OT: Duke Climate Change Study

100,733 Views | 861 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by burritos
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
NVBear78;842487249 said:

I almost never hear a lib question Obama, Hilary, Reid, Pelosi particularly when they are shown to lie outright.


You don't know any of my liberal friends, then, because they criticize those people all the time (Obama for continuing NSA wiretapping, Hillary for voting for the Iraq War, Reid for being boring and wishy-washy, etc.). They just still support them because they know those people running the country are 10x better than the alternative.

It's just that, being liberal, they criticize Democratic politicians for not being liberal enough. Just as I'm sure your conservative friends want Republicans to be more conservative. Don't think you guys have the monopoly on self-criticism because you only pay attention to conservative news sources.
NVBear78
How long do you want to ignore this user?
NYCGOBEARS;842487251 said:

You are being ironic, aren't you?


No
NVBear78
How long do you want to ignore this user?
I was personally very concerned about going into Iraq. But when our next president Hilary voted for it I figured it must be OK. (Now I am being ironic). But I still think it was a huge mistake, just like Obama's entire "policy" in the Mideast.
goldenokiebear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Here we go again - same old tired arguments and knee jerks from both sides. Blah, blah, blah,...
Rushinbear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bearister;842487236 said:

They used to be on the Affordable Healthcare Act is evil bandwagon--until they found out their own constituents like it-now they are incorporating it into their own platform and driving the "us against them fake issue" wagon to the next town.
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/


Bearister, unless you've read my blog, you have no clue about my position on Obamacare (by the way, it's titled The Affordable Care Act, not the Affordable Healthcare Act, as long as we're trying for accuracy). I assume you haven't read the posting - it's a four part series analyzing the law (written after I read it, in its entirety). Here's the link to Part 1, written April 9, 2013. See for yourself and let us know. PS any others interested are welcome to read it; it's just that Bearister made the accusation.

http://freedomsfoundry.com/2013/04/09/using-the-affordable-care-act-what-you-can-do-part-1/
BerlinerBaer
How long do you want to ignore this user?
I take it as progress that the debate is no longer one of if climate change is occurring, but why. The deniers can keep moving the goalposts while the rest of us look for solutions.

Rushinbear;842487233 said:

There you go again - of temperature only and omitting the natural forces in the "big picture." Can you, without looking it up, explain the Holocene Interglacial and Ice Age periodicity, for starters? Where are we with respect to their historic variance? When someone uses the term "Pacific Decadal Oscillation", are they referring to the El Nino/La Nina phenomena? If you don't know the answers to those, then you have no concept of the "scientific" context within which decadal temperature anomalies are judged. You accuse others of cherry picking when you rely so heavily on it yourself. Blindfolded, you feel an elephant's leg and think it a tree.


The Holocene Interglacial, aka the last ~8000 years, is just the latest warming cycle of "ice age periodicity", a gradual warming and cooling cycle that takes place over time spans of several thousands to tens of thousands of years. The last 30+ years of warming have happened in the blink of an eye compared to the glacial cycle. Different factors must be at work.

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation you mention has a 40-70 year periodicity but that's on the short side, as temperature have been climbing for a few decades now with no reversal in sight.

We can deconvolute the noisy climatological signal into its constituents. Phenomena with different periodicity are likely the result of different mechanisms. Apparently, the recent warming is not associated with any of the phenomena you mention, and global warming has, for good reason, been invoked to explain it.

Just for fun, I'll just throw out evidence that even the long term climate cycles you mention are due to fluctuations in the levels of greenhouse gases. Fact is that the easiest way to warm the planet is to absorb solar radiation. You just can't get any simpler than that.

NVBear78;842487249 said:

Amen. And its so odd to me that progressives and liberals never seem to question anything their leaders, government and media spoon feed them. Every conservative I know enquires deeply about the issues and reaches their own conclusions. Conservatives are often the toughest on their own yet I almost never hear a lib question Obama, Hilary, Reid, Pelosi particularly when they are shown to lie outright.


I'm reminded of the aftermath of the 2012 election, when conservatives just couldn't fathom how Obama got re-elected since they didn't know a single soul who voted for him...
bearister
How long do you want to ignore this user?
NVBear78;842487266 said:

I was personally very concerned about going into Iraq. But when our next president Hilary voted for it I figured it must be OK. (Now I am being ironic). But I still think it was a huge mistake, just like Obama's entire "policy" in the Mideast.


Then you were aligned with Obama who as both a state senator and later a U.S. Senator was a vocal opponent of the invasion of Iraq. No doubt all of his policies the Middle East are not beyond criticism, but cleaning up someone else's mess has always been a thankless task. As a young trial attorney one of the important lessons I learned was to never to take over a litigation matter from an attorney who had bollocksed it up. It was simply inviting a malpractice action.
wifeisafurd
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Unit2Sucks;842487171 said:

Even if this is true, it does not naturally follow that we shouldn't be concerned about our creation of greenhouse gases. We know that greenhouse gases have an effect just like we knew catalytic converters would reduce smog and we knew banning CFCs would reduce the hole in the ozone layer. Ironically, ozone is a greenhouse gas and the hole actually may have helped reduce global warming. Whether global warming is primarily manmade or natural variation, we can take action to reduce our impact.


Okay, I agree.

We are putting in solar in the house, we have two hybrids and we are buying an electric car, and I am skeptic that the problem is man made (I'm actually skeptical of many other things the left and right hold dear). I do believe that smog and air pollution are bad for overall health, and I don't want to live in place that looks like a large Chinese City. I would be curious to see what steps our resident liberals are personally taking, other than wanting to spend my tax dollars on questionable projects or regulation. BTW, as an real estate/environmental attorney who represented CA and local regulators, I can tell you the State regualtors consider most Federal rules to have essentially no beneficial impact, other than to create really neat markets to sell pollution that economists like to study. I can count on more than two hands bringing scientists into meetings with the Feds and having the Justice Department attorney leading the meeting say that the scientists may be right, but that is contrary to federal law, so who cares....If you really want to know who doesn't listen to science, go find a federal bureaucrat.
wifeisafurd
How long do you want to ignore this user?
dajo9;842487152 said:

I really disagree with the notion that MSNBC is on the level with Newsmax and Fox. Yes, MSNBC is liberal (except for three hours every weekday morning when a conservative republican hosts a show) but it displays its liberalness by covering material that is important or relevant to liberals. For example, it will give scrutiny to a conservative politician engaged in wrongdoing. However, MSNBC is not in the business of spreading lies and false misinformation, which is what Newsmax and Fox do all too often. That is a completely different level of partisanship.


NO one else probably knows, since essentially no one but true believers watch MSNBC any more. A big congrads to MSNBC for losing more viewers in 2014 than any other cable station.

Edit: great joke by Obama on no one watching MSNBC at the press gala.
bearister
How long do you want to ignore this user?
This commie has solar and in a bow to the drought I am pondering going European and bathing once a month.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
BerlinerBaer;842487277 said:

I'm reminded of the aftermath of the 2012 election, when conservatives just couldn't fathom how Obama got re-elected since they didn't know a single soul who voted for him...


I'll just leave this old thread link here for amusement.

http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?66105-Today-s-Election
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
wifeisafurd;842487283 said:

other than wanting to spend my tax dollars spent on questionable projects or regulation.


How do you suggest environmental and climate issues be addressed other than through government projects and/or regulation? Private businesses aren't going to stop polluting out of the goodness of their hearts.
NVGolfingBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
bearister;842487253 said:

Where were your brilliant inquiring minds when you let Bush/Cheney and their Neocon posse lead our Country down the path to destruction in the Middle East? If you were toughest on your own you would push to have those responsible for chalk boarding that pretextual war tried as war criminals. Please provide the list of lies you reference at the end of your post so I can conduct some research.


Just as a tangential statement that gets play here in Nevada, one lie Reid stating that Romney had not paid taxes for the last 12 years before the election. He has admitted that it was not true and he doesn't care that he lied on the Senate floor where he is protected from libel charges.

But to be fair both sides lie. The above is recent and current news in Nevada...
NVGolfingBear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey;842487291 said:

How do you suggest environmental and climate issues be addressed other than through government projects and/or regulation? Private businesses aren't going to stop polluting out of the goodness of their hearts.


All I've been asking for is have a good basis and foundation for trillion dollar programs. I'm not convinced that is present yet based on my following the debate since I did Graduate work in Meteorology many many years ago.

In the interest of discussion, what about a change to a combination of energy sources and Storage (a BIG issue) while spending more money on mitigation of climate change issues, meaning planning for sea level rise, shifting rain patterns (hello California), better crop planning and rotation for new climate patterns, if these occur. Until China and India get on board how do we justify denying cheaper energy sources for developing countries in Africa?
wifeisafurd
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Not that I share their political views, but some of the loudest voices against the wars were from the libertarian wing of the GOP, like Rand Paul's dad. Bob Scheer on LR&C is always mentioning conservatives who were against, in particular, the Iraq invasion. At the time as I can recall, it seemed almost everyone was in favor of the war in Afghanistan (post 9-11 fervor) and most politicians held their nose and supported Iraq 2. It was when things went bad that people changed their minds or revised the history of what they believed.
NVBear78
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rushinbear;842487273 said:

Bearister, unless you've read my blog, you have no clue about my position on Obamacare (by the way, it's titled The Affordable Care Act, not the Affordable Healthcare Act, as long as we're trying for accuracy). I assume you haven't read the posting - it's a four part series analyzing the law (written after I read it, in its entirety). Here's the link to Part 1, written April 9, 2013. See for yourself and let us know. PS any others interested are welcome to read it; it's just that Bearister made the accusation.

http://freedomsfoundry.com/2013/04/09/using-the-affordable-care-act-what-you-can-do-part-1/


Thanks for the link Rushin, I will check out your blog. I actually printed out and read the original House Bill too. In fact I took it with me in two huge binders when I flew to D.C. To lobby my Congressman against it. I pulled it out and pointed out the wording when his aide tried to tell me something that wasn't true during our meeting.
jyamada
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey;842487289 said:

I'll just leave this old thread link here for amusement.

http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?66105-Today-s-Election



Hilarious!! What a gracious loser, that Sonofoski.
wifeisafurd
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey;842487291 said:

How do you suggest environmental and climate issues be addressed other than through government projects and/or regulation? Private businesses aren't going to stop polluting out of the goodness of their hearts.


NO, businesses that pollute a lot either buy credits and pollute or move where they can pollute. That leaves us people who are polluting. So what are you doing? Waiting for others? Wishing the government somehow would make it all go away? By extracting one sentence you avoided the issues.

Show me one federal program that is making a substantial impact on world climate change, as our country is now turning from being the largest consumer of fossil fuels to also now being an exporter of fossil fuels.
sp4149
How long do you want to ignore this user?
To apply statistical methods the data has to be gathered consistently for the entire population of the data. Consider that - "Fahrenheit (symbol F) is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (16861736), after whom the scale is named." indicates that starting in 1724 we had the potential for consistent observed data recording of atmospheric temperature. That's not even 300 years ago. Maybe Duke Energy provided a time machine that allowed the grad students to go back and measure (observe) global temperatures. Somehow the Duke study was able to observe temperatures in the Western Hemisphere for 500 years before Columbus. Of course in the 1700's temperature recordings were not as exact as they are today and Centigrade/Celsius even reversed the direction of it's numerical scale. For some 700-800 years of the Duke Study the "observed data" is probably guestimated by sampling some glacial ice and redwood tree rings, not many other data sources provide an un-interrupted stream of possible data, certainly not 20th temperature methodology. More likely the observed climate data probably does not include observed temperature data for 1000 years so basically they developed computer modeling "observed temperature" data for 1000 years to refute other computer modeling studies. Pot versus Kettle.

Interesting that a Doctoral study would generate such a stir; the guy has a future after he gets his degree...


Rushinbear;842487123 said:

Ahem. A Duke study of 1,000 years of observed climate data and not climate models concluded temperature variance due to "natural variability" and that temperature shifts are because of "ocean-atmosphere interaction and other natural factors."

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/global-warming-duke-warming-temperature/2015/04/24/id/640540/
Rushinbear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
NVBear78;842487301 said:

Thanks for the link Rushin, I will check out your blog. I actually printed out and read the original House Bill too. In fact I took it with me in two huge binders when I flew to D.C. To lobby my Congressman against it. I pulled it out and pointed out the wording when his aide tried to tell me something that wasn't true during our meeting.


Impressive. Maybe one in one thousand who commented on it read it. Some kinda stuff in there.
Rushinbear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sp4149;842487320 said:

To apply statistical methods the data has to be gathered consistently for the entire population of the data. Consider that - "Fahrenheit (symbol F) is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (16861736), after whom the scale is named." indicates that starting in 1724 we had the potential for consistent observed data recording of atmospheric temperature. That's not even 300 years ago. Maybe Duke Energy provided a time machine that allowed the grad students to go back and measure (observe) global temperatures. Somehow the Duke study was able to observe temperatures in the Western Hemisphere for 500 years before Columbus. Of course in the 1700's temperature recordings were not as exact as they are today and Centigrade/Celsius even reversed the direction of it's numerical scale. For some 700-800 years of the Duke Study the "observed data" is probably guestimated by sampling some glacial ice and redwood tree rings, not many other data sources provide an un-interrupted stream of possible data, certainly not 20th temperature methodology. More likely the observed climate data probably does not include observed temperature data for 1000 years so basically they developed computer modeling "observed temperature" data for 1000 years to refute other computer modeling studies. Pot versus Kettle.

Interesting that a Doctoral study would generate such a stir; the guy has a future after he gets his degree...


Makes sense. 1000 years is a long way back. I'll take 300 years of observed temps and derived figures from there back, if the treatment meets standards for such things. Beats the drivel spewed by those hoping we'll fall for policy analysis-level assumptions.
dajo9
How long do you want to ignore this user?
wifeisafurd;842487316 said:

NO, businesses that pollute a lot either buy credits and pollute or move where they can pollute. That leaves us people who are polluting. So what are you doing? Waiting for others? Wishing the government somehow would make it all go away? By extracting one sentence you avoided the issues.

Show me one federal program that is making a substantial impact on world climate change, as our country is now turning from being the largest consumer of fossil fuels to also now being an exporter of fossil fuels.


Has there been a federal program that has become law that has the intent of making a substantial impact on climate change?

Individuals can only do so much. I've been driving a hybrid since 2008. I looked into solar power for my house but I have too many trees on the southern side. No, I'm not taking any personal drastic action (though my wife brings her own bags to the grocery store, which I find to be pretty drastic). But I support regulations that improve fuel efficiency and that brings cleaner energy to my home and work. These are things individuals can't do on their own (short of solar power). Only collective action will change the course. Just like where I grew up in smog-infested San Bernardino, but which now has clean air thanks to government regulation.
GivemTheAxe
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Rushinbear;842487196 said:

To all my fellow skeptics: it all depends whose ox is being gored. I never said that there is no change in the climate; just that:

1. Warming is not proven by the deception of the IPCC, Al Gore or their acolytes, to the extent that there is warming (or cooling - see 1980);

2. To the extent that there is warming and cooling, it is first and most massively, a complex natural process that is impacted by many more forces than those being argued by the CC believers. The climate changes...all by itself;

3. To purport to be improving temperature change by giving big money to phony environmental corps like Solyndra solely because of their campaign (and other) donations, only to have them pocket the money and declare bankruptcy, is criminal;

4. To purport to be improving temperature change through the taxation of every form of fossil fuel use and "carbon footprint" only to have the money go to the general fund coffers of the state is criminal;

5. To discount the skepticism of an increasing number of scientists who are bucking the arm twisting of their peers is dishonest. The scientific community not controlled by the carrot-and-stick approach of the Administration (and, to some extent, I blame the prior ones, too), is beginning to speak out in opposition yet the vilification continues, even in the face of hard data that contradicts the conventional "wisdom."

...

I've read over the statements by many of you in the last thread (Glob) and those going back some time and I've found precious little hard evidence in support of your position - lots of name calling and legerdemain, but little that's objective. For example, no one has yet even recognized, let alone tried to defend, that the IPCC relies on surface temperature readings to the exclusion of historic periodicity, solar, oceanic, and electromagnetic data. May I point out that surface temps are only a symptom (and poorly detected, at that) while the causal factors are ignored (perhaps because they cannot be accounted for in your calculations or that they may prove your claims false). Even in the responses in this thread, NewsMax is attacked as an unbelievable source, despite their merely reporting on a reputable study from a reputable source.

And, you expected the Duke people, who had up to now drunk the Kool Aid, to come out and admit that they were dead wrong, completely, unequivocally and forever more? If you believe that, you don't understand people and higher ed financing principles. It took time to convince them that they should support Gore's and IPCC's position. It will take time for them to back away from it.

And, for the record, I am not a Koch; I'm not in any way affiliated with them; I don't know them; I don't read any of their blogs or those of their followers. I've been studying this for 30 years from the day I first read NOAA data that showed them choosing the higher temperatures in every case of anomaly. I'm not offended that you might question my efforts on this. I just continue to hope that we can have a rational discussion about it.


I am all in favor of skepticism and rational debate. But time and time again it appears to me that these two touch stones of logic and rationality are abused by the people refuse to accept the obvious. We just had an 11 page thread on global warming ('Oceanic Blob Blocks Rain and Snow in CA").
Each time the deniers (sorry, "Skeptics") were painted into a logical corner they changed the discussion/argument. When weak arguments were pointed out or questionable sources were uncovered, their arguments changed. But again and again we came back to the same arguments. They will remain skeptics until overwhelming and undisputable evidence is presented. when it is, they will continue to argue that the evidence is not overwhelming and undisputable enough.

So I am reposting one of my comments from that "Oceanic Blob" thread which replied to claim of one denier/skeptic citing the "Hansen is wrong" argument:

Being a skeptic is not all bad but at some
Other times some people claim to be a "skeptic" merely as ruse to cover their refusal to accept a conclusion they do not want to accept.

At some point "skepticism" becomes willful blindness and I am reminded of Upton Sinclair's comment:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
I would modify that statement slightly:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his wealth depends on his not understanding it."

BTW relying on the "Hansen is wrong" argument might be approaching "willful blindness".

Google "Skeptical Science" for a scientist's debunking of that the "Hansen is wrong" myth:
(which begins with the following conclusion but also provides the scientific data that you might want to look at.)

Misrepresentations of Hansen's Projections
The 'Hansen was wrong' myth originated from testimony by scientist Pat Michaels before US House of Representatives in which he claimed "Ground-based temperatures from the IPCC show a rise of 0.11C, or more than four times less than Hansen predicted....The forecast made in 1988 was an astounding failure."

This is an astonishingly false statement to make, particularly before the US Congress. It was also reproduced in Michael Crichton's science fiction novel State of Fear, which featured a scientist claiming that Hansen's 1988 projections were "overestimated by 300 percent." Moreover, Michaels has continued to defend this indefensible distortion...Michaels erased Hansen's Scenarios B and C despite the fact that as discussed above, Scenario A assumed continued exponential greenhouse gas growth, which did not occur. In other words, to support the claim that Hansen's projections were "an astounding failure," Michaels only showed the projection which was based on the emissions scenario which was furthest from reality
.

Also since Rushinbear challenges the IPCC report(s) I adding the reply of TummyoftheGB to RushinBear:

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "the IPCC model", but to clear things up a bit (I hope) here are few facts about the business of climate science: One part of the IPCC assessment involves comparing the projections of more than a dozen independent conceptions of the climate system, commonly known as global climate models. There is no such thing as a single IPCC model. Institutions around the world (mine included) constructed these models that are, in essence, simply extensions of weather forecasting models (they work in precisely the same way, but include the ocean and are calculated over longer time intervals). They are independent in the sense that scientists have different ideas about how best to represent certain climate processes (such as cloud cover) via a computer code. The IPCC attempts to find the common elements of the various projections and then assigns a level of confidence based on the level of agreement. For example, if 20 different climate models from scientists around the world all agree that the global average temperature will rise by 3 deg C upon a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, that projection is given "high confidence". Conversely, if rainfall patterns disagree among models, the average of many different climate models is given low confidence. One can certainly take issue with this method of finding consensus (all the models could be wrong in exactly the same way, for example), but the methods and assumptions are clearly stated. The models have been charged with different tasks. In one exercise, the collection of climate models try to "hind cast" the warming of the 20th century. Solar activity (as deduced from sun spot cycles) is in fact explicitly included in the model calculations that attempt to simulate the record of warming over the 20th century. Same goes for particulates (that block the sun). Climate change simulations covering thousands of years (e.g. ice age cycles) are much more rare, because the computer time required to simulate a 1000 years of climate is enormous and extremely expensive. So more simplified models that run more quickly have been used to analyze ice age cycles. The inescapable conclusion from all these exercises is that carbon dioxide is a powerful driving force for the climate system, regardless of whether the variability was natural or man made. The inescapable conclusion from these exercises is that it is impossible to explain the rise of temperatures in the 20th century without considering carbon dioxide.
There are some aspects of how the ocean stirs the heat around that lead to climate variability. You mentioned the Pacific Decadal Oscillation as one example. A better known example is the El Nino phenomenon. It's true that this kind of climate variability will probably never be predicted with any real skill (for reasons that are too complex to explain here), but it's also true that it won't counteract the trend towards warmer global average temperatures--it rides on top of the trend.

As far as your other assertions are concerned--the recording of temperature, the observations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, etc.--I don't really know where to begin, they're so far off base. Where are you getting your ideas? And why do believe the sources that tell you such crazy stuff as "only the highest temperatures are retained for the analysis" and "only surface temperatures are included". It's simply not true.

I'm sorry to seem snide, but flat-out misrepresentations with zero basis in reality are being passed off as "rational debate". This amounts to a rude insult to me and a complete dismissal of my life's work. Imagine how you would feel if someone with no training in your work said that everything that you've ever done is BS.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
wifeisafurd;842487316 said:

NO, businesses that pollute a lot either buy credits and pollute or move where they can pollute. That leaves us people who are polluting. So what are you doing? Waiting for others? Wishing the government somehow would make it all go away? By extracting one sentence you avoided the issues.

Show me one federal program that is making a substantial impact on world climate change, as our country is now turning from being the largest consumer of fossil fuels to also now being an exporter of fossil fuels.


So your position is what? That there is nothing we can do?
GivemTheAxe
How long do you want to ignore this user?
wifeisafurd;842487316 said:

NO, businesses that pollute a lot either buy credits and pollute or move where they can pollute. That leaves us people who are polluting. So what are you doing? Waiting for others? Wishing the government somehow would make it all go away? By extracting one sentence you avoided the issues.

Show me one federal program that is making a substantial impact on world climate change, as our country is now turning from being the largest consumer of fossil fuels to also now being an exporter of fossil fuels.

It is difficult to have any laws passed in a Congress where the party with power to block legislation is controlled by individuals who refuse to believe that there is any global warming or that it is caused by human activity. Therefore they refuse to do anything (especially if it costs any money) about what they say is an "imaginary" problem.
dajo9
How long do you want to ignore this user?
GivemTheAxe;842487374 said:

I am all in favor of skepticism and rational debate. But time and time again it appears to me that these two touch stones of logic and rationality are abused by the people refuse to accept the obvious. We just had an 11 page thread on global warming ('Oceanic Blob Blocks Rain and Snow in CA").
Each time the deniers (sorry, "Skeptics") were painted into a logical corner they changed the discussion/argument. When weak arguments were pointed out or questionable sources were uncovered, their arguments changed. But again and again we came back to the same arguments. They will remain skeptics until overwhelming and undisputable evidence is presented. when it is, they will continue to argue that the evidence is not overwhelming and undisputable enough.

So I am reposting one of my comments from that "Oceanic Blob" thread which replied to claim of one denier/skeptic citing the "Hansen is wrong" argument:

Being a skeptic is not all bad but at some
Other times some people claim to be a "skeptic" merely as ruse to cover their refusal to accept a conclusion they do not want to accept.

At some point "skepticism" becomes willful blindness and I am reminded of Upton Sinclair's comment:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
I would modify that statement slightly:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his wealth depends on his not understanding it."

BTW relying on the "Hansen is wrong" argument might be approaching "willful blindness".

Google "Skeptical Science" for a scientist's debunking of that the "Hansen is wrong" myth:
(which begins with the following conclusion but also provides the scientific data that you might want to look at.)

Misrepresentations of Hansen's Projections
The 'Hansen was wrong' myth originated from testimony by scientist Pat Michaels before US House of Representatives in which he claimed "Ground-based temperatures from the IPCC show a rise of 0.11C, or more than four times less than Hansen predicted....The forecast made in 1988 was an astounding failure."

This is an astonishingly false statement to make, particularly before the US Congress. It was also reproduced in Michael Crichton's science fiction novel State of Fear, which featured a scientist claiming that Hansen's 1988 projections were "overestimated by 300 percent." Moreover, Michaels has continued to defend this indefensible distortion...Michaels erased Hansen's Scenarios B and C despite the fact that as discussed above, Scenario A assumed continued exponential greenhouse gas growth, which did not occur. In other words, to support the claim that Hansen's projections were "an astounding failure," Michaels only showed the projection which was based on the emissions scenario which was furthest from reality
.

Also since Rushinbear challenges the IPCC report(s) I adding the reply of TummyoftheGB to RushinBear:

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "the IPCC model", but to clear things up a bit (I hope) here are few facts about the business of climate science: One part of the IPCC assessment involves comparing the projections of more than a dozen independent conceptions of the climate system, commonly known as global climate models. There is no such thing as a single IPCC model. Institutions around the world (mine included) constructed these models that are, in essence, simply extensions of weather forecasting models (they work in precisely the same way, but include the ocean and are calculated over longer time intervals). They are independent in the sense that scientists have different ideas about how best to represent certain climate processes (such as cloud cover) via a computer code. The IPCC attempts to find the common elements of the various projections and then assigns a level of confidence based on the level of agreement. For example, if 20 different climate models from scientists around the world all agree that the global average temperature will rise by 3 deg C upon a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, that projection is given "high confidence". Conversely, if rainfall patterns disagree among models, the average of many different climate models is given low confidence. One can certainly take issue with this method of finding consensus (all the models could be wrong in exactly the same way, for example), but the methods and assumptions are clearly stated. The models have been charged with different tasks. In one exercise, the collection of climate models try to "hind cast" the warming of the 20th century. Solar activity (as deduced from sun spot cycles) is in fact explicitly included in the model calculations that attempt to simulate the record of warming over the 20th century. Same goes for particulates (that block the sun). Climate change simulations covering thousands of years (e.g. ice age cycles) are much more rare, because the computer time required to simulate a 1000 years of climate is enormous and extremely expensive. So more simplified models that run more quickly have been used to analyze ice age cycles. The inescapable conclusion from all these exercises is that carbon dioxide is a powerful driving force for the climate system, regardless of whether the variability was natural or man made. The inescapable conclusion from these exercises is that it is impossible to explain the rise of temperatures in the 20th century without considering carbon dioxide.
There are some aspects of how the ocean stirs the heat around that lead to climate variability. You mentioned the Pacific Decadal Oscillation as one example. A better known example is the El Nino phenomenon. It's true that this kind of climate variability will probably never be predicted with any real skill (for reasons that are too complex to explain here), but it's also true that it won't counteract the trend towards warmer global average temperatures--it rides on top of the trend.

As far as your other assertions are concerned--the recording of temperature, the observations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, etc.--I don't really know where to begin, they're so far off base. Where are you getting your ideas? And why do believe the sources that tell you such crazy stuff as "only the highest temperatures are retained for the analysis" and "only surface temperatures are included". It's simply not true.

I'm sorry to seem snide, but flat-out misrepresentations with zero basis in reality are being passed off as "rational debate". This amounts to a rude insult to me and a complete dismissal of my life's work. Imagine how you would feel if someone with no training in your work said that everything that you've ever done is BS.



Thank you for posting this. I saw some of the same - things refuted as ridiculous by Tummy, just to be brought up again in the next thread. I didn't have the intestinal fortitude to muster the energy for the rebuttal, but thank you for doing it. In my view, the denier side has no credibility. Even if they have a point that is valid, they bring so much garbage and lies to the discussion that it isn't worth any rational person's time to pick through their lies for truth. This thread started with a denier lie from Newsmax for crying out loud. They invalidated themselves on post 1.
Rushinbear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Berlinerbaer (?), finally, a ray of hope. My problem is that these factors appear not to be accounted for in the IPCC presentations, because either IPCC is unable to account for them, or the IPCC has done so, found them to be contrary to their objectives and, therefore, withheld their model from the public (which they have).

I'm more concerned about cooling. We are nearing the historic end of the Holocene (if the Eemian is any indication) and we are well into a lull between Ice Ages. The sun is quiet right now and there is no way to predict when its activity will resume. In the 1980's, some of these same scientists were predicting a cooling (and the Green crowd, although they called themselves something else, did their Chicken Little act then, too) - based largely on greenhouse gases reflecting solar radiation. Since the earth's temps have been flat for the last 17 years or so, I wonder if something's going on.

All we have from the CC believers is that the temps are rising (they vastly overblow the CO2 increase and its effects, discounting its positive ones) and mankind must be responsible. That's like a doctor finding a patient's temp to be 99 over a few hours and putting him in an ice bath to bring it down. I wouldn't be paying THAT doctor to prescribe medication, if any was indicated.
SonOfCalVa
How long do you want to ignore this user?
John Maynard Keynes
Quote:

In the long run, we are all dead


and maybe not that long, according to Michele Bachmann, who thinks the Rapture is imminent.
She's a succinct spokesperson for the anti-CC, anti-everything, PC (politically conservative) crowd, including its "scientists".
Who needs to drink the pedantic tea when Michele says so much more in many, many few words

While experts warn that global climate change is already set to have a lasting impact on our environment, Bachmann calls climate change "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax." She also cast doubt on the entire field of climate science. At a town hall in her district, Bachmann informed constituents that climate science is not "real science" but "manufactured science."

So, Rushinbear, save the bandwidth, save our time - Michelle says it shorter and better. Hokum sez it all.
jyamada
How long do you want to ignore this user?
GivemTheAxe;842487407 said:

It is difficult to have any laws passed in a Congress where the party with power to block legislation is controlled by individuals who refuse to believe that there is any global warming or that it is caused by human activity. Therefore they refuse to do anything (especially if it costs any money) about what they say is an "imaginary" problem.


Exactly! Nice response, GivemTheAxe.

And for all you skeptics out there, read this guide to answer all your questions:

http://grist.org/series/skeptics/

And for all you believers, pass it on to a skeptic you know.
CALiforniALUM
How long do you want to ignore this user?
wifeisafurd;842487316 said:

NO, businesses that pollute a lot either buy credits and pollute or move where they can pollute. That leaves us people who are polluting. So what are you doing? Waiting for others? Wishing the government somehow would make it all go away? By extracting one sentence you avoided the issues.Show me one federal program that is making a substantial impact on world climate change, as our country is now turning from being the largest consumer of fossil fuels to also now being an exporter of fossil fuels.
Define substantial impact.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
jyamada;842487435 said:

Exactly! Nice response, GivemTheAxe.

And for all you skeptics out there, read this guide to answer all your questions:

http://grist.org/series/skeptics/

And for all you believers, pass it on to a skeptic you know.


This site is excellent, thanks for posting. I especially like this bit:

http://grist.org/climate-energy/kyoto-is-a-big-effort-for-almost-nothing/

Quote:

Finally, I have a rather personal peeve with people who vociferously criticize any attempt at a solution and yet propose nothing in its place. You’d think if they were so sincerely concerned about how ineffective Kyoto will be (as, frankly, they should be), they would be agitating for more action rather than shrugging their shoulders and saying “I guess we should just sit it out.” It’s like a guy standing on the sidewalk watching all his neighbors fight a house fire, saying “you’ll never make it, you don’t have enough people.”


Exactly. "Let's do nothing" is not an answer.
wifeisafurd
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey;842487397 said:

So your position is what? That there is nothing we can do?


There is plenty we as individuals can choose to do. What I find is affluent liberals I know want is the government to do something, but not impact them. Sorta like politicians who always seem to pass legislation that exempt themselves. But again I ask what have you done? And what has government action done on have any major impact on global warming?

BTW, the UN, in its wisdom, had declared global warming is irreversible, so they don't think you can do anything. One could argue that their viewpoint was, as often is the case, is influenced by politics. More specifically, the desire of emerging economies to continue to use fossil fuels in their development.
Boot
How long do you want to ignore this user?
If you don't believe in man's part in climate change watch showtimes years of living dangerously.
jyamada
How long do you want to ignore this user?
wifeisafurd;842487482 said:

What I find is affluent liberals I know want is the government to do something, but not impact them.


Well at least the affluent liberals acknowledge that there is a problem. Many right wingers I know just dismiss the problem because Fox News says global warming is a hoax.
burritos
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Is the Tea Party a really a new thing? Isn't is just a rebranding of the Christian Conservative?
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.