An Inconvenient Truth
- Thread starter Joe Wordsworth
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mack_the_knife
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I've never tasted a turd either but I'm pretty certain I would not enjoy it, nor find it gratifying or even simply informative to know how it tastes first hand.shereads said:
My critique is directed at the entire religion of eco-alarmism. According to those fanatics, we were supposed to be living in shit styes already, with people being scooped up in front-end-loaders for riot control and eating Soylent Green (yes, that was an alarmist movie, much like the Day After Tomorrow, done back in the 60's), another was Silent Running - within the next 20 years ALL (as in every single damn tree) of our forests were supposed to be dead and the last remnants on spaceships so that they could be saved from our horribly polluted world. Yet, somehow, we enjoy an even higher standard of living than they did then. The world is coming to an end and all religions have a 'grand finale' scenario. Christianity has Armageddon, Eco-alarmism has (currently) the big melt and flood and ice age or whatever. At least Soylent Green and Silent Running had decent entertainment value despite their misdirected alarmism. I seriously doubt hearing Al drone through a documentary will be quite as fun.
As I say, though, I'm quite sure you've never made a preemptive judgement call on anything, even if you did not fully know what it contained. I simply refuse to give those hacks any of my money directly (I've already paid Al Gore more than he deserves, even if just his salary for VP).
Huckleman2000
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Thanks for the recommendation, Joe, and the honest critique! Reason will make a Progressive of you yet! 
As regards Roxanne's article throwing doubt on the 'hockey stick' chart of global temperatures:
McKitrick's criticism of the methodology in Mann's work looks to me, at first glance, to be valid insofar as it goes. I'm not convinced, however, that this reduces significantly the preponderance of evidence in favor of global warming trends that are attributable to human behaviors. That's the short answer.
McKitrick & McIntyre's criticism centers around some pretty arcane statistical methodologies. The easiest to understand example that I found was this - "Average Global Temperature" is devilishly difficult to define, let alone measure. What they do, as near as I can determine, is to take measurements in certain areas of a grid and interpolate temperatures in other areas of the grid where there are no measurement stations. M&M point out that rural measurement stations have declined over the last decades, and rural stations overall have reported lower increases in temperatures than the more urban stations.
I'm not sure how this affects the conclusions of Mann, et al. True, there are fewer rural measurements which means that more of them are interpolated, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the interpolated temps are wrong. Moreover, measuring greater warming effects in urban areas doesn't seem inconsistent with the hypothesis that warming effects are attributable to human behaviors.
Some scientific debate about the Wegman report is shown here, on a contrarian site that supports the report's GW skepticism, and also here on a site that seems to be more mainstream.
While the pro-Wegman site is all about validating the supposed affirmation of M&M's narrow critique, the commenters on the other site appear to take in a much wider swath of data. In particular, the Wegman report's introduction of social networking analysis, while flashy, doesn't seem to impress anyone but the Wegman supporters. It certainly doesn't stand up to the rigor M&M applied to Mann.
As regards Roxanne's article throwing doubt on the 'hockey stick' chart of global temperatures:
McKitrick's criticism of the methodology in Mann's work looks to me, at first glance, to be valid insofar as it goes. I'm not convinced, however, that this reduces significantly the preponderance of evidence in favor of global warming trends that are attributable to human behaviors. That's the short answer.
McKitrick & McIntyre's criticism centers around some pretty arcane statistical methodologies. The easiest to understand example that I found was this - "Average Global Temperature" is devilishly difficult to define, let alone measure. What they do, as near as I can determine, is to take measurements in certain areas of a grid and interpolate temperatures in other areas of the grid where there are no measurement stations. M&M point out that rural measurement stations have declined over the last decades, and rural stations overall have reported lower increases in temperatures than the more urban stations.
I'm not sure how this affects the conclusions of Mann, et al. True, there are fewer rural measurements which means that more of them are interpolated, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the interpolated temps are wrong. Moreover, measuring greater warming effects in urban areas doesn't seem inconsistent with the hypothesis that warming effects are attributable to human behaviors.
Some scientific debate about the Wegman report is shown here, on a contrarian site that supports the report's GW skepticism, and also here on a site that seems to be more mainstream.
While the pro-Wegman site is all about validating the supposed affirmation of M&M's narrow critique, the commenters on the other site appear to take in a much wider swath of data. In particular, the Wegman report's introduction of social networking analysis, while flashy, doesn't seem to impress anyone but the Wegman supporters. It certainly doesn't stand up to the rigor M&M applied to Mann.
Huckleman2000
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mack_the_knife said:
So your whole argument is "Lalalalalalalala, I'm not listening!"
mack_the_knife
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Well, yeah, if you cut out the long part in the middle, I suppose it is. You guys are really good at taking stuff how you want and chopping it up for your needs, eh? Kinda like editing a shockumentary?Huckleman2000 said:So your whole argument is "Lalalalalalalala, I'm not listening!"
I clearly established my point that Hollywood as a really lousy track record for predicting their dire futures based upon their own political outlooks. You can choose to decide that THIS time they have it right, I choose to believe they're wrong yet again.
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Huckleman2000
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mack_the_knife said:
So you're basing your argument instead on the track record of a bunch of post-apocalyptic SF fantasies. Why not throw Planet of the Apes, a Boy and His Dog, Zardoz, King Kong, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes into your list? Any of those films has as much to do with Gore's presentation as those you mentioned, i.e., fuck all.
Do you understand the difference between fictional stories and documentaries? Obviously you aren't able to discern between them; maybe we should start with the notion of reality....
mack_the_knife
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Yeah, yeah, however, both of those movies were produced, by their director's own admissions, as warnings to us all and were based upon the vogue doomsday scenarios of the time (overpopulation and deforestation). Planet of the Apes could be taken for one which did not come to pass, either, the boogeyman of nuclear armageddon, though the court is still out on whether that will happen or not. Granted they had more in common with The Day After Tomorrow than this presentation of Mr. Gore's (arguably a work of fiction, as well, even if formed around a kernel of science). Feel free to take any of the above out of context for your next post and ignore any points made as before. The recent spat of politically biased shockumentaries does little to improve my opinion of the genre.Huckleman2000 said:So you're basing your argument instead on the track record of a bunch of post-apocalyptic SF fantasies. Why not throw Planet of the Apes, a Boy and His Dog, Zardoz, King Kong, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes into your list? Any of those films has as much to do with Gore's presentation as those you mentioned, i.e., fuck all.
Do you understand the difference between fictional stories and documentaries? Obviously you aren't able to discern between them; maybe we should start with the notion of reality....
Additionally, my argument was that I don't want to see the movie and recommend that others don't either, nothing more. Basing my reasoning around OTHER movies is perfectly reasonable in that context. As my first post stated - Better to spend your $20 to see Pirates of the Carribean.
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Huckleman2000
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mack_the_knife said:
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Your whole point was that this movie was bullshit and that's why you didn't think it was worth spending money on. You compared it to fictional Sci-Fi works that were created to explore a particular point of view, thereby conflating fictional works that were never presented as scientific inevitabilities with documentary presentation of legitimate scientific research.
If you think Gore's arguments are "arguably a work of fiction", than fucking put up or shut up.
The genre of 'politically biased shockumentaries' exists only in your own twisted view. If you want to give the genre any credibility, you have to explain how it exists. So far, you've lumped Gore's well-sourced documentary with several works of Science Fiction that never claimed the legitimacy you seem to think they did.
Again, are you able to discern between fiction and reality? With each post, the answer is closer and closer to "NO", and the only thing keeping it from an unequivocal "NO" is my own incredulousness at your inability to articulate some thought that suggests you might know the difference.
mack_the_knife
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Huckleman2000 said:
It seems that others have already posted their evidence of the arguability of his thesis, <see earlier posts by other folk>. I need not repeat their works, therefore it is already 'put up'.
It seems your control over the word 'fuck' is inversely proportional to how much someone disagrees with you and your own bias, which I'm pretty sure I can guess.
Even the slightest hint of you claiming that Al Gore - Democratic Candidate (who lost - btw) for the Presidency of the United States of America is not a politically biased individual would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that you may well truly have convinced yourself of that. Just as many leftists have convinced themselves that their socialist views are mainstream.
The Politically biased shocumentary is something I made up? Now who is living in a world of fiction? I also lump it in with Farenheit 911, another shockumentary produced by the left in their recent tantrums over being removed from power.
So, no matter how many times you say the word 'fuck' in a post, it won't convince me that Al Gore doesn't have a political axe to grind nor that his movie has any more merit than a 'b' grade science fiction from the 60's.
Huckleman2000
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mack_the_knife said:
And I've answered those posts, having examined the abstracts of their arguments and their rebuttals. What have you done? Oh yeah. Fuck all.
mack_the_knife said:
No, actually my use of the word fuck is directly proportional to the apparent proximity between your head and the impact of nonsensical arguments based entirely on bullshit. So, as far as I'm concerned, "Shithead" and "Fuckhead" are pretty much interchangable, proportionally speaking.
mack_the_knife said:
So, Shockumentary isn't a genre you made up, because... since I don't accept it I'm living in a world of fiction? And 'Fahrenheit 9/11', which dealt with issues completely unrelated to global warming, nonetheless invalidates 'An Inconvenient Truth' because they both come from a perceived political point of view that you disagree with?
Obviously, you're the one who has latched onto a political point of view, and cannot deal with reasoned arguments that might infringe on that view, regardless of whether or not your view comports with empirical reality.
Here's another use of "fuck" for you - You're a fucking nutjob. I know that won't convince you of anything, because... You're a fucking nutjob.
Pure
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Group think
Roxanne, without citing a source, is apparently referring to the following.
[from a news summary at another site, apparently sympathetic to the WSJ articles points]
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2006_07_09_rwdb_archive.html
//Friday, July 14, 2006
PEER REVIEW REVIEWED, FOUND WANTING
The Wall Street Journal takes a brief look at paleoclimatologist Michael Mann's much discussed hockey stick temperature graph. The article focusses on a soon-to-be-released report by statasticians Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University, David W. Scott of Rice University and Yasmin H. Said of Johns Hopkins University. The article gets really interesing when discussing the vaunted peer review process://
====
Besides the critique of the 'warming thesis,' we can see the attack on peer review.
Do you wonder why?
Is Roxanne looking at the scientific papers or picking and choosing based on the Wall Street Journal's agenda? The Wegman paper is not available yet, apparently. Nor is it peer reviewed, as far as I can tell, see below.
There are a few dissenters in the climate debates whose papers are widely praised at right wing sites.
What is Roxanne's methodology here? Yes, a particular dissenter might be right vs. 'group think'; he may be a Copernicus or Galileo.
Or he may be quite wrong. For example Mbeki, president of S. Africa, doubts that the AIDS virus is a main cause of the epidemic.
(A few scientists published this view, a few years back.)
What exactly is the method to replace peer review? Let the Wall Street fellows select which scientist to back? Check the right wing blogs?
One feature one finds in some dissenters is that they are not actually in the field being discussed. This applies to Wegman, the statistician. MAYBE they see the Emperor Has No Clothes. MAYBE the see a truth that the 'in group' or clique do not see. However--
I myself am a little wary of letting the Wall Street Journal and Republican Congressional Committiees decide which scientists are correct. The WSJ HAPPENS to 'find' that the ones agreeing with the oil industry lobbyists are correct.
Wegman's use of Social Network Analysis seems to impress the WSJ writer. He shows that top publishing climatologists form a network, and co author reports together. Probably this analysis applies to notable thinkers on the right, as well as major birdwatching writers.
It does not in the least go to the question of whether the consensus if correct or not. Nor is it clear why the network of the Wall Street Journal, the Cato Institute persons, Dick Cheney, and assorted oil industry executives is more to be trusted.
Readers will be aware of a number of efforts by Republicans in Congress and in the Executive, to 'select' friendly scientists for various political purposes, but it on the subject of condoms, morning after pill, 'abstinence approaches' and so on. See the last letter quoted: there are a number of instance of apparent intimidation in calling the consensus-supporting scientists to testify before Republican lawmakers and defend their methods, statistics, etc.
I am aware this posting is not examining the facts of the climate debate. Because of the hundreds of articles in the area, one had best, at the start look at the authoritative reviews; see my next posting. Ms. Roxanne shows no sign of having read any of these reviews. She refers to nothing beyond the Wall Street Journal, to refute Gore's book and the scientific consensus.
She shows no signs of having read the Gore book (related to the thread topic, incidentally!), which, i gather, has lots of documentation attached.
===
Huckleman 2000 has given us a bit of a lead in looking at the issue. There is a debate at the 'realclimate.org' website, which includes this statement by Mann, defending his position in general terms:
Mann: The un-peer reviewed report commissioned by Rep. Barton [US House of Representatives] released today adds nothing new to the scientific discourse on climate change and is a poor attempt to further personalize and politicize what should be a matter of scientific debate not politics.
The impartial and independent National Academy of Sciences convened a panel of experts in climate science and statistics and performed a far more extensive review of the science, confirming the key conclusions of our earlier work, as well as numerous more recent supporting studies. Namely that late 20th century warmth is likely anomalous in the context of the past 1000 years and cannot be explained by natural variability. The scientific evidence for human influence on current climate comes from a large body of independent lines of evidence of which paleoclimate data is but a small part.
Barton's report, written by statisticians with no apparent background at all in the relevant areas, simply uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and an oil industry consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton’s “panel”. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago. Barton's report also reveals that his panel collaborated closely with the two Canadians, yet made no attempt to contact me or my collaborators at any point.
The panel makes the odd claim that there is "too much reliance on peer-review" which goes against every principle of current scientific practice. Barton in his ‘factsheet’ goes further and suggests that the anonymous peer reviewers themselves are in some way biased, a claim that he cannot possibly support since peer reviewers are in fact anonymous and this was not studied in the report.
Climate science, like many multidisciplinary fields, requires broad collaboration with researchers across many areas. Any well published scientist would show a wide-ranging pattern of connection with other researchers in the field. While I am flattered that the committee seems to think that I am at the center of the field, the same analysis would have shown a very similar pattern for any researcher engaged in widespread interdisciplinary research.
My colleagues and I continue to work on reducing the uncertainties in past climate reconstructions and understanding the mechanisms of past and current climate change. Policy-makers should more constructively focus their attention on the consensus findings on climate change as presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Academies of all G8 countries, rather than on pursuing politically-motivated attacks against individual scientists.
====
As to the political context of this debate, and the efforts of Rep. Barton, of the House Committee on Commerce, a large number of documents are at this site, and i reference two in particular, giving an excerpt from the last one, as to the general topic.
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/climate dispute/index.htm
letter to Barton from the Pres of the National Academy of Science
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/climate dispute/NAS letter (Cicerone) to Barton.pdf
=====
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/climate dispute/ScientistsLetter.pdf
letter from 20 climate researchers to Rep. Barton
There are legitimate areas of scientific debate over the best methodologies to apply in reconstructing historic temperatures, as there are in many topics of current scientific interest. However, the essential points of the Mann et al. studythat the late twentieth century likely included the warmest decades in the last millenniumare supported by numerous other studies. We refer the committee to the full reports by the IPCC, the 2001 review of the Third Assessment report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the June 7 statement from the NAS and other leading science academies for balanced assessments of the current state of the science.
We also note that much of the information that you have requested from the scientists involved is unrelated to the stated purpose of your investigation. Requests to provide all working materials related to hundreds of publications stretching back decades can be seen as intimidationintentional or notand thereby risks compromising the independence of scientific opinion that is vital to the preeminence of American science as well as to the flow of objective advice to the government.
Michael Bender
Professor
Department of Geosciences
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Robert W. Corell
Senior Fellow
AMS Policy Program
American Meteorological Society
Washington, DC
Chair
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
[signatures of 18 other climate researchers]
Roxanne, without citing a source, is apparently referring to the following.
[from a news summary at another site, apparently sympathetic to the WSJ articles points]
http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2006_07_09_rwdb_archive.html
//Friday, July 14, 2006
PEER REVIEW REVIEWED, FOUND WANTING
The Wall Street Journal takes a brief look at paleoclimatologist Michael Mann's much discussed hockey stick temperature graph. The article focusses on a soon-to-be-released report by statasticians Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University, David W. Scott of Rice University and Yasmin H. Said of Johns Hopkins University. The article gets really interesing when discussing the vaunted peer review process://
====
Besides the critique of the 'warming thesis,' we can see the attack on peer review.
Do you wonder why?
Is Roxanne looking at the scientific papers or picking and choosing based on the Wall Street Journal's agenda? The Wegman paper is not available yet, apparently. Nor is it peer reviewed, as far as I can tell, see below.
There are a few dissenters in the climate debates whose papers are widely praised at right wing sites.
What is Roxanne's methodology here? Yes, a particular dissenter might be right vs. 'group think'; he may be a Copernicus or Galileo.
Or he may be quite wrong. For example Mbeki, president of S. Africa, doubts that the AIDS virus is a main cause of the epidemic.
(A few scientists published this view, a few years back.)
What exactly is the method to replace peer review? Let the Wall Street fellows select which scientist to back? Check the right wing blogs?
One feature one finds in some dissenters is that they are not actually in the field being discussed. This applies to Wegman, the statistician. MAYBE they see the Emperor Has No Clothes. MAYBE the see a truth that the 'in group' or clique do not see. However--
I myself am a little wary of letting the Wall Street Journal and Republican Congressional Committiees decide which scientists are correct. The WSJ HAPPENS to 'find' that the ones agreeing with the oil industry lobbyists are correct.
Wegman's use of Social Network Analysis seems to impress the WSJ writer. He shows that top publishing climatologists form a network, and co author reports together. Probably this analysis applies to notable thinkers on the right, as well as major birdwatching writers.
It does not in the least go to the question of whether the consensus if correct or not. Nor is it clear why the network of the Wall Street Journal, the Cato Institute persons, Dick Cheney, and assorted oil industry executives is more to be trusted.
Readers will be aware of a number of efforts by Republicans in Congress and in the Executive, to 'select' friendly scientists for various political purposes, but it on the subject of condoms, morning after pill, 'abstinence approaches' and so on. See the last letter quoted: there are a number of instance of apparent intimidation in calling the consensus-supporting scientists to testify before Republican lawmakers and defend their methods, statistics, etc.
I am aware this posting is not examining the facts of the climate debate. Because of the hundreds of articles in the area, one had best, at the start look at the authoritative reviews; see my next posting. Ms. Roxanne shows no sign of having read any of these reviews. She refers to nothing beyond the Wall Street Journal, to refute Gore's book and the scientific consensus.
She shows no signs of having read the Gore book (related to the thread topic, incidentally!), which, i gather, has lots of documentation attached.
===
Huckleman 2000 has given us a bit of a lead in looking at the issue. There is a debate at the 'realclimate.org' website, which includes this statement by Mann, defending his position in general terms:
Mann: The un-peer reviewed report commissioned by Rep. Barton [US House of Representatives] released today adds nothing new to the scientific discourse on climate change and is a poor attempt to further personalize and politicize what should be a matter of scientific debate not politics.
The impartial and independent National Academy of Sciences convened a panel of experts in climate science and statistics and performed a far more extensive review of the science, confirming the key conclusions of our earlier work, as well as numerous more recent supporting studies. Namely that late 20th century warmth is likely anomalous in the context of the past 1000 years and cannot be explained by natural variability. The scientific evidence for human influence on current climate comes from a large body of independent lines of evidence of which paleoclimate data is but a small part.
Barton's report, written by statisticians with no apparent background at all in the relevant areas, simply uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and an oil industry consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton’s “panel”. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago. Barton's report also reveals that his panel collaborated closely with the two Canadians, yet made no attempt to contact me or my collaborators at any point.
The panel makes the odd claim that there is "too much reliance on peer-review" which goes against every principle of current scientific practice. Barton in his ‘factsheet’ goes further and suggests that the anonymous peer reviewers themselves are in some way biased, a claim that he cannot possibly support since peer reviewers are in fact anonymous and this was not studied in the report.
Climate science, like many multidisciplinary fields, requires broad collaboration with researchers across many areas. Any well published scientist would show a wide-ranging pattern of connection with other researchers in the field. While I am flattered that the committee seems to think that I am at the center of the field, the same analysis would have shown a very similar pattern for any researcher engaged in widespread interdisciplinary research.
My colleagues and I continue to work on reducing the uncertainties in past climate reconstructions and understanding the mechanisms of past and current climate change. Policy-makers should more constructively focus their attention on the consensus findings on climate change as presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Academies of all G8 countries, rather than on pursuing politically-motivated attacks against individual scientists.
====
As to the political context of this debate, and the efforts of Rep. Barton, of the House Committee on Commerce, a large number of documents are at this site, and i reference two in particular, giving an excerpt from the last one, as to the general topic.
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/climate dispute/index.htm
letter to Barton from the Pres of the National Academy of Science
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/climate dispute/NAS letter (Cicerone) to Barton.pdf
=====
http://www.house.gov/science/hot/climate dispute/ScientistsLetter.pdf
letter from 20 climate researchers to Rep. Barton
There are legitimate areas of scientific debate over the best methodologies to apply in reconstructing historic temperatures, as there are in many topics of current scientific interest. However, the essential points of the Mann et al. studythat the late twentieth century likely included the warmest decades in the last millenniumare supported by numerous other studies. We refer the committee to the full reports by the IPCC, the 2001 review of the Third Assessment report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the June 7 statement from the NAS and other leading science academies for balanced assessments of the current state of the science.
We also note that much of the information that you have requested from the scientists involved is unrelated to the stated purpose of your investigation. Requests to provide all working materials related to hundreds of publications stretching back decades can be seen as intimidationintentional or notand thereby risks compromising the independence of scientific opinion that is vital to the preeminence of American science as well as to the flow of objective advice to the government.
Michael Bender
Professor
Department of Geosciences
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Robert W. Corell
Senior Fellow
AMS Policy Program
American Meteorological Society
Washington, DC
Chair
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
[signatures of 18 other climate researchers]
Last edited:
Pure
Fiel a Verdad
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
- Posts
- 15,135
Some references regarding climate change.
since hundreds, if not thousands of articles are involved, some of these reviews help draw together the evidence and the consensus:
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY STUDY INSTITUTE
HTTP://WWW.EESI.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/FACT SHEETS/CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE.HTM
THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The scientific community agrees global climate change is occurring and human activities are contributing to climate change.
[Six scientific reports cited to illustrate the consensus:]
1. National Science Academies Issue Joint Statement on Climate Change (June 7, 2005)
Eleven national science academies called on world leaders “to acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing.” In the statement Global Response to Climate Change, the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States jointly declared that “there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring” and “the scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” More information via National Academy of Sciences.
2. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (December 3, 2004)
An analysis published in Science of 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on climate change issues found none disagreed with the “consensus of scientific opinion that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason.” The papers were drawn from a random sample of the more than 11,000 scientific papers on climate change written between 1993 and 2003. For more information see: Oreskes, Naomi. 2004. The scientific consensus on climate change. Science. 306, 1686.
3. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (November 9, 2004)
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) is an intergovernmental report based on a four-year scientific study of the Arctic conducted by an international team of 300 scientists and sponsored by the eight arctic nations (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States) and six indigenous people’s organizations. The assessment determined that “the Arctic is now experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth. Over the next 100 years, climate change is expected to accelerate, contributing to major physical, ecological, social, and economic changes, many of which have already begun.” In response to the assessment, the eight nations of the Arctic Council agreed to pursue mitigation, adaptation, research and monitoring and outreach strategies to improve awareness and implement successful responses to climatic challenges in the Arctic. More information via Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.
4. Our Changing Planet, the US Climate Change Science Program’s Report (July 2004)
The US Climate Change Science Program’s 2004 report to Congress, Our Changing Planet, US Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005, signed by the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Energy, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, found that the global temperature increases observed in the latter half of the 20th century can only be replicated if human influences are included in the models. Simulations by the Department of Energy, shown on page 47 of the report, “show that observed globally averaged surface air temperatures can be replicated only when both anthropogenic forcings—for example, greenhouse gases—as well as natural forcings such as solar variability and volcanic eruptions are included in the model.” More information via US Climate Change Science Program.
5. National Academy of Sciences’ Review of IPCC Third Assessment Report (July 1, 2001)
[See the excerpt, summary, at the end of this posting. pure.]
At the request of the White House, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change reviewed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’ (IPCC) third assessment report on climate change and produced a report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions. The report determined that “the IPCC’s conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue.”
Furthermore, “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.” More information via National Academy of Sciences.
6. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report (2001)
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report-Climate Change 2001, the consensus of scientific opinion agrees that human activities are affecting the Earth’s climate. “Human activities—primarily burning of fossil fuels and changes in land cover—are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy.” In addition, “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” The Third Assessment Report was written by 637 authors and reviewed by 420 experts. More information via Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Summary
[National Academy of Sciences Review of the IPCC Third Assessment Report]
http://newton.nap.edu/books/0309075742/html/1.html
Climate Change Science [summary from the front of the document]
Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs.
The mid-range model estimate of human induced global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is based on the premise that the growth rate of climate forcing 1 agents such as carbon dioxide will accelerate. The predicted warming of 3°C (5.4°F) by the end of the 21st century is consistent with the assumptions about how clouds and atmospheric relative humidity will react to global warming. This estimate is also consistent with inferences about the sensitivity 2 of climate drawn from comparing the sizes of past temperature swings between ice ages and intervening warmer periods with the corresponding changes in the climate forcing.
This predicted temperature increase is sensitive to assumptions concerning future concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Hence, national policy decisions made now and in the longer-term future will influence the extent of any damage suffered by vulnerable human populations and ecosystems later in this century. Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).
Reducing the wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model predictions of global climate change will require major advances in understanding and modeling of both (1) the factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and (2) the so-called “feedbacks” that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a prescribed increase in greenhouse gases. There also is a pressing need for a global observing system designed for monitoring climate.
The committee generally agrees with the assessment of human-caused climate change presented in the IPCC Working Group I (WGI) scientific report, but seeks here to articulate more clearly the level of confidence that can be ascribed to those assessments and the caveats that need to be attached to them. This articulation may be helpful to policy makers as they consider a variety of options for mitigation and/or adaptation. In the sections that follow, the committee provides brief responses to some of the key questions related to climate change science. More detailed responses to these questions are located in the main body of the text.
since hundreds, if not thousands of articles are involved, some of these reviews help draw together the evidence and the consensus:
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY STUDY INSTITUTE
HTTP://WWW.EESI.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/FACT SHEETS/CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE.HTM
THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The scientific community agrees global climate change is occurring and human activities are contributing to climate change.
[Six scientific reports cited to illustrate the consensus:]
1. National Science Academies Issue Joint Statement on Climate Change (June 7, 2005)
Eleven national science academies called on world leaders “to acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing.” In the statement Global Response to Climate Change, the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States jointly declared that “there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring” and “the scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” More information via National Academy of Sciences.
2. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (December 3, 2004)
An analysis published in Science of 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on climate change issues found none disagreed with the “consensus of scientific opinion that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason.” The papers were drawn from a random sample of the more than 11,000 scientific papers on climate change written between 1993 and 2003. For more information see: Oreskes, Naomi. 2004. The scientific consensus on climate change. Science. 306, 1686.
3. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (November 9, 2004)
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) is an intergovernmental report based on a four-year scientific study of the Arctic conducted by an international team of 300 scientists and sponsored by the eight arctic nations (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States) and six indigenous people’s organizations. The assessment determined that “the Arctic is now experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth. Over the next 100 years, climate change is expected to accelerate, contributing to major physical, ecological, social, and economic changes, many of which have already begun.” In response to the assessment, the eight nations of the Arctic Council agreed to pursue mitigation, adaptation, research and monitoring and outreach strategies to improve awareness and implement successful responses to climatic challenges in the Arctic. More information via Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.
4. Our Changing Planet, the US Climate Change Science Program’s Report (July 2004)
The US Climate Change Science Program’s 2004 report to Congress, Our Changing Planet, US Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005, signed by the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Energy, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, found that the global temperature increases observed in the latter half of the 20th century can only be replicated if human influences are included in the models. Simulations by the Department of Energy, shown on page 47 of the report, “show that observed globally averaged surface air temperatures can be replicated only when both anthropogenic forcings—for example, greenhouse gases—as well as natural forcings such as solar variability and volcanic eruptions are included in the model.” More information via US Climate Change Science Program.
5. National Academy of Sciences’ Review of IPCC Third Assessment Report (July 1, 2001)
[See the excerpt, summary, at the end of this posting. pure.]
At the request of the White House, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change reviewed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’ (IPCC) third assessment report on climate change and produced a report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions. The report determined that “the IPCC’s conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue.”
Furthermore, “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.” More information via National Academy of Sciences.
6. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report (2001)
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report-Climate Change 2001, the consensus of scientific opinion agrees that human activities are affecting the Earth’s climate. “Human activities—primarily burning of fossil fuels and changes in land cover—are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy.” In addition, “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” The Third Assessment Report was written by 637 authors and reviewed by 420 experts. More information via Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Summary
[National Academy of Sciences Review of the IPCC Third Assessment Report]
http://newton.nap.edu/books/0309075742/html/1.html
Climate Change Science [summary from the front of the document]
Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs.
The mid-range model estimate of human induced global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is based on the premise that the growth rate of climate forcing 1 agents such as carbon dioxide will accelerate. The predicted warming of 3°C (5.4°F) by the end of the 21st century is consistent with the assumptions about how clouds and atmospheric relative humidity will react to global warming. This estimate is also consistent with inferences about the sensitivity 2 of climate drawn from comparing the sizes of past temperature swings between ice ages and intervening warmer periods with the corresponding changes in the climate forcing.
This predicted temperature increase is sensitive to assumptions concerning future concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols. Hence, national policy decisions made now and in the longer-term future will influence the extent of any damage suffered by vulnerable human populations and ecosystems later in this century. Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).
Reducing the wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model predictions of global climate change will require major advances in understanding and modeling of both (1) the factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and (2) the so-called “feedbacks” that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a prescribed increase in greenhouse gases. There also is a pressing need for a global observing system designed for monitoring climate.
The committee generally agrees with the assessment of human-caused climate change presented in the IPCC Working Group I (WGI) scientific report, but seeks here to articulate more clearly the level of confidence that can be ascribed to those assessments and the caveats that need to be attached to them. This articulation may be helpful to policy makers as they consider a variety of options for mitigation and/or adaptation. In the sections that follow, the committee provides brief responses to some of the key questions related to climate change science. More detailed responses to these questions are located in the main body of the text.
Roxanne Appleby
Masterpiece
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2005
- Posts
- 11,231
This is a long post so I will highlight what amounts to "an executive summary."
I am not a climatologist (don't even play one on TV). I am a layperson who maintains a prudently skeptical attitude toward everything. I also have a "Scottish Enlightenment" view regarding the "contrariness" that is an inseparable part of human nature.
I have followed the Environmental debate and movement since it flowered in 1970. Giving away my age a bit here: I was involved in organizing local events for the first Earth Day in that year. At that time I was a True Believer. I had read Rachel Carson, Paul Erlich and others, and knew that we were all gonna die in nasty ways unless we abandoned industrial civilization and returned to a simpler way of living, possibly along the lines of hippie communes of the period (complete with Rousseauian overtones). I still have a little flag from the period with green-and-white stripes and "theta," the symbol of death, where the stars usually are. As the energy shocks of the 1970s rolled along my views were only confirmed.
I still am very much a conservationist, and find many of the wasteful practices of our civilization regretful. I am not "in bed" with Big Oil or Big Anything. But I no longer think "we're all gonna die!" because of cataclysmic environmental destruction, and as my posts elsewhere indicate, also have a much more sanguine view regarding our energy future.
There was no Damascene conversion in the growth of my current position. I can't point to any one particular paper or article that made sit up and say, "Hey – Paul Erlich is full of shit!" He's a guy who really did say "we're all gonna die" (or 90 percent of us) very soon – by his timetable we shouldn't be here right now. To my knowledge he's never recanted, but has moved on to new forms of alarmism, adopted a style of prediction that is less disprovable in his lifetime, and makes a nice living at it. As do most of the other professional doomsayers, by the way, including the leaders of the mainline environmental organizations. Maintaining this requires that they never stop trying to scare the hell out of people, and never acknowledge any failures in their analyis, including improvements in the environment. People should not lose sight of this aspect.
Al Gore is a politician first and foremost. I have operated in the political arena and I understand the breed. They are opportunists and "policy entrepreneurs." They seek issues to hitch their wagons to, hoping and betting that the issue they choose will catch fire and take them "all the way." Al hitched his wagon to radical environmentalism a long time ago, and like Paul Erlich will never unhitch, no matter what facts eventually contradict his positions.
To what do I owe what I view as a more balanced view on these issues? Several decades of paying close attention to what all the voices are saying, being prudently skeptical of all of them, weighing the arguments and evidence of each, seeing how various predictions worked out, and how the predictors responded when they were shown to be right or wrong, learning more about people and myself and human nature and society, etc. One example was Julian Simon's famous bet with Paul Erlich that various commodities would be cheaper and more abundant at some fixed date in the future. Erlich lost (and never paid off!) Another is Bjorn Lomborg and people like him. He's someone who really does understand the science, and when he investigated the issue of global warming found that the emperor was indeed very scantily clad. Another is novelist Michael Crichton, another with real scientific training, who discovered the same thing. And yes, Pure, I even read the Wall Street Journal. Plus the NYT and about four other papers as part of my job.
Some general observations: Very quickly after the flowering of the environmental movement in 1970 it became a "religion" to many of its adherents; they not only did not seek disconfirming evidence, they did not see it. This wing of the movement now controls it, and was moved by a utopian "back-to-the-land" Rousseauianism philosophically. On what appears to be largely aesthetic grounds they revile the comfortable bourgeois standard of living that industrial civilization makes it possible for all to enjoy. These tendencies cause them to reject alternatives like nuclear power that would make it possible to sustain this lifestyle indefinitely without environmental degradation, and instead prefer alternatives that require humanity to recede from the comforts of industrial civilization, returning to the "village" of a world that "makes do" with much less.
Some are informed by their faith that the end justifies the means (Earth First). For most, the concept of cost/benefit analysis is viewed as "selling out." The Precautionary Principle is the movement's yardstick, the idea that if the consequences of an action are unknown, but are judged to have some potential for major or irreversible negative consequences, then it is better to avoid that action. The problem with this is, it's an impossible standard. If it were seriously enforced, the means by which not just the comforts and conveniences of industrial civilization are provided, but even basic necessities like food, shelter and transportation, would have to be dismantled.
Environmentalism also became the home of much of the Marxist left after The Wall came down. It's a great platform from which to attack capitalism.
On the human nature front, there seems to be a contrary streak in humans that makes apocalyptic visions appealing in some ways. Such visions comfort us with the notion that all those bastards who have more than me will get their's when we're all grubbing in the dirt and shivering in the dark after the Big One hits. Of course balanced people don't really think this way, but it has a little tug on all of us, and makes us susceptible to alarmists. This tendency is encouraged and fed by the media, which loves environmentalism, and almost completely uncritical and unbalanced in its coverage: Stories about a toxic spill are much more exiting than boring statistics about the gradual reduction of pollution in the skies and waters of the western world over the past 30 years.
Given all that, what do I think about global warming? There may be some warming, and possibly some is human-caused, but that part is not proven – it may well be a perfectly natural phenomenon. But, as Lomborg says, people need to get some perspective: "The U.N. tells us global warming will result in a sea-level change of one to two feet. It is not going to be the 30 feet Al Gore is scaring us with. Is this one to two feet going to be a problem? Sure, but remember that this past century sea levels rose between one-third and a full foot. And if you ask old people today what the most important things were that happened in the 20th century, do you think they are going to say: 'Two world wars, the internal combustion engine, the IT revolution . . . and sea levels rose'? It's not to say it isn't a problem. But we fix these problems."
Also, the alarmists are not honest about the cost of their proposed solutions to what is probably not a very serious problem. If their full proposals were adopted and rigorously enforced the result would very likely be a worldwide depression of unparalleled depth. At worst it would mean the end of industrial civilization altogether. Both would cause untold suffering and even death. I'm not a climate scientist but I am something of an economist, so that part I can form an independent judgment on.
So I can't debate climatology, with everyone tossing facts and figures around that none of us can say from personal experience and training are accurate and are presented in context. I say that not in the passive aggressive way we sometimes see here - I'm not trying to shut off discussion and debate. But my view is a more "holistic" one based on many years of absorbing many sources of information on many subjects – science, human nature, sociology, economics, history, my own life experiences, etc.
Actually, that's true for all of us to some extent when we discuss issues that we are not trained to have first hand knowledge of. We seek "cues" from many sources to determine what is probably correct. I have revealed some of my cues here. I try to seek balance in my life, and balanced views on vital issues like this. In this forum I like to share items that may be surprising, are from reputable sources, and that give others an opportunity to balance their own views with information that they probably have not seen.
I'm not necessarily trying to "convert" anyone here, rather just trying to get people to consider that they may have not been exposed to both sides of the story. "We've got to stop believing those who have good reasons to lie to us" can be taken too far – those same people may be sincere, not purely cynical. In many cases there's a mixture. Those on both sides of this issue have good reasons to lie – not just those on one side. That doesn’t mean they are lying, but one should never completely dismiss the possibility.
I am not a climatologist (don't even play one on TV). I am a layperson who maintains a prudently skeptical attitude toward everything. I also have a "Scottish Enlightenment" view regarding the "contrariness" that is an inseparable part of human nature.
I have followed the Environmental debate and movement since it flowered in 1970. Giving away my age a bit here: I was involved in organizing local events for the first Earth Day in that year. At that time I was a True Believer. I had read Rachel Carson, Paul Erlich and others, and knew that we were all gonna die in nasty ways unless we abandoned industrial civilization and returned to a simpler way of living, possibly along the lines of hippie communes of the period (complete with Rousseauian overtones). I still have a little flag from the period with green-and-white stripes and "theta," the symbol of death, where the stars usually are. As the energy shocks of the 1970s rolled along my views were only confirmed.
I still am very much a conservationist, and find many of the wasteful practices of our civilization regretful. I am not "in bed" with Big Oil or Big Anything. But I no longer think "we're all gonna die!" because of cataclysmic environmental destruction, and as my posts elsewhere indicate, also have a much more sanguine view regarding our energy future.
There was no Damascene conversion in the growth of my current position. I can't point to any one particular paper or article that made sit up and say, "Hey – Paul Erlich is full of shit!" He's a guy who really did say "we're all gonna die" (or 90 percent of us) very soon – by his timetable we shouldn't be here right now. To my knowledge he's never recanted, but has moved on to new forms of alarmism, adopted a style of prediction that is less disprovable in his lifetime, and makes a nice living at it. As do most of the other professional doomsayers, by the way, including the leaders of the mainline environmental organizations. Maintaining this requires that they never stop trying to scare the hell out of people, and never acknowledge any failures in their analyis, including improvements in the environment. People should not lose sight of this aspect.
Al Gore is a politician first and foremost. I have operated in the political arena and I understand the breed. They are opportunists and "policy entrepreneurs." They seek issues to hitch their wagons to, hoping and betting that the issue they choose will catch fire and take them "all the way." Al hitched his wagon to radical environmentalism a long time ago, and like Paul Erlich will never unhitch, no matter what facts eventually contradict his positions.
To what do I owe what I view as a more balanced view on these issues? Several decades of paying close attention to what all the voices are saying, being prudently skeptical of all of them, weighing the arguments and evidence of each, seeing how various predictions worked out, and how the predictors responded when they were shown to be right or wrong, learning more about people and myself and human nature and society, etc. One example was Julian Simon's famous bet with Paul Erlich that various commodities would be cheaper and more abundant at some fixed date in the future. Erlich lost (and never paid off!) Another is Bjorn Lomborg and people like him. He's someone who really does understand the science, and when he investigated the issue of global warming found that the emperor was indeed very scantily clad. Another is novelist Michael Crichton, another with real scientific training, who discovered the same thing. And yes, Pure, I even read the Wall Street Journal. Plus the NYT and about four other papers as part of my job.
Some general observations: Very quickly after the flowering of the environmental movement in 1970 it became a "religion" to many of its adherents; they not only did not seek disconfirming evidence, they did not see it. This wing of the movement now controls it, and was moved by a utopian "back-to-the-land" Rousseauianism philosophically. On what appears to be largely aesthetic grounds they revile the comfortable bourgeois standard of living that industrial civilization makes it possible for all to enjoy. These tendencies cause them to reject alternatives like nuclear power that would make it possible to sustain this lifestyle indefinitely without environmental degradation, and instead prefer alternatives that require humanity to recede from the comforts of industrial civilization, returning to the "village" of a world that "makes do" with much less.
Some are informed by their faith that the end justifies the means (Earth First). For most, the concept of cost/benefit analysis is viewed as "selling out." The Precautionary Principle is the movement's yardstick, the idea that if the consequences of an action are unknown, but are judged to have some potential for major or irreversible negative consequences, then it is better to avoid that action. The problem with this is, it's an impossible standard. If it were seriously enforced, the means by which not just the comforts and conveniences of industrial civilization are provided, but even basic necessities like food, shelter and transportation, would have to be dismantled.
Environmentalism also became the home of much of the Marxist left after The Wall came down. It's a great platform from which to attack capitalism.
On the human nature front, there seems to be a contrary streak in humans that makes apocalyptic visions appealing in some ways. Such visions comfort us with the notion that all those bastards who have more than me will get their's when we're all grubbing in the dirt and shivering in the dark after the Big One hits. Of course balanced people don't really think this way, but it has a little tug on all of us, and makes us susceptible to alarmists. This tendency is encouraged and fed by the media, which loves environmentalism, and almost completely uncritical and unbalanced in its coverage: Stories about a toxic spill are much more exiting than boring statistics about the gradual reduction of pollution in the skies and waters of the western world over the past 30 years.
Given all that, what do I think about global warming? There may be some warming, and possibly some is human-caused, but that part is not proven – it may well be a perfectly natural phenomenon. But, as Lomborg says, people need to get some perspective: "The U.N. tells us global warming will result in a sea-level change of one to two feet. It is not going to be the 30 feet Al Gore is scaring us with. Is this one to two feet going to be a problem? Sure, but remember that this past century sea levels rose between one-third and a full foot. And if you ask old people today what the most important things were that happened in the 20th century, do you think they are going to say: 'Two world wars, the internal combustion engine, the IT revolution . . . and sea levels rose'? It's not to say it isn't a problem. But we fix these problems."
Also, the alarmists are not honest about the cost of their proposed solutions to what is probably not a very serious problem. If their full proposals were adopted and rigorously enforced the result would very likely be a worldwide depression of unparalleled depth. At worst it would mean the end of industrial civilization altogether. Both would cause untold suffering and even death. I'm not a climate scientist but I am something of an economist, so that part I can form an independent judgment on.
So I can't debate climatology, with everyone tossing facts and figures around that none of us can say from personal experience and training are accurate and are presented in context. I say that not in the passive aggressive way we sometimes see here - I'm not trying to shut off discussion and debate. But my view is a more "holistic" one based on many years of absorbing many sources of information on many subjects – science, human nature, sociology, economics, history, my own life experiences, etc.
Actually, that's true for all of us to some extent when we discuss issues that we are not trained to have first hand knowledge of. We seek "cues" from many sources to determine what is probably correct. I have revealed some of my cues here. I try to seek balance in my life, and balanced views on vital issues like this. In this forum I like to share items that may be surprising, are from reputable sources, and that give others an opportunity to balance their own views with information that they probably have not seen.
I'm not necessarily trying to "convert" anyone here, rather just trying to get people to consider that they may have not been exposed to both sides of the story. "We've got to stop believing those who have good reasons to lie to us" can be taken too far – those same people may be sincere, not purely cynical. In many cases there's a mixture. Those on both sides of this issue have good reasons to lie – not just those on one side. That doesn’t mean they are lying, but one should never completely dismiss the possibility.
Last edited:
Joe Wordsworth
Logician
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2004
- Posts
- 4,085
So... just so's I understand... why is taking a random 10% of peer reviewed scientific articles on climate, seeing if they contradict the overarching thesis (global warming/co2/humanity); finding that they don't (none of them); and concluding that there is a correlation here.... how is that not good science?
Pure
Fiel a Verdad
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
- Posts
- 15,135
plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose
roxanne,
RA Environmentalism also became the home of much of the Marxist left after The Wall came down. It's a great platform from which to attack capitalism.
P: I know that, in contrast to your "True Believer" days, the world is now divided between the pro-capitalists and the anti-capitalists --wait, wasn't that what you believed back then, also?
I wonder if it's occurred to you, that at least some of the hundreds of scientists authoring these reports (see the reviews of the reports, cited above) are actually seeking the truth; are actually seeking data and trying, as scientists, to objectively analyze it?
Have you thought that some of them don't give a fig about the battle of Good and Evil regarding the survival of capitalism; about whether US Capitalism is stifled and dying under repressive federal bureaucrats--capitalism-haters like Dick Cheney?
Wait, i think i know the answer, from the cold war days: The climate scientists who aren't Marxists* are simply _unwitting tools_ of the Marxist and Rousseauists.
*as we know most climatologists are.
===
As far as I can see, the right wing take on the processes of 'climate change', global warming, arctic ice melting, CO build up, is as follows.
1. They don't exist; they're myths.
2. If they do exist, they are simply part of natural cycles.
3. If they are not simply part of natural cycles, they may be due in small part to human influence (which as you say is not proven).
4. If they are not due in small part to human influence, but are more substantially caused by human influence, there is nothing much that can be done about them.
5. If there is something that can be done about them, it's too costly.
6. If it's not too costly, it would stifle the US economy.
j.
PS. I'll give you this, roxanne. This is a hard position to refute.
roxanne,
RA Environmentalism also became the home of much of the Marxist left after The Wall came down. It's a great platform from which to attack capitalism.
P: I know that, in contrast to your "True Believer" days, the world is now divided between the pro-capitalists and the anti-capitalists --wait, wasn't that what you believed back then, also?
I wonder if it's occurred to you, that at least some of the hundreds of scientists authoring these reports (see the reviews of the reports, cited above) are actually seeking the truth; are actually seeking data and trying, as scientists, to objectively analyze it?
Have you thought that some of them don't give a fig about the battle of Good and Evil regarding the survival of capitalism; about whether US Capitalism is stifled and dying under repressive federal bureaucrats--capitalism-haters like Dick Cheney?
Wait, i think i know the answer, from the cold war days: The climate scientists who aren't Marxists* are simply _unwitting tools_ of the Marxist and Rousseauists.
*as we know most climatologists are.
===
As far as I can see, the right wing take on the processes of 'climate change', global warming, arctic ice melting, CO build up, is as follows.
1. They don't exist; they're myths.
2. If they do exist, they are simply part of natural cycles.
3. If they are not simply part of natural cycles, they may be due in small part to human influence (which as you say is not proven).
4. If they are not due in small part to human influence, but are more substantially caused by human influence, there is nothing much that can be done about them.
5. If there is something that can be done about them, it's too costly.
6. If it's not too costly, it would stifle the US economy.
j.
PS. I'll give you this, roxanne. This is a hard position to refute.
Last edited:
Roxanne Appleby
Masterpiece
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2005
- Posts
- 11,231
I will ignore Pure's unfortunate tendency to sneer at those he disagrees with and just respond to the the above item: I have also considered that the same might apply to those scientists (like Lomborg and many others) who have come to different conclusions, often at great risk to their careers. This is part of the process I described of balancing and applying prudent skepticism to all sources of information. It has also been noted the executive summaries and prefaces to some of the most widely cited reports on the issue were drafted not by the actual scientists responsible for the research but by much more politicized individuals and committees, and not infrequently these summaries use loaded language that is not supported by the actual findings of the report.Pure said:
Pure
Fiel a Verdad
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
- Posts
- 15,135
ra This is part of the process I described of balancing and applying prudent skepticism to all sources of information.
please note the roxanne's alleged 'prudent skepticism' on this issue has NOT brought forward any sources of information about the climate issues, other than the original Wall Street Journal article; she has managed only to drop the names of a single, dissident climate scientist and give an unreferenced quote.
as far as sneers, roxanne's approach to the issue in this thread, after the first reproduced WSJ article, is mostly to dismiss marxists, rousseauists, and enemies of capitalism, in the broadest of strokes.
no single piece of data or evidence or reference has marred these screeds.
please note the roxanne's alleged 'prudent skepticism' on this issue has NOT brought forward any sources of information about the climate issues, other than the original Wall Street Journal article; she has managed only to drop the names of a single, dissident climate scientist and give an unreferenced quote.
as far as sneers, roxanne's approach to the issue in this thread, after the first reproduced WSJ article, is mostly to dismiss marxists, rousseauists, and enemies of capitalism, in the broadest of strokes.
no single piece of data or evidence or reference has marred these screeds.
mack_the_knife
Shill of 'The Man'
- Joined
- May 18, 2005
- Posts
- 1,645
I'm not even sure what that means, are you speaking English? Is 'fuck all'=nothing? You could have typed nothing with fewer keystrokes, though it would have cost you one of your vaunted 'fucks'.Huckleman2000 said:
Your resorting to personal attack, despite liberal belief, does not strengthen your argument.Huck said:
Um, yeah. Leftist anti-capitalists will latch onto anything they can to score hits on 'the man'. Me believing that they come from that direction in anything they do rather makes them invalid from the get-go, much less after seeing the rather underhanded methods they use to 'prove' their points. As we are talking about my own beliefs here, me thinking they are invalid makes them so, as far as I'm concerned, no one else. I simply offered my opinion in with the mix, mainly because there is a shortage of people who take an opposition view to the 'amen choir' of liberalism on this forum.Huck said:
Yeah, you're so pure and untainted by bias, right? I believe I've made a reasoned argument, you're the one resorting to insults and a flurry of 'fucks' to try to make a point.Huck said:
Well said. I am a fucking nutjob. Youre well-reasoned argument has won me over. I no longer believe Al Gore is a turnip.Huck said:
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Huckleman2000
It was something I ate.
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Roxanne Appleby said:
The "great risk to their careers" doesn't seem to be due to taking contrary positions. From what I can tell, Lomborg has made quite a career out of his contrarian viewpoint. The great risk might be to their standing within the academy; but taking a position that bolster's the notions held by powerful elites is a time-honored strategy of risk-aversion, not the opposite. "Kissing-up", in the vernacular, rarely results in a career trajectory to the negative direction.
Lomborg, btw, is a political scientist, not a natural scientist. As Pure observed, "One feature one finds in some dissenters is that they are not actually in the field being discussed." Here is a review of his book from The Skeptical Inquirer.
As to the brouhaha over accusations of scientific dishonesty recounted here
it appears that Lomborg and his supporters are following tactics that amount to, 1) If you want to disprove anything, argue the statistics; and 2) If that doesn't work, argue the definitions.
Roxanne Appleby
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Pardon me if I don't kowtow to the current "consensus" and "hundreds of scientists" - I've seen these things before, and am not impressed by the record. I mentioned Erlich. In the 1970s there was a consensus that we were on the brink of a new ice age. In the same period the "Club of Rome" famously assembled irrefutable data that by century's end we would be starving and shivering in the dark, out of food and fuel. I've seen scores of predictions regarding more specific epidemics and calamities, and have noticed a pattern: Lots of media attention when the prediction is made, lots of backslapping for the predictor from Hollywood, the media and the political establishment. And then, when the prediction doesn't pan out - silence. It's like it never happened. And a few months later the same people are back with new predictions. Thus, the balancing process I described. I bought a lot of those predictions when I was young and dumb. I'm not young now and am trying hard not to be dumb.Pure said:
Selena_Kitt
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If it's something that will actually wake the Western world up to the reality that how we are living is detrimental to our beings, I'm all for it, whether it's groupthink or solid science.
I don't need statistics and projections to know that how we live our lives now is not the best we could be doing for ourselves, each other or the earth.
Huckleman2000
It was something I ate.
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Okay, last night I was drunk and angry.
This is just for fun:
Fuck all
Why would you think I'm above personal attacks, simply because I'm a liberal? Are liberals too soft for that? Okay, let's look at the strength of your argument. Of course, you opened with personal attacks, as would be expected of a fucking right-wing nutjob:
I've never tasted a turd either but I'm pretty certain I would not enjoy it...
My critique is directed at the entire religion of eco-alarmism. According to those fanatics...
I simply refuse to give those hacks any of my money directly...
After that stunningly convincing display of dismissive rhetoric, you get right to the core of your thesis:
...we were supposed to be living in shit styes already, with people being scooped up in front-end-loaders for riot control and eating Soylent Green (yes, that was an alarmist movie, much like the Day After Tomorrow, done back in the 60's), another was Silent Running - within the next 20 years ALL (as in every single damn tree) of our forests were supposed to be dead and the last remnants on spaceships so that they could be saved from our horribly polluted world. Yet, somehow, we enjoy an even higher standard of living than they did then.
This had me flummoxed. I never would have thought to apply the rigorous science contained in mediocre doomsday movies to the problems of global climate change. Could this really be the crux of your thinking on the subject? Indeed it was! For, a mere post or two later you clarified:
I clearly established my point that Hollywood as a really lousy track record for predicting their dire futures based upon their own political outlooks. You can choose to decide that THIS time they have it right, I choose to believe they're wrong yet again.
This introduced a new wrinkle to the warped thinking you had already confronted me with. Science has nothing to do with it! Of course, Climatology is entirely based on political outlook, and so we can choose our own belief systems, much like we might choose a religion. Or a movie, for that matter. This is a new world, where up is down, blue is green, and when we fall down a rabbit hole, we land softly and find talking animals to greet us.
You're right. I'm just way out of my depth trying to argue with you.
All I can do is try to insult you, and even then, your verbal jujitsu only turns it back on me.
Well said. I am a fucking nutjob. Youre well-reasoned argument has won me over. I no longer believe Al Gore is a turnip.
I stand in awe of your powers of logicks - nay, they be magicks.
This is just for fun:
mack_the_knife said:
Fuck all
mack_the_knife said:
Why would you think I'm above personal attacks, simply because I'm a liberal? Are liberals too soft for that? Okay, let's look at the strength of your argument. Of course, you opened with personal attacks, as would be expected of a fucking right-wing nutjob:
I've never tasted a turd either but I'm pretty certain I would not enjoy it...
My critique is directed at the entire religion of eco-alarmism. According to those fanatics...
I simply refuse to give those hacks any of my money directly...
After that stunningly convincing display of dismissive rhetoric, you get right to the core of your thesis:
...we were supposed to be living in shit styes already, with people being scooped up in front-end-loaders for riot control and eating Soylent Green (yes, that was an alarmist movie, much like the Day After Tomorrow, done back in the 60's), another was Silent Running - within the next 20 years ALL (as in every single damn tree) of our forests were supposed to be dead and the last remnants on spaceships so that they could be saved from our horribly polluted world. Yet, somehow, we enjoy an even higher standard of living than they did then.
This had me flummoxed. I never would have thought to apply the rigorous science contained in mediocre doomsday movies to the problems of global climate change. Could this really be the crux of your thinking on the subject? Indeed it was! For, a mere post or two later you clarified:
I clearly established my point that Hollywood as a really lousy track record for predicting their dire futures based upon their own political outlooks. You can choose to decide that THIS time they have it right, I choose to believe they're wrong yet again.
This introduced a new wrinkle to the warped thinking you had already confronted me with. Science has nothing to do with it! Of course, Climatology is entirely based on political outlook, and so we can choose our own belief systems, much like we might choose a religion. Or a movie, for that matter. This is a new world, where up is down, blue is green, and when we fall down a rabbit hole, we land softly and find talking animals to greet us.
You're right. I'm just way out of my depth trying to argue with you.
All I can do is try to insult you, and even then, your verbal jujitsu only turns it back on me.
Well said. I am a fucking nutjob. Youre well-reasoned argument has won me over. I no longer believe Al Gore is a turnip.
I stand in awe of your powers of logicks - nay, they be magicks.
Roxanne Appleby
Masterpiece
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I respect that, and think the question "How shall we live?" is always worth asking. But here is something to think about: To what extent are you willing to give up for yourself and your grandchildren the comforts and conveniences of industrial civilzation, including houses that are warm in winter and cool in summer; convenient individualized transportation (cars); convenient long-distance transportation (planes); abundant food with great variety; and abundant material goods such as computers, carpets, chairs, chintz, china, etc.?SelenaKittyn said:
One response might be, "I'm hardly willing to give any of it up, but do we really need a world with 8 billion or 10 billion people?" Personally, that is my response, and I would like the world to enter a glide path to a population of 1 billion or so. That is a 200 year project, and is eminently doable without catastrophic, apacolyptic events bringing it about, which is no guarantee that those things won't happen.
My point is this: Our culture is immersed in a fog of anti-industrial civilization utopianism, with little appreciation of what that really means. The radical environmentalism movement (which is not the same as conservationism) is the most strident apostle of this sentiment, and has captured the imaginations of millions of people. But we should be more thoughtful about these things, understand their implications, and seek more balanced views.
Selena_Kitt
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Roxanne Appleby said:
I don't disagree with this at all, and I believe extremism on either end isn't necessarily the way to go... but it seems that extremism is what gets people's ATTENTION. There is a great deal of apathy caused by that overwhelming sense of hopelessness that someone was talking about earlier in the thread... "What can I do??" So eventually, people tune out. Those waking up and shouting that the sky is falling may help pull a few of those (like Joe, here, who admitted being effected by the movie
) out of the apathetic muck and mire long enough to listen. Now, as for the anti-industrial civiliation utopianism... yeah, some people have stars in their eyes and want to go back to the stone age, eschew all things mass-produced and some are even doing it, in intentional communities... I don't know that most of us are willing to do that, to go so far. As a nation, we've always wanted to eat our cake and have it, too. I hope there is a middle ground to be reached, and I think, if we are going to continue to be a capitalist nation, big business is going to have to get on board with it, and in some cases, they are... it's just a slow process.
I'm curious about your population theory, Roxanne (not to hijack the thread)... are you talking about population control?
Pure
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lame -note to Huck
Roxanne I've seen scores of predictions ...and have noticed a pattern: Lots of media attention when the prediction is made, lots of backslapping for the predictor from Hollywood, the media and the political establishment. And then, when the prediction doesn't pan out - silence. It's like it never happened. And a few months later the same people are back with new predictions.
P: Sounds like the folks at the White House and Wall Street Journal, alright.
You have no argument or evidence, here, on the issue, Roxanne. They're wrong because they're group thinkers, you're right because Wall Street Journal and Lomberg agree.
Why Lomberg, and not Michael Bender or Joe Blow? Lomberg's views suit your agenda.
===
Huckleman: Nice review of the Lomberg book. I'll repost the url:
http://www.csicop.org/si/2002-11/environment.html
I don't think this is the sort of skepticism that attracts Ms. R.A.
Roxanne I've seen scores of predictions ...and have noticed a pattern: Lots of media attention when the prediction is made, lots of backslapping for the predictor from Hollywood, the media and the political establishment. And then, when the prediction doesn't pan out - silence. It's like it never happened. And a few months later the same people are back with new predictions.
P: Sounds like the folks at the White House and Wall Street Journal, alright.
You have no argument or evidence, here, on the issue, Roxanne. They're wrong because they're group thinkers, you're right because Wall Street Journal and Lomberg agree.
Why Lomberg, and not Michael Bender or Joe Blow? Lomberg's views suit your agenda.
===
Huckleman: Nice review of the Lomberg book. I'll repost the url:
http://www.csicop.org/si/2002-11/environment.html
I don't think this is the sort of skepticism that attracts Ms. R.A.
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