Mod+ 234. GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE AND OUR ILLUSION OF CONTROL

Many people don't get all their news from extremely biased websites. People such as farmers, outdoorsmen, gardeners, travelers, etc. can see the effects of global warming in their everyday lives. They see extreme weather becoming more common. They see droughts. They see all the glaciers melting. They are outdoors, seeing and observing. Their views matter too. So yes, I think these polls are relevant to the debate if you think, like you seem to do, that professional science is hopelessly corrupt and cannot be trusted.

Oh, dear. Appeals to emotion with no empirical evidence. Get thee hence to a sceptic blog or two, or if you can't face the cognitive dissonance, try out Judith Curry's moderate lukewarmer blog. The so-called skeptical science blog will deprive you of all your powers of discernment and capacity to think independently of Newspeak. I've been there and to other warmist blogs frequently, by the way. Trouble is, you only get the view from the one side. On truly sceptical blogs, you get both.
 
If we stumble across some equally good and reliable source of affordable energy other than fossil fuels, it will be adopted through normal market mechanisms and there will be no need to legislate for it. If LENR turns out to be viable and affordable, for example, I'd be the first to take advantage of it.

I'd like for this to be right, Michael, but have you seen Gashole? There has been more than one person who's made carburetors that radically outperformed those we use today . . . and clearly, any of those, assuming they really lived up to expectations, would've been the "greenest" thing to do, concerning fossil fuels, but the industry seemingly/reportedly killed one of those inventors and shut the others up . . .

I certainly believe in capitalism . . . except that those at the top of their markets squelch up-comers or radical ideas if they can't co-opt 'em or buy them out or whatever else . . . and clearly in the case of a 200mph carburetor (some reportedly higher), we're talking about something that would've devalued the oil-industry's holdings by a lot . . .

Then there's the ending of 'Who Killed the Elec Car?' I don't know where you stand on those, but it seemed pretty clear that the industry - some player(s) in the industry - clearly wanted to get rid of something that the consumers clearly wanted to keep. So they got the cars back and crushed them, literally. Once again, it looks to me an instance of the industry not allowing something out that might be better . . . b/c those with much at stake simply wouldn't allow it.
 
You shouted I was in thrall to "scientific consensus" when I brought up the empirical evidence based on the overwhelming majority of climate research. So maybe a more direct argument would work...

I have been to the mountains and have seen how the glaciers are receding decade by decade. And in the mountains of the western U.S., the biology of the forests is changing as plants and animals migrate north and to higher elevations. Hike in the woods and see this. All the websites which say that ice caps and glaciers are expanding and that the Earth is not warming, are disproven by evidence anyone can go to see.

Alaska along with other northern latitudes have shown very dramatic warming. The residents of northern Siberia and Alaska don't have to check skeptical blogs when the permafrost below their towns melts. As a human I can get a feel for when the weather is acting more strangely from observations of my environment. If this hadn't been the case, support for global warming policies would have never reached the levels it has across the nations of the globe.

I also have a scientific education and understand the physics of the carbon cycle and the greenhouse effect. I can attach what is happening with the glaciers and the forests to the real science of climate change.
 
Not sure what you are saying in the first bit, Alex: is it that you believe in the claims that fracking poses risks such as water pollution and earthquakes? As regards the second point about CO2, fracked gas, measure for measure, burns to produce less CO2 (30% less than oil, 45% less than coal, and it doesn't produce ash particulates either, so less pollution that way). That's how the USA has reduced its CO2 output below Kyoto targets, unlike all those others who actually signed up for them. Here's an interesting document from Richard Muller, who isn't really a GW sceptic:

http://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports...riousEnvironmentalistShouldFavourFracking.pdf
I was under the impression (maybe wrongly) that fracking was an environmental crap shoot re ground water and release of other toxins. don't want to sidetrack, but if you have a link in your hip pocket I would like to investigate.
 
Ok, time for a novel approach. This is supposed to be a place where psychic phenomena are given credence so let's put that to the test. I use a pendulum. I have extremely good spiritual access with it. Over the past couple of days I have asked the same questions put in a variety of different ways. I get the same answers every time.

  1. Is Global Warming really happening? Response...YES
  2. Is human activity the main cause of Global warming? Response...YES
  3. Is this a risk to some of the lifeforms on this planet? Response...YES
  4. Can we act fast enough to reduce Global Warming? Response...YES
  5. Will we act fast enough to reduce Global warming? Response...EQUIVOCATE
  6. Is there a conspiracy in the Climate Science community? Response...NO
 
@Jules

If messages from Spirit are now fair game this guy seems to have a good track record...

The decade of 2010 (12) is marked as the beginning of global problem, ‘climate change’. Tornadoes mount, Hurricanes grow in size, record summers and record-breaking winters, and so many floods upon floods ravage the world violently. The debate of the left and right ends as the oceans begin to consume pockets of the world’s land. Slowly each year the lands are consumed.

From:
http://worldpredictions.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/prediction-6-unfolding/

Full record with hits in green, misses in red,
http://worldpredictions.wordpress.com/the-summary/
 
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Here's an interesting document from Richard Muller, who isn't really a GW sceptic:

Late to notice this (thanks anonymous person for pointing this out), Richard A. Muller started out as a global warming skeptic and decided to do his own investigation. After a careful and very thorough study of the data, he changed sides.

Read about his "Conversion of a Climate Change Skeptic" in the New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=0

Now there is a real scientist for you. He doesn't cling to dogma but is open enough to change sides when the evidence dictates it.
 
I was under the impression (maybe wrongly) that fracking was an environmental crap shoot re ground water and release of other toxins. don't want to sidetrack, but if you have a link in your hip pocket I would like to investigate.

Take a look at point 2.2 on P. 7 of the Muller document I linked to. The problem has been exaggerated and can be controlled and regulated as with any other environmental risk. If you want more information, please get back to me and I'll look for it.
 
I'd like for this to be right, Michael, but have you seen Gashole? There has been more than one person who's made carburetors that radically outperformed those we use today . . . and clearly, any of those, assuming they really lived up to expectations, would've been the "greenest" thing to do, concerning fossil fuels, but the industry seemingly/reportedly killed one of those inventors and shut the others up . . .

I certainly believe in capitalism . . . except that those at the top of their markets squelch up-comers or radical ideas if they can't co-opt 'em or buy them out or whatever else . . . and clearly in the case of a 200mph carburetor (some reportedly higher), we're talking about something that would've devalued the oil-industry's holdings by a lot . . .

Then there's the ending of 'Who Killed the Elec Car?' I don't know where you stand on those, but it seemed pretty clear that the industry - some player(s) in the industry - clearly wanted to get rid of something that the consumers clearly wanted to keep. So they got the cars back and crushed them, literally. Once again, it looks to me an instance of the industry not allowing something out that might be better . . . b/c those with much at stake simply wouldn't allow it.

I'm not too familiar with stories about the auto industry suppressing more energy-efficient carburettors, so can't really pass comment about that. With regard to electric cars, when account is taken of the carbon costs of producing batteries, and their limited life, some argue that they're actually worse than petrol-driven cars; and there's also the problem of battery disposal. In some cases, electric cars have been heavily subsidised so that their real economic costs aren't reflected in the price. They tend to be quite expensive, and represent a good deal for those rich enough to afford them because of the subsidy.

Electric bicycles are better, I think, but adding the electrification can increase the price very significantly. I'm all in favour of saving energy, perhaps because I'm naturally thrifty, but I don't worry about CO2 in and of itself. The earth's atmosphere contains a concentration of CO2 not that much above a level where plant life would be threatened. If anything, we could do with twice as much. The idea of sequestering it seems barking mad to me.
 
Late to notice this (thanks anonymous person for pointing this out), Richard A. Muller started out as a global warming skeptic and decided to do his own investigation. After a careful and very thorough study of the data, he changed sides.

Read about his "Conversion of a Climate Change Skeptic" in the New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=0

Now there is a real scientist for you. He doesn't cling to dogma but is open enough to change sides when the evidence dictates it.

Muller was never a sceptic. He says so himself:

It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic -- only a scientific skeptic," he said in a recent email exchange with The Huffington Post. "Some people called me a skeptic because in my best-seller 'Physics for Future Presidents' I had drawn attention to the numerous scientific errors in the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth.' But I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/its-science-not-skepticis_n_1072419.html

Just another urban myth.
 
Muller was never a sceptic. He says so himself:

It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic -- only a scientific skeptic," he said in a recent email exchange with The Huffington Post. "Some people called me a skeptic because in my best-seller 'Physics for Future Presidents' I had drawn attention to the numerous scientific errors in the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth.' But I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/03/its-science-not-skepticis_n_1072419.html

Just another urban myth.

Why would he title his article in the NYTimes, "The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic" if he didn't change his mind?

In the article, he clearly writes that he doubted global warming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=0
 
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Dear Alex Tsakiris,

Jules gave me a good idea for an experiment related to the spiritual aspect of this blog. Ask a group of spirit mediums about global warming! Find people with records of accuracy, of course, but don't you think it would be interesting to see what they say?
That would be really interesting to me.
 
1. The graph you posted shows a total increase of about 0.8 deg. C since 1880. No one is arguing too much with that. The scaling of the graph, typically, is chosen so as to make the rise look alarming.

Both you and Alex stated that global warming has stopped over the past 15 years or so. You both even falsely attribute that claim to James Hansen. I then posted statements and a graph directly from Hansen's paper which precisely refutes that assertion -- to which you respond: "stick to the point". No matter how much you try to minimize the effects of atmospheric/oceanic warming, the temperature rise is dramatically affecting the planet's biosphere as evidenced by ocean acidification, sea level rise, melting ice, extreme weather, etc.

Your graph shows that the temperature went up before the modern period of increased anthropogenic CO2 started.

It's not my graph, it's NASA's. The 2nd industrial revolution started around 1870. This period was characterized by large scale machining, manufacturing, factories, etc. If you look at the graph you can see that a dramatic upsurge in temperature begins at about 1920. Taking into account the increase in infrastructure density by that time, then it's perfectly correlated with the graph.

From RealClimate:

Since the industrial revolution, we have been burning fossil fuels and clearing and burning forested land at an unprecedented rate, and these processes convert organic carbon into CO2.

From Skeptical Science:

Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2. The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.

What makes you feel certain, I suspect, is the massive hype surrounding AGW, which you are swallowing uncritically. This kind of thing has happened before, most notably with Lysenkoism in the USSR.

Only someone suffering from extreme denial would choose to ignore the enormous amount of scientific evidence for AWG and call it "hype". It also takes an exceptional amount of hubris and/or delusion to suggest that a sane and objective evaluation of modern scientific evidence can be equated to "swallowing uncritically". So much so, it's hard to believe that you're for real..."surreal" would be more appropriate.

Your communist ad hominem not withstanding, in addition to the virtually unanimous consensus amongst scientists, all the major US governmental agencies and world's scientific institutions, universities, and academies understand that global warming is real and is caused by humans. Cherry-pickers such as Judith Curry and discredited websites like wattsupwiththat and GWPF aren't taken seriously within the scientific community...for good reason.

A partial list of those who understand and acknowedge the existence and severity of human-caused global warming:

NASA says that 97% of scientists agree that global warming is real and caused by humans
Environmental Research Letters
Climate Skeptic, Koch-Funded Scientist Richard Muller Admits Global Warming Real & Humans the Cause
NASA
EPA
NOAA
IPCC
U.S. Global Change Research Program
200 worldwide scientific organizations
Scientific societies and academies including:
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science
  • American Chemical Society
  • American Geophysical Union
  • American Medical Association
  • American Meteorological Society
  • American Physical Society
  • The Geological Society of America
  • U.S. National Academy of Sciences
  • International academies
 
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Ask a group of spirit mediums about global warming! Find people with records of accuracy, of course, but don't you think it would be interesting to see what they say?

I think that's a good idea. However, given Alex's conspiratorial leanings on this issue (e.g. carbon tax), if a reading yielded an affirmation for human-caused global warming he would probably say, "Gee, this goes higher up than I thought…"
 
Only someone suffering from extreme denial would choose to ignore the enormous amount of scientific evidence for AWG and call it "hype". It also takes an exceptional amount of hubris and/or delusion to suggest that a sane and objective evaluation of modern scientific evidence can be equated to "swallowing uncritically". So much so, it's hard to that you're for real..."surreal" would be more appropriate.
Help! Doctor, doctor, I'm suffering from extreme denial! I'm a swivel-eyed loon, I tell you!
Your communist ad hominem not withstanding, in addition to the virtually unanimous consensus amongst scientists, all the major US governmental agencies and world's scientific institutions, universities, and academies understand that global warming is real and is caused by humans. Cherry-pickers such as Judith Curry and discredited websites like wattsupwiththat and GWPF aren't taken seriously within the scientific community...for good reason.
You take them seriously enough to go into apoplexy about them. Methinks you doth protest too much.
A partial list of those who understand and acknowedge the existence and severity of human-caused global warming:
Yada, yada, yada. Look: tell ya what. I'll post a concise summary of the IPCC and all its works and pomps from a left-wing newspaper often compared with The Guardian, namely the Age, for my next post. It's by John McLean, an expert reviewer for the latest IPCC report.
 
Why would he title his article in the NYTimes, "The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic" if he didn't change his mind?

In the article, he clearly writes that he doubted global warming (though I don't want to block-quote stuff from the NYTimes since they're probably pretty serious about stopping copying of their work).
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=0

In newspapers and magazines it is rarely the authors of articles that write the headlines. It is usually an editor who will be looking to get attention.

I think there is a misunderstanding here based on the word "skeptic." Muller meant that he wasn't an ideological skeptic, but rather skeptical the way a scientist should be skeptical of all claims. Note that even in that article he says that he is still skeptical in the way that Curry and Alex are skeptical. Not on whether warming is occurring, or whether it is caused by man, but on the ramifications of that warming.

"It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.

Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous."
 
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/lack-...the-climate-change-debate-20140102-307ja.html

The world's so-called authority on climate change engages in exaggerated science and has become a political tool.

We've recently seen comments about climate matters from Maurice Newman, the chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, and David Karoly, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Melbourne and a member of the Climate Change Authority.

Newman wasn't completely correct about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Karoly failed to mention some critical issues about the IPCC's operation and function. The IPCC certainly has faults and its publicity material doesn't always accord with the facts, but the bigger issues are its narrow charter and how various bodies encourage us to believe that the IPCC is an authority on all climate matters.

Journalists are supposed to be sceptical about all claims on all matters but that scepticism is usually absent when dealing with climate issues.
The IPCC's charter from the outset has been ''to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation''.

The IPCC's focus is therefore very specific - any human influence on climate. It has no mandate to examine other causes of climate change. IPCC assessment reports claim that the human influence is significant but look closely and we find the claims are based on the output of climate models that the IPCC admits are seriously flawed, that the IPCC often asserts a level of certainty that the data cannot sustain and that as ''Climategate'' showed us, a clique of scientists has in the past sought to control the material cited by these reports.

What starts out being a scientific report becomes a political instrument because after a hard-core group of IPCC supporters draft the Summary for Policymakers, government representatives discuss, negotiate and eventually agree on the wording of each sentence. The scientific component of the report is then modified to better align it with the thinking of government representatives. [my bold]

If the IPCC reports were accepted for exactly what they are - exaggerated science with a large dollop of politics - this would be the end of the matter. Unfortunately, various bodies actively encourage us to believe the reports are entirely scientific, accurate and completely authoritative on all climate matters, this despite the IPCC's charter and the political interference.

Foremost among those who imply that the IPCC has a wider remit than it does is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At its inaugural meeting in 1992 the UNFCCC declared that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 were causing significant and dangerous climate change. This statement had no factual basis. It was the IPCC's role to determine if this was correct. It certainly hadn't done so by 1992 and despite its assertions it still hasn't produced credible evidence to support that claim.

The UNFCCC's deceit continues via its annual conferences that try to pressure countries into reducing carbon dioxide emissions despite the absence of any clear evidence that warrants such action. Each conference is wrapped in a publicity blitz before, during and after the event, each time exaggerating the IPCC's findings and certainty, staying mum about the influence of politics on IPCC reports and falsely implying that the IPCC's investigative scope extends far beyond its mandate. The executive secretary of the UNFCCC is appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and reports to him, which implies UNFCCC deceit is endorsed at the upper levels of the UN.

There is no higher authority to which one can complain.

Not far behind the UNFCCC we have government bodies, such as the Department of Climate Change and now-privatised Climate Commission, that ardently promote the IPCC view. In some cases these bodies were created specifically for that purpose and in most cases their action is to support government policy. As with the UNFCCC, these bodies falsely imply the IPCC's remit covers all aspects of climate science.

Next are environmental organisations, such as Greenpeace and WWF, others such as the sustainable energy industry that have vested interests and push the IPCC view, implying it's the ultimate authority on climate matters.

We should also not forget the scientists who publicly endorse the IPCC view. Ascribing a specific motive to a large number of people is futile, but among them are likely to be people holding various levels of belief and of course people whose income and reputation rest on the IPCC's position. [my bold]

The public would hardly be aware of the statements made by all of the above if it wasn't for the mainstream media. Journalists are supposed to be sceptical about all claims on all matters but that scepticism is usually absent when dealing with climate issues. Whatever the cause, journalists appear unwilling to question claims, unwilling to ask for the data so they might verify the findings and unwilling to follow-up predictions to see if they were correct. The silence on all these matters tacitly and falsely implies that the IPCC's view is correct and it's an authority on all climate issues.

The reality is that the IPCC is in effect little more than a UN-sponsored lobby group, created specifically to investigate and push the ''man-made warming'' line. With no similar organisations to examine other potential causes of climate change, it's only the IPCC voice that is heard. But the IPCC's voice isn't heard in context and with all the necessary caveats; it's distorted via the UNFCCC and others who imply that the IPCC is the sole scientific authority on climate matters. [my bold]

Of course those with vested interest support it, which include governments, politicians, government bodies, ''green'' groups and many scientists. Ultimately it's the unquestioning media, or perhaps a media unwilling to admit that the UN and its agencies might be dishonest or wrong, that misleads the public into believing the IPCC is something it's not.
 
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Dear Alex Tsakiris,

Jules gave me a good idea for an experiment related to the spiritual aspect of this blog. Ask a group of spirit mediums about global warming! Find people with records of accuracy, of course, but don't you think it would be interesting to see what they say?
I can put you in contact with Dean Radin. He knows who they are. I suggest a scientist to scientist conversation.
 
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