http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlTagSZPm7o
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0
1:35:33 Long for the entire speech which I'm watching now.
brix were shat.
Yeah, those people who were throwing around that "Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither" truism while dubbya was in office?
How's it taste.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Every law costs some freedom. Every law I've seen passed in Australia in the last few years has cost a LOT of freedom. He's totally right about the Greens (I can't remember who it was who coined the expression "Watermelons" - green on the outside, Red on the inside), but again, nothing new. I'm very much unimpressed with the USA trying to be part of Europe, though. To be quite frank, I'm highly unimpressed with the EU, too. It's not possible to unite all those countries into a single country, so you just try to add a layer of government over the top of them all. Not going to reduce bureaucracy any, is it! (Although the EU won my respect for having the guts to fine Microsoft for their monopolistic practices, and to hold up against them and force them to comply. So I'm not 100% against them - just 80%.) People cling to the concept of democracy, and that's fine, but if the people you vote for erode your freedoms, what can you do? Vote for the other party? They're going to do the same. Stand for election (or in America, run for office)? Maybe. What's to say you won't be just as bad, though?
All the countries we currently see are going to end up either collapsing in on themselves, or having a major MAJOR upheaval of government. The only way to avoid that would be to institute a progressive revocation of freedom-destroying laws, and no government has the guts to do that.
I have been following the "Bikie" aka Biker laws there and the freedom to wear patches VS thier so called Draconian gang lawsQuote:
Originally posted by Rosuav
Every law costs some freedom. Every law I've seen passed in Australia in the last few years has cost a LOT of freedom.
but who really needs freedom of speech or assembly right?
I hope your high courts overturn these.. I might want to take my bike and ride the south coast of OZ one day
Oh and by the way... ask the American Indians about the U.S. and Treatys!!! not really concerned about Obama the nobel peace prize winner signing anything...
Don't generalize too much on this point. There are plenty of countries that are fairly political stable and where the government is in tune with the will of the people.Quote:
Originally posted by Rosuav
All the countries we currently see are going to end up either collapsing in on themselves, or having a major MAJOR upheaval of government.
Canada, Switzerland, Finland are examples that immediately come to mind.
And with that, America goes back to bed.Quote:
Originally posted by xaxer
Oh and by the way... ask the American Indians about the U.S. and Treatys!!! not really concerned about Obama the nobel peace prize winner signing anything...
The reason Bikies seem to be copping so much shit is because they pretty much ARE organized crime in Australia.Quote:
I have been following the "Bikie" aka Biker laws there and the freedom to wear patches VS thier so called Draconian gang laws but who really needs freedom of speech or assembly right?
I don't know if this is the case all over, but here in WA, all drug dealers either a) have a bikie contact/supplier, or b) keep their sales low so as not to attract attention.
Unfortunately a lot of innocent motorcycle clubs get caught up in the covert sniping.
So.... it's just Americans then, who fear opressive gun control laws and high taxes?Quote:
Canada, Switzerland, Finland are examples that immediately come to mind.
That isn't what Rosuav said. He said that he expects countries to "collapse in on themselves" or be subject to a "major MAJOR upheaval in government". I think the time is coming when some significant fiscal policy shift will occur in the U.S. with respect to spending, and maybe you'll consider that to be a major upheaval. But that's not going to happen everywhere in the industrialized world.Quote:
Originally posted by Tartun
So.... it's just Americans then, who fear opressive gun control laws and high taxes?
Yeah a scientist.Quote:
Monckton was born on 14 February 1952, the eldest son of the 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. He was educated at Harrow School, Churchill College, Cambridge where he read classics and University College, Cardiff, where he obtained a diploma in journalism.
Woe is America because it is one of the few industrial countries that breeds so much ignorance and anti-science, specially when it comes to evolution or global warming.
Now, back to the video so far up to 23 minutes, it has been nothing but irrelevant points or quote mining.
Minute 25 and he's talking about the Al Gore movie but I can't see his slides. Although I doubt I am missing anything substantial. Gore's movie is not a scientific article so I cannot see how this is relevant at anyway to the discussion. Now he's nitpicking on minor points rather than the major points of AGW.
Now, he's talking basically about Stephen McIntyre's argument against the hockey stick which was rejected by the scientific journals. Of course, if something is rejected by the scientific journals it does not mean that the gullible public will not buy it.
Well, as expected, this guy will not say anything useful other than rhetoric or show nothing but cheap showmanship.
Did we watch the same video? Is that all that concerns you after watching it?
...just wow.
The slides are available to download, I had them open alongside the clip.
Am I the only one who noticed that governments around the world didn't give a fuck about global warming until someone cooked up the idea of carbon tax?
We all know how governments love them taxes.
Much of the stuff I've read about this guy suggests he's a bit of a daft, lying, wackaloon.
It's funny that he's saying that Warmanists who predict the end of our world in our lifetime are alarming us in order to carry out a communist takeover of the world.
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right. Haha.
Beats being stuck in the middle with the proverbial "you".
We can stop worrying now though.
Everything is OK (montage)
Just for the sake of the thread and threads in general (and I know I don't always do this). I think it would be useful (especially for people who are at work and can't watch youtubes) if people would summarize their point with some sort of transcript quote, or their own position.
For example, I assume you're being a bit passive aggressive when you say "We can stop worrying now though." but maybe you are actually saying that we can stop worrying?
I sort of would like to have a discussion about this monckton fellow but don't know what your youtube link is saying, and I don't even actually know what your position is at all!
For the record, do you think Monckton is a hyperbolic twit who has been exposed as a know-nothing and btw isn't this an hilarious video because it's really OTT - OR - Do you think Monckton is a really clever person who is exposing a lot of bad science in the warmenist movement, and is revealing serious ulterior motives that governments and scientists are hiding which have nothing to do with a sincere belief in anthropogenic climate change - OR - do you have some other position?
Yes, I watched most of the movie and found him an eloquent clown. And he did not address the main lines of evidence for AGW. He does not have any peer-reviewed publications and thus his words are not checked for truth.Quote:
Originally posted by Rilthyn
Did we watch the same video? Is that all that concerns you after watching it?
...just wow.
The slides are available to download, I had them open alongside the clip.
Am I the only one who noticed that governments around the world didn't give a fuck about global warming until someone cooked up the idea of carbon tax?
We all know how governments love them taxes.
Did you watch that Noami Oreskes' video on the historical aspects of AGW? Do you see a difference between the style and the presented material by a real scientist and a clown?
Hrm. I just quickly looked at a history of your phil + CE posts, Rilthyn and it strikes me that you're like my best mate Davo.
He posts these drive by 'gotchas' that actually don't make sense unless you understand exactly where he's coming from. I keep telling him that I think they're counterproductive because they make commies like us look like - well - idiots. Not everyone has read the libraries of obscure marxist historians that he has, so he comes off looking glib and insincere.
Now I think you're probably not a commie - though I can't say for sure since you use the word so regularly in an indecipherable fashion - so, think about that; A rusted on marxist can't tell whether you're left wing or not. Do you really want to spend your time making posts that are so obscure that the most partisan of observers can't catch your meaning?
I mean this in a friendly way, and just because I'm rousing on you doesn't mean I don't potentially love you (or hate you FWIW).
rouse, v.4
Austral. and N.Z. colloq.
[Cf. ROUST v.1]
intr. To scold. Freq. const. at, on, onto: to upbraid (someone). Hence rousing vbl. n.3
c1910 in G. A. WILKES Dict. Austral. Colloquialisms (1978) 279/2 Rouse, abuse or vilify. 1911 L. STONE Jonah v. 47 It’s gittin’ late; ‘ow’ll yer ole woman rous w’en yer git ‘ome? Ibid. xi. 126 ‘E niver rouses on me. W’en ‘e gits shirty, I just laugh, an’ ‘e can’t keep it up. 1915 C. J. DENNIS Songs of Sentimental Bloke 88 If she ‘ad only roused I might ‘a’ smiled. She jist seems ‘urt an’ crushed; not even riled. 1934 V. PALMER Sea & Spinifex 182 Combo’s one of those sulky devils that forget nothing… Can’t take a bit of rousing as part of the day’s work. 1940 F. SARGESON Man & his Wife 27 Then Mrs Bowman roused on to me for putting too much sugar in her tea. 1951 D. CUSACK Say No to Death 30 Auntie used to rouse on me frightfully because I spent so much time on the beach. 1961 R. LAWLER Piccadilly Bushman 31 Don’t rouse at me, Alec.
My position takes a while to outline, excuse me while I babble about it.Quote:
Originally posted by Malacasta
For the record, do you think Monckton is a hyperbolic twit who has been exposed as a know-nothing and btw isn't this an hilarious video because it's really OTT - OR - Do you think Monckton is a really clever person who is exposing a lot of bad science in the warmenist movement, and is revealing serious ulterior motives that governments and scientists are hiding which have nothing to do with a sincere belief in anthropogenic climate change - OR - do you have some other position?
I think that EVERYONE is fallible, everyone lies at least some of the time, everyone can be undermined, but also everyone is capable of speaking the truth, whether they intend to or not.
Monckton included.
I think that the one dimensional left versus right mindset that most political debate is locked into is a total joke, and continues to serve as a wonderful tool in distracting the majority of the already small group that actually gives a damn about political issues.
I think that there are men behind the curtain.
As for my posts, I tend to say whatever satisfies me in that moment, whether it's a joke, rant, seemingly out of place quote or otherwise.
I don't delude myself into thinking that political debate on teh internets is really going to move the hearts and minds of whoever we debate/argue with. I've been playing this game for many years, enjoying it all along, but I've never, ever seen anyone fundamentally change their mind based on a political discussion on a messageboard.
Why did I post this video?
Not to move anyone, to touch hearts and minds, it's done exactly what I wanted it to, if that answers your question.
I would continue, but that'd just be preaching to the choir, everyone else would just "slide-away" as I like to put it the moment the topic is broached.
As for what I mean by that though...
Quote:
The sheer magnitude and complex web of deceit surrounding the individuals and organizations involved in this conspiracy is mind boggling, even for the most astute among us. Most people react with disbelief and skepticism towards the topic, unaware that they have been conditioned (brainwashed) to react with skepticism by institutional and media influences. Author and de-programmer Fritz Springmeier (The Top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines) says that most people have built in "slides" that short circuit the mind's critical examination process when it comes to certain sensitive topics. "Slides", Springmeier reports, is a CIA term for a conditioned type of response which dead ends a person's thinking and terminates debate or examination of the topic at hand. For example, the mention of the word "conspiracy" often solicits a slide response with many people.
Rilthyn, to be honest, your last post is incoherent and incomprehensible. AGW is not a political issue although, unfortunately, it has been turned into one. However, if you trust the scientific method, the result is clear: AGW is real.
Open up scholar.google.com and search for global warming articles and you will see the there is a clear scientific consensus over there.
This is pretty much the point I'm sticking on.Quote:
Am I the only one who noticed that governments around the world didn't give a fuck about global warming until someone cooked up the idea of carbon tax?
I could honestly give a fuck less about climate change. Pollution is a problem, toxic waste in our groundwater is a problem. Salinity from irresponsible farming practices is a problem. These are quantifiable issues whose causes and solutions are readily measurable.
Climate change is finger-in-the-dam material. Whether we be the cause or not, the world will change. We, like every other organism in the world, will adapt or perish. From the ashes of the old will arise the seeds of the new. Isn't that evolution?
Seriously, what are we doing? Buying carbon credits, taxing people for breathing and farting and performing activities which amount to essentially lighting fires to keep warm. Strangling our economies in the name of 'Emission reduction'.
I see a whole lot of money changing hands, but no quantifiable solution.
Meanwhile someone's laughing all the way to the bank.
What's proven is that we're putting out CO2 into the atmosphere, I disagree that it's going to have such a catastrophic effect though.Quote:
Originally posted by Xywalan
Rilthyn, to be honest, your last post is incoherent and incomprehensible. AGW is not a political issue although, unfortunately, it has been turned into one. However, if you trust the scientific method, the result is clear: AGW is real.
Open up scholar.google.com and search for global warming articles and you will see the there is a clear scientific consensus over there.
It's the way that the FEAR of global warming has been harnessed as a way to make a few rich men richer which concerns me.
But I'm sure that this time, the emerging world government has our best interests at heart, governments always do right?
As for my last post, I opened it by saying welcome to my babbling, if you weren't interested in my babbling, well, you were duly warned.
Perhaps we should all be praying for Yellowstone to explode. That will certainly make earth a colder place.Quote:
Originally posted by Maelgrim
Climate change is finger-in-the-dam material. Whether we be the cause or not, the world will change. We, like every other organism in the world, will adapt or perish. From the ashes of the old will arise the seeds of the new. Isn't that evolution?
In all seriousness though, the average temperature in the world is currently 15 Celsius (59 Farenheit), which means, in geological terms, that we're still in an ice age. It's true that the potential rise in seawater will be horrible, but there's probably nothing we can do about it as it will happen eventually (whether it be our fault or not). The world will become warmer and then colder. It won't happen quickly, but this cycle will continue after a deadly virus killed us all.
1. You are misinformed. This is a very nice article on skeptics magazine that describes the basic science about this issue. It is probably very simplistic but that's fine as none of us is an expert.Quote:
Originally posted by Rilthyn
What's proven is that we're putting out CO2 into the atmosphere, I disagree that it's going to have such a catastrophic effect though.
It's the way that the FEAR of global warming has been harnessed as a way to make a few rich men richer which concerns me.
2. Once again, AGW has nothing to do with rich countries getting richer. It is a scientific matter and the scientists were studying it long long before any country started to take it seriously.
3. Finally, nobody, including yourself, should care about your (or anybody's) opinion on whether GW will have a catastrophic effect or not. This is another scientific question and opinions do not apply. This point might sound a bit harsh but think about it: whether an apple falls down on roughly 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration on earth at the sea level is not a matter of opinion. You don't get to say in my opinion it's 5.2 or some other random number. Same holds for any scientific question such as whether a 5C increase in global temperature will have catastrophic effects. Scientists put forward various conjectures and theories and then try to test to see which one holds better under closer scrutiny.
To which you say.Quote:
Originally posted by Rilthyn
It's the way that the FEAR of global warming has been harnessed as a way to make a few rich men richer which concerns me.
Oh I agree with you, the theories have existed for some time, not taken seriously by any country in the world.Quote:
Originally posted by Xywalan
2. Once again, AGW has nothing to do with rich countries getting richer. It is a scientific matter and the scientists were studying it long long before any country started to take it seriously.
They are taking it seriously now because they heard the magic word.
Tax.
Even if the problem is as grave as the alarmists say, tax is not the answer, tax is tax.
This debate is rife with opinions, alarmists have their projections (opinions) about doom to come. Their results are slanted because of their opinions.Quote:
3. Finally, nobody, including yourself, should care about your (or anybody's) opinion on whether GW will have a catastrophic effect or not.
When you focus on the data that supports your hypothesis you will see what you wanted to see.
When you choose how to present this selected data on a graph with careful placement of the start point and increased weighting of the data that MOST supports your own opinions, others will see what you want them to see.
If we want to talk science and science only, I call that bad science.
I've seen global warming projections before, almost my entire life infact. The projections are always exaggerated, always. Remember the alarm of 10-15 years ago?
If we'd have believed them then, we would have expected to be knee deep in boiling water and roasted to medium-well by all the trapped radiation by now.
Where are we at instead?
This from the very first result of 'global warming' on scholar.google as you suggested.
Projected to continue what? Doing fuck-all?Quote:
Over the past 100 years, the global average temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 °C and is projected to continue to rise at a rapid rate.
0.6 °C is hardly cause for PANICPANICPANIC over CO2 emissions, especially given that this SHOCKING increase of 0.6 °C is found at the end of a period of increased solar activity.
Woops, did I just mention the glowing golden elephant in the room?
Snap.
From your link there, Xywalan.Quote:
However, climate models are not empirical, based on correlations in such records, but incorporate our best understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological processes being modeled.
I read that as 'We have absolutely no fucking idea what we're looking at, so we'll draw our own conclusions based on the crossed fingers of the guys paying us'.
They're guessing. It's an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless.
No, it doesn't. It has everything to do with first world countries being FUCKED while a few as yet largely unidentified organizations rake in the dosh.Quote:
Once again, AGW has nothing to do with rich countries getting richer.
As I stated before. There is an awful lot of money changing hands on this issue, but I don't even see clean coal or fusion reactors being rolled out, let alone efficient solar or geothermal plants (And these are technologies who have been 'this close' for decades now.)
But that's not what's happening. You have scientists saying 'We still don't completely understand climate models, but here's our best guess' which is then turned into 'THE SKY IS FUCKING FALLING!' by the envirospintalist movement.Quote:
Scientists put forward various conjectures and theories and then try to test to see which one holds better under closer scrutiny.
So I don't get accused of dodging this point, I'll address this too.Quote:
Originally posted by Xywalan
1. You are misinformed. This is a very nice article on skeptics magazine that describes the basic science about this issue. It is probably very simplistic but that's fine as none of us is an expert.
I read that entire article, not finding much that was skeptical about it until the conclusion.
There are two legs upon which this theory stands on, this is one of them being acknowledged as inherently flawed.Quote:
Hence, evidence that temperature changes precede changes in carbon dioxide concentrations in some climate changes on the timescales of ice ages, for example, only shows that temperature changes can affect the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which in turn feed back on temperature changes.
The other leg is built upon radiative transfer. A key part in the projections that predict doom. The precious PROJECTIONS.Quote:
Such evidence does not invalidate the laws of thermodynamics and radiative transfer, or the conclusion that the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the past decades is human induced.
I've had enough with doomsday climate projections, I want observed results.
I'll sum it up with a pull from that link.
The Earth really is a wonderful place, I love it dearly.Quote:
Lindzen and Choi make their determination by examining radiation data measured by instruments carried by satellites orbiting above the earth’s atmosphere and comparing the variation of incoming and outgoing radiation with the variations in the earth’s tropical ocean temperatures. Climate models seem to predict that when the ocean temperature increases, less radiation leaves the earth to space, which leads to additional warming—a positive feedback. However, actual observations seem to show that warmer oceans results in more radiation lost to space, which acts to reverse the warming—in other words, a negative feedback.
@Rilthyn
They were not taken seriously because as usual public and thus the politicians are often decades behind the scientific advances. For instance, check out how public/politicians dealt with the ozone hole: scientists knew about it from 1976 but the governments did almost nothing to combat it. It was not until 1999 when a report on a massive ozone hole on Antarctic received much publicity that the politicians started to shift their position. Exact same thing is happening with global warming.Quote:
Oh I agree with you, the theories have existed for some time, not taken seriously by any country in the world. They are taking it seriously now because they heard the magic word. Tax.
Also, tax is the governments' way of handling the problem. Here, you are confusing cause and effect. The truth is the politicians have realized a problem and proposing to solve it with tax but you choose to see it in reverse (I bet because of ideological reasons), that the governments have made up the problem to use their favorite tool (tax). If that is the case, why the hell they have waited for so long given that the major scientific papers on AGW has been available for more than two decades?
For pundits such as Munckonton (or whatever) yes. For scientists no. A projection is not an opinion. There is a reason why the undergrad studies are filled with many courses on statistics and the related fields.Quote:
This debate is rife with opinions, alarmists have their projections (opinions) about doom to come. Their results are slanted because of their opinions.
The authority that I am using is the papers published in scientific journals and those are very careful with their analysis. Please don't confuse what is being reported on the media with the actual papers because in many cases the media report is a butchery of the actual paper by a journalist who has no scientific training.Quote:
I've seen global warming projections before, almost my entire life infact. The projections are always exaggerated, always. Remember the alarm of 10-15 years ago?
First, the scientists are not as alarmist as you think. Again, they are very careful with what they are saying in their scientific papers. Finally, the case for AGW is that it is extremely hard to reverse.Quote:
0.6 °C is hardly cause for PANICPANICPANIC over CO2 emissions, especially given that this SHOCKING increase of 0.6 °C is found at the end of a period of increased solar activity.
Read the quote again. It just means when it comes to the time scale of ice ages, we have less understanding.Quote:
There are two legs upon which this theory stands on, this is one of them being acknowledged as inherently flawed.
Melting ice caps, and the various effects on species are among the observed effects.Quote:
I've had enough with doomsday climate projections, I want observed results.
Finally, check out Figure 7 in the link I provided. We do not understand everything but it seems that our models are fairly accurate at the moment, when it comes to small time scales and they match our observations.
@Maelgrim:
To which I respond you have absolutely no fucking idea of what you are talking about. As with many phenomena, our scientific understanding is not complete but that does not mean everything is guess work. Right now, our understanding of gravity is poor but that does not stop us from sending probes to outer space based on accurate routes.Quote:
I read that as 'We have absolutely no fucking idea what we're looking at, so we'll draw our own conclusions based on the crossed fingers of the guys paying us'.
The science behind AGW is not something new. It is based on the same old principle used in almost all sciences: you build a model and test it. If the model predicts the newly observed data it survives and gains more importance. If it does not, then it needs to be modified, checked or put aside. This is nothing new that you suddenly find it so shocking.
I somewhat agree with that statement that sometimes the scientific projections are greatly exaggerated by various groups. However, read the IPCC report, this times things are really serious. Serious here does not mean that we will go extinct in 50 years. It means we will be causing global changes in the coming centuries that might be extremely hard to reverse and while its possible effects are not fully understood, they seem to be catastrophic.Quote:
But that's not what's happening. You have scientists saying 'We still don't completely understand climate models, but here's our best guess' which is then turned into 'THE SKY IS FUCKING FALLING!' by the envirospintalist movement.
For example, something that we do not understand is the tipping points. In other words, a small warming might melt the ice caps, release more gases to the atmosphere, resulting in a bit more warming, resulting in more ice caps melting, resulting in a reduction in the amount of light reflected to space by the ice, causing more warming and so on. Again, these tipping points are poorly understood but they seem to have happened in the past: Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. This may or may not happen but the whole logic is why should we risk?
Quote:
Originally posted by Rilthyn
I'll sum it up with a pull from that link.
This is the paper the blog was talking about. It seems the results are based on another simulation.
Eeeeaaahhh.... Not sure that ozone layer holes are a good example for you to pull from. Wasn't it subsequently found that the "hole" (not actually a hole, just a thinning) was really just regular cyclic shifting of ozone, and that the hole ended up moving to some completely different place, and keep moving, without any connection to the usage of CFCs?Quote:
Originally posted by Xywalan
They were not taken seriously because as usual public and thus the politicians are often decades behind the scientific advances. For instance, check out how public/politicians dealt with the ozone hole: scientists knew about it from 1976 but the governments did almost nothing to combat it. It was not until 1999 when a report on a massive ozone hole on Antarctic received much publicity that the politicians started to shift their position. Exact same thing is happening with global warming.
I believe his point is that tax is not a solution to this or any problem. Governments are instructed to panic, and so they create a new tax or some form of licensing (with fees). The only thing government can do about global warming is to legislate something, so that's what they do. (Well... members of government could try reducing their air travel, driving fuel-efficient cars, etc, but (a) that's no different from any other group of the same number of people, and (b) when they do, it's usually just as a publicity stunt, and completely fake.) Why wait? Because introducing a tax requires that people be sufficiently brainwashed about the terrible problem that they'll accept a tax as though it were a solution. Governments can only impose a tax when the votes gained from "Look, we're taking action against global warming" exceed the votes lost from introducing another tax.Quote:
Also, tax is the governments' way of handling the problem. Here, you are confusing cause and effect. The truth is the politicians have realized a problem and proposing to solve it with tax but you choose to see it in reverse (I bet because of ideological reasons), that the governments have made up the problem to use their favorite tool (tax). If that is the case, why the hell they have waited for so long given that the major scientific papers on AGW has been available for more than two decades?
Uhm, sorry. Wrong. Projections are not so purely mathematical that they are infallible. If you see a series of numbers that goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, you can predict that the next will be 8; but with anything of any level of complexity, the graphs are "best-fit" and there's always statistical outliers. If the data's not 100% certain (and it never is), then the projection always has some error in it as well, and that's where the scientists' own opinions come in. Educated guesses are still guesses, and evidence-supported predictions are still fallible predictions.Quote:
For pundits such as Munckonton (or whatever) yes. For scientists no. A projection is not an opinion. There is a reason why the undergrad studies are filled with many courses on statistics and the related fields.
Yes, I agree with that. Media != scientific journals. But "careful with their analysis" still doesn't guarantee infallibility. There's no end of scientific theories that have produced plausible predictions that have turned out incorrect (although usually they're not completely wrong, just somewhat inaccurate). Doesn't mean the original researchers were careless - just means they didn't have infinite data available. (And yes, it truly would take infinite data to be perfectly certain. I read recently of some research that involved 256 exabytes of data. Beat that, if you can! But even that can't give perfect predictions.)Quote:
The authority that I am using is the papers published in scientific journals and those are very careful with their analysis. Please don't confuse what is being reported on the media with the actual papers because in many cases the media report is a butchery of the actual paper by a journalist who has no scientific training.
They are indeed careful, because who wants to make a statement like "in 2020, the global average temperature will be 5.352 deg C higher than in 2000", and then be proven wrong? Much safer to word it such that, even if your primary predictions aren't quite right, your paper isn't completely invalidated. You don't want to become known around the scientific world as "Jones, of the fallacious paper on AGW".Quote:
First, the scientists are not as alarmist as you think. Again, they are very careful with what they are saying in their scientific papers. Finally, the case for AGW is that it is extremely hard to reverse.
Melting ice caps is an observed result of increased temperature. I want observed results of human-caused CO-sub-2 emissions. And also, I'd like some consensus as to whether it's just CO2, or if SO2 is an issue as well, or if all the other gases that volcanoes emit also count (because if they do, one volcanic eruption does a lot of non-human-induced damage) - especially, what's status on H2O? Modern engines are being pushed towards the ultimate end of emitting pure water vapor (an end which, to my knowledge, is achieved only by a hydrogen engine - obviously, burning pure hydrogen in an environment of pure oxygen will produce pure DHMO), but what if it should turn out that that's no better than pumping out carbon dioxide?Quote:
(on wanting observed results) Melting ice caps, and the various effects on species are among the observed effects.
But in the small scale, it's too hard to see anything. You're talking about temperature changes in fractions of a degree, and that level of difference can be dwarfed by known cyclic changes from day to day, season to season, year to year. The smaller your small-scale experiment, the harder to accurately predict. Part of the trouble with researching these things is that things keep changing - you can't get a hundred years' data about Euro 1 engines, then get another hundred years' worth on Euro 2, before finally getting to Euro 5 and seeing if it's an improvement. But the fact is that money drives a lot of things, and if someone's funding your research, and the chance of further funding depends on them still being concerned, it makes sense to keep them concerned. And that's unlikely ever to change.Quote:
Finally, check out Figure 7 in the link I provided. We do not understand everything but it seems that our models are fairly accurate at the moment, when it comes to small time scales and they match our observations.
Oh sweetheart, didn't you just finish saying that NOBODY has any fucking idea what they're talking about?Quote:
To which I respond you have absolutely no fucking idea of what you are talking about.
Any time you're dealing with projections, you're dealing with guesswork. As Rosuav so eloquently stated;
Quote:
Educated guesses are still guesses, and evidence-supported predictions are still fallible predictions.
The Paleocene was a period of phenomenal ecological development. It's hardly a doomsday scenario even in the most pessimistic terms.Quote:
For example, something that we do not understand is the tipping points. In other words, a small warming might melt the ice caps, release more gases to the atmosphere, resulting in a bit more warming, resulting in more ice caps melting, resulting in a reduction in the amount of light reflected to space by the ice, causing more warming and so on. Again, these tipping points are poorly understood but they seem to have happened in the past: Paleocene -Eocene Thermal Maximum. This may or may not happen but the whole logic is why should we risk?
Like the scribes before the industrial revolution discovered, and as the Media moguls of today are discovering, no industry is sacrosanct. Agriculture will have to learn to adapt with changing climate, perhaps they will have to break with millennial tradition and start farming something which is a little more harmonious with local ecologies than the stock sheep and cattle (IE Aussie farmers might have to pull their heads out of their arses and realize the benefits of emu, crocodile, and kangaroo.) likewise architectural development may have to begin moving along different lines than the identical brick 2 and 4s they slap up by the dozen.
This eco-movement is guilty of exactly the same thing they accuse the skeptics of. Fear of change, and resistance to the alteration of current social structures.
Catastrophic to what exactly? I'm pretty sure I could survive without much alteration of my lifestyle in a Paleocene weather pattern.Quote:
It means we will be causing global changes in the coming centuries that might be extremely hard to reverse and while its possible effects are not fully understood, they seem to be catastrophic.
I wish people weren't so quick to equate 'different' to 'catastrophic'.
We as a society are in much more danger from the economic upheaval of envirospintalism than from any possible (yet not quantifiably probable) alteration of the biosphere.
I have no intention to read enough climate material to be able to hold my end in a debate here, but I found the following video helpfull.
It's an old video, so it might have been linked here before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
I know that this is not your argument Miromina, so please don't take this as a shot at you.Quote:
Originally posted by Miromina
I have no intention to read enough climate material to be able to hold my end in a debate here, but I found the following video helpfull.
It's an old video, so it might have been linked here before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
That is the biggest piece of shit I have ever seen in my life. That guy completely IGNORES the possible ramifications of a true global economic depression. His friends must be complete gormers if they can't point out what happened the last time the world found itself in that position.
I believe some people know it as "World War 2".
Imagine that, with today's weaponry. A global war resulting from an extended economic disaster is, in my mind, HUNDREDS of times more terrifying than any possible natural disasters which climate change may effect. Not to mention, that there is no quantifiable evidence that such disasters are even influenced by climate change, let alone caused by it!
On the other hand, we've all seen the movies... We know exactly what a 50 megaton nuke will do...
@Rosuav:
No, that is not true. Essentially, CFCs are catalyse and thus one molecule of CFC can break down roughly hundred thousand ozone molecules during its life time. The life cycle of CFC and the way they can reach the atmosphere is also very well understood and pretty much everything behind the ozone depletion was solid science. But if you want to discuss that maybe we can open a separate thread.Quote:
Eeeeaaahhh.... Not sure that ozone layer holes are a good example for you to pull from. Wasn't it subsequently found that the "hole" (not actually a hole, just a thinning) was really just regular cyclic shifting of ozone, and that the hole ended up moving to some completely different place, and keep moving, without any connection to the usage of CFCs?
Okay, this is a matter of opinion. Maybe there are better solutions like forcing companies to clean up the emissions. For example, force them to remove the same amount of CO2 that they put in the atmosphere, either directly or through other companies thus opening up new venues for new CO2 removing companies to compete in a free market. Maybe that's a better solution, but I've no idea.Quote:
I believe his point is that tax is not a solution to this or any problem.
Nobody is claiming that they are. The point is, scientific projections are much more precise, they are more than some pundit plugging some numbers. They have to do various modeling, justify their models and so on.Quote:
Uhm, sorry. Wrong. Projections are not so purely mathematical that they are infallible.
I'll have to leave now but I'll get back at you soon.
An individual person can make one person's worth of difference. A company can make one company's worth of difference. A government cannot make one country's worth of difference.Quote:
Originally posted by Xywalan
Okay, this [the statement that taxes solve nothing] is a matter of opinion. Maybe there are better solutions like forcing companies to clean up the emissions. For example, force them to remove the same amount of CO2 that they put in the atmosphere, either directly or through other companies thus opening up new venues for new CO2 removing companies to compete in a free market. Maybe that's a better solution, but I've no idea.
Regardless of what people believe about global warming, I think we can all agree that making less landfill garbage is a good thing to do. So I'll use that as an example; parallels can easily be drawn to CO2 emissions, etcetera.
One person can improve his own behaviour and create less garbage, by refusing plastic bags, reusing whatever he can, composting biodeg stuff, etc. In the grand scheme of things it's not much, but if everyone does, then it could make a difference. With some help from either government or corporate, he would be able to submit materials for recycling, too.
A company can encourage its staff to do the above, and can also enact corporate policy to, for instance, transmit information electronically rather than print it out, wrap it in plastic, and send it through the post. Corporate management could also decide to do some more expensive and effective actions than an individual could afford (eg recycling raw materials).
A government is in some ways like a company, and could therefore function that way; but normally when you look at government doing things, you don't just mean that they cut back on waste in their own internal usage - you want them to do something about everyone else's waste too. And that's where things become different. What can govt do? At the local council level, there's a few useful things (recycling bins collected every week), but other than that, the only options are to outlaw something, or to tax it. What can the federal government do about all those shopping bags that you see shredded around the place? Either outlaw them or tax them. What can the govt do about carbon dioxide emissions? Either outlaw the worst offenders or tax things. What can govt do about trucks that emit heaps of sulphur? Either outlaw sulphur in fuel or tax it. There's really not a lot else that can be done, so with anything that can't be totally outlawed, the only real option is tax, and that means that anyone with pockets deep enough to hold their lethargy will just pay it and move right along (after whinging about the new tax, of course); meanwhile, some smaller company might be doing all it can, but the nature of the industry is that it WILL produce CO2, and so they get taxed out of profitability. There's no fair way to create a carbon tax, unless we just tax all carbon-based life forms equally. That's fair, at least... and also, I'd very much like to see the ATO and the IRS going after the local kangaroo or grizzly bear population...
I'm hoping you mean get back TO us soon! :DQuote:
I'll have to leave now but I'll get back at you soon.
@Rosuav
Alright, I'm back.
I absolutely agree. However, at any given time, our scientific models are the best available models. It is true that they might turn out to be incorrect but when it comes to a global issue such as AGW, it is not wise to put our head in the sand and hope for the best. Furthermore, the basic observation (the AGW) has not been refuted in a few decades and thus it needs to be taken more seriously than some new emerging theory.Quote:
There's no end of scientific theories that have produced plausible predictions that have turned out incorrect (although usually they're not completely wrong, just somewhat inaccurate). Doesn't mean the original researchers were careless - just means they didn't have infinite data available.
Actually, those papers will not appear in any reasonably peer-reviewed journal (of course there are journals that don't do peer-review and can publish randomly generated papers).Quote:
They are indeed careful, because who wants to make a statement like "in 2020, the global average temperature will be 5.352 deg C higher than in 2000",
There are a few lines of evidence for that. One is through measuring the CO2 composition of the atmosphere and comparing it with the past. The most common method is extracting the bubbles of air that have been trapped in the ice cores for thousands of years (recently, it seems there are more ingenious ways too). Furthermore, the scientists have been tracking CO2 since 1950s. The link that I posted on skeptics magazine explains this well but it turns out that the CO2 of atmosphere rose suddenly in the past decades. This is one line of evidence but it is not conclusive as the rise could be coincidental.Quote:
Melting ice caps is an observed result of increased temperature. I want observed results of human-caused CO-sub-2 emissions.
Another line of evidence comes from carefully tracking CO2 emissions and CO2 sinks. This is not conclusive yet as apparently there are missing carbon links but still it matches the first line of evidence.
The third line of evidence comes from analyzing the isotopes of carbon in the atmosphere. This shows the added carbon comes from the burning of the plant material. All these three lines of evidence strongly suggests that humans have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere. We could be wrong of course but the point is nobody has been able to come up with an alternate theory that can explain all these observations.
Different greenhouse gases operate at different frequencies, that is, they reflect a different frequency of red light. This means, in a way, they operate independently. Of course changes in the amount of other greenhouse gases will also change the temperature of Earth but so far it seems the major greenhouse gas affected by humans is CO2. Actually, if you check out that Naomi Oreskes video, you'll see that this was the first question scientists asked before considering AGW (if I remember correctly around 50's).Quote:
And also, I'd like some consensus as to whether it's just CO2, or if SO2 is an issue as well, or if all the other gases that volcanoes emit also count (because if they do, one volcanic eruption does a lot of non-human-induced damage) - especially, what's status on H2O?
Those things are considered as natural causes. Regardless of the amount of change, still it is a fact that the models only work when you include the extra CO2 added by us. Until someone comes up with a better model that shows this extra CO2 is ineffective, this is another line of evidence for AGW.Quote:
But in the small scale, it's too hard to see anything. You're talking about temperature changes in fractions of a degree, and that level of difference can be dwarfed by known cyclic changes from day to day, season to season, year to year.
Actually, there are many companies and lobby groups that want to see the opposite. Furthermore, just because you come up with a propaganda research does not mean that it will be published. The peer review process will eventually weed out the unscientific results but the point is for AGW this has not happened for the major lines of evidence, in the last decades. To be honest, I have heard the exact opposite that there is a pressure on scientists to downplay the effects, so that they are not accused of fearmongering but that's another issue.Quote:
But the fact is that money drives a lot of things, and if someone's funding your research, and the chance of further funding depends on them still being concerned, it makes sense to keep them concerned.
That is an ideological statement. I don't want to get into that.Quote:
An individual person can make one person's worth of difference. A company can make one company's worth of difference. A government cannot make one country's worth of difference.
Except that I do not see an incentive for a company to do those things in the absence of external pressure forces. If you allow me to be very simplistic, a company that wastes its resources on anything other than generating revenue will lose its edge against other companies and eventually will be weeded out. Of course there are many "good" ways of generating the revenue, for instance, by making your employees happier or more productive. However, it is a fallacy to assume that all revenue boosting policies will be "good". Regulations against fraud or any other activities are the obvious examples of external pressure forces that keep the companies away from "bad" revenue boosting practices.Quote:
A company can encourage its staff to do the above, and can also enact corporate policy to, for instance, transmit information electronically rather than print it out, wrap it in plastic, and send it through the post. Corporate management could also decide to do some more expensive and effective actions than an individual could afford (eg recycling raw materials).
Furthermore, a company always operates within its local boundary. A company cannot and should not deal with anything beyond the limited area within which it is operating. A government's responsibility on the other hand, is to deal with more broad issues. It is another fallacy to mix these two.
I disagree. A small company that comes up with a better idea that produces less CO2 will pay less taxes and thus gain an edge on the bigger companies. Again, this is sort of an ideological statement but I cannot see why this could not happen.Quote:
some smaller company might be doing all it can, but the nature of the industry is that it WILL produce CO2, and so they get taxed out of profitability.
I did not say that. Saying that there are a lot of things that we do not understand does not mean we do not understand anything. It does not mean we understand a little. It does not mean we understand a lot. It just means there are a lot of things we do not understand.Quote:
Originally posted by Maelgrim
Oh sweetheart, didn't you just finish saying that NOBODY has any fucking idea what they're talking about?
Any time you're dealing with projections, you're dealing with guesswork. As Rosuav so eloquently stated;
For example, there are a lot of things that we do not understand about gravity but at the same, there are a lot of things that we do understand about gravity. We can send probes to outer space and predict their path for the coming years using our models.
And that is another point I must touch. Almost everything is based on models and projections. When you build a skyscraper, you model the weights and work out the strengths of the building. You use these scientific projections, you use imperfect models. You might call it guess-work but in general these type of scientific guess-works do actually work.
Again, none of this is new. They are all standard practices used in many areas of science. They all work fabulously and often nobody notices them but when it comes to global warming, apparently, because of your ideological clash with the concept of taxation, the standard principles are suddenly unreliable.
I don't think you could be any more wrong on this point. The whole point of doing science is that it allows for predictions that do not involve guesses. Do you think that it's just a guess on my part if I think that a ball will fall to the ground if I drop it? The science behind climate models are more complicated than that, but it's still not 'guesswork'. To the extent that some assumptions are made during the analysis, some uncertainty can exist in the solution, but to call it a guess is still missing the point.Quote:
Originally posted by Maelgrim
Any time you're dealing with projections, you're dealing with guesswork. As Rosuav so eloquently stated;
You miss my point. I was asking for evidence of the *results* of human-induced CO2 emissions. Sure, it's easy to find out that there's more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there used to be. What I want to see is some hard evidence that that's actually doing something - and, specifically, that the difference between where we are now and where we would have been if humans hadn't done what they do (that is, the level of atmos CO2 caused only by volcanoes, etc) has done some damage.Quote:
Originally posted by Xywalan
All these three lines of evidence strongly suggests that humans have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere. We could be wrong of course but the point is nobody has been able to come up with an alternate theory that can explain all these observations.
I think the type of evidence that you ask for is too much and too difficult to gather even in the distant future. I think I can describe it more easily using a list.Quote:
Originally posted by Rosuav
You miss my point. I was asking for evidence of the *results* of human-induced CO2 emissions. Sure, it's easy to find out that there's more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there used to be. What I want to see is some hard evidence that that's actually doing something - and, specifically, that the difference between where we are now and where we would have been if humans hadn't done what they do (that is, the level of atmos CO2 caused only by volcanoes, etc) has done some damage.
[list=1][*]As you say, we roughly know how much CO2 we have put up there.[*]We know the globe is getting warmer. We can measure that the ice caps are melting. We can measure that the Canadian tree line is moving north and so on.[*]We can try to build a model of the climate and run simulations with various amounts of CO2. As I said, so far the models need the extra CO2 to match the reality.[/list=1]
Apart from the above, I don't see any other way we can directly measure the contribution of the extra CO2 to GW.
Eat a bad burrito.Quote:
Originally posted by Rosuav
You miss my point. I was asking for evidence of the *results* of human-induced CO2 emissions.
Lobbyists and special interests already do their best to dominate the marketplace, they will no doubt manipulate cap-and-trade in just the same way.Quote:
Originally posted by Xywalan
A small company that comes up with a better idea that produces less CO2 will pay less taxes and thus gain an edge on the bigger companies. Again, this is sort of an ideological statement but I cannot see why this could not happen.
When authority exists to declare who can and can't do business, expect it to be abused, just like EVERYTHING else.
If you look at a half of a bell curve and make your predictions from that, you might just shit your pants needlessly.Quote:
Originally posted by Snrrub
I don't think you could be any more wrong on this point. The whole point of doing science is that it allows for predictions that do not involve guesses. Do you think that it's just a guess on my part if I think that a ball will fall to the ground if I drop it? The science behind climate models are more complicated than that, but it's still not 'guesswork'. To the extent that some assumptions are made during the analysis, some uncertainty can exist in the solution, but to call it a guess is still missing the point.
I tire of this debate, it could go on in this thread just as long as it does in the rest of the world, forever.
You're a firm believer Xywalan, we get that. Even if I was one too though, I wouldn't agree with what is being pushed in the name of 'saving the planet'.
Global government that is appointed rather than elected, carbon taxes and the entire cap and trade scheme?
No thanks.
Whatever is truly happening with global warming, whether it is as bad as the fearmongers say or as bullshit as the skeptics say, we still each need to take a look at the way we live on this planet, if we intend to last as a species.
The human race is currently on the equivalent of a decade/century/millenia long drinking binge, if it ain't global warming that gets us, something else will if we don't wake up.
But, more government is not the answer!!!
QFT.Quote:
Originally posted by Rilthyn
But, more government is not the answer!!!
I wonder if there were people applying the same logic when governments moved to end mercury dumps into lakes, lead paint on consumer products, etc.Quote:
Originally posted by Rilthyn
But, more government is not the answer!!!
I simply trust the scientific method. I did not "choose" to "believe" in AGW out of the blue or for ideological reasons. I will change my mind as soon as the skeptics can put up a reasonable explanation for the observed phenomena.Quote:
Originally posted by Rilthyn
You're a firm believer Xywalan, we get that. Even if I was one too though, I wouldn't agree with what is being pushed in the name of 'saving the planet'.
I'll have to repeat that this is another ideological statement. The problem is the truth of statements like this is assumed to be self-evident (which is not) and often they are thrown as if they are logical axioms (which is absurd).Quote:
But, more government is not the answer!!!
Governments are good for many things, such as funding basic research or enforcing various regulations. Instead of sticking to the flawed logic that the all government interventions are bad, see the reality and analyze it as it is. Don't let an ideological mindset shortcut you to a final answer.
Isn't the assumption that Global Warming is Bad one of these statements as well? What if Global Warming meant that currently unarable land (tundra/permafrost) could be farmed to increase the world's food supply? What if climate change meant deserts would get more rain and become more habitable? What if it turned out forest fires were a necessary catalyst for new forest growth? What if instead of freezing my ass off 8 months out of the year I suddenly had tropical beach-front property? Doesn't sound so bad to me!Quote:
The problem is the truth of statements like this is assumed to be self-evident (which is not) and often they are thrown as if they are logical axioms (which is absurd).
No, because you can try to answer those questions scientifically.Quote:
Originally posted by Jozep
Isn't the assumption that Global Warming is Bad one of these statements as well? What if Global Warming meant that currently unarable land (tundra/permafrost) could be farmed to increase the world's food supply? What if climate change meant deserts would get more rain and become more habitable? What if it turned out forest fires were a necessary catalyst for new forest growth? What if instead of freezing my ass off 8 months out of the year I suddenly had tropical beach-front property? Doesn't sound so bad to me!
Actually, Jozep has a point that you're hand-waving off, Xywalan - many conventionally-cited studies of the "effects of global warming" either:
1) do not focus on the potential positive effects of a "global warming" phenomenon (which, as Jozep said, are non-negligible);
2) fail to account for the potential economic benefits of such effects when assessing the potential economic costs; or
3) fail to demonstrate that the net benefit to combating "climate change," accounting for the potential positive side-effects and discounting future revenues to a present value actually is a net positive rather than a net negative.
Example: "global warming" as conventionally examined exists, will destroy $30T of property and future habitable land, etc. (I'm picking a number arbitrarily - I've heard something like $42T? - can't confirm this offhand.) However, $15T of land in currently uninhabitable or quasi-uninhabitable places will become either usable or its usefulness will be radically increased by weather patterns. This means that GW as a concept is already a mere net negative $15T. A proposal to cap carbon emissions, discounted to present value, costs $40T. It is, in a basic calculus, inefficient and leads to trillions of dead-weight loss.
In short: it's easy to clamor to 'fix a problem' if you close an eye to the fact that every fix has at least two costs:
1) What you spend in sheer fiscal terms actually altering the status quo ex ante, and
2) The next best alternative use of the resources you spend 'fixing' that initial problem.
Insomuch as many GW advocates or scientists make policy proposals that do not address these problems, they themselves are engaging in 'bad science' - except it's bad economics/econometrics, rather than bad meteorology. I do not advocate the bastardization of one discipline any more than another, so I find this, of course, troubling unto itself.
@Gaviani
Okay, I see what you mean. So here I'll try to address that point.
First, effects of global warming are one of the active areas of research because it's something that we do not understand to a sufficient degree. Of course, some effects will definitely happen. For instance, sea levels will rise because of both the thermal expansion of water, as well as melting ice caps. Other effects are not easily understood. For example, oceans have a HUGE thermal capacity for absorbing extra heat. That thermal capacity will save us in the near future but that also means once warmed the oceans will continue to be warmer for a much longer time (beyond one century and currently I believe there is very little research on long term consequences of that change). In essence, since GW's definite consequences are mostly negative, even though it might have positive effects somewhere (such as expansion of agriculture in Canada) the logical action is to stop this global change. If something goes wrong we obviously have no place to run.
As I said before somewhere, feedback mechanisms are not known completely. It might be the case that a small warming might cause a chain of reactions that will result in a much larger warming. Again, this is probably very unlikely but the whole point is we really have no clue how likely it is and given the global nature of the change, the logical reaction is to try and not risk it.
Second, many of the potential consequences of GW are hard to measure in economic terms. The extinction of species is one of them. Already many species are living on the edge of extinctions and their habitats are geographically limited to narrow regions. GW with high probability will make many of them extinct.