Copenhagen Countdown: 45 days
I don't think it's just my imagination; diplomatic moves and announcements and challenges on climate change really are coming thicker and faster now than at any time since it first became an issue of political note 20 years ago.
And no wonder, with the start of the UN climate summit just 45 days away, and various roads to Copenhagen taking routes through all kinds of capital cities and all kinds of fora.
So I thought it would be worth taking a little time at the end of each week as the potentially seminal UN summit approaches to take stock of what's happened and ponder where it might all lead.
What caught the imagination of many commentators this week were comments from UN climate convention executive secretary Yvo de Boer, to the effect that it is now "unrealistic" to expect a full treaty to be negotiated and agreed this year.
"A fully fledged new international treaty... I do not think that is going to happen," he told the Financial Times newspaper.
As he is constantly up close and personal with the main negotiators, Mr de Boer is just about as informed an observer as you can get.
But it's difficult to see why his comments have caused so much consternation among environment groups and political commentators given that government officials and informed observers have been saying the same thing privately (and sometimes publically) for months.
UK Climate Secretary Ed Miliband, speaking just before the Major Economies Forum (MEF) meeting that took place in London on Sunday and Monday, admitted as much.
But he believes something important can still be achieved if it includes three basic elements: numerical mitigation targets for developed nations, agreement (including on figures) on financial support for developing countries, and agreed expressions of "ambition" from the richer developing countries on how they are prepared to curb rising emissions.
For Mr de Boer, the essentials include targets for the rich, defined ambition for the developing world, and a firm timetable for tying up all the loose ends.
As he is also on record as emphasising the necessity of agreement on finances, the hymn-sheets are not demonstrably different.
The framework of a deal is achievable, they are really saying; but not every detail.
Although privately environmental groups might acknowledge that not everything can be done in time for Copenhagen, they're still bound to keep the pressure and expectations as high as they can - which is why WWF's Kim Carstensen condemned talk of not being able to reach a deal as "puzzling outbreak of diplomatic pussyfooting".
From both sides of the wealth divide came calls this week for more ambitious - and binding - proposals on finance for adaptation - money paid by the West to developing countries to help protect their economies and societies against climate impacts.
Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's environment minister and designated chair of the Copenhagen summit, urged the US, Japan and other developed countries to put some serious coin on the table.
And Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga said adaptation money up front was a precondition for his country moving away from fossil fuels.
"We are prepared to forego the dirty way... but to do that we need assistance," he said.
The sting in the tail for Ms Hedegaard is that the EU has yet to agree what it is bringing to the table.
The European Commission has proposed allocating $2-15bn per year from the public purse; but EU finance ministers declined to endorse that at their council meeting this week.
Given the level of EU rhetoric on the subject, some observers contend it's a disgrace that the bloc has not yet decided what it's prepared to offer on this issue - and they believe it's something that could hold up a Copenhagen deal.
Two years ago, the bloc not in favour of a new global climate treaty was unequivocally led by George W Bush's US and John Howard's Australia.
Two elections later, they've both changed tack; but Canada, under Stephen Harper, is emerging as a country that while not explicitly a "Copenhagen-sceptic", is at least making cautionary noises about the desirability of a strong new treaty.
Canadian newspapers this week were quoting Environment Minister Jim Prentice as suggesting the country needed gentler targets than Europe, for example, because of its growing population and energy-intensive economy.
There is also clearly a view that the Alberta tar-sands operation ought to be allowed leeway to progress - something that green groups regard with the same affection that anti-fascist groups retain for Nick Griffin.
Mr Prentice is also quoted as saying that Canada won't finalise its carbon-cutting plans until the US situation becomes clear.
And how soon will that be?
John Kerry, co-sponsor of the climate bill that recently entered the US Senate, said he would try to set a definite timetable for the bill on Monday next.
But five committees have yet to consider it - and some senators vehemently opposed to the legislation, such as Republican James Inhofe, have vowed that they will take as long as they need to take - which, it's feasible to deduce, he interprets as some time well into next year.
Mr Kerry told Mr de Boer earlier this month that a Copenhagen deal was possible even if the Boxer-Kerry bill hasn't passed.
Would developing countries be convinced by a US position and US numbers when the Senate has not authorised them? One wonders...
We also saw this week an agreement between China and India to work together - on clean technology, on curbing emissions, and on the politics of the Copenhagen summit.
This is an important development in that it expressly binds the two Asian giants together in political harmony.
A year or so ago their stances appeared to be diverging, with China relatively open to a deal that constrained its emissions, and India determined to avoid anything that might impact its own economic growth.
Many Chinese officials believe its economic growth and its living conditions will be compromised by climate change - and it appears their arguments have found some favour in Indian ears.
Indian, Chinese and Indonesian action and pledges on energy efficiency and renewable energy brought praise from Mr Miliband at the MEF summit.
But equally clear was the determination of those and other developing nations attending the talks that finance has to be right as a precondition of any deal.
Well... as they say on the BBC's second and third most important media, radio and television; "that's all we've got time for this week".
But have I missed out any vital developments, or misconstrued any of the politics?
If you think I have, please post a comment. Keeping across it all may be too big a job for just one person.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~36~RS~)
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Richard states: "We also saw this week an agreement between China and India to work together - on clean technology, on curbing emissions, and on the politics of the Copenhagen summit."
"This is an important development in that it expressly binds the two Asian giants together in political harmony."
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I agree. However, when one looks beneath the surface and one believes they have a 'sense' for China in general... China is looking to the future beyond Global Warming. I refer to: 'boundaries.com/India.htm' and recent news: 'nytimes.com/2009/09/04/world/asia/04chinaindia.html'.
I imagine this is the time to state: It's not how you get the job done. It's the end result that counts.
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i'd bet my own money that a deal is made at the 11th hour
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Paul Harper? Who the heck is that?
At least get the leaders name right.
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unlike MangoChutneyUKOK (#2) I feel that unless reduction targets are discussed on a per capita base there'll be no deal; to quote (out of context) from a lyric by the 'Dub Syndicate' -- "the corporations are bigger than any nation state".
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Wonderful Article!
Cogent, intelligent, brim full of brightness, sparkly in its depth of understanding, unparalleled in its veracity, astute interpretation of facts, figures etc. completed by an up-sum that takes the breath away.
There now!
Isn't strong debating such a healthy thing - - no need for rancour - - just say it how it is. I'm sure Mr Black will feel so much better now we've reached the approved standard.
All you Moderators feeling better?
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I believe it would be more accurate to say that China and India agreed to oppose any international emission standards while providing rethortic about plans to reduce emissions. The idea that the undeveloped world should blackmail the developed world seems to be taking piracy to a new level. It seems those funds could be better used in the development of clean energy sources, but will end up in the building of new presidential homes and purchasing additional arms to keep them in power. Emission goals will be those calculated based on the econmoic downturn and proposed as reduction targets. Oil and coal producers will accept tax and trade as an agreed tax that can be passed on to consumers, this has been pre-arranged. No matter where you are you can see the turmiol caused by the financial meltdown. Confronted with the reality that your government is owned and operated by commercial interest and financial institutions your expectations should be realistic. People will need to institute this change because the governments will not. I really don't know why they are meeting, people don't need something else to be angry about. Another over-priced hyped movie that will leave everyone disappointed. Watch the price of oil over the next 45 days.
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Re: #2. At 6:03pm on 23 Oct 2009, MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
i'd bet my own money that a deal is made at the 11th hour.
I'll put some on that too, but I'm not holding my breath as to what it will be.Probably a good dollop of comments from # 6. At 9:01pm on 23 Oct 2009, ghostofsichuan, in particular :-
"Oil and coal producers will accept tax and trade as an agreed tax that can be passed on to consumers"
It appears this is the only solutions that governments know.
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Good summary of the week's highlights Richard. But you missed the European finance and environment ministers meetings which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Finance ministers failed to reach an agreement on climate finance package, leaving the issue to be resolved by heads of state next week. If Europe doesn't deliver here, I fear the worst for Copenhagen.
Environment ministers agreed to 2050 targets consistent with a 2° scenario, which is a good thing. But 2020 commitments fall short of what the science says is needed, and are less ambitious than the commitments tabled by Japan and Norway. Surely they can do better!
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The Canadian position is both ridiculous and unsustainable. At some point either the Americans will institute rules that will penalize the oil sands, or the rest of the Canadian provinces will balk at giving Alberta "oil sands emissions" room. Canada is rapidly becoming victim to the classic "oil curse" -- it is losing manufacturing, the dollar is virtually at parity with the American dollar, and we are reverting to a purely resource based economy. At some point something will have to give.
On the other hand, the previous Liberal government made pledges at Kyoto that it then paid little attention to, so the whole enterprise became discredited.
The only intelligent hope on the horizon is the fact that the Ontario government, now really scared, has decided to see if it can replicate the German green economic re-industrialisation plan through feed-in-tariffs for energy, and so on. If that works, then everything changes.
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Great blog. I urge anyone that believes something should be done and this deadlock broken to get out and put pressure on the politicians. It's not just them that will have failed if no agreement is made - it is us - we should be showing them we care - check out 350.org and go to an event near you today! With a little luck, we'll be able to steer it in the right direction.
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To ghostofsichuan #6:
"People will need to institute this change because the governments will not." (ghostofsichuan)
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I find myself in a quandry, no doubt due to a drastic lack of climbing these last few years. I am thinking too much, and thoughts such as: 'a person should try and make a difference' have been creeping in - hence blogging, researching...
But I remember Bill Tilman, the British climber and sailor who devoted his life to those pursuits, while serving his country as a decorated officer both in the front lines and behind them in World Wars One and Two.
Having experienced war at an impressionable age, and being something of a genius, I have always listened attentively to his ruminations on life.
Following World War II, he remarked that while a 'brave new world' apparently called to many, he had heard and seen it all before, in a better war, and despite feeling a tinge of guilt, he remained steadfast in again taking up the life of a Himalayan climber, and did so.
While obviously decrying the atrocity of war, he still remarked that in truth, in war, there were really very few 'innocent civilians.'
I have never forgotten that remark, though I do not fully understand it. But then he was there, and I was not.
But in watching the 'shenanigans' going on politically and in the business and mega-corporate world, and in seeing the 'acceptance' of the many, I wonder if Bill's remark about there being few truly innocent citizens or civilians does not apply to the entire concept of "Limits to Growth' and 'Planetary Boundaries'/State of the Planet?
We have the internet, a democracy if we wanted to use it, and freedom of the press. Yet we watch entertainment, and are busy in needless ways. In short, we are immature, and for those of us over fourteen years of age, therefore irresponsible.
Ergo, we will get what we deserve. And even if this is too harsh a judgement, given the power of modern public relations and advertising, is it really a man's job to 'stand in front of a tank'? I ask that in a non-rhetorical way - it might well be that it is.
I find many who blog - ready, willing and able to discuss and argue about things they know little about, but unwilling to discuss human nature, about which we are all rather expert.
While climbing, I was secure in believing that change would come only when absolute necessity demanded it. Now, being a family man, I am trying my version of 'standing in front of a tank.'
Which is \\\ the saner man, /// do you think?
- Manysummits -
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I urge everyone to NOT endorse this. You people haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about doing in an economic sense. The world does not run on hope, pixie dust and rainbows...nor is "global warming" some well known and stereotypical enemy threatening to destroy us all.
If any of you supporting this folly had the faintest notion of how utterly stupid the plans are that you support...you'd all kill yourselves. You cannot lower industrial output, increase energy costs and ENTIRELY replace one of your largest industrial sectors (energy). Any one by themselves is devastating...all three ensure utter collapse. Granted, the "green" groups will be satisfied by nothing short of the destruction of mankind.
What's worse, none of you has obviously even looked outside or bothered to check up on any of the information. The world DID stop warming about a decade ago because the "alarming" part of the warming was part of a natural cycle. Anyone that bothered to check would notice that the world's temperature has only gone up .4C to .5C in 60 years, since the end of the last warm period. The amount of warming necessary to reach an anomaly of 2C by 2100 requires that we immediately resume the .2C per decade rate.
While there are a great many scientists that believe this 2C per decade (what everyone is trying to keep warming down to) figure is theoretically possible if we continue with business as usual, few believe it will go higher. Nature of course shows no signs of warming even at that rate. The few nutters that believe it will be significantly higher are brought to you thanks to the alarmist media and your "friends" at the WWF, greenpeace, etc...groups that care less for your well being than they do for the RECORD HIGH polar bear populations.
Now personally, I'd just let you all destroy yourselves for being so utterly unrealistic and failing to look at the actual facts that show the hypothesis of (substantial) anthropogenic global warming to be the greatest failure of science the world has ever known. Unfortunately, I'm stuck on this rock with you and my fate is tied to yours.
You people need to realize that these green groups (some of which literally endorse acts of sabotage, ie terrorism) DO have an agenda and the fact that they claim to be "doing the right thing" does not mean that their perception of "the right thing" won't screw YOU over. You have just as much reason to suspect their motives as you would someone out to make quick money. (or their disciples who may have fallen victim to their schemes without realizing)
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The idea of climbing being a solution to world problems seems dumb. 6 billion climbers? Not in anyone's lifetime.
Maybe while climbing one could reflect on the fact that as yet, there is no proof of manmade global warming/climate change being a reality. It has as much substance as Tulip Trading and the South Sea Bubble did centuries before. Do we not look at those times and smirk at the utter stupidity of those involved?
Stop the World, I want to get off.
I want to look at true scientific evidence that Mother Nature is showing Any signs of exceeding values that have been around for many generations. I am all for cleaning up our act but the present day projects - in the main - are a joke.
Remove the goals of psuedo religio/scientific claptrappers and avoid any increase in taxing an already overtaxed society and we might get back to sensible objectives.
Ask yourself why we spend billions on electric cars/biofuel/windfarms etc., when all we really need to do is make petrol and diesel engines more efficient. Why develop blots on the landscape wind farms [terrible efficiency - needing musthave switchable power backup, as wind is so variable and often not available, when hot or cold weather prevails - high pressure equates to no wind] as a sop to Green paranoia.
The Copenhagen meeting is for politicians to spout politics. It has nothing to do with saving the World. I would leave Mother Nature, the Sun, cosmic rays and some reality grasping from mankind to coexist with a naturally variable climate. When virgins were sacrificed at any portents of disaster, eclipses, earthquakes, drought, floods etc do we now not look back and say how unbelievable dumb those civilizations were and yet we are in the midst of another age of stupidity with respect to all those who sit in Copenhagen and imagine they are "saving the Planet".
I offer a mantra. At the levels we encounter....
"CO2 is neither a poison nor pollutant."
Copenhagen, a great city but not the place for arrogant politicians to proclaim anything of substance on a subject that has no actual proof of its existence!
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I hope when the "great and the good" gather in Copenhagen, they at least listen to all experts on both sides of the debate. For example, Nils-Axel Morner, who surveyed the Maldives and found, over a 30 year period, no evidence of sea-level rise:
Open Letter to President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives
By Nils-Axel Morner, Leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project
Mr. President,
You have recently held an undersea Cabinet meeting to raise awareness of the idea that global sea level is rising and hence threatens to drown the Maldives. This proposition is not founded in observational facts and true scientific judgements, Accordingly it is incorrect.
Therefore, I am most surprised at your action and must protest to its intended message.
In 2001, when our research group found overwhelming evidence that sea level was by no means in a rising mode in the Maldives, but had remained quite stable for the last 30 years, I thought it would not be respectful to the fine people of the Maldives if I were to return home and present our results in international fora. Therefore, I announced this happy news during an interview for your local TV station. However, your predecessor as president censored and stopped the broadcast.
Google "Open Letter to President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives" for full details
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more information for our leaders to think about:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/10/ipcc-crushes-scientific-objectivity-91-0/
“The most glaring example of this bias [that of the IPCC] has been the lack of interest on the IPCC’s part in figuring out to what extent climate change is simply the result of natural, internal cycles in the climate system…….”
“The IPCC is totally obsessed with external forcing, that is, energy imbalances imposed upon the climate system that are NOT the result of the natural, internal workings of the system…”
“Admittedly, we really do not understand internal sources of climate change. Weather AND climate involves chaotic processes, most of which we may never understand, let alone predict. While chaos in weather is exhibited on time scales of days to weeks, chaotic changes in the ocean circulation could have time scales as long as hundreds of years, and we know that cloud formation – providing the Earth’s natural sun shade – is strongly influenced by the ocean….”
“Thus, small changes in ocean circulation can lead to small changes in the Earth’s albedo (how much sunlight is reflected back to space), which in turn can lead to global warming or cooling. The IPCC’s view (which is never explicitly stated) that such changes in the climate system do not occur is little more than faith on their part….”
do our leaders read Richards blog?
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more information on sea level rise in the Maldives (no need to Google):
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/10/20/maldives-president-all-wet-on-sea-level.aspx
(seems slow to load)
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I don't usually get too upset on Richard's site but this guy has got to me (just a bit).
13. At 06:41am on 24 Oct 2009, globalclaptrap wrote:
Stop the World, I want to get off.
Feel free........Don't let me stop you. Just buy your ticket from Richard Branson and ask him to drop you off somewhere of your choice.Plenty of options out there.
He (he?) also states:-
"I am all for cleaning up our act"
Great.......at least we have agreement on something....lets see what he has to offer.
"all we really need to do is make petrol and diesel engines more efficient."
Great......then I can buy a 5.6 litre V8 that does 120 mpg. Just what I always wanted.
Apparently this fellow is an expert on engine design. Plenty of scope there for him ON this planet which he (he?) is in such a hurry to leave. It seems that the engine developers create inefficient engines just for the fun of it!
But.....then again ....that's ALL we have to do!
Hang on ....we haven;'t finished yet! This fellow (???) is also an expert on Environmental Chemistry! The US Environmental Protection Agency would be keen to employ him (him?) (they pay good wages so I hear)
The US EPA has already determined that CO2 is a pollutant but what do they know?
When this fellow gets out of his (his?) nappies I'll be happy to read more, I'm always ready to learn.
Oh dear! He (he?) did press my buttons didn't he. Never mind, dying of a heart attack is far quicker than the prolonged agony of cancer from melanoma induced by man's gungho and indiscriminate polluting of the atmosphere due to the use of chemicals that were assumed to be "non-polluting " at the time of introduction.
At least we now know how I got my pseudonym and where he (he?) got his (when applied to himself!)
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Poor Grumpy Mike.
"The US EPA has already determined that CO2 is a pollutant but what do they know?"
It's more about what they don't know isn't it? CO2 is what makes trees and vegetation live. The more they get the more they like it [I have to add the rider that too much of anything is not a good idea or I will get a Green riposte from Grumpy Mike]. Eons ago CO2 levels twenty times higher than today apparently produced both ice ages and Global Warming and massive vegetation spurts [when it was warm].
Can you not see that the EPA does not accept science fact but prefers science fiction to gain control. Obama has a lot to answer for and his policies are heading in totally the wrong direction.
Just remember that in the layer of atmosphere from sea level to a height of one kilometer the UK contribution [from all man made CO2] is a layer thinner than a human hair.
Occams Razor says that CO2 is not the cause you are looking for. Mother Nature is staring you in the face and you can't see the wood for the trees.
The EPA could not be more misinformed/stupid if it tried.
Copenhagen in December might well have so much real snow that the political snow job might well be a non event. Let's hope so, or we will soon be paying taxes for smoke and mirrors and the Emperor's clothes.
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Thank you for your update Richard,
In all the doom and gloom we have a POSITIVE step forward. Surely, to bring the weaker and poorer nations like Ethiopia to the table for the first time has to be GOOD. I see the complaint frequently written that there is a lot of talk and no action. However I disagree, the talking in this case is the action. The talking is the process of gathering research and planning before taking expensive practical steps. As some of you have wisely said, jumping in too soon with practical solutions may be more harmful than waiting until all the research has been gathered.
To give a granny analogy of baking a cake:
first check I have a working oven,
the correct tools for the job
the correct ingredients
time to prepare and do the job
The finer points like flavour, food allergies and fat content would be a focus for research after I had successfully made a basic-recipe cake.
To recognise the weak and the poor and allow them to have a voice at the table has to be GOOD and an essential part of research.
If Copenhagen doesn't achieve the required outcome in this round of talks, surely the wheels are set in motion.
Great steam train engines take time to build up pressure and move along the track but once they start moving they have great power and are difficult to stop.
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I suspect the only tangible result of Copenhagen will be higher green taxes in the UK. Caledonian Comment
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manysummits,
What do you mean by stepping in front of the 'tank?' Is the 'tank' the rising population or what? I am not sure what your cryptic tank idea means. Is stepping in front of the 'tank' a metaphor for severing the vasa deferentia or expecting others to take such action?
grumpy-mike,
(Sorry for the mushy stuff) I am worried about your last post and I am hoping you are ok. I have professional and family experience of melanomas caused by excess UV light, caused by...
ghostofsichuan,
It appears that you believe the summit is really all about money, the global financial meltdown and the oil situation? I am disappointed by your negative comment about the LED countries as surely, they also are human beings?
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@sensibleoldgrannie #21
he's talking about Tiananmen Square, i think
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I have no doubt at all that some sort of "deal" will be made at Copenhagen. After all, someone will have to account for the carbon offsets needed to justify this jamboree and precluding "summits". However I was struck yesterday by a factor which no one seems to consider- the electorate. There are one million youngsters out of work in the UK and with little or no prospects of getting any despite being better qualified than any previous generation. How are these voters going to react to the handing over of $100billion for free to advanced economies such as China ( I've been there, Shanghai leaves London standing - to describe it as developing is frankly ridiculous) is madness. To develop new technologies creating jobs for "our own people" to praraphrase the PM and selling the result to the vast Beijing sovereign wealth funds would seem to be a far more palatable and sensible alternative. At present, no major political party promises anything than the naive platitiudes of Copenhagen. I fear that a different political furore of recent days shows that the political initiative is in danger of being handed to the far right, whom I suspect have a better handle on how the majority of the population view the charade of the Emperor's clothes of global warming,green taxes and TV propaganda.
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13 @GlobalClaptrap wrote:
"CO2 is neither a poison nor pollutant."
Neither is glass, but it sure does make for a nice warm greenhouse.
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MangoChutneyUKOK,
It is funny how we all have a different take on what is expressed here. There is so much scope for misunderstanding because we cannot see each other's expressions and body signals to aid understanding. For some, a joke could be taken as offence and offence could be taken as a joke. We are also expressing views from different cultures in different time zones. Yet we all manage to cope with each other's opinions and views and we keep coming back to the table. Blogialogue appears to work.
We can't bash each other over the head with clubs (which is a good thing) :-)
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@JRWoodman #24
but doesn't the glass in a greenhouse warm the interior by preventing a barrier to convection, whereas greenhouse gases modulate radiation?
@sensibleoldgrannie #25
I'd like to bash some common sense in some of the alarmists >;)
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3. At 6:18pm on 23 Oct 2009, northofpeers wrote:
May I just ask, but was there something incorrect, and it subsequently got corrected without acknowledgment?
If so, it seems to happen a lot. Ironic, really.
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If one reads to the final paragraph of the BBC article on the India-China climate "agreement," one finds they have agreed to not agree with CO2 reductions at Coopenhagen.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/elephant-in-negotiations.html
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\\\ The 'Tank' is a Metaphor ///
Never have I fit in, or at least felt I did.
I'm quite sure many, perhaps most, can relate to this.
However, like Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, although the price has been high, I've found the net result positive.
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13. At 06:41am on 24 Oct 2009, globalclaptrap wrote:
"The idea of climbing being a solution to world problems seems dumb. 6 billion climbers? Not in anyone's lifetime."
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Why not?
Have we given up?
We all lived on the land, once upon a time, wild and free. It is our birthright.
The problem is not climate change per se, nor the Copenhagen Compromise. It is not too many people.
It is too many people who are not wild and free, alive and well.
Regimented armies and superior weapons win wars, but at what cost?
At the cost of our future prosperity, by the look of things.
We must outlaw war, dismantle our nuclear arsenals, and turn towards the light. There are so many possibilities.
How many watched the video of Reinhold Messner climbing solo, confident and sure of movement, which I posted in an earlier blog?
He soared like the individual he had become, like the individuals we all aspire to become.
Climbing is a metaphor, like 'ghostofsichuan's 'tank.'
Your own (UK) Dr. Johnson once wrote:
"Prudence quenches that ardour of enterprise, by which everything is done that can claim praise or admiration, and represses that generous temerity which often fails and often succeeds."
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I say again - Have we given up?
"Strive, to Survive."
- the Shaolin monk, Kwai Chang Caine, in the movie & series 'Kung Fu.'
- Manysummits, on a rainy day in Calgary, and loving it! -
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To sensibleoldgrannie #21:
"Is stepping in front of the 'tank' a metaphor for severing the vasa deferentia or expecting others to take such action?"
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You had me stumped there. I had to look up vasa deferentia!
Interesting metaphor. In my own view, that action and others of a similar vein are a form of unnaturallness, to the point of perversion. You can see why I 'never fit in.'
In my post #29 I have tried to answer your question on my 'cryptic' comment about the tank.
Cryptic is occassionally good, causing people to actually think. But it can be annoying also, and so I have endeavored to 'cover all bases.'
I offer a few more quotes on this post for your consideration, as the rain here in Calgary has just turned to snow - big fat flakes!
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"Glaciers are sometimes as erratic as men, and only when both behave normally do they become dull."
- Bill Tilman, {Major Harold William "Bill" Tilman, CBE, DSO, MC and Bar (14 February 1898–1977)}
"Only much later on, when I had already journeyed to all the continents, did I sense that adventure is not made up of distant lands and mountaintops, rather it lies in one's readiness to exchange the domestic hearth for an uncertain resting place."
- Reinhold Messner
"Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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- Hasta Luego, Manysummits -
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To sensibleoldgrannie:
Had to add this one, to include 'Science and the the Environment,' as well as a mountain or two:
"An undaunted ability to face the unknown serves both the exploration of large mountains and the pursuit of science."
- Mark Bowen, Ph.D. (physics), in his book, "Thin Ice," about Dr. Lonnie Thompson and the climate record from the world's mountain glaciers.
- Manysummits , time to see if Cloudrunner is awake! -
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So basically an alleged 'environment' problem will once again be used as an excuse for....
* Yet more silly 'binding targets' none of them will reach
* A convoluted reasoning to justify yet more aid to failing countries
* Not a single viable alternative way of providing energy to citizens
* And last but not least - tax, tax, tax, tax
Meanwhile, before during and after this conference the global emissions of CO2 will continue to INCREASE and none of us will be an inch nearer to an answer for what is going to happen when oil/gas no longer meet global demand.
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With special thanks to globalclaptrap #13 and #18
for three additional "reasons to doubt" [sic] AGW.
"The sceptics' view of AGW"
_0. This list is a load of rubbish!
_1. There is no warming
_2. There is warming but it's not anthropogenic
_3. There is anthropogenic warming but it's not caused by CO2
_4. There is anthropogenic warming by CO2 but not enough to worry about
_5. CO2 has risen but it's not capable of causing warming
_6. CO2 hasn't risen
_7. Arctic ice isn't disappearing
_8. Arctic ice is disappearing but the Antarctic is more important
_9. It gets cold at night so it can't be warming
10. It has been warming but now it's cooling
11. We don't trust the temperature measurements anyway
12. CO2 has always lagged warming in the past so it can't cause it
13. AGW may be real; but it could be a good thing
14. It's all a big con!
15. It's the journalists fault for not exposing the charlatan scientists
16. The Hotspot hasn't been detected so there can't be any AGW
17. All the temperature data has been lost/destroyed
18. Trees do not make good thermometers
19. You can make a hockey stick out of random data
20. The upturn in the hockey stick was cherry-picked data
21. Cycles in the solar wind are the primary driver of climate change
22. The science is not even in, let alone settled
23. Sea level rise has been constant for 100 years, but will never bother us
24. IPCC uses deliberately woolly language to hide it's inaccuracies
25. The politicised IPCC uses cherry picked data & highly suspect models
26. Peer reviewing is a closed shop and worthless
27. Popular opinion still rules and says something quite different
28. Insult alarmists' intelligence, that'll prove we are right
29. Alarmists refuse to answer our questions so they must be wrong
30. The onus of proof is on those supplying the theory, not those trying to debunk it
31. At the IPCC the summary is agreed before the report is finished
32. Consensus counts for less than nothing in science
33. Why should so many scientists support AGW? Follow The Money!
34. Climate scientists change sides when they retire
35. The extra CO2 is good for the plants, isn't it
36. Al Gore is rich so it must be all a lie
37. 1000s of scientists have signed up against AWG; we trust them
38. There's an AGW blog where some questions haven't been answered for 3 years!
39. It's just a plot to tax us more and more
40. Progress and Free Market are more important than AGW theories
41. Al Gore's film is an obvious attempt at brainwashing
42. Alarmists will have us living back in the stone age!
43. CO2 is neither a poison nor pollutant.
44. All we really need to do is make petrol and diesel engines more efficient
45. The UK CO2 contribution is a layer thinner than a human hair in one kilometre
All the best; davblo2
PS. did I miss anyone?
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Almost missed this...
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION
...and on the beeb...
In pictures: Climate action day
All the best; davblo2
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For all your pretense at even-handedness, Richard, there is nothing in this article about why increasing costs and reducing freedoms might be a bad thing.
Isn't is about time you reported that the "science" that AGW scaremongering is based on has been shown to be a fraud: the temperature data has (after being withheld for 10 years) conveniently been "lost", the hockey stick has been shown to be based on cherry-picked data (which were again withheld for 10 years), and the Team responsible for it have been found to be quite happy to invert data to when it suits them.
Come on - grow some cojones and report these issues.
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Imagine you are the dictator of some 3rd world place. You get a cheque for a few hundred million from Copenhaqen.
What would you do with the money ?
a) The same as you did with the Oxfam money.
b) A sincere and effective effort to reduce your carbon thingey.
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thruppennybit #35: "Isn't is about time..."
I think we have all that already; see #33
17. All the temperature data has been lost/destroyed
20. The upturn in the hockey stick was cherry-picked data
15. It's the journalists fault for not exposing the charlatan scientists
Did you have anything new to add?
/davblo2
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Jack_Hughes_NZ #36: "Imagine you are the dictator of some 3rd world place."
That's easier said than done.
Any hints?
/davblo2
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21. At 11:07am on 24 Oct 2009, sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
grumpy-mike,
(Sorry for the mushy stuff) I am worried about your last post and I am hoping you are ok. I have professional and family experience of melanomas caused by excess UV light, caused by...
I thank you for that, SENSIBLEOLDGRANNY, as to my situation, I will know more in a couple of weeks but I have plenty of faith that I am getting excellent medical attention and all will be well in the end.
However, I wish I were so confidant re other world issues. Unlike many others on this blog, I am neither "for" nor "against" CO2 being the driving force of "Global Warming". What I have stated in previous blogs is that I do not think pumping more and more CO2 into the atmosphere is a good idea.
When CFC's were first discovered, they were hailed as a miracle family of chemicals. They found numerous uses including replacing Ammonia in refrigeration and Flammable Hydrocarbons in aerosols.
Both these moves were seen as significantly reducing the risks associated with the chemicals they replaced.
Consequently they were used with gay abandon.
It wasn't until much later that it was discovered that they were having a significant adverse effect on the environment.
Some of us have personally experienced the consequences and are still alive. Many are not.
With CO2........no-one knows for SURE what the outcome will be of continuously increasing the concentration in the atmosphere (and in the oceans).
There are many who are perfectly happy to maintain the status quo and to them I say:-
"The IPCC are 90% sure there is a problem. Can you be 100% sure there isn't?"
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Richard could have done more to describe the motivations and likely choices of different countries at the Copenhagen bash. They have very different interests and motives - and probably different underlying beliefs / skepticism as well.
Instead it reads as if there is one ideal outcome for the planet that is going to be like a perfectly cut diamond that shines in all directions. And the delegates' job is to polish that diamond over a few cocktails.
For a true believer the ideal outcome for the planet would be for the delegates to all agree to shut down everything by Christmas and then walk home to save on all that beastly flying.
3rd world places will be voting on just how big their bonanza is going to be - with the catch that if they do too much stonewalling the whole deal may be off.
China and India are both hoping for a free ride - a chance to carry on with their own plans and maybe some free technology. Again with the proviso that if they hold out too much they will get nothing.
What baffles me most is what on earth the developed countries really want. Even if you really believe it all you can still do the best for your own country by gaming the system. I bet the Italians will be doing just that after watching them in the EU for several years and on the BBC's "Its a Knockout" before that.
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\\\ The Copenhagen Compromise ///
Your Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has stated: "that leaders must engage directly to break the impasse."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8313672.stm
I hope he does - I expect he will try.
But he risks being run over by the 'tank' of public opinion, and thrown out of office, along with his party, in the next elections.
The public is therefore not innocent of the outcome of Copenhagen - far from it!
Rather than blame the politicians, I blame 'us.'
We have allowed ourselves to become weak and lazy - slothful - all the while disguising this by looking and being very busy indeed. Many seek to accumulate wealth and the accolades of the 'business as usual' crowd, and to vote accordingly.
But what is needed is simplicity itself - to 'not' be slothful - either in our philosophy or in our actions. To be able to imagine a world without fossil fuels, without war, without abject poverty, and without the debasement of the human being in any of its various guises - and then to make it so.
"Strenuousness is the immortal path - sloth the way of death."
- A proverb, oft quoted by Bill Tilman.
---------------------------------------
Manysummits:
I wrote this earlier today, then I came across this new book by Lester Brown, "Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization" (2009).
Succinctly, in Chapter One, available also on the internet for free as a pdf:
"...plan B is far more ambitious than anything the world has ever undertaken, an initiative that has no precedent in either scale or urgency. It has four components: cutting net carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020, stabilizing population at 8 billion or lower, eradicating poverty, and restoring the earth’s natural systems, including its soils, aquifers, forests, grasslands, and fisheries. The ambitiousness of this plan is not driven by perceived political feasibility but by scientific reality."
---------------------------------------
It looks like we're on the same page.
Agree or disagree?
- Manysummits -
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grumpy-mike and many-summits
On a previous thread we were talking about the green lifestyle we will be moving towards. Can you help with the details ?
Will it be like WW2 rationing in Britain - forever ? Or do you have some more detailed plan ? Or maybe you haven't got that far ?
It's not a trick question - just a request for information. I'm very surprised that no-one has been working on this.
I was talking to some Jehovah Witnesses last week and they could spell out exactly what the Jehovah lifestyle was. Just wondering what the green life willl be like...
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manysummits #41: "then I came across this new book by Lester Brown"
I like the summary you quoted.
The book is available here...
Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
...click on... "Free Download of Book"
Certainly looks interesting.
All the best; davblo2 [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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is davblo2 trying to bore us into submission with his list?
lol
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To davblo2 #43:
Yes, it does. I just bought it!
-------------
To Jack_Hughes_NZ #42:
"On a previous thread we were talking about the green lifestyle we will be moving towards. Can you help with the details ?
It's not a trick question - just a request for information. I'm very surprised that no-one has been working on this." (#42)
------------
Funny, it sounds like a trick question - especially the rhetorical:
I'm very surprised that no-one has been working on this.
------------
But I welcome the opportunity to discuss something other than climate sensitivity.
Obviously at least one of 'us' has been working on it - Lester Brown for example, in his book mentioned above (post #41 (manysummits), and linked to in post #43 (davblo2).
That aside, and not having read this particular book yet, but having read many books and articles by people who seem also to have been working on this same problem, I will answer simply - "Terra Incognita."
Not for the lack of people making their best informed guesses as to the future, but because, as Lester Brown so pointedly asserts:
"...plan B is far more ambitious than anything the world has ever undertaken, an initiative that has no precedent in either scale or urgency."
---------
One can of course deny that there is a problem of either this magnitude or urgency - problem solved!
Or one can buy in, in which case we are sailing into unknown waters.
"We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea."
- Coleridge, "The Ryhme of the Ancient Mariner"
----------
I sometimes fancy myself a mountaineer, habituated in breasting the unknown. But I can tell you this - never have I ventured forth without feeling as did Bill Tilman, on his wooden boat 'Mischief', in Patagonia, as follows:
"The breeze of anxiety played very strong upon the brow of expectation."
-----------
I can state emphatically what I believe to be the truth about Planetary Boundaries, for example, because I have a very strong faith in the scientists who are finding and making known this new information.
But I have no real feel for what our collective future will look like. We are running at our limits, or perhaps past them, in our global community. This is anathema to me as a climber. I seek always to run well below my perceived limits, in case of emergency.
In other words, we, the global community, have already compromised our safety net - there is nothing below us - no rope, no anchor - nothing but our steady nerve, or lack thereof, to keep us from disaster.
Fair enough. It's why I posted Messner climbing solo. It can be done, it has been done, and now it must be done, by all of us. And here is the rub - are we all capable as Messner?
Once upon a time we were - but are we still?
- Manysummits -
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THE AGW CAMP HAS ABANDONED THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, BUT THEY CALL US DENIERS
We agree that CO2 is increasing and there was global warming from 1976 to 1998 as shown in the following chart.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/detrend:0.707/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/normalise
They say that this global warming was caused by CO2 and will increase up to 6 deg C by 2100.
We strongly disagree.
As shown in the above chart, we say the global temperature is oscillatory with increasing and decreasing temperatures, but the CO2 level has only been increasing. From 1976 to 1998, both CO2 and mean global temperature had been increasing. However, this does not mean that this correlation is always valid.
The scientific method requires observations of predictions. Based on historical patterns, global cooling has started since 1998 for about 33 years until 2031, with 22 more years of cooling. In five years time, the AGW camp says the mean global temperature will be above the 1998 maximum. In five years time, we say the temperature will be much less than the 1998 maximum, and we will start to see climate change as a result of global cooling.
Instead of calling us deniers, why does not the AGW camp respect the SCIENTIFIC METHOD by validating its prediction by looking at the global temperature in 5 years time?
Is the argument similar to God is on my side, with “God” replaced by “Science”?
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@manysummits #45
But I welcome the opportunity to discuss something other than climate sensitivity.
when did this happen, did i blink and miss it?
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Re- # 42. At 10:42pm on 24 Oct 2009, Jack_Hughes_NZ wrote:
"grumpy-mike and many-summits"
"On a previous thread we were talking about the green lifestyle we will be moving towards. Can you help with the details ?"
Can't remember talking about anything like that! However, maybe I can point you in a few directions that you can follow up at your leisure. I must confess I'm a bit confused at your inquiry as NZ is full of a whole range of "Green Lifestyles"
Forgetting the communes of the 60's and 70's, including the famous Jerusalem founded by one of NZ's best known poets, James K Baxter and the rather more infamous Centrepoint founded by Bert Potter these lifestyles seem to have faded into oblivion and been replaced by the Eco-villages, there being many in existence today. Some I am familiar with include the Awararoa vlllage on Waiheke Island, Koanga Gardens and Nursery just North of Kaiwaka and the village in Kaiwaka itself.
But outliving all of these and still going strong is Riverside just out of Nelson. Founded in 1941 I believe....pretty enduring, heh?
In a totally different concept, but still one I would consider "green" are the co-operatives in NW Spain (I believe) around the town (city?) of Mondragon.
Does that get you started ?
As to rationing, I certainly remember those days,. both during and after the war (WWll). Didn't we come close to that here in NZ in the 70's? Carless days? Isn't that a form of "rationing"?
When our demand for petrol exceeds the supply, rationing will have nothing on what will happen then and it will have nothing to do with "green" lifestyles.
Hope that helps.
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My #43: "All the best; davblo2 [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]"
Just to say that there was no link at the end there.
I saw this once before; it must be a bug in the auto-moderator program.
/davblo2
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Why is everyone being so evasive ?
@grumpy-mike - a lot of people choose alternative lifestyles but I don't think this is going to work on a global scale. Last time I looked the Greenpeace 'singon' campaign wanted a 40% cut in CO2. This cannot be achieved by voluntary measures.
@manysummits - maybe just describe your own carbon footprint and lifestyle. Do you think others will choose it or will some coercion be needed ?
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selti1 #46: "THEY CALL US DENIERS"
Many thanks for the link to WoodForTrees web site
The "Interactive" section seems to be very well set up and presented.
Data plotting and processing on demand.
/davblo2
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selti1 #46: "...why does not the AGW camp respect the SCIENTIFIC METHOD by validating its prediction by looking at the global temperature in 5 years time?"
How about; because after 5 years, if the predictions turn out correct (a) you can still say - oh that was just a short period and a coincidence; do it again for another 5 years and (b) we will be 5 years further down what could well be turning into a one way street.
/davblo2
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Jack_Hughes_NZ #[various]: "green lifestyle"
Here, at least, is one to avoid...
"Black cloud" blights Cairo
/davblo2
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@davblo2 #52
this is getting worrying, because i agree with you again! Short periods of rising or falling temperatures are irrelevant
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CO2 driven global warming is not supported by the data!
Girma Orssengo, MASc, PhD
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manysummits,
I believe that I have got your message completely wrong. I really thought that 'do the right thing' was a message for us to stop breeding or limit breeding by any means, including sterilization. I really thought you were blaming catholics and other religious groups for the population growth. I really thought that you did not want the likes of us to continue existing because we are a burden to the planet. This is why I made a reference to Soylent Green(Make Room Make Room) a I really thought your 'tank' was us, the burdening population. I was really hurt by your remark in an earlier blog as I did not understand it and what it referred to. It just shows how a word or two can be misinterpreted so easily.
I think I am beginning to see what you mean. You want us all to live the simple free life. For some that is not possible. I don't think I would survive as a tramp living on the street, without a roof over my head, raiding bins for sustenance because I had no income to support myself. I do engage in 'free' activities, walking and collecting berries, nuts and herbs from the hedgerows. I taught my family these basic survival techniques while they were very young. I can walk in any wild place and can name many of the herbs and what they can be used for. I can utilize wild food as easily as supermarket produce.
In my utopia, the hedgerows everywhere would be filled with food for anyone to collect freely. Public transport would be reliable and integrated with the latest technology. The disabled could use public services as easily as the rest of us.
Supermarkets would have to demonstrate their commitment to sourcing produce locally or have their applications to set up in business refused. Good food would not be allowed to be thrown away and must be sold cheaply or given away by the end of the days trading. Imported exotic food would have a luxury carbon tax. Locally sourced food would be exempt from carbon tax. I don't like to call it carbon tax and would prefer it to be called fuel tax. Packaging would become more appropriate and companies would be burdened with an extra tax if they used excessive packaging. All plastic bags would be sold with a waste tax addition. Rubbish would be sorted at source eg. adapted waste collection lorries to sort bottles, metals, paper, plastics, clothing etc. Mixed waste plastic would be formed into community resources like picnic tables and chairs for people to enjoy their environment. I know this is beginning to happen but not quickly enough. Considering most of us live in or at the outskirts of the city, this is our reality, not the mountains and open plains.
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For all the gloom and doom of climate change you people need to realize that human suffering is more directly tied to a low industrial base. Any "solution" that involves any significant scaling back of industry will cause more death...and not JUST in the developing worlds.
Liberalism is born of excess. In developing nations they can't afford the most basic of services...which is why they don't bother throwing away their precious resources on waste processing and systems to scrub the exhaust of anything that burns fossil fuels. They can't afford even the most basic health care. Life is hard, painful and short.
If you don't believe me, go look up some numbers. In the developed world we spend more on health care than some developing nations earn per capita. We spend more on various waste management programs than most developing nations have as their entire government budget. Costly infrastructure that you and I don't even consider "life saving" is absent...and its absence causes unimaginable death and suffering. Want some water in a drought? Sorry, no water treatment or even reservoirs. Need a doctor? Well I hope you can walk, there are no roads to get you to a hospital and most likely there isn't even a hospital.
All of you hypocrites talk about "saving lives" but a look at any developing nation makes it obvious that lack of industry, not a few degrees of warming, is what kills. Many of you talk about a few million being (prematurely) killed by climate change per year. Let me assure you that nearly 100% of the deaths in developing nations are what we in the developed nations would consider VERY premature. The average life expectancy in these countries is 55, 50...some as low as about 35!
How many of you reading this are over those ages? In many nations you'd already be dead! You AGW fanatics talk big but you're just ignorant of the reality. You're not even blissfully ignorant...you're really worked up over something that's keeping you alive! Any solution you propose that isn't as reliable as a light switch (which doesn't describe solar, wind, etc) is NOT a solution. Anything that costs significantly more than current energy costs is a burden.
We need reliable, we need cheap. We either need to make renewable power plants that don't ever stop producing power (solar-thermal with integrated gas-fired backup is a good example of a WORKABLE solution) or technologies like pebble reactors and thorium fueled molten salt reactors (both of which are inherently safe and therefore much cheaper to implement than older nuclear plants).
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"Jack Hughes" - There are so many books, documents, websites and exibitions on green living that it would be impossible to even capture any representative sample on this blog. Try 'Transition Towns' if you are really interested, although given the tone and content of your posts, I would suspect that you are probably not!
It's the oldest cliche of the anti-environmentalist: a greener lifestyle equals going back to the middle ages. Utter garbage. Exciting new renewable technologies and new materials and building techniques are hardly a backward step. If anyone is being a luddite, it is the fossil fuel cheerleaders. I keep my carbon footprint low by getting the train to work, cycling to the shops etc, recycling virtually all my rubbish, eating less meat, using energy efficient appliances and lightbulbs, turning things off when i'm not using them, using the train to get to my summer holiday in Italy, buying local food where possible, having a well insulated house etc. Some things save money, some cost more. Some require new technology, some require good old fashioned common sense...
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"44. At 11:09pm on 24 Oct 2009, MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
is davblo2 trying to bore us into submission with his list?"
We live in hope...
Given that the mountains of scientific evidence have failed to convince the ideologically conditioned 'skeptics', then new techniques must be explored!
I honestly can't see that there is any way of convincing people of the dangers of anthropogenically induced climate change, when they have already made their minds up based on their exsting lifesyle choices. If you own a gas guzzler and a patio heater, then accepting all the climate change science means that you would have to accept that your lifestle choices are spectacularly selfish and 'wrong'. Far easier to carry on as before and claim the 'science isn't settled. Skepticism is the ultimate physchological get out of jail free card.
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selti1 #55 and #46
(a) You ignored my comment to you #52.
(b) One minute...
#46 "...validating its prediction ... in 5 years time?",
...you want to wait 5 years before drawing conclusions; then the next minute...
#55 "CO2 driven global warming is not supported by the data!"
...you suddenly have proof right now.
Which way do you want it?
/davblo2
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Yorkurbantree #59: "Skepticism is the ultimate psychological get out of jail free card."
I saw on TV here (Sweden) recently; a psychologist explaining why she thought "denialism" was, for many, a natural reaction to the suggestion that their lifestyle may be responsible for undesirable effects.
Not that it proved anything, but it's useful to know "where" people could be "coming from".
/davblo2
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Most of these comments are proof, if needed, that the human race is the wrong species to be in charge of this planet. Giving big brains to primates was a major error. What Buddhists call "monkey mind".....
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To sensibleoldgrannie #56:
That's a beautiful post you have there!
And thank you for pointing out your concerns over my 'think-for-yourself' adage. I had no idea it came across as a population control measure, end justifies the means type of thing!
I'll have to ponder this and try and de-cryptify my messaging.
Let me simply say that I believe that people, wild and free, alive and well, will automatically make the right decisions as regards any matter. That is a hope and belief.
As 'indiantoronto' has stated in #62, there is ample evidence that this hope and belief is misplaced.
However, I labor in the belief also that it is our very industrial lifestyles that have driven most of us into the realm of psychological neuroses, without a word of exaggeration, and that if we could find the means, such as climbing mountains full-time for seven years in my case, to return a little to normalcy, all would be well.
I realize you are speaking from the heart when you say that is simply not an option for most people.
I say this is not true, although it appears true.
The toughest hurdle is possibly the first one - overcoming this disbelief in possibilities other than the present reality.
This is the type of discussion which interests me. This is progress.
Thank you again for your post - it has made my morning.
- Manysummits -
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There would seem to be 2 important questions for Copenhagen:
1) How much GHGs can the World safely emit ?
2) How can these emissions be divided fairly amongst (and within) the different countries of the World ?
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3) Have we really established CO2 is the cause of global warming?
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Another question for Copenhagen:
4)Bearing in mind the following:
i) Ozone was responsible for one-third to one-half of the observed warming trend in the Arctic during winter and spring [Drew Shindell]
ii) The new interpretations reveal methane emissions may account for a third of the climate warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases between the 1750s and today. [Drew Shindell and colleagues; Keppler et al.]
iii) For the period 2000-2004, a CERES Science Team assessment of the shortwave albedo found a decrease by 0.0015 which corresponds to an extra 0.5 W m−2 of radiative imbalance according to their assessment. CIRES Science Team]
iv) Model results indicate radiative forcings of +0.3 W m−2 in the Northern Hemisphere associated with albedo effects of soot on snow and ice [Hansen and Nazarenko 2004]
v) There are a variety of direct and indirect aerosol effects that cause global warming including the black carbon direct effect, the semidirect indirect effect, and the glaciation indirect effect, with the thermodynamic effect having an unknown influence (NRC 2005).
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
How much money will be collected world wide in Carbon taxes before we know whether the problem , whatever it is, has been fixed?
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@yorkurbantree
I admire you for 'living the green dream'.
I often ask myself "what if my views are wrong". Maybe you should try this. Maybe we all should try it.
1) How would each of us even find out if our views were wrong?
2) What would we do next if we found some new evidence that showed our mistakes?
I am not in the pay of big oil (if only) and I do have children. I have simply looked at the evidence and come to different conclusions.
I guess I've got 2 more questions if you can find the time:
1) What level of CO2 output is OK for the UK ?
2) Would the UK meet this is every household lived like you ? (remember steel mills and cement factories in the sums as well)
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@Yorkurbantree 59
Given that the mountains of scientific evidence have failed to convince the ideologically conditioned 'skeptics', then new techniques must be explored!
Again I have to ask where is this mountain of evidence you refer to?
I honestly can't see that there is any way of convincing people of the dangers of anthropogenically induced climate change, when they have already made their minds up based on their exsting lifesyle choices.
I wish I could afford to have lifestyle choices. I don't have a gas guzzler or a patio, never mind a patio heater! Instead I have the evidence for AGW and found it wanting. Ask yourself this simple question:
Taking into account climate sensitivity, is CO2 actually capable of significantly raising the earths temperature. If you think the answer is yes, then please show how you came to that conclusion and try to exclude "the IPCC told us so".
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What do you call belief contrary to observation?
As shown in the following chart, since 1998, the directions of CO2 and mean global temperature have been opposite to each other.
CO2 & Global Temperature
In 5 years time, we will be talking about climate change due to global cooling!
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I wonder what Adam Smith (perhaps ironically the "father of modern economics) would think of those who complain about potential environmental taxes...
"Man ought to regard him as something not separated and detached, but as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast common wealth of nature, and to the interest of the great community, he ought at all times be willing that his own little interest should be sacraficed." Adam Smith, 1790
Is that "own little interest" the relatively modest taxations that may be imposed?
You know what... if you used energy saving lightbulbs... turned appliances off standby... washed at 30... used public transport... bought fresh local ingredients... you might just find that environmentlism saves you money?! Who would have thunk it?
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selti1 #69: "What do you call belief contrary to observation?"
What's the point in you posting comments if you ignore responses.
I've replied to you twice already at #52 and #60; you seem to have ignored them.
/davblo2
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Climate change badly effect the Himalayas of Nepal. All the top leaders of the world should acknowledge about that and prepare a plan to minimize the effect of the climate change in the Himalayas. If the ice of the Himalayas melt down due to the climate change, water scarcity in the India and in the Nepal will exists. Planners must think about it.
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@eddhind #70
I wonder what Adam Smith (perhaps ironically the "father of modern economics) would think of those who complain about potential environmental taxes...
He'd probably be thinking "based on so little evidence, thank goodness, somebody has the common sense to question why the world population is being taxed so heavily for so little return"
You see, there is a big difference between being taxed fairly and being taxed for no discernible reason
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I do wish you people would learn what constitutes actual evidence.
The temperature is warmer, THAT is evidence. Its verifiable that the earth's temperature has gone up. It's currently about .4C above the peak of the warm period in the 1940's by either Hadley or GISS (GISS uses a different base period but the increase is the same).
There is also evidence that increasing CO2 can cause CO2 to absorb more outgoing IR. THAT is evidence...ah but there's a problem. The well established data on CO2 does not explain how our atmosphere works. Mixing air actually inhibits this absorption. Water vapor's latent heat bypasses it all together and (if any of you bothered read the about the troposphere) tends to react in such a way as to expand the troposphere up into the stratosphere...which would tend to negate CO2 "forcing" because the top of the troposphere is actually what makes that notch in the outgoing IR. Above the troposphere its actually warmer, so it's not like additional CO2 can cause anything to move into a colder region.
Outside of that evidence is remarkably thin. Melting ice is really a proxy of temperature so it's not new evidence of anything. Minor surges and slow-downs in ice melt rates are LITERALLY caused by weather, and therefore not really an accurate measure of climate. Sea level rise is also a proxy of temperature. YES, almost all skeptics get that it's warmer...but you're hard pressed to find an alarmist that understood that melting ice and rising sea levels are not in any way additional evidence when we already know they follow temperature and we have a global network of thermometers to work out that metric directly.
Models aren't evidence either. Models are a sort of program version of a hypothesis about the workings of the atmosphere. Saying a model is evidence is like saying "the hypothesis is supported by the hypothesis" or "The bible is right because it says its right" (part of the comparison by skeptics of the AGW movement to a religion).
This is not a mountain of evidence, it's just...some evidence. But alarmists can't seem to be bothered with using evidence these days. They use the models (which have NOT been validated) to conjure up crazy warming scenarios. The problem is that the warming rate has never gone high enough to reach anything higher than 2C but it has never maintained that rate. The actual OBSERVED rate is more like .5C to .7C per century.
Now here's where the rubber meets the road. We have never observed a climate sensitivity high enough to be dangerous. Current energy "alternatives" are expensive and unreliable. Also the temperature is currently at the very least leveled off and probably dropping as we would expect from our newer knowledge of ocean currents. YES, it would be wise to avoid dangerous temperature increases...but we've not seen any ACTUAL indication of dangerous temperature increases.
The current "alternatives" are also not mature, placing damaging restrictions on our economies. Alarmists do fit the chicken little analogy so very well. The sky MIGHT be falling and cause some damage but its not falling at a damaging rate. On the other hand while alarmists debate how it MIGHT fall...we know without the tiniest shadow of a doubt that going with "alternatives" that make it cost more to generate power than power companies charge for residential rates WILL cause the financial sky to fall.
So excuse me for trying frantically to get people to see that the sky IS NOT falling as fast as alarmists claim and that waiting a bit is actually wiser. If it starts cooling again you will certainly curse the trillions spent...and if warming resumes you will be thankful you waited 5-10 years (or at least for there to be warming again) for the energy technologies to mature a bit more.
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I have a bit of scientific background. Not too much!
I've worked around and closely with people building computer models. Mostly being a pest, because there are always too many factors that don't really get factored in, so models are useful at indicating stuff, but rarely "right".
(Economists have been using this stuff for a long time. They didn't really know how to incorporate "human factors" into their models, which is why we seem to have a tiny credit crunch.)
I sincerely believe in Climate Change. Seems impossible to deny. We had hot, cold, hot, coolish, bit warmer, etc over the millennia.
I'd accept models as good predictive organisms if they'd told us that it could get hotter, but - by the way - we've had a relatively coolish period for a few years that could last for a while. Anybody out there have access to such a model? Did any models say it would get cooler before getting warmer again? Was that ever projected to the global public? And, by the way, how many of the politicians driving this stuff have any idea about the underlying science?
I'm old enough to remember a "scientific concensus" about us being on the brink of a Mini Ice Age. Still don't understand the sudden switch of attention. I'd have though that CO2 emissions were kicked off by man's discovery of how to create unnatural fires. Who, exactly is going to prevent forest fires that can deliver bucket-loads of CO2?
IF this debate is about getting people to recognise the limits of natural, energy-delivery resources, that's fine by me.
I'd guess that we have genuine temperature measurements across the globe that have (possibly) a 50 year framework. And some of that has been recalibrated for quite normal reasons.
People have been recording land temperature (with some increasing accuracy) for quite a long time. In SOME parts of the world.
Oceanic (two thirds of the global surface) temperatures were at best sporadically measured for a couple of hundred years - but at a massively unrepresentative level.
I don't mind politicians saying that old types of fuels could run out. But I hate posturing politicians - and scientists - saying that derived "proxy" evidence is as equal as current measurements.
I rather liked the Chinese reaction to little Ed Miliband, when they asked him what qualifications he had to be the minister responsible for "Environmental matters". In other words, "What exactly do you have as a scientific background to give you the understanding to pontificate to us about how we should develop"?
Sorry, folks. It's going to get hotter and colder.
If the 20-years-ago scientific prospect of a Mini Ice Age had been taken seriously, we'd have been told to back politicians' plans to produce more heat to try and ff-set that problem.
What irritates me is that I know the world gets hotter and colder. But
there is so much "wrapping up" of stuff as "globally accepted" that it turns me off. If scientists don't have big, huge arguments, then what they are talking about probably doesn't matter. It starts to sound like a politically acceptable "line-to-take" but no politician seems to have worked out that de-salination and water pumping could be the next big thing. Why not?
After all, if all that rising water is going to swamp the low-lying regions, why can't we re-water the Sahara?
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MangoChutneyUKOK #44: "is davblo2 trying to bore us into submission with his list?"
You can blame selti1 (#46, #55 & #69) for this latest addition.
It's not so bad; I managed to fit it into one claim (46)...
"The sceptics' view of AGW"
_0. This list is a load of rubbish!
_1. There is no warming
_2. There is warming but it's not anthropogenic
_3. There is anthropogenic warming but it's not caused by CO2
_4. There is anthropogenic warming by CO2 but not enough to worry about
_5. CO2 has risen but it's not capable of causing warming
_6. CO2 hasn't risen
_7. Arctic ice isn't disappearing
_8. Arctic ice is disappearing but the Antarctic is more important
_9. It gets cold at night so it can't be warming
10. It has been warming but now it's cooling
11. We don't trust the temperature measurements anyway
12. CO2 has always lagged warming in the past so it can't cause it
13. AGW may be real; but it could be a good thing
14. It's all a big con!
15. It's the journalists fault for not exposing the charlatan scientists
16. The Hotspot hasn't been detected so there can't be any AGW
17. All the temperature data has been lost/destroyed
18. Trees do not make good thermometers
19. You can make a hockey stick out of random data
20. The upturn in the hockey stick was cherry-picked data
21. Cycles in the solar wind are the primary driver of climate change
22. The science is not even in, let alone settled
23. Sea level rise has been constant for 100 years, but will never bother us
24. IPCC uses deliberately woolly language to hide it's inaccuracies
25. The politicised IPCC uses cherry picked data & highly suspect models
26. Peer reviewing is a closed shop and worthless
27. Popular opinion still rules and says something quite different
28. Insult alarmists' intelligence, that'll prove we are right
29. Alarmists refuse to answer our questions so they must be wrong
30. The onus of proof is on those supplying the theory, not those trying to debunk it
31. At the IPCC the summary is agreed before the report is finished
32. Consensus counts for less than nothing in science
33. Why should so many scientists support AGW? Follow The Money!
34. Climate scientists change sides when they retire
35. The extra CO2 is good for the plants, isn't it
36. Al Gore is rich so it must be all a lie
37. 1000s of scientists have signed up against AWG; we trust them
38. There's an AGW blog where some questions haven't been answered for 3 years!
39. It's just a plot to tax us more and more
40. Progress and Free Market are more important than AGW theories
41. Al Gore's film is an obvious attempt at brainwashing
42. Alarmists will have us living back in the stone age!
43. CO2 is neither a poison nor pollutant.
44. All we really need to do is make petrol and diesel engines more efficient
45. The UK CO2 contribution is a layer thinner than a human hair in one kilometre
46. We need 5 years to test the climate models and we know now that they are wrong
All the best; davblo2
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fairlyopenmind #75: "After all, if all that rising water is going to swamp the low-lying regions, why can't we re-water the Sahara?"
I had to think a bit on this one, but I hope I caught the spirit in which it was intended...
47. It's ok; with all that rising water, we could at least re-water the Sahara
/davblo2
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Thanks to poitsplace #74, end of third paragraph.
I like this one, mainly because I don't even understand it.
48. It's not like additional CO2 can cause anything to move into a colder region.
/davblo2
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@davblo2 #52 wrote:
“How about; because after 5 years, if the predictions turn out correct (a) you can still say - oh that was just a short period and a coincidence; do it again for another 5 years and (b) we will be 5 years further down what could well be turning into a one way street.”
We could wait for 20 years but fortunately we do not need to as there are now 20 year old predictions, for example:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
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RobWansbeck #79: "fortunately we do not need to as there are now 20 year old predictions"
Thanks, I'll go for that...
49. There are 20 year old predictions that have proved to be wrong!
/davblo2
PS Who wants to make the round 50?
PPS poitsplace #74: you made several other claims, but I had difficulty summarising them simply in a single line. If you could just present more succinct claims...
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have you had "it's all a conspiracy by the same people who claimed we landed on the moon"?
pass the tin foil hoodie
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MangoChutneyUKOK #81: "have you had "it's all a conspiracy..."
Be serious please...
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#76 @ davblo2
I enjoyed your list very much and I hope you will continue adding to it. I trust you don't mind me spreading it further. I've credited it to you.
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JRWoodman #83: "I enjoyed your list very much and I hope you will continue adding to it. I trust you don't mind me spreading it further. I've credited it to you."
Thank you, and you are welcome.
If you spread it anywhere we could see on the web, then I'd appreciate a link.
All the best; davblo2
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Re-#50. At 08:43am on 25 Oct 2009, Jack_Hughes_NZ wrote:
Jack I certainly wasn't being "evasive".
I am personally familiar with all the examples I gave you apart from Jerusalem. (If you google James K Baxter you will find some very interesting stuff. Not every-ones cup-of-tea)
Also, as I suggested, look up Mondragon. I first learned about that in the '80's from a (BBC I believe) documentary entitled "The Mondragon Experiment". Not exactly what some would call a "green" lifestyle but certainly very different to our capitalist/communist concepts and far removed from "medieval" days.
All these have grown up on a voluntary basis.
However, I have to agree that on a global basis, the "voluntary" approach (although every little helps) will have very little impact.
So.......again from my personal experience..I invite you to visit Singapore. (You don't have to fly there, sail there)
When I lived in Malaya in the '60's I used to visit occasionally. (We raced go-carts on Changi airport!) Singapore was a dirty, crime ridden city. When I returned in 1986, the change was dramatic. It would have to be the cleanest big city in the world.
It certainly wasn't achieved voluntarily! When the Singapore government says "JUMP!" you don't say "WHY?"
Some of the decisions the Singapore government made were none too popular which is what is really bothering other governments!
By the end of the year, we will have the outcome of Copenhagen. Then see the "taxes" imposed as governments move to comply. Add this on top of rising oil prices and the pain will begin.
Those who have moved in a "greener" direction will feel the pain less like a friend of mine who has NEVER been connected to the grid in her current home.
As you say, the "Signon" campaign calls for drastic cuts. They ARE achievable but the pain, initially, will be immense for many!
Oh well, might as well continue in my "grumpy" vein.
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To eddhind #70; JRWoodman #83; & davblo2 #84:
I continue to believe in your list davblo2, and I second the sentiments of JRWoodman.
"Man ought to regard him[self] as something not separated and detached, but as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast common wealth of nature, and to the interest of the great community, he ought at all times be willing that his own little interest should be sacraficed." Adam Smith, 1790 [eddhind #70]
That's a nice quote, and speaks to the enlightened views of those distant times.
Many would hold to that view today, but this blog is unduly weighted by a view, or views, of another sort - hence The List.
Here is an opening comment from Lester Brown's new book, "Plan B 4.0":
"Business as usual has started to read like the end of the world."
(in the 'Preface', and reproduced by Lester Brown from a 'Newsweek' article)
I agree. It was apparently President Dwight Eisenhauer who presciently warned of the threat of the 'military-industrial complex,' and of the need to first reduce, and then dismantle entirely our nuclear arsenals. ("American Haj", Eric Margolis)
The modern publicly traded corporation seems to me beholden to no-one and no country. It externalizes all costs it can, and will pursue profit for itself, its officers, and its shareholders in any way possible. Human Resources are as expendable and disposable as machinery, and treated only marginally differently. Unending growth, preferably with the reduction of the competition, are its mantra.
This cannot stand - we are 'netting' the results.
- Manysummits -
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@MangoChutneyUKOK
On 2nd July 1992 a moratorium was announced in the northern cod fishery of Newfoundland. A population of fish once abundant (that John Cabot once described as so abundant that you could just throw in a basket and bring it out full of cod) had been to reduced to near extinction. Almost 20 years on and that overfished population has not shown a sign of returning.
Why do I bring up this story? Because we can learn a l lot from the mistakes we made...
There is no doubting that the science was confused. Those scientists who did suspect impending disaster could not prove their suspicions 100% thus did not recommend the necessary cuts in fishing quota. In addition, a smaller group of non-independent scientists told us that the fishery was in no trouble at all. These scientists and bureaucrats at the Canadian Department of Fisheries were directly responsible to the Canadian Government who were being pressured electorally by some fishers to keep the fishery open. They were also receiving a lot of tax from the very powerful seafood companies in Newfoundland. It was this group at the DFO which set the quotas and then had to close the fishery with its tail between its legs.
Does any of this sound familiar?
If we had listened to the independent science and to local inshore fishers (who unfortunately lacked electoral or financial power) we could have saved a fishery that was ecologically, socially and economically crucial.
My point is we can't always wait for total evidence (of which I believe there is plenty - the beach I grew up on is now unfortunately permanently underwater!). If there is any danger that we are harming the natural world that we are part of, then we must take the most urgent and severe precautions to prevent potential and actual harm. That is our moral duty.
I would welcome a tax on any behaviour that puts human interests before that of the planet as a whole. It would be the first moral tax. It seems to me brilliant that we could finally have a fair tax system, one in which those with a skewed moral compass pay most. Bring it on!
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@manysummits
@grumpy-mike
@Yorkurbantree
@davblo2
Jack's challenge to describe the "perfect green lifestyle" started on the "Biases, U-turns, and the BBC's climate coverage" thread.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climate_issue.html?page=2#comments
You may be particularly interested in his post #746. This might give you a better understanding of why he thinks we are being "evasive", and why he is banging on about coercion.
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Oh my, seems I’ve fallen a bit behind, haven’t I? A solid 80-some odd posts behind. I suppose you’ll all just have to bear with me while I attempt to catch up on all of this mayhem.
Is all of this bickering really necessary? I mean good grief. I realize we all have our various ways of perceiving reality, but some of the earlier posts were just plain childish.
This obviously goes back a ways, and I certainly apologize if I’m reiterating what someone else has already said, but I have to respond to some of the earliest comments...even if I am just adding fuel to the fire...
One thing I find especially fascinating is the refreshingly new take on things I get from reading everyone’s posts, albeit I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with all of them. It’s just nice hearing the perspectives of those living in a very similar, but altogether different cultural norm and understanding of what’s happening in the world today. Perhaps I’ve already given myself away as an American through my spellings, but if not, I guess I’ve just outed myself.
Had this blog been written and followed by a primarily American audience, I think the subject matter and tone of the comments would absolutely read much differently. There would be—and this is strictly my own opinion—a lot of arrogant talk about what I can only boil down as infringements on “self-entitlement”....you know, a whole lot of:
“My house, my lawn, my hummer, my cars, my televisions, my blah blah blah blah, AL GORE! RUSH LIMBAUGH! Gas prices! Ahhh!!!”
Ahem…sorry for the caricature…but can I really be blamed? I’m well aware much of the same rhetoric applies in some way or another universally, and obviously much more so in the UK and other “Western” nations (perhaps with different names and items filled in)—but MAN, am I sick of it!
But of course, the worst part of it all is that our nations’ political representatives at Copenhagen and many, if not most, past treaties/conventions/conferences harbor much of the same political, social and ideological biases as those lay citizens which I have so negligently mocked!
I have no reason to believe that Copenhagen will result in utter failure, and obviously no reason to cross my fingers and toes in hopes it will be a roaring success....but I do have more than enough to go off of to be incredulous of Copenhagen’s global influence with or without the production of a treaty. In the unlikely circumstance the climate summit manages to eke out some sort of treaty or treaty-like agreement, I will certainly not throw my arms in the air and cheer for some fantastic UN victory towards thwarting global climate change. Have we learned nothing from Kyoto and Rio? Signatory and ratification are two entirely different things...both of which carry minimal clout in the way of enforcement or adequate monitoring.
Do not get me wrong, I am an ecocentric environmentalist to say the least—all negative and positive connotations aside. But with that being said, I consider humans and human interests to be critical factors in the ecosystem—in other words, “nature” and humans are anything but separate. So instead of fighting over who needs to do what and in what amount of time and to what extent, could we please just shut up, take a few steps back, maybe breathe a bit and count to ten, and see ourselves and our species as an umbrella species the same way we view the grizzly bear and African elephants? Whether you feel a need for “sound science” justification, think the CO2 emissions concerns are a misguided hoax, or believe the world is in nothing short of an anthropogenic nightmare, you cannot contest the overarching impact of the human species. It’s not all about carbon dioxide, people. It’s all emissions, all chemicals, all pollutants, and all of our actions as seemingly insignificant or significant they may appear, that are fueling the horrifying extinction rates and accelerated climate fluctuations, and so on that the world is experiencing today.
So if our political representatives and policy-makers, and most importantly, we, as individual citizens making up the greater world population, can just hush our squabbling, take our heads out of our wallets, WAKE UP, and maybe even see all of our situations from an objective third-party point of view, even for just a fleeting moment....could we begin to realize how connected we all are. There is no economic North/South-developing/developed divide in the eyes of nature—that is purely a bizarre phenomenon of human cultural evolution...and if we could just come to understand it as such, maybe our sympathies and efforts would change just enough...
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and a wholehearted THANK YOU to #87 EDDHIND. Your post made me smile =)
I completely agree.
-freesasha
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What do you call belief contrary to observation?
The President of Maldives believes that his island will be covered by the sea.
Observation shows the sea is not rising.
The AGW camp believes CO2 causes global warming.
Observation shows CO2 and mean global temperature have been moving in opposite direction since 1998.
They have also moved in opposite direction for 33 years from 1944 to 1976. Also, what caused the 33 year long global warming from 1911 to 1944?
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RE- #88. At 11:44pm on 25 Oct 2009, JaneBasingstoke wrote:
Thanks Jane.......see what you mean.I thought he was asking a question free of any ulterior motivation. I will resist any further engagement with the fellow. It would only be pointless and I have better things to do.
My partner had an interesting experience the other day. Her granddaughter asked............"Grandma....how did you survive without a cellphone?"
A perfectly innocent question with no ulterior motive but to me it sums up the modern "western style" expectation of what we take for granted as an acceptable "Lifestyle".
When I arrived here in NZ in 1970, I thought I had stepped back 30 years in time. But....the more I got to know the country, which included the more relaxed "lifestyle" the more I realized this was where I wanted to be. Just one thought bothered me............"What a beautiful country.....now watch some b*****d stuff it up!"
When I reflect back to when I lived in England in the late 1940's....it wasn't easy. It was far from luxury. Sometimes it was darned uncomfortable! (SMOG!)Etc. etc. and of course "rationing"! But....we survived.
The Maori considered they had a successful "lifestyle" before the "pakeha" arrived.
The Australian Aborigine were happy with their lifestyle before the "white man" arrived as did the North American Indian and many other indigenous cultures.
So what's so special about our "lifestyle"??????????
Well, I'll tell you what I think is "special".
Our motto would be "Live for today..there maybe no tomorrow!"
I would have put that somewhat differently but I didn't want to upset the moderators too much!
Need I elaborate?
I find myself totally in the lobby defined by:-
89. At 00:33am on 26 Oct 2009, freesasha wrote:
Particularly his penultimate paragraph.
Once again I repeat......"There's none so blind as those who refuse to see"
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@manysummits #86
Eisenhower actually said
"We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method..."
and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that
"we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
how right he was, although not in the way he intended
@eddhind #87
There is no doubting that the science was confused.
The difference is the people who said the fish were running low had real evidence. Others chose to ignore that evidence.
My point is we can't always wait for total evidence(of which I believe there is plenty - the beach I grew up on is now unfortunately permanently underwater!).
Some evidence would be a good start
Are you sure the beach is evidence of AGW and not erosion or folklore?
@selti1
Hi Selti1
Could you put the comment number in your posts to make reading easier?
Thanks
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Forgot to mention.
I don't expect to convert anyone to my point of view and I'm too old to let anyone persuade me to theirs. So I'm just going to get on with our lifestyle (my partner and I) moving as and where we can in a "greener" direction.
Could I do better?.......probably.
Could I do worse?.......definitely.
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@MangoChutneyUKOK
Yes I am sure the beach disappearing was connected to sea level rise. Granted the sand dunes did erode, but only because the sea was reaching them on a more regular level (and because some numpty tried to put a road down to the beach - NEVER drill holes in sand dunes as nature put them there for a reason).
I see a lot of arguments arguing for evidence on here... and to be honest they mostly make me cringe with disgust. For 2 reasons
a) Because there is evidence. People on these blogs have provided the evidence before so I have limited interest in providing more. If some choose to live in denial (and I include the scientists who make there living out of denying global warming) then so be it. That is their delusion. It doesn't take a genius to guess that when you cut down most of the world's forest and then burn shed loads of coal and petrol that some changes may occur... at least I hope it doesn't! When I see the world's coral reefs bleached due to warming it genuinely breaks my heart. Due to warming and other anthropogenic impacts at least 40% of coral reefs are already dead. That is a lot of habitat! There isn't much time left for the other reefs.
b) Because people shouldn't need evidence to do the morally correct thing. Should they? I would have thought nobody could deny that releasing more CO2 and other pollutants could possibly have an environmental consequence. if there is any possibility then we shouldn't be doing it. It is that simple.
@freesasha
Thanks... I am certainly speaking a little bit tongue in cheek. That said... I totally believe in what I say. Too many people in denial on this blog are trying to get a rise out of people who are following the correct moral path. Well so be it... maybe that is the best thing they can do. They will mock the morally correct people into action! We will find our correct place in nature with or without them. For our children's sake we have to! If they chose not to take the morally correct path then tax them dry! Bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
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@Davblo.
Your attempts to ridicule those who are trying to present real science that conradicts the AGW stance is indicative of the main problem with this debate- namely it's not longer a debate. that alone is evidence that it's not based on sience, if you cannot see that then it's clear you know nothing about how science works.
I've asked you on more than one occasion to square your views with the alarmist predictions made by the original IPCC report and Al Gores fiction-film.
There is no link between CO2 and temp. If you think otherwise please post the evidence. Something that isn't an opinion piece, and we'll look at it. The current downward tren in temp (when compared against the upward trend in C02,) is enough to make the conclusions debatable.
Care to try a rational debate or are you just going to go back to your list?
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I can't speak for others countries because I don't live there, and although I am aware of the situation of LED countries, I cannot personally do anything about it. As a citizen of the UK, I can only speak from my own perspective, noticing where I might be able to do something and where others might follow.
consider the domestic oven
The case of domestic oven is a universal issue. Cooking is done worldwide using a variety of devices, some efficient and some not so efficient. In the UK we all use a pretty standard sort of electric or gas oven to cook our meals. For a while I had a key meter to monitor electricity use and I noticed that the worst offender for gobbling electricity was the electric oven. The meter dial would whizz round whenever the cooker was on.
Tell me, why if we have an energy crisis, do manufacturers and shops continue to pump out large fuel gobbling inefficient ovens? I have searched the shops for something much smaller and A grade efficient but have no success. The domestic hearth is where all citizen policy starts and this is where improvement could be made. Electric light bulbs are one thing but surely massive improvements could be made to our other electric goods?
We have done away with the old fashioned washing line because it is considered lower class and unsightly. Some estates have a ban on visible washing being dried because it lowers the tone of the area. If there is an issue with energy, can we start to get rid of these ridiculous and snobbish restrictions.
Is there a policy for new-builds to only provide grade A efficient electric and gas devices if provided?
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#96 - LabMunkey - your posting is a perfect example of what you say you are criticising. What's good for the goose, is good for the gander, surely?
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Re # 95. At 08:47am on 26 Oct 2009, eddhind wrote:
....NEVER drill holes in sand dunes as nature put them there for a reason).
I went back and looked at your "blog" regarding "FREE ENERGY" from Nature. You probably remember it. Free energy from waves, wind sunlight etc. Too true , too true BUT.....I fear that Mahatma Gandhi summed it all up when he is reported to have said....quote....
"Nature can supply our needs, but not or greed."....end quote.
Perhaps that's where we should start!
Otherwise agree totally with your comments.
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"98. At 09:21am on 26 Oct 2009, simon-swede wrote:
#96 - LabMunkey - your posting is a perfect example of what you say you are criticising. What's good for the goose, is good for the gander, surely?
"
excuse me? I'm asking for him to actually put evidence to back up his statements, rather than list percieved errors in others. I could easily do the same for the AGW camp, but choose not to, wanting to rely on data instead.
My issue is people saying the debate is settled, that C02 IS the cause. I have yet to see data that proves that. Hell, yet to see data that even comes close- there's lots showing temp and co2 rising together, but that's not proof of a link, just as my earlier example of red ant populations rising not being linked to unempoyment rising (or whatever else it was i used).
It's a false link- or so it seems.
C02 has been proven to have an insulating effect in the lab, but this is hugely different to the conditions in an ecosystem where negative feedback mechanisms exist (such as water vapour).
Look, i'm a scientist. I genuinley do not see any link between co2 and temp- and believe me i've looked. Hard. I've seen shoddy data manipulation, papers that shouldn't have even been published (on BOTH sides of the argument) and editorials/opinion pieces passed of as fact.
If there is data that links c02 to temp i can't find it, if it's there please someone link it as if there is a link, i want to see it. If the data's good i'll change my position- that's how science works. I'm just, at present, anything but convinced.
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One wonders how much evidence it takes to discredit an idea? An Idea that seems to have so inflamed world opinions and that seems almost a religion to some.
So, which Idea am I talking about?
The crux of the case for AGW, is that temperatures have been increasing at an unprecedented rate in the latter part of the 20th century and the arch symbol of this case is a ‘hockey stick’ shaped graph (Mann et al)
By now we’re all familiar with the criticisms of the statistical analysis techniques and the potential cherry picking of the data that’s been used in its creation. Now it seems that some of the original tree data may have been incorrectly interpreted and it seems that the whole basis of dendroclimatology is currently being called into question.
A recent study has concluded that the observed patterns of tree ring growth show more of a relation to variations in cosmic rays rather than changes in either temperature or precipitation.
When the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth's surface was higher, the rate of tree growth was faster. The effect was not large, but it is statistically significant. The intensity of cosmic rays also correlates better with the changes in tree growth than any other climatological factor, such as varying levels of temperature or precipitation over the years.
If one of the major proxies used has been incorrectly interpreted and the techniques that have been used to create it have been called into question, surely we’re now at the point where you at least have to reconsider your positions - A scintilla of doubt, must be creeping into even the most rabid of minds.
When one combines this with other factors, the apparent pause in early 21st Century warming, the general acceptance that the PDO and NAO are much bigger influences on the climate than were first thought and modelled, the expanding ice covers at both poles and the stubborn refusal of the planet to conform to the current set of CO2 forcing biased models.
Surely, you are all starting to reach the point, where you at least have to question the belief that any of these apparent temperature changes are directly a result of man-made CO2 production, or indeed that these temperature changes are in anyway unusual.
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LabMunkey, MangoChutneyUKOK, selti1 et al.
'Freezer plan' bid to save coral
...or should we just wait 20 years until we've proved the models to your satisfaction?
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LabMunkey #100:
Would you like to add something to the list?
From a quick scan of your comments most of your points seem to be already on it. I'll look more closely if you think you have something new.
/davblo2
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@thoseofyoulookingforscientificproof
I go back to the story of the northern cod of Newfoundland. The science never did totally prove that over-fishing caused the cod to become extinct. Shame for the cod that I guess. Why must we always have "scientific proof" to know that something is happening? For 20 years before the collapse of the northern cod inshore fishers had been warning of fish that were decreasing in number and size and previous fish migrations that were now absent. This opinion was barely acknowledged by scientists or politicians, let alone acted upon! If we had listened to those at the front-line of nature we could have saved the northern cod. As it is we didn't and we are worse off for that both in moral and material terms.
So I ask you to go out and talk to those on the front line of environmental change and ask them what is happening now and ask them to show you graphs and statistics that prove environmental degradation. They won't be able to show you anything of the sort. What they will be able to show you is desert that was once grassland, dust that was once a lake, algae encrusted rubble that was once a coral reef, a deserted farm that was once rainforest, a high tide in their front room and a toomb stone that was once a child. I suggest that before you try and convince me that we are not compromising this planet, you try and convince these people instead.
I do not eschew science wholesale... I do though advocate that science work hand-in-hand with the knowledge of those who see change first hand. We need both these knowledge streams more than ever...
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grumpy-mike,
You have raised an interesting point.
"Nature can supply our needs, but not our greed"
I believe we have gone far past the ideology that nature can supply our needs. Nature on its own, cannot supply the massive human population. We have reached a stage where human intervention is necessary to assist nature. As for greed, how did that come about?
Mass communication
advertising
the manipulation of fear
Mass communication allows direct awareness of others. If we become aware of others doing better than ourselves, we immediately develop a sense of unease, a sense that we personally are not doing everything 'right', to match the perceived success of others.
If we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we can see how advertising directly manipulates those need-goals to suit its purpose of promoting something.
The manipulation of fear is used on a daily basis, to give us the sense of doom and gloom. When people feel under threat they buy more goods in an attempt to make things 'right' but of course this does not work and people buy more and more visual displays of 'success' and they eat more and more.
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@davblo 102
totally irrelavent to my point.
@davblo 103
Fine we'll go down this route then as you flatly refuse to answer my points (note, some on your list ARE valid arguments- some are hokum, but you cannot discredit the good ones by association).
1- Global warming set to destroy the planet.
2- 8 m sea rises predicted.
3- temperature increase in the region of 10 'C predicted
4- global warming re-branded climate change when earth refuses to follow predictions
5- co2 'linked to temp rises'
6- co2 rebranded as responsible for climate change, not global warming once temp vs co2 data scrutinised to show it actually FOLLOWS temp rises not precedes it
7- 'global warming swindle' documentary comes out to discredit al gore.
8- same film ridiculed and derised on the back of complaints over the science.
9- Independant tv complaints comission hold 4 of the complaints against the film. None on the science.
10- film re-released, and ignored on the back of unfounded claims on inaccuracies- which have already been addressed and thrown out.
11- political agenda on AGW really takes hold as new industry emerges.
12- NIPCC review thoroughly discredits first IPCC report, Hocky stick graph and ground station data.
13- Massive statistical inaccuracies found in IPCC data, satellite data adjusted to fit in with ground data.
14- ground data found to be suspect (HIE issues i've covere). Satellite data adjustments found to be suspect.
15- global temperatures start to fall
16- co2 levels continue to rise
17- temperature and co2 rises heralded as proof of link during late nineties/earyl noughties yet the inconvenient cooling trend heralded as 'blip'.
18 -antarctica refuses to melt as predicted, gaining MASSIVE amounts of ice.
19- sea ice lasting longer year on year.
20- satelite measurements of sea ice/antarctic loss shown to have statistical and observational errors.
21- Sea levels refuse to rise as predicted.
22- temperature refuses to rise as predicted.
23- IPCC revise stance to focus on water/food availability.
24- data shows link between sunspot activity and recent temperature drop trend
25- Antarctica data shows steady cooling for over a decade.
26- vienna case study shows HIE has massively skewed the ground temperature data- perhaps showing temperature rises where none have existed.
and so on.
Please bear in mind, i can provide peer reviewed papers for every one of these points (barring the IPCC/al gore statements as they're obviously observational). Ask and i shall link.
NOw- please davblo, if you're sitting on some data that proves me wrong- link it. I'd be genuinley interested to see it, and would admit if i were wrong. Unfortunatly so far, the science doesn;t make that seem likely.
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@grumpymike #99 and @sensibleoldgrannie #105
I think Gandhi was probably right at the time, but I agree with sensibleoldgrannie that we may well have exceeded nature's abilities to live with us. I think nature may now be trying to find a way to live without us! If we become extinct there will many of us in "the afterlife" who with a melancholy shrug will go... "We probably deserved that... we had it coming... good luck to nature."
I am no expert on greed, but I fear that it is something that we have always had as a race. However, where as in the past we probably used greed only against each other, the industrial and technological revolutions of the last 200 years have aloud us to play our greed off against nature.
"When people feel under threat they buy more goods in an attempt to make things 'right' but of course this does not work and people buy more and more visual displays of 'success' and they eat more and more." - I remember after one particularly stressful revision session I just sacked it off and went out and bought icecream and a computer game to take my mind off my failings. In the short term it certainly worked. I can't remember if I did well in that exam... I hope for the sake of your argument and nature that I did terribly!
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davblo2 #102
Mean global temperature is cyclic.
To assume it only goes up is contrary to recorded accounts in the media.
In five years time, we will talk about “Climate Change” as a result of global cooling.
As shown in the above chart, global warming by 0.7 deg C from 1976 to 1998, or global cooling by 0.7 deg C from 1878 to 1911, is natural variation of mean global temperature. As a result, we must learn to adapt to climate change due to these change in temperatures. The peak of global warming was reached in 1998, and now fasten your seat belt for global cooling until about 2031!
In Copenhagen, they must change their topic and try to address the problem of climate change due to global cooling!
The effect of CO2 is nil, zero, zilch.
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LabMunkey at #106
"co2 rebranded as responsible for climate change, not global warming"
Hmm, if this cliam is correct, isn't it a little odd then that we have a UNFCC and not an UNFGW; also an IPCC and not an IPGW?
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LabMunkey at #100
"excuse me? I'm asking for him to actually put evidence to back up his statements, rather than list percieved errors in others."
But then you go on to do exactly that yourself! Amazing that you can't even see yourself doing it!
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LabMunkey #106: "Fine we'll go down this route then..."
Truly Brilliant!
I thought you were going to present us with a list of the pro-AGW claims to parallel my list of anti-AGW claims; and that's how it looked at the start, with 1, 2 and 3.
But then with 4, 5, and 6 you start to waver...
Then from 7 onwards you "relapsed" into pure anti-AGW claims, as far as I can see all the way to 26.
I'll look through them more carefully when I get time, but I'm pretty confident there are some new ones there that I don't have on my list.
Thanks for your help; davblo2
PS. At LabMunkey #96: "Your attempts to ridicule those who are trying to present real science..."
It's just a list of claims made on these blogs. If you find the phrasing of any particular one indicates ridicule then it may have come about in my attempt to fit it into one line for brevity. Just let me know which one you'd like to re-word and I'll consider updating it.
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@thosewhobelieveglobalwarmingisnothappening
Hi people. I realise I am very much to the other side of the debate to you and that made me wonder... is there any validity in your position? My question to you is not that, as clearly you will say yes... my question to you is why do you spend time arguing against those who believe global warming is occuring?
What harm is there if you are right as a group (p.s. you aren't) and we reduce CO2 emissions without need? Will this reduction in CO2 emissions have negative effects? I believe not... for one it will also help to combat the ocean acidification problem that you conveniently forget when arguing against temperature rise.
Tell me what these negative effects are? I want to know... I assume you believe they exist or why bother trying to increase CO2 emissions. Is your answer really just tax?!!!!!
Yet if you as a group are wrong (p.s. you are)then the results will be catastrophic for all of us... potentially terminal. Can we afford to take the risk that you may be right? In the words of Amabo Kcarab, "NO WE CAN'T!"
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selti1 #109: "Mean global temperature is cyclic. To assume it only goes up is contrary..."
That is also brilliant.
On the HADCRUT3 data, you have "Detrend" selected with a value of 0.707.
Do you know what that does? Try de-selecting it. Here is the result.
/davblo2
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at simon swedw-#110
I did post lots of evidence in the last one- it's kind of an ongoing discussion we're having. But never mind.
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sensibleoldgrannie, these devices are reasonably efficient themselves in that they are just making heat. It would be more efficient if you heated them faster (Microwave) but you lose some of the nicer parts of baking.
Ironically, if you want to be more efficient and use LESS carbon...you should provide your home heating needs WITH carbon based fuels (as opposed to using electricity from carbon-based fuels). Pretty much 100% of the energy released from burning carbon-based fuels is released as heat. If you use electric methods...100% is turned into heat but only 40-50% of the fuel burned at the power plant was turned into electricity in the first place. I suppose the most efficient cooking method possible would be a hybrid gas-microwave oven.
To whoever mentioned nature not being able to meet our greed...yeah, it won't even meet our needs now. That's why we (in the industrial nations at least) do most of it for ourselves now. We process our garbage and raw sewage since nature can't. We use intensive farming because nature won't. We've even (inadvertently) managed to fertilize the entire planet with extra CO2...increasing growth rates and drought resistance of all the plants in the world (which ironically is helping to PROTECT mother nature in developing nations by allowing them to engage in somewhat heavier agriculture while increasing the output of the ecosystem in general.
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In anticipation of several new claims today, I thought it best to update the list with the 3 stragglers we had yesterday before I lose track.
(Special note to LabMunkey #100 "excuse me? I'm asking for him to actually put evidence to back up his statements".
These are not my statements.)
"The sceptics' view of AGW"
_0. This list is a load of rubbish!
_1. There is no warming
_2. There is warming but it's not anthropogenic
_3. There is anthropogenic warming but it's not caused by CO2
_4. There is anthropogenic warming by CO2 but not enough to worry about
_5. CO2 has risen but it's not capable of causing warming
_6. CO2 hasn't risen
_7. Arctic ice isn't disappearing
_8. Arctic ice is disappearing but the Antarctic is more important
_9. It gets cold at night so it can't be warming
10. It has been warming but now it's cooling
11. We don't trust the temperature measurements anyway
12. CO2 has always lagged warming in the past so it can't cause it
13. AGW may be real; but it could be a good thing
14. It's all a big con!
15. It's the journalists fault for not exposing the charlatan scientists
16. The Hotspot hasn't been detected so there can't be any AGW
17. All the temperature data has been lost/destroyed
18. Trees do not make good thermometers
19. You can make a hockey stick out of random data
20. The upturn in the hockey stick was cherry-picked data
21. Cycles in the solar wind are the primary driver of climate change
22. The science is not even in, let alone settled
23. Sea level rise has been constant for 100 years, but will never bother us
24. IPCC uses deliberately woolly language to hide it's inaccuracies
25. The politicised IPCC uses cherry picked data & highly suspect models
26. Peer reviewing is a closed shop and worthless
27. Popular opinion still rules and says something quite different
28. Insult alarmists' intelligence, that'll prove we are right
29. Alarmists refuse to answer our questions so they must be wrong
30. The onus of proof is on those supplying the theory, not those trying to debunk it
31. At the IPCC the summary is agreed before the report is finished
32. Consensus counts for less than nothing in science
33. Why should so many scientists support AGW? Follow The Money!
34. Climate scientists change sides when they retire
35. The extra CO2 is good for the plants, isn't it
36. Al Gore is rich so it must be all a lie
37. 1000s of scientists have signed up against AWG; we trust them
38. There's an AGW blog where some questions haven't been answered for 3 years!
39. It's just a plot to tax us more and more
40. Progress and Free Market are more important than AGW theories
41. Al Gore's film is an obvious attempt at brainwashing
42. Alarmists will have us living back in the stone age!
43. CO2 is neither a poison nor pollutant.
44. All we really need to do is make petrol and diesel engines more efficient
45. The UK CO2 contribution is a layer thinner than a human hair in one kilometre
46. We need 5 years to test the climate models and we know now that they are wrong
47. It's ok; with all that rising water, we could at least re-water the Sahara
48. It's not like additional CO2 can cause anything to move into a colder region
49. There are 20 year old predictions that have proved to be wrong!
/davblo2
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Leaders generally take credit for things they do not do. The society will change, or is changing. Individuals become more aware and change habits. They may take a cloth bag to the store rather than rely on plastic, they purchase more efficient autos, better light bulbs, reduce electrical consumption, etc. Governments wait until the data, usually public health data, clearly shows that some process of commerical or governmental interest is harming or killing citizens in numbers that can not be hidden. This is just history. I am not offering a negative view, simply stating how things happen. This is why Copenhagen will be more show and less real change. The continuation of fossil fuels will continue to add to the problem. This is like auto accidents, each society accepts some level of death and disability related to auto use. It is a social trade-off. Oil companies will raise the price of oil over the next month as a warning to those wishing to curb that use. As they raise the price the governments will fear negative economic impacts and kow-tow to the corporations and pass any additional costs on to the citizens. It will be the transition to a new fuel source that will be difficult. Those in control would like to have a "plug-in" using the exisitng infrastructure. This will keep those in control, in control, but a new source would be an economic boom as many new jobs would be created. I favor a more democratic approach where the individual controls the production and use, home engery and transport energy, this is reliant on a new technology. We need to think differently. Copenhagen will not change much and if fact it may lead people to believe that things are being done but in reality each person and their collective efforts will bring about this change. Governments have become organizations to twart the efforts of the citizens in favor of corporate interest. I think everyone should reflect on the last international cooperative effort....the worldwide banking and financial services swindle, facilitated by the governments.
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@poitsplace #115
I liked your post as it was constructive and a little bit different... made me think.
Of course in regard to your first two paragraphs we could go even further and provide our energy by renewable, non-polluting power sources such as wind, solar, wave, etc. Obviously the fact that we would then be using renewable energy does not mean we should be less efficient. Just because energy is renewable... we shouldn't just waste it as that would become more costly.
In regards to your final paragraph I think it is great that we have found some ways to take the pressure off of nature. However, we should not foregt that we are still outsourcing many problems to nature. Oh well... maybe nature is happy in its role as an employee of humanity.
I wonder if nature is happy with the ways we are finding to live without it. If we cut down all the trees in the amazon then all the monkeys and living stuff that converts O2 to CO2 will die as well... so that is awesome as it will help stop global warming!
Whilst it is true that we do now treat a lot of our sewage, we should not forget that nature still treats much of it. Many of the world's shellfish beds are now contaminated with human faeces that they have kindly filtered out of the marine ecosystem for us after we dumped raw sewage into it. Of course sometimes not content with an oysters work we then decide to eat it as well. Of course if the oyster is contaminated then we get to add to that raw sewage count again! Perhaps metaphorically, nature who is acting as an employee in the kitchen has chosen to spit in the masters soup. Is that a positive or negative feedback circle... or a bit of both? Sorry... I realise I am being a little sarcastic (which is not a great trait), but I am just trying to point out that we can never think of ourselves being able to do what nature cannot do for us. We are part of nature... not its master... we must live with it on its terms, especially as it has been here a hell of a lot longer than us. We can change it in the short term, but if it doesn't like us (and why would it?) then I am sure it will bar us from the restaurant that is planet earth.
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According to paper published in the journal Nature:
Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade
Global Warming is over. The scare is over. Get ready for global cooling.
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@selti1
Thanks for the link.
"Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific TEMPORARILY OFFSET the projected anthropogenic warming."
Didn't you read as far as temporarily offset?
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#106, LabMunkey wrote
I'm intrigued. When did you last hear any politician or scientist on UK TV running through such a "questioning" agenda? I cant remember anybody, for years.
I'm a "climate change" believer. Far as I can tell, the climate has changed on a spasmodic (occasionally regular rythemed) basis for millennia.
I'm absolutely in favour of finding better and less polluting fuel sources.
I just find the argument to have been so badly expressed and strident that I simply find it hard to believe it.
It occured to me that our government appears ready to sell off the Weather Agency. If that feel into the hands of nasty capitalists (including oil interests), would the computer models start to reflect a different "view" of what the raw data actually mean? Or how the "variables" that "adjust" apparent impacts would gradually shift in another direction, to reflect the fact that funding comes from non-governmental sources?
The raw data seems to be manipulated quite a bit between capture and entry. The models necessarily have enormous qualifiers built in, because nobody had a clue e.g. what the measurable temperature of the North or South Poles was in 1890, and "botanical and zoological proxy information" can only be given a value based on speculation.
I have a huge scepticism about the Stern Report. This guy used an economically driven model to project potential financial consequences, based on the output of other models. Well, I'm sorry, but economists seem to have stuffed up on their interpretation of how a very visible financial system would work - hence the present crisis. Why should I believe that a model based on another bunch of models, accepting input from minor models in any way reflects FACTS?
I'm disturbed that politicians talk about a global scientific concensus which doesn't seem to exist.
I'm disturbed that nobody seems to wonder why Emperor Penguins trek miles and miles inland to breed. Why? Their main predators come from the sea. Not likely to survive long on land. So why waste so much energy trekking 20+ kilometers to bring up the kids? Could it be that the Antarctic ice-cap has been growing since they started nesting there? But the penguins couldn't give up on their "traditional homeland"?
I'm in favour of better fuel use, stopping forests being destroyed, making better use of natural resources. I'm not a big fan of "science" that is based on computer models. (Airlines, hoteliers, bankers, economists and many others use models stuffed to the brim with absolute, recorded, facts. But the "interpretative" aspects that the models absolutely need still don't work as well as they could. Because it's really hard to model human factors.)
What we seem to have are climate models based on "facts" that are "adjusted" before entering a model that is so heavily "interprative" that you have to wonder if it's a bit like one of those "if only I hadn't done that, twenty years ago, what would my life be like now" games.
Cut CO2? Good idea - if it means delivering better, cheaper and more effective energy. Stop forest fires? Great idea. When did it last happen?
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Dvblo2 #113
You must remove the linear warming trend of 0.44 deg C/ century that existed before 1900!
As the effect of CO2 on mean global temperature before 1900 was negligible, this linear warming must be removed to see the relationship between CO2 and global temperature.
They are moving in opposite direction since 1998.
The theory that CO2 causes global warming is INVALID and it must be rejected.
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#119 selt1
Alternatively, one could look the scientific study published in Nature last year which suggests the opposite conclusion to yours. The authors stressed that this was at best only a temporary "reprieve" - and that unless you look at thw whole picture "you might erroneously think there's no global warming going on".
The Nature article is: Keenlyside, N. S., M. Latif, J. Jungclaus, L. Kornblueh, and E. Roeckner, 2008: Advancing Decadal-Scale Climate Prediction in the North Atlantic Sector. Nature, 453, 84-88.
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@eddhind #95
Yes I am sure the beach disappearing was connected to sea level rise. Granted the sand dunes did erode, but only because the sea was reaching them on a more regular level (and because some numpty tried to put a road down to the beach - NEVER drill holes in sand dunes as nature put them there for a reason).
So you're actually saying the beach disappearance may have been caused by sea level rise, but you have no evidence to support this conclusion. I'd be interested to know if you have checked historical records for high tides etc and any other factors that may have changed the coastline around your own particular beach before reaching the conclusion that your beach disappearance was caused by global warming.
I see a lot of arguments arguing for evidence on here... and to be honest they mostly make me cringe with disgust. For 2 reasons
a) Because there is evidence. People on these blogs have provided the evidence before so I have limited interest in providing more.
People have provided what they think is evidence, but ice melting is not evidence of AGW
b) Because people shouldn't need evidence to do the morally correct thing.
Ahhh, the moral argument.
@davblo2 #102
'Freezer plan' bid to save coral
...or should we just wait 20 years until we've proved the models to your satisfaction?
Or we could take note of these guys:
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/bleached-coral-reefs-bounce-back
who tell us:
Bleached and dying coral reefs are often held up as proof that global warming is laying waste to Earth's ecosystems. Now come reports that a number of reefs around the world are being brought back from the dead by dedicated oceanographers and conservationists. “The results are more than just promising; they are beautiful,” says Baruch Rinkevich, a marine biologist at the National Institute of Oceanography in Haifa, Israel. But how can these reefs recover in the face on ongoing global warming? Either global warming has reversed course or the bleaching of reefs wasn't due to global warming in the first place.
@eddhind #104
What they will be able to show you is desert that
was once grassland, dust that was once a lake, algae encrusted rubble that was once a coral reef, a deserted farm that was once rainforest, a high tide in their front room and a toomb stone that was once a child.
Again, how is any of that proof that the warming is caused by CO2? And the moral argument once again!
@eddhind #112
What harm is there if you are right as a group (p.s. you aren't)
Yet if you as a group are wrong (p.s. you are)
How can you be 100% sure of your belief when the even the IPCC are absolutely sure?
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Sorry the 2nd link for #122 is broken
Relationship between CO2 and mean global temperature
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poitsplace, at 115
Is there such a thing as a gas microwave oven? Is it possible? I disagree about ovens being efficient as they leak heat by thermal conduction and convection into the surrounding air and close by units. Great if it is a cold day and you don't want to put the heating on, or you want to dry something out in the warm air. If only 10 million of us had a compact; portable; 'A' energy standard; well insulated oven; suitable for everyday needs; there would be a considerable energy saving. The old style kitchen range has an elite status symbol but it is not energy efficient and it has had its day for the average consumer. Most of us live in smaller, compact environments and we have less need for giant cookers. However, I dislike and mistrust microwave cooking as the only option, and so do many other people. The slow cooker has become a big con as there is such a large amount of heat energy wasted through the metal surrounding jacket due to diabolically poor insulation. You would be better off with an old fashioned hay box.
I know this is all very boring domestic level stuff but it is where 60 million+people come from each day and we are collectively trying to find other ways of saving energy. I think working people will find it hard to give up tumble dryers in the UK because our weather is so unpredictable. We can turn the heating off at night and use thicker quilts and we can turn down the evening heating a notch or two (with discomfort) Can manufacturers get rid of the standby button on TV's and computers? Almost all houses in the UK are fitted with baths which we use on very cold evenings when we have tried to turn the room temp down a notch or two and then found ourselves unbearably cold.
Listening to those who lived through rationing in the UK and Jersey, you begin to realise that they did not always have energy to cook food, let alone heat their houses. The week's food ration in Jersey could sit on the palm of one hand. People in Jersey would take extreme risks to barter for food in exchange for other food, warm boots or cloths. Survival in cold countries in hard times revolves around methods of keeping warm and finding food. Unless our country maintains an adequate level of affordable domestic energy, there will be more carbon emissions due to people burning anything they can find to keep warm.
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@Mango
re#95
I said evidence doesn't have to be a statistic or a number or something from a model or a measurment of ice, etc. It can be what we see in our everyday lives. I saw that beach disappear, the same as many people have seen similar environmental travesties worldwide. You can keep on denying these, but at what stage does overwhelming circumstancial evidence get the right to be accepted. Natures rights are being tried in a court of life... not one of law!
a) (See above) - evidence does not have to be a number in a scientific paper.
b) I am glad my debates and arguments include morality. I don't care if you choose to snear at that.
re #104 - I guess I covered that in my original post and just above.
re #112 - I will give you that. Sorry, that was a cheap shot and I knew it when I wrote it. I guess I just wanted a rise by spouting hot aired opinion - I was jealous of others who had already had that chance ;o) My position remains though. What right do we have to try and find if we are living outisde of nature? If there is any chance that is happening then we must take PRECAUTION to stop that. I can't prove my belief 100%, but neither can you. We never will be able to prove it 100% because there are just too many variables. The only proof we may ever get is when it is too late. I don't want it to be too late so I am not taking the risk. Neither should you.
Also re your response to davblo re#102 - I think I am qualified to add some science to this.
A number of actions are believed to cause coral bleaching - these include water pollution, coral disease, sea level change and yes... global warming. Some corals can even become fairly resistant to bleaching and recover well. Some species were not so lucky and became locally extinct. Even the resistant species can die if while bleached and vulnerable they experience other anthropogenically induced events, such as die-off of algal predators (e.g. urchins and fish) which stop the bleached corals being smothered by algae forever.
Some of the quotes taken from Rinkevitch in that "very unbias" article on the Resiliant Earth website are highly selective. Rinkevitch works on coral restoration projects which I would certainly hope leads to some reef recovery. We certainly can't save all reefs that way though. The cost and human capital needed would be extrodinary... we just don't have it. Reef restoration is only proven for certain species anyway. I could go on forever on this so I will probably leave it there but if you have any specific questions... feel free to ask :o)
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fairlyopenmind at #
I did a double-take at your "question" about emperor penguins. Do you really think that no-one has studied this? Your suggestion for explanation, while creative, is not at all convincing. I doubt that it makes Mango's standard of proof either!
Those that have studied it, suggest that there is an interplay of several factors acting in different ways that determine the success of the emperor penguin breeding strategy. For example:
"Sea-ice extent in winter negatively affects hatching success, by increasing the distance between the colony and feeding grounds. Conversely, annual sea-ice extent positively affects adult survival by increasing food availability. Therefore there exists in emperor penguins a trade-off between the advantages and disadvantages of extensive pack ice. In population terms, the trophic advantage of extensive pack ice, by favouring higher survival and further reproduction, outmatches its physical disadvantage of reducing fecundity."
See Christophe Barbraud & Henri Weimerskirch, “Emperor penguins and climate change”, Nature, vol 411, 10 May 2001, pp 183-184.
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Hmmmm... What is the average post number on Richard's blogs, when the discussion becomes primarily about whether global warming exists or not? Now there is a statistic that would interest me. Maybe we should try and continue the debate about the dynamics of impending Copenhagen at the same time as trading blows on "evidence"... just a thought. That said I have nothing to offer right now... my mind needs a rest!
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Simon-swede #123
How could it be just a reprieve?
Let us look at the numbers.
For 1998, the oscillating anomaly was 0.38 deg C. For last year, 2008, the oscillating anomaly was 0.14 deg C, which give a decrease of 0.24 deg C in 11 years. Based on previous patterns, if we assume a global cooling period of 33 years, we get a global cooling of 0.72 deg C (0.24x3) from a peak in 1998 to a valley in about 2031. This value of 0.72 deg C is similar in magnitude to the global warming from 1976 to 1998, and the global cooling from 1878 to 1911. Case closed.
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@selti1
The paper you sited in your favour said it was a temporary offset. i.e. A reprieve. Case closed.
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To sensibleoldgrannie, I seriously doubt that they make a combination microwave/convection oven that uses gas for the convection...I just pointed out that when you do the math on it (as is so often the case) you often find that some things that might seem foolish on the outside make a whole lot more sense. The micro convection oven is actually more efficient in that it is a microwave...so it more or less ends up heating the food directly, but it also gives you the option of browning your food...yummy. So even if there is heat lost, its lost for a lot less time.
@eddhind:
While I have no problem at all with viable alternatives I really mentioned hybridized solar-thermal for a reason. The solar-thermal setup is the only one that can really be hybridized properly. You just add a gas/oil burner and it's done. Solar provides power irregularly but generally at regular intervals when we need it the most, greatly increasing its effectiveness. Solar-thermal is the most cost effective and efficient form of solar. Solar-thermal uses a form of converstion that outputs electricity in a form that is directly compatible with existing infrastructure.
With wind and others we're generally limited to the 20% of overall capacity because you need to shadow the wind (or whatever) turbines with conventional power plants. Let me point out that a lot of the cost of producing power is in the upkeep of the facilities and much of that cost remains even if the plant is idle. LOL, essentially people are distracted by the pretty whirling blades of the turbines so they don't notice an entire power plant that costs a billion pounds is sitting elsewhere to back them up.
The only locations that make sense for these more erratic forms are near large hydroelectric plants. You can always moderate the flow wildly (good luck pushing THAT past environmentalists) to meet demand. You will find if you actually look, countries with large wind power outputs end up selling a huge portion of the power for next to nothing to other nations (note, this decreases the cost effectiveness).
BTW, this odd "oops what the heck do we do with this power?" situation is one of the only times it makes ANY sense to produce hydrogen. In doing so you literally write off HALF of that output but if you were selling it at half-price anyway...what the heck. If converted into hydrogen on-site at say...a hybrid solar plant (or conventional plant) with higher than necessary capacity, you can just set fire to it along with your oil/gas fuel.
You lose efficiency but gain the ability to use cost effective storage. It would take a storage tanks about 2 meters by 500-1000 meters to store about 1 day's worth of energy for a gigawatt power plant at full output. Obviously this is more environmentally friendly and cheaper than the equivalent of 24 million car batteries, but it still costs extra money and assumes you were going to sell the power at below cost.
The UK is of course screwed on the solar front...pretty far north and often rainy. Most of the rest of europe has the same far north issues. China, the US, Australia, Africa...great places for solar. The UK should probably embrace the newer nuclear plants (mmmm, molten salt reactors...yummy!) and hey, you could maybe look into hybridizing them to burn off your otherwise wasted wind power.
So anyway, I'm not some moronic "denier". I've studied the technologies/information and my problems are that nobody is going with viable energy solutions and that climate honestly has never shown (during the interglacial periods) the sensitivity suggested and necessary for the 2C+ scenarios. We're literally better off with the little bit of heat we're getting than with no or sporadic electricity.
Hmmm, I did not mean for this to be so long.
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#96 and #100 (labmunkey)
Labmunkey….water vapor IS a greenhouse gas…good grief. Obviously, CO2 is not the end all reason for climate change—it’s nothing short of ignorant to assume as much. CO2 is without question a MAJOR contributing factor, but certainly not the only one. As a scientist, you should know that unless we’re acting in a highly controlled experiment, there are endless variables affecting the outcomes, some of which can be identified, some of which cannot.
The question is not whether the temperature is warming or cooling—the question is are things changing in an erratic and otherwise abnormal fashion.
Listen, it’s naïve to believe anthropogenic causes play no role in the world’s precarious situation(s). Humans have the absolute number one largest direct impact on the world out of all the species found on this here earth. (Emphasis on DIRECT impact). I simply do not see how you or anyone else could even attempt to dispute this…
-freesasha
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blunderbunny @ 101 says: A scintilla of doubt, must be creeping into even the most rabid of minds.
Dream on my friend
The rabid minds of the AGW Terrorists are totally incapable of accepting anything which argues their absolute bigotry and overwhlming belief that they are right!
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I urge EVERYONE to read this....it's short, an "easy read", and should shed some serious light on this whole "scientific evidence" debate...
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
-freesasha
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@eddhind #127
I said evidence doesn't have to be a statistic or a number or something from a model or a measurment of ice, etc. It can be what we see in our everyday lives.
You saw the beach disappear, fair enough, but what caused the beach to disappear? Was it a change in currents or tides because of erosion elsewhere? We probably don’t know, but people still say it’s global warming without any kind of proof. The government of the Maldives recently pulled a publicity stunt to highlight rising sea level, but then a scientist wrote an open letter to the President stating his team had carried out a 30 year study of rising sea level on the Maldives and had found no evidence of rising sea level whatsoever. Do you see where I’m going with this? You are assuming the beach has washed away because of rising sea level caused by global warming, but there is no evidence for your conclusion.
It’s the same with migrating birds or trees growing further north than usual. Warming, probably, but evidence of AGW? No.
a) (See above) - evidence does not have to be a number in a scientific paper.
Agreed, but there has to be some evidence at least, not just a feeling that something is wrong.
b) I am glad my debates and arguments include morality. I don't care if you choose to snear at that.
Morality has its place. I think it’s immoral to allow millions of people to die each year through lack of clean water and sanitation, but with AGW we are looking at all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas to geo-engineer ourselves out of a problem that there is no empirical evidence to show it exists. What if we seed the ocean with iron that causes more plankton to bloom and absorb more CO2, but the effect of the extra plankton upsets the food chain and we cause more problems than a little extra CO2 in the air? We really don’t know enough about these things to conduct experiments like this, whereas we do know what happens when CO2 levels get to 4000 ppm, because we have the evidence. And what happens, I hear you ask? Nothing, because CO2 cannot raise temperature due to feedbacks in the system.
I can't prove my belief 100%, but neither can you.
I disagree. There is observational evidence that climate sensitivity is low not high. Low climate sensitivity means CO2 cannot raise temperature, so scientists do have evidence that shows the IPCC is wrong. Maybe we can’t prove it 100%, but as others have pointed out, science is never 100% and as Einstein said, only one experiment is needed to prove him wrong.
Also re your response to davblo re#102 - I think I am qualified to add some science to this.
It’s a shame I can’t give you my email address, because I would be really interested in hearing what you have to say. What is it you do?
One thing I will add. Corals have been around for millions of years. They have been through ice ages and warm periods before and experienced high and low levels of CO2, so I guess they will still be here in 100 years time, subject to man not over exploiting and polluting the seas (yes, I do think we have to clean up our act on pollution. I even think, through land use changes, deforestation etc, we do contribute to climate change, I just don’t accept, from the evidence, that CO2 is the driver of climate change.
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#129 Eddhind
How right you are...
I've been writing up conflict analyses and find myself observing and writing the same thing time and time again....
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It took some effort, but I think I've caught most of the recent claims.
Thanks go mainly to LabMunkey for an unusually high number today; MangoChutneyUKOK was in there as usual with some new ones; also selti1 and poitsplace; and finally yertizz (#134) gets a special dispensation of "two lines" for that masterpiece now at 81 in the list.
(Apologies to any others I haven't acknowledged)
We are getting a little overlap, but where some of the newer claims are rather more specific that older general ones so I've chosen to include them.
If I get time, I'll start organising them into "compatibility groups" since the anti lobby don't seem to offer any help in that direction.
So here it is, with new additions 50 to 81.
My favourite is 78, (poitsplace #132) it made be smile.
"The sceptics' view of AGW"
_0. This list is a load of rubbish!
_1. There is no warming
_2. There is warming but it's not anthropogenic
_3. There is anthropogenic warming but it's not caused by CO2
_4. There is anthropogenic warming by CO2 but not enough to worry about
_5. CO2 has risen but it's not capable of causing warming
_6. CO2 hasn't risen
_7. Arctic ice isn't disappearing
_8. Arctic ice is disappearing but the Antarctic is more important
_9. It gets cold at night so it can't be warming
10. It has been warming but now it's cooling
11. We don't trust the temperature measurements anyway
12. CO2 has always lagged warming in the past so it can't cause it
13. AGW may be real; but it could be a good thing
14. It's all a big con!
15. It's the journalists fault for not exposing the charlatan scientists
16. The Hotspot hasn't been detected so there can't be any AGW
17. All the temperature data has been lost/destroyed
18. Trees do not make good thermometers
19. You can make a hockey stick out of random data
20. The upturn in the hockey stick was cherry-picked data
21. Cycles in the solar wind are the primary driver of climate change
22. The science is not even in, let alone settled
23. Sea level rise has been constant for 100 years, but will never bother us
24. IPCC uses deliberately woolly language to hide it's inaccuracies
25. The politicised IPCC uses cherry picked data & highly suspect models
26. Peer reviewing is a closed shop and worthless
27. Popular opinion still rules and says something quite different
28. Insult alarmists' intelligence, that'll prove we are right
29. Alarmists refuse to answer our questions so they must be wrong
30. The onus of proof is on those supplying the theory, not those trying to debunk it
31. At the IPCC the summary is agreed before the report is finished
32. Consensus counts for less than nothing in science
33. Why should so many scientists support AGW? Follow The Money!
34. Climate scientists change sides when they retire
35. The extra CO2 is good for the plants, isn't it
36. Al Gore is rich so it must be all a lie
37. 1000s of scientists have signed up against AWG; we trust them
38. There's an AGW blog where some questions haven't been answered for 3 years!
39. It's just a plot to tax us more and more
40. Progress and Free Market are more important than AGW theories
41. Al Gore's film is an obvious attempt at brainwashing
42. Alarmists will have us living back in the stone age!
43. CO2 is neither a poison nor pollutant.
44. All we really need to do is make petrol and diesel engines more efficient
45. The UK CO2 contribution is a layer thinner than a human hair in one kilometre
46. We need 5 years to test the climate models and we know now that they are wrong
47. It's ok; with all that rising water, we could at least re-water the Sahara
48. It's not like additional CO2 can cause anything to move into a colder region
49. There are 20 year old predictions that have proved to be wrong!
50. Observation shows CO2 and global temp moving in opposite direction since 1998
51. Observation shows CO2 and global temp moving in opposite direction 1944 to 1976
52. What caused the 33 year long global warming from 1911 to 1944?
53. It's no longer a debate; that alone is evidence that it's not based on science
54. There's data showing temp and CO2 rising together, but that's not proof of a link
55. If there is data that links C02 to temp I can't find it
56. Tree ring growth correlates better with variations in cosmic rays than temperature
57. Global Warming was re-branded Climate Change when predictions failed
58. CO2 was rebranded as responsible for Climate Change, not Global Warming
59. The 'Global Warming Swindle' documentary discredited Al Gore
60. Al Gore's film has been ridiculed and derised
61. Complaints comm'n uphold 4 complaints against Al Gore's film; none on the science
62. Political agenda on AGW really takes hold as new industry emerges
63. The NIPCC review thoroughly discredited the first IPCC report
64. Massive inaccuracies found in IPCC data, satellite & ground data adjusted to fit
65. Antarctica refuses to melt as predicted, gaining MASSIVE amounts of ice
66. Satelite measurements of sea ice/Antarctic loss shown to have errors
67. Sea levels refuse to rise as predicted
68. IPCC have revise their stance to focus on water/food availability
69. Data shows link between sunspot activity and recent temperature drop trend
70. Antarctica data shows steady cooling for over a decade
71. Vienna case study shows HIE has massively skewed the ground temperature data
72. Mean global temperature is cyclic
73. In 5 years time, we will talk about Climate Change as a result of global cooling
74. It's ok; a number of reefs around the world are being brought back from the dead
75. There is observational evidence that climate sensitivity is low not high
76. The government of the Maldives recently pulled a publicity stunt
77. Migrating birds or trees growing further north is not evidence of AGW
78. I'm not some moronic "denier"
79. Climate has never shown the sensitivity suggested for the 2C+ scenarios
80. We're better off with the heat we're getting than with sporadic electricity
81. The rabid minds of the AGW Terrorists are totally incapable of accepting anything which argues their absolute bigotry and overwhelming belief that they are right!
/davblo2
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Just a thought.
Claim 78 may be just a touch too subtle to be understood out of context, so I've updated it to...
78. I'm not some moronic "denier"; but...
/davblo2
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@davblo2
I don't understand mate, i thought your list was meant to be claims made by sceptics that you thought were wrong. Are you saying you think #76 didn't happen and are you saying #77 is evidence of AGW?
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The math tends to be linear, but those are relatively short term data points when considering the history of the earth. Ecosystems seem to come and go and the planet history is puncuated with catastrophic events. These events can include systems collapse, or in the modern terms, tipping points. Nature does not always follow the course we would like nor the one we may predict. The consequences of who is right and who is wrong should be part of the considerations. If in one hundred years the governments are moving the cities of Shanghai and New York inland I am sure the politicians will either act surprised or blame their opponents for obstructing progress.. Unfortunately, nature seems to change quicker than human beings...because we profess dominion over the earth, does not make it true, as we are frequently reminded by natural events.
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#139 davblo2
Yup me too, I don't understand the connection with a unit of measurement (now outmoded) for yarn has to do with denying climate change, but I'll go along with it! (It seems to be defined as "the mass in grams per 9,000 meters")!!!
Seriously...
I have spotted (via google) "Climate Change, The Solar Weather Technique & The future of forecasting " a seminar of Wednesday 28th October at Imperial College, London featuring, Session I - Refutation of the CO2 driver theory of Climate Change - And what to do now, and Session 2 What Does Cause Climate Change - And scientific climate predictions etc. So there is still life in the non-CO2 explanations.
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MangoChutneyUKOK #140: "I don't understand mate, i thought your list was meant to be claims made by sceptics that you thought were wrong"
It is a list of claims made by sceptics. Do you see any comment as to right or wrong?
MangoChutneyUKOK #140: "Are you saying you think #76 didn't happen and are you saying #77 is evidence of AGW?"
I haven't said anything (in the list) at all.
You mention list items 76 and 77...
76. The government of the Maldives recently pulled a publicity stunt
77. Migrating birds or trees growing further north is not evidence of AGW
They are words (I repeat; not mine) which have been used here on this blog. No more no less.
Yes; it has been claimed that the action of the Maldive government was "a publicity stunt"
Yes; it has been claimed that bird and trees are not evidence of AGW.
(I could ask; who ever said they were?)
I interpreted those comments as being aimed at demonstrating that the theory of AGW was wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong.
/davblo2
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oh, i see, your list is not conspiracy theorists reasons for AGW being false. It a list of good reasons for AGW being false, but which you have no answer for
>;)
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poitsplace, at 132
What is your background? It is difficult to know who does what without a hint or to. If you are an engineer you are very creative, thinking outside of the box and looking at alternatives that look a lot more workable. I try to keep all ideas low key and accessible as I can't do the science. The idea of portable incinerators wandering around the country appeals to me. It all seems so much more natural like macrophages and mitochondria. Man is the measurement of man and maybe we should be closely observing our own body systems to get ideas of how to integrate ourselves more sensitively into the ecosystems that we live in.
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The gas microwave heating device is already going through the patent process. It looks as if it can be used on a much larger scale than the humble domestic oven. Good thinking poitsplace, another one to add to the pot ;-)
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#128, simon-swede wrote:
fairlyopenmind at #
"I did a double-take at your "question" about emperor penguins. Do you really think that no-one has studied this? Your suggestion for explanation, while creative, is not at all convincing. I doubt that it makes Mango's standard of proof either!
Those that have studied it, suggest that there is an interplay of several factors acting in different ways that determine the success of the emperor penguin breeding strategy."
Yeah.
I read all sorts of stuff. I find it hard to find a species or individual type that deliberately moves away from its food supply, when energy expenditure was so high between getting food and delivering it, in order to bring up offspring.
I could exclude some birds - whose energy expenditure can be relatively low when they cover vast territories- and ignore fish, because on the whole, they don't actually feed offspring.
Can you quote a similar example of the odd penguin behaviour in another part of the animal kingdom?
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MangoChutneyUKOK #144: "...your list is not conspiracy theorists reasons for AGW being false. It a list of good reasons..."
I thought I had made it clear. It is a list of claims made by people on this blog, which appear to be advocating the anti-AGW cause.
Make of it what you will.
/davblo2
PS. My original point was to highlight the inconsistencies in the claims when taken together. It may grow beyond that. It's partly up to you.
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fairlyopenmind #147: "Can you quote a similar example of the odd penguin behaviour"
Just a thought, but, yes, I think so; us...
We could all chose to live in the south of France (for example). Nice summers, near the sea (med), near the Alps for sports etc. But it would be (actually is) hellish crowded, and everyone and his dog would be trying to to push you out and take over your "prime" territory.
There is some merit in choosing a remote abode with hostile climate. Much less bother from competitors. Eskimos for example, and to a lesser extent me here in a forest in a remote part of Sweden.
Put it another way. Who is going to bother a penguin at mid winter. Absolutely no-one.
/davblo2
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The Road to Copenhagen
(Comment from Lester Brown, "Plan B 4.0" July, 2009)
Note: Available for free on the internet;
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb4/pb4_table_of_contents
"At this writing, all eyes are on the upcoming Copenhagen climate
conference in early December. From my vantage point, internationally negotiated climate agreements are fast becoming obsolete for two reasons. First, since no government wants to concede too much compared with other governments, the negotiated goals for cutting carbon emissions will almost certainlybe minimalist, not remotely approaching the bold cuts that are needed.
And second, since it takes years to negotiate and ratify these agreements, we may simply run out of time. This is not to say that we should not participate in the negotiations and work hard to get the best possible result. But we should not rely on these agreements to save civilization."
----------------
- On Lester R. Brown, from the book, "Praise for Plan B" -
“If the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize had been extended to a third recipient, the logical candidate would have been Lester Brown.”
—Edward O. Wilson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_O._Wilson
- Manysummits -
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#128 simon-swede wrote:
fairlyopenmind at #
"I did a double-take at your "question" about emperor penguins. Do you really think that no-one has studied this? Your suggestion for explanation, while creative, is not at all convincing. I doubt that it makes Mango's standard of proof either!
Those that have studied it, suggest that there is an interplay of several factors acting in different ways that determine the success of the emperor penguin breeding strategy. For example:
"Sea-ice extent in winter negatively affects hatching success, by increasing the distance between the colony and feeding grounds. Conversely, annual sea-ice extent positively affects adult survival by increasing food availability. Therefore there exists in emperor penguins a trade-off between the advantages and disadvantages of extensive pack ice. In population terms, the trophic advantage of extensive pack ice, by favouring higher survival and further reproduction, outmatches its physical disadvantage of reducing fecundity."
Sorry,
If one type of penguin worked that out, are you saying that the others are lacking in imagination? If it is such a good survival approach, why don't all the penguins do a similar thing?
After all, in Africa, several species migrate because they realise there should be better grazing elsewhere. I don't imagine that the ones who don't bother think that they are daft. Maybe they are relieved that all those others moved on, so whatever feed is available is less attacked. But animals tend to migrate to where there is food and possible safety in numbers.
How much safer will the emporer penguin be if it was 20/50 km from the coast, rather than 2km inland? There's no food there anyway. No major predation possible. So why waste all that energy? It's not about going to where the food is. It's not about getting warmer for the kids. So why would any species choose to go to a location remote from its natural feeding habitat?
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\\\ Paradigm Shift ///
I have often written on this site of the need for a paradigm shift in our psychological mindset.
Here is the opinion of Lester Brown, also from his new book, available for free on the internet, as is all of the research of his creation, 'The Earth Policy Institute.'
"The thinking that got us into this mess is not likely to get us out. We need a new mindset. Let me paraphrase a comment by environmentalist Paul Hawken in a 2009 college commencement address. In recognizing the enormity of the challenge facing us, he said":
"First we need to decide what needs to be done.
Then we do it.
And then we ask if it is possible."
Lester R. Brown
July 2009
(last paragraph of the 'Preface', Plan B 4.0; bolding and separate lines for Paul Hawken's comments by manysummits)
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb4/pb4_table_of_contents
- Manysummits -
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Decadal Oscillation of Mean Global Temperature
The most important result that we see from the chart above is that decadal oscillating has a maximum range of about 0.7 deg C. For example, from 1878 to 1911, the decadal oscillating anomaly DECREASED by 0.7 deg C, and INCREASED by about the same amount from 1976 to 1998.
People living at the beginning of the 20th century, around 1910, after experiencing climate change for 33 years as a result of cooling by 0.7 deg C, would be gripped by fear if they believed that this cooling was a monotonic one, without any future turning point towards warming. Those fears would have been allayed only with the global warming after 1911.
People living around 1943, after experiencing climate change for 32 years as a result of warming in the decadal oscillation of the anomaly by about 0.5 deg C, would be gripped by fear believing that this warming was a monotonic one, without any future turning point towards warming. Those fears would have been allayed only with the global cooling after 1944.
People living around 1975, after experiencing climate change for 32 years as a result of cooling in the decadal oscillating anomaly by about 0.5 deg C, would be gripped by fear believing that this cooling was a monotonic one, without any future turning point towards warming. Those fears would have been allayed only with the global warming after 1976.
Similarly, we living at the beginning of the 21st century, in 2009, after experiencing climate change for 22 years as a result of warming by about 0.7 deg C, are gripped by fear (the AGW camp) believing that this increase is a monotonic one, without any future turning point towards cooling.
Don’t you think we have passed the turning point towards cooling in 1998?
Cheers
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@manysummits: Yeah I remember that mindset from the 70's in the US. Would you care to guess how far from dependence on foreign oil that got us? I believe you need to add "Then we need to figure out HOW to do it." because "what" is often overly ambiguous.
There have been similar questions. Do we stop the use of DDT (and cause the deaths of millions from malaria)? Do we start producing biofuels (and then later realize there's not enough land on the planet...leading to food riots the instant we even ramp up production)? Do we stop nuclear at all costs for decades (only to find that now everything is powered by coal? Poorly conceived ideas lead to unforeseen complications.
--------------------
@sensibleoldgrannie: I'm not an engineer or a scientist...just one of those odd armchair amateurs. I can just deal with a few more concepts simultaneously than most people. LOL I'm not thinking outside MY box, I'm just not in the kind of box you think of when you think "box" :D
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Did you know that there was global warming two centuries ago?
http://www.geocities.com/girmao/GlobalWarming/TreeRingTemp.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html
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I think we're all beginning to miss the point...
At this point it might be best to just agree to disagree until Richard's next article when the firestorm will inevitably be ignited once again...
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the point is freesasha, if the warming is not down to manmade CO2 (it isn't, no evidence), then there would be no need for Copenhagen
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that was a bit unnecessary, no?
I refer to my #87 comment -- it frankly doesn't matter whether CO2 is the primary culprit or not. The fact of the matter is, we're royally messing with things to a point where I fear I may not live to see grandchildren...or should I say, no one in my generation will live to see grandchildren.
Perhaps my perspective is different due to my age, perhaps not. Either way, curbing CO2 emissions won't hurt the environment. And in doing so, we will, in effect, curb other extremely harmful emissions as well.
Trust me, I am dubious to say the least when it comes to the efficacy of treaties, conventions and the like, but furiously tapping away at our keyboards bickering with each other isn't helping anyone.
Let's try to be a little more holistic about things, shall we? We'll all benefit from that.
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#157 The point is Mango, the reason why so much effort is going into the preparations for the Copenhgen conference is that the weight of the evidence does not support your view.
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Couldn't agree more with FREESASHA #158. I'm getting really bored with this "...there is no evidence...." repeated ad nauseum.
Copenhagen will happen.
Decisions good, bad or mediocre will result.
There's not one thing anyone on this "blog" can do about that and that includes Mangochutney.
I'm off to do something useful.
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@freesasha #158
curbing CO2 emissions won't hurt the environment
you're right, it won't, although the trees may disagree, but it will hurt those least able to heat their homes, whilst making rich people richer through things like cap and trade.
@simon-swede #159
weight of evidence? come off it simon, you know, as well as i know, there is no "weight of evidence"
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#151 fairlyopenmind
You wrote: "If it is such a good survival approach, why don't all the penguins do a similar thing?"
Surely, the proper question ought to be, how many variations in strategies for success are there for penguins? If they all followed the same strategies, they would all be in direct competition with each other.
You also say "How much safer will the emporer penguin be if it was 20/50 km from the coast, rather than 2km inland? There's no food there anyway. No major predation possible."
I disagree. Greater distance inland may also reduce to some extent the predation by some species of petrels and skuas (predation by the giant petrel can account for 5-30% of the Emperor penguin chicks’ mortality). The reason that greater distance inland may be protective is because these penguins are only one source of food for these predators - and not necessarily the major one (e.g. when compared to small fish - successful foraging for which requires access to ice-free sea areas).
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#161 Mango
Sorry Mango, as I and others have said many times before, there is no doubt that there is huge amounts of evidence - the question is how to interpret it.
I agree with the interpretation of that evidence which suggests that AGW is a real problem to be compelling. And that is why I hope that the Copenhagen conference will help towards developing an effective strategy to address that problem.
I know you completely disagree. Fine, that's your choice.
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@simon-swede #163
I don't think it's a choice, simon.
There is real observational evidence, empirical evidence telling us climate sensitivity is low. Evidence that could be reproduced by others, and yet we cling to the fallacy that CO2 is able to raise temperatures significantly. The Hooky Stick is still cited by alarmists as evidence despite being broken on several occasions.
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Simon,
Read here for more evidence that AGW is false:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/copenhagen_countdown_45_days.html#P87545762
the mods wouldn't let me post the link for some reason
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manysummits at 152
PARADIGM SHIFT
We would not have got men to the moon without your PS.
How to bake a cake manysummits style:
1) decide to make a cake
no oven available....make one out of something.... no metal....earth and rocks
no finely ground white flour with raising agent....what cereal is there that can be ground up easily?
no refined white sugar....what plant has a sweetening agent?..
no eggs....what substance has an ability to hold the ingredients together?
no matches...swiss lighting stick in emergency pack and some dry tinder
2) get on and make it
the new cake is cobbled together and baked in the dirt oven
3) is it possible?
it was done...it tastes horrible...but it was done
continuing many summits cake experiment my way
4) can the cake be improved?
5) think of a range of other options
6) do small experiments using a range of options
7) prototype and taste...eat the least awful results....if you are starving eat all of the results
It is really handy to know in advance what type of result you can expect from different ingredients and different processes.
Up in the mountains there is a little plant with special seeds that contain albumin, one of the ingredients of egg. In the spirit of exploration I shall make a cake today using these seeds and cornmeal ;o)
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#164 and #165, Mango see #163. Enough said.
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@poitsplace re #132
Absolutely we have to be careful how we embrace renewables. There is no point building turbines where there is no wind... but actually there are a lot of places with plenty of wind for 80% of the time and over. This is where we should site the turbines. Companies in germany already provide detailed windmaps to help developers with this... these data sets are now being developed elsewhere. There are parts of ireland at the moment where they have trying to erect turbines for several months but can't because the wind is always to high to make erecting them safe! They are waiting for a day when they can do it! We must also heavily invest in wave energy which is always there - never absent!!! And solar you are right can give us lots of power.. like wind we just need to put it in the right places. Nature provides is with plenty of energy so that we never need to burn another fossil fuel... we just need to use it.
The truth is conventional power plants (coal, gas, fuel oil) spend just as long standing idle whilst the spark and dark spreads remain unfavourable to the companies that produce electricity. They simply turn them off to save money... rather than operate them at a loss. We don't need back up power plants that polute if we properly invest in free renewable energy, where all you pay for is the power plant itself.
Of course we could just all use less electricty but that just seems stupid!
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@Mango re #136
I think almost all the points we dispute we dispute over an ideological difference that I will try and summarise. Your reasoning is very fair. I agree that there is no 100% proof for AGW scientifically, but to me there is plenty of supporting evidence, both scientific and observational. Maybe it is like being in the courtroom without the DNA evidence... I can't put the nail in the coffin, but I can give the jury so much evidence that something is probably happening that they will convict the criminal as the eviddence puts it beyond "reasonable doubt".
The majority of climatologists, who really are the experts in the field... they have spent their whole lives doing this... tell me AGW is happening. The defence bring out their own expert, but th evoices of this group a fewer. To stick with the legal parody maybe they are that guy who got discredited on his cot death evidence. He didn't lie, he was just a pretty poor scientist. Of course this minority could be right... but I am starting to seriously doubt them. Then I hear about drought in Kenya and floods in Bangladesh and sinking countries like Tuvalu, The near extinction of the Dead Sea and I start losing more doubt. Then I see desertification in Beijing, the sunken beach of my childhood and bleached corals in the shallows of the Philippines and Thailand and to be honest by now I am in no doubt. My vote is to convict this murderer of nature and not let them back on the streets.
I understand you as a juror still believe there is reasonable doubt... and this is where you have to leave the courtroom analogy as it doesn't have the same gravitas. In the court... fairl play... you have reasonable doubt and you shoudln't convict... but can you really be 100% sure of innocence... have you seen the evidence that tells you that... the video of the killer in another location at the time of the crime? I don't think you have. Thus with climate change by not convicting you are risking the existence of every ecosystem and living thing on the planet. If there is a 1% chance you are risking that then I believe you have to do everything possible to stop it. That is where I believe it becomes a moral issue. The stakes are much higher than in the courtroom. You should convict if you think there is even a chance that the suspect is guilty. The stakes are just too high.
What I don't understand about your side of the argument is why not convict when the cost of doing so is so low to you... what is the disadvantage to you? A few fairly minor lifestyle changes and the world would be safe... why can't people see that? We are not asking you to kill somebody... just to use less and cleaner electricity and fuel... is that really that hard? It won't cost you more... you will actually save money... I urge you to make those small changes and to ask others to make them to! That is the new morality in my eyes. Maybe I am wrong... but I don't think so.
* And as a more factual footnote on coral reefs (my career is as a marine scientist, including focus on coral reefs) - we have already lost over 40% of coral reefs in the last 50 years. Certainly there are many factors, but we are in no doubt warming seriously stresses corals. The more stresses... then the more likely they will die. Some corals resist, but not all. These ecosystems are crucial, especially to survival of coastal communities in the developing world... they simply cannot survive without the fish that they provide. So the stakes are very high indeed. They can't afford to be without 40% of the world's coral reef. If only 10% survive and don't return for say 100 years as you seem to suggest, then a lot of people will die of hunger. Corals reefs are also worth a ton of money to many global economies... we would be a lot worse off economically without the services that they provide. A lot more people would have died in the asian sunami withpout them... you get my point. And I know you will counter this with the fact that it is natural warming and not AGW that is killing them... so instead we should probably focus on Ocean Acidification which is being caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions... that we can prove maybe to the degree that you want. In reality this is an even bigger problem for coral as this stresser is the biggy. Acidic seas will just disolve coral rather than bleach it. By bye coral... see you never again. I am going to do all I can to stop that happening. I hope you will too.
Thanks.
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@freesasha re #137
Aren't we supposed to find common ground and compromise or something? LOL
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# 169 Eddhind, you provide no evidence at all. Droughts in Kenya, floods in Bangladesh? There have always been Droughts in Kenya and floods in Bangladesh, for as long as I can remember. In your legal analogy, the case would be thrown out before it ever reached the court.
And why do we keep hearing this naive delusion
"A few fairly minor lifestyle changes and the world would be safe.."
the absurd attitude that buying a Prius and changing a few light bulbs is going to somehow 'save the planet'. If it makes the chattering classes feel more self-righteous, then let them do it, but don't kid yourselves. If the predictions of the scaremongers are true (which they are not), then slightly decreasing the rate of CO2 production here in the UK will have no effect at all.
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As this is my son Cloudrunner's fifth birthday, I thought to reply to your question, post #42, where you said:
"On a previous thread we were talking about the green lifestyle we will be moving towards. Can you help with the details ?" (Jack_Hughes_NZ)
I thought I had answered it in my post #45, but apparently you were unhappy with that response, as you replied in your post #50:
"maybe just describe your own carbon footprint and lifestyle. Do you think others will choose it or will some coercion be needed ?" (Jack...)
--------------
I will answer with the following description of my 'carbon footprint and lifestyle' these past sixteen years, and, I like to think, a blueprint for our collective future:
\\\ Following Your Heart ///
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:"
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
This quote, "seems to be from W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951."
http://www.goethesociety.org/pages/quotescom.html
------------------
"Do [I] think others will choose it or will some coercion be needed?"
Who can say?
As for coercion, I think it is neither desirable nor necessary.
\\\ Manysusmmits - Poppa ///
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I see we have a few people here who don't believe that man-made climate change is real.
I find that puzzling. Perhaps you could enlighten me by explaining which bit you don't believe?
1. Do you not believe that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing as a result of man-made activity?
2. Do you not believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas?
3. Do you not believe that increasing the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will lead to climate change?
4. Do you believe that, because the models that predict precisely how the climate will change (eg which parts of the earth will warm, which parts will cool, and how fast that warming or cooling will be) are subject to some uncertainty, we therefore don't need to worry?
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@Eddhind
This is not an ideological dispute over absolute certainty like you see in the debate with creationists about evolution. This is about some of the most piss-poor science the world has ever seen and on a scale never before seen. Everything is just attributed to global warming without a second thought.
Climatologists merely ASSUMED that for every X degress the jet stream and polar vortex would move X miles farther from the equator. Only now as we enter the cooling period the jet stream and polar vortex seem to be taking the lead. It was assumed that El Ninos were caused by the warming but its starting to appear that to a large extent it operates the other way around. It was assumed that aerosols from pollution were a strong negative forcing but it turns out that man's are actually quite good at trapping heat and to top it off, they're actually powerful warming agents in the arctic. The correlation between CO2 and temperature is the wrong way around or entirely non-existent over larger time scales.
Nothing is behaving as it should with a high sensitivity to CO2 and powerful feedbacks. You see, in this case the jury isn't supposed to decide if it's having ANY impact. The jury's job here is to figure out if it has a substantial impact (greater than that suggested from a simple doubling of CO2...an anomaly of about 1.2C). We skeptics have grown tired of outrageous and utterly unsupported claims like 4C or higher warming by 2100. We want to see some reason to expect .4C per decade when we've only ever seen .2C and then, only during a time it was supposed to be warming some anyway. We will not condemn CO2 for 4C or even 2C when it's only ever shown potential for 1C.
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@samuelpickwick
And how long do you remember? Clearly you were born well before the industrial revolution. Congratulations on reaching such a fine age. My response to the rest of your over-bearing diatribe.... meh...
@poitsplace
Thanks for calling some of my science piss-poor. I wish I had bothered to give it a 2nd thought. Presumably I would have realised that you were correct if I had.
You are right about one thing... this is not a debate. It is about a minority, who care not one iota about nature or for the future generations of humanity, trying to steamroller the majority into submission via guilt. They use words like outrageous, stupid, delusional to try and belittle us. They ignore research and observations that go against their thinking and demonise those who purvey such knowledge and information. I for one I am not one of them... I for one am glad that they are the minority... I for one am glad that the children, the future leaders of this world are making up their own minds! There is hope for nature and humanity as long as they remain the minority and I am glad that this is exactly what they will be.
To everyone else... yes... analyse every piece of information you hear. Weigh up the debates for and against AGW and other environmental issues. Read the news... check out current research... make your own observations... make up your own mind. Don't let me or any other group or individual tell you what to do. Your mind is your own for making... but do get involved... the stakes are too high not to.
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Happy birthday cloudrunner ;o)
Keep your eyes wide open and learn from your surroundings and never forget you are extra especially lucky to have the wind in your hair and the sun on your face and good parents to look after you.
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A must see for participants at Copenhagen to remind them of the climate 32 years ago.
Global Cooling
Especially AGW advocates, please sacrifice 10 minutes of your life to watch it.
Which one you prefer: 1977 or 2009?
The evidence for CO2 caused global warming has collapsed. No relationship before 1976 and, more importantly, since 1998 as shown in the following chart.
CO2 & Global Temperature
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@eddhind #169
Others have responded to this, so I guess there is not much more to add
Fascinating about your work though :)
One thing I don't quite understand and I'm sure you can clarify this for me (this is not intended to be a trick question btw).
We know that between 14 and 20 million years ago CO2 levels were sustained at around 400ppmv, similar to today. If the corals are so badly effected by the extra warmth this is supposed to bring, how did they recover from 6 million years of this extra warmth? Presumably the oceans degassed due to water not being able to retain CO2 as it warms.
Thanks
@DisgustedOfMitcham2 #173
I'd be delighted to enlighten you:
1. Do you not believe that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing as a result of man-made activity?
Yes
2. Do you not believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas?
Yes
3. Do you not believe that increasing the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will lead to climate change?
No, there is amply evidence to suggest that any CO2 increases in temperature will be insignificant due to the logarithmic effect of the absorption curve and low climate sensitivity.
4. Do you believe that, because the models that predict precisely how the climate will change (eg which parts of the earth will warm, which parts will cool, and how fast that warming or cooling will be) are subject to some uncertainty, we therefore don't need to worry?
Yes, there is no need to worry, because the models assume high climate sensitivity, whilst observations show low climate sensitivity
@ eddhind #175
@poitsplace
Thanks for calling some of my science piss-poor.
I don't think he was referring to your science, he was referring to Hooky Sticks and the like
You are right about one thing... this is not a debate. It is about a minority, who care not one iota about nature or for the future generations of humanity, trying to steamroller the majority into submission via guilt.
What makes you think that people like me don't care about nature and the environment? I have said many times that Man has to get his act together on protecting the environment, but scaremongering over CO2 isn't the way.
I really don't think you can accuse sceptics of using the guilt card! You have already used the morality card even in your latest post.
Finally, something we certainly agree on:
To everyone else... yes... analyse every piece of information you hear. Weigh up the debates for and against AGW and other environmental issues. Read the news... check out current research... make your own observations... make up your own mind. Don't let me or any other group or individual tell you what to do. Your mind is your own for making... but do get involved... the stakes are too high not to.
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freesasha #158.
perfectly summarised and worth repeating:
"..it frankly doesn't matter whether CO2 is the primary culprit or not. The fact of the matter is, we're royally messing with things to a point where I fear I may not live to see grandchildren...or should I say, no one in my generation will live to see grandchildren.
Perhaps my perspective is different due to my age, perhaps not. Either way, curbing CO2 emissions won't hurt the environment. And in doing so, we will, in effect, curb other extremely harmful emissions as well.
Trust me, I am dubious to say the least when it comes to the efficacy of treaties, conventions and the like, but furiously tapping away at our keyboards bickering with each other isn't helping anyone.
Let's try to be a little more holistic about things, shall we? We'll all benefit from that."
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@LabMunkey #100 (water vapour)
Your post is misleading. You appear to be muddling water vapour with the related cloud cover.
Cloud cover cools the planet. But water vapour is a greenhouse gas and warms the planet.
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#178:
Thanks for clarifying that. So it seems that the crux of the disagreement between those who believe climate change is real and those who don't (assuming that your views are representative of the latter) is that you don't believe that the climate is very sensitive to the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
Is that a fair reflection of your position?
So, where does this logarithmic curve of which you speak come from? What is your evidence for the lack of sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gas levels?
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@LabMunkey #100 (water vapour)
(@ myself #180 (cloud cover))
(Qualifying my point about cloud cover)
Cloud cover cools the planet on the dayside of the planet. But water vapour is a greenhouse gas and warms the planet.
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One thing seems to be clear from all these posts: the "science" underpinning the concerns about carbon emission based warming is very far from settled. Nonetheless expect the (non scientist) politicians at Copenhagen to behave as if it is.
Why is there so little coverage of the "non warmist" line of thought in the media,(notably the BBC, which seems to take "global warming" as established fact)?
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plenty of links to this blog here and that blog there, youtube clips, peer reviewed pieces in rags like energy and environment. but the thing linking them all is the (deluded) hope that there will be an 'emperors new clothes' moment.
this is not 'climateaudit vs realclimate' or 'mckintyre vs mann', it is climateaudit/mckintyre/spencer/peise and a few others vs the entire scientific community.
reminds me of the lovely peter seller's film, 'the mouse that roared'. but it never happens like that in real life (or so rarely as to make ignoring the agw warnings irresponsible).
so let's get this in perspective.
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@mango
Thx for the points.
re#169
The coral reefs may well "survive" another warming event. However, although it is hard to give firm baselines, we do know of 2 previous coral extinctions from caribbean research (amongst other regions). We know that 24 million years ago that there was a mass extinction of coral and again 1 million years ago. It is certainly likely that these extinctions were due to a combination of warming events and change in nutrient flows (until 4 million years ago the pacific and atlantic were connected with much larger amounts of nutrients bouncing about - coral doesn't like nutrients hence how farm run-off often kills coral now). On both occasions reefs did indeed recover, but both times with less species and a lower area of coverage... and inbetween recovery they were gone for a very long time. Infact so long that many of the corals you see today are newly evolved as they are more resistant to current conditions than the extinct ones were. Reefs are dynamic... they will adapt. The problem is this time, not only would we deprived of some beautiful ecosystems loved by divers and tourists, we now have 3 billion humans living within 200km of the coastline. Many of these live in tropical developing countries and for a good number their only income/food is from these reefs. Don't forget reefs are also feeding stations for tuna, etc. so cascade effects are even worse.
What is also crucial to remember is Ocean Acidification, also caused (or the only thing caused ;o) depending on your outlook by rising CO2 levels. 25% of CO2 from fossil fuel burning enters the ocean in solution. We have already lowered ocean pH by 0.1. predictions forward are even worse. At lower pH levels corals will find it hard to grow and be out competed by sponge and algae, which are less complex (and thus poorer habitat) for many crustacians, fish, etc. Prett bad news I am afraid... hope that helps.
re#175
I know the piss-poor comment wasn't aimed at me. But it was vague in who it was aimed at. There are many many many scientists who believe through good science that AGW is occuring. I am sure there are probably some piss-poor ones as well, but the comment does not distinguish this fact. And to qualify my point there so it is not ambiguous - you can do good science and get incorrect results (whatever your stance).
You are right - I shouldn't have used guilt. Re-reading it I should have put bullying. I think it is ok to use the guilt card when the actions of a few are putting everything at risk.
That attack isn't aimed at yourself. Even though I don't agree with you on the facts you do reason well. I hoped I reasoned better but i see your mind isn't for changing though so I can leave that lie. What I do object to is comments that be-little nature as if we are superior to it. I find people who prioritise tax over the environment selfish to be honest. And I agree if you don't believe something is happening then it is ok to moan about a tax. However, some of the comments on the blogs over the week have suggested, "who cares about the environemnt... I just want to pay less tax." I also don't agree with a wholesale disagreement with the moral argument - I think it is a pretty bad thing not to have morals, so why is the moral argument not valid to some? Why is it sneared at? I am not asking people to be religious or give up smoking... I thought we were all moral anyway - it isn't really a decision we can make. And I find comments which call individuals delusional etc. (see before) to be incredibly rude to people trying to debate a subject (and both sides can be guilty of that I admit - I hope I have not done it!)
Glad we agree on the last point. We are lucky to have free will :o)
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@eddhind
Seriously many of the changes in ANYTHING these days is rubber stamped with "Caused by AGW" and then rubber stamped by the "peer review" process. Indeed (as some have already pointed out) I speak of things such as the blatant attempts to FORCE a hockey stick. Skeptics are treated as terrible people for daring to point out that the last hockey stick graph actually showed decreasing sample size during a period when the sample size increased...along with blatant cherry picking of those samples.
At the same time, be your own biggest critic. Blaming anthropogenic global warming or CO2 on the mass extinction of ALL coral is (if I'm honest) a little sloppy. The reef may be stuck to the sea bed but their offspring are not for a part of their life...and are free to drift somewhere else. The only corals that need to "adapt" to different temperatures are those in the equatorial regions...where thankfully temperature increases in both models and reality are pretty darned low. The others would just put down roots farther away from the equator.
In my (unqualified ;) opinion, radically altering the entire ocean ecosystem (basically killing off most of the fish), direct physical damage by man, farm runoff and toxic waste probably have a greater impact on corals.
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DisgustedOfMitcham2 #181: "So it seems that the crux of the disagreement between those who believe climate change is real and those who don't...is that you don't believe that the climate is very sensitive to the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere."
No. See my #138 for the latest list of claims made by anti-AGW folk on this blog site.
(I have probably missed few.)
MangoChutneyUKOK is not representative of the anti-AGW briade. In fact, the reason I started the list was to show how inconsistent they were with each other. There is no one "representative".
/davblo2
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@DisgustedOfMitcham2 #181
So it seems that the crux of the disagreement between those who believe climate change is real and those who don't (assuming that your views are representative of the latter) is that you don't believe that the climate is very sensitive to the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
Is that a fair reflection of your position?
I can't speak for everyone else, but as far as I am aware there is no empirical evidence to suggest climate sensitivity is high
So, where does this logarithmic curve of which you speak come from? What is your evidence for the lack of sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gas levels?
The logarithmic absorption curve of CO2 is not disputed on either side of the debate. The first 20ppmv delivers a big punch in terms of temperature, but the next and subsequent additions deliver less and less. The absorption band of CO2 is, for all intents and purposes, saturated.
Observational evidence for climate sensitivity being low can be found here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/23/new-paper-from-lindzen/
You can also see the original paper at the bottom of the post
Others such as Shaviv, Christy etc also think sensitivity is low
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@poitsplace
You are right... bullying of "skeptics" is equally poor practice as the bullying of "believers". As you can see in my discussion with Mango I have no problem with debate and disagreement. My problem is with the belittling strategies taken out on the public by both camps. So where am I on this??? I am not going to debate whether AGW is definitely happening or not. my argument is that we should follow the precautionary principle. If we cannot prove or at least agree either way (which clearly we can't!) then we most assume that AGW is happening and live as you would morally if that were happening. I don't see the big hassle in living that way. Short term changes will be hard, but they may well be far more than worth it.
And I would also like to reiterate OCEAN ACIDIFICATION (people keep ignoring me!). Is this not a good enough reason alone to stop emitting CO2?
And you are right also... the mass extinction of coral will ceratinly not be totally down to global warming (and I never said it would be by the way). I said that warming is one stresser on coral - the more stressers there are then the more lilely it is that the coral will bleach, become diseased or die! Unfortunately we are way behind on coral research but doing our best to catch up so we can't give definitive answers on why coral dies, but we can have a very good shot at it. A lot is just common sense. Warm acidified corals won't be happy - therefore reduce CO2.
You are also right that overfishing, pollutants and run-off are serious problems and can kill coral on there own without warming, but warming is certainly a problem. How do we explain the corals that die in areas remote from immediate anthropogenic impacts? Ok and this is only some of the corals but you get negative feedback... if they die then they don't spawn and so on... etc.
I think that is me done for now! Have a good evening. Hope I wasn't too sloppy there :o)
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Sorry for asking too many questions.
I just wondered if the low-carbon transition will need some form of coercion - with people forced to do X and not do Y.
Or if we will all just do what we think is right on a voluntary basis.
I like the voluntary idea myself.
Sorry if Jane and Grumpy-Mike and a few others wanted the green lifestyle to be a secret surprise.
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#188:
OK, I understand about the logarithmic relationship now: what we're talking about is the temperature rise for a doubling of CO2, which is known as the climiate sensitivity.
So it all comes down to the question of climate sensitivity. The IPCC have estimated it to be about 3 degrees. You state that the paper by Lindzen shows it to be 0.5 degrees. That, it seems, is the important difference.
Why do you think that one paper is more reliable than a review of overall, global evidence? I note that the Lindzen data is based only on data from the tropics, which I would guess can't be assumed to be representative of the earth as a whole.
As an aside, how low do you think climate sensitivity would need to be before we could be reasonably confident that a continued rise in CO2 levels will have no material effect on the earth's climate?
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#187:
You are right, of course, that climate-change deniers are not a homogeneous bunch, and many of them are loonies who don't have a clue what they are talking about, but will latch on to any argument if they think it means they can keep driving their 4x4s with a clear conscience.
However, some people genuinely don't believe in AGW, as a result of their interpretation of the scientific evidence, and choose to use proper scientific arguments to make their point. Such people deserve a reasoned and rational debate. MangoChutneyUKOK seems to come firmly in that category.
Those scientific arguments against AGW may well turn out to be wrong, but let's hear them, debate them, and then, if we believe they are wrong, explain why. That's how scientific debate should work.
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@eddhind #185
I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me more about corals. I'm envious that you enjoy your work!
Do we know what caused the extinction 24 mya, Could this related to the formation of the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia, which prior to 27 mya was quite a wet area, causing a change in nutrients etc? Conjecture of course, but fascinating job you have.
I totally agree about the amount of real pollutants we put into our seas and rivers.
you can do good science and get incorrect results (whatever your stance).
Agreed, you can also do bad science and get correct results (whatever your stance)
I hoped I reasoned better but i see your mind isn't for changing though so I can leave that lie.
Despite appearances, if there was empirical evidence to implicate CO2 as the primary driver of global warming, I would change my mind, I just haven't seen any yet
"who cares about the environemnt... I just want to pay less tax."
As far as I know, nobody thinks this way. I admit I don't want to pay too much tax, although if there was convincing evidence that CO2 was a problem, then we would need to pay whatever it takes
I also don't agree with a wholesale disagreement with the moral argument - I think it is a pretty bad thing not to have morals, so why is the moral argument not valid to some?
I think the argument has to have some basis in fact and AGW doesn't. I've said before I think it is morally wrong to allow millions of people worldwide to die through lack of clean water and sanitation. This is a problem that could be solved here and now. The cost of researching AGW in the USA alone is in the tens of billions. For a fraction of the money spent globally on AGE, we could already have saved those lives.
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@DisgustedOfMitcham2 #191
Why do you think that one paper is more reliable than a review of overall, global evidence? I note that the Lindzen data is based only on data from the tropics, which I would guess can't be assumed to be representative of the earth as a whole.
There is not just one paper, but Lindzen paper is based on observation not on calculation. Lindzens work can be reproduced by others to show the validity or not. As far as I am aware, Lindzen's paper has not been superseded by more up to date observational evidence. There are a number of scientists coming out of the woodwork to agree that sensitivity is a lot lower than the IPCC's calculated estimate. Arrhenius himself calculated sensitivity at around 4.5C, before revising his calculation down to 1.6C. We have more evidence now.
As an aside, how low do you think climate sensitivity would need to be before we could be reasonably confident that a continued rise in CO2 levels will have no material effect on the earth's climate?
My understanding is, if sensitivity is below 1C then there should be no problems.
#192
However, some people genuinely don't believe in AGW, as a result of their interpretation of the scientific evidence, and choose to use proper scientific arguments to make their point. Such people deserve a reasoned and rational debate. MangoChutneyUKOK seems to come firmly in that category.
Those scientific arguments against AGW may well turn out to be wrong, but let's hear them, debate them, and then, if we believe they are wrong, explain why. That's how scientific debate should work.
First of all thank you, it makes a refreshing change to hear from somebody who believes in AGW and who wants to listen to the other side.
Secondly, I think there are several sceptical people here who are definitely in the same category. Less vocal than me perhaps, but definitely in the same category.
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DisgustedOfMitcham2 #192: "Such people deserve a reasoned and rational debate. MangoChutneyUKOK seems to come firmly in that category."
Good luck with the debate; but to some of us this is old well trodden ground.
I think you would be surprised to learn how many of the claims in my list are attributable to Mango. For brevity I left out references, but there are quite a few, not all related to "low sensitivity".
What I would suggest, is that Mango come clean and declare for you which of the anti-AGW claims (0 to 81) he actually supports.
It wouldn't be hard for him to present this information, and then you'd know where he stands and would be able to debate accordingly.
What do you say Mango? If you are so interested in open debate, why not show which claims you support and which you don't? Some of them are yours after all.
/davblo2
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When we recognize this and understand this; then we will open our eyes to the need to save the earth for humans to have homes in the future. One of the barriers to this happening in society is the greed for control or money over others a use or abuse of people. This is symbolic of the abuse to nature that is happening at the same rate in proximatey to humans killing other humans. There's a connection to it all. So when we as a whole shift to loving the earth and caring for the earth, over making money without balance of all; it will naturally without effort create more peace in the earth a relaxation and ease in people's souls. A travel to a higher place in our way of thinking will also occur. So when governments think to themselves; how can I solve all these problems; violence, poverty, global warming; it is easy. It is the realizing how easy it is that is seeming to be the difficult problem with actualizing all people to be free and love each other and the earth we live on.
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I am "lucky" enough to be witnessing similar debates on another part of the interweb...
This link popped up...
Thought some of you might like it... it is well written http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=2683
In the interest of fairness you sceptics can check out the work of Eugene (Gene) Shinn... he has scientific opinions on your side of the debate.
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@Mango
Re coral reef extinction. As you said it may well be down to changes in nutrient levels. Certainly it is believed that the Eastern Pacific was very nutrient rich. As there was a "gap" between the meso-American iisthmus way back then it is likely that highly nutrient rich waters crossed the caribbean. That certainly would have caused stress to coral. The other option hypothesised looking back at carbon records a warming period that would have stressed the corals also. Obviously so far back it is very hard to prove anything definitively. It could even have been a combination of these factors. It is one of these hypotheses that is most likely though. We may soon find out... eek!
While we are are on the topic, probably the biggest other threat currently is removal of organisms that munch algae. This can be caused by over-fishing of herbiverous fish or by die-off due to disease (cause unknown put possibly water polution) of other grazers such as diadema (sea urchins).
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@davblo2 #195
What do you say Mango? If you are so interested in open debate, why not show which claims you support and which you don't? Some of them are yours after all.
I don't support any claims, I support evidence.
What I will say is there doesn't have to be one single element on or off your list that caused recorded temperatures to rise towards the end of the 20th century. I have never said one single element is the cause. The likeliest cause is a combination of several elements.
Pinning global warming on a trace gas is ridiculous and unsupported by the evidence.
I find it interesting that alarmists try to separate the cause of global warming and present each individual item in a way that is meant to ridicule sceptics - perhaps it is because their argument is redundant and unsupported by the evidence.
Who was it who said "playing the man and not the ball"?
@eddhind #197
Thanks for the link. 2 professors in similar fields with different opinions.
#198
While we are are on the topic, probably the biggest other threat currently is removal of organisms that munch algae. This can be caused by over-fishing of herbiverous fish or by die-off due to disease (cause unknown put possibly water polution) of other grazers such as diadema (sea urchins).
This is the part where I think man really is responsible and where we need to curb our excesses
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“The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us.
……
Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.
…….
We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects.
Michael Hulme, The Tyndall Centre for Climate Studies at the University of East Anglia, in his book "Why We Disagree About Climate Change"
Add those to your list, Davblo2
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
MangoChutneyUKOK #199: "I find it interesting that alarmists try to separate the cause of global warming and present each individual item in a way..."
Now I think you are being deliberately confusing.
The list is not a list of individual items purported to explain AGW.
The list, as you well know, is a list of claims made by anti-AGW advocates on this blog.
You have made several of them.
Do you want me to list off your particular ones for you?
Can't you admit yourself which claims you've made?
/davblo2
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#194:
First of all, I'm glad you feel my posts are a refreshing change. I also appreciate the fact that you are presenting evidence in peer-reviewed papers in support of your position, rather than simply making wild claims about a global conspiracy. That makes for a much more interesting debate.
So, to the substantive discussion, there are, as I see it, 3 points.
1. Do we believe the Lindzen estimate of climate sensitivity more than the IPCC estimate? To me, I don't feel I have enough information to be sure either way. Although I'm a professional scientist, I'm not a climatologist, so looking at the finer points of papers like that and judging the merits of one against the other is beyond me. I note that the Lindzen paper is quite new, and doubtless others will either reproduce or refute his findings before very long, and then I'll feel in a better position to judge. You say there are other papers that also support a climate sensitivity of around 0.5C. Do you have references? Oh, and if any AGW enthusiast is reading this, do you have any recent references that contradict Lindzen?
I note that the IPCC estimate of about 3C is based on a wide-ranging review of the literature, and I'm always more inclined to trust that sort of evidence than I am a single paper. However, I acknowledge that if others do manage to reproduce Lindzen's work (and show that it applies globally, rather than just in the tropics), then it's possible the consensus estimate could change. I just haven't seen the evidence yet that convinces me that that is a realistic possibility.
2. What is the level of climate sensitivity below which we don't need to be worried? You say that anything less than 0.5C wouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure how you can know that. Can we be sure that even small changes in global mean temperature won't have rather surprising and unwanted effects in some places? For example places like Bangladesh, which are seriously threatened by flooding.
3. How much uncertainty are we prepared to live with? That, for me, is a pretty important point. I hope that one thing we can all agree on is that climate modelling is not an exact science, and for all the sophisticated computer models and predictions, nobody really knows for sure what the effects will be. The consensus is that bad things will happen, but no-one really knows how bad, and if we acknowledge the points you've made, one possibility is that nothing bad will happen at all. Let's say that climate sensitivity really is about 0.5C. Let's say that the threshold below which continued rampant CO2 emissions don't really matter is also about 0.5C. That doesn't give much margin for error, does it? What if we just got those slightly wrong, and climate sensitivity is actually more like 0.6C and that anything over 0.4C would land us in trouble?
So, my view is that we have to take CO2 emissions seriously, even while the science is uncertain, because of the precautionary principle. I believe that CO2 is likely to be a problem for the human species (a view widely shared by climate scientists), but I admit that I can't know that for certain. But, in the immortal words of Clint Eastward, "The question is, do you feel lucky?"
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The International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris has just released a book entitled: "Transport, Energy and CO2: Moving Toward Sustainability".
This report analyses opportunities and strategies to enable mobility
without accelerating climate change.
The book discusses the prospects for shifting more travel to the most
efficient modes and reducing travel growth rates, improving vehicle fuel
efficiency by up to 50% using cost-effective, incremental technologies,
and moving toward electricity, hydrogen, and advanced biofuels to
achieve a more secure and sustainable transport future.
More information on the book, including a link to the IEA press release,
are available here: http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=752.
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Disgusted:
#173: You will get different answers on your 4 questions from different people. But my answers would be exactly the same as Mango's in #178.
#181: The logarithmic curve comes from the IPCC reports! What is really odd is that you won't find it at all in the latest one, AR4 (2007). Despite the fact that this is a crucial part of the argument, and the report runs to hundreds of pages, as far as I can see the equation is not in there at all. But it is in the 3rd report (2001).
The key point, as Mango says in #188, is that in the relevant wavelength bands, the existing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (predominantly water vapour by the way, another inconvenient fact that the IPCC tries to hide away) are already absorbing almost all the radiation they can.
#192: Thanks for engaging in reasoned debate. Much appreciated.
#203: "I note that the IPCC estimate of about 3C is based on a wide-ranging review of the literature". Sadly the IPCC presents a lopsided and biased view of the literature. They cite papers that support the story they want to tell, but ignore those that don't. I am glad you are a scientist, so you can check this yourself. Climate scientist Roger Pielke sr has listed several examples on his website. You can find more examples with appropriate google searches. An explicit example is the IPCC'c false claim of increased hurricane activity, which led to the resignation of hurricane expert Chris Landsea from the IPCC.
There are plenty of other papers on low climate sensitivity. Again you can easily find them with Google (some names are Chylek, Wyant, Schwartz). But don't bother to look for them in the IPCC report. DYOR.
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@davblo2 #203
To be honest, mate, you can put me down for the lot if you so wish. If your level of argument has descended into a list complete with chuckles and pointing fingers, then it tells us more about alarmists than any rant put down to sceptics.
As I said, there doesn't have to be one single element on or off your list that caused recorded temperatures to rise towards the end of the 20th century. I have never said one single element is the cause. The likeliest cause is a combination of several elements.
Debate the points or produce some evidence, not some silly list.
@DisgustedOfMitcham2 #203
Point 1
Do we believe the Lindzen estimate of climate sensitivity more than the IPCC estimate?
The thing I like about Lindzens work is it is based on real observations, albeit of the the tropics only. This makes the work reproducible by others, something which cannot be said for the IPCC's computer based climate sensitivity calculations. I'd agree, we need to wait for others to check Lindzens results and conclusions, but I feel more comfortable with empirical evidence than predictions. As I am sure you will know, the IPCC's review of the literature is sometimes based on data / models that is not released and therefore cannot be reproduced by anybody outside the authors of the paper. In fairness, after long struggles of up to 10 years the data is finally coming through, although it is being left to the much derided amateurs to obtain and verify / refute the data. This is not how science is supposed to work, is it?
Heres a piece from Shaviv on climate sensitivity:
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
Rasool and Schneider calculate 0.8C:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1971/Rasool_Schneider.html
Sellers 1973 0.1C (although in 1974 he said 1.32C)
Ohring and Adler 1978 - 0.78
Idso 1980 - 0.26C
Shaviv and Veizer 2003 - 0.75C
Obviously these are a little selective, but you get the point.
Point 2
What is the level of climate sensitivity below which we don't need to be worried? You say that anything less than 0.5C wouldn't be a problem.
Did I? I thought I said anything below 1C wouldn't be a worry.
Can we be sure that even small changes in global mean temperature won't have rather surprising and unwanted effects in some places? For example places like Bangladesh, which are seriously threatened by flooding.
Bangladesh has always been threatened by flooding and is actually gaining land, not losing. It seems like the land currently being lost on the shores of Bangladesh is actually being replaced by new land elsewhere on the shores of Bangladesh. The problem is they can't use the land right away, so there appears to be a net loss. This is why I questioned Eddhind (I think - apologies if it wasn't), about the loss of his beach and asked if he had checked if there was something other than sea level rise that may have caused the problem.
Also, see my post here about rising seas in the Maldives:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/copenhagen_countdown_45_days.html#P87490176
Point 3
How much uncertainty are we prepared to live with?
The only thing in life that is certain is death and taxes. The precautionary principle is all well and good, but the burden of proof still falls on those who would advocate taking the action.
I hope that one thing we can all agree on is that climate modelling is not an exact science, and for all the sophisticated computer models and predictions, nobody really knows for sure what the effects will be.
There is an interesting post here, by somebody who has an MSc in Physics and a PhD in Computational Science:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climate_issue.html#P87669953
The consensus is that bad things will happen,
You're a scientist, you know science isn't done by consensus, but by data.
Let's say that climate sensitivity really is about 0.5C. Let's say that the threshold below which continued rampant CO2 emissions don't really matter is also about 0.5C. That doesn't give much margin for error, does it? What if we just got those slightly wrong, and climate sensitivity is actually more like 0.6C and that anything over 0.4C would land us in trouble?
The thing is, the earth has experienced CO2 levels much higher - for example a recent study suggests between 14-20 million years ago, CO2 levels were sustained at around 400ppmv. During that time the earth had an ice age and higher sea levels. This suggests feedbacks and climate sensitivity is low and CO2 is not a primary driver of climate change.
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I see the met office are now saying we won't experience ice free summers in the Arctic until 2060-2080, so what's changed since we were told ice free summers by 2013?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091015b.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7139797.stm
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it also amazes me that the head of the Tyndall Centre can write things like this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/copenhagen_countdown_45_days.html#P87668963
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#205:
Thanks for your contribution.
The argument about water vapour being more important than CO2 is a bit of a myth, isn't it? See http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11652-climate-myths-co2-isnt-the-most-important-greenhouse-gas.html
As for the IPCC report being a biased summary, that's an oft-repeated claim, although I have yet to see convincing evidence that the review was biased as you claim. Can you give specific examples of how papers that should have been included weren't, stating why you think they should have been included? I note you state Roger Pielke has listed examples on his website, but there is a huge amount of stuff on his website, and it was not obvious where to look for such examples on the home page.
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@DisgustedOfMitcham2 #209
Can you give specific examples of how papers that should have been included weren't
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
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oops, i meant to say if you read the article by Shaviv:
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
there is an explanation of water vapours role
water vapour is the most important GHG
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MangoChutneyUKOK #206: "As I said, there doesn't have to be one single element on or off your list that caused recorded temperatures to rise towards the end of the 20th century. I have never said one single element is the cause. The likeliest cause is a combination of several elements."
I'm still puzzled as to whether you really don't understand the simple list or whether you are being deliberately evasive.
Were do you get this "one single element" thing? I know you have "never said one single element is the cause", I never said you did. I said you claimed several things which appear on the list.
Also you say "If your level of argument has descended into a list complete with chuckles and pointing fingers, then it tells us more about alarmists than any rant put down to sceptics."
Why should it generate chuckles? The contents of the list are not my making. They are quotes (condensed a little to fit on one line) from anti-AGW comments on the blog.
Why do you criticise me for what it contains?
/davblo2
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DisgustedofMitcham2
when I first started to look into climate science I asked myself 2 questions
1. what is meant by mean global surface temperature, and
2. how is it measured?
spend some time thinking about that first one and then follow it up with your own research. You will find a whole world of uncertainty
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Mango, you're quite right, you did say 1C, not 0.5C, my apologies for posting in haste.
I wish I had the time to read all the links you've posted, as I'm sure there will be some interesting reading there. I guess it will all become clear where the real climate sensitivity is over the coming years. As I don't, I'm afraid this is a rather brief response to your well argued post, which is a shame. Sorry I don't have more time to give your posts the response they deserve.
However, some quick points:
The papers you quote showing low climate sensitivity mostly seem to be rather old, and as you say, are selectively chosen. The point I get is that there seems to be a wide range of estimates. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find other papers predicting climate sensitivities of 10C. Doesn't mean I'd necessarily believe them.
What you have convinced me of, however, is that it's probably fair to say that no-one can put their hand on their heart and say they know what the true value of climate sensitivity is.
"The precautionary principle is all well and good, but the burden of proof still falls on those who would advocate taking the action."
Fair point, but my understanding of the precautionary principle is that the important thing is not the *burden* of proof, but that we accept a lower *standard* of proof. I don't think it's appropriate to wait until AGW is proven beyond reasonable doubt before we take action, and actually given the catastrophic consequences if the worst AGW predictions are correct, even "balance of probabilities" is probably too high a standard of proof.
"You're a scientist, you know science isn't done by consensus, but by data."
Data can't do anything. It's people who do things, and they are driven by consensus. I think the point you are trying to make is that just because there is a scientific consensus on something, that doesn't mean that it's necessarily correct, and there I would agree with you. Data by themselves tell you nothing, it's the interpretation of the data that counts, and that's where the consensus comes in. Happily, science has a self-correcting mechanism, so if the consensus is wrong, someone will come along and show why, and if they are right, the consensus will gradually change. Maybe the consensus on AGW is wrong. I don't think it is, but I acknowledge that it could be. And if it is, new observations and new research will prove it to be so, and the consensus will change.
Let's just hope we don't do too much damage to the earth while we're waiting.
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@davblo2
I have to say that there is little point to creating your list and then constantly spouting the numbers as responses other than to create controversy and to possibly then criticize those who would questione the list as if they had a problem. Perhaps we should make a list of your little quirky ramblings and then spout off "Davblo2 #5" or whatever number it is every time you try to say something similar. If we do you shouldn't take it personally...it's just a list. Make of it what you will.
I should also point out that while some comments contained in your list are flawed, many are valid criticisms for which there is simply no answer from the AGW camp. Basically the real evidence "for" significant anthropogenic global warming comes down to the fact that its warmed some recently and the disembodied absorption math describing the behavior of isolated samples of gas (ie, not a dynamic atmosphere).
All the rest of your "evidence" consists of lots of papers (peer reviewed to be sure) using different methods, indicators, proxies and timescales to show what we know already...it's warmed. Oh, they also look into the strengths of the various forcings and feedbacks but you got to see a condensed version of that if you looked at the forcings and feedbacks section of the IPCC reports (along with their admission that many of them were highly questionable even by their own standards).
It doesn't sound like quite the "mountain of evidence" once you look at it in the proper perspective.
Now, let me give you something just plain odd to add to your list...
Birds have the DNA necessary to make tooth enamel.
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Disgusted #209: No it is not a myth. Even the article you link to says
"Water vapour is by far the most important contributor to the greenhouse effect."
I am not impressed by your apparent inability to find things on the web. Google
Pielke Documentation Of IPCC WG1 Bias
to find his examples.
There are numerous other examples you can find if you are prepared to put in the effort. If you are a scientist you ought to be familiar with literature searches.
The Landsea hurricane example is a good one. None of these papers are cited by IPCC:
Pielke and Landsea 1998, Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925-1995
Wu et al 2006, Trends in Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclone Intensity
Pielke et al 2005 Hurricanes and global warming
Henderson Sellers et al 1998 Tropical Cyclones and Global Climate Change: A Post-IPCC Assessment
Landsea et al 1996 Downward trends in the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes
These are all relevant papers but they do not support the IPCC myth that hurricanes are increasing.
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@davblo2 #212
The criticism is because you point to your list in what seems to be attempt to ridicule the argument, but you don't address the points raised.
DisgustedOfMitcham2 #214
Mango, you're quite right, you did say 1C, not 0.5C, my apologies for posting in haste.
No problem, nobody is infallible
The papers you quote showing low climate sensitivity mostly seem to be rather old, and as you say, are selectively chosen. The point I get is that there seems to be a wide range of estimates. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could find other papers predicting climate sensitivities of 10C. Doesn't mean I'd necessarily believe them.
The higher climate sensitivity values come from calculation not observation, which is why I tend to favour the Lindzen paper. You are right, though, somebody may come along and say "Hang on, Dr Lindzen, we've discovered this, which means your paper is invalid", but until then, observational evidence is preferable.
What you have convinced me of, however, is that it's probably fair to say that no-one can put their hand on their heart and say they know what the true value of climate sensitivity is.
I think you are right in this respect, which means we should be trying to verify climate sensitivity and the real value of any warmth before we make a few people even more wealthy than they are now. Enron once said that carbon trading would be very good for their bottom line. It will be for many energy companies and those individuals who had the foresight to buy carbon trading companies before any legislation came in. They have the ability to print their own money by trading in thin air.
Fair point, but my understanding of the precautionary principle is that the important thing is not the *burden* of proof, but that we accept a lower *standard* of proof. I don't think it's appropriate to wait until AGW is proven beyond reasonable doubt before we take action, and actually given the catastrophic consequences if the worst AGW predictions are correct, even "balance of probabilities" is probably too high a standard of proof.
Why should we accept a lower standard of proof? AGW has had 30 years to come up with proof, but there still isn't any. The IPCC in chapter 9 page 675 (i think) show a series of diagrams showing what the signature of varying forcing should look like. The AGW signature is quite unique, but despite over 2 decades of searching for the AGW signature, it still hasn't been found. Sherwood tells us he found it, but he used wind shear which is not appropriate. Santer claimed he found it, but simply widened the error bars on existing data and claimed it was hidden in the noise. You see there is no proof after 30 years of searching.
It is my understanding that if the AGW signature is missing, then either CO2 cannot be the cause of the warming or the models are wrong. It can't be both. Either way, this tells us we have to re-examine the claims of X degrees temperature rise over the next X years.
"You're a scientist, you know science isn't done by consensus, but by data."
Sorry, that wasn't intended to sound nasty.
Let's just hope we don't do too much damage to the earth while we're waiting.
Totally agree, although being pedantic, we wouldn't damage the earth, she has dealt with a lot worse than Man, and don't forget some of the weird and wonderful ways the alarmists have some up with to "solve the problem" could actually do more damage than good. Take for example wind farms. If a wind turbine takes energy out of the wind, what happens down wind? Would the change in wind patterns change the moisture content of the soil? Who knows? I certainly don't
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poitsplace #215
I have nothing useful to add to this debate so I am going to write a list
1. sausages
2. plasticine
3. perspex
4. lentils
etc
I hope this does not get past the moderator as it will give us list writers a level of credibility that you may not think we deserve
cheers
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@DisgustedofMitcham2
Lindzen presents a really good talk on deconstructing global warming:
From the 1970’s, there was a general feeling that ‘climate change’ would be an excellent vehicle for a variety of agendas. People openly espousing this included Bert Bolin, who was an adviser to the Swedish prime minister, and later the first head of the IPCC.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/27/lindzen-deconstructing-global-warming/
Find the link to the actual talk after the picture of Mike Hulmes book
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Spanglerboy #218.
I think you left out "marbles", did you lose them?
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MangoChutneyUKOK #217: "The criticism is because you point to your list in what seems to be attempt to ridicule the argument..."
I don't understand how you can find a list of your (and other anti-AGW) claims in any way ridiculous. If you are not happy with the wording of any item you are free to suggest an alternative and I'll update it.
MangoChutneyUKOK #217: "...but you don't address the points raised"
That was one of the reasons for the list.
Just what are the "serious" points raised. Which of the 81 items on the list should we address first? If we don't have some order, you present us with a moving target (81 at the moment).
/davblo2
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THE PHASES OF GLOBAL TEMPERATURE
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MangoChutneyUKOK
Look at the following article. You will find it interesting.
CO2 and Global Temperature
Cheers
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@MangoChutneyUKOK #200 #208
(also @davblo2)
Hi Mango, don't know where you got those quotes, but you are taking Michael Hulme a little out of context. Hulme uses stories (or "myths") "not to imply falsehoods but in the anthropological sense - stories we tell that embody deeper assumptions about the world around us." Your third quote is towards the end of this opinion article.
Near the beginning he states
One way I do this is to rethink our discourses about climate change in terms of four enduring myths. I use "myths" not to imply falsehoods but in the anthropological sense - stories we tell that embody deeper assumptions about the world around us.
Towards the end he states
We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilise these stories in support of our projects.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327241.000-climate-change-no-eden-no-apocalypse.html?full=true
Unfortunately I couldn't find the other two quotes in context on the internet, all three are used regularly out of context. But I think you will agree, he comes across more like a Church of England vicar gently musing over a cup of tea than some sort of con man.
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On 21 October a letter signed by the heads of 18 US scientific organisations was sent all members of the US Senate. The letter reaffirmed these organisations’ view that climate change is occurring and that greenhouse gases from human activities are the primary drivers.
Concerning the science, the letter states that “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.”
Noting that the “severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades” the organisations call for emissions of greenhouse gases to be “dramatically reduced” and stress that “adaptation will be necessary to address those impacts that are already unavoidable”.
Together, the organisations signing off on the letter cover a wide range of disciplines and fields of expertise. The letter was signed on behalf of the following: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); American Chemical Society; American Geophysical Union; American Institute of Biological Sciences; American Meteorological Society; American Society of Agronomy; American Society of Plant Biologists; American Statistical Association; Association of Ecosystem Research Centers; Botanical Society of America; Crop Science Society of America; Ecological Society of America; Natural Science Collections Alliance; Organization of Biological Field Stations; Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics; Society of Systematic Biologists; Soil Science Society of America; University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.
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@simon-swede (RE: more consensus stuff)
Oh great, a consensus. Now all you need to really drive home the point is for the world to warm at a dangerous rate or AT ALL.
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#226
Alternatively, poitsplace, you might stop and consider why such a diverse range of scientific bodies have the conclusions they have about climate change being a real problem which needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
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Which way is up? Just saw this article from Associated Press...
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/ap-impact-statisticians-reject-174088.html?printArticle=y
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#216:
I think you've misunderstood the point about water vapour. Yes, it is an important greenhouse gas at a given moment in time, but it's not important in long term changes in the climate because it equilibrates over short timescales (ie when there's too much of it, it rains).
This is in contrast to CO2, which mainly just accumulates.
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Mango, you make what sound like some very reasoned points, and I wish I had the time to go and read all the papers you've quoted (and I really do appreciate you taking the trouble to quote them). Maybe if I did they would even convince me that CO2 is irrelevant, in which case it's an even bigger shame that I don't have time to read them, because as a scientist I actually find it quite fun if I have my mind changed by becoming aware of new evidence. That, after all, is what science is all about.
However, I remain sceptical of your claims. I'm not going to go as far as to say you're wrong: I can't know that because I haven't read all the papers (and to be honest, as I'm not a climatologist, I'm not sure I would necessarily have the expertise to make an informed judgement even if I did). I do note, however, that, as pointed out by simon-swede at #225, there is a huge consensus among people who probably have read all the evidence and who ought to be qualified to judge. So if we are going to believe that they are all wrong, then we need to hypothesize a pretty huge conspiracy theory, and I find conspiracy theories pretty hard to believe.
You have, however, convinced me of one thing. I was always aware that the science was not completely precise. I think I am now aware that the science is even less precise than I thought.
Perhaps if I have some time over the Xmas hols I'll get round to looking at those papers...
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JaneBasingstoke #224: "taking Michael Hulme a little out of context"
Thanks for clearing that up. I thought there was something "fishy" about those quotes.
Shame on you MangoChutneyUKOK.
/davblo2
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#231: Ditto! Thanks Davblo2 for clearing that up.
The distortion created by taking the quotes out of context is also rather ironic given that Hulme's book "challenges readers to connect with their own internal sources of contention and contradiction rather than those that conceivably lie with some distant nefarious villain."
This last quote comes from a review of Hulme's book (Why We Disagree About Climate Change)in an article entitled “Beyond discord” by Maxwell T. Boykoff.
Boykoff goes on to note that "Throughout the book, Hulme prompts us to move beyond thinking about climate change as a solely physical phenomenon, and to begin conceiving it as a construction through which we express our values, perspectives, beliefs and ideas."
Sounds to me that the book would be well-worth reading!
The review was published in Nature Reports Climate Change, Published online: 16 July 2009.
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0908/full/climate.2009.70.html
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@davblo2 #231
@simon-swede #232
@MangoChutneyUKOK
Reference my own comment at #224.
Don't blame Mango.
There is a lot of misinformation out there. I only found the New Scientist article because I had read it in the print version of the magazine back in September, and the quotes reminded me of it.
If you type any of the quotes into a search engine you will find that all three are massively repeated out of context. Most of the people quoting Hulme are expressing genuine sincere shock and are probably, like Mango, completely unaware of the original context.
This sort of misinformation poisons the debate. It is not just Hulme that it hurts. As you have noticed it has unfairly impacted on Mango's credibility.
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@selti1 #46 #55 #69 #91 #108 #122/#125 #130 #153 #177 #223
(also @davblo2 and @MangoChutneyUKOK and @simon-swede)
You keep posting these links to the same graph from the same American Thinker article. And you completely misrepresent its author, Orssengo.
your version (detrended temperatures, with added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/detrend:0.707/normalise/
plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.707/offset:0.52/plot/esrl-co2/normalise
article's version (detrended temperatures, no added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/detrend:0.706/offset:0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.97/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.07
article
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/co2_driven_global_warming_is_n.html
This graph is extremely confusing out of context. It needs Orssengo's text to explain it. Yet your comments in #46, #69, #91, #108, 130, #153, #177 do not begin to do justice to Orssengo's argument.
Also your graph has a feature that Orssengo's doesn't. This weird sky blue line for CO2 that you have fitted to the detrended temperature graph. There is no way Orssengo or any professional climate sceptic would fit a detrended temperature graph to absolute CO2 levels.
Your comment in #130 also does something Orssengo doesn't do and that no professional climate sceptic would do. You take the el Nino high of 1998 and the la Nina low of 2008 creating a massive gradient and you project it forward to 2031.
You do attempt to explain the graph in #122/#125. But you don't give Orssengo's full reasoning, instead you appear to say "if we take out the trend there is no trend". Orssengo did not detrend for that reason and the graph that you refer to is no part of his argument for claiming there is no trend. Instead he detrended to look at the variation on top of the trend.
You only actually post a link to the source article in #55 and #223.
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OK, problems with links with colons. Try again
@selti1 #46 #55 #69 #91 #108 #122/#125 #130 #153 #177 #223
(also @davblo2 and @MangoChutneyUKOK and @simon-swede)
You keep posting these links to the same graph from the same American Thinker article. And you completely misrepresent its author, Orssengo.
your version (detrended temperatures, with added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/detrend:0.707/normalise/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.707/offset:0.52/plot/esrl-co2/normalise
article's version (detrended temperatures, no added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/detrend:0.706/offset:0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.97/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.07
article
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/co2_driven_global_warming_is_n.html
This graph is extremely confusing out of context. It needs Orssengo's text to explain it. Yet your comments in #46, #69, #91, #108, 130, #153, #177 do not begin to do justice to Orssengo's argument.
Also your graph has a feature that Orssengo's doesn't. This weird sky blue line for CO2 that you have fitted to the detrended temperature graph. There is no way Orssengo or any professional climate sceptic would fit a detrended temperature graph to absolute CO2 levels.
Your comment in #130 also does something Orssengo doesn't do and that no professional climate sceptic would do. You take the el Nino high of 1998 and the la Nina low of 2008 creating a massive gradient and you project it forward to 2031.
You do attempt to explain the graph in #122/#125. But you don't give Orssengo's full reasoning, instead you appear to say "if we take out the trend there is no trend". Orssengo did not detrend for that reason and the graph that you refer to is no part of his argument for claiming there is no trend. Instead he detrended to look at the variation on top of the trend.
You only actually post a link to the source article in #55 and #223.
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@selti1 #46 #55 #69 #91 #108 #122/#125 #130 #153 #177 #223
(also @davblo2 and @MangoChutneyUKOK and @simon-swede)
(also @ me # #234, #235)
Third time lucky with the link colons.
selti1's version (detrended temperatures, with added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress%3A12/detrend%3A0.707/normalise/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.707/offset:0.52/plot/esrl-co2/normalise
article's version (detrended temperatures, no added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress%3A12/detrend%3A0.706/offset%3A0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.706/offset%3A0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.706/offset%3A0.97/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.706/offset
Orssengo's actual article
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/co2_driven_global_warming_is_n.html
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@selti1 #46 #55 #69 #91 #108 #122/#125 #130 #153 #177 #223
(also @davblo2 and @MangoChutneyUKOK and @simon-swede)
(also @ me # #234, #235, #236)
Hopefully finally there with the link colons.
selti1's version (detrended temperatures, with added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress%3A12/detrend%3A0.707/normalise/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.707/offset%3A0.52/plot/esrl-co2/normalise
article's version (detrended temperatures, no added rogue CO2 line in blue)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress%3A12/detrend%3A0.706/offset%3A0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.706/offset%3A0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.706/offset%3A0.97/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend%3A0.706/offset
Orssengo's actual article
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/co2_driven_global_warming_is_n.html
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@davblo2 #231
@simon-swede #232
@MangoChutneyUKOK
Reference my own comment at #224 and #233.
The Hulme context problem appears to have happened via an intermediate article.
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/09/and-you-thought-it-was-all-about.html
This article summarises Hulme's New Scientist article. It is not flattering but it is accurate.
Search engines correctly hide the original New Scientist article behind this one. They prevent the New Scientist article being visible unless you click "repeat the search with the omitted results included". Hardly anyone wants to read the full Hulme article, it is comparatively long winded and it only takes a few sentences to cover its main points.
However this does have an unfortunate effect which was not intended. The writer of this article has accidentally shorn it of its warning about falsehoods.
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I think it's about time for another list:)
Or, indeed, series of them.
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JaneBasingstoke #233: etc...
You're certainly doing some homework; keep it up :-)
You say "Don't blame Mango"
What I am critical of is the habit of (a) claiming to be willing to hold a reasonable discussion on "factual" matters and then (b) all to often resorting to presenting unfounded and misleading information derived from arbitrary blog sites without due care as to source and reliability.
All the best; davblo2
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@davblo2 #240
I still say don't blame Mango.
The misinformation involved in climate science debates is everywhere. It affects the credibility of people debating on both sides.
In this example there is no deliberate attempt to deceive. All the quotes taken from Hulme are correct, and they clearly summarise Hulme's attitude for people that have no beliefs that climate scientists tell lies. Perhaps if the link I found, the top one in the search engine search, was the one Mango used, Mango might have picked up on the fact that the author was not accusing Hulme for the far more serious crime of telling lies.
Mango isn't the problem. And Mango isn't particularly sloppy. There is stuff out there on the internet that has far more potential to add to the misinformation. A lot of that misinformation is down to sloppiness or unfortunate coincidences. But not necessarily all of it.
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JaneBasingstoke
if all proponents of the AGW hypothesis maintained your high standards there would be less grounds for scepticism
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@selti1 #46 #55 #69 #91 #108 #122/#125 #130 #153 #177 #223
(also @davblo2 and @MangoChutneyUKOK and @simon-swede)
Right. That American Thinker article.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/co2_driven_global_warming_is_n.html
Orssengo's claim that the trend is not due to carbon dioxide is flawed. He basically looks at the trend between 1850 and 2008 (after), and compares this to the trend between 1810 and 1910 (before). His version of "before" has a faster increase than his version of "after", so he says that carbon dioxide can't be doing it.
There are two problems with this. Firstly a comparatively trivial one. He treats the 1850-2008 trend as a straight line. But the trend appears to be a curve, shallower in the earlier years, steeper in the later years. This is why the detrended graph shows a low 1940s peak, intermediate 1910s and 1970s troughs and high 1870s and 2000s peaks. This has the effect of downplaying late 20th Century rises by averaging them with the 19th Century. It would take a qualified academic statistician to say whether it is fair for him to do this. But for a back of a cigarette packet calculation this is probably not much of a big deal.
What is much more of a big deal is his source for the 1810 to 1910 "before" data, and his choice of 1910 as a cut-off date for the "before" data.
Firstly the Morberg figures ("before") are Northern Hemisphere only. So Orssengo is comparing apples and oranges. And this is obvious if you compare the overlaps between the two graphs, in the 1850 to 1910 overlap. The Northern Hemisphere shows a post Little Ice Age bounce. But the global temperatures show an overall drop towards what is a 1911 minimum.
And that brings me to my second point. 1910 is an extremely unfortunate choice of cut-off date for the "before" data. It maximises the amount of overlap where the Northern Hemisphere "before" trend is in the opposite direction to the Global "after" trend.
Orssengo could have avoided the overlap problem by using 1850 as his cut-off and going further back in time for his starting point. But he didn't. I wonder why. Perhaps more of the Moberg graph might answer that question.
(warning, the following graph stops short of the final decades of the 20th Century)
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Moberg2005.html
Orssengo's mistakes are more subtle than selti1's. But they would still have been avoided by the likes of Stephen McIntyre. His article does not contribute to competent critiques of global warming theory.
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Hey bloggers !
This thread is about Copenhagen. What would be your ideal outcome ?
For me: the delegates agree to wait and see - voting to do nothing and meet again in 2 years time. Then they walk home.
What would get your vote ?
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JaneBasingstoke #241: "I still say don't blame Mango. The misinformation involved in climate science debates is everywhere"
I tried googling the first line from Mango's #200; and top of the list was a, so say, Customer review of the book in question headed...
"A truly disturbing look at why global warming alarmists lie about the science".
Whereas the link simon-swede gave us at #232 tells us...
"Hulme explores how our beliefs and relationships with the climate shape our priorities, and he challenges readers to connect with their own internal sources of contention and contradiction rather than those that conceivably lie with some distant nefarious villain."
(Sorry for repeating simon-swede's quote)
All the more reason for discerning readers to search diligently and think carefully before the post comments based on "an Amazon reader's review" (or the like) or a book review in a reputable journal. I know which I'd take most seriously; and I know Mango jumps hastily to present the alternative version.
/davblo2
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@Jack_Hughes_NZ
My ideal outcome for copenhagen would be that they'd all give up pending any ACTUAL evidence if significant warming and stop wasting our money.
@simon_swede
It is difficult for me to properly explain in this limited medium the reason I can know and have known in the past when the consensus was wrong. Its not too unusual a position for me and I'm usually right when I spot enough "red flags" to make me go against the consensus.
@everyone discussing the trends:
I would be perfectly happy accepting the actual trend. My problem has always been and continues to be that alarmists are NOT satisfied with the trend. All across the mainstream media we're deluged with endless stories about rates of warming, melt and sea level rise that have absolutely nothing to do with reality.
The warming rate of the 80s and 90s was not in any way "unprecedented" It was actually quite normal. The temperature record fluctuates all over the place. Its gone up before at that rate it's gone DOWN at that rate before. Yes, yes...if you use the disembodied CO2 absorption math then the earth could theoretically gain enough energy to heat up by 1.2C total from doubling. We were warming BEFORE there were any significant CO2 contributions. Maybe this was just the continuation of that warming, maybe it wasn't.
The point is that the actual rate hasn't gone up. All of this expensive nonsense is to avoid warming that is not dangerous...basically it MIGHT be .5C-.7C higher (at the observed rate) by 2100. You can make models and talk about all kinds of feedbacks but at the end of the day it honestly has to show up in the warming rate to mean anything...so all of this alarmist garbage is just that, garbage.
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JaneBasingstoke #243
Thanks for the comments.
There are tow FACTS:
1) There was linear warming before 1880 as shown in your link below.
Warming before 1850
2) When you remove the linear warming trend from the anomalies of the last centuries, you get an oscillating anomaly with amplitude of 0.72 deg C from peak to valley, or valley to peak as shown below.
Osscillating Anomaly
From this, the oscillating anomalies were repeating patterns in the last 159 years, and unless there is shift in future climate these patterns will repeat themselves into the future.
It is not necessary that the maximum of the oscillating anomaly occur at the end of the century as happened in 1998. If we had the minimum oscillating at the end of the last century, like 1911 of -0.33 deg C, the global warming in the last century would have been the sum of 0.44 deg C from the linear warming and -0.33 deg C from the minimum oscillating anomaly, giving a warming of only 0.11 deg C.
This whole global warming scare is the unfortunate mixing of the man made with the natural. Global temperature is natural. Beginning and end of century is man made. If the oscillating nature of mean global temperature is accepted, there is no unnatural global warming in the last century. It is the unfortunate coincidence of the last century to start when the oscillating anomaly were near at its minimum and end when the oscillating anomaly were at its maximum.
Is it hard to imagine the end of the last century to be when the oscillating anomaly were at its minimum like 1911?
It is unbelievable how scientists, engineers and mathematicians fail to see this.
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Davblo, one more for your list, perhaps?
"I can know and have known in the past when the consensus was wrong. Its not too unusual a position for me and I'm usually right when I spot enough "red flags" to make me go against the consensus." (#246)
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@simon-swede
You seem to have a problem with someone going against the consensus because they see issues with the data and hypothesis that the consensus view obviously isn't taking into account. You even made what appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to belittle such conviction. Shouldn't a scientist have a problem with that sort of attitude?
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#249. I have no problem with anyone expressing a view for or against a consensus. What I look at when I express my opinion is the reasons given as the basis for the stated position.
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#249:
What makes you think the scientists who subscribe to the consensus view haven't taken all these objections into account?
Do you seriously think they read blogs like this one and say to themselves "D'oh! Have there really been changes in global temperature in the pre-industrial age as well? Why didn't we think of that?"
I'd be surprised if they haven't heard all the objections many times before, but come to the conclusion that they are outweighed by the evidence in favour of AGW.
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JaneBasingstoke #243
You wrote, “Firstly the Morberg figures ("before") are Northern Hemisphere only. So Orssengo is comparing apples and oranges.”
Let us check whether it is wrong to assume the linear warming of the Northern Hemisphere to be of similar magnitude to that of the globe.
We had for the globe a linear warming of 0.44 deg C /Century.
For the northern hemisphere we have a linear warming of similar magnitude of 0.45 deg C/Century.
As a result, your phrase “comparing apples and oranges” is incorrect.
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@DisgustedOfMitcham2
Heh, you missed my point. If anything in science could be considered heresy...it would be the idea of going with the consensus view when the evidence you see goes against the consensus view. Making fun of someone for not going with the consensus reflects poorly on a scientist. I suppose it's a respected tactic in cliques and school yards though.
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@selti1 #247 #252
1. Moberg graph.
Orssengo is definitely comparing apples and oranges.
Look at the huge difference between the trends for the Moberg graph extract and the global Hadley CRU data. Both cover the years 1850 to 1910. The Moberg graph shows warming between 1850 and 1910. But the total graph shows overall cooling between 1850 and 1910, a small rise then a big drop.
You point out the Hadley CRU data for the Northern Hemisphere looks more like the global Hadley CRU data. Yes I agree. And I point out that the Hadley CRU data for the Northern Hemisphere looks nothing like the Moberg extract that Orssengo used, suggesting that Moberg is not averaging for the whole hemisphere.
This makes using the Moberg extract even more problematic. Orssengo isn't so much comparing apples and standard oranges as apples and kumquats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumquat
2. "Oscillating anomally"
Firstly the slope of the trend is more important than differences between two arbitrarily chosen dates. If that was the point you were trying to make you should have been clearer.
Secondly Orssengo's 0.44 degrees C per century trend is an average trend. The actual trend looks more like a curve than a straight line. It is significantly steeper towards the end of the century. Each step down into a trough is smaller than the last. Each step up to a peak is bigger than the last. By averaging over 158 years, Orssengo has obtained a much shallower trend than if he had just subtracted his 0.33 amplitide oscillation, smoothed the resulting curve and taken a tangent at 2008.
You can see part of this apparent curve, from 1880-centred to 1978-centred, by taking a 60 year mean. This removes the apparent 60 year periodicity to show the underlying trend. (And yes, if this was a peer reviewed paper it would need some stats to say whether this curve was significant.)
Unfortunately this approach chops off the first 30 years (no 60 year average available for 1849-1908 and before), and the much debated final 30 years (no 60 year average available for 1950-2009 onwards).
(Warning, this curve has been shifted 30 years into the past, i.e. the average for range 1850 to 1909 has been plotted at 1850 rather than 1880.)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress%3A12/mean%3A60/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset%3A0.45/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset%3A-0.45
All this suggests a next minimum significantly warmer than your estimate. Perhaps more along the sort of lines Mojib Latif keeps talking about.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8258000/8258224.stm
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