… otherwise, the few hundred peer reviewed articles summarized and referenced in this pre-Copenhagen summary showing, once again, that climate change is worse than the uber-conservative IPCC has been estimating might really scare me. I mean, what if it were really true that these few hundred recent peer-reviewed articles show that:
Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.
Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.
Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.
Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40 percent greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.
Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80 percent above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets
Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.
Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental icesheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.
The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society—with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases—needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.
Boy … if there really were several hundred recent peer-reviewed articles to show these things, we’d really be toast.
Oh wait … there are. You’ve just read the executive summary. Don’t believe it? Download the full report. After that, feel free to wade through the hundreds of articles in the references section, downloading whichever ones you question and reading them in their entirety.
Here’s that URL again in case you missed it up top.
The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report
Footnote: Do you think that the leaked emails prove anything about these few hundred articles? Well, let’s look carefully at what even the very few selected emails quoted out of context by a bunch of literal thieves with an agenda show. Nothing in those emails indicates a global conspiracy of climate scientists to get rich and take over the world.
Read these two articles on the subject. I think they make clear what the emails do and more importantly do not show.
The Misanthropic Principle 
Boy … if there really were several hundred recent peer-reviewed articles to show these things, we’d really be toast.
It’s also a good thing that being “peer-reviewed” is a guarantee of truth. It’s not like data can be fudged or altered and still get through the perfect “peer-review” process. Anything that’s been “peer-reviewed” can be automatically trusted.
(Just figured I’d use that phrase “peer-reviewed” a few more times, since you’re obviously really impressed by it…)
Download the full report. After that, feel free to wade through the hundreds of articles in the references section, downloading whichever ones you question and reading them in their entirety.
You mean, like you have? Oh wait – of course you haven’t. You haven’t waded through them at all. You probably haven’t read more than 5% of a single such article.
So here’s your argument in a nutshell: ‘Here’s a flood of articles. I haven’t read them and barely know what’s in them, let alone have I evaluated them independently. But I can use them to support my point of view, and you can’t argue unless you’ve read through and debunked each of them’.
Actually the burden’s on you to support extraordinary claims, not on others to dispute them.
Do you think that the leaked emails prove anything about these few hundred articles?
They might. It would depend on to what extent any of those articles made use of CRU data, directly or indirectly. I acknowledge I don’t have the wherewithal or the inclination to wade through them and create a dependency tree. But it’s not worth my while. It has been demonstrated to my satisfaction that this field cannot or will not police its own hoaxers. Until it does – not worth my time.
Nothing in those emails indicates a global conspiracy of climate scientists to get rich and take over the world.
Straw man. Whoever said it did? The claims are basically that it shows that some central, highly-cited data has been doctored, and that people in key positions to do that “peer-review” thing you think is so perfect, actually use those positions to squelch dissenting views.
That’s the thing about science. Data doctoring, and political shenanigans, simply do not belong. That is not science. So it requires no ‘global conspiracy’ for a scientific field to lose its claim on our trust. It is enough to know that apparently central figures have been doing these things.
Sonic Charmer,
Peer-review is indeed not perfect. Look at some of the articles by Lindzen that have slipped though. However, when you have a scant few that make it through stating that climate change is either not real or not human caused (which is it that the skeptics are going with these days?), and you have hundreds and hundreds stating that it is real and human caused and will indeed be catastrophic, that is a good base from which to start.
It’s true I have not yet waded through this particular batch of data. However, I actually have read quite a number of articles, especially for a lay person who is merely interested in the topic rather than a scientist who is actually doing the work. So, yeah, take pot-shots if you want. I feel confident that you have read precisely zero actual scientific articles and are instead content to get your opinions from Faux News, or perhaps directly from ExxonMobil on one of their many mock-scientific sites designed to fool people.
Actually, I regularly do support my claims with links just like this one to the work of real scientists whose job it is to determine the facts. The best available data says that we’re in for something truly globally catastrophic. But, sit back and wait to see. Perhaps you’ll be right.
But, what if you’re wrong? What if the science that keeps getting better and better and confirming and reconfirming that climate change is bad and getting worse and accelerating is true?
As for your claim that I have set up a straw man, sorry. Here’s Faux News reporting on collusion. I didn’t make this shit up. It’s no straw man. People actually believe this shit. Here’s the faux quote:
So, I’m not exactly making up straw men here. I’m listening to what the nutjobs are actually saying on the subject. I’m glad you’re not that far over the edge.
As for data doctoring, please cite exactly what you think the emails indicate was doctored. Please do so in light of the RealClimate statements referenced at the end of my post that show that scientists use the word trick the way computer programmers use the word hack.
Lastly, it really is too bad that demonstration to your satisfaction means nothing to melting ice sheets, global average temperature, or the physical processes that govern the planet as a whole. Too bad for you. Too bad for humanity.
However, when you have a scant few that make it through stating that climate change is either not real or not human caused (which is it that the skeptics are going with these days?), and you have hundreds and hundreds stating that it is real and human caused and will indeed be catastrophic, that is a good base from which to start.
Not really. Science is not conducted by democratic vote. And if basic data has been fudged, it doesn’t matter how many “hundreds” of papers are written about it – garbage in, garbage out.
I feel confident that you have read precisely zero actual scientific articles and are instead content to get your opinions from Faux News,
For the record, I have a PhD, and I have even briefly worked on climate models. I have both written published scientific papers, and been a ‘Peer Reviewer’ of published scientific papers. Therefore I have read hundreds of scientific papers in my time.
Also, I don’t remember the last time I watched Fox News, if that helps.
Actually, I regularly do support my claims with links
You cannot support claims with ‘links’. I fear that in the internet age, people have somehow gotten the idea that ‘links’ constitute an argument. They do not. Actual support of claims would require an actual argument of some sort.
The best available data says that we’re in for something truly globally catastrophic.
Challenge. What makes you say that? To what ‘best available data’ do you refer exactly?
You don’t know, do you?
But, what if you’re wrong? What if the science that keeps getting better and better and confirming and reconfirming that climate change is bad and getting worse and accelerating is true?
I guess we’ll deal with that if and when the time comes, just like we’ll have to deal with any other potential, hypothetical problem(s).
As for your claim that I have set up a straw man, sorry. Here’s Faux News reporting on collusion.
‘collusion’ and ‘global conspiracy’ are not the same time.
Of course this is evidence of ‘collusion’. It’s pretending that people who call this collusion are claiming there was a ‘global conspiracy’ which is the straw man.
As for data doctoring, please cite exactly what you think the emails indicate was doctored.
‘Reconstructed’ temperature history that is proxied via various methods (tree rings, e.g.) This data was doctored to make it appear that it corresponded better to known temperature history than it actually does. But surely you know that since you’re so familiar and well-read on this issue.
Please do so in light of the RealClimate statements referenced at the end of my post that show that scientists use the word trick the way computer programmers use the word hack.
If someone at RealClimate wrote that, whoever wrote that is themselves a hack. This is a red herring. Altering data is not a computer science ‘hack’.
You obviously don’t know what the actual ‘trick’ consisted of. You read some RealClimate post and thought you were done, didn’t you?
Lastly, it really is too bad that demonstration to your satisfaction means nothing to melting ice sheets,
Which ice sheets are melting? How fast? What have they done historically? How unprecedented is their current rate of melting (or not)? How would it affect us if they melted as much as you claim they’re going to melt? And if it would affected us in some bad way (how?), what options if any are available to us to remedy, and which of those options is the most cost-effective?
These are the questions a real science-based policy proposal would have to address. Let me know..
global average temperature,
What about ‘global average temperature’? What is the global average temperature, in your opinion? Do you think it is known? What was the global average temperature in 1900? 1800? 1500? 1200? 0? Do you think we know those too? And what, in your opinion, should the global average temperature be?
or the physical processes that govern the planet as a whole.
Such as? This was just a sciencey-sounding phrase thrown in for padding.
Too bad you obviously don’t really know what you’re talking about on any deep level.
Holy crap Sonic!! You may or may not have a PhD being merely an anonymous blogger on this site, as I am, and thus having exactly the same credibility, but you have not even clicked through the link and read the article, have you? No. I don’t even need to ask. I can look at my damn blog stats page and see that you are spouting bullshit without even clicking the damn link.
That in and of itself negates literally everything you have said on this post and makes me question your claim of having a PhD.
As for what best available science I am citing, well, start with the link you didn’t click on. Then we can talk. Until then, you have nothing to say.
As for the science trick cited, I know exactly what it is. It is an attempt to account for the observation that trees at northern latitudes have evolved a way of dealing with current anthropogenic changes in moisture that mean that while tree ring growth did correlate with observed temperatures during the period that humans did in fact have thermometers through to 1960, they began to diverge from there. Thus, the evolution observed in trees had to be correlated with the global observed temperatures.
So, yes. I do read stuff, do you?
BTW, in what field is your alleged PhD? (I originally said imaginary and apologize if you saw that; it was needlessly offensive.)
Again with the argumentation via linkage. Think we need a new name for this sort of fallacy.
Again: What ‘best available data’ specifically and why do you think it shows what you say it shows (“that we’re in for something truly globally catastrophic”)? Don’t give me a website. Tell me with your own words, if you can.
Finally, you and I appear to be describing the same thing when it comes to the ‘trick’.
Sonic, you are one very strange individual. You don’t want links and flatly refuse to click through to any supporting data for my arguments and just want opinion. Well, you’re welcome to my opinion, though picking it apart due to lack of supporting data will just show what we already know, you are unwilling to look at real hard data and discuss the science on its merits. So, here goes with my opinion as one educated lay person to another.
(Oh wait, you finally did click through the link. Good.)
So, here goes:
1) The data I have seen shows that we are already 0.8C warmer than pre-industrial times and that the increase is rapidly accelerating.
2) Methane is already being released on the north shore of Alaska indicating that we are likely at or near a tipping point.
3) All data about the cryosphere indicate rapid melting.
4) Ocean acidification is already well under way with 575 billion metric tons of CO2 having already been absorbed by the ocean. This is related to increased CO2 rather than to the increases we’ve seen in temperature, but is still related due to the common cause.
5) Recent data shows that periods of high global temperature are not only correlated with mass extinction, but are actually the cause, at least in the largest mass extinction in history, the Permian Triassic extinction. In this one, the earth was just 6C warmer than pre-industrial times, well within our worst case scenario, post-tipping point estimates.
6) Large warm-blooded species fare very poorly in mass extinction events. Look in the mirror for a close look at a large warm-blooded species.
7) Earth’s arable land is already reduced by 10% due to humans, though how much is climate change, how much is overuse of water, how much is from deforestation, is probably a bit hard to define. With a population still expected to increase to 8 or 9 billion, this is serious.
So, couple all of this with the real number one problem on the planet, human overpopulation, and you have a very good recipe for catastrophe. Rwanda has already been called our first malthusian conflict. Darfur has already been called our first climate change war.
Want me to back up any of the 7 claims I’ve made? I have links for all of them, though you don’t like links.
BTW, I’m glad we now agree that the so-called trick is actually perfectly valid scientific accounting for a very real evolutionary change in the trees.
You don’t want links and flatly refuse to click through to any supporting data for my arguments
I’m willing to follow links to supporting data for your arguments as soon as (a) you actually make one and (b) you cite the data in a more specific way than “here’s a link to http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com“. What data in particular on that hub website am I supposed to be looking at that (you think) supports your statement?
1) The data I have seen shows that we are already 0.8C warmer than pre-industrial times and that the increase is rapidly accelerating.
1. Where did you get the data on what the temperature was during pre-industrial times? There were no thermometers so clearly this is proxy data you allude to. How reliable is the methodology (whatever it is) and why should I place any stock in it?
2. When you point to ‘pre-industrial times’ are you going back far enough to include the known Medieval warming period? Because clearly, the increase is not completely monotone. We may just have a story that goes: ‘it was warmer, then it got colder, now it’s getting warmer again’. If that’s the story, then the question “so what?” comes to mind. If you think the story will go like: “and it will just keep getting warmer at a runaway pace“, why do you think that? Clearly you must be implicitly using some physical model to make that prediction. What model and why should I trust it?
2) Methane is already being released on the north shore of Alaska indicating that we are likely at or near a tipping point.
Why does methane ‘already’ being released on the north shore of Alaska indicate that we are ‘near a tipping point’ exactly?
3) All data about the cryosphere indicate rapid melting.
Ok. And?
4) Ocean acidification is already well under way with 575 billion metric tons of CO2 having already been absorbed by the ocean.
I’ll take your word for it. And? How many metric tons of CO2 were there in the ocean in, say, 1387? More or less than now? If you think it’s less, how do you know? If you can’t say that it’s less, then why is “575 billion” a magic scary number that need indicate anything?
5) Recent data shows that periods of high global temperature are not only correlated with mass extinction, […] the Permian Triassic extinction. In this one, the earth was just 6C warmer than pre-industrial times,
What ‘recent data’ is this exactly? Was there ‘mass extinction’ in the medieval warming period (as warm as or warmer than we are now, depending on where you look) to support this correlation? What if it’s just another of those warming periods like back then, who cares in that case? If you don’t think we’re in that case, why not? And how do you know how warm the earth was in the Permian Triassic extinction anyway, what is your methodology, what are the error bars?
6) Large warm-blooded species fare very poorly in mass extinction events. Look in the mirror for a close look at a large warm-blooded species.
Seems to me that by definition most critters fare poorly during a ‘mass extinction event’…but this is begging the question.
7) Earth’s arable land is already reduced by 10% due to humans,
Source/citation? 10% from what baseline? how accurate is this measurement? What’s the definition of ‘arable’?
[arable-land] With a population still expected to increase to 8 or 9 billion, this is serious.
Because..?
So, couple all of this with the real number one problem on the planet, human overpopulation,
Why is that the ‘real number one problem’ independently of the other things you’ve already said (the arguments for which I have not conceded)?
and you have a very good recipe for catastrophe.
Yes, if I buy a zillion and one variously-detailed and -informed assumptions you have made, I have a very good recipe for catastrophe. Similarly if I buy that pigs have wings, I have a recipe for a flying pig.
Yes, I suppose. And if I don’t?
Rwanda has already been called our first malthusian conflict. Darfur has already been called our first climate change war.
And Bill Clinton has been called our ‘first black President’…people sure do say dumb things sometimes.
Want me to back up any of the 7 claims I’ve made?
Well, it would make them more convincing.
I have links for all of them, though you don’t like links.
I don’t mind links if they seem informed and specific. I agree I don’t like links if the extent of the ‘argument’ is “here’s a link to http://www.giantwebsite.com, just go there”. If that’s all you got why should I pay any attention to you at all? Are these facts/theories even going through your brain at all, or are you just rote repeating stuff you have read other places with no critical thinking on your own part?
If it’s not the latter, it’s sure hard for me to tell. Which is part and parcel of the problem with this argument-by-linkage habit.
BTW, I’m glad we now agree that the so-called trick is actually perfectly valid scientific accounting for a very real evolutionary change in the trees.
Not what I said.
I’m willing to follow links to supporting data for your arguments as soon as (a) you actually make one and (b) you cite the data in a more specific way than “here’s a link to http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com“. What data in particular on that hub website am I supposed to be looking at that (you think) supports your statement?
My original statement was that the facts in the executive summary, as backed up by the hundreds of papers backing them up, are very scary indeed. They indicate that A) we do not have much time left and B) have done nothing thus far to make a dent in climate change and C) that the estimates for climate change by the uber-conservative IPCC have fallen horribly short of the real observations of climate change.
BTW, you have an implied statement here too, presumably, that you don’t believe global warming is a problem. I think a link or two to contradict one or more of the major points from the executive summary might be in order. But, that’s just me. Obviously, you think you can say whatever you want and your PhD (in basket weaving? medieval warm period poetry?) will make your case for you all by itself.
1) The data I have seen shows that we are already 0.8C warmer than pre-industrial times and that the increase is rapidly accelerating.
1. Where did you get the data on what the temperature was during pre-industrial times? There were no thermometers so clearly this is proxy data you allude to. How reliable is the methodology (whatever it is) and why should I place any stock in it?
Current temperatures are slightly warmer than at any time in the last 100,000+ years. Yes there were no thermometers. Yes it is proxy data. Yes it is the best available data we have and all we have to go by. If you have a thermometer and a time machine, perhaps you can do better. Until then, here’s a nice simple graph of CO2 and temperature.
http://tinyurl.com/kp9m5g
2. When you point to ‘pre-industrial times’ are you going back far enough to include the known Medieval warming period? Because clearly, the increase is not completely monotone. We may just have a story that goes: ‘it was warmer, then it got colder, now it’s getting warmer again’. If that’s the story, then the question “so what?” comes to mind. If you think the story will go like: “and it will just keep getting warmer at a runaway pace“, why do you think that? Clearly you must be implicitly using some physical model to make that prediction. What model and why should I trust it?
The medieval warm period was local, not global. Global temperatures today average higher than during the medieval warm period.
Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia
I know ExxonMobil doesn’t like it when we use proxies because there is nothing else and it leaves them free to claim there is no data, but let’s ignore the Exxon’s of the world and go with the data we have from multiple proxy sources with or without tree rings at least until we have time machines.
Note from this quote both the self-correcting nature of science and the admittedly imperfect peer-review process as well as the fact that nothing today shows the medieval warm period to be warmer than we are right now.
2) Methane is already being released on the north shore of Alaska indicating that we are likely at or near a tipping point.
Why does methane ‘already’ being released on the north shore of Alaska indicate that we are ‘near a tipping point’ exactly?
Well, let’s see, mostly because it had been predicted as a tipping point for a decade or more before it finally began to happen. Are we sure this is a tipping point? I certainly hope not. However, it should scare the screaming heebie jeebies out of anyone who has been paying attention, especially if said individual cares whether we live or die and is not willing to gamble the survival of the species on a pipe dream. Or, should I say, a pipeline dream?
Click to access CCNS_CCIM.pdf
3) All data about the cryosphere indicate rapid melting.
Ok. And?
And, melting sea ice changes the albedo of earth providing positive feedback, as does melting of mountain glaciers. Further, a large number of humans on the planet, from the northwest of the united states to a large chunk of asia and south america, depend on glacial meltwater for their drinking water and irrigation. When the glaciers have melted too far to be useful in the water supply, people will die. I know it’s hard to understand and I have to spell out everything for you. Don’t worry though, I’m typing slowly in case you can’t read very fast.
4) Ocean acidification is already well under way with 575 billion metric tons of CO2 having already been absorbed by the ocean.
I’ll take your word for it. And? How many metric tons of CO2 were there in the ocean in, say, 1387? More or less than now? If you think it’s less, how do you know? If you can’t say that it’s less, then why is “575 billion” a magic scary number that need indicate anything?
The important bit is not how many tons were there before, but the fact that we are changing the PH of the ocean by adding the equivalent mass of 287 billion full size cars worth of CO2 to the ocean. Apparently, I have to assume you have not heard of pteropods (a.k.a. sea butterflies). They form the basis of most of the ocean food chain. They have a thin frail shell that dissolves if the water becomes too acidic.
I’d leave it at that assuming you could foresee the consequences. However, you have proven yourself incapable of doing so. When the pteropods fail to produce their shells, they will not survive or reproduce. This will leave the ocean food chain with no base, and the vast majority will die.
So what?
Well, in human terms, as if humans were all that is important, over a billion people rely on ocean fish for the bulk of their dietary protein. If you think current problems of declining fisheries output due to overfishing and dragging nets over the bottom of the ocean destroying spawning grounds is bad, just wait until there’s no base for the food chain.
And, remember, the bulk of the ocean life is where there is more oxygen, in colder waters that absorb both more oxygen and more CO2 (check your basic chemistry book). So, the effects of the ocean acidification will be preferentially greatest precisely where the majority of ocean life is today.
5) Recent data shows that periods of high global temperature are not only correlated with mass extinction, […] the Permian Triassic extinction. In this one, the earth was just 6C warmer than pre-industrial times,
What ‘recent data’ is this exactly? Was there ‘mass extinction’ in the medieval warming period (as warm as or warmer than we are now, depending on where you look) to support this correlation? What if it’s just another of those warming periods like back then, who cares in that case? If you don’t think we’re in that case, why not? And how do you know how warm the earth was in the Permian Triassic extinction anyway, what is your methodology, what are the error bars?
No. There was not a mass extinction during the medieval warm period that was cooler than today. The mass extinction of 250 million years ago took place when the planet was 6C warmer than today. So far, we have only heated the planet by 0.8C. Though, for other reasons, we have already caused a mass extinction greater than the one that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs. That’s a topic for another thread though. If you are interested in mass extinction as a result of global warming, here’s a good article.
A long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination and extinction in the fossil record
If the peer-reviewed work is too much for you and the abstract not enough, try this popular press version, History of mass extinction is a grim lesson on climate change.
6) Large warm-blooded species fare very poorly in mass extinction events. Look in the mirror for a close look at a large warm-blooded species.
Seems to me that by definition most critters fare poorly during a ‘mass extinction event’…but this is begging the question.
I’ll tell you what. I don’t remember which of the books on my books page had that particular tidbit and am having trouble finding a peer-reviewed link to back me up. I’ll throw you a bone. All multicellular life fares poorly in a mass extinction event. I’m not willing to comment on the true masters of the planet.
7) Earth’s arable land is already reduced by 10% due to humans,
Source/citation? 10% from what baseline? how accurate is this measurement? What’s the definition of ‘arable’?
What’s the definition of arable? You’re kidding right. Try dictionary.com. If you need me to read a dictionary to you, you have bigger problems than a lack of understanding of science.
Damn. I appear to be wrong about the 10%. This shows 20-30% between 1961 and 1991 alone.
Land Degradation
[arable-land] With a population still expected to increase to 8 or 9 billion, this is serious.
Because..?
Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, people are made of food. Having to feed more people with less arable land will only get more and more difficult. Have you no logic circuits at all? What was that PhD of yours again?
So, couple all of this with the real number one problem on the planet, human overpopulation,
Why is that the ‘real number one problem’ independently of the other things you’ve already said (the arguments for which I have not conceded)?
Because it is the cause of all of the others. If there were only 6 million people on the planet, all of the tragedies of the commons we’re beginning to experience would be non-issues.
and you have a very good recipe for catastrophe.
Yes, if I buy a zillion and one variously-detailed and -informed assumptions you have made, I have a very good recipe for catastrophe. Similarly if I buy that pigs have wings, I have a recipe for a flying pig.
Yes, I suppose. And if I don’t?
Predictable, aren’t you. First you say no links. Then you demand links and claim I have not detailed my points. Exactly as I said you would.
Rwanda has already been called our first malthusian conflict. Darfur has already been called our first climate change war.
And Bill Clinton has been called our ‘first black President’…people sure do say dumb things sometimes.
On Rwanda, the source was Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize winning author and anthropologist in his book Collapse. On Darfur, well, it wasn’t exactly some hick saying it, it was the Sectretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon.
A Climate Culprit In Darfur
Want me to back up any of the 7 claims I’ve made?
Well, it would make them more convincing.
Well … then why exactly did you tell me no links? You really are predictable … and predicted.
I have links for all of them, though you don’t like links.
I don’t mind links if they seem informed and specific. I agree I don’t like links if the extent of the ‘argument’ is “here’s a link to http://www.giantwebsite.com, just go there”. If that’s all you got why should I pay any attention to you at all? Are these facts/theories even going through your brain at all, or are you just rote repeating stuff you have read other places with no critical thinking on your own part?
If it’s not the latter, it’s sure hard for me to tell. Which is part and parcel of the problem with this argument-by-linkage habit.
I call bullshit in the extreme. I cited the entire executive summary in this post. I stated that the sum of the points are scary. The point was obvious. And, the point was that if you disagree with the executive summary, it’s chock full of substantiation.
BTW, I’m glad we now agree that the so-called trick is actually perfectly valid scientific accounting for a very real evolutionary change in the trees.
Not what I said.
Really? Then what did you say?
My original statement was that the facts in the executive summary, as backed up by the hundreds of papers backing them up, are very scary indeed.
And a very scientific, specific, objective, and quantifiable statement that is indeed! Anyway, what your original statement really was was that “The best available data says that we’re in for something truly globally catastrophic”. It’s still far from clear what particular ‘data’ you’re referring to or why you think it ‘says’ that.
BTW, you have an implied statement here too, presumably, that you don’t believe global warming is a problem.
It may or may not be – I don’t know. It’s true enough to say that I don’t ‘believe’ that it is (I like to keep my faith and science separate, thanks). I simply await reasons to be convinced that it’s a problem.
Incidentally, even if I shall at some point become convinced that it’s a problem, it does not follow that I will agree with climate-changers about what is best to do about the problem (i.e., limit CO2). The latter is a political-economic question, not merely a scientific one.
Current temperatures are slightly warmer than at any time in the last 100,000+ years. […] here’s a nice simple graph of CO2 and temperature.
http://tinyurl.com/kp9m5g
Thanks for the graph. I see that it is based on ice cores. 1. Why is this method valid? The authors claim the ‘supported’ the model by performing an ‘experiment’ involving a GCM with water isotopes (i.e. they wrote a computer model). Why should I trust that computer model? It is not even described. 2. What are the error bars in time and space implicit in this method? (They are not shown on the graph which makes it somewhat useless for direct comparison between peaks or speaking too specifically about eras…) 3. I notice that the time scale is in ‘thousands of years’ which means that our current millenium is all squished together on the right. So the graph neither proves or disproves your claim about ‘current’ temperatures (unless by ‘current’ you just mean something vague like ‘in this millenium’, which could include 500 years ago, and would lead me to say ‘so what’). 4. The authors refer to two ‘corrections’ they had to perform on the data. How valid are these corrections and what error bars did they introduce? 5. In the raw data (same wiki page) I notice that the temperature proxy is evidently cooling down locally, if you look at the most recent three available ‘delta T’ (which appear to denote temp – avg temp over last 1000 yrs) items listed (data IDs 15, 14 and 13). According to their Age Model (ka = kilo anni? i.e. thousands of years) these data points correspond to T = 0.055 to 0.038, which assuming T=0 is ‘now’, indicates that temperature proxied this way actually peaked 55 years prior to their writing of the paper.
So if you believe the data you’ve thrown at me, surely you must now admit there’s no evidence of a current problem in this data.
Global temperatures today average higher than during the medieval warm period. [Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature]
Awesome: proxies, models, and CRU data by Mr. Mann, all rolled into one. No error bars, decline-hiding at the right, graphs starting in 1850..this link has it all. I believe not a single word of it, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.
Well, let’s see, mostly because it had been predicted as a tipping point for a decade or more before it finally began to happen.
And you know that methane hasn’t been released in north Alaska before, because…? What model specifically ‘predicted’ it to be a ‘tipping point’, and for what?
And, melting sea ice changes the albedo of earth providing positive feedback, as does melting of mountain glaciers.
True. And when you put that one particular effect into a full and accurate model of the oceano-atmospheric system, what therefore happens is…?
Oh wait, you don’t have one (no one does).
Ice has albedo. So do clouds. Guess who can model cloud formation and its interplay with what you say is happening to the ice? No one. Is that interplay positive or negative? You don’t know.
One effect in isolation is not sufficient to describe a multidimensional physical system.
The important bit is not how many tons were there before, but the fact that we are changing the PH of the ocean by adding the equivalent mass of 287 billion full size cars worth of CO2 to the ocean.
Even if so, by your own words, this is not due to temperature, but to CO2. Perhaps your point is that CO2 lags temperature change (as one of your other links showed), but that sort of undermines the whole CO2-as-driving-mechanism-of-climate-change thing, so let’s move on….
What’s the definition of arable? You’re kidding right. Try dictionary.com.
Sorry, should have been more specific – what I meant was, what specific, quantifiable definition of ‘arable’ was used to calc that “10% reduction” (or 20%, 30%, or whatever you think it is) number you cited? Of course one knows what ‘arable’ means in fuzzy layman’s terms, but when it comes down to answering quantifiable questions such as ‘how much arable land is there’ one needs to specify some sort of criterion or cutoff. Well, what cutoff was used? Your latest link appears to trace to some UN survey from 1993. I’m not sure what the error bars there are. I’m not sure how much stock I place in that survey.
Having to feed more people with less arable land will only get more and more difficult.
Actually, you may have noticed it has gotten easier. There is something called technological advance that can mean the ease of raising crops is not a simple linear function of how much arable land exists.
If there were only 6 million people on the planet, all of the tragedies of the commons we’re beginning to experience would be non-issues.
Yes, human life was so much better when there were only 6 million people….
[stupid things people say]
On Rwanda, the source was Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize winning author and anthropologist in his book Collapse. On Darfur, well, it wasn’t exactly some hick saying it, it was the Sectretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon.
Thanks for telling me who said those stupid things. I can adjust my estimate of those people accordingly (not that my estimate of Diamond was ever that high..). Thanks again.
Well … then why exactly did you tell me no links?
I didn’t tell you ‘no links’. I pointed out that a post full of nothing but a link did not constitute an argument for anything. You’ll notice that in this comment you made more substantive claims, and the links were more specific to those claims. As a result, I found more to chew on here; indeed, it was a far better comment than was your original post. See how that works? 🙂
[are these facts/theories even going through your brain at all, or are you just rote repeating stuff you have read other places with no critical thinking on your own part?…] I call bullshit in the extreme. I cited the entire executive summary in this post.
But that is exactly what I’m talking about. Saying you “cited the entire executive summary” of some UN report is like saying you “cited the internet”. It’s, um, not specific enough. Again, this comment was much, much better. Best,
Sonic,
Sorry for the slow reply. I’ve been busy and will likely continue to be, so expect slow replies for a while.
Actually, you’re wrong about my original statement. I started this thread, not you. So, you don’t get to take something out of my first reply to you and call that my original point.
For someone who claims not to know whether global warming is real and human caused or not, and someone who doesn’t care enough to read the real data about it, you sure do passionately argue against it. You should definitely charge ExxonMobil for the service of spreading their propaganda.
As for what to do about climate change, if you ever give a shit enough to really read up on the subject, that absolutely is a scientific question first and a political economic one second. Without science, the political arena has no idea what to do about the subject. This can be seen today with our politicians who know nothing and are actively avoiding making serious plans anyway, despite the urgent recommendations of scientists.
As for ice cores and other proxy data, there’s a significant point about proxy data that you completely and utterly fail to understand. Though, we would not be sure about any piece of proxy data in a vacuum, all of the available proxy data does a very good job of confirming all of the other proxy data. There are at least 5 different types of proxy data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_%28climate%29
When they all not only agree with each other, but agree with the fossil record for the periods in questions, they seem to be pretty persuasive to me … and to scientists, though possibly not to those with PhDs in music theory.* You should be aware that at least for the larger swings in the paleoclimate, we can also see that there are tropical species of plants and animals at high latitudes that coincide with warm periods according to the proxy data and boreal species at low latitudes during cold periods according to the proxy data. But, don’t worry about that. It’s easy to fake having hippo like creatures in the arctic … or to fake a moon landing … or to hide space aliens in the desert, assuming you just like conspiracy theories.
You say, “So if you believe the data you’ve thrown at me, surely you must now admit there’s no evidence of a current problem in this data.”
No. Actually, having read climate text books and a wide variety of articles, I am quite convinced that there is a real problem. Further, as I have traveled quite extensively in search of wildlife, I can say that I have seen the problem first hand at a wide variety of locales.
But, continue to stick your head up your ass and ignore the droughts and the wildfires and the melting of the cryosphere and the sea level rise and the change in bird migrations and the change in elevations of mountain species and all the rest. It obviously makes you happy to hold your hands over your ears and say lalalalalalalalalalalala everything is fine lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala.
In your very first post on this site, you said, “It has been demonstrated to my satisfaction that this field cannot or will not police its own hoaxers.”
Since you are so difficult to convince to convince with little things like hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, perhaps you can tell me of this huge wealth of hard data that convinces you about not only climate scientists inability to police themselves, but that there are indeed climate hoaxers in the world. That is a legal accusation. Go ahead. Make your case. Pick a hoaxer and convict him/her here. Or, present this wealth of evidence of a hoax. We know it’s not in the emails since you agreed that the technique that is called a trick is a scientific method for accounting for observed evolutionary changes in trees. Regardless of whether you think the technique is valid, you can no longer call that a hoax. Go ahead, prove the existence of a hoax.
I’ll respond when and as I can. Sorry in advance for any delays.
* Did I guess right Sonic? I bet I did. You’ve got a PhD in music, right? That’s why the name sonic charmer? That’s why you stopped mentioning your PhD after I asked what it was? I know this is a red herring, of a sort, but you made a claim that you have a PhD and know how science works. I’ve asked what PhD you allegedly have several times and have been ignored every time. You tried to pretend to knowledge of the review process with a PhD in some liberal arts subject, didn’t you?
No, my PhD is not in music, music theory, or anything related to music. (I did have a minor in it however!) I only brought it up in response to you saying hilariously, based on very little, that you “feel confident that [I] have read precisely zero actual scientific articles”. In retrospect I probably just shouldn’t have responded at all to a made-up ad hominem so ill-informed and misguided.
you don’t get to take something out of my first reply to you and call that my original point
Sigh. It was your original point of that thread of our conversation that I was trying (unsuccessfully, obviously) to keep you focused on at that point.
As for what to do about climate change […] that absolutely is a scientific question first and a political economic one second.
I disagree. It is a political question that can and should be informed by (but, never dictated by) scientists/scientific findings. (There is no ‘what to do about ___’ question in society that is not a political question.)
Without science, the political arena has no idea what to do about the subject.
This is pretty much true of the political arena with or without science.
all of the available proxy data does a very good job of confirming all of the other proxy data
“all”? “very good job of”? use quantities please. What are the error bars? They agree within how many standard deviations? Probability distributions, chi-squared tests, anything? This claim of yours is so very spongy and fluffy.
they seem to be pretty persuasive to me
That’s nice.
Further, as I have traveled quite extensively in search of wildlife, I can say that I have seen the problem first hand at a wide variety of locales.
LOL. Hilarious. Thanks for that.
But, continue to stick your head up your ass and ignore the droughts and the wildfires
Droughts and wildfires, of course, never happened prior to the invention of the automobile. SCIENCE!
perhaps you can tell me of this huge wealth of hard data that convinces you about not only climate scientists inability to police themselves,
Google climategate for starters
That is a legal accusation. Go ahead. Make your case. Pick a hoaxer and convict him/her here.
I’m not making a legal accusation. I’m saying I have not been convinced. I don’t need to ‘convict’ anyone of anything to say I think they’re full of crap. I just need to walk away. The onus is on you not me to make your case if you want to overhaul my life because of your theory and computer cartoons.
We know it’s not in the emails since you agreed that the technique that is called a trick is a scientific method for accounting for observed evolutionary changes in trees.
I most certainly did not agree that.
It’s certainly a method for changing some numbers and smoothing/fixing graphs. But not a scientific one.
No, my PhD is not in music, music theory, or anything related to music.
Nor is it in any scientific field or you would have said so by now … and your understanding of science would likely be far greater.
(There is no ‘what to do about ___’ question in society that is not a political question.)
Silly statement since it would be completely uninformed without science. The what to do is obvious. In this case, it’s reduce our carbon dioxide output. Politics is merely the how, not the what. If we depend on politicians to determine the what, as we have been doing, our species will die out. Climate change is only one of many threats we face requiring a solution that must be informed by science.
all of the available proxy data does a very good job of confirming all of the other proxy data
I’ll have to come back to this one when I’m not so busy and have time to find specific links.
But, continue to stick your head up your ass and ignore the droughts and the wildfires
Droughts and wildfires, of course, never happened prior to the invention of the automobile. SCIENCE!
Well, let’s see. California used to have about one month of year of wildfires. Now it’s eleven.
perhaps you can tell me of this huge wealth of hard data that convinces you about not only climate scientists inability to police themselves,
Google climategate for starters
You have got to be fucking kidding me. You google for yourself then get back to me with some good links. It’s not my job to do your homework.
I’m not making a legal accusation. I’m saying I have not been convinced. I don’t need to ‘convict’ anyone of anything to say I think they’re full of crap. I just need to walk away. The onus is on you not me to make your case if you want to overhaul my life because of your theory and computer cartoons.
Bullshit. You’re not walking away. You’re blogging like mad, literally foaming at the mouth mad. Go ahead and walk away if you have no accusation to make. Or, stop convicting people you’ve never met based on emails that may be falsified and certainly do not indicate anything like the claims you are making even if true.
We know it’s not in the emails since you agreed that the technique that is called a trick is a scientific method for accounting for observed evolutionary changes in trees.
I most certainly did not agree that.
It’s certainly a method for changing some numbers and smoothing/fixing graphs. But not a scientific one.
Actually, accounting for real observed new data is definitely a scientific thing to do. Either way though, it sure as hell is not a hoax, as you have definitely asserted. So, back up your claim for a hoax or STFU.
[my non-music phd] Nor is it in any scientific field or you would have said so by now
That’s a very compelling argument. You’ve convinced me with your impeccable logic that my memory is faulty and my PhD can’t be in any scientific field, otherwise I would have said so by now. After all it can’t possibly be that I don’t want to give you the satisfaction of taking the unbelievably weak bait you’re offering in this pathetic ad hominem attempt.
Climate change is only one of many threats we face requiring a solution that must be informed by science.
Like I said, informed by. But not dictated by.
California used to have about one month of year of wildfires. Now it’s eleven.
I’d be fascinated to learn just how it is you’ve convinced yourself that you know how many ‘months of wildfires’ the region we now call ‘California’ used to have throughout history, or at least for some supposedly wildfire-frequency-stable period prior to [whenever you think the frequency increased]. Also, I suppose in your highly scientific worldview it goes without saying that wildfires, and their frequency, have no other possible causes and contributing factors than global warming…?
It’s not my job to do your homework.
It’s your job to make a case for something if you want to convince me of something, i.e. that action is required. I’m content to let your case go unmade, if that’s where you want to leave it.
[all i have to do is walk away] Bullshit. You’re not walking away. You’re blogging like mad […]
I was speaking metaphorically. For “I” read “society”, for “you” read “global-warming-alarmists”, and for “walk away” read “not do anything”, if that helps.
Actually, accounting for real observed new data is definitely a scientific thing to do.
There is more than one way to ‘account for’ data. Some ways are good ways and some are bad ways. The bad ways are not ‘scientific’ and if they are bad enough merit the term ‘hoax’.
Sonic Charmer,
Some charm you have going there. I invited you into my home, such as it is. You enter and have been nothing but rude since the moment you walked in the door.
I’m fine with that. Perhaps it even means that you read my etiquette page.
However, you have no sense of fairness. That’s not OK.
You first tell me not to post links then to post links. I try it both ways. I have backed up nearly every claim I have made with valid links.
You, on the other hand, instruct me to do your web searching for you.
Fuck you.
Sonic, you do indeed make a lot of noise. But, you don’t say anything of worth.
Tell me why you have reason to suspect collusion among scientists to present false information or fuck off and die. We’ve already shown that the email leak is a crock of shit. Got anything better?
Again with the bogus ‘I told you not to post links’ stuff. As I’ve said multiple times above now: I never told you ‘not to post links’, I said that posting ONLY LINKS was not an argument. You can post ONLY LINKS to your heart’s content for all I care. That’s not an argument.
At a later point you did post links and refer to them in a somewhat specific and thoughtful way (the CO2/temperature graphs on wiki). Notice, when you did that, I responded to it in great detail. Oddly however, you have yet to even address anything I wrote on that. So we’re back to argumentation-via-links-alone, it seems.
Yes, I agree my handle is dumb, and I wish I’d thought of a less-dumb one. Congrats, you are about the 10,000th extremely clever person to make note of it, say I’m not really a ‘charmer’, etc. Ah, internet handles, what a treasure trove of puns and witty rejoinders they can be when placed in the hands of deft wordsmiths such as yourself!
We’ve already shown that the email leak is a crock of shit.
Who’s “we” and when/how did they “show” that?
Actually what do you even mean by that? The email leak “is a crock of shit”? Are you saying the email leak doesn’t exist? Is made up? Was forged in its entirety by some autistic savant? Is an optical illusion? What exactly? Curious.
Anyway, I don’t ‘suspect’ there was collusion among scientists to present false information. The email chain is prima facie evidence of (those particular) scientists colluding to present (certain types of) false information. A graph of a timeseries spliced together via different methodologies at a point chosen to conceal when and where they diverge qualifies as false information in my book.
Sonic,
You have never backed up a single statement you have made. Shame on the alleged professor who allegedly allowed you to get an alleged PhD in any subject without skill mastering any skill at all in doing research to back up a single thing you say.
As for the email leak, it has, to my knowledge, not been shown to be valid undoctored emails. Doctoring emails is certainly not beyond the morals of one who would break into a private system and steal its contents.
Further, even if the emails are valid, the very worst thing in them is that someone used the word trick to describe a scientific technique for accounting for the observed evolutionary change in trees in the far north. When I said we, I was referring to the point at which you admitted that this was what was meant by the word trick in this context. Whether you believe the science of it to be valid or not is irrelevant.
So, to say that the email represents collusion, you must show specific verbiage that you believe is conclusive proof of this. To date, I have seen nothing that leads me to believe so. You have made an accusation; back it up.
Lastly, you truly do not play fair. I have asked for a link. You have told me to google.
Again, fuck you.
Show me specifically what in the emails you believe to be collusion. I say there is nothing there that indicates that. Further, I say that stolen emails from an incredibly unreliable source do not a case make. Were this a court of law, it would not get past a grand jury hearing. But, because of simple minded sensationalists on the web and completely deregulated mainstream media, it becomes major news.
Put up or shut up. Post a fucking link. Cite exactly what you believe shows collusion. You have thus far utterly failed to do so.
You have never backed up a single statement you have made.
That is a very general and vague assertion of yours. Suppose I just say ‘yes I have’, now what? You’d have to talk about specifics. This, you plainly do not like….
As for the email leak, it has, to my knowledge, not been shown to be valid undoctored emails.
True. Are you suggesting they were doctored? Is this what you really believe?
Further, even if the emails are valid, the very worst thing in them is that someone used the word trick to describe a scientific technique for accounting for […]
They may have used a ‘technique’, but not a scientific one.
So, to say that the email represents collusion, you must show specific verbiage that you believe is conclusive proof of this.
verbiage:
-time-series splicing in an invalid way, as i said
-this is an email to another person (i.e. not a personal diary entry), hence the collusion
done
Were this a court of law, it would not get past a grand jury hearing.
Fortunately, this is not a court of law, and I am not subject to such evidentiary standards when making up my mind about things.
But, because of simple minded sensationalists on the web and completely deregulated mainstream media, it becomes major news.
So do you think the media should be more ‘regulated’ so that these stories are not allowed to make the news? Do tell,
Suppose I just say ‘yes I have’, now what?
I’d ask for the fucking link that you flatly refuse again and again and again to post. You can’t really be that stupid. You must know how to post a link. Do so.
They may have used a ‘technique’, but not a scientific one.
Funny, I’ll take the word of the scientists rather than the opinion of a lay anonymous blogger on this one. It sounds quite scientific to me in the links I posted describing the technique and the reason for its usage. Remember the links? Here’s an excerpt that you have yet to contend with at all, despite my linking to it in the original post.
-time-series splicing in an invalid way, as i said
In your opinion, as you keep failing to back this up with any authoritative source on the subject. As an anonymous blogger, your opinion on its own is as nearly worthless as it can possibly be without anything credible. This is what I mean by not backing up a thing you say.
Did some idiot professor actually let you get away with this kind of shit on a thesis??!!? Do you not know anything about citations? (Sorry to keep harping on your alleged PhD. I know you want me to drop it. However, you did bring it up, so it’s fair game. But seriously, how could anyone think that someone as inept at finding credible resources to back up their opinions could really have made it through a PhD program?)
-this is an email to another person (i.e. not a personal diary entry), hence the collusion
Hmm… So a scientist works with another scientist doing valid research and you call it collusion? I guess anyone who builds upon the work of anyone else is in collusion. Anyone working on a team of any kind is in collusion. OK, so all science works by collusion. Is that your point? Do you have a point?
Fortunately, this is not a court of law, and I am not subject to such evidentiary standards when making up my mind about things.
There are still libel laws with which to contend.
So do you think the media should be more ‘regulated’ so that these stories are not allowed to make the news? Do tell,
I think the news should be required to be unbiased and reputable, as the Fairness Doctrine required. Ronald Reagan overturned the doctrine in 1987 at the request of the religious right so that they could create full time religious stations around the country. Interestingly Rush Limburger came on the air that year.
Now, most people can’t tell the difference between real news and the opinion sections on so-called news stations.
Once again, links to back up my statements.
Here’s one on the Fairness Doctrine (1949 – 1987)
Fairness Doctrine
And, one about Faux News and the fact that Fox even claims that all of the most popular mainstream shows on it’s news channel are in fact not news at all.
Funny that we now get some of our best investigative journalism from The Daily Show.
Exclusive: The Fourth Estate
I’d ask for the fucking link that you flatly refuse again and again and again to post.
Frankly I don’t even know what “link” you want me to post at this point. Link to what? Do you remember?
Funny, I’ll take the word of the scientists rather than the opinion of a lay anonymous blogger on this one.
Of course you will. But it’s hilarious that you think “the scientists” have a monolithic “word” on this subject. Do you subscribe to “The Word Of The Scientists Journal”?
It sounds quite scientific to me in the links I posted
And as well all know, that’s the test of scientific truth, whether something “sounds quite scientific”.
This is cargo-cult science worship.
Here’s an excerpt that you have yet to contend with at all,
Au contraire, I contended with it in the form of calling it rubbish and citing it as an example of presenting false information. Now what? Ball, your court.
In your opinion, as you keep failing to back this up with any authoritative source on the subject.
What do you mean ‘authoritative source’? So unless I make an appeal to authority you refuse to discuss? I have made an argument of my own that splicing together divergent timeseries at a point chosen to conceal their divergence is not scientifically kosher. If you disagree, say why (if you can). I don’t know what ‘authoritative source’ has to do with anything. Are you really that infatuated with the fallacy of appeal to authority?
As an anonymous blogger, your opinion on its own is as nearly worthless as it can possibly be without anything credible.
If that is true, it should be no problem whatsoever for you to actually argue against what I’m saying using your own thoughts and words (if you have some). Well?
So a scientist works with another scientist doing valid research and you call it collusion?
No, I call it collusion when they discuss ways to present data in an intentionally-misleading way.
There are still libel laws with which to contend.
I eagerly await the summons.
I think the news should be required to be unbiased and reputable,
I think the notion that news (=stories about the world crafted by humans) should or even can be ‘unbiased’ is a puerile illusion.
I think news being ‘reputable’ sounds fine and dandy but who is to judge what is ‘reputable’? Oh, right – you are. Or at least people who agree with you about stuff. Got it!
Interestingly Rush Limburger came on the air that year.
Not sure why that is ‘interestingly’. Rush Limburger (hey! more clever punnage! are you in Mensa?) is listened to and liked by millions of people, even if not you (or even me). Let’s just ahead to the punchline and just fill in the blank – He should be kept off the air because _____?
Now, most people can’t tell the difference between real news and the opinion sections on so-called news stations.
If that’s true, then most people are pretty observant. The difference is minor compared to the similarity. Kudos to most people for noticing.
Once again, links to back up my statements.
How does a wiki article ‘back up’ what you’re saying? Nevermind. Don’t care.
Funny that we now get some of our best investigative journalism from The Daily Show.
See? You are free to think that and watch/appreciate that show on that basis, just as I am free to get my news from other sources. This is good! The problem is..?
Sonic,
You have violated even the most basic kindergarten playground standards for fair play with yet another vacuous, unsubstantiated, unscientific, semantically null comment. You have asked me for links to back up my claims and I have provided them over and over. Yet, when asked for one single link, you sidestep and avoid the issue and then claim you do not remember the original request when the entire thread is here for you to read and reread at your leisure.
We have now filled up screen after screen after screen with this your complete and utter bullshit. You have totally hijacked my blog thread to the point where even you won’t dig out your hip waders to tramp through it to find my request for a link.
Yes. I still remember what it was. This is my blog. I try to keep it reputable with substantiated claims. Your empty, pointless droning on of your lay person’s opinion of the science that trained people are doing is not worth the bits your posts are occupying.
I have previously demanded that you put up or shut up. You have done neither. I now restate this demand as:
Put up or I will shut you up!!
This is the last unsubstantiated crap of yours that I will answer. If your next post does not contain a link to something substantial and meaningful, it will be deleted. I have never before banned any user from my blog and do not intend to start with you. However, I will delete future posts of yours that fail to meet a basic standard of fair play.
The request was this:
Post a link to something indicating collusion on the part of climate scientists to in some way deceive the public.
Now I will answer the last of your utterly devoid of content posts.
And as well all know, that’s the test of scientific truth, whether something “sounds quite scientific”.
Actually, I have read a lot of scientific work. When I say that it sounds scientific to me, I mean just that. Everything in it seemed like valid science, unlike anything in any of your posts.
Au contraire, I contended with it in the form of calling it rubbish and citing it as an example of presenting false information. Now what? Ball, your court.
Ah … you called it rubbish. How scientific is that? I call each and every one of your posts rubbish. Ball, your court.
No wait. It’s still my court here. If you want to call something rubbish in my court, you must back up the statement. You have failed to do so utterly and repeatedly. Show me some scientific journal or principle not hatched out of your own three neurons that makes it rubbish.
I have made an argument of my own that splicing together divergent timeseries at a point chosen to conceal their divergence is not scientifically kosher. If you disagree, say why (if you can).
I did say why. I will say so again. In the real world, data is complex. There is a subset of trees on the planet in the far north that have already evolved such that their growth patterns no longer track with the climate as they did prior to 1960.
Scientists can throw out a whole body of science despite knowing both the reason for the divergence and the correction to apply or they can work with the data that they have and move on. Since they know both the reason for the divergence and the fix to make the data track with real world observations, rather than say “goo goo ga ga we give up”, they moved on. This is valid science. That you don’t like it just means that you do not understand how complex the real world of climatology is. What exactly would you do instead to get a real picture of a real and changing world? What would you consider scientific? I’m betting there would be no answer that would satisfy you because you just refuse to believe that we may be causing our own extinction.
I call it collusion when they discuss ways to present data in an intentionally-misleading way.
And this is again and again and again what I have asked for a link to show. You have fallen back repeatedly on a a single unsubstantiated sentence taken out of context by a criminal with an agenda and called that proof of collusion.
You have failed to show any power of veridical thinking.
Further, even if the sentence was not doctored by the criminal who stole it illegally, I have stated repeatedly why it does not show any collusion. There is nothing being misrepresented. The data is exactly as advertised including the correction for the evolution of a subset of the planet’s trees.
So, I say to you that you already did not believe in climate change, heard on Faux Spews or some equally disreputable source that this sentence proved your point and went “yippee!” without ever considering the source or what the statement actually was.
I eagerly await your next post with a link to something real showing collusion.
I mean, ok, if the “link” you so desperately want is a link that “shows collusion”, all that would be is a transcript of the emails I’ve already stated constituted the collusion. Here you go (scroll to Jones e-mail of 16 Nov 1999). Is this really helpful? Now that we have a LINK!! for the same exact thing I was already trying to discuss?
This is part and parcel of why I don’t understand this argumentation-via-linkage you seem enamored of. I am interested in discussing things, not brainlessly posting a collection of links. If you only recognize/understand the latter, that’s strange, and indeed we probably have little to discuss. So feel free to ceremonially delete my comments that supposedly ‘hijacked’ your blog (am I preventing you from writing another post?).
Actually, I have read a lot of scientific work. When I say that it sounds scientific to me, I mean just that. Everything in it seemed like valid science, unlike anything in any of your posts.
I think you have an overly-narrow view of what science is about.
Ah … you called it rubbish. How scientific is that?
Perfectly 100% scientific, if it really is rubbish. Obviously it would not make it past the editor of a scientific journal, but this is not a scientific journal, and ‘only what’s in scientific journals!’ is – again – a highly narrow view of what science is about.
Show me some scientific journal or principle not hatched out of your own three neurons that makes it rubbish.
Again, I am interested in discussion, using our own brains (indeed, my own three neurons! exactly!). You are interested in exchanging citations and appeals to authority, outsourcing our thought processes entirely to other peoples’ brains. We do not speak the same language. This is not going to work.
Generally, if I say 2+2=4 or the sky is blue or 2+2=5 or water flows upward, I do not think I need a ‘scientific journal’ to point to. I am saying a true thing in my view (which could be wrong), and if you think otherwise then it’s up to you to dispute and refute what I am saying and convince me of my wrongness WITH AN ARGUMENT. Not a “link”, not a “journal”, but an ARGUMENT.
You, by contrast, think that truth is established by serially pointing to a neverending lineup of external ‘scientific principles’ or ‘scientific journals’. I do not think you know what arguments actually are. Arguments simply are not collections of “links”. A link (citation) by itself is not an argument. Sorry, but the argument part still has to come from your own brain.
There is a subset of trees on the planet in the far north that have already evolved such that their growth patterns no longer track with the climate as they did prior to 1960.
Did they ‘evolve’ exactly in 1960? Why do you think they tracked with the climate prior to 1960? Convince me. I am convinced of neither.
(See, now you’re actually saying something of your own. Refreshing! You might even convince me if you could keep it up! This is what a real discussion would be like. Just FYI.)
Since they know both the reason for the divergence and the fix to make the data track with real world observations,
I doubt it. I doubt they know the ‘reason’ for the divergence. I’m sure they have a theory to explain the divergence. I’m not sure that theory holds water.
Obviously, though, they do know the ‘fix’ to make the data track. It’s a highly advance ‘statistical technique’: just don’t show the data after some arbitrary cutoff so that the graph looks continuous to the casual observer!
SCIENCE!
What exactly would you do instead to get a real picture of a real and changing world?
Clearly, I would gleefully use ‘tricks’ to obfuscate how I present my data! Because the important thing in science is…um…to…trick the stupid lay people (?)
Since you praised The Daily Show (and can only engage your brain when there’s a LINK), here’s a nice LINK for you:
LINK
Seriously, this is embarrassing. I’m embarrassed on their behalf just thinking about it. Bye, and farewell if this gets Ceremonially Deleted,
Sonic,
I would never delete this post of yours. I haven’t laughed so hard in months!!
You post page after page of pseudoscientific bullshit on my site asking for error bars and the like as you attempt to dispute decades of scientific research in climatology.
Then, after being so amazingly skeptical that quite literally nothing would ever sway you, you proclaim that decades of science are rubbish because you read a single unsubstantiated sentence quoted out of context by a criminal with an agenda (speaking of rubbish …). The sentence doesn’t even have to say anything incriminating because we’ve already shown over and over that it doesn’t. But, one sentence and thousands of articles and decades of research are rubbish.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I’m still chuckling over your inane post.
I mean, come on, everyone has a bit of confirmation bias in their brain. But, you take the cake!!! Have you no power of veridical thinking??!!? One unsubstantiated claim wipes out years of peer reviewed scientific research? I don’t think so.
What is obviously going on is that you so want to believe the one sentence that nothing else matters. Do a bit of introspection!! You have a serious problem in your brain. You should work to correct that. At times, you have made me think that you might have the mental capacity to do so … if the idea doesn’t scare you too much.
I’m glad to hear you are embarrassed. You should be seriously embarrassed by every claim you have made on this site.
As for when the trees evolved, yes, evolution does happen quickly, as it recently did with a lizard on Cyprus and one of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos. In the latter case, it was so fast that the researchers almost missed it. Yes, the subset of trees evolved quickly. Their growth rates are now different reflecting their adaptation to a new climate. Hey, a new climate, perhaps this is even greater proof of climate change, rather than less valid proof. But, hey, you don’t want to believe no matter what … so you won’t.
Go forth and introspect. You might learn a lot.
Sonic,
One more thing, I think you’ll note in my post that I had asked for a link to something real.
In fact, if you had been willing to go back to my original request to you for data, it was:
So, I had actually stated right up front that I was looking for something far more credible as evidence than a stolen email message that may or may not be fake. In fact, you even pointed out that a link to the same thing we’ve been rerererehashing for over 20 replies was clearly not what I was looking for. I was looking for something of merit. Clearly you have nothing, as expected.
Wow! I’m so relieved you took over the care and feeding of this world class troll.
Merci!
🙂
Cinaedh,
I thought this one might not be a troll. He sounded as if he had some real scientific knowledge at the start. However, when it came right down to it, science that is inconsistent with his emotional need for a world not in imminent danger of becoming uninhabitable was easily overridden by a load of steaming dung picked through (or altered) by a confirmed criminal with an agenda. Not very scientific at all IMNSHO.
Oh well.
I’ve long said that the average level of competence in one’s job is the same across all professions, including rocket science, brain surgery, and McD’s fry maker. That some require more smarts to reach the average level of competence doesn’t change the fact that most people are incompetent.
At best, we’ve now heard from an incompetent scientist. At worst, we’ve heard from a blatant liar with no training whatsoever in the sciences. With anonymous blogging, it’s hard to tell. That’s why I like to back up my claims with links, rather than asking people to take my word as an anonymous blogger.
I was just going to give you the last word, but sheesh.
I guarantee you I have more ‘training’ than you do. Also, how many climate models have you actually worked on? (Hint: My answer is nonzero. Is yours, informed genius? Hint 2: reading stuff on the internet does not qualify as working on climate models.)
You sure are Smart. I can tell because of how convinced you are of your own Smartness! Go ahead and haughtily give yourself a gold star for how much of a genius you are compared to people like me.
Ok, I’m done.
Sonic,
Well, an anonymous blogger who claims to have worked on a climate model, now I’m really convinced. How about a link to some of your research papers? If you want to blog as if you are a qualified climate scientist, doing so anonymously is not the way. I could make the claim that I have worked on more climate models than you have. Who could check since we’re both blogging anonymously.
Even so, making statements that you were unable to get into the peer-reviewed literature because they were completely unfounded does not add to your credibility. Sorry.
Oh and one more thing Sonic, you still haven’t answered why, if you’re such a well-trained scientist, that you allow a single data point from a single email message stolen and possibly forged by an admitted thief to overturn two decades and thousands of papers of scientific research.
Is this why you failed as a scientist? Or, did you fail because you are incompetent in some other way and are now so bitter that you allow an invalid data point to overrule 20 years of science?
Scott,
So sad to see him/her go, (s)he’s such an engaging noisemaker in this relatively silent media of ours. (S)he was music to my ears, really. I’ll miss him/her.
Reminded me a lot of “Patrick”, “curious” etcetera. Always claims to be an expert in whatever topic is being discussed – to promulgate the Ignorance Agenda – but tries to baffle brains with bullshit and eventually runs away when intelligently and persistently called on it.
Have you ever considered what it takes to be a failure as a fraud? That’s a rare gift, I’d say.
🙂
I’d say Sonic is a cut above Patrick/curious/other blog trolls on DU. He (from the photo, looks male) seems to have some actual knowledge of the models and may even have worked on them as he claims.
In some ways though, that makes things worse. A) He can be more convincing to those who actually do have some education on the subject and B) it means that even someone who has some training, allegedly a PhD in the subject, can still have serious problems with critical and veridical thinking.
His inability to correctly judge the source and content of the emails coupled with probable high scores on IQ tests is indicative of a severe case of dysrationalia. Think of what severe confirmation bias and inability to critically assess the truth/falsehood of a statement it must take to allow an email message that may or may not even be real but is certainly being presented by a thief with an agenda even if real to carry such weight in one’s mind.
This is a clear example of what is discussed in the book What Intelligence Tests Miss.
The problem is that he comes across as a critical thinker for looking so carefully at the scientific data and asking for such things as error bars and the rest. This is very convincing to those who don’t consider the alternative hypothesis and really examine what has suddenly caused this induhvidual to question all of climate science. The idea that a single technique is being used that he does not believe is scientific can overturn years of science with a great many other confirming data sources is just unimaginable to me. It is especially so when the data in question is such a small part of the data set to begin with and is further totally and completely explained and lastly is in a time frame from which we have actual temperature measurements.
His logic sounds so good until seriously questioned that I worry that he is worse than the likes of Patrick/curious for appearing to know what he is talking about. Many will likely assume that he is indeed a climate scientist without questioning the statement. It may even be true. Many will thus assume that anyone with scientific training in the subject must know more than they do. This is possible. However, it clearly does not make him infallible.
Lastly, if he really were so knowledgeable as a climate scientist and were competent enough, he would likely at least get some money from ExxonMobil for posting his views on JunkScience, Heartland, Cato, or wherever. In fact, if he does actually have training as a climate scientist, it’s actually a bit sad that he not only couldn’t make it doing real research, but also couldn’t even make it as an ExxonMobil shill. Apparently they can afford better.
Sorry if you read this Sonic. I hope you fare better in your current career than you did in your last.
Thanks for a new word, Scott. You’d think “dysrationalia” would be a contradiction in terms, hence an unnecessary word but sadly, it’s a word that could be used most every day when considering Conservatives/Republicans/Religionists/Creationists/Etcetera.
I’m sure it’s just a minor gene malfunction. When we establish The New World Order, the first thing we’ll do, after killing all the lawyers, is to pass a decree, mandating the repair of all defective genes.
Har!
🙂
Repairing defective jeans? That sounds like you’re not properly buying in (literally) to the consumerist religion. Heretic!! Don’t patch your clothes, buy our new pre-ripped, pre-patched, ones instead. They’re much better because they won’t last as long and you’ll have to buy more.
Wait a minute … I think I just put this rant on the wrong thread.