Deep reflections on the ozone story
There'll be a party in the chemistry labs at Cambridge University this Friday.
But no-one will turn up with hugely coiffured hair, the champagne will be served warm, and if a fire should break out, there'll be nothing to use on it but old-fashioned water, CO2 and sand.
Well... that's how life might have turned out if industrial chemists had not come up with easy replacements for the ozone-destroying chemicals such as CFCs that a few decades ago were threatening to denude the Earth of its protective stratospheric ozone layer.
They did find alternatives, and the Montreal Protocol mandated their use; as a consequence, the ozone layer's long-term future is more or less assured, and we can carry on using similar products powered by different chemicals.
The party - well, this being science there will be some serious chat amid the frolics - marks the 25th anniversary of the Nature paper that confirmed the existence of an "ozone hole" over the Antarctic.
The ozone layer isn't completely healed yet, despite the swift switch away from CFCs and their fellows that occurred in the years following the Nature paper.
With ozone destruction abetted by lower stratospheric temperatures (a corollary of tropospheric warming), projections now suggest it could be 2080 before springtime concentrations have risen to pre-CFC-era levels.
One of the three scientists whose measurements confirmed the ozone depletion, Jonathan Shanklin, has an article in this week's Nature in which he reflects on the discovery itself (made with Joe Farman and Brian Gardiner) and mulls over what the ozone story has to say about other environmental issues that are nowhere near as "solved".
"My perspective is that luck played its part, as in many other scientific discoveries.
"The story provides an example of how to capitalise on good luck in science - researchers should be reminded to question their preconceptions, for example to ensure that people don't see only what they are looking for".
The "luck" came in several forms. One was the location of the British Antarctic Survey's Halley research base on the Antarctic Peninsula, which proved - serendipitously - to be a good place from which to see the "ozone hole", which was often offset to that part of the continent.
Another was the fact that as someone without meteorological training, Shanklin was not affected by preconceptions of how and where ozone destruction "ought" be happening - he just called the numbers as he found them.
However, it was the more generalised closing reflections in Dr Shanklin's article that really caught my eye:
"Perhaps the most startling lesson from the ozone hole is just how quickly our planet can change.
"Given the speed with which humankind can affect it, following the precautionary principle is likely to be the safest road to future prosperity.
"Although the focus is on climate change at present, the root cause of all of our environmental issues - a human population that overburdens the planet - is growing.
"Future historians may note that although humanity solved one unexpected environmental problem, it bequeathed many more through its failure to take a holistic approach to the environment."
I called Dr Shanklin to talk through the ideas a little more.
As other observers have previously noted, there were several factors that made the ozone problem relatively tractable.
The science was clear-cut, he told me - the observations from ground and space brooking little dissent.
There was public pressure because of fears of skin cancer. Industry was therefore keen to seek a solution; and industry found that chemical alternatives were available at insignificant extra cost.
But other, more complex, issues do not feature the same mix of tractable features:
"With climate change, to those working in the field, the issues are pretty clear-cut, but if you're not an expert it's harder to understand competing views; and there's a very vocal group that says the science is wrong, it's all down to natural cycles.
"The timescale is rather different because you're talking about decades before you notice a change. And the other thing is that it sounds rather nice - 'greenhouse warming' - and it will need massive changes in lifestyle to effect a cure."
But climate change he sees as just one manifestation of the fundamental canker beneath:
"There's increasing loss of biodiversity, many areas have water shortages; there's a whole range of things, and they all point in the same direction: as the human population, we're using up the resources of our planet at an unsustainable rate."
In principle, he argues, every citizen of the Earth should have roughly equal opportunities to benefit from its resources.
Achieving that end while living as a species within sustainable limits would, though, imply vast cuts in Western consumption - and perhaps, he says, this is where the West should be heading.
But consumption cuts, and curbs on population growth, can only be achieved through consensus:
"How to get from here to there is a question for the economists, and there'll be a Nobel Prize for anyone who comes up with something than everyone can sign up to."
There's a limit, then, to what the short history of ozone layer depletion can tell us about the world's deepest conundrums.
But it was a real threat - an industrial advance that brought real, swift and measurable damage to one of the biosphere's key ingredients - and it has been brought under control with a huge degree of consensus between activists and industry, and between rich and poor.
As a result, the champagne can be safely refrigerated for Friday's party; and if anyone's seriously considering spraying up a huge beehive, only aesthetic barriers stand in their way.
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.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~58~RS~)
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Richard Black wrote:
"In principle, he (Dr Shanklin) argues, every citizen of the Earth should have roughly equal opportunities to benefit from its resources."
Is he planning to go to war with the USA to try to enforce this ideal? For nothing short of war will go halfway to convince the 'tea-party' that they must only consume their fair share of resources.
This worthy idea is anathema to every Republican and most Democrats.
I suggest that Dr. Shanklin goes back to Antarctica and leaves the real World and its real problems to the rest of us.
Or perhaps he knows of a mind altering drug we can insert into the water supply that will persuade the USA of its altruistic need to share and share alike?
PS:
by the way, this reality will inevitably destroy all hope of a climate change agreement that actually cuts CO2 (even though cutting CO2 is nowhere near a 'slam dunk' solution to Global Warming - even if anthropogenic global warming actually exists!)
We are living in cloud cuckoo land if we believe that a hundred Copenhagens will change this reality.
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Richard wrote "There was public pressure because of fears of skin cancer."
Thinking of this in terms of AGW, CO2 has been useful in that it has promoted renewable energy (energy security), food security, population control etc, but CO2 is now finished and we need a new driver, I suggest that we concentrate the message on the carcinogenic nature of fossil fuel emissions, not only is it more frightening but it is more believable to.
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Do graphs go crazy when scientists party? When scientists turn up the volume and dance to the beat do they accidently alter graph plots with all of the vibration? ;-)
The three guys in the photo look ready to party ;O
On a serious note. The skin cancer thing is horribly real.
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You have opened the door to the "science was bad and there was never a problem", landing on the moon was a hoax and Hitler is alive in South America.
Sharing of resources has been the issue from the time of human organization, one group raiding another to steal the food. Humans are basically selfish.
As we see, geography and the diplomacy of superior weapons has placed some at an advantage that they tend to attribute to heavenly approval and/or superior human development. Would the Middle East matter without oil, we have very little else in common?
I will toss the Yarrow Sticks and get back to you with a prediction for human resouce sharing in this lifetime.
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Yes, those were the good-old days when all we had to worry about were finding replacements for those ozone-destroying chemicals such as CFCs.
But, as you say, we did find alternatives.
The ozone layer isn't completely healed yet… The ozone layer resides in the stratosphere and surrounds the entire Earth. UV-B radiation from the sun is partially absorbed in this layer. As a result, the amount of UV-B reaching Earth’s surface is greatly reduced. Human exposure to UV-B increases the risk of skin cancer, cataracts, and a suppressed immune system. UV-B exposure can also damage terrestrial plant life, single cell organisms, and aquatic ecosystems.
But the shocking statement, the ming-boggling statement is that, even with all the procedures put into place, it will by 2080 before the concentrations will return to pre-CFC-era levels!
What caught your eye: "Perhaps the most startling lesson from the ozone hole is just how quickly our planet can change.
What caught my eye: how very long it can take to repair our reckless, selfish, ill-thought-out environmental damage.
I don’t believe that the key problem of all of our environmental issues is human population. No, I believe the key problem is that so few consume so much of what Mother Nature can provide; this is even before we consider the exploiters who tear into Mother Earth for her rare resources, and the grand military establisment that destroys arrable land or polutes it with depleted uranium and/or either vile chemicals like Agent Orange.
In principle, it can be argued that every citizen of the Earth should have roughly equal opportunities to benefit from its resources. What will it take to bring this about? Where will we human find the loving compassion, the will towards peace, the generosity of spirit and the recognition (at long last) that we are all ONE?
What will it take for the west to give up its greedy consumption, including the thousands and thousands of cows producing methane that are needed to put a steak on the barbecue and the wastage, the unforgivaeble wastage that you can witness behind any restaurant in any city.
How do we get from here to there?
We start by thinking about the consequences of each and every action that we take. We start by paying attention. We start by saying no - no to any and all actions that seem contrary to loving compassion. Such as fighting wars over nothing more that someone else's oil, or diamonds, or land.
There is enough for everyone, but some poeple just will not accept their share.
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To Rossglory; and Hello to Ghost & Sensiblegrannie!
I would say good work to those involved in the ozone hole discovery, including the inventor James Lovelock, whose almost unbelievably sensitive instrument proved crucial to this story, if memory serves.
Enough said - we have bigger problems now, and self-congratulations must be kept short.
Ross, I just finished Chapter Five of "Tar Sands," by Nikiforuk, in which he details the environmental assessment work, or more properly the lack thereof, in the Alberta tarsands area.
"RAMP," the Regional Acquatics Monitoring Program, is funded by Big Oil.
Reading about 'RAMP' I am dumbfounded at the scale of deception by this program and by both the governments of Alberta and of Canada, and staggered by the inability of any of the 'good guys' (David's Suziki and Schindler et al...) to stop this crime against Nature and Man.
There are ~ 100,000 people downstream of the Tar Sands, residing in the third largest watershed in the world, the Peace/Athabasca/MacKenzie, which drains into the Arctic Ocean.
AGW has already reduced the flow in a number of rivers in this watershed, and on top of that, the entire project is so water-intensive and produces so much toxic waste that it is very nearly beyond comprehension.
This is Environmental Armageddon in progress, here in Canada, which I am now designating a 'fouth world' country, i.e., a country which has lost its way.
Sun Oil came to the banks of the Athabasca River in 1967. There has apparently never been a thorough and well conducted baseline environmental survey done in the area - not to this date.
It is entirely obvious why not - and it brings home Ghost's many admonitions regarding the corruption of our so called democracies.
What good can blogging about this do, given the power and strength of 'Business as Usual'?
I sincerely do not know, but it feels right.
Warmly awaiting the latest GISS Tabledata number for April,
Manysummits
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Hmm, I was wondering why no-one seems it important to mention how long the hole had been there? If it was only found 25 years ago, owing to some wonderful new equipment by all accounts, whose to say it hadn't been there for hundreds/thousands of years?
I'm very happy to be put right on this, but I wonder why it wasn't made clear in the first place? Is this Selective News?
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Very well understood physics linking the release of CFC's with breakdown of Ozone. It's a bit like anthropogenic global warming in that there is a basic physical mechanisms going on with an outcome that is fairly inevitable. Just as we have observed a statistically significant rise in mean global temp. since the start of the instrumental record that could only be explained by atmospheric CO2 increase (with excellent confidence), scientists have observed a decrease (and rate of decrease) in ozone that could only be explained by anthropogenic release of CFC's.
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To Ghost #4:
"Sharing of resources has been the issue from the time of human organization, one group raiding another to steal the food. Humans are basically selfish."
====================
I have been reading about the Greek financial situation.
Something smells.
It appears to this observer that the primary threat is not to Greece, but to "BUSINESS AS USUAL."
As such, I think I am all for Greece defaulting on their loans.
What a people! In the streets, protesting. There must be something in the air - or in their heritage - or in their genes.
Stability - for whom?
Think about it - for the very rich, and for those aspiring to be very rich.
Default - withdraw from the EEC. Show us the way.
- Manysummits -
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"Researchers should be reminded to question their preconceptions, for example to ensure that people don't see only what they are looking for"
&
"With climate change, to those working in the field, the issues are pretty clear-cut, but if you're not an expert it's harder to understand competing views; and there's a very vocal group that says the science is wrong, it's all down to natural cycles."
Hmmm!
As usual, experts with differing views are ignored.
To an expert physicist such as me, the science of man-made global warming due to CO2 is totally false.
Climate science is physics.
Environmental scientists such as Jones et al ("those working in the field") are not "climate scientists" and they rely on the theory (that's all it is) of man-made global warming for their livelihood.
Man made global warming is a lie and the theory is dead. The after effects of the lie are just taking their time to die.
It's time to prepare for a cooling climate with all the problems of food shortage and energy supply that it will bring.
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Nice piece Richard. Thank you!
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@BluesBerry #5 who wrote...
"What will it take for the west to give up its greedy consumption, including the thousands and thousands of cows producing methane that are needed to put a steak on the barbecue and the wastage, the unforgivaeble wastage that you can witness behind any restaurant in any city.
How do we get from here to there?"
Cry me a river. If these people had a better social/political/economic philosophy they'd have picked themselves up a thousand years ago...even before colonial times. Africa for example has about 17% of the world's population but only 2% of the world's GDP. They don't use the resources because they simply lack the capability. On the bright side, as they slowly gain infrastructure, they get to skip over materials and labor intensive stages that we in the west had to go through. They will simply use DIFFERENT resources when the time comes.
@SR #8 who wrote...
"Very well understood physics linking the release of CFC's with breakdown of Ozone. It's a bit like anthropogenic global warming in that there is a basic physical mechanisms going on with an outcome that is fairly inevitable. "
Not quite. There are well known and documented feedbacks that climate "scientists" have modeled poorly. Even a back of the envelope calculation shows you that latent heat and convection increase at rates that greatly outstrip additional absorption from CO2 or even from the supposed additional water vapor absorption. So...as you hear ever more dire predictions of climate change (even as the temperatures remain level or fall) fear not...the climate's sensitivity to CO2 is actually pretty low.
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yeah, i can see the attempt to draw parallels, but the two issue's aren't quite the same.
I also like the ""With climate change, to those working in the field, the issues are pretty clear-cut, but if you're not an expert it's harder to understand competing views; and there's a very vocal group that says the science is wrong, it's all down to natural cycles." bit. nice.
As has been pointed out, extensively, the AGW theory is so full of holes it's laughable. The observations just don't match the predictions and the data is, well to be kind, suspect.
People can (and will) keep harping on about how it's all settled and that anyone who dares question the theory is some oil-selling child-killer, but as the AGW crowd like to harp- it doesn't change the science.
Laboratory theories and observations, a real world model-does not make.
What about the latest prominent scientist to come out and slam the theory?? He's even given criteria in which he can be proved wrong- i.e. a TEST. (insert diety here) forbid the AGW crowd would insert such a control....
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I was intrigued to read in Shanklin's Nature piece that they:
"... adjusted the graph to make the close relation between ozone decline and CFC concentrations clear: we flipped the axis for the CFCs (with high concentrations, unusually, at the bottom, and low concentrations at the top) and adjusted the scale. This resulted in a dramatic figure, although I was slightly surprised that we were allowed to present it this way."
By doing so, they were able to communicate their resuls more clearly and in a way that others could better understand the implications.
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#1 John_from_Hendon wrote:
"We are living in cloud cuckoo land if we believe that a hundred Copenhagens will change this reality."
And you are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if you think that humans are altruistic apart from citizens of the USA.
What an unashamedly prejudiced view you express.
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#14 simon-swede quoting Shanklin:
"... adjusted the graph... flipped the axis... adjusted the scale. This resulted in a dramatic figure, although I was slightly surprised that we were allowed to present it this way."
simon-swede "By doing so, they were able to communicate their resuls more clearly and in a way that others could better understand the implications."
Now all we need to do is get the graphs of CO2 concentrations and global temperatures over time, and shift the first slightly to the left, so that we can all better "understand the implications" of AGW!
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Even if we did only take our fair share of the world’s recourses, the pie is only so big, the more there are of us, the less each gets. Sooner of later the world will have to face up to the need for population reduction, this need not be draconian, most women in poor countries do not want to give birth fifteen times in quick succession, by helping them through contraception aid we will also be helping our selves.
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Bowman @ 16:
According to Mike Hulme, that's post-modern science; adjust the data till you get the right answer (the answer the paymasters (politicians) want). Never mind good old-fashioned science as practiced by the greats such as Newton, Einstein etc.
Money counts in science these days, not honesty.
FAGTs all of them (Feeders at the government trough).
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#17 Smiffie wrote:
"most women in poor countries do not want to give birth fifteen times in quick succession, by helping them through contraception aid we will also be helping our selves."
They probably don't want to give birth 15 times in quick succession, but many of them want to be fecund, and have lots of children in not-so-quick succession. That's partly because they can expect a large proportion of their children to die young, partly because having many children is insurance for old age, and partly because being a strong healthy parent is generally considered a fine thing.
The first can be helped by improving child health care; the second by improving social welfare for old people; but the last cannot be changed: it is hard-wired into us as an evolved animal. The only hope that I can see is for increasing wealth and higher expectations in the developing world to lead in the same direction as it has led the West. Each child is a major investment, and a person who has to hold his/her own with others who are well-educated and indulged in various other ways. That entails having fewer children, and putting more into each child.
The ready availability of contraception is a good thing, not least for reducing venereal diseases and giving people more control over their lives, but it isn't "the answer" to overpopulation. The most effective change that could occur would involve parents wanting to have fewer children.
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What Richard is saying is something like this “Look the VW Beetle was a reliable car so the VW K70 must also have been a reliable car.”
Sorry but the K70 was hopeless.
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#15. bowmanthebard wrote:
"And you are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if you think that humans are altruistic apart from citizens of the USA."
Sorry if you think that any nation will act for the wider benefit of all - you are going to be very unhappy indeed.
The USA is the major disproportionate user of energy and hence disproportionate creator of CO2 (if you still believe the Climate Change = CO2 nonsense) I was not being prejudiced at all just relating the facts as they are - Tea Parties and all! Put you head back under the duvet if you wish.
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Thank you for this article Richard. I was one of the ozone observers at Halley in 1982-3, and I agree with the sentiments. This has always struck me as a kind of warning to us all, that we may think we can predict our effect on the earth but we may be wrong. Although researchers had predicted that CFCs could affect the ozone layer, the manner in which it happened surprised everyone. No-one expected this dramatic "hole" in the southern springtime each year.
For no 7 LetsSeeTheProof, Halley station was established in 1956 and has been measuring ozone since the late 1950's. The results from the early 1980's were different to anything in preceding years. It was this change which prompted the announcement of the hole, even though satellite observations at the time apparently contradicted it - the satellite measurements, or rather the analysis of them, was later shown to be wrong.
I have not worked in this field since 1985 so I am happy to be corrected by anyone with more recent involvement.
Best wishes, Ian Jones
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The ozone/CFC episode has interesting implications for the global warming zealots.
With ozone/CFC there was no attempt to ban fridges and we all go back to the dark ages with rotten food and a cold pantry. There was no attempt to tax fridges using ozone as an excuse for a poorly concealed cash grab. We all kept having fridges and just switched to new chemicals to run them. Nice quiet change, very little cause for resistance from ordinary people.
Shame people can't see a hint of how to modify the global warming scam to reduce the level of rebellion from ordinary people.
("In principle, he argues, every citizen of the Earth should have roughly equal opportunities to benefit from its resources." There's the politics thing - shame that your scientist/activist/grant junkie feels a need to play politics with his legitimate research. Thats where the global warming thing is running into problems.)
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Manysummits:
I think the problem in Greece is one that will impact other nations in various degrees. Greece is simply the first country that has had to deal with the mess created by the bankers. Other nations have not put in place the service cuts and higher taxes that are surely to come. These actions will increase unemployment and reduce expendable income for families (70% of economic activity is the day to day purchases of households). As the competitiveness of the West stalls Asia will continue to grow. One of the aspects of this that instills anger in citizens is that the interest demanded by the bankers, who caused the problem, will create increaed hardships for the governments and taxpayers after the taxpayers bailed the banks out. Citizens see austerity required on their part while the bankers profit off of misdeeds. I can understand why the Greeks are angry. Corrupt governments, no new regulations to prevent banks from doing this all again and banks acting like jackels waiting to pick the bones of the countries they have wounded. Like Climate Change and enviornmental issues the question becomes who does the government represent? The election today in Britain is asking people to make a choice when none have given in any detail how they will address these matters, only that people should trust them.....I do remember reading that some commitment had been made to a senior bus pass.
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To answer LetsSeeTheProof : Ozone was measured from the ground in the Antarctic using Dobson Spectrophotometers (developed in the 1920s) since the International Geophysical Year in the late 1950's. Thus 20 years of data were recorded before the ozone hole appeared, all measured using the same type of instrument. Dobson's (still using valve amplifier technology !) were still in use in the 1990's.
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While there is no doubt in my mind that climate change is real, the climate has always changed. There are a couple of fundamental points which seem to have been lost in all to the computer modelers and politicians.
First and foremost, trends in the climate system are only important in the climate system until they change. It is a chaotic system - the chaotic component (more properly called the center manifold) is the driver, obsessing over short term (geologically speaking) will not produce good models nor predictions.
Also, contrary to what many believe here on this blog, I do believe man has had a significant impact upon the climate - but not because of CO2 emissions. It is land use (misuse) which has been the primary culprit, dating back thousands of years. The Eastern Med is reaching a crisis point - because the trees are pretty much gone - as is all the water vapor that was produced, severely disrupting the hydrological cycle in the region.
I am also not the great fan of fossil fuels that I am made out to be. I see them as a necessary evil of our time. I do not see a better 'solution' that is viable at this point. I am also not a big fan of Nuclear energy - cheap in the short term, but very expensive in the long term. We need to double or triple our investment in developing fusion and scientific research to discover ways to harness things like gravitational and magnetic energy as well. Until then, fossil fuels will continue to dominate, oil spill, CO2, etc. notwithstanding.
I dislike fossil fuels because of pollution - not the so-called CO2 pollution, but all the noxious chemicals associated with fossil fuels through the entire value chain, from exploration to consumption. But the so-called 'green solutions' of today are not very green. This includes windmills, solar (both require use of heavy metals and a great deal of land) nor ethanol, which requires more energy from fossil fuels than energy produced by burning the ethanol.
Another fundamental issue is that the so-called 'solutions' on the table, such as carbon taxes, cap and trade and CDM are not real solutions. They will do nothing to abate the so-called problem of CO2 emissions.
We need to leap-frog these silly and ineffective 'solutions' and develop real solutions, ensuring cheap, abundant energy for all the world. Real progress will only be made with advances such as fusion, geothermal, and perhaps in fifty or a hundred years, geomagnetic and other technologies.
I also think the future is bright, I see a future where much progress is made on the environmental and humanistic issues in decades to come. Just as there has been significant environmental progress in the US over the last 30 years, the same will come to much of the world in the next 30 years - but we need to focus on those things which we can have a real impact on - CO2 emissions not being one of them. Money spent there is just money and effort wasted...
Cheers.
Kealey
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#21
"Sorry if you think that any nation will act for the wider benefit of all - you are going to be very unhappy indeed."
I don't. I just don't think the USA is the uniquely un-altruistic villain you paint it as being.
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The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles”
Mahatma Gandhi
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#26 LarryKealey wrote:
"It is land use (misuse) which has been the primary culprit, dating back thousands of years."
I've always had a sneaking suspicion that the Sahara is the result of over-grazing. Is that off the wall? Any opinion?
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A comment regarding post 26 from LarryKealey.
Carbon taxes, cap & trade and CDM are economic "solutions" rather than technological ones and I believe it is misguided to mix the two. The right economic "solutions" should provide the conditions for the development of the long term techonogical solutions. In a free market economy the economic levers are the obvious ones to pull to stimulate the actions required.
Yes they might be too timid (at the moment) and I also use the term "solutions" with caution. But carbon taxes and "cap and trade" do have an impact on carbon abatement. In particular "cap and trade" will increasingly be able to offer much more assurance around the levels of atmospheric carbon.
Where "cap and trade" schemes currently go worng is that they measure and restrict carbon at the point of manufacture, not at the point of consumption so, for example, great swathes of European consumption is unaffected by a cap. But they are not ineffective in my experience.
I shaln't try to defend CDM.
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At #17 I wrote "most women in poor countries do not want to give birth fifteen times in quick succession, by helping them through contraception aid we will also be helping our selves."
At #19 bowmanthebard suggests that development is part of the answer, I think that it is very difficult to be sure of this.
As development occurred in the West, birth rates fell and population stabilized. Many now argue that the same will happen as the third world develops, but are we correct to assume that what happened for us will automatically happen for other peoples from other cultures? It may be that in South Asia, for example, where the family is very important, that development will lead to an accelerated rate of population expansion. South America too, development will not necessarily change belief systems that encourage large families, and what of Sub Sahara Africa, is development possible or will the violence that is so endemic to the region destroy any prospect?
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Bowmanthebard No29.
A long time ago at university I learnt that goats were responsible for most of the worlds deserts. I haven't heard that proved or disputed.
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Let me give you a lay persons experience with the Ozone Hole fix. In 1995 my 1983 Chevy air conditioner was not working well, and I took it in to be recharged. $550 later it was converted to the new freon. Didn't work a lot better but I certainly had no problem saving kids from cancer in Chile. Over the next few years my college age kids needed their beaters converted also. Total cost to me over $1000. A few weeks after the first conversion I was watching the Discover Channel (or such) and some guy with a British accent standing in Antarctica explains that the new rules are going to fix the ozone hole and "the effects are going to be DRAMATIC AND IMMEDIATE, AND THIS IS SCIENCE'S CHANCE TO SHOW THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON IN CLIMATE CHANGE"
Well here we are 15 years later and wow, the hole may be back to pre CFC levels by 2080! It however is still growing 20 years after being fixed (set a record in 2006). This is hardly what was first sold in Montreal. And there are now questions about the accuracy of these measurements!
So I say it is about time to find a new fix.
And don't tell someone with asthma that they never noticed anything different when the change was made to their inhalers.
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#24 and 28, Ghost, Gandhi couldn't have described Greece any better, but it is not bankers that caused the mess it was the corruption of the political class.
However, the thread is about ozone layers and this drives yet another nail into the CO2 theory and perhaps the above 3 missed the boat on the grant swindle.
http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=8012
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interesting read:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/06/pielke-sr-on-revkins-question/#more-19264
here's a plausable alternate theory to counter the 'it can't be anything other than co2 line'.
At larry,
re: human effects on climate. I agree with almost everything you said there- particulary on land use. Humans have a huge impact on climate, local and therefore global- but not as the ipcc and the agw-ers would have us believe, and not due to co2.
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32. ooozzzelll wrote:
"A long time ago at university I learned that goats were responsible for most of the worlds deserts. I haven't heard that proved or disputed."
Interesting. Something I've wondered about. When I first went to Corfu back in the early 1970's the hills were bare of vegetation. Over the years it has become progressively greener. The difference, so far as I can see, is that the goat herds have disappeared and the herdsmen have become hotel waiters.
Saharan rock paintings show a typical savanna fauna including elephants and deer. It's always been suggested that climate change dried up the savanna and sent the hunter-gatherers into the Nile valley and a life of farming (and pyramid building).
As belief in natural climate change is now non-PC it must have been the goats!!!!
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#18 Flatearther
"Money counts in science these days, not honesty." - the only time money didn;t matter was when science was the reserve of the landed gentry (darwin et al). and the whole 'climate scientists are dishonest, incompetent or both but physicists are pure as the driven snow' meme is getting a bit boring (largely because there's no truth in it).
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To Ghost #'s 24 & 28:
Indeed!
I read the papers for an hour this morning, and a blog developed in my mind. I walked a half hour to the University, where I am writing this.
I read the BBC news, and the posts I respect on this weblog.
Roger Harrabin has an excellent piece from one of the ozone heroes.
This is an environmental weblog. It should be abundantly clear to moderators, environmental reporters, and posters, that there is no off-topic where the environment is concerned. The election in the UK will affect the Environment, the Greek riots are affecting our collective future, etc...
In that frame of mind, I wish to review a few of this morning's findings, and yesterday's researches. Yes, that is what I do these days, instead of remunerative work:
1) "Straighten up and fly right" was playing on the PA again this morning at my local coffee shop. I have heard this any number of times these last months. Why? This is an old song, very old.
Because the artistic community senses what we discuss, and this is an admonition. It was always the function of the artistic community to say what needed saying, and most political systems have given this community immunity from prosecution in doing this. We would do well to listen attentively. There are powerful movies and documentaries coming out almost weekly, it seems, doing what our politicians are not doing - telling US what is really going on.
2) Chevron is planning to drill in 2600 meters of water 400 kilometers NE of St. John's Newfoundland. That's a thousand meters more water than the present ultra-deep Gulf well which is now threatening the entire eastern seaboard of the Atlantic US, as well as the Gulf Of Mexico.
What does the premier of Newfoundland think of reigning in this quest for the last drops of oil? it beggars the imagination - he thinks that because the oil is thicker, and the water colder, it 'might' sink instead of come to the surface!!!!!!!!
And this on the Grand Banks, one of the (formerly?) most productive fishing grounds in the world. I suppose there is nothing on the bottom which would suffer if the oil did sink!!!!!!!!!
We have irresponsible children running the show Ghost, irresponsible, ignorant, and extremely dangerous - perhaps juvenile delinquents would be a more accurate description?
The amount of seabottom designated for further exploration and drilling is huge. This must stop, these permits must be revoked. Hibernia is in eighty meters of water - at least that is manageable, accessible to divers. Drilling in kilometers of water is a fool's errand - and that is exactly what we are collectively - fools - "The Age of Stupid."
3) Omar Khadr was tortured by Canadians at Guantanamo. The Candian Supreme Court has ruled:
"...constituted a clear violation of Canada's international human rights obligations."
Again, irresponsible and criminal behavior - juvenile delinquents.
4) The UK election:
"As in 1974, the economy is the only important issue." (Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail)
This is a tricky one. There is perhaps nothing wrong with the economy being of paramount importance. It is how we live. Bill Clinton saw this clearly. What is not so obvious, at least not yet, is that we are all going to have to find new ways to make a living in the New World which is dawning. That is the economy we need to be discussing around our coffees, at our mealtimes, in our pubs, on the mountainside.
5) Greece: Jr wrote me this morning. He no longer posts here. He thought Greece should stay in the EU and keep the Euro.
I will post my answer to him:
"Thanks for the thought Jr !
I am quite sure that in a practical sense you are right. But where has practical thinking gotten us?
There was an article on the BBC recently about reviving the spirit of Rio, for example.
I almost threw up! Two years from now we are to re-live Rio, which accomplished nothing - or is that too harsh?
But we don't need to do the Legion thing, and drink our sorrows away while we remember what it feels like to have once been alive.
No, I think THE PEOPLE are speaking in Greece. They want what I want, to bring this corrupt system crashing down around our ears. Yes, it will be awful, but the alternative, business as usual, is infinitely worse.
We can handle the temporary destruction of the present corrupt, and bankrupt, financial system.
We cannot handle the continuuing exploitation and development of the unconventional fossil fuels or of Big Coal.
That will end the Holocene, and the Anthropocene will be ushered in, with the tragic result that we will very nearly disappear, or even go extinct, and we will take perhaps fifty percent of extant species with us, or at least the ones we know of.
It was the Greeks who invented the tragedy in the West, was it not?
It would be a blessing if they were the ones to lead the way out of tragedy, and into the New World."
===================================
6) "Alberta Oil" magazine, 2008, vol 4, issue 1:
I re-read the articles on Heavy Oil (including the Tar Sands), and on the drilling of the methane clathrates in the Arctic basin and elsewhere.
These are both un-conventional oils and gases, like the ultra-deep wells in the Gulf oil spill, and in the proposed Newfoundland "Lona O-55" well.
When you read the reports, by industry scientists and oil experts, it is like reading about kids in a candy shop. They speak enchantingly of a hundred years of future recoverable oil and gas.
Are they without morals, completely ignorant, or just beholden to their employers - modern day slaves hoping for promotion and bonuses - i.e., irresposible juvenile delinquents?
Beyond a reasonable doubt, the finding and then burning of these un-conventional resources will, in the opinion of our best scientists, put the entire planet at risk of irreversible runaway climate change, the result of which will be the culmination of the sixth mass extinction event of the Phanerozoic, the last 600 million years.
Reckless, irresponsible, criminally negligent - take your pick.
We desperately need to stop this madness.
If the Greeks can do it by catapulting the current corrupt financial system into a wall - DO IT - do it now.
- Manysummits -
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To the UK's Citizens:
Best of luck in your elections!
- Manysummits -
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#37 rossglory wrote:
"the only time money didn;t matter was when science was the reserve of the landed gentry (darwin et al)"
It mattered then too, because in those days the only people who had time for science and speculation are the ones who had money (like Darwin).
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Just in:
EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO)
DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION
issued by
CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP
6 May 2010
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
- Manysummits -
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#31 Smiffie wrote:
"As development occurred in the West, birth rates fell and population stabilized. Many now argue that the same will happen as the third world develops, but are we correct to assume that what happened for us will automatically happen for other peoples from other cultures?"
We can't be sure of anything, but I think biology strongly suggests that the birth rate would fall. Humans have the longest childhood of any animal, and a human child represents a much bigger "parental investment" than the offspring of any other animal. With development and greater confidence that a child will reach maturity, each "investment" becomes bigger still, and "investors" tend to have a smaller number of larger "investments" as vehicles to carry their genes into future generations.
Human cultures differ, but human biology is practically the same all over the world.
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Kamboshigh #34:
And who was it that offered the inticement of corruption to politicians? Corruption requires two parties. I do not distinguish between politicians and bankers on this matter. There is no coffin and there are no nails, there is time and effect. I believe the thread is about science identifying a problem and the enactment of a solution. But of course you may think that the invention of the wheel was a government consirpacy and scientific grant grap to undermine man's ability to walk.
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Re: Post #38:
Underacanoe and I were discussing this latest post, and a question came up:
"Have the Americans ever fought a war for freedom?"
From this discussion it became clear that black and white answers are really not answers at all.
It also developed that my own thinking crystallized around one point:
I do not blog in the hopes of seeing in some 'perfect world democracy,' or any other such Utopian goal, an indication or fuzzy thinking I believe.
No, this is about the basics - food and water and a place to raise healthy children - THE BASICS.
For the economically-minded: THE ECONOMY.
For what else is an ECONOMY, if it is not at its center a way of providing food and water and a viable future?
- Manysummits -
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@manysummits #44
For the philology minded, the "eco" in "economy" (and "ecology") comes from the Greek for house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics
Meanwhile although "war" is perhaps too aggressive a metaphor, the pursuit of freedom is a constant one. All power tends to corrupt and we (not just the Americans) have to hold the powerful to account.
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@manysummits #44
Two recent little victories for freedom in the UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/14/trafigura-fiasco-tears-up-textbook
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/apr/15/simon-singh-libel-reform
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To Jane #'s 45 & 46:
Thank you for those, especially did I like the Twitter/Trifigura story and the libel case one. (46)
Since posting this morning I have been doing more research - and thinking.
I mentioned a 2008 'Alberta Oil' article in an earlier post, actually two articles, and this prompted me to visit my local bookstore and see if I could find a more recent magazine.
I came up with "Oilsands Review," about news in unconventional oil and gas, and the feature story, on the cover as well, of my old trade of just under twenty years, conventional heavy oil, mostly in the Lloydminster/Kindersley Saskatchewan area, where I and my brother pioneered new and drastically improved methods for obtaining highest quality samples at the well site, and evaluating the well's potential before the well logs were run.
Apparently heavy oil as described is extremely profitable, and increasingly so. It costs on average about a quarter million dollars to drill and complete and equip a well, say 700 meters deep, and it pays out in eight or nine months. The rate of production is miniscule compared to the gushers we typically read about, say the 5,000 to 20,000 bbls per day and up capacity of well in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf of Mexico, as a typical conventional heavy oil well might produce 30 to 50 bbls/day. But they are long lived, and can often be profitably recompleted years later at little cost, to produce again.
But these big prolific wells both have more than considerable downsides, as we are finding out - the world's largest war machine to support the one, and a catastrophic environmental penalty for the other, a pursuit the reporter William Marsden called: "Stupid to the Last Drop."
I feel for those guys on those rigs, be they in the Middle East, or Nigeria, or offshore. By and large they are decent individuals, with much more of the joie de vivre of the French, and the courage to work every day in a loud and dangerous environment. Like most of the people in the military, they are engaged in what they believe to be a worthy pursuit, even if money plays a large role in their choice of career.
It is apparently up to the few cultural pioneers alive and working now to change this way of life to another, which need not necessarily be any less exciting.
We simply cannot go after the unconventional sources of oil and gas, or burn too much more coal - PERIOD - OR WE DIE!
Take the Tar Sands - here in Alberta.
Some of the largest and structurally most unsound dams in the entire world now enclose some of the dirtiest toxic tailings ponds in the world, and all right beside the Athabasca River, which drains into the MacKenzie River, which drains into the Arctic Ocean, soon to be ice-free in summer. This is the third largest watershed on the planet, behind only the Amazon and the Missisippi River watersheds.
The Mackenzie delta is one of the world's great migratory bird areas, and there are some one hundred thousand people downriver of the Tar Sands.
In the words of David Schindler, one of the world's top water ecologists, member of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States, and professor at the University of Alberta:
"If any of these [tailings ponds] were ever to break and discharge into the river, the world would forever forget about the Exxon Valdez."
- p. 91, "Tar Sands," 2010, by Andrew Nikiforuk. (trade paperback edition)
Toxic and carcinogenic polycyclic hydrocarbons (PAH's) and napthenic acids are currently draining into the river as we speak, and there have been the 'business as usual' attempts at misinformation and cover-up by both government and industry, both documented in film and documentary, and most recently by The National Academy of Sciences of the United States In the December 7 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), by Erin Kelly et al;
"Oil sands development contributes polycyclic aromatic compounds to the Athabasca River and its tributaries"
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/04/0912050106
===================
Jane, most of us realize full well, perhaps especially those of us like myself, who have worked a lifetime in the field, that there are environmental costs to any industrial activity. And some have to be acceptable.
But it is quite another thing when lying, corruption and greed disguise themselves as leagally constituted representatives of THE PEOPLE, and then misuse this trust, for what can only legitimately be called murderous ends.
Then, when both your democratically elected representatives and your transnational corporations have proven themselves time after time over literally decades to be infamous and corrupt - what is one to do?
Trite admonitions to write your member of Parliament seem just that - and at least half the electorate sees this clearly.
It is time for substantive change.
It is why I wish that the Greeks will use the wrecking ball they now have in their hands, and bring this financial disaster we call the modern economy to its knees.
Options, credit default swaps, and all other forms of illegitimate gambling with the public's money must end - NOW.
Capitalism itself is on trial.
I was a stockbroker for a year - I know what I am talking about.
Invest in a company for only one reason - to pool resources for the the common good. There can be only one legitimate way to earn a dividend - if this company fulfils all of its obligations to all of its stakeholders, i.e., US and the common environment, and then has a profit to distribute.
This is not rocket science - this is the way it should be - and now, due to absolute necessity - this is the way it MUST BE.
- Manysummits -
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35. At 4:06pm on 06 May 2010, LabMunkey wrote:
interesting read:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/06/pielke-sr-on-revkins-question/#more-19264
here's a plausable alternate theory to counter the 'it can't be anything other than co2 line'.
At larry,
re: human effects on climate. I agree with almost everything you said there- particulary on land use. Humans have a huge impact on climate, local and therefore global- but not as the ipcc and the agw-ers would have us believe, and not due to co2.
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Agreed, thats what I said - not CO2, forget the IPCC - they have already been discredited and the AGW theories have already fallen apart.
Yet, we have had impacts upon the climate - mainly though land (mis) use. That is where we should focus our efforts.
I get a good laugh every morning when I watch accuweather on digital tv. They have had an English woman talking about an island in the bay of bengal which was 6' above sea level and has been inundated due to 'climate change' - and 'experts' warn that higher sea levels could affect other islands in the Bay of Bengal. They even show satellite photos of the island before and after...lol
Sorry, but it just don't fly - sea levels do not rise in a 'small area'. If sea levels rose by 6 ft, they would have risen 6 ft in all the Bay of Bengal, All of the Indian Ocean, All of the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, Gulf of Mexico, etc...you get the idea. But they put this 'propaganda' out there an people (ignorant) believe it. It was the currents and natural effects which eroded the island. It may reappear in a year or two, maybe in a new location as the tides, floods, etc, deposit sand and soil in the area again.
So much garbage to wade through - lets blame the banking crisis on AGW - I am surprised that someone has not yet found a way to do that.
Kindest.
Kealey
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Look at science today people of the skeptical AGW bent:
Herschel space telescope pierces giant star bubble
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8664318.stm
================
We are watching a star being born! A massive star, and we understand more about the nitty-gritty of a star than anyone who has ever lived, in this or any other age - as far as we can tell.
Look at the recent findings about Neanderthal genes in our DNA!
What can possibly make you think that we have got it wrong where the climate is concerned?
What?
- Manysummits -
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..remembering in those days there was a cacaphony of protest from the chemical industry, which shouted about the science not being clear/being wrong, we don't know what causes it and/or it's not humans doing it.
Some of their "experts" are familiar to us today - most notably Fred Singer - in their ranting that global warming isn't human-induced/caused by sun blah blah blah.
However, you say Richard, that "alternatives have been found". That's not quite the case is it?
We replaced CFC's with HCFC's which - erm - continued to deplete the ozone layer. So they had to be banned. Now the Montreal Protocol is busy replacing them with a refrigerant that is listed under Kyoto as one of the six main global warming gases - HFC's. And production is going sky high.
The most recent science shows that if we only focus on reducing CO2 and do nothing about HFCs, they will be responsible for 28-45% of climate change by 2050.
Saving the ozone layer by causing climate change. Nice.
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@Manysummits wrote: #49
Look at science today people of the skeptical AGW bent:
Herschel space telescope pierces giant star bubble
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8664318.stm
================
We are watching a star being born! A massive star, and we understand more about the nitty-gritty of a star than anyone who has ever lived, in this or any other age - as far as we can tell.
Look at the recent findings about Neanderthal genes in our DNA!
What can possibly make you think that we have got it wrong where the climate is concerned?
----------------------------------------------------------------
Sure we know more about the 'nitty gritty' of a star than generations before us - no doubt, but talk to anyone who studies stars and you will find out just how little we really know, and how many unanswered questions we have - and anyone in the field will tell you every unanswered questions which is answered, will lead to a dozen more unanswered questions.
We just found Neanderthal Genes in our DNA - perhaps true - I read something about it, found it interesting, but, what else have we yet to discover about our genes? Ask anyone in the field, and I believe they will tell you we have just scratched the surface and there is so much to be done.
Yes, we are making great scientific progress - we need to spend more money on 'pure research' - not on stuff to 'fit a model'.
In these fields you name, and so many others, scientists and researchers have more questions than answers. We know very little about stars in reality - stars have weather, climate - albeit much different than earth - but the climate of the sun affects us - sunspots, solar flares, etc affect many things on earth. We still have so much to learn - much more than we know now.
Same is true of 'climate science'. We have barely begun to scratch the surface. The PDO was only discovered some ten years ago. How many more discoveries will be made, just in our oceans? Discoveries that affect and even drive climate on a global scale. Do you doubt this? Do you actually believe 'we know it all'???
I find it difficult to believe that you could be so arrogant in your thinking and so ignorant of your own ignorance (please don't take this impolitely - I find this unbelievable) - I know you are smarter than that.
I'll say it again, I do believe in ACC - but I don't believe the main culprit and driver is CO2 - I think the real 'big' human driver has been land and to a certain extent, water use. Underlying that is the root issue, population explosion.
Well, there is 2 cents for ya.
Cheers.
Kealey
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#47 @Manysummits wrote:
I was a stockbroker for a year - I know what I am talking about.
Invest in a company for only one reason - to pool resources for the the common good. There can be only one legitimate way to earn a dividend - if this company fulfils all of its obligations to all of its stakeholders, i.e., US and the common environment, and then has a profit to distribute.
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A whole year as a stockbroker - may I inquire as to why you changed occupation?
Having served as an officer in three companies, and ten years consulting for mostly commodities trading companies, my understanding that a corporation has responsibilities to all its stakeholders, that would include:
Shareholders
Employees
The Community
Customers
Partners
The purpose of a corporation is to make money, period, while acting in the best interest of their stakeholders. While the focus may be on making money for the shareholders, they also have a responsibility to the rest of their stakeholders. If they fail at those responsibilities, they generally pay - affecting the stockholders - thus checks and balances exist. Companies who do not do right by their stakeholders, do not survive, nor do they make their shareholders 'happy'.
Now we are up to 4 cents...;)
Cheers.
Kealey
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Manysummits @49
Herschel tells us we know less about what we thought we knew.
We have genetics close to that of mice.
You ask: What can possibly make you think that we have got it wrong where the climate is concerned?
Your examples highlight that we know so little but profess so much.
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A good update on the oil spill:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-yfHJzPLDeBIhG5JDEF6VbaPR8QD9FHONV80
Of particular interest, the oil from the spill is moving westward - where at this time, there is no effort to contain, nor preparations for cleanup. By westward, I mean, West of the Mississippi, all swamps and wetlands...
Additionally, Obama finally called up 17,500 National Guard to assist with containment and cleanup - several weeks late and a few million short in my opinion.
Thats it for tonight (shortly after midnight) more tomorrow.
Cheers.
Kealey
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#48 LarryKealey
"here's a plausable alternate theory to counter the 'it can't be anything other than co2 line'." - where's your scepticism now? do you think the pielke/spencer 'whatabout' bandwagon is really that plausible? have they got evidence? have they modelled it (not that you believe in models anyway)?
the truth is these guys are desperate to discredit established climate science by any means except peer review. but all they're doing by crying wolf so often is ensuring that any real critiques of the established work will get ignored. imho they're doing the contrarian cause more harm than good.....which i have no problem with of course.
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#47 manysummits
"If any of these [tailings ponds] were ever to break and discharge into the river, the world would forever forget about the Exxon Valdez."
of course we know that's 'when' not 'if'. i think the recent credit crunch and deepwater horizon explosion show that risk assessments to support profit are not risk assessments at all.
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A letter appears in this week’s edition of Science under the headline ‘Climate Change and the Integrity of Science’ (Science 7 May 2010, Vol. 328. no. 5979, pp. 689 – 690, DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5979.689). The signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but are not speaking on its behalf.
It concludes: “Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.”
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Further to my posting at #57, in the same edition of Science there is a Policy Forum article by Sheila Jasanoff ('Testing Time for Climate Science') in which she discusses integrity and accountability of climate research, in a broader societal context. Worth a read!
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I closed down half of a business back in the 90's because I did not see the sense from changing from CFC's to another gas. My figuring was that it will only be a matter of time before we discover the new gas is causing a problem. I explained the problem to my customers and they were not interested in driving a car without airconditioning because they were used to the comfort.
Problem... people are Greedy and have no considration for the future of our race. This is a very sad state to be in because there is very little hope for our future generations without a shift in the basic phylosophy of the population.
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#57 simon-swede wrote:
The signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but are not speaking on its behalf.
I wonder where these authors address the question of what is and what isn't the genuine "science" that we're supposed not to ignore?
They can't be so naïve as to unquestioningly assume that any old half-baked conceptual confusion that calls itself science but strays far away from proper scientific methods actually counts as science, can they?
That would be laughable -- a real intellectual disgrace.
So I ask again: Where do these authors address the question of what is and what isn't genuine science? Where do they address the question of when methodology is so misguided that reflective, thinking people do not allow it to sustain belief?
I suspect these are mostly shallow people who haven't even thought about those questions. I suspect they prefer not to think truth, belief, or reasons for belief, because those are questions that simply never came up during the course of their narrow academic training.
It concludes: "Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky..."
Those so-called scientists have two choices. They can ignore the question of what is and is not genuine science, and continue to be regarded as narrow-minded authoritarians by the general public; or they can explain why we should believe them and their ridiculous-looking methods in clear and honest terms without appealing to their own assumed authority.
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On April 22, Nick Clegg carelessly put the well-meaning but sceptical majority of the UK population into the same category as "nutters", "homophobes" and "antiSemites". I wonder if this high-handed disregard for popular opinion has something to do with his spectacular lack of success in the election?
As I said on April 23: goodbye Nick Clegg!
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#50 cindybax - indeed, although as noted here a) the Montreal Protocol does appear to have curbed GHG emissions vis-a-vis business-as-usual, and b) the protocol is now deliberately moving to target HFCs as well
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Bowman at #60
You wrote: "I suspect these are mostly shallow people".
Well, you are entitled to that view. Personally I disagree with you. If anything your reaction comes across as a knee-jerk one (because of the view they expound) rather than the outcome of a considered assessment (of why they might be saying what they do). Unsuprising, really.
I know whose view I consider more credible.
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From the open letter:
"Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modelling."
That is just hopeless! How shallow, how empty, and how wrong.
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Our environmental problem is yet unsolved. A feasible scapegoat has been found to blame the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill on. BP has taken liability for cleaning the mess and Transocean has taken a percentage of the obligation too, but now the two companies are looking at Halliburton, a cement organization. The Halliburton oil spill is considered to have been a consequence of carelessness on the company who was simply employed to cement the oil well. In the event the oil well isn't cemented correctly chemicals can leak out causing an explosion. There have been a number of other oil explosions blamed on this process as well. Halliburton has claimed to have completed their work merely 20 hours ahead of the explosion, but takes no accountability for the oil spill or blast that presumably killed 11 people.
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Bowman at #61
I don't know. Perhaps consider the results for what I understand were the only two parties that were overtly sceptical on climate change (UKIP, BNP).
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#63 simon-swede wrote:
"If anything your reaction comes across as a knee-jerk one (because of the view they expound) rather than the outcome of a considered assessment"
But where, prey tell, did these self-important, er, people get the idea that they are experts in how much something deserves to be believed?
Where, prey tell, do they ever address questions of belief, reasons for belief, truth, forms of reasoning, etc.?
Where do they do anything that remotely resembles epistemology of any kind?
Who the heck do they think they are?
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gentlemen, we seem to be descending into personal attacks rather quicker than normal here. At least leave it until ~post 200, as is traditional....
at the moment i'm wading through the recent cfc and the 'cloud cover' submissions as they would seem, on first pass, to be viable alternative theories- though i must stree i'm only on first passs on the former.
Anyone read yet and found any glaring clangers?
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#63 simon-swede wrote:
"I know whose view I consider more credible."
Why don't you try forming your own opinion instead of judging credibility on the basis of who says something?
If you really must take someone else's word for it, do you take your dentist's advice on repairing your car? Or your car mechanic's advice on interior design?
Of course not! -- So why take the advice of people who evidently haven't given any thought to truth, belief, reasons, etc. on matters of truth, belief, reasons, etc.?
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@manysummits #47
Disturbed by what you say.
Firstly a reminder. The problem in Greece involves corrupt politicians as the main villains, with the problem made that much more painful by the recession.
I am a very very amateur historian, and I don't think we can get rid of capitalism in the way you describe.
Previous messes like this usually end up with the poor footing the bill in terms of job losses, lower wages and lower more restricted unemployment payments. If things get really bad there can be a rise in the political power of left and right extremists. And the moderate majority are forced to choose between communism and fascism.
Meanwhile it is my observation that we have yet to see a successful (non-totalitarian) modern country without some capitalism.
So I will stand up for capitalism-lite.
However I will also stand up for regulation of that capitalism.
We have seen appalling abuses of capitalism accompany recent deregulation. Enron, Madoff, sub-prime mortgages, all this derivatives c***. In extremis capitalism can trump our freedom by saying that money trumps justice, and this is a practical reality with expensive lawyers for the rich and sometimes inadequate legal representation for the poor. Our Magna Carta, still on the statute books, says that no one should be sold justice by our legal authorities. This clashes with extreme laissez faire which says that money decides everything.
(current statute books, relevant clause 29 (xxix))
http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?activeTextDocId=1517519
(English translation of original 1215 version, relevant clause 40)
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
Every so often a popular movement arises that is articulate and intelligent enough to tackle plutocracy and corruption properly. There are suggestions of that in Greece, where the main villains are corrupt politicians.
But such a movement needs the system intact so that they don't lose popular support to the extremists.
I wish the Greeks well. It will be a long hard road whichever they choose.
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Re 64. bowmanthebard:
You are right. Scientific conclusions should derive from an understanding of hacked emails supported by blog posts, observations of Al Gore's electricity bill, and wherever the weather was cold last week. These are the things scientists should be focusing on.
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Bowman at #67
Same goes for anyone, yourself included.
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@Enzo #65
"Halliburton, a cement organization"
Halliburton are rather more than a cement organisation.
http://www.halliburton.com/AboutUs/default.aspx?pageid=2458&navid=966
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3344815.stm
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To Jane #70:
Yes, it is disturbing.
It was meant to be, and I feel I should explain.
First, history. It is clear to me as I look back over my life that I have always loved the outdoors, and I suppose the freedom it represents, more than anything else outside of my family. And my career, as a geologist, got me outdoors, but I was never persuaded to stay in school and pursue an advanced degree in geology or science.
But always I have been an historian. In fact, many geologists are just that - historians of the natural world. But my bent has encompassed human history, from paleo-anthropology and archaeology to recorded history and the fate of both civilizations and indigenous, or aboriginal peoples.
And I have been a businessman, incorporating one, creating its books, etc. This interest involved me for a time as a stockbroker, when I took one of three breaks from the wellsite business. I have always been fascinated by markets, and I wanted to know more. But they just wanted me to sell. So I learned and I left - as I remember, never having lost anyone a penny who listened to me.
I still believe in the free market.
We don't have a free market.
Depressions correct capitalist excess - this is a fact of history. We always say, "There must be a better way!"
But no one has ever found one.
The running of the economy by the manipulation of interest rates a la Allan Greenspan is in my opinion the same as thinking you control the tiger because you have hold of his tale. But they have managed to 'sell' that one to all and sundry, and the UK has just swung right - I rest my case.
Second, my understanding of the science of global warming, and of the destruction now rampant upon the biogeophysical systems of the Earth, caused in the final analysis by our huge and unsustainable numbers, and my knowledge as an interested geologist in the science of mass extinctions (Ward, Courtillot etc and et al), indicates to me that we are already well on the path to a sixth massive mass extinction, not the many lesser ones which spot the geological record.
How to put it?
Many of our systems appear fractal in nature, and non-linear in detail.
This includes the stock market, public voting patterns, and the climate.
You would think there is a better way to address our problems than drastic and in many ways horrific ones, i.e., Greece defaults on loans.
The 'letter' alluded to by simon-swede in Science is one of these rational and well thought out responses.
The science is clear enough, our most reputable scientists en masse tell us this, the solitions technically are feasible, if we implement them in a timely manner - ALL WILL BE WELL.
Here is the problem - WE ARE NOT DOING THIS - WE ARE NOT LISTENING - WE ARE NOT IMPLEMENTING - MOST ASSUREDLY NOT IN A TIMELY MANNER.
Did you follow Bolivia?
Here is a clear voice, I would say my voice, with only a few caveats. Evo Morales is presenting the findings of the Conference personally to Ban Ki Moon today.
Did your press cover this Conference in any meaningful way?
Did any of the Mainstream papers?
Jane, I have to echo the words of Ghostofsichuan - our system is so corrupt, both politically and financially, I see no reasonable way to change it.
- Manysummits -
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#72 simon-swede wrote:
"Same goes for anyone, yourself included."
It's best if we all think for ourselves, then, isn't it?
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@ infinity-
no i'd base it on something like reproducable experimentation...oh.. wait...
ok, how about thoroughly analysed data... oh, wait....
erm,.... thorough application of the scientific method... no... darn-it.
We'll just have to settle for 'we don't know what else it can be, so it MUST be C02' then. that'll do.
shame there's two decent opposing theories for that now..
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http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/07/marketing-advice-for-mad-scientists/#more-19277
pretty much sums up my thoughts on the new 'letter of support'.
you'd think they'd have learned from the first time they did this- science doesn't work on consensus chaps!
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The Sex Pistols had a song about the money-spinning hypocrisy of selling records as "a limited edition -- with an unlimited supply". I wonder what they would have made of "an open letter -- that is closed until you pay the money to read it".
Alas Malcolm McLaren -- the world is a poorer place without you.
What a brass neck these characters have to talk about "the integrity of science"! -- As if what they are doing is "science"! As if the reputation of genuine science is remotely threatened by dodgy dealings in their cosy little religious cult!
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are you ok bowman? i know you're usually a bit left field but here you seem to have left the stadium.
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Re Simon-swede's #57:
"(Science 7 May 2010, Vol. 328. no. 5979, pp. 689 – 690, DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5979.689). The signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but are not speaking on its behalf."
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
Excerpt:
"This process [scientific process]is inherently adversarial—scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That's what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did...
fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong...
There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend."
=========================================
There was a comment that this is not available free of charge to the public.
True.
Here is one which is Open Acces:
Oil sands development contributes polycyclic aromatic compounds to the Athabasca River and its tributaries
PNAS; 29 December 2009; vol 106; p. 22346-22351
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/04/0912050106.abstract
- Manysummits -
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Some interesting electoral results from an environmental point of view today. The Green Party winning their first domestic parliamentary seat in Brighton is very impressive and the election of the former editor of the Ecologist magazine in Richmond is a surprising plus. Michael Meacher, who has a great environmental record, retained his seat, but sadly John Gummer stood down this time.
On a side note, the climate 'sceptic' parties didn't win a single seat (BNP and UKIP), which was obviously a plus - not least because they have policies on other issues that make their stance on the environment look positively enlightened...
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I just printed off and read the two articles I mentioned in post #80.
It is difficult for me to imagine many people being able to get much out of either of these articles. The language and communication skills to the public just are not there.
The new book "Tar Sands," by fellow Calgarian Andrew Nikiforuk is much more accessible - written in down to earth language, yet backed up scrupulously, something like George Monbiot's writing.
I just finished the chapter on air quality in and around the mines themselves, and the giant 'Upgrader Alley' just east of Edmonton, Alberta's provincial capital.
The book details the rampage of the 'run on oil' that is the Tar Sands, and is so horrific I cannot find the words to do it justice.
My greatest fear is that I will lose heart, and stop posting - stop protesting - and look only to my family's short term interests. I would then have given up - tossed in the towel.
A pattern just impressed itself on my mind. The documentaries and films I have been watching of late, illustrating Mankind's wanton trashing of the natural environment - they have been located 'elsewhere' - in Africa, or Equador, etc... Often it was indigenous peoples who, powerless, were being abused.
Now the destruction is HERE, in Alberta, at Fort McMurray and the Athabasca River, and beside Edmonton and the North Saskatchewan River, a river I once canoed downriver from Rocky Mountain House for six hundred miles, solo, in 1974.
By 2020 the scale of rampant and un-economic development (Herman Daly), will have rendered both areas unrecognizable, I would imagine.
In addition to the 1.5 billion additional bbls per day of raw bitumen that we are planning to pipeline to the US, we are apparently planning to build another pipeline across the mountains to Kitimat, British Columbia, where a supertanker per day will arrive to ship more raw bitumen for processing in China.
And on and on.
Nothing appears capable of stopping this mad rush to destruction - even in the heartland areas of Canada and the United States.
We have foisted destruction on 'others' for five centuries, and now the monster we created is devouring 'US.'
Welcome to 2010 Anno Domini.
Please read 'Tar Sands,' no matter where you live.
- Manysummits -
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#55 rossglory wrote:
the truth is these guys are desperate to discredit established climate science by any means except peer review. but all they're doing by crying wolf so often is ensuring that any real critiques of the established work will get ignored. imho they're doing the contrarian cause more harm than good.....which i have no problem with of course.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the good laugh - you are stating that the skeptics are the one's 'crying wolf'??? Hello, what planet have you been living on? I have heard so many doomsday fears expressed by the AGW camp that they are not even worth listening to anymore - and most people agree with me.
Also, I don't like your use of the word 'contrarian' - how would you like to be called a 'religious zealot'??? Or how about 'fundamentalist moron'??
You really want to believe it is the skeptics who are 'crying wolf' or claiming the 'sky is falling' - go ahead an believe what you want - it don't make it so.
Cheers.
Kealey
PS - meanwhile, there are real environmental issues, still unaddressed, upon which we could have a real impact - even if CO2 were a real issue and not a made up one - show me a viable solution - a way to have a real impact - and be realistic.
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Here are the signatories to the 'Science' article referred to by simon-swede #57, and myself in #80:
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
P. H. Gleick, R. M. Adams, R. M. Amasino, E. Anders, D. J. Anderson, W. W. Anderson, L. E. Anselin, M. K. Arroyo, B. Asfaw, F. J. Ayala, A. Bax, A. J. Bebbington, G. Bell, M. V. L. Bennett, J. L. Bennetzen, M. R. Berenbaum, O. B. Berlin, P. J. Bjorkman, E. Blackburn, J. E. Blamont, M. R. Botchan, J. S. Boyer, E. A. Boyle, D. Branton, S. P. Briggs, W. R. Briggs, W. J. Brill, R. J. Britten, W. S. Broecker, J. H. Brown, P. O. Brown, A. T. Brunger, J. Cairns, Jr., D. E. Canfield, S. R. Carpenter, J. C. Carrington, A. R. Cashmore, J. C. Castilla, A. Cazenave, F. S. Chapin, III, A. J. Ciechanover, D. E. Clapham, W. C. Clark, R. N. Clayton, M. D. Coe, E. M. Conwell, E. B. Cowling, R. M Cowling, C. S. Cox, R. B. Croteau, D. M. Crothers, P. J. Crutzen, G. C. Daily, G. B. Dalrymple, J. L. Dangl, S. A. Darst, D. R. Davies, M. B. Davis, P. V. de Camilli, C. Dean, R. S. Defries, J. Deisenhofer, D. P. Delmer, E. F. Delong, D. J. Derosier, T. O. Diener, R. Dirzo, J. E. Dixon, M. J. Donoghue, R. F. Doolittle, T. Dunne, P. R. Ehrlich, S. N. Eisenstadt, T. Eisner, K. A. Emanuel, S. W. Englander, W. G. Ernst, P. G. Falkowski, G. Feher, J. A. Ferejohn, A. Fersht, E. H. Fischer, R. Fischer, K. V. Flannery, J. Frank, P. A. Frey, I. Fridovich, C. Frieden, D. J. Futuyma, W. R. Gardner, C. J. R. Garrett, W. Gilbert, R. B. Goldberg, W. H. Goodenough, C. S. Goodman, M. Goodman, P. Greengard, S. Hake, G. Hammel, S. Hanson, S. C. Harrison, S. R. Hart, D. L. Hartl, R. Haselkorn, K. Hawkes, J. M. Hayes, B. Hille, T. Hökfelt, J. S. House, M. Hout, D. M. Hunten, I. A. Izquierdo, A. T. Jagendorf, D. H. Janzen, R. Jeanloz, C. S. Jencks, W. A. Jury, H. R. Kaback, T. Kailath, P. Kay, S. A. Kay, D. Kennedy, A. Kerr, R. C. Kessler, G. S. Khush, S. W. Kieffer, P. V. Kirch, K. Kirk, M. G. Kivelson, J. P. Klinman, A. Klug, L. Knopoff, H. Kornberg, J. E. Kutzbach, J. C. Lagarias, K. Lambeck, A. Landy, C. H. Langmuir, B. A. Larkins, X. T. Le Pichon, R. E. Lenski, E. B. Leopold, S. A. Levin, M. Levitt, G. E. Likens, J. Lippincott-Schwartz, L. Lorand, C. O. Lovejoy, M. Lynch, A. L. Mabogunje, T. F. Malone, S. Manabe, J. Marcus, D. S. Massey, J. C. McWilliams, E. Medina, H. J. Melosh, D. J. Meltzer, C. D. Michener, E. L. Miles, H. A. Mooney, P. B. Moore, F. M. M. Morel, E. S. Mosley-Thompson, B. Moss, W. H. Munk, N. Myers, G. B. Nair, J. Nathans, E. W. Nester, R. A. Nicoll, R. P. Novick, J. F. O'Connell, P. E. Olsen, N. D. Opdyke, G. F. Oster, E. Ostrom, N. R. Pace, R. T. Paine, R. D. Palmiter, J. Pedlosky, G. A. Petsko, G. H. Pettengill, S. G. Philander, D. R. Piperno, T. D. Pollard, P. B. Price, Jr., P. A. Reichard, B. F. Reskin, R. E. Ricklefs, R. L. Rivest, J. D. Roberts, A. K. Romney, M. G. Rossmann, D. W. Russell, W. J. Rutter, J. A. Sabloff, R. Z. Sagdeev, M. D. Sahlins, A. Salmond, J. R. Sanes, R. Schekman, J. Schellnhuber, D. W. Schindler, J. Schmitt, S. H. Schneider, V. L. Schramm, R. R. Sederoff, C. J. Shatz, F. Sherman, R. L. Sidman, K. Sieh, E. L. Simons, B. H. Singer, M. F. Singer, B. Skyrms, N. H. Sleep, B. D. Smith, S. H. Snyder, R. R. Sokal, C. S. Spencer, T. A. Steitz, K. B. Strier, T. C. Südhof, S. S. Taylor, J. Terborgh, D. H. Thomas, L. G. Thompson, R. T. TJian, M. G. Turner, S. Uyeda, J. W. Valentine, J. S. Valentine, J. L. van Etten, K. E. van Holde, M. Vaughan, S. Verba, P. H. von Hippel, D. B. Wake, A. Walker, J. E. Walker, E. B. Watson, P. J. Watson, D. Weigel, S. R. Wessler, M. J. West-Eberhard, T. D. White, W. J. Wilson, R. V. Wolfenden, J. A. Wood, G. M. Woodwell, H. E. Wright, Jr., C. Wu, C. Wunsch, and M. L. Zoback
Science 7 May 2010: 689-690.
================================
All are members of the United States National Academy of the Sciences, one of the most prestigious and admired science bodies in the world.
It concludes: “Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.” (simon-swede's #57)
====================
Or, we could pay attention to the lobby on this weblog?
What do you think?
- Manysummits -
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Or, we could listen to the Governors of two US states, one of whom is Arnold Schwarznegger:
"Two Republican governors, in California and Florida, have withdrawn their support for the idea of expanded offshore drilling and a number of Democrats in Congress have warned that they can no longer support energy reform legislation if it includes such provisions."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8665312.stm
- Manysummits -
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#84 manysummits wrote:
"What do you think?"
I think you're a conformist.
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@LabMunkey #77
9 December 2009, Sarah Palin describes 1999 tree ring "hide the decline" email as
"manipulated data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120803402.html
17 December 2009, James Inhofe describes 1999 tree ring "hide the decline" email as
"Of course he means hide the decline in temperatures"
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Speeches&ContentRecord_id=9cac1e35-802a-23ad-4540-3e4706eab1bd&Region_id=&Issue_id=
23 February 2010, Inhofe's minority report gets "hide the decline" right but contains other controversial accusations and reviews criminal law covering those accusations.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/23/climategate-minority-report/
29 April 2010, the state of Virginia starts investigating Mann for criminal fraud.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/29/virginia-attorney-general-goes-after-mann-and-uva/
6 May 2010, the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) complain about this
"We also call for an end to McCarthy- like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/06/climate-science-open-letter
7 May 2010, Steve Goddard and Anthony Watts complain about the complaint.
"Should read : “We promise to see the doctor about our paranoid delusions.”"
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/07/marketing-advice-for-mad-scientists/
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Off topic but the subject of 'tar sands' has been brought up a few times.
These ‘tar sands’ and all the other results of 'natural' oil leaks that have caused the laying down of asphalts, bitumen’s, and those messy natural clumps that always stick to you after a nice beach sun bath. These are all over the earth and under the sea in unimaginable quantities. Man has used these natural products for so many practical uses since time immemorial.
Is it okay for nature to do naturally what man accidently did and will take precautions not to do again?
Is it a bad idea to clear up natures mess by removing the ‘tar sands’ and put them to practical use and then replace with a live-able environment?
Do we really understand our place on this earth? Reading some of these comments they seem totally removed from ‘natural’ reality.
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Just for fun...
Scientists of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (an organization based at the University of California, Davis, that's advising Deepwater Horizon cleanup efforts), have a daily blog describing what they are actually doing in Louisiana 'on the ground' (err, in the water, by the bayou, ... well, you get the idea!):
http://owcnblog.wordpress.com/
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#86 bowman
"I think you're a conformist."
is everyone without their head in the sand a conformist? if so, i'm happy with the label.
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#74 manysummits
"I have to echo the words of Ghostofsichuan - our system is so corrupt, both politically and financially, I see no reasonable way to change it."
i totally agree. i read a comment by warren buffet's business partner (can;t remember his name...but don't wish to either) claiming it's all the fault of the authorities.
his anology was 'if a tiger escapes from the zoo, don;t blame the tiger blame the zookeeper'. how typically arrogant to lionise their role (unfortunately tigerise isn;t a word) in all this. to use his 'escape' analogy i would suggest a better one would be a rich, powerful and dangerous inmate has bribed and threatened his (already corrupt) gaolers to the extent they've let him out.
the real irony is that they're still fighting further legislation (i.e. the tiger's out just let him gorge on the public).
as you say manysummits (and ghost) this system is not tweakable, it has to be recreated with society and the environment at the forefront.
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#83 LarryKealey
"Thanks for the good laugh" - you're welcome
"and most people agree with me." - where'd you get that titbit of information from. maybe most rabid republicans agree with you.....or maybe not. all i can say is most climate scientists totally disagree with you.
"go ahead an believe what you want - it don't make it so." - ditto....only i have the science on my side
"meanwhile, there are real environmental issues, still unaddressed," - i totally agree, let's tackle them and agw
warmist regards,
rg
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#92 rossglory wrote:
"and most people agree with me." - where'd you get that titbit of information from. maybe most rabid republicans agree with you.....or maybe not. all i can say is most climate scientists totally disagree with you.
Sooner or later someone will conduct a real census of real scientists, and I'll bet it will reveal that the majority of them agree with LarryKealey. It hasn't been done yet, because consensus is irrelevant in real science, but perhaps the current rhetorical situation calls for such a census, for purely political purposes.
The idea that "rabid republicans" agree with X while the good guys agree with not-X is strictly for lightweights.
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#92 rossglory wrote:
"and most people agree with me." - where'd you get that titbit of information from. maybe most rabid republicans agree with you.....or maybe not. all i can say is most climate scientists totally disagree with you.
----------------------------------------------------------
@rossglory - I got that little 'tidbit of information' from the most recent Gallop Polls - which state that only 27% of Americans (and similar numbers for Europeans) believe that AGW is a threat. The rest of us are tired of hearing that the 'sky is falling'.
You complain of my tone at times, yet you lump anyone who doesn't share your 'beliefs' in groups which you label as 'rabid republicans' or 'contrarians' - how nice for you that the world is so simple.
In fact, I am generally a republican - a very moderate one according to the republican party - I tend to be toward the center with regards to politics. Take abortion for example - personally, I don't believe in it; however, I don't agree with mandating choices for others - I do think that a 'cooling off' period should be required - it is a very serious situation which can have lifelong consequences, I also think underage teens should have parental concent and that late term abortions are abhorrant.
You still failed to answer the most significant question from my post - even if CO2 is the main culprit for ACC - which I don't believe - please provide a viable solution, one which can be implemented and will work. I would love to hear it - and don't give me carbon taxes or cap and trade or the UN's main mechanism - CDM - none of which are effective at solving the so-called 'problem'.
Personally, I do think that man has had and effect on the climate -primarily through land (mis) use. CO2 emissions will continue until we develop a cheap viable new energy source, like nuclear fusion and battery technology which make electric cars truly viable, rather than a rich man's toy - as they are today.
So, please, outline the solution for your supposed problem...we'd all love to hear it.
Now on to a more important post - related to real environmental issues.
Cheers.
Kealey
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Dateline Gulf of Mexico, Day 19
Well, the 'containment box' has been lowered to the sea floor and is in position. They expect to lower it over the pipe tomorrow than attach an umbilical 'pipe' to it to bring the oil to the surface where barges will be waiting to be loaded with it. We should have some idea if it will work.
The best guess now as to the cause of the accident appears to be they hit a gas pocket (methane) and that, in combination with a bad cement job on the wellhead caused the blow-out. No word on why the blow-out preventers failed to operate either automatically or under manual control. Reports yesterday suggest that there were a number of issues with the fail-safe system (blowout preventers) and Cameron was aware of them.
The heavy rains along the Ohio river, which is a major tributary of the Mississippi and the flow the Missippi into the Gulf is holding much of the oil at bay - keeping it offshore.
Reports this morning also presented fears that much of the oil has not risen to the surface. No one knows how much is on the surface and how much is on the bottom, nor inbetween. We may never know.
While some oil has made landfall, we have been lucky so far. Let us hope that our luck continues. May many fires burn upon the waters. May the box work at capping the worst leak. May the marshes and wetlands be saved. May we find out why the failsafe didn't work and fix it and retrofit existing deepwater systems in place today.
Well, should have big news on the box/capping of the worst leak tomorrow...
Cheers.
Kealey
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@manysummits #74
If I have a problem with my computer, sometime I can fix it by turning it off and on again.
But sometimes I can't. Sometimes the problem is a hardware or software fault. And sometimes this is down to the design work not yet being done for what I am trying to do.
The problems with our civilisation, such as the tendency of power to corrupt, are like the latter. They represent genuine unsolved problems that there is no civilised fix yet designed. Discussing "rebooting" civilisation is just another way of ignoring the problem.
I run anti-virus software on my computer. And a firewall. And anti-spyware. And I keep up to date with security updates for my software. This does not make the problem go away for good but it keeps my computer working.
We have to deal with corruption in a similar manner. We can't stop it. But we can scrutinise those in power. "Cab for hire" politicians get exposed by investigative journalists. And if a sleazy politician tries to stand for parliament after being exposed for taking bribes then they get voted out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8582093.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1485089.stm
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#92 rossglory
"meanwhile, there are real environmental issues, still unaddressed," - i totally agree, let's tackle them and agw"
Or we could just tackle the real environmental issues and dump agw in the dustbin of psuedoscience where it belongs. It can keep phrenology, homeopathy and intelligent design warm...
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@JaneBasingstoke #96
Agree completely. While even in the West, corruption is still a major issue and altruism is not the most prevelant 'moral' within our society, it is better now than it has ever been in history. Even with the rampant corruption and horrid conditions in much of the world, compared to two thousand years ago, it is a virtual paradise.
Not to say we live in Utopia, there is still a long way to go on a path which will never have end...but we have made and continue to make progress. I for one see a lot of 'bright spots' in the world today and an even brighter future. I think the human condition (and environmental condition) making major improvements in the next 50 years.
Just as today, when old people talk of how hard it was when they were young, 70 or so years ago, so it will be 50 or 70 years from now, when life is even easier for so many more and corruption not nearly as bad as today - and large reserves and preserves of every environment imaginable.
Cheers.
Kealey
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To Rossglory #91: (& to Jane #96 - Well put! Thank you.)
Ross, it was with much pleasure that I read your #91, and your replies to Larry Kealey, who may yet 'see the light, and feel the virtual campfire's 'warmist' glow.
I should like to lighten up a little, as it is Saturday and the Sun is shining here in Calgary. It is mercifully even calm!
Simon-swede gave me the idea, with his light-hearted look at life in #89.
There are only a few of us 'warmists' left on the blog from a year ago, and after all this time investigating in what depth I could the science and the politics and the legal aspects of the world today, I turned my attention for awhile to my anchor - the world of mountaineering.
Here is a true story, which might be of particualr interest to citizens of the UK, as the principal 'character' is a native of the British Isles:
\\\ A Mountaineer's Tale ///
Brian Greenwood was from England, Yorkshire if memory serves. He came to Calgary when he was 21, ca. 1955.
Following a bus ride to the mountains, he was refused accomodation at the Alpine Club of Canada, and so he slept behind a museum in Banff.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Brian went on to put up some of the finest routes in the Canadian Rockies, and was instrumental in forming the ACMG, the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, now one of the world's premiere guiding associations. He organized and instructed the first ACMG guide's course.
At forty years of age, he retired from climbing, and moved to Vancouver Island, where our local mountainering historian Chic Scott found him, ca. 1988, 'drinking Irish Whiskey and throwing darts, his dreams on hold.' When asked what he was about these days, Brian answered in his own inimical way, to the effect - "Same as always, as little as possible."
An honest man, with a sense of humor - a great climber, and a dis-affected human being - all at the same time!
One who climbed a lot with Brian characterized him as "the master in the mountains," and said that it was like being with your mother - one always felt safe with Brian.
\\\ As Little as Possible ///
Could this be what we should all aspire to?
At least until we have calmed our hyper-active selves enough to be able to think clearly, and to feel deeply our place and calling in Nature.
I have read Chic Scott's monumental and beautifully illustrated history of Canadian mountaineering, "Pushing the Limits," from cover to cover.
I was at the premiere launch of his book, by a local publisher, at Chic's favorite watering hole in downtown Calgary, where he signed the copy I reverently display on our mantlepiece at home.
Brian Greenwood emerged from this book my favorite Canadian climber.
To Ghostofsichuan:
Ghost, isn't it a Buddhist ideal, 'to do less and less, until finally, one is sitting still'?
One part of me wants to jump right into the fray and halt this madness - David and Goliath.
Another to simply 'be' with my family.
Yet another to take once again to the hills, to Gaston Rebuffat's "Kingdom of Light and Silence."
There are, I know, no easy answers, nor is there meant to be.
Perhaps here, around Richard Black's virtual campfire, we can speak earnestly, unhurriedly, and at times even humorously, about the course we must all take, willingly or not, to a very uncertain future?
- Manysummits -
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#94 LarryKealey
actually larry i was careful not to lump you in with rabid republicans, just said that a majority of them may agree with you.....or not.
wrt the solution to agw, it's the same as the solution to the oil spill in the gulf, whales with 50 tonnes of rubbish in their stomaches, the anthropocene mass extinction and more, create a system that places society and the environment before profit. and although it probably sounds like a pipe dream so did indian independence early last century, the prospect of a mixed race usa president during the bush debacle, relative peace in northern ireland and others. we'll only find out if and how it can be done when we start trying.
and if you start a post with 'thanks for the laugh rossglory' my response will generally tend to be less than constructive.
best wishes,
rg
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#97 Brunnen_G
"Or we could just tackle the real environmental issues and dump agw in the dustbin of psuedoscience where it belongs."
Or we could just tackle the all environmental issues including agw.
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#99 manysummits
i like brian greenwood already!
i'm a keen follower of 'the idler' which is a uk publication. mostly humorous it also has some serious points to make about how hard many people work today, often to the detriment of their health, family and community. need to find the reference, but one essay showed that the amount of work required to provide the basics of life (water, shelter, food, etc) was considerably less in the past and that in general medieval peasants had more free time than we do today. that's not to say i want to be a medieval peasant but it seems to me that it's not beyond the wit of man to get a better balance in modern life.
when i look at my life's work in the computer industry most of it has been to enable one corporation to grasp a miniscule piece of market share from another.....and it's getting worse. that's the main reason i did an environmental degree with a view to changing career.
give me a camp of optimists anyday.......all i need now is a stick and some marshmallows :o)
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NOAA: “North American snow cover for April 2010 was the smallest on record.”
Google and then read...
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255 National Academy of Sciences members, including 11 Nobel laureates, defend climate science integrity - "There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend."
Google and read this as well...
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Another way of looking at the ozone success story. Measurements show that manmade CFC's in the Atmosphere have greatly reduced, and emmisions are now almost non existent.
The ozone hole is still as big as ever it was, and will be around till 2080 at least.
None of the dire warnings about environmental or ecological damage that would be caused by the ozone hole has come to pass, and it looks unlikely that such things will occur.
The scientific models used to justify the Montreal Protocol have now been shown to have overestimated the effect of man made CFC's on ozone, and underestimated the effect of natural mechanisms.
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@rossglory wrote:
'create a society which places the environment before profit...'
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Yep, I agree, that would be a pipe dream. How about creating a society that recognizes that a healthy environment leads to greater profits? That sounds more reasonable and realistic to me - and it is true. It is the short-sightedness and corruption that we need to deal with.
Here is a question for you - do you drink bottled water? I never have, doubt I ever will, except perhaps in a hurricane. Banning bottled water would be a very nice easy step we could take which would have a very significant impact on the environment.
There are a lot of other things we can do, very simple and easy, that would make a big difference.
WRT your 'CO2 emissions thing' - you can rant and rave and listen to, and regurgitate dire warnings, but that does not solve the supposed problem. Make no mistake, the problem will solve itself over the next 50 to 100 years as fusion and other technologies become the dominant energy source the world over - until then, why waste your money, time or even breath on the supposed problem - it ain't gonna solve anything.
The only effect is to divert attention from real, dire and urgent environmental and humanistic issues the world over.
The real issue related to climate change is two fold - both related to land use. The first is land misuse and the rape we have committed to so many environments and habitats the world over - this I believe has caused the most significant effects on the climate by man. The second is the trend in the last hundred years or so to build in unsuitable areas on unsuitable land.
We hear of those 4 million or so people who live in the Ganges River Delta at 4 ft above sea level and how they are threatened by climate change and rising sea levels. Well, the reality is that when you have development in such an area (the wetland delta), the land is going to sink under that development, making people all the more vulnerable to flooding of the river as well as tides from storm surges and onshore winds (as opposed to rising sea levels).
Those are the major challenges we face, not only with regards to the environment, but also with regards to man's effect upon the climate - land use. We need to get smart and manage the resources much better than we have been - and stop obsessing over CO2 emissions - a problem which you are not going to solve today (or the next 50 years) but one which will solve itself in 50 to 100 years.
Stop drinking bottled water, pick up some litter and plant a tree - and feel good about what you are doing...
Cheers.
Kealey
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rossglory @102. Interesting you say:
"when i look at my life's work in the computer industry most of it has been to enable one corporation to grasp a miniscule piece of market share from another.....and it's getting worse"
Surely this is how the world goes around and how after billions of years we have what we have today? This is the 'natural' cycle of all living things.
How do you measure "it's getting worse" and what is your fear? It's all quite natural and changing careers is not going to stop/change the process.
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No, I think I'll keep obsessing about CO2, and I won't stop until everyone is obsessing about CO2.
Nice try.
- Manysummits -
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To Rossglory, re Brian Greenwood:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/excellence/bio/greenwood.asp
On the following link, scroll down to page 171 for a pic.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=94TqO12vdKwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pushing+the+limits,+scott&source=bl&ots=-Oy5GfCj_2&sig=Posf1ZIGvMJhHpgQ-Ek2f_ZHoOY&hl=en&ei=cunlS6XoA4nosQORmdXRCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Warmist regards,
Manysummits
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108. At 11:33pm on 08 May 2010, manysummits wrote:
No, I think I'll keep obsessing about CO2, and I won't stop until everyone is obsessing about CO2.
Nice try.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I suppose that since you will never have everyone obsessing about CO2 - I suppose you will be at it for a very long time. And all that time and energy you spend and will spend obsessing about CO2 - what will you have to show for it? What (realistically) do you expect to accomplish with this?
Do you believe this to be the 'best' use for your time and efforts? In all probablity all you will have to show for this effort is a false feeling of righteousness.
I choose to devote my time and efforts toward problems and issues where I can have a real, meaningful impact - and try to encourage others to do the same.
It is not a black and white world - it is a world of choices. Many times it is a matter of a choice between bad and worse - like the last Presidential Election in the US. Another example - when it comes down to a choice of burning coal or wood for heat and energy - I think coal is the 'better' environmental choice. Wood is far to valuable to burn - and does not have nearly the energy content of coal.
OK, obsess all you want - and see what it gets you. Your obsession, if effective - which I doubt - will only slow progress and allow all the 'old environmental and humistic' issues to continue longer.
Do something real.
Cheers & Warmest Regards.
Kealey
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1. At 7:32pm on 05 May 2010, John_from_Hendon wrote:
Richard Black wrote:
"In principle, he (Dr Shanklin) argues, every citizen of the Earth should have roughly equal opportunities to benefit from its resources."
Is he planning to go to war with the USA to try to enforce this ideal? For nothing short of war will go halfway to convince the 'tea-party' that they must only consume their fair share of resources.
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But they do - everyone has the opportunity to benefit from their fair share of resources. That does not mean that they take that opportunity, nor that they maximize the management of those resources to their benefit. The 'opportunity' is there - but many people face mulitiple stumbling blocks: ignorance (easily curable) and corruption (more difficult to solve) are the two biggest.
Why does that mean that the US cannot consume the resources we want? We do pretty well at managing our resources - and help others do the same.
It is the liberal elite who do the most to maintain the status quo of corrupt officials and ignorance. You cannot just 'talk and reason' with many of the 'govermental officials' in the world today - like Iran, North Korea, many others. Unfortunately, at some point, it ends up coming down to stand-off and war - be it a 'cold war' of attrician or a 'hot war' - it will still take many wars to rid the world of despots and corruption. There is no getting around it. Allowing (or just standing around while...) these regimes to acquire nuclear weapons is just making the situation worse. They don't care about the environment, nor the human condition of their people, hate and envy are their creeds.
With an end to ignorance and corruption, people will be able to exercise their opportunities to benefit from the Earth's resources in a sustainable fashion.
Kealey
Kealey
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Kealey #110: Re Obsession CO2
You don't appear to have much of a sense of humor.
Here's the deal:
My focus on CO2 is due to my belief that it is the central environmental insult - the one that we cannot ignore. We are addressing all environmental issues simultaneously, so it is not as if we are excluding any of them. But if CO2 is not reduced, and soon, and if a halt is not made on tapping and burning the unconventional sources of fossil fuel - Tar Sands of Alberta and Venezuela and Utah, methane clathrates, Oil Shales, etc..., we are, according to the best science around, playing Russian Roulette with the planet's future, namely our future, and that of perhaps half of identified species.
The science is not exact, not even nearly. But Russian Roulette is a fool's game, or that of the psychopath. Whether the odds are one in five that the apocalyptic scenario is going to ensue, or one in twenty, or one in a hundred is very nearly irrelevant, because what is certain is that the odds are not greater than that, and that is entirely sufficient to warrant a wholesale change in the way we do business.
You of all people should be entirely aware of the campaign of disinformation you and the lobby, whether paid or not, are guilty of.
It is not my preoccupation with CO2 that will change the lack of focus amongst the public - surely that is as evident to a man of your talent as the nose on your face.
It is empirical evidence that will eventually catch everyone's attention - to the point of obsession, unless we turn this addiction to fossil fuel off soon. If we do it in time, and in addition withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere, to levels below 350 ppmv, perhaps to 300 ppmv, then we will have a chance, and the leisure, to discuss things in a future, a future in which many of the inequalities and environmental assaults upon the natural world will be being actively addressed, for the simple reason that in addressing CO2, we will have matured as a global civilization - by definition.
This is not hard to understand for a man of your intelligence - I defy you to deny this!
You would wait forty or fifty years, using coal and unconventional fossil fuels.
That's a very convenient number! It will take just about that time to deplete most of the Tar Sands of Alberta. What a coincidence!
Then the people of Alberta will have a Ghost Province, and will be expected to clean up the largest environmental disaster on the planet, there being virtually no security deposits to ensure that Big Oil does this.
Does that not sound familiar - where have we seen this before?
Norway apparently has some 300 billion in a Heritage type oil fund, from royalties on their natural resource base. Alberta should have about the same by now, but low and behold, after Peter Loughheed left as premier of Alberta, the royalty structure was re-aligned, I believe that's the word, and now Tar Sands operations are full steam ahead with a royalty of 1 percent, yes, that's one percent, until all costs of the oil companies are recovered, and then some. The Canadian government and the Alberta government have been repeatedly shown to have been negligent in their bookkeeping and environmental audits, and that is a world of understatement.
To put it more succinctly, we are being robbed blind, and will be left holding the proverbial bag.
Conclusion - from a blogger:
Canada is now a dim-witted satellite of the energy hungry United States, governed at some of the highest levels by minions of Big Oil. You will take everything we have, including our water - just watch. You own our resources, although there is a bit of competition from China and the world - that should prove interesting at the least.
What part of this do you not understand?
You need not answer - I have seen the firms you worked for, and your connections to the US military establishment.
Unless what you have been suffering from is brain disease, you know that every word I have said is true, or close enough that it doesn't matter.
Good day Mr. Kealey,
Manysummits
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#107 Titus
to some extent i agree, but i think there comes a point where the whole process becomes self serving and any benefits end up accruing with only a tiny minority that understand and control the process.
i'm not anti-capitalism per se, work and trade has existed probably since the advent of agriculture. but i often wonder now at the purpose of work. clearly some things have to get done or society collapses (running trains, manning hospitals etc) but my feeling is that we are now working for vastly diminishing returns with many working ridiculous hours to make things that have virtually no value (as apposed to price as the oscar wilde saying goes).
of course work also provides a superb mechanism for the state to control its population, if you're too knackered working to pay the bills you're not going to be fomenting political unrest.
i think a system with some centralised control could easily create a better balance between work and community without economic collapse....actually imho given where we are heading, an alternative system will have to be found before this one totally collapses, dependent as it is on permanent gdp growth.
actually this reminded me of a recent article by will hutton about the banking sector in the uk and the fact that the next banking collpase could be the last becuase we would not have the social capital i.e. taxes, to underpin the loans for a bail out!
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I don't have much to say in this debate, other than the fact that their appears to be quite a lot of activity generated by planet-earth over the last few days, making mere human argument seem quite arbitrary.
It is a pity that we humans can't manage some joined up thinking instead of all trying to play king of the castle. We all know from playing on the beach, that one big wave will wash all of our sandcastles away.
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@Flatearther (10):
"To an expert physicist such as me, the science of man-made global warming due to CO2 is totally false."
Just calling oneself an expert physicist whilst using a pseudonym doesn't make it so. Let's hear your true credentials.
"Climate science is physics."
So are snooker and race-car driving. Are you an expert on those also?
"Environmental scientists such as Jones et al ("those working in the field") are not "climate scientists" and they rely on the theory (that's all it is) of man-made global warming for their livelihood."
Yes, and the theory of evolution is also "just a theory." I suppose you would support the creationist view on life on Earth also? Climate science is based on fairly firm and reliable data. Having been in contact with climate scientists for many years I know for a fact that they have long suspected that man-made CO2 emissions played a part in the very real rise of average global temperature over the past decades but were always very careful in expressing their suspicions as certainties. Improved measurement technology has however confirmed and keeps confirming their worst fears.
Climate scientists have no real stake in this whole debate. In fact most of them could make lots more money if they were to take the side of Big Oil and its politicial croonies and deny the results of their studies. The capitalist corporate system has a vested interest in Business As Usual. If you are such a great physics expert you ought to have some mathematical skill. Just do the monetary math.
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#95 LarryKealey wrote:
"May many fires burn upon the waters."
Hear hear, but out of interest: have there been any fires at all so far upon the waters? I ask because last week I made a fool out of myself by predicting it would never happen!
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#112 manysummits wrote:
"You need not answer - I have seen the firms you worked for, and your connections to the US military establishment."
I trust you dismiss the recent report from the House of Common Science and Technology Committee on the same grounds?
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#113 rossglory wrote:
"we are now working for vastly diminishing returns with many working ridiculous hours to make things that have virtually no value"
But in real terms, almost everything is getting cheaper and cheaper. Nowadays people have to work for far less time than before to earn the money for staples such as a pint of beer or a loaf of bread.
And those are "traditional" staples that haven't changed much over time. Where technology is advancing, things are getting much cheaper. For example, the computer I'm working on cost about £1000 almost ten years ago, but a similar machine would cost about a third that today. My Nissan Micra cost very much less than the Alfa Romeo I used to drive 20 years ago, and has roughly the same performance, using much less petrol.
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@ jane, bit of a mess really isn't it.
to be totally honest, i'm past the place where i care who's right or wrong (it'll be proved one way or the other in the next ten years), but what i do care about is the fact science is being politicised so, and that it's name is being dragged through the mud (by both sides, with worringly regularity).
i have said, more than once,that the only way to settle this once and for all is to fully audit the CRu and associated parnters. Perhaps, this should become a pre-requisite of any grant application- a kind of due-dillignece for academia.
I can only see that helping the integrity of science.
Also, just to pick up on something someone else mentioned in the thread- i too- regardles sof my stance- have zero faith in the 'C02 reduction' measures being touted around.
Wind turbines are a major false step, and actually cause more co2 release than they puport to prevent.
carbon capture is still in it's infancy and has worrying implications for the natural carbon cycle.
carbon credits are just another stock exchange for people to get rich off, at the extent (directly this time) of the planet.
there are far quicker, easier and MUCH more effective measures of reducing carbon output- but of course- they're not as 'visible' as wind turbines- so don't win votes.
quite depressing when you think about it.
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Dateline Gulf of Mexico, Day 20
First #Bowmanthebard - yes, the fires are burning upon the water - they started burning oil (to a small degree) over a week ago and had to halt because of strong southerly winds - burning resumed several days ago and now many fires are burning upon the water - burn baby burn!!!
On a more somber note, the 'containment box', lowered to the ocean floor has failed. Methane hydrates under the sea floor kept causing the box to rise and clogged the relieve pipe at the top of the structure. It has been removed from over the leaking pipe and moved to the side. They are contemplating using a larger box - I have to wonder if they have a 5th grade class coming up with these ideas and plans (see @Manysummits, I do have a sense of humor).
BP now says the only hope is the relieve well - which BP now says has drilled into the seabed some 8,000 ft - or almost half way. They state it will take at least 2 more months to complete this task - and it is not a 'slam dunk'. They must drill down some 16,000 ft - a half a mile from the blown out well - and then drill half a mile horizontally and hit the existing well with the relief well. A very daunghting task.
So far, the beaches along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts (also known as the 'Redneck Riviera' have been spared due to the flow of the Mississippi River. We can only hope this continues. Emerald Coast Alabama has its name for a reason, very beautiful. We used to do the last skydive of the day on Friday's and Saturdays, over the beach, and land at a nice tiki bar there, where they had a back room where we could store our parachutes and the first drink was on the house. Beautiful beaches and emerald colored water. The beach looked so small from 14,000 ft. and the waters, so beautiful...
Even if the oil does wash ashore at Emerald Coast, it will be fairly easy to clean-up, as compared to Southern Louisiana - the area around Venice, where it is all swamp and marsh.
Several million feet of booms have been deployed this far, however, this week will bring strong southerly winds once again to the area. Our little reprieve may be over. Lets hope we see a lot more fires on the water...burn baby burn...
Well, its Sunday morning here and catfish are jumping (Lake Livingston), my girlfriend and I have her grandson, who is 5, so after responding to manysummits, its off to catch him his first fish...
@bowmanthebard, you can find video of the burning oil on the water on abc's website.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@manysummits
Why don't you try living your life without any petroleum based products for a month - rip them out of your house - remove your insulation, throw away your computer, chairs, anything made of plastics,
You rant and obsess about 'what must be done' but offer no realistic solution as to 'how this can be done'. For a man who cares for the environment (and I know you do) - you obsess over a problem which may or may not be as severe as you believe - and for which, you offer no viable solutions nor alternative.
As I said, the problem you obsess over, if it truly is 'the problem' will take care of itself in 50 to 100 years. If you think that increasing CO2 from 380 ppm to 500 ppm is going to cause 'runaway warming' then we would not even be here today. Mother Nature will take care of itself, as she always has - with or without us. Obsessing over a trace gas, about which you can do nothing, will not solve anything. It will only waste your time and prevent you from spending your life on more productive pursuits.
You would support the total destruction of the rain forests in Sumatra to produce palm oil - as a substitute for a portion of the gasoline we consume daily - sure seems like a really bad choice to me. But by all means, carry on - the AGW scare is over - did you not see thee 'return of cautions and caveats'??
Quit drinking bottled water, plant a tree and promote better land use - make a difference in the world, or end up a codgy, disgruntled old man who no one wants to listen to or be around.
Even your friend 'Dr. Chaos', as you call him, told you categorically that the models are wrong. Do you only believe those who you chose to believe - are you a mindless automaton, a member of the AGW 'collective'??
Carpe Diem.
Warmest Regards.
Kealey
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#62 Richard Black (BBC) wrote:
"#50 cindybax - indeed, although as noted here a) the Montreal Protocol does appear to have curbed GHG emissions vis-a-vis business-as-usual, and b) the protocol is now deliberately moving to target HFCs as well"
This is true, and this move on HFCs is a big step that deserves attention. I also think that many are are overlooking the direct impact that this universally-ratified agreement has and could have on the climate. The same substances that deplete the ozone layer are also greenhouse gases. Some of them with global warming potential tens of thousands of times more so than CO2 (like HFCs). Given the success of the Montreal Protocol in addressing the hole in the ozone layer, countries are now looking for ways to utilize its framework to take a more direct role with regards to Climate.
This past week, the US, Canada and Mexico submitted a proposed Amendment to the Protocol which would include HFCs under the agreement. HFCs do not deplete the ozone, but are widely used replacements for CFCs and some have a global warming potential more than 10,000 times that of CO2. The amendment would address HFCs in a highly cost effective manner, by some estimates 50-100 times cheaper than through the UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism. This is because the Montreal Protocol pays directly for the incremental costs of mitigation technology, rather than relying on market value carbon credits that are tied to CO2 equivalents (which at 10,000 times CO2 can also create perverse incentives to keep producing the substance).
See these links for more information:
US State Dept release - [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
EPA Press Release - [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Reuters - [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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@AnneB #122
Quite right - both the cap and trade and UN CDM mechanisms will not work with regards to 'greenhouse gasses'. They only serve to line the pockets of the rich and the corrupt - at the expense of 'everyday folks'. Even the inventers of 'cap and trade' state that it cannot work with regards to something like CO2.
As a side note, the Cap and Trade scheme arose as a mechanism to reduce SO2 and NOx emissions from power plants in the US. For something with a ready, viable solution available - with clearly defined sources and the ability to accurately measure compliance and progress - it works and works well. But CO2 is just to pervasive.
Creating a 'Carbon based Economy' as opposed to a 'Work based Economy' will only line the pockets of the rich and the corrupt and deepen the divide between the wealthy, the middle class and the poor.
How about we do something real - more than just CO2 trading - how about investing heavily in nuclear fusion and keep energy prices low and even cheaper...and bring the prosperity level up for all the peoples of the world.
Cheers.
Kealey
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#121 LarryKealey wrote:
"@manysummits
"Why don't you try living your life without any petroleum based products for a month - rip them out of your house - remove your insulation, throw away your computer, chairs, anything made of plastics"
Don't forget to give up eating, even "organic food", because all farms use tractors and similar agricultural machinery.
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rossglory @113. You say:
"I think a system with some centralised control could easily create a better balance between work and community without economic collapse....actually imho given where we are heading, an alternative system will have to be found before this one totally collapses, dependent as it is on permanent gdp growth.”
I see the current direction heading in the opposite direction to which you mention. Virtual office working from home, technology enabling community collaboration and enabling work and play to be more integrated together, search engines making our choices more specific. This is a far cry from ploughing the fields from dawn till dusk or spending a third of your life down a mine.
And as for 'central control' - If they could just stick to watching our backs like we pay them to do then fine. However that's not how it happens, it just opens up opportunities for the corrupt and power hungry to step in. IMO just forget it, take responsibility yourself and as much as possible into local small communities.
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bowmanthebard #116: "...but out of interest: have there been any fires at all so far upon the waters? I ask because last week I made a fool out of myself by predicting it would never happen!"
LarryKealey #120: "#Bowmanthebard - yes, the fires are burning upon the water - ... and now many fires are burning upon the water - burn baby burn!!"
- bowmanthebard - Fool - Confirmed -
/davblo
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#120 LarryKealey wrote:
"you can find video of the burning oil on the water on abc's website"
You may be overestimating my abilities here, because I'm afraid I can't!
I'm not looking for the accidentally burning oil well, or the deliberate testing of burning oil in simulated conditions, but the actual burning of some real live spilled oil.
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#126 davblo wrote:
"- bowmanthebard - Fool - Confirmed -"
I propose a more convincing conformation of my foolishness: a link to a picture of some burning oil. Some genuinely leaked and burning oil, rather than a mere test, mind!
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LarryKealey #120: "you can find video of the burning oil on the water on abc's website"
bowmanthebard #127: "You may be overestimating my abilities here, because I'm afraid I can't!"
How about Raw Video: Gulf of Mexico Oil Burn
/davblo
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bowmanthebard #128: "I propose a more convincing conformation of my foolishness: a link to a picture of some burning oil. Some genuinely leaked and burning oil, rather than a mere test, mind!"
Same film as in #129 but without the adverts...
Raw Footage of Thursday's Oil Spill Burn in Gulf
/davblo
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That's a test, surely?
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A lot of the people against the AGW theory do not provide sufficient evidence or links proving their theory. I also saw a comment saying that GW cannot be compared to ozone holes because the ozone holes only required a chemical change while GW is trying to ban fridges or tax people to death. Not true. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the net cost to consumers of an economy wide cap and trade bill as established by the House of Representatives would be $175 extra on their annual energy bills. No one is banning fridges or taxing anyone to death. Now if you don't believe in climate change, here's why you should still support reducing carbon emissions. Carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels. The Evironmental Protection Agency said 175 million people in America are exposed to unhealthy levels of pollution. That pollution comes from burning fossil fuels. By reducing fossil fuel usage, we reduce air pollution.
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@ 132.
i don't think any 'sceptic' is sensibly arguing that we shouldn't reduce ALL emissions. It's more the targeting on one, trace, insignificant (AGW has still unproved the extent of it's effect- there's theories, but nothing testable) gas.
however, i am heartened that the matter is now being expanded to cover more gasses (CFC's etc).
Still tickles me whenever you see a station talking about co2 release/AGW they show what is clearly a cooling tower belching steam into the atmosphere. the bbc IS the worst at this- though, to be fair, water is a far more potent greenhous 'gas' that co2.
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bowmanthebard #131: "[re: #130] That's a test, surely?"
It seems like everything they are doing could be called "a test".
/davblo
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#134 davblo wrote:
It seems like everything they are doing could be called "a test".
That's a fair enough comment. I guess I'm just waiting to see if they can get a decent fire going that will make a significant dent in oil that has probably turned to "mayonnaise" on its way up through the water!
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Dateline Gulf of Mexico Day 21
The box BP was trying to cap the worst leak with was a dismal failure, as reported yesterday. Now they are talking about a smaller box - but with not much hope for success.
It looks like the greatest hope lies with the relief well - over 2 months before we will find if they can hit the leaking well 18,000 feet below the sea bed an from half a mile away - sounds like shooting the head off an ant from 5 miles away with a rifle...
Meanwhile, tar-balls have begun to wash up on the beaches of Alabama and Mississippi (the 'Redneck Riviera').
OTC ended pretty much in disarray. There are still no real answers to why the accident occurred, just that the drilling hit a gas pocket causing the blowout - probably because of a bad cement job by Halliburton. No word from Cameron on why the blow-out preventers failed.
Not much to report today - bowthemanbard - the fires still burn...;)
Kealey
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@bowmanthebard
I am not sure that this should be characterized as a 'test'. This technique has been employed before, with great success - particularly off the coast of Newfoundland several years ago - where most of the oil was able to be burned on the surface before reaching land.
The issue here is that the oil is so spread out - there is not 'one slick' as one usually finds from a tanker accident. The oil is spread over a massive area in 'streaks'. Special booms must be employed to 'corral' the oil before setting it ablaze. So, it is one small patch at a time.
You might be many things, but I would not consider you a 'fool'.
Cheers.
Kealey
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re- climate sensitivity, well wort a read and i suggest people find the relevant paper mentioned.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/07/spencer-strong-negative-feedback-found-in-radiation-budget/#more-19293
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#109 manysummits
thanks for the links.
wrt obsessing about co2, it appears that 90% of us on this blog are obsessing about it one way or the other......or rather obsessing about what a perceived world with/without controlling co2 output would look like. warmists see a much degraded planet dominated by thirst, hunger and consequent wars. contrarians see a plot to install a left-wing eco-friendly world govt.
probably simplified the situation a bit but my guess is that's the main reason we debate this over and over again.
warmist regards,
rg
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talking of oil, just in case anybody from the uk was still wondering why we spent a billion quid (funny that seems like a small number now) and sacrificed 255 lives fighting for the falklands/las malvinas:
"Falklands oil firm Rockhopper claims discovery" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10100769.stm
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Hole in the ozone layer.
To the best of my recollection, ozone is an unstable molecule of one of several types of oxygen molecule:-
O1, O2 and O3. O1 and O3 are both unstable compared with O2. The scenario is a simple one... high up in the atmosphere (some 60-80,000 feet) there is or was a layer of ozone which now (since the early 1980's) has been observed to have a hole in it.
First, we should realise that the atmosphere at that height has very few molecules of anything. Remember how difficult it is to breathe at 29,000 as at the top of Everest. So, before we can have a 'hole' in the ozone layer, we must first have a mixture of gases in which O3, O2 and O1 all co-exist.
The molecular bonds that hold these molecules together are susceptible to being broken by a particular wavelength of ultra-violet light. When a molecule of ozone is hit by this component of UV light, the molecule breaks apart into three O1's (which are extremely unstable). Immediately, these O1's try to recombine into a more stable oxygen (O2) molecule. Therefore, what we are really talking about is a layer of gas, high in the Earth's atmosphere that contains differing proportions of the O1, O2 and O3 as well as other gases. The molecules are broken apart by UV radiation and immediately re-combine to form O2 and O3 (o2 is stable and O3 relatively unstable). To therefore say that there is a hole in the ozone layer is disingenuous, to say the least.
We were told that the ozone could also be formed by the action of CFC's on the oxygen's molecular bonds. CFC's are heavy molecules .... they sink to the ground NOT rise up into the higher atmosphere. However, some tons of CFC's are released into the upper atmosphere each time the space shuttle is launched. Curious the way these things are reported.
Alternate7 (B.Sc, PGCE)
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To Rossglory, davblo, Jr4412 et al:
\\\ Earth Summit 2012 - Brazil ///
I just finished "Tar Sands," by Andrew Nikiforuk, the 2010 updated version of the 2008 book of the same name.
My legs were wobbly on the walk here to the University.
And I am still reeling a little from Copenhagen.
However, I am rapidly recovering, and I wish to retract my former distaste for "Reviving the spirit of Rio."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8645486.stm
=================================
I just looked over Al Gore's new book "Our Choice," in which he details his plan for a sustainable future.
And I have more or less completed my review of all of the books and articles I have gathered, magpie-like, over these last sixteen months.
I would like to excerpt a few lines from Maurice Strong's and Felix Dodds' article (link above), and then make a suggestion:
"The current economic model, which has brought unprecedented prosperity to the more developed countries, has only deepened the disparity between them and most developing countries...
Its excesses now threaten the stability of the entire global financial system as well...
The principal goal of our economy should be to improve the lives of all the world's people and to free them from want and ignorance - without compromising the planet itself...
The present global institutions are inadequate to deal with the Earth's major challenges...
Earth Summit 2012 should agree on strengthening and upgrading the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), which should be the most influential champion of the global environment...
Since 1992, awareness of the Earth's environmental challenges has become universal...
Supported, indeed driven, by an aware and actively committed public, governments must and can act decisively. "
===========================================
1)The sentiment emboldened in the above excerpt is in essence repeated as Al Gore's 'central governing principal' in his latest book.
2) It is what Freeman Dyson and E.O. Wilson like to talk about.
3) It is what Mark Maslin more or less says in his Oxford University Press 'Short Introduction' "Global Warming", in the Preface:
"... to deal with global warming, we must deal with developing countries, and thus we must for the first time in humanity's history tackle the unequal distribution of global wealth...
we must make the world a fairer place...
In the 21st century we must deal with both global poverty and global warming.
(my emphasis in bold)
=======================
The Bolivian People's Conference results in Cochobamba have been received by Ban Ki Moon, personally, and thus there is reason to see the truth in the "Rio" article that awareness is now universal, and in part being driven by people.
==========================
Given all of the above, here is a statement from the Rio article I particularly liked, and which triggered this post:
"What Copenhagen has shown us is that for an effective summit, we need to follow the Rio model of establishing a separate secretariat and secretary-general for the conference."
And so:
Why don't we use this two year lead time to actively campaign for this summit in Brazil, to make suggestions, to begin the reform of the United Nations, and to promote the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of Mother Earth"?
2012 is turning out to be a year of destiny, I think.
It is the year Ervin Laszlo used for his book "Worldshift 2012."
The Sun should be approaching solar max, or increasing in activity - or not - in either case, we will follow it through the eyes of science.
Maurice Strong sees the United Nations Environment Programme as taking the lead here
- Mankind's last hope??
What do you think?
- Manysummits -
PS:
From "Tar Sands," and Thomas Friedman's "First Law of Petropolitcs":
"the price of oil and the quality of freedom invariably travel in opposite directions."
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The recent UK election:
My favorite geopolitical columnist, Eric Margolis, discussed the UK's recent election, and Greece.
As both will impact the environment, and as I was shocked to read one line, I thought to post it here:
"Britain’s debt is now 90% of GDP, the highest since World War II. The UK has a mountain of new debt from bank bailouts and ongoing war costs.
The European Commission just warned that by year end, Britain’s economy will be in the worst state of any EU member - including Greece."
( my emphasis - is this true?? )
http://ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/grumpy-olde-england.aspx
=======================
With regard to my previous post, this has bearing.
We are on shaky ground, and not just in Iceland.
- Manysummits -
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Here is the website for \\\ Rio + 20 ///
http://www.earthsummit2012.org/
- Manysummits -
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141. alternate7 wrote:
"To therefore say that there is a hole in the ozone layer is disingenuous, to say the least."
The hole has been directly observed. It's sitting over the south pole.
"CFC's are heavy molecules .... they sink to the ground NOT rise up into the higher atmosphere."
If there was only gravity then heavy molecules would sink. But there is also convection and wind which allow plenty of heavier than air molecules to be whipped up high into the atmosphere.
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#145 infinity wrote:
"The hole has been directly observed. It's sitting over the south pole."
It has definitely been observed, and it is definitely sitting over the South Pole, but I wouldn't say it has been "directly" observed. We directly observe things like tables and chairs, other people, our own hands...
I wish I could still directly observe text on a piece of paper right in front of my face!
I mention it because there is a smooth gradation between instruments that help us to observe things indirectly (such as a pair of reading glasses), quite indirectly (such as a microscope), very indirectly indeed (such as a spectroscope showing red shift, which is correlated with speed, which is correlated with distance, assuming a wide range of cosmological theories are true), and not at all (such as tree rings supposedly showing us the global temperature of an earlier era.
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@alternate7 #141
Wow. An ozone hole sceptic.
The gases in the troposphere and stratosphere are well mixed by weather and weather related processes, so the greater density of CFCs has negligible effect. Action on CFCs is already showing in reduction in ozone depleting chemicals and a slowdown of ozone depletion. So that's that shuttle theory b*****ed then.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4010-earths-ozone-depletion-is-finally-slowing.html
Meanwhile the chemistry of CFC related ozone depletion involves atomic chlorine (or atomic bromine from bromofluorocarbons) being separated from the CFC molecule by UV
e.g. UV separates chlorine from diclorodifluromethane
CCl2F2 -> CClF2 + Cl
and that chlorine atom then attacking ozone
O3 + Cl -> O3 + ClO
and the resulting chlorine oxide attacking more ozone freeing up the chlorine atom to attack more ozone
O3 + ClO-> 2O2 + Cl
PS, your name is reminiscent of notorious hoax TV programme Alternative 3.
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#131 James wrote: "A lot of the people against the AGW theory do not provide sufficient evidence or links proving their theory."
Whereas the lies, exaggerations, non-peer reviewed junk and misdirection coming from the IPCC is is sufficient evidence.
Sufficient evidence that AGW has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.
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@alternate7 #141
CFC's are heavy molecules .... they sink to the ground NOT rise up into the higher atmosphere.
so is CO2, but we don't find all the worlds CO2 at our feet do we?
@manysummits #142
I just looked over Al Gore's new book "Our Choice," in which he details his plan for a sustainable future
Those of us without our heads in the tar sands, know exactly what "sustainable future" means to A1
/mango
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100039045/manbearpig-is-real-declare-top-climate-scientists-and-to-prove-it-heres-a-photo-shopped-image-we-found-on-the-internet-of-a-polar-bear-on-a-melting-ice-floe/
HAD to link this.
Genius. Doens't matter if the truth im 'misrepresented', as long as the 'message' survives.
Sigh,
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Roy Spencers new book has a photo shopped image of an iceberg on the front.
People use images for illustration and they don't have to be real.
There's something rather jobsworthian about skeptics nitpicking over such details. I recall people had issue with images of deserts and skulls posted on this blog for example.
When a story has no obvious image to go with it, but you don't just want bare text, you have to find an image. In response to the fuss someone pointed out a news story about GM foods which had a photo of someone injecting a corn cob with a syringe for example. Is that wrong too?
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@LabMunkey #150
Hey look LabMunkey, they've put their hand up to their error and corrected it. Perhaps they believe that science is self correcting and should be seen to be so.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/689
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/689/DC2
Meanwhile perhaps you can explain why the collage was so much worse than the replacement photograph.
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@LabMunkey #150
What about Delingpole's coverage of Amazongate? He owned up to one mistake but then had a second go:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023765/more-integrity-from-the-robust-peer-reviewed-ipcc-not/
Delingpole is using Richard North's blog as a source. Delingpole is crediting the following to the Nature article:
"Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall. In the 1998 dry season, some 270,000 sq. km of forest became vulnerable to fire, due to completely depleted plant-available water stored in the upper five metres of soil. A further 360,000 sq. km of forest had only 250 mm of plant-available soil water left."
when actually North identifies the above as coming from Rowell, A. and P.F. Moore, 2000: Global Review of Forest Fires. WWF/IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, 66 pp. [Section 6.1, page 15]
Meanwhile North identifies the quoted Nature article as actually saying:
"Although logging and forest surface fires usually do not kill all trees, they severely damage forests. Logging companies in Amazonia kill or damage 10-40% of the living biomass of forests through the harvest process. Logging also increases forest flammability by reducing forest leaf canopy coverage by 14-50%, allowing sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor, where it dries out the organic debris created by the logging."
and (in separate section)
"ENSO-related drought can desiccate large areas of Amazonian forest, creating the potential for large-scale forest fires. Because of the severe drought of 1997 and 1998, we calculate that approximately 270,000 km2 of Amazonian forest had completely depleted plant-available water stored in the upper five metres of soil by the end of the 1998 dry season. In addition, 360,000 km2 of forest had less than 250mm of plant-available soil water left by this time (Fig. 1b). By comparison, only 28,000 km2 of forests in Roraima had depleted soil water to 5m depth at the peak of the Roraima forest fires."
[Large-scale impoverishment of Amazonian forests by logging and fire
Daniel C. Nepstad*², Adalberto VerõÂssimo³, Ane Alencar², Carlos Nobre§, Eirivelthon Lima³, Paul Lefebvre*², Peter Schlesinger*, Christopher Potterk, Paulo Moutinho², Elsa Mendoza²¶, Mark Cochrane*²³ & Vanessa Brooks]
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/corruption-of-science.html
As North points out, 270000 km2 + 360000 km2 is about 10% of the Amazon.
(Note, Amazongate was later explained by a mis-cite, the 40% was in an actual peer reviewed paper, but not the one cited. This explanation has also been challenged by sceptics.)
Meanwhile Mann, who is on the receiving end of both fraud investigations, has always been explicit that Hockey Sticks are not part of the main case for AGW.
" MYTH #0: Evidence for modern human influence on climate rests entirely upon the "Hockey Stick" Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere mean temperatures indicating anomalous late 20th century warmth.
This peculiar suggestion is sometimes found in op-ed pieces and other dubious propaganda, despite its transparant absurdity. Paleoclimate evidence is simply one in a number of independent lines of evidence indicating the strong likelihood that human influences on climate play a dominant role in the observed 20th century warming of the earth’s surface. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence in support of this conclusion is the evidence from so-called “Detection and Attribution Studies”. Such studies demonstrate that the pattern of 20th century climate change closely matches that predicted by state-of-the-art models of the climate system in response to 20th century anthropogenic forcing (due to the combined influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations and industrial aerosol increases). "
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/
Should Delingpole be investigated for fraud for continuing to draw a salary from the Telegraph on the grounds that he has made mistakes? Or are mistakes by journalists somehow more noble than scientists taking an approach that Delingpole doesn't approve of?
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@infinity #151
Roy Spencers new book has a photo shopped image of an iceberg on the front.
Roy Spencer was selling a book
The image comes from Science Magazine, self proclaimed: "The world's leading journal of original scientific research, global news, and commentary"
They have corrected the "error"
/mango
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jane @150
that's fair enough then. Still, should have checked the origin of the image. BUt, can only applaud them for correcting it.
@ 153.
jane, you're being a bit disingenuous here.
i occasionally link dellingpole as he has an amusing slant on things, he is by no meand impartial and by no means accurate 100% of the time.
There is however a gulf of a difference between a scientists errors and those of a reporter/journalist. Scientists whom, i may add have had their work reviewed (supposedly) independantly by their peers.
One is a post from a blog, the other is a 'serious' scientific paper/article.
Is dellingpole guilty of fraud? of course not it's a blog and therefore an opinion piece.
Is mann guilty of fraud? possibly.
Re- hockey stick reliance.
I have never said the hockey stick disproves climate change- dellingpole may have, but i have not. Trying to discredit via association there?
and as for mann's assertion that the state of the art climate models are what he relies on for his predictions and the evidence of AGW, i'm actually loosing some respect for you if you actually think relying on climate models is somehow preferable to actual data (despite what he did to it afterwards).
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@151
"In response to the fuss someone pointed out a news story about GM foods which had a photo of someone injecting a corn cob with a syringe for example. Is that wrong too?
"
yes completely. what a daft question
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@LabMunkey #155
The Inhofe and Cuccinelli investigations of Mann for fraud appear to be because of debunks of Hockey Sticks, problems that Mann stated up front (divergence), and aspects of statistics that Mann has had scientific arguments over.
Or are you saying that "upside-down Mann" is Mann deliberately pulling a fast one? That would be well beyond McIntyre's take on the situation.
Meanwhile Delingpole seems quite happy that all the scientists deserve the unpleasantness of these investigations.
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"Or are you saying that "upside-down Mann" is Mann deliberately pulling a fast one? That would be well beyond McIntyre's take on the situation.
"
how else would you explain deliberatley leaving out half a data set because it didn't fit the trend? i can see no other explanation.
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It is not misleading to illustrate an article with photoshopped photos so long as the article does not depend on the images being real. It is only an "error" in the sense that the editors open themselves up to misguided criticism.
In all the cases I have mentioned the images have not formed the basis of any argument in their respective articles. They are used for decoration only. Photoshop is a tool to do that.
If they had posted an actual photo of a polar bear on a piece of ice would that have been okay? If so, what difference does it make how the image was made? If not, why is it the photoshopping that's being said to be misleading?
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@LabMunkey #158
"how else would you explain deliberatley leaving out half a data set because it didn't fit the trend? i can see no other explanation."
I seem to remember McIntyre coining the phrase "Mann-o-Matic", suggestive of an unthinking plugging numbers into an automatic statistical procedure. McIntyre appeared to find this funny rather than fraudulent.
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@infinity #159
Science magazine is the online magazine published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. According to Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS) is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation between scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world's largest general scientific society, with 126,995 individual and institutional members at the end of 2008,[1] and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science, which has a weekly circulation of 138,549.
They should not be publishing misleading photos if they are trying to "encourage scientific responsibility"
Mistakes happen, and to their credit, they have held their hands up and corrected the mistake, but don't try to defend them
/mango
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@LabMunkey #158
" McIntyre appeared to find this funny rather than fraudulent." JaneBasingstoke #160
Unless of course "Saturday Night Live" is the name of a Canadian crime programme.
http://climateaudit.org/2008/10/02/its-saturday-night-live/
and the chimps in the Youtube link are in a crime drama
http://climateaudit.org/2009/10/14/upside-side-down-mann-and-the-peerreviewedliterature/
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@manysummits #39
Cheers for that.
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Why is the photo misleading?
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@infinity #164
"Why is the photo misleading?"
Because it looks like an ordinary picture of a polar bear on an iceberg rather than a big stick for AGW sceptics to bash Science magazine with.
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One can tell that Flatearther is a serious expert on physics by his contempt for theory. We will certainly take him seriously now that we know he is an expert in physics.
Funny how people like Flatearther didn't and perhaps still don't believe that CFC's caused the ozone hole nor do they believe that SO3 from coal fired power plants cause acid rain.
He should apply for a grant from the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute or such like. I am sure they will be happy to channel some of the money they get from the fossil fuel companies to a high quality researcher such as himself.
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34. At 3:54pm on 06 May 2010, Kamboshigh -- You would be more convincing if you included a link to the original paper. This assertion has been out there for a while and has generated little support in the form of collaborating studies.
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It is curious with all the complaints about money influencing the scientific establishment you find the skeptics pay little attention to the fact that NASA's Earth Observing System suffered a 30% funding cut in the Bush administration. One suspects the results supporting AGW were not too popular with the pres or his vp.
Then we have the case of Mr. McIntyre whose financial success appears to be tied to the fossil fuel industry if his Wikipedia entry is accurate, yet the skeptics don't question his integrity.
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@168.
seriously. are you people STILL trying to discrecit via funding? as i've said, numerous times- go look at the major financial contributers to the CRU and then be quiet.
@165
why is the picture misleading?
because they had were so desperate to find anything to support or 'illustrate' their point that they picked an obviously fake picture.
The fact that the people representing these scientists are still clinging to the poster'child' polar bear's even though they are undergoing a popualtion explosion and have never been better, is beside the point.
The fact that this kind of thing, tiny as it it, crops up again and again and again and again and again. Once, you can forgive. twice ok S##T happens, three times- ok- but be careful.... but seriously- i'm loosing count of how many little 'issues' like this have happened. How many times things have been 'misrepresented' or 'mis-interpreted' or 'not reviewed correctly' or 'left out to give a message'.
The IPCC is a laughing stock, there are STILL questions over the data- so you'd think anyone on the pro-agw side would show a little bit of extra caution and just make sure what they were saying/representing was whiter than white- i know i sure as hell would. BUt it's not like that- it's 'get the message across at all costs, damn if it's accurate'.
The reason i'm getting so annoyed about this is because this article was supposed to represent 'serious' scientific minds commenting on a serious issue- and they co##ed it up- royally.
If it's getting to the stage when even a basic editorial can't be published on the subject without a major louse-up then it's just becoming farsacle.
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Re 169,
A quick google image search for polar bears and ice reveals a real photo of a bear clinging to a small column of ice. But then we all knew the fake image wasn't depicting something that couldn't happen in real life.
When challenged skeptics admit the "fake" part of the image has nothing to do with thier problem with it - the real reason they don't like the image is because it depicts a polar bear on a bit of ice.
It's a shame skeptics don't talk straight from the get go. Focusing on the "fake" aspect of the image was a convenient stick to bash Science magazine with, but otherwise had no objective purpose. The skeptics would disagree with the image whether or not it was fake. If they had instead stuck to their real complaint about polar bears being depicted on ice it would have been a less sensational (you could say a less alarmist) argument. So the people being misleading here, are not science journal but the skeptics. That's why I decided to say so much on this subject because I can't stand the hypocrisy of the misleaders crying they are being misled and wingeing that the science is all in doubt because of silly things like a polar bear image.
Concessions should not be made to skeptics just for short-term reprieve. Science have removed the image - skeptics have had their misleading 10 minutes. But it's a slippery slope. If people don't stand up for common sense against silly jobsworthian attacks on things like this photo, it will just encourage more and more petty pointless attacks in the future. It will add to a percieved back catalog of offenses skeptics imagine have been committed. Skeptics are rapidly becoming the "health and saftey" officers of climate science - making up a whole bunch of silly non-common sense rules to fail the science on.
As for polar bears, the population explosion was due to restrictions on hunting. There is a threat to polar bears as summer arctic sea ice declines and competing species move north due to warming.
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#150 labmunkey
cliamteaudit and dellingprole, i wouldn;t describe your reading tastes as catholic (and before you go off on one bowman, that's not a religous slur....unless of course you know better!).
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@LabMunkey #169
(@infinity)
"obvious fake"
If it was that obvious then whoever chose it would have wanted the accompanying letter to be bashed by sceptics because of it.
So why aren't you claiming it as proof that someone with editorial powers at Science magazine is a sceptic and disapproves of the accompanying letter?
Meanwhile you have yet to explain why it is worse than its replacement.
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@LabMunkey #169
(@infinity)
OK, to repeat my recent comments on polar bears (with minor tweaks).
I agree that the situation has been grossly oversimplified by some of the non-scientists.
The situation with polar bears is complicated by the fact that there are multiple populations of polar bears and that until recently some were hunted, along with their prey. With some populations there is insufficient information on population trends.
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html
It is my understanding that where trends are known many of the populations are in decline and that population increases are bears bouncing back after hunting was reduced, or after hunting of their prey was reduced.
I remind you that polar bears use sea ice for hunting. That longer periods without access to sea ice for hunting means bears make more of a nuisance of themselves for people. And that much of the threat to the bears is associated with anticipated future loss of sea ice.
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@infinity
it's not so much about the picture- you know this, is about the pattern. There is not much getting released at the moment that isn't full of issues of one sort or another.
@Jane + infinity.
hunting restrictions wil of course play a huge role- but regardless of the loss of sea-ice (which has actually gained mass in the last few years) the polar bears will survive. they are now breeding with populations in canda, and will in all likelyhood shift to compensate.
nature evolves.
@ jane-
climate audit and dellingpole are only two of many sites and journels i access on this issue. I even, occasionally as i find it hard going, go to realclimate. I also deliberatley try to set out and disprove myself.
for example a recent article (incidentally released on wuwt as well) showed evidence that climate sensitivity may be higher (wrt co2) than first thought. i then spent quite a while looking into this and re-evaluating my position.
needless to say, i am still of the opinion that agw is a myth (at least ot the extent puported by the ipcc), but this has opened the possibility that although still miniscule, co2 may actually produce larger effects than thought (again, not by the ipcc- but by real scientists).
If these results can be replicated- and then factored into the simulations (as they will destroy the simulations- forcing them to be re-written... again) we may actually get some indteresting data out of it.
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@LabMunkey
(@infinity)
Not all the big name sceptics are as pleased as Delingpole with some of these investigations. I have found three links that may be of interest.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/05/02/cuccinelli-v-mann/
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m5d2-Global-warming-Open-letter-to-Virginia-District-Attorney-Kenneth-Cuccinelli&reason=0
(Revkin reporting on sceptic Knappenberger)
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/varied-critics-assail-official-probing-climate-scientist/?emc=eta1
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Back when the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer was declared in the mid-1980s, no one bothered to ask if it had not been there all along. It was never asked if the magnetic field that creates the auroras at the north pole might have other effects there or elsewhere and that the ozone hole was just one of these naturally occurring phenomena. Assigning the existence of the ozone hole to CFCs was a case of science jumping to conclusions without considering natural influences.
The vast majority of the ozone was then, as now, being produced in the northern hemisphere, causing ozone alerts in our cities, yet somehow all that ozone wasn't reacting with the CFCs enough to prevent the CFCs from migrating 7,000 or 8,000 miles to the south pole region. To get there, the CFCs also had to pass through the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which is an effective barrier to most air circulation trying to cross from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere, or vice versa. Very little air does cross this boundary. So, though there were three great impediments to CFCs getting to the south pole region - excess ozone in the NH cities, vast distances, and the Intertropical convergence Zone - none of these was ever even addressed at all. The conclusion was that CFCs make a beeline to the Antarctic and there became mass murderers of ozone, without having created a problem anywhere else along the way.
The solution to the ozone hole has not been a solution to anything. The ozone hole was always there, and it always will fluctuate. Claims that it was going to grow beyond control were alarmism at its worst. Claims that it has been brought under control are silly; it was going to be as big as it was, regardless of man's hubrisitc claims that we can control a natural phenomenon the size of Russia, or even more egotistical cloth rending about our sinfulness toward our Planet.
...In 1992, an accident caused the Chicago River to flood into tunnels below the Loop area and into basements of the buildings there. One immediate action was the implementation of pumps to get the water out of the basements. This effort initially seemed to fail, because the water kept rising. Finally, the water stopped rising, and the city fathers claimed that the pumps were doing their job. In reality, the water had risen to the level of the surface of the river, so it could not rise anymore. They had been pumping the water back into the river, where it was free to flow back into the basements. To this day, if you ask anyone, the pumps did their job. Until they plugged the leak at the accident site, all waters in the Loop area were at one level - the level of the river. The pumps didn't have a thing to do with the basement water levels not rising any higher. Even had they had more pumping capacity than they thought, as long as the leak was unplugged it all just came back in until the basement waters equaled the river level...
Thus is it with the ozone hole. They claimed to have fixed something that was different from what was really happening. They solved a problem that was only in their imagination. But they didn't fix anything. The ozone hole was always there and always will be. The size of it will always vary. They discovered it, so what? Human activity did not cause it. It had nothing to do with CFCs. If it did, why is it still there? The scientists and pols are puffing out their chests, taking credit for something they did not accomplish, a victory they did not win, a solution to a problem that did not exist, stabilizing something that oscillates naturally, of its own accord.
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I don't believe this. A second ozone sceptic.
The ozone hole science is much more robust than AGW. I remind you that the ozone in the ozone layer is made by the action of ultra-violet light on oxygen, and that under normal conditions there is a heavy turnover of oxygen and ozone giving a balance.
"bee line"
The location of the ozone hole over the Antarctic is due to the chemistry of CFC attack on the ozone layer being amplified by the presence of ice crystals in the comparative cold of the Antarctic stratosphere. This is why the Antarctic hole is at its deepest in October, or sometimes September, early spring in the Southern Hemisphere. It is why it is less deep after warmer winters and why it is partially replenished during the summer months.
So no bee line. There would be similar damage to the ozone layer elsewhere if the ozone layer was cooled sufficiently. There are for example smaller but similar losses above the Arctic in the Northern Hemisphere winter, and ozone depletion is not confined to the poles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/702388.stm?storyLink=%2523
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/656014.stm
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
132. At 02:14am on 10 May 2010, James wrote:
"A lot of the people against the AGW theory do not provide sufficient evidence or links proving their theory"
The current warmer period following on from the recent cooler period of the little ice-age lies falls comfortably in the natural variability of the current inter glacial as evidenced by the warmer Holocene optimum, Roman and medieval warm periods.
"Carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels. The Evironmental Protection Agency said 175 million people in America are exposed to unhealthy levels of pollution"
If the majority of the population (of 300 million?) are subjected to unhealthy levels of pollution then America needs to clean up it's air to prevent that.
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@177 JaneBasingstoke
..given the amount of 'skeptic' propaganda generated during the commercial phasing out of CFCs (although that was before the interwebz) I'm slightly surprised there were only two.. particularly since CFCs proved anthropogenic forcings can have an enormous negative impact, which means climate 'skeptics' really, really, wish the Ozone hole didn't exist..
Any parallels being drawn between Exxon and DuPont would of course be entirely hypothetical...
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wasn't sure where to post this, but as this thread is about the atmosphere and the ozone layer, i guess this is the only place:
A new paper currently awaiting publication in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics shows the Global Warming models are completely and utterly without merit. The paper shows the climate models do not take into account the pressure drop caused by condensation, which affects all the GCM's and is a major omission by the GCM's
Where do winds come from? A new theory on how water vapor condensation influences atmospheric pressure and dynamics
Makarieva et al
I haven't seen the paper yet, but if it passes muster, this could really be the end of the climate models.
More as soon as i've seen the paper
/Mango
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judith curry is also surgically dismantling the IPCC statments at the moment too, her most recent is on the models their assumptions and major flaws-
you may be interested-
http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/19/overconfidence-in-ipccs-detection-and-attribution-part-ii/#comment-4602
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@181
.. or possibly it could be used to improve those models.. science being a constantly evolving subject.. as you say it will be interesting to scrutinise the study in detail.
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@Lamna_nasus #183
or possibly it could be used to improve those models
let's hope so
/Mango
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Mango at #181, how on earth can you personally draw meaningful conclusions about something you haven't even seen, let alone read?
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@simon-swede #185
how on earth can you personally draw meaningful conclusions about something you haven't even seen, let alone read?
the clue is in the "if it passes muster"
i haven't seen the finished paper but there is an online version that is available for review - in fact the authors of the new paper are encouraging open review
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/24015/2010/acpd-10-24015-2010.html
/Mango
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Hmm.. I see Makarieva et al have cited their paper 'A critique of some modern applications of the Carnot heat engine concept: the dissipative heat engine cannot exist' in the new work.. that paper got a rather bumpy ride in The Proceedings Of The Royal Society, back in May -
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/06/03/rspa.2010.0087.abstract
.. I would wait and see whether the new work is found to contain fewer flaws.
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Lamna_nasus #187
that doesn't sound very open minded, Susan
/Mango
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..my name isn't Susan -
http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/11200/0
I have merely pointed out that Mokarieva et al were demonstrated to have made mistakes in a previous paper (which they have cited as a reference in this one), so I am simply suggesting you wait and see if this paper is better science.. patience Mango, patience...
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apologies lamna, latin isn't my strong point
if you read my previous posts in this thread, i keep saying if it passes muster
/Mango
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one thing i would add is even the IPCC don't think the models are particularly accurate, for example, here is a quote from Section 8.3, on Page 608 in Chapter 8, which is completely at odds with the SPM:
Due to nonlinearities in the processes governing climate, the climate system response to perturbations depends to some extent on its basic state (Spelman and Manabe, 1984). Consequently, for models to predict future climatic conditions reliably, they must simulate the current climatic state with some as yet unknown degree of fidelity. Poor model skill in simulating present climate could indicate that certain physical or dynamical processes have been misrepresented. The better a model simulates the complex spatial patterns and seasonal and diurnal cycles of present climate, the more confidence there is that all the important processes have been adequately represented.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-3.html
/Mango
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