinear chaotic systems. The inconvenient truth is that “doing something” (emitting gases) at the margins and “not doing something” (not emitting gases) are equally unpredictable.

Climate change is a norm, not an exception. It is both an opportunity and a challenge. The real crises for 4 billion people in the world remain poverty, dirty water and the lack of a modern energy supply. By contrast, global warming represents an ecochondria of the pampered rich.[/i]

Do read the whole thing, as it’s quite pithy.