More on Global Warming

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Hey, Snook, if you put a pot of water over the fire, can you predict where the first bubbles will rise? Conversely, can you assume that the water will start boiling in the end?

Bottom line, even if in a complex system, you will not be able to predict how a microscopic part will behave (and local weather is microscopic at the whole planet scale) you can still predict things about the whole.

 

Superb strawman, Snook. You managed to completely evade the gist of the argument and deferred to a personal attack and the vague claim that there are an equal number of climatological studies which contradict the consensus, which is that greenhouse gases are contributing to the warming of the planet. Just one problem: if there were an equal number, there wouldn't be a consensus.

 

So speaketh the bible, so speaketh the truth.

To me a consensus is something that everyone agrees on. Since some people do not agree, there isn'a consensus no matter how loud the profit and his disciples screech.

As to a "strawman" go back and read his post. There wasn't a single thing in it of value. Instead it was a very simple attempt to "shout" down the heretic. I'll help with some quotes.

If you say so, I guess it must be true.

If you say so.

This one I liked

Wow, I must be really stupid. Especially if everyone keeps telling me.

Maybe, I am blind, but I didn't evade the gist of his argument. The only point of his argument was that I was wrong, everyone knows, it, I must be a poop head. Funny, when I read it, I felt that I was the one that was suffering a personal attack.

 

There isn't such consensus about anything. It's not even possible. On your way to relativism, or perspectivism perhaps? But their merits or the lack of them should be discussed in AoLS. Drawing the global warming into the realm of epistemology, or theology seems to be some people's goal to get the discussion into their comfort zones. It's all just rhetoric, isn't it, and as such not to be taken seriously, huh?

 

Well, Snook, every climatologist who has published a peer reviewded study in the last 15 years agrees with the consensus. In other words, everyone who is actually qualified to have an opinion agrees....or, at least, is unable to disprove the consensus.

Be skeptical if you want to. It's healthy. But your stance on Global Warming actually puts you on the fringe.

[ August 12, 2007, 23:15: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

For clarity: BTA's approach is pretty sane. But BTA isn't exactly representative of the anti-GW crowd.

I'll take that bet.

I've looked. The refutations don't exist.

 

The Great Snook:

The point that you're obtuse, and cannot grasp the meaning of 'worldwide consensus based on a ****load of evidence'?

Oh wait, sorry. It's a conspiracy. Wait, who was the hysterical nutjob, again?

Anyone who does not agree that an overwhelming association exists is wrong, I'm sorry to say. That's just a statement of fact. Perhaps instead of being so flippant, you should actually hang your head in shame for being the equivalent of a flat earther.

No. Just very impressionable, and easily brainwashed by a conservative government,'1984' style. Big Brother is watching you, and Big Brother is always right.

Have fun living in fear of sailing off the corners of the Earth.

As a member of the Outer Party?

I dare ya. I double dare ya.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

 

At least no peer reviewed refutations from scientists whose area of expertise actually qualifies them to make such a refutation. There are lots of non-peer reviewed refutations out there from scientists who don't study climatology and work for the automobile or coal/fossil fuels industry, but you'll have to look a lot harder for a refutation from a climatologist.....and, no matter how hard you look, you won't find any peer reviewed refutations at all from within the last 15 years.

@Mountain Hare: You've made some good points in the post above, but you have got to stop the flaming and personal attacks if you actually want people to hear what you are saying. No matter how right you are, when you call the intended recipient of your message an idiot, he probably isn't going to listen to what you have to say. It's about presentation.

 

Drew,

The poster wouldn't listen to me, anyway. He thinks I belong to the hysterical nutter fringe group.

But hey, feel free to try the ass-kissing approach. Tell me if it's a success. I'm not holding my breath, as blue is rather unbecoming on my face.

 

@Drew:

Right. I'd hoped that was implicit in my post, but far better to make it explicit.

 

Drew and AMaster: The editor determines what articles are published in a journal. That is an immense amount of power over what is considered 'reputable' by a scientific community. Many scientists, who have valid points, are not published in the most appropriate journal due to biases of the editors.

The entire issue of what is newsworthy and what is not is quite critical here. For example, one the primary studies cited as evidence of global warming (GISS Surface Air Temperature study by Hansen and Ruedy at NASA) appears to have a Y2K bug in the original data. The hottest year on record is now 1934, followed by 1921 -- 1998 is now third (five of the ten hottest years on record are before WWII). I doubt we will see this significant correction in any 'reputable' journal.

It is stuff like this that makes me continually question the bias of global warming studies. As my research professor once said, "Give me enough exponentials [in the data analysis] and I can prove anything."

 

Drew, this is a very logical approach, and one I fully agree with. Even if Global Warming is a farce, avoiding fossil fuels, moving to renewable/unlimited resources, and cutting down on things like cutting down trees are all good things to do and good ways to go. It is the media frenzy and the propaganda I object to.


TMH, the methodology of that study you cited is questionable. I've seen it before and I had problems with it then, too.

T2Bruno, that's a very good point. I recently read an article on the CNN web site talking about global warming. It actually presented a rather balanced view, citing bits of evidence for both sides and quoting researchers on both sides. Unfortunately, none of the research questioning global warming that it cited could be found in 'peer reviewed journals'. I wish I could find it now. A suprising article coming from CNN, but they do good jobs now and then.

The truth is that there isn't even a scientific consensus. There are reputable climatologists out there who are saying the same things I am, which means it isn't a consensus.

That being said, I also fully admit that there are a great number of people on both sides that don't know the facts and don't try to and are essentially working on faith.

If the data is questionable, the motives of the researchers are suspect, the methodology is unclear, and others disagree with the conclusion, I'm hardly going to believe it on someone else's word alone.

Morgoth, I'm afraid I have to disagree with your logic here. The US is probably in one of the best positions to eliminate fossil fuels. If ethanol becomes the new fuel standard, the US and Brazil will probably become the new Middle East. If hydrogen fuel cells come up, the US is agian in a good position if we'll get over all the liberal, conservationalist bull**** and build things like wind farms, solar farms, thermal induction plants and *gasp* more nuclear reactors.

One of the biggest issues in global warming is actually not the vehicle fuel standard, but the electrical power generation standard. The US is in trouble here because so many of our power plants are coal-fired (very high-tech and clean coal-fired, but still...). Unfortunately, all the wonderful alternative energy sources that abound in our nation are being criticized by one group or another. If we build dams, the fish will suffer (as if we haven't fixed that problem in other places before), if we build wind farms, the birds will die (which is vastly over exagerated) or *gasp* we'll ruin a scenic view (of 50 miles out in the ocean). Solar farms take land, geothermal plants take money (and some beautiful spots), thermal induction could 'mess with the currents' (about like launching deep space probes messes with the Earth's orbit). Someone has come up with a reason to object to every alternative, and most of them are flat out wrong, others are just paranoid.

Finally, though, I think we really should finish with this thought, because it is a good one, and we should dwell on good thoughts:
From Drew:

 

NOG:

If you have problems, then by all means, elaborate on them.

Even better, if you can demonstrate that the relevant scientific fields have a consensus against global warming, go right ahead!

 

Yes well I was not talking about the complete elimination of fossil fuels, that comes slowly and we don't need to go so far to slow down the global warming. However it is clear that US along with China need to make the most painful cuts since they are the greatest contributors to global warming. Which kind of explains all reluctancy to make such cuts which are bound to hurt the economic growth way more than it does in Europe.

Europe has allready started to take some significant steps moving towards the use of bio fuels but it remains to be seen how that will work. In any case freedom from oil dependency is very important for the development of the European economy in the long run.

 

@NOG: First of all, thank you for your kind words regarding my approach to this matter. I have one point of contention though.

With all due respect, I'd like to ask you to show me the money, here. I haven't seen any reputable climatologists publishing research which disproves or even challenges the consensus opinion that our excessive global warming is due to excessive levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which are accumulating due to human behaviour.

 

Yesterday's news, but this Reuters article gives an idea about what's wrong with the global warming discussion currently: Carbon market encourages chopping forests

 

TMH, the big issues as I see them are unconcious bias. You have too many stages that rely on human classification, not to mention the limited selection of studies to begin with. If you're going to claim that X hasn't happened AT ALL in Y period of time, you need a much better approach than representative sampling. Combine that with the other issues with peer-reviewed journals that have been talked about, and there are just too many questionable factors. I'm not saying anything was intentionally done wrong, or falsified, just that there are too many 'what ifs' to make any kind of absolute claim.

Morgoth, if the US got off it's paranoid rear end and realized what a gold mine we were sitting on in terms of potential clean power production, I'll bet we could meet and beat the Kyoto Protocol requirements within 10 years and prosper from it.

Drew, I really wish I could find that article again, but the researcher talking was a professor at a big name school (wasn't paying too much attention to who he was at the time). He said that many of his fellow climatologists have taken to 'reading tea leaves' (assuming big trends out of small data, and selectively citing any world events that support it as proof, while ignoring those that counter it). I don't know that any of the research he was talking about made it into peer-reviewed journals, either.

 

Not to nitpick, but this amounts to one climatologist attacking the entire community with an ad hominem attack. Rather than accusing the 99% of climatologists who side with the consensus of "reading tea leaves", he should be conducting studies that show problems with their data and it's implications....and publishing them in refereed journals so everyone can talk about them.

Given that absolutely no work which disagrees with the consensus has shown up in a refereed journal in 15 years, it's pretty reasonable to assume that it hasn't. The question is why. Was it rejected (and if it was, was it rejected for a valid reason) or simply not submitted? It it wasn't submitted at all, then this guy has no license to denigrate the entire community in such a manner. If it was rejected, we should look into why before we make any judgements.

[ August 15, 2007, 15:04: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

NOG:

Your vague assertions pretty much amount to attempts at evasion. The study didn't aim to demonstrate that there were no dissenters, merely that there is strong consensus amongst the professionals. And it does so quite nicely. Extrapolating sample statistics to representative populations is routinely done in statistical science.

Again, if you can identify specific flaws in the methodology of the study I cited, then go ahead. If you can demonstrate instances of bias, cite them. At the moment, you are merely running on empty assertions.