A new look on global warming

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Rally, I (think I) got your point, I merely failed to express myself clearly. Everyone can agree that reducing pollution is good, no doubt. However, as there are wildly divergent views on the dangers posed by pollution there are similarly divergent views on what sort of resources might reasonably be allocated to reducing it.

To pick two absurd extremes, someone who thinks that pollution is merely cosmetic probably won't be in favor of reductions that have any negative impact whatsoever, while someone who thinks pollution will make the Earth explode would probably be okay with literally destroying the economy if it meant eliminating pollution.

The fact that it uses a statistical outlier as its reference point.

 

And on this I was referring to 'paralysis by analysis', as successfully exercised by lobbyists who always call for the next study because this one is, you know, full of holes that would sink the Bismarck, and as such a weak basis to infringe on free enterprise. I am referring to the devils advocates paid to kill regulation - lobbyists and the pet scientists they keep to exclusively work in the field of climate scepticism.

 

That's my point exactly, Ragusa! Without being an environmental scientist, but having had worked in large-scale industrial facilities, I strongly believe that there are many, many changes that can be made to manufacturing processes to lessen their environmental impact without huge investments in time and money. Those are getting lost as the wheels of industry spin in the muck of their own making.

 

If it were only that simple Rally. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude is to eliminate the "big ticket items" which tend to cost A LOT of money. The use of incentives and education goes a long way and is less expensive than regulation and enforcement.

I have never been against doing things to help the environment. I have problems with the alarmist attitude of the global warming zeolots who condemn those asking questions rather than answering. It's as if a new religion of Climatologism has been formed and to question the precepts of the Holy Elite means blasphamy. What a crock.

 

T2, I know that the truly "big ticket" items are still being debated hotly, both because of questions about the scientific validity AND because of the expense involved. What sticks in my craw is that the vast majority of debate-energy being applied to this issue is focussed on that top-down approach that has yet to be defined, while the bottom-up approach is minimally funded even though, as you say, it's been shown to work.

 

Amen to that. Science experts have been shovelling this stuff for years. One of the most prominent examples is David Suzuki here in Canada. He's been forecasting doom since the 1970s! While he is a skilled scientist and an excellent presenter, his prophecies in the name of science have not come to pass any more than those who believed the world would come to an end in the year 2000.

Now, I'm all for green policies that work. Polices that totally screw up the lives of thousands of people so a bunch of extremists can pat each other on the backs are what bother me. There needs to be a logical common ground that addresses the real problems without dogmatically trying to brand industries as the "witches causing all this here weather fluctuation!"

 

Ragusa, Rally, T2Bruno, I know exactly what you mean and I have a perfect example of exactly that going on right here in Virginia. As some of you may know and others may not, the Chesapeake bay is in terrible shape. We've been pumping so much organic waste (not exactly toxic, but you'll see) into it that it causes massive algae blooms which then die off and use up all the oxygen in the water as they decay. This is exactly the same kind of 'dead zone' that you may have heard of in the Gulf of Mexico, with the exact same cause: man-made organic waste, such as sewage, fertalizer run-off, and dozens more sources. Now, we've dealt with the big, centralized ones (sewage treatment plants) pretty well, but there are so many little ones (mainly farms) that they still cause a problem. What do the politicians do? Spend $12 million we have to address the vast majority of the farms in Virginia? No, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars beating on the treatment plants that are today causing virtually no impact whatsoever. If every treatment plant in the entire Chesapeake Bay tributary (Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and all the way up to parts of Pensylvania) shut down, it would cause almost no difference whatsoever.

Now if you want them to put a $500 filter that has to be changed every 10 years on some kind of industrial complex, or switch to a slightly more expensive production process, that's fine with me. When you try to put a $0.50 tax on every gallon of gas, I have a problem. When advocacy groups are so loud that the Supreme Court second guesses the EPA and orders them to 'assess the impact of CO2 emissions on human health and safety and begin to regulate said emissions', I have a problem.

AMaster:
Please support that claim. The last time I heard a similar claim being supported to attack a climate change graph was the so-called 'Hockey-stick' graph which, thankfully, quickly disappeared.

Also, to all, it may be interesting to look into some of the arctic and antarctic ice core studies that have been going on for the last few years. It turns out they do show a relationship between climate change and CO2 in the atmosphere, only it's the reverse of what's currently theorized. The changes in CO2 levels actually FOLLOW the climate changes by about 800 years. Any scientific criticism of this research would be interesting.

 

I supported the claim with the first link I posted.

As for the icecores, start here. They don't show a relationship that's the reverse of what's been theorized

 

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjJmZDYxZThlMzNmNzYzZmIzMGExNWY0Mzg1MGRiZTY


Thursday, March 27, 2008



Must-Read Global-Warming Book [Sterling Burnett]


About a year ago, Canadian environmentalist and journalist Lawrence Solomon began a series of articles in the National Post examining the credentials of and arguments made by scientists and economists labeled “deniers” by various environmentalists, a number of mainstream environmental reporters, and some politicians. Solomon, true to the finest tenets of his profession, sought the truth concerning whether there was in fact a consensus on the headline-grabbing issue of global warming, or whether in fact any “real” scientists actually dissented from the Al Gore/UN line that global warming is happening, is largely caused by humans, and threatens all manner of catastrophies.

As many people — policy wonks and fellow travelers — on this blog are well aware, dissenting scientists are not in fact rare: There are serious scholars whose views should, but too often do not, inform the debate. Solomon’s columns were important because they brought this message to a wider audience. As Solomon’s knowledge grew, he found that the genre limits of newspaper writing precluded an adequately in-depth exploration of these skeptical scientists’ important observations. Accordingly, selecting some of the scientists discussed in his columns, Solomon has written a book: The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**and those who are too fearful to do so. As a jacket blurb puts it, “What he found shocked him. Solomon discovered that on every “headline” global warming issue, not only were there serious scientists who dissented, consistently the dissenters were by far the more accomplished and eminent scientists.”

This book does not attempt to settle the science, or show that humans are or are not responsible for the present warming trend, or settle what we can expect the future harms/benefits of continued warming (or cooling) might be. Rather, the genius of the book is that it shows in a manner accessible to a lay audience that uncertainties concerning each important facet of the “consensus” view on warming abound, and that the dissenting views are at least as plausible (and often more compelling) than the IPCC/Gore camps.



The Deniers, examines what should be the active debates concerning the plausibility of the argument that human CO2 emissions (or CO2 per se) is a driver for climate change, what role the sun may play in warming, what role the present warming trend (and human activities) play in hurricane and tropical/parasitic disease patterns, and the reliability of the climate models, among other issues. In addition, Solomon notes the harsh treatment that many scientists have endured simply because they followed the scientific method, the evidence from their research, and their own consciences, all of which led them to the conclusion that this or that facet of the global-warming consensus view was woefully incomplete or flat-out wrong. This treatment has had the effect intended by global warming scaremongers — to shut down promising areas of research and to silence credible critics. As I put it in an earlier column:

The term skeptic has historically been a badge of honor proudly worn by scientists as indicating their commitment to the idea that in the pursuit of truth, nothing is beyond question, every bit of knowledge is open to improvement and/or refutation as new evidence or better theories emerge. However, in the topsy-turvy field of climate science, “skeptic” is a term of opprobrium and to be labeled a skeptic is to be dismissed as a hack. Being a skeptic concerning global warming today is akin to being a heretic in the Middle Ages — you may not be literally burned at the stake, but your reputation will be put to flames.

In response, many scientists whose research calls into question one or more of the fundamental tenets of global warming orthodoxy, have learned to couch their conclusions carefully. They argue, for instance, that while their research does not match up with this or that point in global warming theory, or would seem to undermine this or that conclusion, they are not denying that humans are causing global warming and they cannot account for the discrepancy between their work and the theory’s predictions. These scientists have learned the hard lesson that when reality and the theory conflict, for professional reasons, they’d better cling to the theory: shades of Galileo recanting his theory that the earth revolves around the sun under pressure from the Inquisition.
Though there are many good books on global warming, The Deniers is among the most effective in showing how science is being fundamentally undermined in the current politicized atmosphere of climate research. In addition, like no other book or paper I know, it provides a concise but thorough overview of the myriad weaknesses of the consensus view, the quality and substance of the criticisms of that view, and the stellar qualifications of those scientists labeled derisively as “deniers.”

This book should be read by anyone who seriously wants to understand where and why substantive debate remains concerning climate change and why there is so much vitriol surrounding what until recently was a relatively quiet, unheralded, or unnoticed (except by its practitioners) field of science. If a person could read only one book this year on climate change, this is the one I’d pick.

 

I wish people here would do research on global warming / climate change themselves instead of doing research on the researchers. I doubt that there is even one of you who is a scientist working in this field.

Throwing links about this and that paper, this has become such a contrite argument.

I did my fair share of this kind research as well and realised that so many people have so many different opinions and are not willing to listen to what other people have to say. It indeed has almost involved into a religion.

I bet they are pretty irked at scientologists right now, because that would have been a great name!

Oh my science! Sciencedamnit!

 

Well, the "sceptics" seems to be a bunch of people paid and supported by our dear friends the oil industry. I dont know about you guys but they dont really strike me as very reliable when it comes to an issue about cutting down the use of their products. Sadly they have succeeded and instead of talking about what needs to be done they have managed to convince people that there is no problem and if there is one there is nothing we can do so we should just continue to do what we have always done. They have "swiftboated" the entire issue.

 

Oh, you were so close to hitting the triple crown of global warming. You had "oil industry" and "swifboating", but you missed "Fox News". Better luck next time.

 

If the shoe fits why change it? There is a reason clichés reach their venerable state.

As Tal said, in the rest of the world this issue has been treated like a scientific one which means the scientists told the politicians that something bad was going on and we really should try and do something about it and the problem doesnt care where on the political scale you are. In the US however the scientists told the politicians the same thing, then politicians told the scientists that they were wrong and then the politicians dug up their own scientists to back up their politically motivated stance. Now the issue is political in the US and sadly they are managing to spread it to the rest of the world. Right-wing pundits here in Sweden for example have started to adapt the position of their American brethren . So yes, this issue has totally been "swiftboated".

 

Oh, yes, because the IPCC was so overwhelmingly scientific, and not really political at all.

Joacquin, the reason this cliche is so venerable seems to be because a lie can get across the world before the truth even gets out the door.

 

I think the words Pratchett used was "before the truth gets his booths on"

Ponder this then, what political reason would there be to claim global warming is real if it is not? Whose interest would it server? I can't come up with anyone. If you turn the issue around, is there any interest that is threathened by people doing anything about global warming? Who benefits from casting doubt on global warming and in contrast who benefits from supporting it?

I have not made any extensive research, I have seen some documentaries that was interesting, apparently one of the top anti-global warming "scientist" was also one of the top "smoking does not lead to cancer" scientists but all that is beside the point. Cue buono(sp?), who benefits? That simple question is really all I need to base my opinion. Who benefits from claiming global warming is real if it isn't? In my mind, no one. Who benefits from saying that it isnt real even if it is? Massive financial interests.

 

Yes, the debate is largely political now. Everyone of a different poltical persuasion is going to have his/her very own "must read" book or link to politically burden those others with, who hold a different point of view - The National Review will have theirs; the same goes for the New Republic. And all the hacks, political operatives and minions will continue their ranting, hoping to "muddy the waters," which is the classic approach of "Swift Boating." The "real" science and research no longer matters - only the politics.