Is Pope Francis right on climate change?

[lynnvinc]

There have been various estimates of the actual number of Indians killed by Whites in what is now the U.S. Most are between 6,000 and 20,000. The number of whites killed by Indians is comparable. That’s not to say the Indian death toll wasn’t much larger. It was. But virtually all were due to disease brought, yes, by Europeans and Africans. But it was inevitable anyway. One boatload of people from Europe, Asia, or Africa to the U.S. or one boatload from the Americas to any of those places and returned, the result would have been the same.

As an anthropologist I heard quite a different story in grad school. Plus nearly all the land in the U.S. today was under the auspices of Indian tribes – we robbed it from them by lies, deceit, and genocide. And I’ve heard present-day anecdotal stories of how they are now sterilizing some Indian women, so they won’t have babies.

Furthermore, it is a lie that Indians killed white women and children. They carried them off and made them part of their tribes. OTOH, whites killed Indian women, children, and old feeble peace chiefs. One young cavalryman reported how during the Sand Creek massacre, after the military had killed off all the old Cheyenne peace chiefs, women, and children who had been flying a white flag over their camp, with the understanding they were going to make peace with the whites, a small Indian toddler was climbing over the body heap, crying, looking for his mother, and a soldier took aim and killed him too.

What is very interesting is that a few years later when the Cheyennes were making a peace treaty with the whites with Kit Carson present, the original treaty read that the Cheyennes would not kill and scalp white men or carry off white women and children. That original treaty is in the History Library at the U of Wisconsin-Madison. However, the version that was eventually ratified by Congress later, cut out “carry off white women and children” (probably because they wanted to continue the myth of the ruthless savages, killers of women and children, who were in fact less “savage” than the ruthless whites.

As for diseases, yes, to some extent they were spread accidentally, but there were many cases in which the white purposely exposed Indians to contagious diseases to which they had no immunity. Add that to cutting them off from their subsistence base into near starvation conditions, and that did cause lots of deaths. But that also amounts to a large portion of these deaths being de facto killings.

Indian-on-Indian deaths were massively larger.

That’s referred to as the domino effect. White settler colonists were coming in from the east from the 1600s onward and moving westward, which pushed the eastern tribes to the west, who pushed those tribes west of them farther west and so on.

Prior to that it was more a matter of occasional Indian tribe-on-Indian tribe raiding. Nothing at all comparable to warfare.

Though I imagine (not sure) there may have been something on the level of ancient warfare during the Mississippian civilization, centered at Cahokia Mound in SW Illinois, since state-level societies in general are notorious for warfare. (We stopped by Cahokia on our way to Texas.)

Linguistic similarities do not make a “tribe” or a people…

Well, maybe your anthropology professors may not have known, but it is well accepted that a good portion of the Aztec people had originally lived in the north (where the U.S. currently is, in that Aztlan area), then migrated to the south to where Mexico City is today.

Furthermore, there were lots of Chicanos and Tejanos who were living in what is now the U.S. (in the West and Texas), many with Spanish land grants, well before Anglo settlers arrived, and there have been some egregious harms against them too, like Battle Mountain Gold poisoning their water with cyanide – and the judge deciding that while the Chicanos of S. Colorado San Luis Valley had original land and water rights, they did not have the right to safe and clean water.

The list goes on. We are part and parcel of a society and economic system that engages in a lot of harms (even if there are lots of positives, as well). Are others who are part of other systems equally bad or even worse than us? That’s not the point. A priest we had would point out that trying to get off the hook of responsibility by pointing to worse people is wrong. I think it’s a favorite ploy of children.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hi fnr,

Originally Posted by ferdgoodfellow View Post
My initial outrage, speaking as a “religious, social-conservative, capitalist-oriented Catholic,” stems from several things. First, having studied the development of modern climate science, I do not trust the climate science establishment led by the IPCC. You will have to go back to the beginning of this thread for the details.

You replied:

I am appealing not to individuals, but to science. “Nullius in verba” (on on one’s word) is the old watch-word of the Royal Society of London. Works well here.

No, you are indeed appealing to individuals. The work of science is done by human persons. And when you appeal to a body of scientific work, you are placing your trust ultimately in the persons who had a hand in generating that work.

In her little TED talk, Naomi Oreskes at least gets the question right: “Why should we trust scientists?” She admits that it all rests on trust, and we have no choice but to trust because we simply can’t independently verify all the claims being made. This is true of scientists as well as laymen. It is inevitable that you take someone’s word for it. The problem for all of us in trying to understand complex scientific problems such climate change is to know when we shouldn’t.

I have been arguing in this thread that mainstream climate science is not trustworthy because the people behind it are not trustworthy.

While I realize the problems in computer models of climate (having developed computer models and tested them for other issues), I have yet to see a single model that is consistent with our current understanding of atmospheric chemistry and physics, oceanography, and astronomy that predicts that the global mean temperatures will not increase with increasing CO2 values.

Computer models are indeed a major “witness” in the case against CO2. But why should we trust their predictions?

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Every September 1, starting this year, will be an annual day of global prayer “for the Care of Creation,” Pope Francis said on Monday.

msnbc.com/msnbc/pope-francis-say-prayer-creation

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

ferd sed:

I have asked this questions before but the Holy Father and no one else has answered me: If nasty folks such communists, population controllers, etc. find that global warming alarmism advances their agendas, why is the pontiff so eager to jump on that band wagon?

fnr replied:

I reject the premise of your question. In 1975, when the first global climate model predicted that increasing CO2 was an issue, was the USSR bankrolling it? What about when Svante Arrhenius suggested that CO2 was a cause of climate variation – that was 1896, by the way.

I think it is fair to say that CO2 was reasonably suspected of causing dangerous global warming. Arrhenius and those who came after him (Callendar, Revelle, Plass, Manabe…) were just doing what scientists do. I am unaware that any of them had any particular ideological bent or agendas motivating their research. But then the UN and IPCC entered the picture, and their involvement has corrupted and distorted the development of climate science ever since.

That the environmental movement has been hijacked by communists is historical fact. Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, was a witness to it. Actually the infiltration started before the fall of the Soviet Union, which had recognized the environmental movement as a useful tool against western capitalism. Maurice Strong, Canadian businessman and one of the founders of the IPCC, is said to have been one of its agents. That the IPCC bureaucracy is now dominated by environmental activists is undeniable.

It sounds like you don’t believe in global warming because you believe your own conspiracy theory. My point is made. Conservative Catholics have totally forgotten about issues other than abortion and family issues. So everything else gets melted into the “gay, secular, government-funded abortion mill as the driver of the left” mentality.

I don’t believe underlying it is all one grand coordinated conspiracy. I think a lot of different groups find global warming serves their purposes. The population controllers like Ehrlich and Holdren think drastically curtailing fossil fuel production will reduce the world’s food supply and hence world population. I read an article somewhere titled “How to Kill a Billion People,” which was about how food production is very dependent on fossil fuels and the all the fertilizer and chemicals tied to fossil fuel production.

World governance, which our pope seems to favor, is greatly served by global warming alarmism. More power to the few. I remember Nancy Pelosi, while on a China tour, gushed about how global warming policies will be useful in “inventorying and controlling every aspect of lives,” or words to that effect. That perfectly captures the aim of some in the GW movement. Why would a libertarian such as yerself be in favor of that?

Crony capitalists such as Enron, GE, Exelon, Goldman Sachs, Siemens, etc. are profiting quite nicely from global warming. Ken Lay was greatly enthused about the Kyoto protocol.

I could go on. The point is, apart from my own “conservative hangups,” there are plenty reasons to loathe global warming alarmism. There are also good reasons apart from the involvement of nasty vested interests to distrust the science.

 

[lynnvinc]

…No, you are indeed appealing to individuals. The work of science is done by human persons…

…Naomi Oreskes at least gets the question right: “Why should we trust scientists?” … The problem for all of us in trying to understand complex scientific problems such climate change is to know when we shouldn’t.

I have been arguing in this thread that mainstream climate science is not trustworthy because the people behind it are not trustworthy.

AGW is not too complicated or difficult to understand. For me it’s not “do I trust the scientists,” but my learning about the GH effect in high school in the 60s. It is a universally accepted theory.

Of course scientists discovered and developed it over the past 200 years. I suppose one might think they were in cahoots to dominate the world and send us to Siberia. But frankly that sounds more far-fetched to me than the GH effect, which makes sense to me.

And there is paleoclimatological evidence that GHG levels correlate with past temps; in most cases, there was an initial warming which may have been triggered, for example, by the Earth’s orbital pattern, and that warming then leads to GHG releases from earth, which in turn cause greater warming than would be expected without the GH effect.

As a kid and young adult in the late 50s & early 60s I met some scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (later part of UCSD), where they were studying the GH effect among many other things, and found them to be genuine, open types – not shady characters. One had a surfboard behind his door, but I don’t think that indicated anything sinister. They gave me some basics about flow-charts & computer programs. Meeting them is what got me into reading Victor Weisskopf’s Knowledge and Wonder – which included how the greenhouse effect helped make Earth habitable for life; he was the prof of a scientist there working on fusion. And please note I was a staunch Republican kid – pro-Nixon, anti-Kennedy. So my acceptance of the GH effect had NOTHING to do with politics or ideology.

As for the present-day climate scientists, I am also in communication with several of them and find them to be brilliant, hard-working, and honest people – also having a good sense of humor. I would never doubt their sincerity in the claims they make, and am forgiving of their mistakes.

Furthermore, as they point out climate science is a fiercely competitive field, which has attracted the best & brightest, all vying to outdo the others, and if anyone of them makes a mistake or their work is not up to snuff, they are rapidly and deftly, but fairly, refuted by others in the field. However, climate scientists picking on some flaw in the work of a fellow climate scientist would also point out whether the error actually makes a difference in the larger picture. Most of their errors do not. Mike Mann even points out that even if his entire body of work is thrown out, it would not make a wit of difference in the fact that AGW was already well established before his publications in the late 90s and has continued to receive “robust” scientific support ever since.

What I’m trying to say here is that if one accepts the GH effect, then everything else re climate science makes sense, and one does not need a PhD in “rocket science” to understand AGW – it’s really not that complex as even, say, predicting the weather. There are not a whole lot of variables.

My science edu in HS helps me to understand that (the difference between the macro/aggregate level and the micro/individual level) – for instance, in Brownian motion one cannot easily predict where a molecule will go, but they can easily understand the whole.

In sociology, Durkheim pointed out that it is not easy to predict who might commit suicide and when, but the overall suicide rates stay about the same year to year – staying stable, or increasing or decreasing due to some social factors.

Likewise, while weather (micro-level) is difficult to predict, climate (macro-level) is not. I even have an old atlas from the late 70s that includes a map of climate zones; these are still fairly accurate for today, with some slight shifts.

Computer models are indeed a major “witness” in the case against CO2. But why should we trust their predictions?

You say the models are way off their predictions, and I say they are very skilled in getting it very close. That is just a matter of perceptual difference between you and me. You say far, I say close…esp considering that GHGs are not the only climate forcing variable. There are others, such as:

1. solar irradiance, which has short-term fluctuations of about 11 to 15 years, and a long-term very slightly increasing warming on the sun’s path to self-destruction
2. aerosols (from burning coal, volcanoes, etc) that have a cooling effect (but the molecules are only in the atmosphere a few weeks, unlike CO2, which can be up there 100s & 1000s of years).
3. el nino, la nina, etc., which can temporarily increase or decrease the global average temp for a year or a few years.
4. earth’s wobble and orbit

and so on.

Furthermore they have using the surface temps in the models, not the total of Earth’s energy budget, which also includes the deep oceans, where some of the warming has been going in the past few decades.

Considering all these and the fact that scientists cannot foresee the future years and decades ahead as to when volcanoes will erupt or el ninos develop, etc, I think the models and the scientists do an extremely good job. Much better than you or I or the professional denialists could do.

 

[sps49]

AGW is not too complicated or difficult to understand. For me it’s not “do I trust the scientists,” but my learning about the GH effect in high school in the 60s. It is a universally accepted theory.

…

Considering all these and the fact that scientists cannot foresee the future years and decades ahead as to when volcanoes will erupt or el ninos develop, etc, I think the models and the scientists do an extremely good job. Much better than you or I or the professional denialists could do.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but after months of graphs devoid of the context that they originally had in the publications they originated in, I have developed a case of sign blindness for any of them, no matter who sources them.

While CO2 is recognized to have certain properties, you neglect to mention the other properties of the physical system that comprises the atmosphere of the planet. We still do not understand the energy balance, through measurements or models, carbon sinks or sources, aerosols, solar direct and indirect influences, and a host of other components that act together. All we seem to hear are worst case scenarios, not plausible or realistic scenarios. The models are to blame for this distorted view, and hopefully some semblance of discipline will be restored in the climate community so that they may continue this work in a worthwhile fashion. Admitting that they don’t have the answer is not defeat, but the start down the path of integrity.

Like it or not,there is a substantial credibility problem that the climate community has with the public, largely of their own making. They avoided exposure for years, and then engaged in consensus messaging, followed by victim politics, neither of which have been effective for them. Thankfully, there are enough intelligent people with good science and engineering backgrounds to restore a balance to this hideous dooms day narrative.

 

[lynnvinc]

…While CO2 is recognized to have certain properties, you neglect to mention the other properties of the physical system that comprises the atmosphere of the planet. We still do not understand the energy balance, through measurements or models, carbon sinks or sources, aerosols, solar direct and indirect influences, and a host of other components that act together. All we seem to hear are worst case scenarios, not plausible or realistic scenarios. The models are to blame for this distorted view, …

Actually you are quite wrong there. The models are really quite tame, and do NOT include the positive feedbacks of increasing releases of GHGs from permafrost and ocean hydrates as the world warm.

They grossly underestimate the problem.

It is people in the know about these positive feedbacks that are alarmed, and trying to warn people to slow down their GHG releases to allow the earth systems to absorb them.

And it is known that earth systems absorb about half of the industrial GHGs we emit, altho as you point out this may not be stable in the long run, as the sinks may become unable to absorb as they did before. For example, the GH effect causing higher temps, which cause various conditions, like greater evaporation (droughts, desiccation of plants & soil) and fiercer winds (heat-to-kinetic energy), thereby contributing to greater wildfires, thereby reducing forests as carbon sinks.

I have a hard time understanding people who are not concerned with this picture, at least for the sake of their children and progeny, and looking into solutions, at least no-cost and cost-effective solutions. It boggles my mind and that is where social and behavior sciences really fail to explain this human phenomenon of climate skepticism.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Second, we can speak broadly of a global warming social movement comprised of many different interests: population controllers, radical environmentalists, anti-capitalists of all stripes, one-world governance types, commies, and so on. I have asked this questions before but the Holy Father and no one else has answered me: If nasty folks such communists, population controllers, etc. find that global warming alarmism advances their agendas, why is the pontiff so eager to jump on that band wagon?

Any issue of world-wide impact is attractive as a target for opportunists who might seek to use that issue to advance their own cause, as in the “population controllers, anti-capitalists of all stripes, one-world governance types, commies, and so on” that you mention. The fact that such interest groups exist and may be trying to do what you say is reason to distrust those interest groups. But it is not reason to distrust those who espouse the same view but are not connected to said interests groups. By your logic, I would have to abandon the belief in the Virgin Birth because radical Muslim terrorists also believe it. To use your words, why should I want to jump onto that bandwagon?

 

[sps49]

Actually you are quite wrong there. The models are really quite tame, and do NOT include the positive feedbacks of increasing releases of GHGs from permafrost and ocean hydrates as the world warm.

They grossly underestimate the problem.

It is people in the know about these positive feedbacks that are alarmed, and trying to warn people to slow down their GHG releases to allow the earth systems to absorb them.

And it is known that earth systems absorb about half of the industrial GHGs we emit, altho as you point out this may not be stable in the long run, as the sinks may become unable to absorb as they did before. For example, the GH effect causing higher temps, which cause various conditions, like greater evaporation (droughts, desiccation of plants & soil) and fiercer winds (heat-to-kinetic energy), thereby contributing to greater wildfires, thereby reducing forests as carbon sinks.

I have a hard time understanding people who are not concerned with this picture, at least for the sake of their children and progeny, and looking into solutions, at least no-cost and cost-effective solutions. It boggles my mind and that is where social and behavior sciences really fail to explain this human phenomenon of climate skepticism.

So, the models are incomplete, yet complete enough to support a catastrophic AGW scenario. The AR5 WGI clearly states that internal variability is a problem, that aerosols are a problem, that clouds are a problem. Yet you know in your heart that they got the bit about catastrophic AGW correct. I’d say that your assertion of “quite wrong” is hovering over thin air. The physical system is comprised of open, negative feed back and positive feedback systems, most of which are not well understood. It is your absolute certainty that is in question, not my informed doubts. You see, I read the journal articles and reviewed papers too, and have a much more balanced opinion about the state of the science.

I don’t blame you for having difficultly understanding the basic material, since your background is primarily in sociology and anthropology. Fortunately, my background in science and engineering allows me to take a more realistic view of the research material. I believe that is the answer to your “I have a hard time understanding” question. You know, I use models at work, and occasionally they produce “catastrophic” scenarios as well, but due to my knowledge and experience I realize that these outliers do not represent plausible or realistic outcomes.

Social science fails this question for the same reason that politicians fail after an election that does not go their way; If we are not buying what they are selling it’s because we considered the proposition and rejected it by using reason and logic. That is also the reason why consensus messaging has failed miserably. Bad frame of reference.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

As an anthropologist I heard quite a different story in grad school. Plus nearly all the land in the U.S. today was under the auspices of Indian tribes – we robbed it from them by lies, deceit, and genocide. And I’ve heard present-day anecdotal stories of how they are now sterilizing some Indian women, so they won’t have babies.

Just think…If the Indians had a strong immigration policy (as suggested by Donald Trump) the evil white Europeans would not have been allowed to come ashore…and the world would be a better place.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Just think…If the Indians had a strong immigration policy (as suggested by Donald Trump) the evil white Europeans would not have been allowed to come ashore…and the world would be a better place.

Maybe not for the world in general, but for the Indians…

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Any issue of world-wide impact is attractive as a target for opportunists who might seek to use that issue to advance their own cause, as in the “population controllers, anti-capitalists of all stripes, one-world governance types, commies, and so on” that you mention. The fact that such interest groups exist and may be trying to do what you say is reason to distrust those interest groups. But it is not reason to distrust those who espouse the same view but are not connected to said interests groups. By your logic, I would have to abandon the belief in the Virgin Birth because radical Muslim terrorists also believe it. To use your words, why should I want to jump onto that bandwagon?

The fact that such interest groups exist, have goals diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church, and believe that joining the global warming crusade will further their goals, should make one wonder if it is a good idea to join that crusade.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The fact that such interest groups exist, have goals diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church, and believe that joining the global warming crusade will further their goals, should make one wonder if it is a good idea to join that crusade.

Can’t you just as well say:

The fact that extremist Muslim terrorists exist, have goals diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church, and believe in the Virgin Birth should make one wonder if it is a good idea to agree with them on the Virgin Birth.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Maybe not for the world in general, but for the Indians…

The American Indians are responsible for global warming. They gave us campfires, smoke signals, burning enemies at the stake, and setting thousand acre wildfires to drive buffalo over cliffs. All this contributed to AGW. These primitives are as much to blame as Peabody Coal Co.

They should be held responsible for their contribution. A new government agency should be created to control the profits from all American Indian casinos. These profits, made possible by the destruction of our environment, should be channeled to the United Nations for distribution as they see fit.

))

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The American Indians are responsible for global warming. They gave us campfires, smoke signals, burning enemies at the stake, and setting thousand acre wildfires to drive buffalo over cliffs. All this contributed to AGW. These primitives are as much to blame as Peabody Coal Co.

They should be held responsible for their contribution. A new government agency should be created to control the profits from all American Indian casinos. These profits, made possible by the destruction of our environment, should be channeled to the United Nations for distribution as they see fit.

))

I know you put a funny face on your posting, but allow me to address it semi-seriously.

Burning campfires, enemies, and even wildfires to drive buffalo over cliffs do not contribute one little bit to the CO2 in the atmosphere. And here is why. If they had not burned the grasses, those grasses would have eventually died and rotted and released all their CO2 into the atmosphere. It was going to go there anyway. Burning some of it a few years before it would have decomposed naturally does not change to total amount of carbon in the carbon cycle. And the prairie grasses naturally grow back after a fire, so they didn’t leave a permanent mark on the vegetation. Their effect was neutral.

Peabody Coal Co., however, takes coal that has been sequestered in the ground for centuries, and would have remained so for centuries to come. When this coal is burned it adds new carbon to the carbon cycle. It is a one-way process. Once the carbon has been put into the atmosphere like this, it is very hard to sequester again.

Oh, the trees do a pretty good job of it. They take CO2 and use it to build their wood. If that wood gets put into permanent use by humans, or if it falls into a swamp and petrifies, that carbon has been successfully sequestered. But you need a heck of a lot of new trees to offset the carbon that has been added in the industrial age. And the measurements of CO2 concentration confirm that there are not yet enough trees to do that job, or else those trees are being burned when they die, or rotting in the forest. In any case, a good amount of the carbon they captured does not remain captured.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Can’t you just as well say:

The fact that extremist Muslim terrorists exist, have goals diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church, and believe in the Virgin Birth should make one wonder if it is a good idea to agree with them on the Virgin Birth.

Happy Sunday Leaf,

Let’s leave the Muslim extremists out of it. All I am saying is that I wish the Holy Father were more cognizant of the possibility that the UN’s proposed remedy for the alleged problem of global warming—drastic cuts in world-wide fossil fuel production and consumption—will have unintended consequences. For example, he may end up aiding the population controllers in their quest to reduce the word’s population because eliminating fossil fuels will make food more scarce and expensive. Or he may end up hastening the arrival of a totalitarian one-world government of whatever stripe.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

AGW is not too complicated or difficult to understand. For me it’s not “do I trust the scientists,” but my learning about the GH effect in high school in the 60s. It is a universally accepted theory.

Of course scientists discovered and developed it over the past 200 years. I suppose one might think they were in cahoots to dominate the world and send us to Siberia. But frankly that sounds more far-fetched to me than the GH effect, which makes sense to me.

I disagree. First, the climate system is a complex system whose behavior we are only starting to grasp. While we may have a more solid grasp of some aspects of the system (e.g. the properties of GH gases), others are not so well understood (e.g. clouds), and how they all function together is still a mystery. Second, no matter what aspect of the climate we are trying to understand, we still must trust the scientists (poor, pitiful hooman beans like u and me) who generate the “knowledge” we are relying on.

Furthermore, as they point out climate science is a fiercely competitive field, which has attracted the best & brightest, all vying to outdo the others, and if anyone of them makes a mistake or their work is not up to snuff, they are rapidly and deftly, but fairly, refuted by others in the field. However, climate scientists picking on some flaw in the work of a fellow climate scientist would also point out whether the error actually makes a difference in the larger picture. Most of their errors do not. Mike Mann even points out that even if his entire body of work is thrown out, it would not make a wit of difference in the fact that AGW was already well established before his publications in the late 90s and has continued to receive “robust” scientific support ever since.

I don’t know how competitive the field is. I suppose they are all out their competing for federal dollars. But aside from that, they seem to be a pretty tight-knit and cohesive group-- all for one and one for all,at least judging from the conduct of the paleo community. They seem to spend a lot of time trying to keep out competing theories. They review and rubber stamp each other’s work (pal reviewing) In private they will be critical of each other’s work, but publicly everything is hunky dory. Using Mann as an example, no one was very critical of the Hockey Stick until McIntyre and McKitrick broke the ice. Then folks like Von Storch and Zorita piled on. So, no, the field is not as you portray. Tis pretty insular and stagnant.

What I’m trying to say here is that if one accepts the GH effect, then everything else re climate science makes sense, and one does not need a PhD in “rocket science” to understand AGW – it’s really not that complex as even, say, predicting the weather. There are not a whole lot of variables.

Lynn, weather is complex. How can climate, the long term behavior of weather, not be complex? Not a whole lot of variables? Go read the code of even the simplest general circulation model. It is only simple if you are working with a simple model: more CO2 = more global warming.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Happy Sunday Leaf,

Let’s leave the Muslim extremists out of it.

I would be glad to, if you admit that just because bad people hold a certain view, that does not necessarily mean it is a bad view.

All I am saying is that I wish the Holy Father were more cognizant of the possibility that the UN’s proposed remedy for the alleged problem of global warming—drastic cuts in world-wide fossil fuel production and consumption—will have unintended consequences.

It is not agreed that “drastic cuts in fossil fuel consumption” will have the negative consequences you imagine. That is still and open question.

For example, he may end up aiding the population controllers in their quest to reduce the word’s population because eliminating fossil fuels will make food more scarce and expensive.

That is not quite how “population controllers” work. They imagine that resource scarcity is going to happen regardless of what they do, so they propose artificial means of reducing population (sterilization, contraception) to avoid the very thing you claim they want to cause: resource scarcity. It is a bit like accusing a fire-fighter of starting fires. We disagree with their methods (sterilization and contraception) but why should we artificially constrain our addressing real problems (I know you don’t agree that climate change is a real problem, but whatever…) just because we might be partially agreeing with some bad people? Remember, we can agree with population controllers that resource limitation is a problem without agreeing with them that illicit means are the solution to that problem.

Or he may end up hastening the arrival of a totalitarian one-world government of whatever stripe.

This one is really far-fetched, so much so I don’t even know what points need refuting.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Lynn sed:

…In sociology, Durkheim pointed out that it is not easy to predict who might commit suicide and when, but the overall suicide rates stay about the same year to year – staying stable, or increasing or decreasing due to some social factors.

Likewise, while weather (micro-level) is difficult to predict, climate (macro-level) is not. …

You say the models are way off their predictions, and I say they are very skilled in getting it very close. That is just a matter of perceptual difference between you and me. You say far, I say close…esp considering that GHGs are not the only climate forcing variable. There are others, such as:…

Considering all these and the fact that scientists cannot foresee the future years and decades ahead as to when volcanoes will erupt or el ninos develop, etc, I think the models and the scientists do an extremely good job. Much better than you or I or the professional denialists could do.

I remember reading Gleick’s book on chaos theory. There is a chapter on a weather guy named Lorenz who was working with a simple computer model (dozen or so variables) on a very early vacuum tube computer. Lorenz stumbled on the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions of any deterministic system. Of Lorenz’s eureka moment, Gleick wrote: “And then he knew that long term forecasting of the weather was doomed.”

That the long term prediction of climate also is impossible was acknowledged in the First Assessment report of the IPCC: “The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

That opinion has not changed. Note the IPCC describes their efforts as “projections,” not predictions. Senior IPCC guy, Kevin Trenbearth has admitted:

1. “In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been.”
2. “None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate.”
3. “Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.”
4. “The current projection method works to the extent it does because it utilizes differences from one time to another and the main model bias and systematic errors are thereby subtracted out. This assumes linearity. It works for global forced variations, but it can not work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle.”
5. “However, the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate.”

But even though one cannot in principle predict climate, the IPCC folks are very negligent in letting lay folk think they are making pretty good predictions (forecasts), just like the weatherman. And with their super complex computer models, they give give the impression to the commoners that they are reaching further and further into the future. And let’s face it, they are trying to forecast the climate. They have in fact not been very successful. Their models did not predict the current halt to global warming. Their predicted hot spot in the troposphere did not materialize,… So much for “skill.” If their forecasts over the relatively short term (10-20 years) are rotten, why should we trust their 50+ year projections.

Besides the inherently fraught nature of the undertaking, they also appear to be going about it the wrong way. Regarding their forecasting methods, Kesten and Green have found that the IPCC’s forecasting techniques violate 72 out of 127 principles for good forecasting. One of the biggest flaws in their approach is their use of super complex models. Simpler, more “naive” models actually perform better.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Hey Leaf,

I sed: Let’s leave the Muslim extremists out of it.

U sed: I would be glad to, if you admit that just because bad people hold a certain view, that does not necessarily mean it is a bad view.

Me now: Yes, I admit that. What worries me is that bad people are right in expecting that supporting global warming will further their bad goals.

I sed:
All I am saying is that I wish the Holy Father were more cognizant of the possibility that the UN’s proposed remedy for the alleged problem of global warming—drastic cuts in world-wide fossil fuel production and consumption—will have unintended consequences.

U sed:
It is not agreed that “drastic cuts in fossil fuel consumption” will have the negative consequences you imagine. That is still and open question.

Me now: see my comments below.

I sed:
For example, he may end up aiding the population controllers in their quest to reduce the word’s population because eliminating fossil fuels will make food more scarce and expensive.

U replied:
That is not quite how “population controllers” work. They imagine that resource scarcity is going to happen regardless of what they do, so they propose artificial means of reducing population (sterilization, contraception) to avoid the very thing you claim they want to cause: resource scarcity. It is a bit like accusing a fire-fighter of starting fires. We disagree with their methods (sterilization and contraception) but why should we artificially constrain our addressing real problems (I know you don’t agree that climate change is a real problem, but whatever…) just because we might be partially agreeing with some bad people? Remember, we can agree with population controllers that resource limitation is a problem without agreeing with them that illicit means are the solution to that problem.

Me now: Yes, we can agree with the population controllers that resource limitations are a problem. You and I can agree that their solutions to that problem are immoral. My difficulty is that I also agree with the population controllers that drastically reducing fossil fuel production will cause more food scarcity and inevitably kill a lot of folks by starvation and malnutrition. I know a little bit about modern farming. In the not too distant past the wheat farmers from my neck of the woods got 25 bushels of wheat per acre in a good year. Now they get more than twice that. Most of that increase in yield has been caused by the use of anhydrous ammonia and other chemical fertilizers, and guess where that stuff comes from.

I sed:
Or he may end up hastening the arrival of a totalitarian one-world government of whatever stripe.

U sed: This one is really far-fetched, so much so I don’t even know what points need refuting.

Me now: Maybe far-fetched. But the fact that folks like Jacque Chirac, Nancy Pelosi, Timothy Wirth, economist Krugman, Carole Browner, Van Jones, Ban Ki Moon, et al are lusting for that end is worrisome. And besides, I wasn’t saying anything about that danger being imminent, but GW policies are sure moving incrementally in that direction.