[Zelandakh]

You really did not want to go and do that AI. I avoided posting specifics for a reason; now you are going to get a whole ton of #4s in response.

[onoway]

"Mama always said, 'be careful what you say'" Can we put what constitutes trolling on another thread please?

[Daniel1960]

onoway, on 2013-June-28, 06:33, said:

"Mama always said, 'be careful what you say'" Can we put what constitutes trolling on another thread please?

I am in favor. While there are some here who feel that one or more posters fit the bill posted earlier, I believe that everyone here is here because they are genuinely interested in the climate change debate. Just because someone does not share ones own views, that does not constitute labelled them a "troll." Personal attacks are the last vestige of someone who can no longer formulate a valid argument and support it with sound evidence. It should be avoided.

[Al_U_Card]

Daniel1960, on 2013-June-28, 07:01, said:

I am in favor. While there are some here who feel that one or more posters fit the bill posted earlier, I believe that everyone here is here because they are genuinely interested in the climate change debate. Just because someone does not share ones own views, that does not constitute labelled them a "troll." Personal attacks are the last vestige of someone who can no longer formulate a valid argument and support it with sound evidence. It should be avoided.

Ditto...in spades.

He who introduces a subject retains responsibility for its presence.

[Al_U_Card]

So, back to the actual situation:

There have been big melts and smaller melts but ocean currents (warmth AND direction) do account for large parts of the arctic sea-ice melt. I am sure that the death-spiral will continue due to all that heat sequestered in the deep ocean...



The ERA40 reanalysis data, has been applied to calculation of daily climate values that are plotted along with the daily analysis values in all plots. The data used to determine climate values is the full ERA40 data set, from 1958 to 2002.

[Winstonm]

(ephasis added)

Daniel1960, on 2013-June-28, 07:01, said:

I am in favor. While there are some here who feel that one or more posters fit the bill posted earlier, I believe that everyone here is here because they are genuinely interested in the climate change debate. Just because someone does not share ones own views, that does not constitute labelled them a "troll." Personal attacks are the last vestige of someone who can no longer formulate a valid argument and support it with sound evidence. It should be avoided.

Before there could be interest in "the climate change debate", there would first need to be such a debate. Where are the peer-reviewed published papers that disavow AGW? The last I heard, of 1194 scientists who have published in peer-reviewed journals and responded when asked directly, only 39 discounted human activity as the cause of warming.

The only debate occurring is outside the peer-review scientific process, which means it can easily be motivated by politics, ideology, or profits. (See Merchants of Doubt, Oreskes and Conway, 2010, Bloomsbury Press, NY,NY) Doubt is a creation of those opposed to governmental regulation.

Quote

As one tobacco executive put it in 1969, “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public.”

[hrothgar]

Daniel1960, on 2013-June-28, 07:01, said:

Personal attacks are the last vestige of someone who can no longer formulate a valid argument and support it with sound evidence.

That may well be true, but for the rest of us, personal attacks are convenient shorthand.

Al has openly stated that he is justified in posting incorrect information and outright lies in climate change threads.
He repeated posts "content" is easily proven false.
He never admits to the fact that the overwhelming majority of his his posts are crap.
He merely spews another cloud of ***** and wanders off again...

Please explain why this type of behavior deserves anything other than insults?
Why should anyone treat him with respect...

[Daniel1960]

hrothgar, on 2013-June-28, 14:25, said:

That may well be true, but for the rest of us, personal attacks are convenient shorthand.

Al has openly stated that he is justified in posting incorrect information and outright lies in climate change threads.
He repeated posts "content" is easily proven false.
He never admits to the fact that the overwhelming majority of his his posts are crap.
He merely spews another cloud of ***** and wanders off again...

Please explain why this type of behavior deserves anything other than insults?
Why should anyone treat him with respect...

I do not condone anyone posting outright lies or knowingly posting incorrect information. That said, are you judging his posts, or his he actually admitting that? I have seen multiple posters link to websites that are admittedly strongly in favor or opposed to the AGW theory. I find neither of these sites to be accurate, but highly biased in their own direction. Unfortunately, most internet sites belong to one or the other of these groups. When discussing climate with scientists, most people find that they belong to neither. Scientists acknowledge a wide range of climate change possibilities, but most fall within the claims of these two groups; i.e. that rising CO2 will cause no temperature change, and that it will cause 2C temperature rise by 2100. Another poster claims there is no climate change debate. Apparently, he has not been following recent scientific events - not including the Cook and Lu papers, which seem to belong to the two extremes mentioned earlier.

[Winstonm]

Source material

Quote

The objective of our study presented here is to assess the scientific consensus on climate change through an unbiased survey of a large and broad group of Earth scientists. An invitation to participate in the survey was sent to 10,257 Earth scientists. The database was built from Keane and Martinez [2007], which lists all geosciences faculty at reporting academic institutions, along with researchers at state geologic surveys associated with local universities, and researchers at U.S. federal research facilities (e.g., U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, and NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) facilities; U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories; and so forth)

Quote

Results show that overall, 90% of participants answered “risen” to question 1
and 82% answered yes to question 2.

I simply cannot find any papers that can objectively document a large camp of doubters - I can find papers that refute the claims that doubt is prevalent.


Edit: To be fair here is a list of scientists opposed to AGW.

Quote

As of August 2012 less than 10 of the statements in the references for this list are part of the peer-reviewed scientific literature. The rest are statements from other sources such as interviews, opinion pieces, online essays and presentations

[Winstonm]

It is hard to grasp how some can claim there is still debate about AGW when the scientific community has stopped questioning the if of AGW and moved on to AGW effects .

Quote

Manmade global warming was likely a significant contributing factor in Australia’s “Angry Summer” of 2012-2013, according to a new study....They found that the record hot summer of 2012 was unlikely to be due to natural factors alone....

Quote

“The human contribution to the increased odds of Australian summer extremes like (2012-) 2013 was substantial, while natural climate variations alone . . . are unlikely to explain the record temperature,” the study said.

The report found that natural factors actually favored a slightly cooler-than-average summer in 2012, since ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean were slightly cooler than average.

[FM75]

Thread drift anyone?

The topic was "Climate change a different take on what to do about it"
Climate change and what to do about it... Not sure why the paste above was lost.


It seems this thread is debating the concept for some 60+ pages - not discussing "what to do about it?"

Is that because nobody is willing to offer substantive, concrete ideas? Ideas that could be "priced" and tested as to their ability to make a change? Because most would rather parrot their believes and quote the like-minded, rather than display their own creative solutions and subject them to critical analysis?

Or is it just a lack of focus?

This Winstonm guy seems to want to debate who the believers are and whether they are a majority. Or whether the "scientist believers" are a majority. Would he have been in the camp calling Einstein a whack job when he suggested Special Relativity 110 years ago - when nobody believed it, or General Relativity a few years later. Yeah - science is not political. You don't vote on it. This fact seems lost on most non-scientists.

Here you go ----
Obama wants to abandon coal. It seems that natural gas is cleaner by about 50%... So what piece of our current electricity mix is contributing about 20% of total generation, kicks natural gas's butt by over an order or magnitude. Hint it could replace coal in about 2 decades eliminate fossil fuel in another decade - proven generation 365x24x7 with 50 plus years of history. Wait! Did I forget to mention that its GHG reduction, by replacing coal and methane, would reduce emissions by about a factor of 50. Did I forget to mention that the implementation of the engineering - which began in the early 60's - could be commoditized now, where then there were still significant scientific questions and it was still possible with 50 year old engineering and materials science?

For you farmer and food fans - it also does not take food out of the mouths of folks hoping to eat. (That could be a minus, of course - but that is a story for another lifeboat.)

This post has been edited by FM75: 2013-June-29, 21:37

[chasetb]

Note, this first paragraph is meant sarcastically, though the coal powered plants, the Prius bit, and the cows bit is true. If you wanted to stop Global Warming, first you would have to get China and India to STOP BUILDING COAL PLANTS. Next, remove all inefficient cars from the road, put out more 'efficient cars' that save on gas, but in the process of building them do lots more harm to the environment, like the Toyota Prius. Also make everyone carpool. Convert everything to solar power, wind power, etc. While we are at it, force everyone to go vegetarian, because cows produce A LOT of methane. And if we are going that far, make everyone live right next to where they work, kill off all non-human animals, sterilize people, and then just kill off the entire human race. Problem solved!

The truth is, China and India are producing a great deal of the greenhouse gases, are producing even more and more every day, and have no plans to stop. That's the only way to make a difference in this fight against global warming, and the data does support that. President Obama trying to end coal is the stupidest thing one of a list of really stupid things he has done. "Hey everyone, let's all get rid of a bunch of jobs, make it far more expensive for people to buy electricity, limit the amount of energy we have, give money to foreign countries, and basically stifle our economy!" Yep Barack, that makes perfect sense. Instead of working on current technology to improve the countering of GG, we limit ourselves. I say, don't worry about it. Fire up them coal plants, build some nuclear power plants, and stop supporting dangerous countries with our money!

I do have two valid ideas on how you can . IF you want to start, carpooling is a great idea, and being able to harness solar power is also great (though Democrats out West say solar cells destroys the desert, because of all that life out there). Also, silencing/getting rid of Al Gore, Michael Moore, and Winston M would be great. All of that smug they put out has to be destroying the ozone layer, it it hasn't already vanished.

[Winstonm]

In order for a market based solution to occur, there must be incentive for R&D. Since the 1990s, the emphasis of CEOs has been to reduce R&D in order to show more profit in order to match or beat expectations of Wall Street. In the case of climate change, waiting until it is obvious to markets that something has to change will not work as by the time it is obvious to all that we are in trouble it will be much too late. The only way to alter behavior now is with the power of government. A carbon tax will not be self-imposed by industry - it will take collective action (aka, government action, aka, regulation) to effect change.

Hence, the battle over AGW. It really has nothing to do with science - it is an ideological conflict.

I am in favor as a stop gap measure of converting to natural gas. Long term, nuclear needs to replace coal burning, IMO.

PS to chasetb: Silencing or "getting rid of" Al Gore, Michael Moore, and Winston Munn? Really? Besides the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments, what other basic American values do you abhore?

[FM75]

Winstonm, on 2013-June-30, 07:44, said:

... Since the 1990s, the emphasis of CEOs has been to reduce R&D in order to show more profit in order to match or beat expectations of Wall Street. ...

Making stuff up is a poor way to solve problems (but an effective way to show the bias in your thinking.)

http://www.uwyo.edu/...rd_spending.pdf
"We also find no evidence of managerial myopia as corporate aggregate R&D expenditures are growing faster than
aggregate profitability and the number of firms that undertake R&D has increased over the period
from 1976-2010. "

http://www.aps.org/p...02/research.cfm
HOW R&D SPENDING COMPARES TO GDP:

• 2.79%: R&D as a share of the 1999 GDP, the highest percentage since 1967
• 2.67%: R&D as a share of the 1998 GDP
• 2.61%: R&D as a share of the 1997 GDP
• 2.87%: Highest R&D/GDP ratio in US history, in 1953

Use facts, research and mathematics to arrive at a prospective proposal.
How much more efficient are natural gas plants than coal? How much do they cost to build. How fast can they be built? How much infrastructure needs to be built to deliver the gas? How much capacity needs to be added?

Why do it instead of nuclear first? How much more efficient is nuclear than coal, natural gas, or yes even than solar voltaic with respect to GHG emissions?

https://en.wikipedia...nergy_generated
With the exception of hydro-electric, nuclear is the lowest continuous generation source we know. Solar PV generates nearly 3 times as much GHG in CO2 equivalents as generation II nuclear reactors. 16 versus 46.

[Winstonm]

IMO, intensity is a better gauge of corporate r&d interest. This article from The Economist explains how it is an error to look at simply gross numbers to understand how R&D has changed.

(emphasis added)

Quote

On the surface, American innovation has never been stronger. American firms spend around $200 billion on R&D annually, much of it on computing and communications. Microsoft, for example, spent around $6.6 billion last year; IBM and Intel about $6 billion each; and Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard (HP) around $4 billion each. Most of this money went into making small incremental improvements and getting new ideas to market fast.

....Only a few years ago researchers were judged on the basis of patents and papers, but today they roll up their shirtsleeves and work alongside the company's consultants, explains Douglas Dykeman, one of the laboratory's managers.

I concede I should have distinguished long term research and development, but the argument is still germane that ceos are more interested in quick turnaround profits than long term innovation.

[onoway]

Quote

The truth is, China and India are producing a great deal of the greenhouse gases, are producing even more and more every day, and have no plans to stop. That's the only way to make a difference in this fight against global warming, and the data does support that.

Sorry, not the whole story and it makes no sense to point fingers and imply what someone else is doing is worse than what we do so we shouldn't be bothered changing what we do. We are all in this together after all. What happens in other countries is often a direct result of the activities of purely business interests (not always internal to India or China) or political agendas and neither operates in a vacuum. The data is not complete if it doesn't include such things.

Especially when it has been shown by meticulous data that climate is directly affected by the tree cover among other things

Fwiw,China is supposedly actively looking at liquid thorium reactors as a way to get away from coal. They also spent a whack of money (along with the World Bank) to restore the Loess Plateau, a desertified and heavilly eroded area of some 640,000 acres to fertility and productivity.

Quote

Instead of working on current technology to improve the countering of GG, we limit ourselves. I say, don't worry about it. Fire up them coal plants, build some nuclear power plants, and stop supporting dangerous countries with our money!

Depends on what sort of nuclear power plants you're talking about. Aside from Mike's link (which led to the information about China's interest and R & D in that area) I've seen little mention of liquid thorium reactors and if you're talking about more Candu and their ilk, I don't think those are in any way the answer.

Quote

I do have two valid ideas on how you can . IF you want to start, carpooling is a great idea, and being able to harness solar power is also great

nice if you live somewhere like Florida or southern California, a bit more problematical if you happen to live somewhere with 6 months of short, shorter or no daylight days and frequent snowstorms. Of course California and Arizona may soon be experiencing severe water shortages as a side effect of how we treat the earth so moving everyone there to take advantage of solar energy may not be the answer either.

One thing which would make a difference would be the unnecessary transport of food massive distances for political reasons or because financially businesses can take advantage of subsidies. We export apples to the US but then buy apples from the US or import them from New Zealand or Africa. It has always boggled my mind that we export beef yet still import products made from beef..and sometimes even beef itself. How is it possible that we can import lamb from Australia on the other side of the world, cheaper than we can produce it here? As a result of trade agreements we may soon be importing eggs from China. Absurd, bizarre, stupid beyond belief. There's all sorts of stuff out of whack, it isn't a simple thing.

[Al_U_Card]

FM75, on 2013-June-29, 21:35, said:

Thread drift anyone?

The topic was "Climate change a different take on what to do about it"
It seems this thread is debating the concept for some 60+ pages - not discussing "what to do about it?"

Is that because nobody is willing to offer substantive, concrete ideas?

Or is it just a lack of focus?

Perhaps nothing needs be done? (For anthropogenic warming.)

Seems that the peer-review has backtracked from the "unprecedented" modern rise of temperatures to something that looks a bit more....uhhhh.....precedented?



This is basically what has been argued for the last five years or so. Those "one-tree" effects were bogus and now it is finally being admitted by the authors as such. Since we know from the satellite record that global temps have been flat for almost 2 decades, where is the temperature/[CO2] effect that would lead us to need to do something....or anything?

[Al_U_Card]

Some more perspective from those "suggestions" that the hockey-stick was highly dependent on one tree. So, it looks like the CRU "team" are agreeing with the sceptics...

[billw55]

FM75, on 2013-June-29, 21:35, said:

Thread drift anyone?

The topic was "Climate change a different take on what to do about it"
Climate change and what to do about it... Not sure why the paste above was lost.


It seems this thread is debating the concept for some 60+ pages - not discussing "what to do about it?"

Is that because nobody is willing to offer substantive, concrete ideas? Ideas that could be "priced" and tested as to their ability to make a change? Because most would rather parrot their believes and quote the like-minded, rather than display their own creative solutions and subject them to critical analysis?

Or is it just a lack of focus?

This Winstonm guy seems to want to debate who the believers are and whether they are a majority. Or whether the "scientist believers" are a majority. Would he have been in the camp calling Einstein a whack job when he suggested Special Relativity 110 years ago - when nobody believed it, or General Relativity a few years later. Yeah - science is not political. You don't vote on it. This fact seems lost on most non-scientists.

Here you go ----
Obama wants to abandon coal. It seems that natural gas is cleaner by about 50%... So what piece of our current electricity mix is contributing about 20% of total generation, kicks natural gas's butt by over an order or magnitude. Hint it could replace coal in about 2 decades eliminate fossil fuel in another decade - proven generation 365x24x7 with 50 plus years of history. Wait! Did I forget to mention that its GHG reduction, by replacing coal and methane, would reduce emissions by about a factor of 50. Did I forget to mention that the implementation of the engineering - which began in the early 60's - could be commoditized now, where then there were still significant scientific questions and it was still possible with 50 year old engineering and materials science?

For you farmer and food fans - it also does not take food out of the mouths of folks hoping to eat. (That could be a minus, of course - but that is a story for another lifeboat.)

I also support nuclear as I have stated previously.

In other news of responses, New York City published a decades-long adaptation plan. Another response I approve of.

[Daniel1960]

Winstonm, on 2013-June-29, 14:43, said:

Source material





I simply cannot find any papers that can objectively document a large camp of doubters - I can find papers that refute the claims that doubt is prevalent.


Edit: To be fair here is a list of scientists opposed to AGW.

Based on your source, 82% indicated that "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperature." By my calculations, that leaves 18% which do not. The debate is not whether humans have contributed to changing temperatures, but to what degree is this occurring. Since 1880, global temperatures have risen 0.8C (0.6C/century), and atmospheric CO2 levels have risen 36% (from 291 to 396 ppm). At the current rate of increase, CO2 will rise another 36% sometime in the 2090s. If the temperature rise was solely due to the CO2 increase, then we could expect another 0.8C temperature rise by then. Many scientists feel that other factors have contributed significantly to the observed temperature rise, and that a continued CO2 rise will result in a much lower temperature rise. Of course, there are those who feel that temperatures should have risen more than the observed 0.8C, and that a contined CO2 increase will lead to a much higher temperature rise. No survey has tried to measure these numbers, but those that believe that temperatures will accelerate are probably less than the 18% mentioned earlier. Many scientists feel that the 0.6C/century is a better indicator, as it incorporates all the factors influencing the temperature rise since 1880. Should this rate continue, we can expect another 0.5C temperature increase by 2100. There is another group that feels that the factors that contributed to the 20th century temperature rise will not continue through the 21st century. Should this occur, then the temperature rise will be even lower. There are even those who feel that natural factors contributed more than 50% to the observed temperature rise, and that they will be a negative contributor through 2100, resulting in a lower temperature than today. This is the climate change debate.