US Republican enviro-vets: 'Climate change is real. Deal with it' A quartet of former US Environmental Protection Agency administrators has come out in favor of immediate action on anthropogenic climate change – and all four worked in conservative Republican administrations. "We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must …
might be worthwhile reading a paper (even just the abstract) before presenting it as evidence to support your opposite view.
"Temperature reductions MOST LIKELY DUE TO INCREASED CLOUDINESS" i.e. the air is warmer and holds more water.
The areas where a 'significant temperature increase were found' are "explained in terms of major human interventions in the hydrological balance at the earth surface"
The article you're referring to is published in "Energy and Environment", a junk.science mag which deniers use because _it isn't peer reviewed_. One can publish anything there, and the deniers do. That specific paper makes a lot of erroneous assumptions, and would not have been publisheable in a real science journal.
And, in other news: "NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1988, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record." http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20130115/
Peer Review (unfortunately) makes little difference these days. Just look at the cosy club of global warming alarmists at East Anglia's Climate Research Unit to easily see that.
P.S. Please post a reliable link to these so-called "erroneous assumptions", if you can, thanks!
Because of human nature It's very, very unlikely we'll change. So we'd better work out how to deal with it. Or we can just leave it to our great-grandchildren to work our how to deal with it.
As for the puppets above, you need a new pair of socks. Those one's have got holes in them and I can see your fingers moving.
The only reason I really bother to live my boring pointless little life is there is a really big LOL on the horizon when humanity, en masse, realises just how screwed they have let themselves become. All the waling and whining and name-calling and blame-pointing and general gnashing of teeth will be tedious in the long run, I guess, but in a way, it will also be a most amusing spectacle to behold.
'[O]ur world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth's atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected."
Every single one of these claims is utter tosh, unless you happen to be one of the many 'scientists' making a very handsome living out of scaring idiot politicians into paroxysms of fear and angst.
Anyone who believes this nonsense probably believes that windmills with diesel generator back-up (STOR) is a sensible replacement for gas/nuclear/coal power generation. (I'm not joking, this crass plan is being implemented by our pathetic government).
BTW Anonymous Coward (and I can understand why you want to remain anonymous!) 'Hundreds of credentialed climate scientists' is a figure taken from a widely discredited 'survey' of allegedly 12,000 scientists. Once you dig into the figures, you will find that a grand total of 65 actually agreed with that statement. (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/5/prweb10772757.htm)
"BTW Anonymous Coward (and I can understand why you want to remain anonymous!) 'Hundreds of credentialed climate scientists' is a figure taken from a widely discredited 'survey' of allegedly 12,000 scientists. Once you dig into the figures, you will find that a grand total of 65 actually agreed with that statement. (http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/5/prweb10772757.htm)"
This is nonsense. The arguments being made in these 'discreditings' are like saying that biologists do not agree with the theory of evolution because they do not explicitly say so in every abstract of every paper that they publish.
Incidentally, there have been a few similar surveys over the years, with slightly differing methodologies, and they have all reached broadly the same conclusion. I am not aware of any surveys to the contrary, certainly nothing with any degree of rigour.
" '[O]ur world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth's atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected."
Every single one of these claims is utter tosh..."
Why? Just because you say so?
It's the 'Don' wanna clean my room you can't make me!' school of climate commentary.
Which is basically the misguided fantasy that the opinion of a know-nothing who reads a bit of news on the Internets is worth exactly the same as the opinion of professionals with PhDs and at least a decade of experience.
We don't do any other kind of engineering or planning like that in our culture. Which is why when we build things they usually work and don't fall down (unless someone stops maintaining them, or corners are cut for 'economic reasons.')
The wider problem - the huge, planet-destroying uber-problem - is that we do still run politics, economics, and a lot of business on the basis that the people best qualified to run things are assholes with a vastly inflated, impractical, and utterly unrealistic view of the usefulness of their cognitive skills and talents.
And that basically all you need for success is opinionation+self-serving childish bullshit.
"Every single one of these claims is utter tosh, unless you happen to be one of the many 'scientists' making a very handsome living out of scaring idiot politicians into paroxysms of fear and angst."
OK. An opinion.
Now, in the interests of a balanced view, can you think of any parties with vested interests in continuing to drill / frack / dig and convert sources of energy, which took millions of years to form, and at ever-increasing rates? And any economies whose continued fingers-in-ears approach makes a few so much money short term that they'd rather sing La-La-La than think about where they're heading fast?
What's that? You can't?
Well, not a surprise, really, given that your post had certain ostrich-like / highly selective belief attributes about it.
But, just so you know, we're not all that blind / stupid. You know, some of us give some credibility to the vast majority of experts, rather than worshiping an ever-diminishing band of La-La-La-Can't-Hear-You cultists.
What desperate nonsense.
You are seriously claiming that the Arctic isn't melting and then expect to be taken seriously in your other parrotted denierblog junk?
Laughable.
The last decade IS by far the hottest decade in at least 7,000 years.
Simple, measurable, verifiable fact.
http://planet3.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/marcott-B-1000-500x342.jpg
The deep oceans ARE warming rapidly.
Simple measurable fact from thousands of ARGO bouys.
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/images/AR4WG1SeaSurfaceTemp.jpg?711122
Sea level IS rising.
Simple measurement.
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/
80% of summer Arctic ice volume has melted in the last 35 years.
Simple measurement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YgiMBxaL19M
There are hundreds of other studies that all confirm these examples.
There are none that refute them.
That you can post such utter rubbish with a straight face when it's so blatantly obvious you are talking the most absurd tosh is classic denier tactic. You have no shame whatsoever.
> The deep oceans ARE warming rapidly.
> Simple measurable fact from thousands of ARGO bouys.
> http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/images/AR4WG1SeaSurfaceTemp.jpg?711122
Well four out of five studies on the Argo data seem to indicate the exact opposite...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/06/new-paper-on-argo-data-trenberths-ocean-heat-still-missing/
I didn't say mankind is not having an effect just not 100% attributable.
No sane person is claiming that 100% of climate change is anthropogenic. The problem is that the % that is attributable to human causes is growing and has reached a point where its effects are noticeable and in many cases negative. Furthermore, our share is reaching (well, in the case of some models has reached) a level where it becomes difficult if not impossible to stop or reverse.
If you wish to discount the models of the consequences, I understand that -- there are some valid reasons to doubt them.
But if you simply take the mathematics1 of our inputs into the system, along with observed effects of similar experimental systems and observed measurements of the actual system over time, it's pretty clear that we are causing significant changes to climate without understanding or preparing for the consequences.
And significant change without understanding the consequences is the very antithesis of the conservative2 philosophy.
1 I find this piece: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/recipe-for-climate-change/ covers it quite nicely.
2 I'm talking actual conservatism here, of course, not the self-serving reactionary political conservatism of US Republicans, for example.
"I for one have no objections to a world with clean air and water, and that in it's self is an admirable goal. I am just not convinced that climate warming is solely attributable to mankind. I didn't say mankind is not having an effect just not 100% attributable."
Does *anyone* claim that mankind is 100% responsible?
Do you *think* that anyone does?
You know what? I'm not convinced that Mr. Jones of Surbiton is 100% responsible for traffic accidents.
Good. Now that we've discredited the '100% responsible' beliefs we can move on to more productive debate.
First of wall, what IS clean air and water?
The air for example is full of water, nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur and nitorogen dioxide methane radon bugs bacilli, spores, pollens, dust volcanic ash and the odd meteor and carbon 14 atom and not a little high energy cosmic rays.
Te seas are full of even worse. Just about anything that shits ends up with its shit in the seas. There is also methane., heavy metals, and lord knows what other muck in there.
That's one point.
Now think about cost. If we cripple the wortld economically and use every ounce of available energy is a massive effort to 'clean up the world' all we will achieve is almost zero people.
Or is that the agenda?
Seriously, show me how installing carbon dioxide scrubbers on every coal power plant, continuing to cut emissions on autos, and building more nuke plants than coal plants over the next 40 years will "cripple" the world economy.
Because THAT right there gets you a big CHUNK of improvement. And it's all technology that we know, have relatively mastered (with "clean" diesels and hybrid cars, and 4th Gen nuclear plants), and is available right now, in the marketplace.
Yes, it might cost a few million per power plant to install and service scrubbers - but out of the total cost of the life of that powerplant, it's a pittance.
What you are succumbing to is CORPORATE NOISE...that ANY single cent they have to spend that affects their stock price (and exec compensation) one millionth of one percent is ECONOMIC DOOM FOR US ALL. And that's just SELF-SERVING CORPORATE BULLSHIT - designed by business to ensure that it doesn't have to suffer even the _slightest_ impact on it's stockprice (and thus exec compensation, which is usually linked to it). Despite a multi-year recession, America has cut joblessness from over 9% to 7.4% over the past few years. CORPORATE PROFITS and WALL STREET are at an all time high - higher even than before the crash.
Do you really, really believe their FUCKING BULLSHIT that "oh, we can't afford to save the planet, and it isn't necessary anyway....blah blah blah"???
Sucker.
Do you know how LITTLE the seas have to rise to basically wipe out the harbours and shipping terminals that the world relies upon for global trade? And nearly every major city is built on a waterfront. You worry about the costs of lessening CO2? Worry about the cost of relocating many major cities away from their current locations, and doing it relatively fast - say in a 50 year timespan. TRILLIONS of dollars wouldn't even start to cover it.
Those CEOs who's noise you believe will be on their private, secured, ranches in Montana, or on the hilltops of their private islands, when it all goes to shit. Where will you or your children be?
Actually we've done a pretty good job at cleaning up the first 90% of all the pollutants in coal plants compared to say the 1940s. The problem is, after the big push back in the 70s all the easy conversions were done. So we're now working on either the hugely expensive ones, or trying to get the same benefits out of that last 10% that we got cleaning up the first 90%. The Warmists won't admit to this, because it makes their wailing less effective. If you know you've spent $2 billion cleaning up 90% of what you can, and that the next 9% is going to cost $200 billion, the head has a better chance of winning against the heart.
Of course this has been exacerbated by their "you have to do it all or don't do anything" with respect to coal (at least in the US). If part of a coal facility breaks you can either repair the equipment at the level at which it was installed, or you can refit the entire plant with current technology. You can't just refit the part that broke with current technology to reduce your pollution output for that part of the plant.
4 choices:
1. Do nothing. The scientific consensus is shown to be wrong - carry on as now.
2. Do nothing. The scientific consesus is shown to be accurate - our children and grand-children die.
3. Do something. The scientific consensus is shown to be wrong - huge economic costs with no benefit.
4. Do something. The scientific consesus is shown to be accurate - our children and grand-children albeit at huge economic costs.
Place your bet.
How about:
5. Do things that create efficiency (insulation, grid infrastructure improvements, grid balancing through stored power, smart controls for load balancing) that prove to be worthwhile regardless of outcome.
In general, no-one can deny climate change. At all. It's sheer insanity, not just that it's in a fairly rapid change at the moment (we live 80-100 years, that the climate changes during our lifetime is a pretty big thing I'd have thought) but there's both long term (~400,000 years) and short term (victorian chilliness) evidence that climate change happens, is real, and is gonna happen again.
So it's more a question of what we do (including nothing) in terms of reacting. If it is being pushed faster by human action, then I fear we're past the point of doing anything realistic about it. Well, non-psychotic realistic. Lots of things work if you wipe out 80% of the population....
Whilst I believe in climate change, and AGW, the worrying thing for global warming is it's been part of the NWO from the 60's as being the cause that the world will agree that governments can't by themselves solve this issue, hence justifying a world government. Like a number of my beliefs that a decade ago would have been considered pretty nut job* maybe this will just be accepted in the future. I mean, it's clear multinationals are clearly running rings around the laws of nation states, so who governs them? But as I say, anything that seems too much like we're being herded makes my hair prickle.
*Chiefly Bilderburg. Not anything zany like they sacrifice virgins and drink their blood, but that the 0.001% controlling 50%+ of the world's wealth and resources get together for a cozy chat, and that this happens to always include the leaders of the political parties from wither side of the aisle from the major countries. Got laughed at, asked if they're lizards, do they drink blood etc. Now it's the upmarket G8/G20, and it even has a press office.
It is with great level of certainty evident that the planet (well, its surface and atmosphere anyway) is warming up. We can bicker whodunnit, but this is going to solve nothing.
At best there are people who are eager to 'do their part' in curbing emissions with some often hysterical actions. But climate has enormous, enormous inertia. The same applies to the global society (not to be confused with western society). Westerners are small minority now with unfavourable demographics. We and our actions are starting to be less and less relevant.
Biggest green leap has been achieved in many western countries by outsourcing to China and India with net loss for global environment. We tend to think that when we do something 'green' , it will have some real impact. Well, there are 6 bn people who beg to differ and want the same level of comfort we have, regardless.
Even if majority of westerners climb back up trees, it will be only a blip in the global society given the cold demographics facts and time.
All in all what we do now in prevention etc. is fairly likely not going to cut it given the scale and inertia. And I feel that this is also a fact.
We have to focus on developing technologies that will enable us to adapt and transform our environment to be more resilient in the face of violent weather, disruptions of energy grids, draught here and flood there with at least the same zeal as the one manifested today in 'prevention'. Otherwise there will be violent weather AND violent turbulences in society. We can still prevent the second from happening.
It is no longer even certain that the world IS warming up any more. Certainly the second differential is negative - rate of warming are slowing, not accelerating, whereas CO2 content is accelerating.
It s all very well for the warmists to scratch around for reasons why this is so, but why didn't they scratch around before? And if they missed one significant effect, how many more have they missed?
And as far as human political decisions are concerned, a theory that may well be right, but needs correcting to such an extent that its predictive value is now meaningless, is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
One again the Bandar Log are out in force 'we all say it, so it must be true' - but wiser denizens of the jungle have learnt to ignore their mindless chatter, and indeed the lumps of shit they throw down on everybody.
AGW isn't dead yet, but its sure beginning to smell that way. And these last desperate attempts to prop it up are the death throes of an industry whose mythology and marketing is predicated on the assumption its true. And that industry is in serious financial trouble.
Not the least because its cosmetic remedies are utterly and completely ineffective at combating the very effect they were legislated to do.
AGW isn't science any more, it's business and marketing, and this is what happens when you believe too much in the spin.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/german-coal-fired-power-rises-above-50-in-first-26089429
Nuclear power generates more electricity in Germany than ALL renewables? more CO2 is being emitted than ever before?
Electricity prices up by three, no end to nuclear, and carbon emission on the rise?
That's not what was supposed to happen, after a trillion dollars has been tossed into the 'Energiewiende' was it?
That there has been something rotten in the state of Denmark has been tacitly accepted by those in the know. That the stench has now settled over Germany is becoming apparent, as the golden parachute erupts out of the boardroom windows at Siemens AG, with times proving 'difficult' for its renewables division, and offshore windfarms are standing idle because no one can afford the extension cable to plug them into a grid that cant handle the peak flows anyway.
All seems well in the climate change/ renewables industry. Millions of PR agencies and spin merchants are orchestrating a concerted attack on the public consciousness, but the reality under the glossy optimism and the Climate Of Fear FUD machine is observable to those who care to dig. Having summarily failed to deliver either any accurate predictions, or any actual emissions reduction, the money is pouring into the press releases, to get even more subsidies, on the basis that something that has already failed, must, like banks, be bailed out with yet more taxpayer money.
Its not the end, it may not even be the beginning of the end, but its the send of the beginning.
There are only so many times one can cry 'wolf'
And indulge in manifest Belling of the Cat.
Well, everything today is marketing, global warming as well as anti-global warming, there is shrill hysterics in both camps. There is too much emotion and too little honest science and engineering.
What you have failed to observe is that what I said is we need to refocus on infrastructure and make it more resilient and adaptable (while still pursuing ways to prevent global warming as a hedge). Extreme weather incidents are more and more expensive as we grow more prosperous, so even if the global warming alarmism of today is unfounded, we'd benefit from this (on the contrary, from the CO2 curbing alone we'd benefit very little should that be the case).
However, the climate is ALWAYS changing. Granted, usually on far longer timescale, but it IS changing. We've had spells of cold as well as of warm in our history and it usually had profound effect on the wellbeing of the affected society, changing rain patterns, cold weather causing famine ... If we are to live in prosperity, we need to invest in resilience and flexibility.
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That's the reason I wrote about demographic facts in *time* - in the context of climate we are talking about 20, 30 or 50 years' timeframes. This is not a matter of 5 years...
A few years ago there were almost no cars in China. Look there now. What about India and other fast growing countries? Subsaharan Africa is a poverty poster child and I completely agree that they are incomparable to the US for instance. Still, there are some fast growing economic powerhouses that are playing catch-up vigorously while having population many times larger in total than US and Eurpe combined.
People there are feeling the progress, they are better off now than before. This whets their appetite for more. This is only natural and we should acknowledge the fact and plan accordingly.
China has a huge stake in limiting the scope of climate change. They're big enough that their share of the damage due to their own fossil fuel use is greater than what it would cost them to mitigate it. They're also big enough that if they can cut a deal with the US to both reduce emissions, everybody wins.
China also has a big solar PV industry and stands to rake in some offsetting profits to soften the blow of the costs she'll bear in the short term by limiting construction of coal-fired generating plants.
With the US and China on board, it ought to be possible to persuade more of the world to step up as well. Trade advantages and disadvantages could be deployed to add weight to the persuasion.
The cost of transitioning to wind, solar and nuclear is far from ruinous. With some luck in the R&D department, we might even come out ahead. Sunlight, after all, is free. Coal is not.
"There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts,"
That's only because Climate Change Believers do everything they can to stifle genuine scientific discussion on the subject. The "evidence" is only clear if you refuse to consider any data which contradicts their believe that man is responsible for climate change.
Climate change is natural, they question is by how much man's activities are affecting natural change. And despite what these "believers" want you to think, that argument is still open for discussion. At least, it would be if they didn't jump down the throat of anyone who dares to question the percieved wisdom that man IS responsible.
Just because a majority believes something does not automatically mean it is true.
"Just because a majority believes something does not automatically mean it is true."
True. I would expect that a majority of people in the USA, for example, do not believe that AGW is true.
The real question is the majority of whom, their credibility and their credentials. I am still waiting for a alternative consilient scientific theory that explains the evidence as well as the the current mainstream understanding of climate. Let me know if you can point me towards one.
"And just because a minority of deniers believes something... similarly?"
Umm...no.
"I believe..." means just that. No evidence required.
"I don't believe..." means just that. No evidence required.
On the other hand, a "believer" will continue to believe while a "non-believer" is likely to change their outlook based on evidence.
Now, we get to "deniers". Denying something due to lack of evidence is neither belief. nor non-belief
Denier != non-believer.
"And just because a minority of deniers believes something... similarly?"
Umm...no.
"I believe..." means just that. No evidence required.
"I don't believe..." means just that. No evidence required.
On the other hand, a "believer" will continue to believe while a "non-believer" is likely to change their outlook based on evidence.
Now, we get to "deniers". Denying something due to lack of evidence is neither belief. nor non-belief
Denier != non-believer
If I read your post correctly, you're saying that a denier is not a non-believer, it's an anti-believer. If that's what you're trying to say, than the reversal you disagreed with is a sensible argument. It's essentially saying that if the quantity of people who take a positive position with respect to proposition A is not an indicator of A's truthfulness then logically the quantity of people who take a negative position with respect to A is not an indicator of A's falsehood.
Your description of believers and non-believers illustrates one of the woolier aspects of our language: we dont have a good phrase for "I believe that not" and many people confuse it with "I do not believe" which is a different statement entirely. The point is, belief isn't a two- or even a three-state quality. It's a spectrum comprising:
True believers -- those who would believe A regardless of any evidence.
Casual believers -- those who believe A, but who would be swayed by a certain level of evidence.
Non-believers -- those for whom the evidence is not significant enough to prove or disprove A, or those who simply don't care.
Casual deniers -- those who believe A is false, but who would be swayed by a certain level of evidence.
True deniers -- those who believe A is false regardless of any evidence.
(There are other dimensions to belief as well, such as the degree to which one will go to affirm or deny the proposition, but the spectrum suffices for the original statement.)
Given that, I would rephrase the original statement and the reversing corollary as:
Human nature being what it is, the average level of belief or denial of a given proposition A is a recipriversexcluson1 -- i.e, it is anything but the actual level of truth of proposition A.
1as defined in Adams, D. Life, the Universe, and Everything
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