R
Rau
Guest
It would be better to quote my statements with which you disagree rather than inferring or inventing from them.
- Status
R
Rau
Guest
Given the wide agreement that predictions in this area can’t be precise, it would nevertheless seem reasonable to conclude that we face a risk, even a likelihood, of warming, and that the consequences of that risk are in fact quite grave. Further, we know that there is huge inertia at work - initiative started now would have long lead times (lag) before influencing outcomes. So the policymakers are faced with deciding how to prudently address a risk with grave consequences and long lead times between action (to ameliorate) and outcomes. How should that be approached? Do nothing? Accept the worst case scenario? Accept the best case scenario? Or get the best advice one can muster, and act on it?
R
Rau
Guest
Correct - I didn’t assert you’d said anything. If I do - I’ll quote you.
T
Theo520
Guest
You are contradicting yourself. If we can’t be precise then we can’t assign the risk and have no justification to turn the world economy upside down. A full scale response would traumatize the poorest countries the most…
The impact and thus appropriate policy response is vastly different between 1-2C warming and 4-5C warming. Only the latter presents the grave situation you seem to insist everyone respond against.
Until we get scientific validation or if you will, a consensus on the degree of warming, it’s highly imprudent to pretend the worst case scenario is the likely scenario.
Since all the actual scientific data is indicating the more mild projections are accurate, my money is not on the Al Gore alarmist story telling (it’s just a story, not science)
R
Rau
Guest
There is no contradiction. I have taken out many insurances in my life but cannot at all be precise about the likelihood the events they protect me from will happen.
When did the discussion move to what particular countries ought do?
Did I insist that? The recent climate accords have focused on containing warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees. Perhaps googling the difference in impact of a single degree - even half a degree - of warming would shed light on the risks of being wrong (underestimating) about the extent of warming.
Yes, which is why political leaders look to a large team of climate scientists - their recommendation - as the best approach to inform policy. Do you have a better approach?
E
Ender
Guest
Remember: only 0.5% of the papers examined actually claimed that man was responsible for most of the warming, 33% were interpreted as implying this, and 66% didn’t address the question even indirectly. Certainly one reason for this seems fairly simple: they don’t know enough to make an assertion one way or the other, so there is no more reason to expect them to come out and claim man is not responsible than to expect them to assert that he is. They simply don’t understand what’s going on well enough to make such a claim.
But that question has nothing to do with the (in)validity of Cook’s paper. It implies something that is transparently untrue - and untrue even by the conclusions of his own paper.
Ender
E
Ender
Guest
As have we all, but our decisions as to what to insure is based not just on the possibility of something happening but also of the cost to purchase that insurance, and I’ll warrant that very few people ever insure against events that have a very low likelihood of happening and are cripplingly expensive.
In this case, yes. Cui bono.
Ender
T
Theo520
Guest
Maybe you didn’t understand it, but your insurance provider was very thorough in assigning risks to your insurance policy, that’s the only way they could set their pricing.
Are you feigning ignorance? The Paris accord is very specific about the direction individual countries must go, about what they “ought do”
In closing I now take it you agree that the climate scientists cant agree on whether we’ll warm 1C or as high a 5C. I take it you also understand the policy response is very different for each scenario.
Are you feigning ignorance? The Paris accord is very specific about the direction individual countries must go, about what they “ought do”
In closing I now take it you agree that the climate scientists cant agree on whether we’ll warm 1C or as high a 5C. I take it you also understand the policy response is very different for each scenario.
R
Rau
Guest
What I know is that the climate scientists judging the future trend and advising the politicians have produced the best available estimate and that even the low end of their predictions will be very disruptive and the high end catastrophic. They may not have the precise number, in the precisely right timeframe. I also know that lags in policy effects make a “strategy” of doing nothing till certainty is achieved quite impractical. Is this your recommended strategy?
R
Rau
Guest
So you return to the view that the climate scientists are dishonest and seek to keep the money coming by misleading the world. Conspiracy?
I
IWantGod
Guest
God, when is this going to end.
R
Rau
Guest
Presumably when one of the following comes to pass:
- The costs of coping with the damage wrought by climate change are seen to have exceeded the costs that would have been incurred had measures to reduce fossil fuel consumption been sufficiently applied from an earlier date; or
- With more study and observations, the dominate scientific view expressed about the cause, and the predicted extent of climate change, changes (for the better) from the presently expressed one; or
- Moves to contain fossil fuel consumption are sufficiently effective to contain the expansion of green house gas concentrations and ameliorate warming.
What is interesting is that in some countries, there is activity to reduce carbon emissions absent, or in excess of, mandated changes. I read somewhere recently that the US is expected to achieve substantial reductions notwithstanding the Trump position because there is already such widespread support for change at other levels of government and in corporations.
M
Monte_RCMS
Guest
Take a look at Dobson’s book.
Lots of data and graphs.
Now take a look at the NASA “work” … [not a book].
Dobson published data. NASA … not so much.
But buy a copy of Dobson’s book, look at his data … and then try to find the equivalent data from NASA.
NASA instead of updating Dobson’s data and expanding on it, NASA went and published colored photographs. No updated and expanded Dobson data.
They certainly KNEW about Dobson … because they renamed “cm” and called it “Dobsons”.
We SHOULD NOW HAVE TONS OF EXPANDED DATA on stratospheric ozone. But we do not. We have pretty colored pictures.
F
FirstFiveEighth
Guest
Just wanted to say, I think alligator gar are some of the coolest fish in the world.
E
Ender
Guest
I cannot return to a position I have never held, however I will point out that you have no way of knowing what “the climate scientists” think. You can know what media sources tell you they think, and that’s pretty much it. Nor is it reasonable to shoehorn everyone into a single category when it should be plain that people support or oppose the theory of MMGW for all sorts of different reasons. Are there people who support (or oppose) MMGW for personal, financial gain? Yes. Are there people who support (or oppose) it based on their understanding of the science? Yes. For political reasons? Yes. From ignorance? Yes.
Ender
T
Theo520
Guest
Some interesting math, showing we just don’t have the capability or technology to switch over to wind/solar.
We need energy storage that is 10-100 times more efficient than what we have. Until we get the technology, battery storage is a niche solution.
R
Rau
Guest
Fortunately a total switchover to wind/solar in any foreseeable timeframe is not called for. There are many different kinds of initiatives that can be pursued. Replacement of brown coal power stations by gas is an example.
- Status