Comments for AGW REVISITED at http://www.randi.org/site , comment 1 to 305 out of 20 comments http://www.randi.org/site Fri, 24 May 2013 06:04:33 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-20240 The problem with your budget analogy is that all of that carbon represented by fossil fuels has been locked up in a bank vault since before there were mammals or flowering plants. We know it worked pretty well for giant ferns, amphibians, and insects, we're not so sure how it will work out for us or the food sources we depend on. - MacDonald Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:14:18 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-20239 The easiest way to understand why we are being lead astray by Weather Witch doctors is... Assign the Earth's climate system an energy budget very similar to a household finances budget. Income deposited, expenses & savings deducted. There are elements to the household budget... Utilities, fuel for car/s, school costs, weekly expense allowance, food, insurances etc. The total income of the household must be distributed amongst these elements. In some weeks savings are made, and therefore money is available to be distributed to other areas, such as savings. Some weeks income is increased. The household may be treated to entertainment. When these elements become variable, i.e. their value is not known, the household budget is disorganised, unpredictable and unworkable. You can't accurately put money asside to allow for future expense and/or developments. You have to buy property, buy cars, make career decisions, make educational decisions for the kids, know when to spend and what on, when to save and where to put the savings. All based on unkowns that effect every member of the household. The planet also has a budget, and energy budget. Some years we have good income, more Sunlight, some years not so much, less sunlight. Some years volcanoes distribute their energy, eruptions. This sunlight must be distributed amongst all the elements. Photosyntesis for plants, Evaporation of the oceans, Warming of oceans, cooling of the oceans, warming and cooling of the lower, mid and upper atmosphere. Some sunlight is absorbed by elements that make up the atmosphere, Co2, Methane etc. Some of the energy is spent making clouds etc. Now imagine if all the values of these elements of your budget are constantly being argued about, Co2, Methane, amount of sunlight into the system, cloud formation, warming and cooling of the oceans. This means no one in the house knows, FOR SURE!, what all the elements of the budget are, and what their value is, and how they effect other elements of the budget. When unknowns outnumber knowns how is a rational decision made? IT ISN'T! Decisions end up being made based on what is beleived, felt, and speculated about. Good luck with that. Humans have embarked on beleif based exercises throughout history, Stonehenge, Easter Island, Inquisition, most religous wars are based on beleif. Explorers didn't sail far because they beleived the world was flat for for gawds sake and they'd fall off. This is the state of our knowledge of the climate system and we are making society (Household) altering decisions based on a truckload of unkowns. Are you serious? Understand What is going on first! We'll chat when it's sorted. - nickmh Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:47:25 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-15802 [quote]Holmes: I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts...[/quote] Love it! I have never seen a quote so fitting. Some people think this whole thing is made up and silly... the same people still believe we have yet to actually put a man on the moon ;) lol - Potty Training Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:48:16 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14629 "I am shifting millions of dollars -- and of course risking my own family's financial well being on these bets -- into concrete solutions to potential problems that may indeed be ready to plague humanity. I am also in a position to encourage others to do the same in very, very concrete steps." Yeah, sure you are. "insulting fool!...the conversation is about to degenerate." You need only look in the mirror to see your own culpability. And don't pretend you're not lurking here, to see what follows. ;-) We know you're here. - davewyman Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:01:25 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14622 @NicoleTedesco Your posts have been little more than the standard excuses for not acting, argued against a strawman that you would know to be utter BS is you were actually involved in action. - rwpikul Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:21:20 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14621 Let me tell you why this is my final post on this particular thread: apparently certain people are reading only what they want to read of what I write. I would not normally respond anymore, period, to such nonsense but JREF is related to an overall rationalist mission and this kind of misunderstanding gets to the core of why people like James Randi would devote at least three decades of their lives and careers to it. rwpikul, [quote]You claim to get it but you clearly don't. The argument for acting now is so that we DON'T have to expend overwhelming resources in an excruciatingly short period of time. The sooner action is taken, the easier that action can be and the more time it gains to do further actions.[/quote] You claim to be reading me but you are clearly not bothering to and instead you are "reading" what you merely want to see. I don't get it? Are you insinuating [i]I[/i] am not acting? What did I just write? What? Did you actually bother to read anything I wrote? I am [i]acting[/i] in much more concrete ways that you will probably do so in your life time. I am shifting millions of dollars -- and of course risking my own family's financial well being on these bets -- into concrete solutions to potential problems that may indeed be ready to plague humanity. I am also in a position to encourage others to do the same in very, very concrete steps. [i]No where did I say reasonable action ought not be taken.[/i] In fact, I claimed the opposite you insulting fool! I am not even going to write what I am claiming again because, clearly if you do read it you are going to completely ignore the point. To all other readers other than this character, I will write no more on this subject in this particular discussion thread as it has reached an age where clearly the conversation is about to degenerate. I encourage you to read whatever has already been written by whomever (and much as been written), but do not bother to comment yourself as you will probably fall into the same trap as I just have. Good riddance, thread. - NicoleTedesco Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:34:57 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14617 @NicoleTedesco You claim to get it but you clearly don't. The argument for acting now is so that we DON'T have to expend overwhelming resources in an excruciatingly short period of time. The sooner action is taken, the easier that action can be and the more time it gains to do further actions. Consider an output limit of 5000, and a current rate of 100/a. If you wait 50 years to act, you have to go from 100 to 0 all at once. If you reduce it by just 1 per year, you only have to do a sudden drop of 10, and that's after 90 years. Reduce it by 1.1 per year, and you never have a sharp drop. Oh: Actually the potential costs, as far as humanity is concerned, are infinite. A runaway has a good chance of not just wiping out human society but humanity itself. We do not want temperatures matching those of the Eocene maximum. - rwpikul Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:34:20 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14587 Actually, this post should come first, but in the "thread" of censoring links, it is anachronistic. Google at will (actually, I don't "google"; I recommend Yahoo, for now.) ********************* No one is paying me for my opinion (no Big Oil or little oil money for that matter, darn it). So I only write what I like and only if I think I have something to contribute. I suspect Randi does the same. The Holidays, my family, (that's Christmas to the politically correct crowd) and a bad cold were more important than this AGW thread. But I am very much encouraged by the responses I have read. I don't agree with them all. But I detect some critical thinking. That's good. Here's a few thoughts to broaden the picture (and it's pretty broad already). Climatology Degrees There is no "American Climatology Society". There is no definition of climatology on The American Meteorological Society web site. There is no career in climatology listed but there is a description of a bachelors' degree in “Atmospheric Science”. Under “careers” there is only meteorologist. There is a link to a NOAA website with an essay on climatology – published in 1921! There is no actual link to any “online climatology degree” on the various online college web sites but there is the promise of such degrees if you have: “a bachelors’ degree in environmental science or in geography; in addition to this you must have completed systematic studies in subjects like, mathematics, chemistry and climate.” Campusexplorer.com does not list a degree program in climatology but, under Natural Sciences and Meteorology, there a number of “areas” listed (Atmospheric Chemistry and Climatology, Atmospheric Physics and Dynamics, General Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Meteorology, and Other) and there are NO hits or links for “ Atmospheric Chemistry and Climatology”. There is one link under “Other” – UCLA – but no description of a degree program. Because I can't prove a negative – and because I am sure that someone, somewhere, has created some kind of “climatology degree” – you may find some contrary evidence. Overall, it is apparent that the academic community does not know what to do with climatology at this point. And I'm pretty sure that meteorologists do not want to be outclassed by a new specialization that claims their turf and it is my opinion that they should reject this new usurper. The point is that scientists don't know what to do with “climatology”. It is not an ad hominem attack to point out that “climate scientists”, whatever the definition of their “discipline”, are in the business of promoting their specialization and funding of their claimed expertise because this is the sum total of all they have done or propose to do! At this point, there is no firm basis for such a broad set of claims for a new field of science that is actually composed of a dozen other fields of science and which have much longer track records for sound scientific methods. It is not arguable that climatologists are not lobbyists. Follow the money. I would cite personal experience with the EPA (both state and federal levels) which, just after the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)in 1970, assumed total authority over what they called “environmental science” and environmental engineering”. There were no such degrees at the time. It took 20+ years, plus massive lobbying and grant-funding leverage, to get the colleges and universities to create degree programs that are mostly a hodgepodge of other science's disciplines. Most civil engineers will tell you (in private) that a great number of the bureaucrats that work for the EPA do not know engineering. But they know how to regulate engineering. Same with climatologists. They are working on it. - kyengineer Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:51:37 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14586 It seems that my last post had too many links to back up my opinions. Here it is without links. Google for yourself. CONSENSUS VERSUS INFLUENCE There is “scientific consensus”. The simplistic statement that “if there is consensus, it is not science” is simply laughable. This is the definition of “peer review”. A science article with a new hypothesis gets a very skeptical review by many reviewers before publishing. Honorable scientific journals do not reject new hypotheses simply because they are new or they contradict the status quo. It may be difficult to get a new theory into the mainstream but it can be done and has been done. If you haven't read Micheal Crichton's address to Cal Tech, “Aliens Cause Global Warming”, you should. Crichton famously said that “the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus” and he is right that you can't take a “straw poll” and decide if an hypothesis should be published or buried – just as the AGW crowd at East Anglia has done! However, he does not address the real-world process of scientific testing, peer review, criticism, trail-and-error, follow-up research, supporting papers, verifiable new predictions or failures, and gradual acceptance or rejection of a new theory, which definitely requires a broad consensus that is often very hard-won. The only problem with Crichton's formulation is that while consensus has nothing to do with the development of new science, it has everything to do with verification, testing, and acceptance of new theories. AGW is consensus before proof. What cannot be tolerated is censorship. Tom Bethell points out that Wikipedia has met its own Climategate. Everyone uses Wikipedia to some degree. But all of the technical people I know do not trust it without independent confirmation because of the open forum access to edit articles. In the best case, this editing is improvement. In the worst case, and definitely in the case of AGW, it is censorship of the worst kind. To paraphrase Crichton, censored science is not science. ["missing links" - Sorry, I couldn't resist.] In short, AGW is not good science. It may be, someday. We'd better not bet the farm on it. - kyengineer Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:47:46 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14581 I just had a couple of messages sent to my home email that are not being posted here, because as I understand it, if you have too many links it is screened out. I don't know if it is moderated or not. But I wanted to respond to the one referring to Crichton - whose I don't know, because this system apparently doesn't manage to include names (sigh). With all due respect to the late Michael Crichton, he is a far better polemicist than a scientist, and his theme throughout his career has been (contrary to what he would have you believe in his speech) anti-science and anti-technology. Fundamentally, his view can be summed up as "there are things man was not meant to know" combined with "when we try to meddle with them, we can only produce disaster." It goes right back to [i]The Andromeda Strain[/i]. Appropriate caution is one thing; criticizing science as a profession is another. Especially when you confuse a thriller novel designed to tell a story with reality. His book on global warming, [i]State of Fear[/i], was every inch a political book, cherry-picking data with full knowledge that he was slanting the information, and getting some things ridiculously wrong. How do I know? Because he consulted with the scientists at RealClimate.org, and he specifically used concepts and data they explained were suspect (besides making some serious boners). You can use false premises as fiction, certainly, but [i]that's not how the book was marketed[/i], and indeed Crichton even spoke to Congress about global warming. Why? He had no real credentials; he had just done enough research for verisimilitude. He was in fact invited by an anti-AGW Congressman - no doubt because he was a famous AGW critic with a veneer of science. What was that about politicization of science? If he had any integrity, he wouldn't have appeared, but recommended some real researchers. He knew many on both sides of the debate, after all! The folks at RealClimate have an extensive, detailed and footnoted criticism (actually two) of [i]State of Fear[/i]. You can go there and search for his name; they have a page of links, too. Whether or not AGW is debatable, Crichton is not. He was selling his own political point, adroitly using the media he has long-since mastered (remember, he's a bestseller who has worked extensively with movies and TV very successfully) to try and make everyone researching AGW look like political schemers. Neat trick. Don't get me wrong - I love many of his books, despite the anti-science thread. But this was sleazy. - stevekelner Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:29:31 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14579 I predict the attempt to form a "Climate Protection Agency" or CPA. The EPA will have a cow. Now, THAT I'd like to see. - kyengineer Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:05:35 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14575 "Read what I am writing instead of just skimming it." Insulting me won't help you. "I want to avoid a fear escalation process that juices people into acting as though it were true! It is that fear, the fear of the mob, which is well-founded in my opinion." 1) AGW may be true, the evidence points to it being true. 2) You're right, you're expressing an opinion. - davewyman Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:33:12 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14574 stevekelner: lovely, wonderful suggestions, all! - NicoleTedesco Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:48:43 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14573 Then let's talk about a reasonable array of actions. Speaking in the abstract leads us to say things like "let's not panic" and "let's do something," neither of which are helpful. I, too, am a business person working in talent management, so am accustomed to the kind of thinking VCs do, but as a psychologist and researcher may be more accustomed to fuzzy and hard-to-manage data! I think we would agree that unless we see urgent need, we shouldn't devote all our resources to one thing, but that's a very unlikely scenario in any case. Even if we are in crisis, we might do things like pumping carbon into the upper atmosphere AND shifting heavily to windpower AND dedicating resources to oceanic carbon sequestration...you get the idea. Right now, it seems to me we need to do three things regardless of the likelihood of AGW: 1. Do more research (the scientist's default answer), but also improve the measuring tools. The Bush Administration killed off one of the satellites we needed; we should invest in more things like that, which are relatively minor expenses but produce vastly more data. 2. From the VC/PE perspective, we had a boom-and-bust in solar tech when oil prices went up and down, and this, I think, represents the kind "fear factor" you were thinking of, Nicole. But we should still be helping entrepreneurs who are tackling (1) cleantech, (2) alternative power (both home and industrial use) sources, (3) carbon sequestration, and (4) battery technology at the very least, because even if AGW is a myth, there are practical and business benefits to all the above. Perhaps biotech as well in a couple of realms, including climate-resistant foodstuffs! 3. From the government investment perspective, perhaps we should look into ways to push back against AGW-driving effects in natural ways. The Discovery Channel did an interesting program where they were trying to come up with things like rapid-planting of trees (like dropping seedlings from planes!) for far faster reforestation. Things like that. A relatively small amount of investment in researching what can be done might yield major benefits if we stumble across a silver bullet for a given issue. How's that for a starting place? I'm leaving out the obvious issues around pollution controls and whatnot, because those are already being discussed, and I'd rather focus on more optimistic approaches anyway. - stevekelner Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:45:13 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14568 Read what I am writing instead of just skimming it. I am not saying reality is the straw man that I set up. In fact, I placed that straw man there to make my point: if we act as though that [i]straw man[/i] were real, we are all in for serious trouble! I want to avoid a fear escalation process that juices people into acting as though it were true! It is that fear, the fear of the mob, which is well-founded in my opinion. There exists plenty of human history to support that possibility. Avoiding that is what I am hoping to accomplish in my own way. - NicoleTedesco Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:02:43 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14567 "I have a little bit of a case of logorrhea" No need to minimize your accomplishments along these lines. :D "Assuming anthropogenic global warming is more certain than death or taxes, assuming that we ought to through overwhelming resources at specific potential solutions that must be executed in excruciatingly short periods of time and assuming no cost is too great is a recipe for disaster." Your logorrhea let you take quite a while to construct a straw-man argument. Thinking evidence points toward AGW is not the same as assuming we need to through [sic] "overwhelming resources" in "excruciatingly short periods of time." No one, other than you, I think, assumes that "no cost is too great." - davewyman Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:48:15 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14565 rwpikul, [quote]First of all, you don't have to make a separate comment for each paragraph. One comment covering all the points is enough.[/quote] Sorry for the separate paragraphs. Without the ability to edit I tend to think of certain thoughts in separate chunks that I can pre-edit to some degree. (Also, if you can't tell I have a little bit of a case of logorrhea.) In general, in terms of your claims of potential costs for global warming, [i]I get it[/i]. Thinking more like an actuary and portfolio manager, I also need to have a position or two which balances out the case where we are wrong. I don't mind at all leading a rational sociological charge that will eventually drive markets to place greater value in petroleum alternatives, increased energy efficiency and so on. Gore had me convinced of that long ago regardless of the veracity of global warming claims. As an investor working on a [i]very[/i] large portfolio I am actually [i]banking[/i] on this very thing! Really, I and my investors have everything to gain financially by you being right and much to lose otherwise. For instance my portfolio is significantly weighted in water resources, large scale water management projects and water management products which depend on the global warming scenario you mentioned above being correct. At the same time I would be remiss if I didn't have a smaller position or two that hedges against the possibility that we are mistaken. The big decision I have to make every day in balancing this portfolio is what the weighting vector looks like across these positions. Money is at stake here and so are the livelihoods of my investors, the principles and employees of my portfolio companies and of course myself. For utterly selfish reasons, [i]I get it[/i]. That being said my investors and me have much to lose if the market responds to these technologies, natural resources and massive scale projects for all the wrong reasons. One way this can happen is through a fear cycle which triggers too much investment in these areas too quickly. This can create an unsustainable bubble which would burst in our faces, severely compromising everyone's ability to invest in other very important technologies in other parts of this portfolio such as heart muscle prosthetics or other life-saving technologies, projects and resources. While the costs of [i]not[/i] reacting accordingly to the possible threat of global warming are quite high, these costs are not infinite. Nor is the certainty of these scenarios 100%. Global warming could be real, but not greatly affected by human activity (roughly, medium probability). Global warming could be real and definitely affected by human activity (high probability). Global warming could be anthropogenic in nature but we may no longer be able to do anything to positively affect the trend (medium-low probability). There is also a small possibility that there is no global warming trend. There are many positions in this game, each with its own statistical weight in the total probability vector. Bets must be hedged, precisely because so much is at stake (lives, money, attention, energy). The pace of remediation must be tempered, not just because catastrophic economic bubbles may burst forth at precisely the wrong times but even just for the very human reason that all human activity must be allowed to be scaled in appropriate time frames. Businesses that grow too quickly are exposed to failure almost as sure as companies that grow too slowly. There are so many reasons to avoid fear mongering, precisely because so much is at stake. One way to avoid fear is to understand the spectrum of possibilities before us. Assuming anthropogenic global warming is more certain than death or taxes, assuming that we ought to through overwhelming resources at specific potential solutions that [i]must[/i] be executed in excruciatingly short periods of time and assuming no cost is too great is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps I am spitting in to the wind. Perhaps I am just one member of a small number of mutant humans who have the capacity to think in this way that helps to avoid fear and operate as close to possible to a rational optimal solution set. My academic training is in physics. I have been a professional engineer for 25+ years. I have been a venture capitalist for six. Perhaps in these and in many other ways I do not have anything near a "normal" human life experience, but at least perhaps other can learn from me. Perhaps, on the other hand, I am only dreaming and human beings will run their heads into the wall and make things much worse before they can get better. History tends to run this way. [sigh] - NicoleTedesco Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:08:51 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14563 (Fscking accidental clicks, let's try this again.) @NicoleTedesco First of all, you don't have to make a separate comment for each paragraph. One comment covering all the points is enough. Looking back, I will concede that I misread your comment about volcanoes. It's problem was not that it was wrong, but that it was irrelevant. The current situation is one of volcanic activity being part of a steady-state system, and having no significant impact on atmospheric carbon levels. Besides, our current emission rates outdo even supervolcanoes once you consider that we are producing a constant flow. Now, your position seems to be a mix of the denialist stages of "we can't really control it" and "trying would cost too much", combined with a bit of "it's not really going to be that bad." Let's start with the magnitude of the problem: At +2 degrees, we are talking massive failures in the South and South-East Asian rice crops, (localized failures due to high temperatures are a regular occurrence already). Large reductions in the flow of the Indus river, and current treaties put the impact exclusively on Pakistan even though 5/6 of its water comes from India. Serious impacts on Central American food production, while worsening existing problems in the south-west US, (if you think the illegal immigration problem is bad now...). About the only country that gains is Russia, as Siberia significantly increases its food production capacity, although that becomes an issue when you remember two things about China: China still claims Siberia as being rightly part of its territory and at +2, Chinese food production drops by over 30%, (add that to the size of the Chinese population and see what comes out the other end). Global warming is not a curiosity, it's not an inconvenience, it's a serious problem with the real potential to trigger not one, but two wars between nuclear armed states even with an increase considered 'acceptable'. At +3, even assuming that there is no runaway, (which would take a miracle, at that would make the oceans a CO2 source), you are looking at things like a massive pile of bodies along the US-Mexico border and all of Africa aflame with water wars, (when given the choice of fighting or starving, human societies have always chosen to fight). If a runaway occurs, well, the last time the Earth reached +15 every mammal larger than a rat went extinct. I've already pointed out what the cost would be like, and it's not the apocalypse that the oil and coal interests would have you believe. Sure, those that rely on digging carbon out of the ground and pumping it into the air are going to hurt, but the smart ones will simply shift what they are doing, (it's not like they have to stop overnight). Heck, most of the skills and resources needed to build and run large-scale biomass sourced Fischer-Tropsch plants are the same as needed to build and run oil refineries. Moreover, the sooner we do things, the less the cost. This is because earlier action can be more gentle. For instance, instead of having to replace all the fossil fuel power plants in a few years, starting early lets you replace them one at at time because each one you replace slows the impact and gains you a slightly later deadline. As for "we might already be beyond the tipping point and stopping it would be impossible." Is that possibility actually a reason not to try? If we are beyond the tipping point for global warming, then we are screwed no matter what we do. If we are not, then we can still prevent it. - rwpikul Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:26:31 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14561 @NicoleTedesco First of all, you don't have to make a separate comment for each paragraph - rwpikul Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:03:27 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html#comment-14555 Nicole, I think you area indeed making yourself more clear and I don't find your latest comments to contradict current scientific knowledge or common sense. - davewyman Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:02:33 +0100