253 replies to this topic

[JLL]

Just an example of recent warming in the US, we can compare plant hardiness zones in these USDA maps:



You can see an animated flash version of the map at HERE.
The zones have moved north by over 200 km on average.

Which of these claims do the above graphs disprove?

There is no evidence showing a causal relationship between increasing CO2 content and rising temperatures.

There is also no evidence showing that the amount of CO2 put into the air by man has any effect on a larger scale.

And, there is absolutely no evidence that a) the temperatures we are seeing now are the highest in history, and b) that the temperature curve is rising faster than ever before.

[maxwatt]

Which of these claims do the above graphs disprove?

There is no evidence showing a causal relationship between increasing CO2 content and rising temperatures.

There is also no evidence showing that the amount of CO2 put into the air by man has any effect on a larger scale.

And, there is absolutely no evidence that a) the temperatures we are seeing now are the highest in history, and b) that the temperature curve is rising faster than ever before.

Braf was arguing that warming is not occurring. It is an untenable position given the standard he set. The charts and graph demonstrate that.

The basic physical principle that CO2 traps heat, and the more CO2 the more heat trapped is easily demonstrable in a lab. There is not reason to believe it does not scale up to planetary scale.

We have measurements of atmospheric and oceanic CO2 content going back to 1730, and excellent isotopic proxies on geological time scales. Since 1730 ocean CO2 has increased 30% (contributing to acidification rather than warming, a separate issue) and atmospheric concentration by about the same. The burden of proof should be to demonstrate or produce a theory why this would not have the effect on temperatures predicted by the principles of physics.

The evidence that the current global average temperatures are higher than any time since the last interglacial maximum (when sea levels were about 100 feet higher than current levels) has been presented many times over. For years people claimed you couldn't prove smoking caused lung cancer either. It's public relations on the part of certain vested interests, not science that claims there is no proof.

The general tactics used by AGW denialists:

1. Conspiracy
2. Selectivity (cherry-picking)
3. Fake experts
4. Impossible expectations (also known as moving goalposts)
5. General fallacies of logic.
6. Continuing to repeat arguments long after they have been debunked.
7. Distraction (arguing a single narrow subset, ad nauseum)

I believe JLL's post relies on #4 and #6.

Rol: It's basically a 14th century dialect dating from the Mittel Hoch Deutsch Bluhenzeit.

Edited by maxwatt, 23 January 2011 - 10:32 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

It is a fallacy to declare something or someone ignorant if he or it does not agree with your viewpoint.

Speaking of fallacy and ignorance....

I firmly believe that the world is flat and if I walk to the edge of it, I will fall off into space.

[JLL]

Braf was arguing that warming is not occurring. It is an untenable position given the standard he set. The charts and graph demonstrate that.

The quote was a reply to my post.

The basic physical principle that CO2 traps heat, and the more CO2 the more heat trapped is easily demonstrable in a lab. There is not reason to believe it does not scale up to planetary scale.

The planet is not a lab by any standards. Given the fact that temperature rises first and THEN CO2 rises (and don't even try the ridiculous "feedback loop" hypothesis), the burden of proof still lies on those claiming CO2 causes temperatures to rise.

We have measurements of atmospheric and oceanic CO2 content going back to 1730, and excellent isotopic proxies on geological time scales. Since 1730 ocean CO2 has increased 30% (contributing to acidification rather than warming, a separate issue) and atmospheric concentration by about the same. The burden of proof should be to demonstrate or produce a theory why this would not have the effect on temperatures predicted by the principles of physics.

And what does man have to do with this 30% increase? CO2 concentrations have been higher in the history of this planet. It goes in cycles.

The evidence that the current global average temperatures are higher than any time since the last interglacial maximum (when sea levels were about 100 feet higher than current levels) has been presented many times over.

Which graph are you referring to? And what does this prove?

And spare me your silly "these are the 10 things AGW denialists do", you don't want to go down that route. You should look up some of the stuff AGW proponents do.

[Brafarality]

It is a fallacy to declare something or someone ignorant if he or it does not agree with your viewpoint.

Speaking of fallacy and ignorance....

I firmly believe that the world is flat and if I walk to the edge of it, I will fall off into space.

Since someone composed a list of supposed tactics employed by deniers, the same should be done for believers. It will include sarcasm where it is inappropriate, and a bunch of other things. I keep using the Michael Schermer line in a distorted version:
"Ever travel at the speed of light and your spaceship starts to contract? Me neither"
What sounds like a good quip that dismisses a wild theory is actually a profound show of ignorance and inability to accept that which is groundbreaking or novel and unconventional.

At this point, it is the GW deniers who are antiestablishment and the believers who are the sheep.
Yeah, maybe a few oil companies fund research, but they still comprise a very small minority of public opinion and percentages. Again, the deniers are the fringe. Just like rednecks became the fringe and hipsters became the mainstream, since nearly everyone and anyone alive today wants to be edgy and unique, but end up conforming in unheard of uniformity.
The Third Reich would have marvelled at the level of uniformity in the hipster mainstream, and embracing global warming in a very unquestioning way is the 'scientific' end of that uniformity.

[niner]

What sounds like a good quip that dismisses a wild theory is actually a profound show of ignorance and inability to accept that which is groundbreaking or novel and unconventional.

At this point, it is the GW deniers who are antiestablishment and the believers who are the sheep.

But you aren't being groundbreaking, novel, or unconventional; you are being unscientific and evidencing a lack of understanding of statistics.

Frankly, most GW deniers are distinctly establishment. You should be aware that calling people "sheep" is really insulting. Oh, and if you think I'm a "hipster"... um, that descriptor probably doesn't apply. It sounds like your whole understanding of the important public policy issues of the day revolves around whether or not the cool kids are doing it.

[maxwatt]

The general tactics used by AGW denialists:
1. Conspiracy
2. Selectivity (cherry-picking)
3. Fake experts
4. Impossible expectations (also known as moving goalposts)
5. General fallacies of logic.
6. Continuing to repeat arguments long after they have been debunked.
7. Distraction (arguing a single narrow subset, ad nauseum)

Only five, not ten. I've seen #2, and reliance on #3, #5 and six in the last few posts. I think we have some of #7, too.

JLL, let's start with your assertion that the earth is actually cooling. Look at this animation from arborday.org, a gardening organization devoted to trees. The hardiness zones (how far north you can plant a species) have moved north an average of 200 km between 1990 and 2006, clearly visible on the map. This is historically unprecedented. Gardeners world-wide have noticed this. To say the planet is not warming is to deny reality. You are welcome to your own opinion but not to your own facts. Any real scientific debate is about the degree, and which systems absorb or exacerbate it.

In response to my point that denialists must explain why CO2 is not warming the earth as it affects things in a lab, you said the earth is not a lab. If I understand your answer, it is this: CO2 traps heat in a lab, but the earth is not a lab, therefor CO2 does not trap heat planet wide. That is a faulty syllogism. See #5 above.

Yes, CO2 levels have been much higher in the past, in previous geologic eras hundreds of million of years ago. Sea levels were 100 to 200 feet higher too at those times, most of the continental shelf was flooded. To say CO2 rise is natural is like saying an asteroid heading toward earth is natural. One would still tries to do something about it. Returning to conditions of the early Carboniferous would be a disaster for our species. Fucking up the earth's carbon cycle is not a wise move for a supposedly intelligent species to make.

Edited by maxwatt, 25 January 2011 - 12:03 AM.

[eternaltraveler]

Ever travel at the speed of light and your spaceship starts to contract?

last time I did it, it was the universe that contracted.

[eternaltraveler]

global warming is irrelevant. None of us are going to die of global warming.

Every last person in the world is going to die of aging if we don't get off our asses and do something about it. That includes every one of us and every last child in africa. 7 billion people doomed.

Its not good to spend so many of our FLOPS on minor problems when the truly catastrophic ones are barreling down at us like the sun falling out of the sky.

This group here composes a large proportion of the vanishingly small fraction of the humans on earth that come anywhere close to getting what the real problems even are. Its folly to spend that rare resource on the same trivialities the other 7 billion people waste their time on.

[caliban]

Automatic message


This topic has been moved from "Round Table Discussion -> Politics & Law" to "Round Table Discussion -> Global Risks".

[Rational Madman]

What sounds like a good quip that dismisses a wild theory is actually a profound show of ignorance and inability to accept that which is groundbreaking or novel and unconventional.

At this point, it is the GW deniers who are antiestablishment and the believers who are the sheep.

But you aren't being groundbreaking, novel, or unconventional; you are being unscientific and evidencing a lack of understanding of statistics.

Frankly, most GW deniers are distinctly establishment. You should be aware that calling people "sheep" is really insulting. Oh, and if you think I'm a "hipster"... um, that descriptor probably doesn't apply. It sounds like your whole understanding of the important public policy issues of the day revolves around whether or not the cool kids are doing it.

I wouldn't say that most Global Warming skeptics are directly establishment funded and influenced, even though there are some notorious examples, like the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Rather, I think the resistance stems mostly from the difficult to accept implications that global warming will have on public policy, and micro- and macroeconomics. Additionally, though, I think the proponents of the human impact on global warming have done an exceedingly poor job with their marketing of the threat, and that the more extreme fringe groups have greatly imperiled the cause by demanding sacrifices that have no basis in popular support and political realities. Indeed, even though I accept the general thesis behind the campaign to curb global warming, I'm also alarmed by the scare tactics that have been employed, and the shoddiness of some scholarship. Personally, I occupy a place somewhere in the middle of the debate, where I'm skeptical of the more dire predictions, the immediate need of far-reaching policy measures, and the efforts to disturbingly downplay the policy costs---either in terms of economics, or lost opportunities. My concerns are of course shared by many of the skeptics, and I believe such concerns have had the greatest causative effect on the views of the opposition. And in truth, many of the large industry figures---like Exxon-Mobil---have reached the conclusion that their formerly rigid positions were not yielding much ground, and had to surrender to the weight of the evidence and the imperative of pragmatism. So again, I don't think I accept the suggestion that the opposition has a great basis in top-down private sector direction---which was more of the case ten years ago. Instead, the skeptics can count independent minded Nobel Laureates Thomas Schelling and Vernon Smith as sympathizers, whom counsel more of a middle course. There are certainly more extreme types like James Inhofe, but I think their popularity is merely a function of the level of economic strain, and that public opinion will once again return to its former position when we arrive at a more stable period in the cycle.

Edited by Rol82, 26 January 2011 - 06:43 AM.

[Rational Madman]

So the real reason all these thousands of scientists are warning about AGW is that they are all part of a fabulous conspiracy to redistribute wealth! To stifle the evil Capitalism! Let's not forget the biggest reason of all; to keep the grant money flowing so they can continue to live the opulent life of a college professor! m'kay...

Well, of course not, but I think you can at least agree that there is somewhat of an indifference to the economic outcomes of climate change policy.

[Rational Madman]

So the real reason all these thousands of scientists are warning about AGW is that they are all part of a fabulous conspiracy to redistribute wealth! To stifle the evil Capitalism! Let's not forget the biggest reason of all; to keep the grant money flowing so they can continue to live the opulent life of a college professor! m'kay...

It's a confluence of interests.
Some part of the governments and the environmental movement wants to redistribute wealth and kneecap the developed world.
Some of them just want to gather power, by creating and controlling a new bureaucracy.
Some of them want to keep their research grants, and their prestige.

Of course, sometimes these overlap.

As of the climate scientists:

"Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced" -H.L.Mencken

I think altruism is the most powerful force behind scholarship, although I won't deny that there are some public officials like Al Gore and Henry Waxman that revel under the spotlight. In professional organizations that study climate science, though, I would agree that there is somewhat of a Jacobin-like treatment of the evidence.

[Brafarality]

Half of my posts are missing here! A separate thread was created for them and it was also deleted. OK, fair enough. They were way off topic.
Now, as Snoop says, back to the lecture at hand, that awful thorny issue of global warming, and the fact that it is not really occuring.

Rol82: Very cool balanced view, but maybe a bit too balanced, appealing to all parties, all mindsets. Edge it up a bit and add a few multicolored graphs.
Peace.

Edited by Brafarality, 26 January 2011 - 06:17 AM.

[maxwatt]

Without comment:

[Brafarality]

As I sit inside, unable to leave due to yet another snowstorm, I ponder the profound urgency of global warming.
And, in doing so, I also realize that local cooling and the harshest coldest, snowiest winter on record means absolutely nothing since it is local, and that my understanding of statistics was woefully inadequate, and that the brutal winters that have besieged most of the US the past several years is certainly offset by warmer temperatures over the southern pacific ocean and elsewhere, in vast regions, thus, resulting in the big picture of statistical certainty behind global warming.

And, I can't hold the whole forum accountable for purging posts that don't agree with the prevailing global warming belief, but whomever did that should really think about it, and really consider whether he or she is as broad minded and intelligent as he most certainly thinks he or she is.

[see post 112 for an explanation]

[irrelevant boasting boasting redacted]

But, as for the final global warming point: not everyone who denies is the 'establishment' or oil interests or quacks. Hate to break it to you:

Interesting: http://www.dailytech...rticle10866.htm

Balanced article: http://www.climatewa...ng-planet<br />
The very green BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299079.stm

Note: this whole issue disturbs me since I usually 'run' with the left, the far left, that is, and have been a vegetarian since 87, vegan since 95 and feel that much more must be done to reduce our carbon footprint and every other way we wantonly trash the globe. I just can't help but disbelieve this phenom since it is so heavily based on circumstantial evidence and so not supported by anything really reliable.
Even the NOAA site admits that temperature data must be 'adjusted' since I think around 25 percent of thermometers are too close to heat radiating sources.
When this form of 'adjustment' happens over 1000s of data points, it cannot help but involve subjectivity and distortion. Sorry.

Edited by maxwatt, 27 January 2011 - 05:45 PM.

[JLL]

Note: this whole issue disturbs me since I usually 'run' with the left, the far left, that is, and have been a vegetarian since 87, vegan since 95 and feel that much more must be done to reduce our carbon footprint and every other way we wantonly trash the globe.

What? Why?

*IF* man could truly affect temperatures by controlling the amount of carbon dioxide we put out, that would be fantastic news. Because like it or not, there will be another ice age, compared to which the current age we live in will look like the luxury it is. We could then just crank up the old CO2 machines and stay warm.

But I'm afraid it won't be that simple.

[Brafarality]

Just a few more interesting links, None from questionable sources. All from generally reliable news and meteorological sources:

Remember Climategate?

This WMO link indicates that the United States and Canada cooled in the 2000s, but several here insist that North America has warmed. This link states that the world has warmed everywhere else but the US and Canada, but still says we cooled.

This Time Magazine link supports global warming but fumbles and struggles dealing with the obvious contraire evidence.

Just some add-on sensationalism.

For balance and contrast, a New York Times article indicating that while the United States has endured two brutal winters in a row, northern Canada and the arctic has endured an equally powerful winter-long warm spell.

More balance. Note how uncritically the author of this New York Times article accepts the explanation that the level of extreme cold and snow is part of the overall global warming phenom. Read carefully believers. Note the lack of scientific scrutiny. It's as if the mind has been turned off.

There is no conspiracy for either side. Just two impassioned sides of a debate over our future. All the scandals, supposed collusion and so on are a manifestation.
It has barely happened here thus far, but, since it was hinted at, I am compelled to state that I never ever ever EVER want to be associated with villains such as Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Pat Robertson, the Tea Party or anything else that represents ignorance and closed mindedness. Any other personal attack is fair and ok, just not associations with those types.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, it is said, but the line must be drawn somewhere.

Edited by Brafarality, 27 January 2011 - 10:39 AM.

[maxwatt]

Climategate: from FactCheck.org

News coverage of the e-mails and the various claims about what they supposedly show may have contributed to public confusion on the subject. A Dec. 3 Rasmussen survey found that only 25 percent of adults surveyed said that "most scientists agree on global warming" while 52 percent said that "there is significant disagreement within the scientific community" and 23 percent said they were not sure. The truth is that over the 13 years covered by the CRU e-mails, scientific consensus has only become stronger as the evidence for global warming from various sources has mounted. Reports from the National Academies and the U.S. Global Change Research Program that analyze large amounts of data from various sources also agree, as does the IPCC, that climate change is not in doubt. In advance of the 2009 U.N. climate change summit, the national academies of 13 nations issued a joint statement of their recommendations for combating climate change, in which they discussed the "human forcing" of global warming and said that the need for action was "indisputable."

The urban heat-island effect does not explain why the areas of the planet warming the most are also the least populated. Throw out the temperature data if you want, but the timing of bird migration, plant flowering, and the amount of glacial melt, all indicate warming.

[platypus]

The urban heat-island effect does not explain why the areas of the planet warming the most are also the least populated. Throw out the temperature data if you want, but the timing of bird migration, plant flowering, and the amount of glacial melt, all indicate warming.

Yes, and the continuing sea-level rise indicates that oceans are warming too (glacial melt does not explain all of the observed sea-level rise).

Edited by platypus, 27 January 2011 - 02:34 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

Remember: near perfect gre? Taught as princeton review teacher for 2 years as a result of said score; also score thru the roof on every iq test imaginable, so you will never beat me that way. I am just more gifted, unless you are among the iq-elite, which is statistically improbable, and you supposedly understand statistics better than I do:
Remember, it is statistically impossible for everyone, or even a significant percentage of peeps, to be gifted, though everyone wants to think they are. It just doesn't work that way.
Yet, I know iq is worthless and I only cite test scores to discourage others since iq really means nothing but does matter to some.

Your IQ score shouldn't also serve as a measure of self worth. I bring this up because you flaunt it at every opportunity. Who are you really trying to convince, yourself or the imminst community? You may be an extremely bright individual or you may be making the entire thing up. I really don't care one way or the other as the only thing I have to base my opinion of you on is numerous argumentative posts from a very narrow minded point of view.

Are you really unable to grasp this logically and see the big picture is the question I keep asking myself. Or are you just trolling to pass time at work? Personally, I find trolling this community in particular as grossly lacking in class and I sincerely hope that this is not the case. Being the 'glass half full' kind of guy that I am, I am going to assume that you really are gifted at least in terms of raw IQ score as you have stated. This means to me that you are one of those who are blessed with brilliance, but cursed like many with the lack of reason, logic, sense, and application to use it properly. I find this to be the second worst tragedy. The worst tragedy are people like myself... those who are blessed with both brilliance (though obviously not as much as you), looks, physique, and common sense in spades compared to the average Joe, but lack the motivation to be truly dangerous with it.

Bad - Highly capable but no common sense to apply it properly

Worst - Highly capable with the common sense to apply it properly, but no motiviation to do so.

Of course, you could be trolling ...in which case I have to give you an atta-boy for being good at it (but not masterful, as you left hints) followed by advice to troll somewhere else, because unlike most forums, this community actually benefits the greater good of mankind and it is not the place for such things.




Disclaimer: Please realize that I am not making my statements because you disagree with GW theory. I am making my statements because of your lack of logic and reason with the case you are making and due to the fact that it is inconsistent with who you claim to be.

Note: Regarding your complain about deleted posts. Perhaps some of the posts you made were tied into the derailing of the subject when the conversation shifted to rednecks vs. (what was the stereotype you used again?). I seriously doubt they were removed due to your short sighted GW stance. For you to claim as such is beyond silly. I would hope that you have to know that.

[maxwatt]

The "deleted" posts were moved to a separate topic, which were deleted by another navigator as they violated forum guidelines on several counts.

Mike: We are not discussing Braf here, take your critiques of him offline, use PM. Your last post has also been deleted.

Edited by maxwatt, 27 January 2011 - 05:46 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

The "deleted" posts were moved to a separate topic, which were deleted by another navigator as they violated forum guidelines on several counts.

Mike: We are not discussing Braf here, take your critiques of him offline, use PM. Your last post has also been deleted.

Sorry Max, as he was discussing himself quite thoroughly with what I quoted, I thought I could join the conversation.

[Brafarality]

[irrelevant boasting boasting redacted]

Ha!
Totally respected since it was off topic. But, have never laughed out loud while reading forum threads as much as in the past few days.
Nothing wrong with adding pure gag-heavy laughter to intellectual discussion: think Samuel Johnson and other enlightenment authors, to name a few who did it well and got it right.
Even more cool that the whole post was not simply deleted, since some of the links are interesting. And, it may result in a lynching here to admit that it looks like global warming is actually happening. Not sure what shifted opinion in the past 12 hours. Think it was the New York Times article with its simple focus on the local, perfectly accounting for the northeastern harshness by noting the climactic inversion between Canada and the northeastern United States and not subsuming it in some larger, more questionable, statistical abstract.

After all, even if the sum total of manmade contribution to greenhouse gases is a fraction of a percent, that fraction should still amount to some warming, and, even if that warming is minimal, on the planetary scale, a minimal warming of, say, 1 degree is still significant to sensitive phenoms like ecological populations and communities, just not to galactic stats. Still not certain, though, as Nomad says (Star Trek: The Changeling), "There is much to consider".

Edited by Brafarality, 27 January 2011 - 08:58 PM.

[maxwatt]

[irrelevant boasting boasting redacted]

Ha!
Totally respected since it was off topic. But, have never laughed out loud while reading forum threads as much as in the past few days.
Nothing wrong with adding pure gag-heavy laughter to intellectual discussion: think Samuel Johnson and other enlightenment authors, to name a few who did it well and got it right.
Even more cool that the whole post was not simply deleted, since some of the links are interesting.

The links were on topic.

Give a listen: Leonard Lopate interviews Environmental reporter Mark Hertsgaard as he explains how climate change will affect the next 50 years on Earth. <script type="text/javascript">(function(){var s=function(){__flash__removeCallback=function(i,n){if(i)i[n]=null;};window.setTimeout(s,10);};s();})();

Mark Hertsgaard discusses why the truth about climate change didn’t hit home until he became a father, although he’s investigated global warming for the New Yorker, Time, Vanity Fair, and the Nation. In Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, he combines reporting from around the world with reflections on his daughter’s future. He looks at what we should expect in the next five decades: Chicago’s climate transformed to resemble Houston’s, shrinking water supplies and crop yields, mega-storms and rising sea-levels.

I ordered the book from Amazon.

[platypus]

After all, even if the sum total of manmade contribution to greenhouse gases is a fraction of a percent,

Well, it's pretty clear that human emissions have have caused the large CO2-rise since about 1850.

[JLL]

After all, even if the sum total of manmade contribution to greenhouse gases is a fraction of a percent,

Well, it's pretty clear that human emissions have have caused the large CO2-rise since about 1850.

It's not clear at all.

[maxwatt]

After all, even if the sum total of manmade contribution to greenhouse gases is a fraction of a percent,

Well, it's pretty clear that human emissions have have caused the large CO2-rise since about 1850.

It's not clear at all.

Then where did the tons of tons of CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels go? And where did the 30% increase in Ocean CO2, and the 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 come from? It's only circumstantial evidence you say?

[maxwatt]

Myth: The earth has actually been cooling since 1998.

Fact: Global warming did not end in 1998, nor did global cooling start in 1998.

[JLL]

After all, even if the sum total of manmade contribution to greenhouse gases is a fraction of a percent,

Well, it's pretty clear that human emissions have have caused the large CO2-rise since about 1850.

It's not clear at all.

Then where did the tons of tons of CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels go? And where did the 30% increase in Ocean CO2, and the 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 come from? It's only circumstantial evidence you say?

Riddle me this: where did the increases in CO2 come from when there was no industrial revolution?