Catholicism and Climate Change

[kimmielittle]

Again - if it is a place where people can share quality ways to care for creation - why the need for moderating?

Ummmmm You where referring to numbers of people. My answer was referring to the people, when I said… it’s not the numbers, it’s the quality.

IMHO continued efforts of misdirection - lose…direction.

In short, the ONLY thing important …It serves the needs of the ones who belong.

 

[kimmielittle]

That sounds like the Weather Forecasting Service over the past, like, 100 years!

Ahhhh but Weather Forecasting qualifies as a true Science, under Poppers Law. It can pass.

AGW, on the other hand, is a pseudo-science because it can’t pass Poppers Law.

 

[John21652]

Ahhhh but Weather Forecasting qualifies as a true Science, under Poppers Law. It can pass.

AGW, on the other hand, is a pseudo-science because it can’t pass Poppers Law.

Well, Kimmielittle, it is a better ‘fit’ with Popper’s philosophy if you change the name of the scientific effort of discovery from Anthropogenic Global Warming, to Global Warming, then to Climate Change and now to Climate variability. That’s an adaptive process to the falsifiabilty problem. Only trouble is, everyone is now back to square one as plain ordinary, every day weather forecasters!! At least it’s got everyone talking about the weather and given them more in common with farmers.

 

[kimmielittle]

Well, Kimmielittle, it is a better ‘fit’ with Popper’s philosophy if you change the name of the scientific effort of discovery from Anthropogenic Global Warming, to Global Warming, then to Climate Change and now to Climate variability. That’s an adaptive process to the falsifiabilty problem. Only trouble is, everyone is now back to square one as plain ordinary, every day weather forecasters!! At least it’s got everyone talking about the weather and given them more in common with farmers.

2 cute funny :clapping::clapping:

 

[lynnvinc]

He’d [Jesus] have the truth - without guesstimates and hypothesis AND it would, I believe be quite hard to hide from Him.

Your truth seems to be that there is absolutely no possibility whatsoever that AGW is real and poses dangers, or maybe like Anselm you think there could be a .05% chance that AGW is real.

My truth is that God knows, but I don’t really know. I know science has been right on things in the past, and it has been wrong. I also know that monied and powered interests can buy science…but it’s usually for scientists to deny there is any harm from some product, like those Formaldehyde Institute scientists who went to prison for falsifying their science and claiming formaldehyde is harmless.

What I do know is the Church puts life above money, and we should not take risks when human lives are at stake, especially in cases like AGW where mitigating it would not only save lives from the effects of AGW (if it does prove true) and many other problems (from local pollution to acid rain to ocean acidification, not to mention wars for oil, but it will also save us a lot of money down to at least a 60-75% reduction of GHGs here in the U.S.

I also know that living inefficient, profligate, guttonous lives is a sin.

The cards are all stacked in favor of implementing measures to mitigate AGW. That is my truth.

I humbly beseech all of you here to please do whatever you can to mitigate AGW & to refrain from dissuading others from mitigating, even if it is not your truth that it is happening. Rail if you want against legislation that puts a tax or fee on fossil fuels, get a movement going to totally block congress for doing so, but please do what you can to reduce your consumption of such. We don’t need laws to turn out lights not in use, and the myriad of other measures that can help in so many ways beyond mitigating AGW.

 

[John21652]

Your truth seems to be that there is absolutely no possibility whatsoever that AGW is real and poses dangers, or maybe like Anselm you think there could be a .05% chance that AGW is real.

You are the victim of fear mongering by people and groups with a vested interest in scaring you. To make their proposition more ‘saleable’, they have changed the name of the problem from Anthropogenic Global Warming to plain old Global Warming, then to Climate Change and now to Climate Variability.

My truth is that God knows, but I don’t really know. I know science has been right on things in the past, and it has been wrong. I also know that monied and powered interests can buy science…but it’s usually for scientists to deny there is any harm from some product, like those Formaldehyde Institute scientists who went to prison for falsifying their science and claiming formaldehyde is harmless.

Vested political groups can also hijack science! If ever science was on the verge of getting a bad name for itself, it is now. Maybe that’s why thousands of scientists have come out in opposition to the entire thesis.
Read about the Global Warming Petition. A statement there tells us *There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth. * 31,487 scientists have signed to support this. The East Anglia emails scandal, the exposed nonsense included in the IPCC reports should make you really suspicious

Start your search here.

What I do know is the Church puts life above money, and we should not take risks when human lives are at stake, especially in cases like AGW where mitigating it would not only save lives from the effects of AGW (if it does prove true) and many other problems (from local pollution to acid rain to ocean acidification, not to mention wars for oil, but it will also save us a lot of money down to at least a 60-75% reduction of GHGs here in the U.S.

If you wish for a reduction in GHGs down to 60%-70% then careful what you wish for. Reduce the GHGs by that much and you will be living in bark huts, trying to read a book by candelight. You can kiss all the things that make up the modern world goodbuy. Medicine, transport, the list goes on…

You should also be aware of the extreme measures being touted by the Greens alliance, which is winning power in various parts of the world. Their agenda is far more wide reaching than simple environmentalism. One of its main leaders, Bob Brown, is the leader of the Australian Greens. He is now in a power sharing arrangement with the Federal Government. He is an avowed homosexual, flaunts it and wants to legalise gay marriage. How does that sit with your Catholicism? More than that, the Greens have extreme industrial relations policies and support radical unionism. The latest political argument now centres around a call by European Greens to bring in Environmental Trade Sanctions. This means that any nation that does not have a carbon reduction/trading mechanism in place will be hit with trade embargoes. This is simply a return to European protectionism. If this is instituted, then countries like Australia and the United States will be shut out of world markets. Another nail in the US economy’s coffin.
Read about Environmental Trade Sanctions here.

Beware the European Wolf

Read about the International Greens here.

None of this stuff, this political philosophy, fits with Catholicism. It is godless, reeks of moral relativity and utilitarianism and devalues the individual.

I also know that living inefficient, profligate, guttonous lives is a sin.

So, if churning out GHGs offends your moral sensibilities, and reeks of gluttony and sinfullness, why can’t you show and lead by example. Cut the use of your modern appliances by 60%-70%, car use included, and then say to the world what it is you want it to hear.

The cards are all stacked in favor of implementing measures to mitigate AGW. That is my truth.

So you’d send us all back to the dark ages and institute a non religious world order essentially on the flip of a coin?!

I humbly beseech all of you here to please do whatever you can to mitigate AGW & to refrain from dissuading others from mitigating, even if it is not your truth that it is happening. Rail if you want against legislation that puts a tax or fee on fossil fuels, get a movement going to totally block congress for doing so, but please do what you can to reduce your consumption of such. We don’t need laws to turn out lights not in use, and the myriad of other measures that can help in so many ways beyond mitigating AGW.

So, are you an anti-capitalist Green environmentalist by any chance? By all means set the example yourself, if that’s what you really believe. In fact, you’d be a first class hypocrite if you never. However, wanting others to control us as you are calling for, reeks of totalitarianism. Think about that!

 

[JasonSB]

Every wonder why they changed the name from “Anthropogenic Global Warming” to “Climate Change”?

Never. Why? Because I know why “they” changed the name. You don’t even appear to know who “they” are!

CONCLUSION: REDEFINING LABELS
…]
We have spent the last seven years examining how best to communicate complicated ideas and controversial subjects. The terminology in the upcoming environmental debate needs refinement, starting with “global warming” and ending with “environmentalism”. It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming and “conservation” instead of preservation.

1. “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.
2. We should be “conservationists,” not “preservationists” or “environmentalists.” The term “conservationist” has far more positive connotations than either of the other two terms. …]

From the Frank Luntz memo to George W. Bush in 2002 entitled “The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America”, where he told them to push the line that there was “no consensus” and “scientific uncertainty”, that they should be “more active in recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view, and much more active in making them part of your message”, and that they should use the “need for more facts” delaying game.

I wonder if anything you believe hasn’t turned up in a memo to the Bush Administration at one point or another?

 

[JasonSB]

You, yourself stated;
There are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS being called lambda.

And

What Gavin chooses to call lambda is *completely different *

So X in an equation depends on it’s definition. Lambda has a definition how can it be different?

Lambda doesn’t have a definition, it has whatever definition in an equation was given for it.

We’re not talking about Pi or e here, we’re talking about a generic variable that can be used at will by the person writing the equation, just like “x”.

In Monckton’s case, lambda was related to climate sensitivity.

In Gavin’s case, lambda was the proportion of the IR radiation that was absorbed by the greenhouse gas layer.

In still other cases, lambda is often used for wavelength.

As I have said over and over again, they are different things. The fact that Monckton and Gavin both chose to use the same letter is completely irrelevant. If you don’t like lambda, choose a different letter – it doesn’t matter!

According to you, I have the freedom of issuing a value within the constraints between the values of 1.5 - 4.4.

Freedom? That’s a very strange way of thinking about it.

The actual climate has a particular sensitivity. We don’t know exactly what it is, but we have a large number of different measures of it that constrain it to within a particular range, and all predict a most likely value of about 3C for a doubling of CO2. The further away from 3C you go, the less likely that particular value becomes, until you reach the point where the value is so unlikely that we feel comfortable dismissing it. That’s the range given by the IPCC.

Now, given the range of possible values, we can predict the range of consequences for a given CO2 concentration:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Key_Impacts.gif

On the left hand side we have CO2 concentration. Along the bottom we have the resulting temperature increase. The top half shows when various effects start to come into play.

For example, if we reach a concentration of 450 ppm, then a 1.5 C/doubling will result in 1 C of warming. Going up we can see that 1 C of warming will result in increased mortality from extreme events, increased damage from floods and storms, localised negative impacts on food production, increased extinction risk for many species, increased coral bleaching, changes in water availability and increased droughts in mid lattitudes, and hundreds of millions exposed to increased water stress. That’s the extreme lower limit.

If the climate sensitivity is actually 3.0 C/doubling, then we’ll get 2 C of warming from that same 450 ppm, and in addition to all of the above we’ll also get increased burden from malnutrition and diseases, and changes in cereal production patterns. That’s the most likely consequence.

If the climate sensitivity is actually 4.5 C/doubling, then we’ll get 3 C of warming from 450 ppm, and that will result in millions experiencing coastal flooding each year, the biosphere possibly turning into a carbon source (= positive feedback), and changes to the ecosystem due to ocean circulation changes. That’s the upper limit, and note that this is just as likely as a sensitivity of 2 C/doubling. (The extreme upper limit, with the same likelihood as 1.5 C/doubling, is 6 C/doubling.)

Now, given that range of uncertainty in climate sensitivity, and the consequences shown in the graph, just how high do you think it is “safe” to raise CO2 concentrations to?

Some are arguing for 550 ppm. Draw a line across that graph at 550 ppm and you’ll see you are most likely to get between 2 C warming and 4.5 C warming, with the highest probability at 3C. Remembering that it is just as likely to be above that range as it is to be below it, are you “comfortable” with that target? Are you willing to take the risk that the biosphere might turn into a carbon source?

As was Jones Jones - Wang 1990 ], As was Briffa, As was Mann, As was Wang - The only difference, these I mentioned, are at the very heart of the AGW hypothesis,

No, Monckton was actually debunked, the others were not – they just had their integrity questioned.

There is a huge chasm between the two…is there not?

Oh, definitely. Monckton’s reaction was way over the top and the criticism was entirely justified.

Again, the damage is from death by their own hands.

I would have more sympathy for that argument if you actually showed any evidence for what they did “by their own hands” and showed why you ignore anything done by the other side despite it being far worse.

Oh, yes, that’s right – until PR campaigns cost more than weather satellites, you will assign more credibility to PR firms than scientists.

No actually, I was trying to see if you’d acknowledge to the parts of the “unknowns” to those questions.

What, precisely, do you think is unknown?

Well, as I’ve said many times before…it will go a long way to increasing the credibility I give to AGW… When the science / scientists shed themselves of the schemes and schemers and outlandish claims tied to the hypothesis of AGW.

So the answer is “no”, then, because you define “schemes” and “schemers” as “whatever and whoever I disagree with”.

 

[JasonSB]

I’ll wear my statistics and mathematician/philosophy hat now … a p-value is meaningful only in an evidential probability context, i.e. if you have a sample and are measuring it and know that you have a given distribution for sample parameters. Otherwise probability is a measure of belief (see books by Richard Jeffreys, Lesley Salmon and many others), as the weatherman who says, there’s a 40% probability of rain tomorrow, or the trained pathologist who says it’s 85% likely that this biopsy represents a certain kind of cancer.
(No samples, just experience, hunches and beliefs.)

Really?

Given that almost all decisions made in the real world require acting in the presence of uncertainty, your claim would come as a great shock to many.

I assume you know that it is impossible to predict without a model. The worst kind of model is the implicit one, because in that case you really are just using experience, hunches, and beliefs, with no way of quantifying the uncertainty.

Some of the older practitioners in a field I am very familiar with operate in that way, whereas the younger guys use 3-dimensional physics-based modelling to inform their opinions. I’ve been in conferences where the old guys have derided the young guys for “needing too much data” to calibrate their models, claiming that their methods are superior because they don’t need all that data – which they see as an advantage because, often, the information available is insufficient and collecting more is expensive.

The counter-argument, of course, is that the old guys are using models, but their assumptions are implicit. With explicit models, if you have a measured value for a parameter, you plug it in. If you don’t have a measured value, then you do a sensitivity analysis with the full range of possible values for each unknown parameter, and then compare the number of desirable outcomes with the number of undesirable outcomes to arrive at a probability. (Of course, if you have a probability distribution for the unknown parameter’s values then you take that into account, as well.)

If the undesirable outcome probability is too high, then you identify the parameters that those outcomes are most sensitive to and put the effort in to refining the estimates until you either have managed to prove that the undesirable outcomes are sufficiently unlikely or that the risk remains real and needs to be eliminated.

The decisions resulting from these analyses can result in many millions of dollars being spent and, in some cases, many millions of dollars being saved. (One of my customers told me last year that a client told him that his advice actually saved them $60 million while at the same time improving safety.)

The climate models are done the same way. If you don’t know what value a parameter should have, put realistic limits on it and do a sensitivity analysis. In the case of the IPCC, they also run as many different models as they can get their hands on because the limitations of the models themselves are a source of uncertainty.

Now I’ll wear my physicist and scientist hat. The AGW crowd are frauds who have given science a bad name by falsifying data, and rejecting the civilized discourse that used to be part of the scientific process. They have prostituted themselves for power and grants.

Wow. I’d hate to see what you say when that hat comes off.

kimmielittle, I know you are very sensitive to this kind of thing, so let me assure you that Anselm33’s comment above is in no way representative of normal, civilised, scientific discourse. Even the stolen emails showed nothing so intemperate, and they thought they were having a private discussion, not posting on public forums. It would be wrong to ascribe this behaviour to all scientists just because Anselm33 claims to be a scientist in exactly the same way that you wouldn’t ascribe it to all Catholics just because Anselm33 claims to be a Catholic.

I believe nothing that comes from them or from their deluded adherents. What they say is tainted, so that even were there the slightest element of truth in something said, it would be swept away by all the false and misleading statements that have been made.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_ignorance_fallacy

 

[JasonSB]

There is simply no doubt but that Hansen supports sabotage to achieve his green goals. In 2008, six Greenpeace activists did about $55K damage to a new coal plant in Kent, England. Hansen testified on their behalf giving an hour long recitation of the “imminent peril” the Earth faced from CO2 emissions. The saboteurs, using the “lawful excuse” … excuse … were found not guilty.

Once again, let’s examine the facts, shall we?

Firstly, “sabotage” is such a loaded word, isn’t it? Did they damage a crucial component? Blow something up? Were people killed?

Or did they paint “GORDON” on the side of a chimney?

(They were actually going to paint “GORDON BIN IT”, but they stopped after painting the Prime Minister’s first name after being served a court injunction by the police. My! How I wish we’d known it was that easy to stop saboteurs!)

Why not just say what they did?

OK, so now the statement is that “There is simply no doubt but that Hansen supports painting graffiti to achieve his green goals.”

And I said we needed proof that he suggests the use of anything other than legal means, so what do we have here? Oh, yes – a jury made up of randomly-chosen locals decided that the graffiti was justified using the same law that prevents firefighters from being charged with property damage when they break down a door to rescue someone in a fire. In this case, they decided that shutting down that coal-fired power plant was justified on the basis of the damage to the environment that that coal-fired power plant would have had.

Given we live in a system where a jury gets to decide whether an action is illegal, and not the government, government agencies, or even foreign nationals, it seems that this fails that hurdle, too.

But even still, did he even support painting graffiti even when it was not deemed illegal?

Here is his written statement in full: greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/climate/hansen.pdf

No mention in there of “sabotage” of any kind – just a summary of the science behind AGW, impacts, the role of coal, and how we need to stop burning coal and why a new coal-fired power plant in the UK is so detrimental to that effort. From his oral testimony he agreed with Al Gore’s statement: “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power stations”. Hmm… Does that count as “supporting sabotage”? He also said “Somebody needs to step forward and say there has to be a moratorium, draw a line in the sand and say no more coal-fired power stations.”, but that was really talking to governments and doesn’t sound all that illegal, either.

I’m afraid I’m still left with plenty of doubt.

 

[JasonSB]

It is dependent on (name removed by moderator)ut - and it is assigned a value in the second stage of the total equation - according to you from, 1.5 - 4.5…This, in common sense, would mean - it is not an independent, It is demanding a value issued it.

I guess “common sense” is less common than you might think.

Let me try to explain once more:

Do you remember Gavin’s simple climate model? Once again, it’s a very simple model, that cannot be used for quantitative analysis, but it does illustrate the point I was making that climate sensitivity is not an (name removed by moderator)ut to the model. (realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/learning-from-a-simple-model/)

Look at that model very carefully: what are the (name removed by moderator)uts?

There are really only two free parameters: S, which is the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the ground, and lambda, the proportion of the outgoing radiation absorbed by the greenhouse gas layer.

What values can S and lambda have? Well, you can’t just put any old values in there, you have to actually measure them. If there is any uncertainty about one or both parameters, then you can put in a range of values that encapsulates that uncertainty and see what the impact is.

Nowhere do you put in the climate sensitivity.

Climate sensitivity is something you pull out. Gavin even does exactly that under the section entitled, funnily enough, “Climate Sensitivity”.

So even in this simplest of all possible models, you don’t “assign a value” to climate sensitivity, you derive a value for climate sensitivity using your model.

Real climate models are no different – you put as much physics in there as you can, using the best estimates of various parameters (and ranges for those parameters that are uncertain), and you evaluate the results.

How long would you last, outside of AGW, telling your boss the range is somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5? And may change values at any given time - because frankly, we don’t know, boss ]

This is a silly argument. The choice is not between “Tell your boss the range is somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5” and “Tell your boss what the actual value is”, the choice is between “Tell your boss the range is somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5” and “Tell your boss you have no idea what the actual value is”.

The reason the range is so broad is because it’s hard to quantify. It is not a choice. Now, given that uncertainty, what course of action should we take? I’ve already shown this graph:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Key_Impacts.gif

How long would you last telling your boss the range is somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5, with a most likely value of 3, and the consequences even at 1.5 are quite serious, but we should do nothing because we don’t know whether it’s going to be “quite serious” or “catastrophic”?

The value issued lambda - is the VERY heart of AGW’s hypothesis - Without it…

The climate sensitivity is very important because it means the difference between “quite serious” and “catastrophic”. But given that the extreme low end of the possible ranges already is enough to warrant action, how is this an argument for inaction?

 

[JasonSB]

Ahhhh but Weather Forecasting qualifies as a true Science, under Poppers Law. It can pass.

AGW, on the other hand, is a pseudo-science because it can’t pass Poppers Law.

You keep saying this but I don’t understand why.

The theory is falsifiable. Just because it might take decades for some predictions to be tested doesn’t change that.

The theory has also made testable predictions that have already been tested, and it passed. It correctly predicted that the poles would warm more than the equator, that nights would warm more than days, that the stratosphere would cool while the troposphere warmed, and so on. Every one of those predictions could have gone either way – and competing theories, like the sun being responsible, predict the opposite outcome in every one of the cases listed, therefore the theory that the sun is responsible has been falsified.

Now, you may be confusing what I said before about the way science usually works with this idea that AGW can be falsified. What I said is that it is far more likely that theories will simply be improved, not disproved. This is not a statement on what is theoretically possible – AGW can theoretically be disproved at any moment by a startling new discovery that manages to explain everything we’ve seen so far and shows why AGW is false – but rather a statement about what is most likely to happen: If there is something wrong with AGW, it is likely to be on the fringes of the theory, where the theory is known to be incomplete, and the theory will simply be updated to incorporate that new information.

Popper is talking about whether it can be disproved or not in principle. AGW can be disproved in principle. AGW makes testable predictions, many of which have already been tested, and every single one passed.

 

[JasonSB]

You are the victim of fear mongering by people and groups with a vested interest in scaring you. To make their proposition more ‘saleable’, they have changed the name of the problem from Anthropogenic Global Warming to plain old Global Warming, then to Climate Change and now to Climate Variability.

Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that using “Climate Change” rather than “Global Warming” was advice the Bush administration received from one of their own pollsters, have you even thought about the logic behind this argument?

You claim they are “fear mongering” by downplaying the threat!

This doesn’t even begin to make sense. Fear mongering, by definition, requires overstating the threat to create fear, not understating it to make it more “saleable”!

Now, I could get all scientific and use Google Scholar to prove you are completely wrong anyway, because before 1980 “Climate Change” references numbered nearly 29 to 1 against “Global Warming” whereas they dropped to 5:1 in the 80s, 4:1 in the 90s, and back to 5:1 in the past decade, but there’s really no need to, is there? The claim doesn’t even pass the sniff test.

Vested political groups can also hijack science! If ever science was on the verge of getting a bad name for itself, it is now. Maybe that’s why thousands of scientists have come out in opposition to the entire thesis.

Yes, yes, we’ve gone over this already – 0.3% of American scientists agree with that statement, where “American scientists” include such relevant degrees as medicine, mechanical engineering, and metallurgy. 39 actual climate scientists signed. skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project-intermediate.htm Meanwhile, 97.5% of earth scientists agreed that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures, and the report that you linked to said that nearly 80% of climate scientists agreed that AGW poses a very serious and dangerous threat to humanity.

If you wish for a reduction in GHGs down to 60%-70% then careful what you wish for. Reduce the GHGs by that much and you will be living in bark huts, trying to read a book by candelight. You can kiss all the things that make up the modern world goodbuy. Medicine, transport, the list goes on…

Not only is that sheer nonesense, but the only way you could possibly make such a claim is to have a theory, produce models, and show what the effects will be according to those models.

So why do you think the above? Where is your theory? Your models? Why do you believe that theory and those models?

One of its main leaders, Bob Brown, is the leader of the Australian Greens. He is now in a power sharing arrangement with the Federal Government. He is an avowed homosexual, flaunts it and wants to legalise gay marriage. How does that sit with your Catholicism?

Are we supposed to judge the voracity of science based on the personal beliefs of politicians who accept it, now?

When I read a scientific paper am I supposed to withhold judgement on it until I make sure that nobody with different moral views accepts it?

What do I do if I find out that “avowed homosexuals” are on both sides?

It’s a shame that the IPCC never thought to find out what all the homosexuals thought first so we could disengage our brains and just say “We accept whatever is the opposite of what they accept”.

Of course, if they get really cunning and start claiming that they believe things simply to stop us from believing it then we’re really in trouble. What do we do if they say “Catholicism is against gay marriage”? Does that mean we have to automatically say the opposite to make sure we don’t agree with them???

 

[JasonSB]

I posted this the day it was released - funny no AGW’ers here commented on it. Almost, like it was some inconvenient truth

Actually I was hoping to find out if you agreed with the Royal Society’s statement or not, first.

Do you?

 

[JasonSB]

Albeit this is oft times true. Attacking the source instead of the claim, has always IMHO not led to the credibility of AGW.

If the claim has been completely demolished and yet it keeps coming up over and over and over again, at some point it becomes necessary to point out that those making the claim simply don’t know what they’re talking about and why.

This is a fundamental problem that can’t easily be solved: From time to time we will encounter real problems that require human behaviour to change, but are too complicated for people to fully understand unless they have had the training necessary to do so.

If there are those who have a vested interest in not changing that behaviour then the best strategy for those vested interests is to simply cast doubt on the science and attack the scientists responsible for identifying the problem.

Anybody who has the necessary training can automatically be dismissed as “part of the conspiracy”, “in it for the money”, etc., if they support the mainstream view, even though it is patently ridiculous to suggest that mainstream scientists are ever in it for the money. (Hint: you make a lot more money by supporting the vested interests.)

Bizarrely, any attempt to point out that anybody parroting the claims of the vested interests has an agenda is dismissed as an “Ad Hominem”, despite the fact that that’s exactly what the other side is doing all the time.

If we ignore any claims of impropriety, what are we left with? Well, many, many thousands of papers every year reporting actual science that supports the concensus. Too many to actually count.

You can tell exactly how many papers are published that dispute the consensus because every single one of them blasts its way around certain sites with the claim that finally this paper disproves AGW.

The funny thing is that every single one of them, without fail, either doesn’t actually support that claim or has some flaw in it.

Bob Carter was mentioned here recently, so I’ll use him as an example. This paper caused an enormous kerfuffle last year:

agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011637.shtml

The first thing to note is that the paper only contained one passing comment about AGW, yet the publicity surrounding its publication made it seem like it had shot the theory down in flames (i.e. the PR had nothing in common with what was actually accepted – PR, sadly, is not peer reviewed).

Secondly, that one passing comment about AGW was not supported by anything that the paper actually showed, and should have been picked up during peer review as a non-sequitur.

Thirdly, a subsequent peer-reviewed paper showed that not only did the paper not support the comment about AGW, but, in fact, the methodology that Carter et al had used actually made it impossible for the paper to reach any conclusions about AGW. (Basically, AGW is a long-term trend, and the first thing their methodology did was to filter out any long term trends so they could look for correlations between climate and SOI; the correlations reported in that abstract are between SOI and the detrended climate data, i.e. after any possible AGW effects were removed. This was actually pointed out on the blogosphere basically immediately, and the flaw is obvious as soon as it’s pointed out, but here’s a peer-reviewed comment: julesandjames.blogspot.com/2010/05/comment-on-influence-of-southern.html)

Without the AGW comment all you’re left with is an unremarkable paper that simply calculates something I’m sure I’ve seen Tamino do as a blog post before.

So if we simply compare science vs science, we have enormous mountains of good science on the one side, and an odd handful of bad science on the other that often makes you wonder how it got published.

For some reason this, alone, is not enough.

Actually, no. I have presented conflicting claims to AGW. I have not presented anyone as a trusted source - you, on the other hand, have.

If you don’t stand by the information you are presenting, why present it? If you don’t think it’s true, why repost the same information that I have already addressed?

The normal sequence of events is that you present an argument or information that you find compelling and I respond to it. If you disagree that my response adequately addesses the argument raise, then say so and we can discuss it. If, OTOH, you accept my response, we move on. Instead, you ignore my response and then, a while later, repost the same argument or information that I already responded to. Why?

As you say, I do present people as trusted sources after I have satisfied myself that they are trusted. Take Skeptical Science, for example. (skepticalscience.com/) I looked at that site carefully, read the articles, verified that they articles are correctly referenced and really do represent what’s in the scientific literature, and decided that the website is trustworthy; when I link to a page there I am standing by that link – I am willing to let my reputation be judged by what the link says.

I don’t post a link to something and then, when somebody points out what is wrong with it, claim “Oh, but I didn’t agree with it anyway”.

The bias has been a one-sided affair, here.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you.

 

[JasonSB]

You seem, to not be able to understand what I said about UTUBES. I will try to put 1 and 1 together for you. I said " I’m not allowed to d/l UTUBES". This would indicate, that I don’t have permission - not that I don’t have the means.

I don’t understand why you need to be so rude (“I will try to put 1 and 1 together for you”) when “get access to YouTube” says nothing about whether your restriction is technical or a matter of permission.

If it’s purely a matter of permission then are you incapable of asking for it? I would have thought most parents would be delighted if their child showed an interest in watching a lecture by a Stanford professor, especially if you asked them to watch it with you to make sure it was acceptable.

The Richard Alley talk at the American Geophysical Union isn’t even on YouTube, it’s hosted on their own server. If you were going to ask permission to watch something with your parents, I’d start with this, because (a) it’s fascinating, and (b) it shows exactly what scientists are really saying and explains “Why CO2?”.

agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

And this information is based on those who support this irrefutable hypothesis.

Firstly, it’s illogical to dismiss the evidence being produced solely on the basis that those that are producing it have been convinced by the evidence that the theory is correct.

Secondly, not all of the evidence is from those who agree with AGW, no. The panoply of global temperature reconstructions that have emerged in the past year or so include many by “skeptics” who were possibly hoping to find evidence of nefarious fudging of the data. JeffId found that not only was the global warming trend real (“There are high trends from GHCN, so high in fact that anyone who questions Phil Climategate Jones temp trends will need to show some evidence. Certainly Phil is an ***, but it no longer seems to me that he has ‘directly’ exaggerated temp trends one bit.”; “Several skeptics will dislike this post. They are wrong, in my humble opinion. While winning the public “policy” battle outright, places pressure for a simple unified message, the data is the data and the math is the math. We”re stuck with it, and this result.”) but that the “standard” method used for calculating trends actually has a systematic error that artificially reduces the trend.

noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/thermal-hammer/

noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/thermal-hammer-part-deux/

Yet, there are many great scientific minds that don’t support it.

Who?

The “evidence” is projections based upon the irrefutable hypothesis, is it not.

No.

Actually, the emails, and other actions, show not just “fear” but almost verging on paranoia - to many.

Not being in that situation and having only access to emails I prefer not to judge the exact emotion felt by the participants.

What I do see is that they certainly aren’t afraid of their science being refuted.

Granted this is the excuse given at the time. However, They had FOI Librarians available. AND published to FTP servers, did they not?

If Christy said they “gave up” trying to “prepare” their satellite code for public release after six months of working on it, who are you and I to judge just how much effort it would have taken CRU researchers to meet the requests they were inundated with, and how legitimite their fears were about how much worse it could possible get if they caved in to the early ones?

Keenen , McIntyre, Holland had vested interests that raked in the dollars? Who’s dollars? How much?

I never said Keenen, McIntyre, or Holland would rake in the dollars, did I?

Since the leaked emails surfaced - It is actually their reactions we do need to focus on - it goes to the whole of their credibility and support of their hypothesis.

I fail to see how. The science speaks for itself and there was nothing in the stolen emails to support the notion that the results had been fabricated.

Actually, if this were true, anyone with road rage would be acquitted , would they not?

No. Why would they?

Take into account - But do not excuse…as you seem to do.

Where?

This is exactly why you can’t convince me - “Probabilities” and “Unknowns”.

I’m afraid that can’t be helped. The world is full of probabilities and unknowns. You make thousands of decisions every day based on imperfect information and risk assessments. To insist that we do not act until we have perfect information and there are no unknowns is the same as insisting that we do not act.

Just as your generation does now - It’s called misdirection.

No, that is.

Awwwww… While this may OR may not be true - The “consequences” are also hypothetical and subjective speculations …based upon a hypothesis that CO2 is the main driver of climate.

I don’t know why you keep mis-using the word “hypothesis” for “theory”.

 

[John21652]

Not only is that sheer nonesense, but the only way you could possibly make such a claim is to have a theory, produce models, and show what the effects will be according to those models.

So why do you think the above? Where is your theory? Your models? Why do you believe that theory and those models?

One of the world’s 'champions for AGW, Professor Tim Flannery, Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, recently admitted that the models were flawed.
: TIM FLANNERYWe’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… …We just don’t understand the way the whole system works…When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate …These people work with models, computer modelling, when the computer modelling and the real world data disagrees you have a problem, that’s when science gets engaged. What Kevin Trenberth, one of the most respected climate scientist in the world, is saying is, “We have to get on our horses and find out what we don’t know about the system, we have to understand why the cooling is occurring, because the current modelling doesn’t reflect it”.

So much for your reliance on models.

Are we supposed to judge the voracity of science based on the personal beliefs of politicians who accept it, now?

When I read a scientific paper am I supposed to withhold judgement on it until I make sure that nobody with different moral views accepts it?

What do I do if I find out that “avowed homosexuals” are on both sides?

It’s a shame that the IPCC never thought to find out what all the homosexuals thought first so we could disengage our brains and just say “We accept whatever is the opposite of what they accept”.

Of course, if they get really cunning and start claiming that they believe things simply to stop us from believing it then we’re really in trouble. What do we do if they say “Catholicism is against gay marriage”? Does that mean we have to automatically say the opposite to make sure we don’t agree with them???

A shining example of your intellectual dishonesty.

My argument, supported by links to pertinent references, was all about how vested interests are hijacking the science to further their own agendas. Despite the doubts surrounding the science and the hypothesis of AGW, these groups are pushing for massive social changes that are not in accord with standard morality. This should sound warning bells in you mind. Unless, of course, you are a supporter of the progressive and relativistic mores which these groups espouse. Intellectual dishonesty is one of their most used political tools.

 

[Ender]

Graph of equilibrium temperature increase from pre-industrial …

This is an interesting graph but I’m confused about the concept of an “equilibrium temperature.” Perhaps you could use the graph you posted showing the Holocene Temperature Variations and point to what should be considered the Earth’s equilibrium temperature.

Ender

 

[4elise]

One of the world’s 'champions for AGW, Professor Tim Flannery, Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, recently admitted that the models were flawed.
TIM FLANNERY: We’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… …We just don’t understand the way the whole system works…When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate …These people work with models, computer modelling, when the computer modelling and the real world data disagrees you have a problem, that’s when science gets engaged. What Kevin Trenberth, one of the most respected climate scientist in the world, is saying is, “We have to get on our horses and find out what we don’t know about the system, we have to understand why the cooling is occurring, because the current modelling doesn’t reflect it”.

So much for your reliance on models.

A shining example of your intellectual dishonesty.

My argument, supported by links to pertinent references, was all about how vested interests are hijacking the science to further their own agendas. Despite the doubts surrounding the science and the hypothesis of AGW, these groups are pushing for massive social changes that are not in accord with standard morality. This should sound warning bells in you mind. Unless, of course, you are a supporter of the progressive and relativistic mores which these groups espouse. Intellectual dishonesty is one of their most used political tools.

IMHO- it is one thing to disagree on the science, or the conclusions one makes, however I think this type of comment is completely uncalled for - and only points to the one making the comment as grasping at straws.

 

[Biff_Hooper]

Greetings all,

The world is being asked to drastically cut human CO2 emissions. What must be true before such an undertaking makes any sense?

biff