Global Warming - yes, no, maybe?

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

If you have nothing to add to the discussion about AGW, then why are you posting?

 

Because of your seemingly-arbitrary distinction on what belongs under "consensus".

 

I refuse to spend my time defending word usage.

 

I've been pointing that out for a while now.

[JoeBob]

I'd like to provide the ad hominem sharpshooters with a target other than vol_scouter.

 

The mini ice age starts here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html

Short version: 'some of the worlds most eminent climate scientists' think that the 20 to 30 year long climate cycles we're seeing are the result of flipping ocean currents, sorta like the thermocline in a lake.

 

 

[GaHillBilly]

Hey JoeBob;

 

Just saw that lo-o-ng article myself -- kinda impressive. Started to post it, and saw you'd beaten me to the punch.

 

If you dig up any of the underlying journal articles, please post them.

 

Had a thought, though. I haven't checked, but my recollection is that most of us who doubt AGW do just that -- we don't think it's been proven, but definitely think it's stupid to spend trillions on stopping something that may not even happen. On the other hand, at least some of the true believers are SURE (hello, Beavuh!) that AGW has been proved.

 

I wonder if we could get a five year bet pool going, to be settled up in 2015 as either proven, disproved or abandoned, or still uncertain. I think I could pony up at least a quarter! I think I'd like to be able to take Beavuh's quarters in 5 years. What kind of odds would you give us, Beavuh?

 

Surely, all you guys who are ready to spend trillions of taxpayer money would give us at least 10:1 odds. So, if I scrape together $10, I can collect $100 in 2015? Since vol_scouter is a MD, maybe he'd be able to lay down $1000, and match up $10,000 in "sure, we're sure" money?

 

 

But, if y'all won't do that, I still think we could spend those AGW trillions in a MUCH more fun way, by developing a world wide ANTI-ASTEROID system, which is actually likely to be needed sooner or later. I mean, it doesn't make any sense to fight global warming, and still let asteroids through! Some of those asteroids are ice and rock snowballs, and the hotter it is, the smaller that ol' asteroid will be when it hits the ground!

 

If you don't like that idea, here in the US, we could spend trillions trying to glue the New Madrid fault line together. It's getting close to its due date, and this time, it won't just create a great fishing lake. Yes, I know: the San Andreas fault is also due, but around here some of us aren't sure whether it would hurt or help the country if that part of US fell into the ocean. But, I suppose if they help fix ours, it's only fair that we help fix theirs. (But maybe we could turn it into an island that would float off, and eventually get stuck to the coast of France?)

 

There are probably other good ways to waste a $1,000,000,000,000 that Obama hasn't thought of yet. Heck, with programs like "Leave No Trace", maybe the Boy Scouts could propose eliminating all harmful chemicals from the US, starting with that pesky dihydrogen oxide that kills so many folks each year, including the odd Boy Scout!

 

 

GaHillBilly

 

[Beavah]

Yah, JoeBob and GAHillBilly, don't yeh get tired of the neocon echo chamber? You'd be more credible if yeh occasionally read something from outside the propaganda press.

 

At least that way yeh wouldn't be jawing on about "spending trillions" and other such silliness.

 

As to a bet, we are all making a bet, eh? Nothing is ever "proven" or assured, so every time we make a decision we are makin' a bet of sorts. Not buying auto insurance is a bet of your family's financial future against your risk of having an auto accident. Not taking steps to secure our reduced-carbon energy independence is a bet of the nation and our children's welfare and liberty against the possibility that we can continue for the next 50 years the way we have for the last 50 years without consequences.

 

Me personally, as a conservative, I believe in payin' our real costs in order to secure our future. That's a set of timeless values that the neocons have largely abandoned.

 

And I'm proud that the BSA is finally teachin' Leave No Trace ethics, even if we're doin' it halfheartedly. Can't see anything at all wrong with "Plan Ahead and Prepare", or "Be Courteous to Other Visitors", or "Be Careful with Fire." Gotta admit that I don't think too highly of Scouters who can't bring themselves to demonstrate and teach such values to their kids.

 

I'm not too fond of government intrudin' into the lives of private individuals or tryin' to solve all social ills. Governments are lousy at that, eh? But I reckon that providing for the common defense, includin' being prepared for natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, is somethin' that I expect government to be able to do and do well. Don't mind payin' taxes for my local fire and police protection, and don't mind a lick payin' taxes to support bein' prepared for bigger disasters.

 

Wish somebody had listened to those pesky scientists and engineers before Katrina. But too many were willin' to bet the future rather than buy insurance. No need to have experienced leadership. No need to spend all those taxpayer dollars to shore up dikes. No need to "Plan Ahead and Prepare".

 

It's the Bailout mentality. Never buy insurance today for what you can get the public to bail out tomorrow.

 

It's very temptin' to the foolish, I suppose. But it sure ain't conservative.

 

Beavah

 

[mmhardy]

Political arguments aside...don't buy anything oceanfront. If you do, sell. This ain't no 20-30year cycle kids.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png

[BrentAllen]

Wow! I never knew that UN IPCC scientists were part of the neocon echo chamber! Who woulda thunk it? Now I'm confused - is that a good or bad thing?

 

mmhardy, that is one scary graph. A whole 6" in 100 years! (if the data is accurate) We better start relocating Florida to Nebraska, quick! We've only got about 600 years!

[GaHillBilly]

Brent, I think Beavuh has just been taking lessons from Merlyn (aka Brian Westley of "Scouting for All) and posting ABOUT the Daily Mail article, without actually reading it. It certainly makes it easier to post, when you don't have to deal with all those pesky facts.

 

Beavuh, since the UK Daily Mail article is too long or hard for you, here's a quote:

 

"Among the most prominent of the scientists is Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been pushing the issue of man-made global warming on to the international political agenda since it was formed 22 years ago.

 

Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germanys Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.

 

He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September.

 

Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles perhaps as much as 50 per cent."

 

 

I'm assuming you know that the term "neocons" refers to some American thinkers, and not to any UK or even German political thinkers, much less German scientists. My only question for you is, do you have the grit to acknowledge your error or are you turning into Merlyn LeRoy, Jr?

 

 

GaHillBilly

 

PS: I guess I have another question. Did you even notice that the link was to a BRITISH paper??

[vol_scouter]

Beevah,

 

Those are statements that I can support to some extent. I agree that we should limit fossil fuel consumption. I do not believe that focusing on carbon is the correct way to look at the issues because carbon is not the problem (we are some carbon with a lot of water). We must turn to nuclear energy, continue developing solar, wind, and geothermal energy though these currently all seem to be likely to be minor sources of energy for decades. There should be zoning and tax incentives to encourage living closer to the places of employment which should be cities. That would allow more possibilities for mass transit. We should quit wanting the rest of the world having 'dirty' industries and start having more manufacturing here which would help jobs and national security. As an example, the USA is no longer capable of building a large scale nuclear reactor because we do not have industry that can build the containment vessel (Japan and China can - that doesn't make me feel safe). We cannot expect to have a pristine country with no heavy industry, have everything imported, and then complain about the pollution from industry in other countries. We want no industry, high wages, high standard of living, no pollution, and security (economic and military). We cannot have all at once. So I agree, that we should pay as we go and look to the future. Don't place the change on AGW which looks positively silly now with the northern hemisphere gripped in one of the worst winters in decades that was not predicted by the models and cannot be fit by the AGW models.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

GaHillBilly writes:

My only question for you is, do you have the grit to acknowledge your error or are you turning into Merlyn LeRoy, Jr?

 

I acknowledge my errors when they are shown to be errors. Merely asserting I've made an error isn't the same thing, of course.

[Beavah]

Did you even notice that the link was to a BRITISH paper??

 

Yah, the Daily Mail is a British right-of-center news outlet, eh? It's bein' quoted in the American neo-con blogs to make a neo-con argument. That's da sort of selective, echo-chamber news filtering and slant that I'm talkin' about. Makes everything unbalanced and shrill. Isn't "mentally awake" IMO.

 

So now here is Dr. Latif's real statement on global warming, as opposed to the slanted one reported in the conservative echo chamber (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/11/climate-change-global-warming-mojib-latif).

 

Mojib Latif, a climate expert at the Leibniz Institute at Kiel University in Germany, said he "cannot understand" reports that used his research to question the scientific consensus on climate change.

 

He told the Guardian: "It comes as a surprise to me that people would try to use my statements to try to dispute the nature of global warming. I believe in manmade global warming. I have said that if my name was not Mojib Latif it would be global warming."

 

He added: "There is no doubt within the scientific community that we are affecting the climate, that the climate is changing and responding to our emissions of greenhouse gases."

 

Beavah

(which is spelled with an "ah", though da HillBillys often get it wrong because they talk funny )

 

 

[HICO_Eagle]

mmhardy, you might want to rethink taking anything on Wikipedia at face value, especially over this issue. William Connolley and his surrogate Kim Pederson have actively revised any article even touching on AGW to promote their agenda. The issue of his misuse of administrative privileges (ostensibly over other topics) is under review right now.

 

If you look at the data at the University of Colorado (who analyze the data from TOPEX/JASON), not only was the 1990s-era rise in sea levels nothing to worry about, it has actually flattened in the past few years.

 

I am tired of mudwrestling with the pig but I ran across the following quote:

 

"However, in general "scientific consensus" is not related whatsoever to scientific truth as countless examples in history have shown. "Consensus" is a political term, not a scientific term."

 

This comes from the bottom of page 11 of the peer-reviewed paper "Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics", Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Jan 6 2009.

 

The paper is quite readable but long (115 pages). You can download a copy from http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf . Arxiv.org is Cornell Library's online archive of scientific and technical research papers.

[vol_scouter]

Beavah,

 

Sorry about the typo. My mother tried to talk me into taking tying ballroom dancing and typing - I should have listened to her on both counts! (Being a hillbilly has something to do with it to!)

[GaHillBilly]

BeavAH, the Guardian article is a good catch. But, if you'll check back, you'll see I'd already asked for the journal article. The Guardian did link that:

[ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/abs/nature06921.html ].

 

However, none of that justifies your original assertion that JoeBob & I were listening to the "neocon echo chamber". The fact that the Mail article has been quote or referred to in neocon blogs -- NONE of which I read, AFAIK -- in no way warrants your slur. I STILL don't even know if that claim is true, though I consider it plausible. But, unless you have evidence that JoeBob reads them, and first heard of the Mail article from them, your slur remains Merlynysque and fact-free.

 

In fact, if you compare the Nature abstract (Refer to earlier rant about having to PAY for government sponsored reasearch!), with the Mail and Guardian articles, something interesting seems to appear.

 

It *looks* like the Mail article is pretty confirmed in what they claim Latif said. In the Guardian article, Latif seems not to be repudiating what the Mail claimed (which after all appears to be available at Nature - (RANT RANT)) but expressing dismay that his research is attracting interest by anti-AGW folk.

 

This in turn suggest that PRECISELY what some of us fear concerning the AGW "consensus" is true: it's politically structured and will PUNISH dissenters. Latif appears to be engaging in some major CYA.

 

Again, without full access to the Nature article I can't say for sure. But, it appears that his article provides "corrections" to current (and all previous) climatology models that are so extensive, as to invalidate all them as predictively useful. That's BIG news.

 

That means that all the 'scientific proof' that AGW is an immediate crisis turns out to be a bad WAG (Wild A$$ Guess). Latif, who does genuflect at the AGW altar, nevertheless says that his corrections lead to predictions that NO warming will occur for at least the next decade and that 50% of any past warming is NOT AGW (Anthropogenic).

 

So we're left with three critical questions:

1. What would Latif say, if he didn't fear the pro-AGW community?

2. Given that we know that current (and all previous) climate models are useless because they didn't include Latif's corrections, how much trust do they deserve WITH Latif's corrections?

3. Why did BeavAH make fact-free assertions about JoeBob's and my reading list?

 

 

GaHillBilly

[BrentAllen]

The AGW crowd must have gone after Latif with a red hot poker! Funny, that Guardian article didn't dispute any quote that was attributed to him, such as:

 

A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles perhaps as much as 50 per cent.

 

'They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.

The extreme retreats that we have seen in glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling.

 

Prof Tsonis, who agrees with Latif, said:

 

'They amount to massive rearrangements in the dominant patterns of the weather, he said yesterday, and their shifts explain all the major changes in world temperatures during the 20th and 21st Centuries.

 

'We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures.

 

Prof Tsonis said that the period from 1915 to 1940 saw a strong warm mode, reflected in rising temperatures.

 

But in all of this, my favorite is a line from BEAVAH'S Guardian article (more neo-con echo chamber?):

"Other scientists have questioned the strength of the ocean effect on overall temperature and disagree that global warming will show the predicted pause."

 

Gee, and I thought the science was settled?!?!

 

 

 

 

[JoeBob]

I'm aghast!

How can the UK Daily Mail not be a bastion of sophistication? Is that not a nasal twang I hear in the background when reading? Perhaps if dey typed da wurds funny, it would boost their credibility?

 

I think the next five years will be an interesting time for AGW.