A week spent joining the dots
It's an unusually well-structured week that begins with cause and ends with effect.
But that is one way of looking at what we've just had.
On Monday, the UK's Royal Society announced a study into the science of human population growth.
What they mean by "the science" is pretty broad, and the panel they've convened includes experts on law and theology; so clearly we're well into the social sciences at one end of the spectrum.
Many of you have suggested in comments on these pages and our Green Room articles that unless population growth is addressed, all the other problems I burden you with here are not going to be solved; and it's a view that garners a lot of sympathy in sustainability circles.
This is where the Royal Society comes in.
How scientifically valid is the view? How many people can the Earth sustain, and at what level of development? What would be the societal, economic and technological shifts that might bring the human footprint down to the size of a single Earth without trading away hard-won prosperity?
Answers to some of the questions might come only as value judgements; but where there is something more substantial, the society hopes to find it and distil it so that policymakers can decide whether they should attempt to do something about it.
That, of course, is the hard part. People want to have children - of course, it's the most wonderful thing on the planet and most would say how we get to make them isn't too bad either.
In principle, money set aside for general environmental "good things" could be spent on family planning projects, which in the eyes of some of the aid agencies running them are win-win-win-win options.
They'll tell you that when women in poorer societies are given the power to take their own decisions regarding fertility, they choose to space out their babies.
That leads to healthier mothers, better-fed children, more prosperous families and - on a societal level - fewer people on the planet.
But should Western governments spend money this way? Is it morally right?
The Royal Society won't be able to answer that one - but it might be able to say whether addressing population size in this way would be more or less effective in environmental and human terms than other options for aid.
At the other end of the week comes the latest attempt to analyse the impacts that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases may have in the future.
The National Research Council of the US National Academies has pulled together what's in the scientific literature and tried to relate impacts to degrees of warming, and then back to "stabilisation levels" for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In some ways, it covers the same ground as the impacts part of the 2007 assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
But conceptually, the report - Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia - differs a bit.
The IPCC's top-line projections focus on time - how much sea level rise this century, and such like - whereas the National Academies have less to say about when impacts might arise, and more to say about the temperature levels at which they might arise.
To make the analysis, chair Susan Solomon told me, the team had at times to go back into the raw model outcomes to get the projections in the form they needed.
Part of the rationale, she said, is that:
"The range of model projections is broad when you plot them as a function of time; but they're much more robust as a function of warming."
Being a US publication, it also has more to say about specifically US impacts: 5-10% less streamflow per degree Celsius in some southern river basins, 5-15% less yield per degree Celsius from corn, and so on.
In the longer-term:
"The report concludes that the world is entering a new geologic epoch, sometimes called the Anthropocene, in which human activities will largely control the evolution of Earth's environment.
"Carbon emissions during this century will essentially determine the magnitude of eventual impacts and whether the Anthropocene is a short-term, relatively minor change from the current climate or an extreme deviation that lasts thousands of years."
The idea of an "Anthropogene epoch" isn't limited to climate change, but to the notion that most of the big changes taking place on Earth now can be laid at the hand of humanity.
Whether that really counts as geological change is another matter.
Whatever the merits of the concept, and whatever the scale of the changes, it's a matter of simple mathematics to suppose they'd be considerably smaller if the human population was not growing so rapidly...which is roughly where we came in.
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~43~RS~)
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Ahh, the dreaded Arctic Ice core data rears it head again.
Same questions: No answers as usual.
e.g.
Measurement error? Where is the detailed work on CO2 migration in the ice?
Systemic Model error? Where is the analytical error estimation of ignored perturbations - such a extra planetary effects - to the climate?
Where are the figures - nowhere - these people are NOT scientists. Just cheap propagandists.
I would go along with the human population is too big idea, but not for the CO2 reason, but for depletion of finite resources.
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In response to John_from_Hendon
The author is presenting projections of planetary sea ice cover into the future.
Ice core data is microscopic examination of ice thousands or even millions of years old to give us an idea of what went on in the past.
I am no scientist and neither are you. But try to grasp the difference between the past and the future before posting irrelevant quibbles that have no bearing on Richard Black's article.
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One interesting set of data to consider is that countries that have reached levels of development that create urbanization and economic opportunities have falling birth rates. Japan is currently providing cash incentives to families that will have more children. Based on that data, it would be encouraged that greater sharing of resources and development occur in poorer nations. I do not mean the past and present support of ruthless regimes and the raping of nations for natural resources. If there was not enough food there would be less people. Humans are like any other animal...feed them and they will reproduce. The only biological purpose of any human being is the continuation of the species. It is what the population wants that causes the problems. The consumerism of the West has created the problems and no favorable conclusion can be reached based on that model. Humans and our forms of governance and social organization have evolved and will continue to evolve with interruptions by plagues, things from space slamming into the earth and climate change.
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#2. hengistmcstone wrote:
"I am no scientist and neither are you."
You may not be.... don't make assumptions about other people's doctorates.
It is really quite simple (enough for you I hope!) The problem with the historic data derived from ice cores is that the actual measurement of the data has experimental error and that experimental error is not properly handled or estimated by climate 'scientists'. They attribute a degree of precision to the data that it does not possess. They then go on, having ignored these errors which can be estimated to project using a model. Now they also do not properly assess the errors in the model, which will have errors due to its incompleteness. So then they go on to present 'results' without errors. This is unscientific and just plain sloppy work. These people who call themselves Climate Scientists do not use scientific methods, they are acting like charlatans of the worst kind for they ascribe a false and entirely misleading precision to the imprecise and vague. I know it may seem complicated to you and I hope you understand? In summary: the noise swamps the signal in the data and the model, so no 'conclusions' or extrapolations can scientifically be draw from either.
This is not an "irrelevant quibble" - it goes to the very heart of AGW - if neither their data nor their model are in any sense 'scientific' then neither can be their 'conclusions'. This is a critical flaw in the whole nature of their work. They must properly assess error and present a full discussion of error in both their data and their model. They haven't really ever done so. There have been many accusations that the data has been manipulated to fit the model in climate 'science' - particularly in relation to periods of warming.
As to this being irrelevant to Richards article - he introduced AGW in the population argument - I didn't.
I repeat that I do wholeheartedly support the need to limit and if possible reduce the stress on our planet's resourced by reducing or at least limiting the growth of the population of homo sapiens (a misnomer?) But I reject any reasoning that links the causal necessity of this with AGW!
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Hi, John-f-H & Hengist…,
Straight into the cut & thrust from the fist 2 postings!
I’m pleased that Richard has offered the topic of the Linkage between AGW and world population, it is really important.
It also allows us all to stop examining the heads of pins and the philosophical underpinnings of the scientific method.
Let’s all give our personal projections into human-future air-time (and ‘enjoy’ the privilege of debate without resorting to ‘who has the PhD’).
Whilst not without knowledge in this field, I defer to the seniority of Jared Diamond, and his messages from human-past that inform our prospects for human-future.
See you all over the next few days, & really looking forward to your postings.
Geoff.
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"chair Susan Solomon told me... "The range of model projections is broad when you plot them as a function of time; but they're much more robust as a function of warming.""
How clever. In other words, this is what could predictably happen if it got that warm... but there is no saying when or even IF it will ever get that warm. A rather safe and meaningless hypothetical exercise, which could appear alarming.
To put it another way, if I weighed 500 kilos, I would probably have a heart attack...
Or, back to the population topic, if everyone weighed 500 kilos, imagine the impacts! The earth's carrying capacity for humans would be much smaller, etc. But that won't happen.
Now here's the Catch-22 for population. In most of the developed world, and China, the looming economic/demographic problem is not enough young productive people to support the gray matter (old folks). And the idea of mass migration from the areas where population growth does generate surpluses of young people - assuming that they were suitably educated - creates other social problems which are now becoming more obvious to even the multicultural utopians.
So the population problem is not really a case of too many people being born and surviving, its that people in developed countries live too long. Any analysis of the medical or pension costs show this beyond any doubt.
Of course, no politician or environmental leader would ever dare say this because politicians need those gray votes (and are often gray themselves) and the environmentalists need those gray donations.
So, this problem will NEVER be addressed in any rational manner. Given globalization and evolution, I expect that eventually some new microbe or virus will 'solve' it for us.
In the meantime, enjoy...
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Richard’s core question can be approached from each end:
Can human population reduction be undertaken such that the (anthropogenic) climate changes reverse toward and closely approach pre-industrial levels?
Can (anthropogenic) climate changes be altered to reduce the impacts of desertification (etc) on human population levels and human distributions?
Equally importantly, can the rates of change be accomplished & accommodated such that most populations of most peoples survive intact?
Can I recommend ‘In Search Of Shelter; mapping the effects of climate change on human migration and displacement’
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
It does not focus on human population reductions per se, but it does map geographically the outcomes arising from the most common AGW projections.
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I love that expression "best estimate" -- as if it is more worthy of belief than other not-quite-so-good estimates.
Those sorts of figures are usually divined by assuming that a sample is perfectly representative of the larger class, both in respect of its mean and its variability. (No sample ever is.)
But wait -- these figures aren't even extrapolated from a sample -- instead they've "pulled together what's in the scientific literature"! So in effect they've had a show of hands among those who have "approved" opinions already, and then dressed up the majority opinion in "mathematical" clothing to make it look as if scientific rigour is involved.
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This just goes to prove that if you want to funding for research, you'd better be ready to tack on something about climate change.
If not, the funds will vanish faster than an ex-vice president's credibility...
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Richard this is your most important post ever. It's taken a while but you have started to examine the green dream
The green dream is a world without people.
For most of us this is really a green nightmare. Even hardcore greenies follow the idea to its logical conclusion and then shrink back in revulsion.
But the really creepy people are those who want a cull of humanity - always someone else of course.
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Babies and the production thereof...
Competitive religions and the lack of proper female child education are the problems. Both need to be tackled to cap population (which I think both pro and anti AGW will agree upon.)
Most of the World's major religions ban any form of birth control - they will say for religious reasons, yet without this changing the population will grow rapidly, until war or starvation limits it. Most religions however do not advocate war or starvation. They have a problem either they encourage birth control or they have to accept war and starvation there is really no alternative. Like most things, such a women priests in the catholic church, the changes will only be reluctantly accepted and then only in extremis, such as when there are so few male priestly vocations that the Pope is forced to accept that either his church folds or it accepts women into the priesthood. The hubris of men is the problem for birth control!
I think it is a bad strategic error to link the need for population limitation and Anthropogenic Global Warming as here are many better and far less contentions reasons to limit our population, such as the limitation and finite nature of resources and water. This does not require a religious belief in the entirely flawed and essentially unbelievable religion of anthropogenic climate change. If however AGW is cited as the cause to reduce the population then given that AGW is on very shaky ground and is in disrepute it puts the far more reasonable limiting of population at risk of being seen in the same way.
I would suggest that the attempt to link population limitation to climate change is a way of propping up climate change, and a last desperate attempt by those that have been found out to save their jobs!
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The graphs at the top of the page look very pretty in their bright colours and simple zig zags. The two graphs appear to match in slope gradient, and look reassuringly simple to interpret.
When has life been simple? When things are made to look simple they start to look like propaganda. Propaganda always comes in a neat simplistic form, to influence the majority of the population as quickly as possible.
I believe that there is a case for 'anthropogenic' warming but not one that can be summarized in a simple line or scatter graph. I also believe that anthropogenic warming is combined with naturally occurring warming caused by extraterrestrial events.( By the way, mine is a non-scientist point of view)
The picture of a line of babies is also one to provoke a subjective response. I don't like it.
Just an opinion from sensibleoldgrannie.
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#12 sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
"When things are made to look simple they start to look like propaganda."
And what are being made to look simple here are not even the products of observation of the real world, but "raw model outcomes" -- as if what comes out of a computer were basically the same as what you can see with your own eyes.
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I wrote @ #7:
Richard’s core question can be approached from each end:
Can human population reduction be undertaken such that the (anthropogenic) climate changes reverse toward and closely approach pre-industrial levels?
Can (anthropogenic) climate changes be altered to reduce the impacts of desertification (etc) on human population levels and human distributions?
Equally importantly, can the rates of change be accomplished & accommodated such that most populations of most peoples survive intact?
Can I recommend ‘In Search Of Shelter; mapping the effects of climate change on human migration and displacement’
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator - now reinstated: "Further to your complaint about some of the content on a BBC blog (reference number P29128621), we have decided that it does not contravene the House Rules and are going to leave it on site."]
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
It does not focus on human population reductions per se, but it does map geographically the outcomes arising from the most common AGW projections.
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"People want to have children," says Richard Black, but it misses a crucial element of selfishness, a trait that's endemic in our society. The statement should read: "people want to have *their own* children."
This problem will never be solved until it is recognised that babies are tiny immigrants.
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Whilst we are biologically disposed to producing offspring, surely the true purpose of our lives is entirely subjective and is driven by many pressures that we cannot possibly consciously recognise or process objectively.
Does a mother in a very poor country continually produce children to watch them die of starvation one by one, or is the nature of a beast to go on producing for as long as they are still alive? Until we really do understand the driving forces behind nature and how our subjective environments influence outcomes we can only say we have sex because it is pleasurable and children follow x percent of the time. The x is largely determined by our ability to apply controls or not, as the case may be.
If it is nature's way to turn our planet into a hostile environment for people in order to stem our runaway population growth then how are we going to stop her? We will see shorter life spans, less food, less shelter from natural threats, more pernicious diseases, and so on. Why would nature pick on climate when there are much easier ways to dispose of animals standing 5'10" and weighing 160lbs without causing unneeded collateral damage?
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"I think it is a bad strategic error to link the need for population limitation and Anthropogenic Global Warming as there are many better and far less contentions reasons to limit our population, such as the limitation and finite nature of resources and water." John @#11
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John,
as I see it, the AGR outcomes (lets call it climate changes exacerbated by the diverse activities of human populations) affect seriously 'finite' resources such as available freshwater (through desertification, as well as extraction salination), food (reliant on water), and fuel (charcoal; reliant on water). Millions die, but millions become displaced - frequently to the First World.
You have to look at BOTH ends of the problem. (See my #7, and its subsequent re-posting with the link reinstated)
I am very pleased that we are discussing the linkage.
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In response to John_from_Hendon #4
I will heed your advice "don't make assumptions about other people's doctorates." Thanks. You infer you have a doctorate in science, and can provide verification ( or clarification to the contrary ) of this so we don't need to assume you are so qualified, yes?
Ive got to put it to you that the ad hominem attacks you make on scientists are misleading. I have pointed out your error of mistaking ice core data for planetary ice cover but you adress that by continuing with your conspiracy theory. The only valid opposition to the science is better science. Why don't you publish your hypothesis in a peer reviewed journal ? You're sure to bag yourself a nobel prize for disproving AGW.
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Lex parsimoniae, the law of economy, tells us that ‘where competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selection of the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities while still sufficiently answering the question.’ Wiki.
I have been contemplating John-from-Hendon’s doubts about linking AGW with population issues.
‘Ockhams Razor’ principle applies when we examine the linkage as a Primary Causality – i.e. resources limit populations (minimalist, straightforward, negative feedback, Ockham applies).
Ockham’s Razor becomes inappropriate if we attempt to address the linkage at the higher-level of causality. Climate change conditions resource availability to populations; population level and population structures respond accordingly. Unreliability of our present knowledge of the operating mechanisms of AGW directs us to examine and address the issue at the level of primary causality. This is the application of common sense, but it in no way removes the need for defining the higher-level causalities and mechanisms.
AGW operates through classic feedback systems, moderated in both directions (positive & negative) by frequently larger non-anthropogenic feedbacks.
The human species has limited ability to moderate the latter, but can address the former at a number of levels and through a variety of strategies – both intentionally or (sadly) inevitably.
As I see it, a key problem is Rate Of Change.
Non-anthropogenic negative feedbacks do not always moderate at the speed that humans can add an influencer; thus allowing non-anthropogenic positive feedbacks to enhance a potentially correctable condition into an uncorrectable one. This is the cusp condition of catastrophe theory, to which I have frequently referred.
In order to track back from the cusp, we need actions at ALL different levels (global, inter-national, strategic, tactical, local action, etc), and through ALL strategies at our disposal (policy, practice, effective surveillance and effective policing).
Humans have reached the level of global impact where just ‘playing the great political Copenhagen game’ of protecting the global environment will not track us back from the cusp.
I truly fear our catastrophic futures because the ‘four horsemen’ are ALREADY riding the skies of the world, and there is NO PLACE ON EARTH that is immune from multiple impacts that seriously and adversely affect the human condition; Rate Of Change gets us all – either acutely (within the generation), or like the proverbial Boiled Frogs (in the short to medium term) and, in the process of our demise, we will take most of the great species of the world with us.
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#18. hengistmcstone
1. doctorate in science - yes (I hope this gets through moderation!).
2. Ice core data : you wrote: "I have pointed out your error of mistaking ice core data for planetary ice cover but you address that by continuing with your conspiracy theory."
Calling my detailed scientific criticisms "ad hominem" indicates that you did not read or understand my objections to the use and the assumed accuracy of ice core data. I did not 'mistake' anything for 'anything' I discussed ice core data I did NOT look at planetary ice cover data. Ice core data is one of the primary sources used by climate 'scientists' of historic CO2 data (from the trapped CO2). It has noting to do with planetary ice cover data except that where the ice has melted or did not previously exist there can be no CO2 data. Don't even get me onto temperature data for the huge inaccuracies and errors in this data, even in today's data simply compound the errors which are minimised without justifiably and beyond common sense, let alone proper scientific standards. Planetary temperature has enormous inaccuracy even between today and a decade ago for a whole multitude of reasons. The further one attempts to go back the worse the data and the greater the inaccuracy - yet these climate 'scientists' avoid proper evaluation of the accuracy of these data.
Nor did I suggest any form of 'conspiracy' - just poor sub-standard scientific work that is presenting itself as being far more accurate than either its base data or the completeness of the model. That is the 'results' are beyond the capabilities of the model and the inaccuracies in the data. A proper result might be expressed as the model predicts a change of x degrees with a range of +a to -b degrees or X degrees being some function of the lightly range of results derived from the uncertainty /errors in the data which flow from the two sources I have previously listed. My suspicion that the results, if properly expressed would be something like 2 degrees C +/- 5 degrees C (and I may be being overly generous with the +/-5). The structural errors in the model are legion and because of the huge problem of accuracy determination of historic data the whole nature of the model simply it becomes a matter of religious belief rather than anything scientific and it really ceases to have any accurate predictive value in relating temperature with CO2. Do you now understand my objections? They are about the poverty of the science.
However returning to the point of this blog unrestrained population growth is a bad thing for everyone and the planet - it is a huge pity from that that sensible and rational aim gets mixed up with the CO2/CC/AGW brigade.
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Since the current CO2 level is close to 390ppm and the temperature anomaly is roughly 0.45 deg C, the forecasting power of this aggregated model is already doubtful.
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#15 rniloc wrote:
"People want to have children," says Richard Black, but it misses a crucial element of selfishness, a trait that's endemic in our society. The statement should read: "people want to have *their own* children."
This problem will never be solved until it is recognised that babies are tiny immigrants.
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I assume you have been voluntarily sterilised?
After all, I'd hate to think you were some sort of hypocrite who want's people do as you say, rather than as you do...
In fact, that goes for all you ecowarrior types. If human population growth is such a problem, why are you adding to the problem by breeding?
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polly_gone wrote @ #16 in a really thoughtful posting: “…Why would nature pick on climate when there are much easier ways to dispose of (humans)”
……..
Let’s take Bangladesh and England:
A mother in Bangladesh has a high birth-rate largely because she has a high family death-rate. Surviving males bring nett advantage to the extended family. Let’s test the proposition that: because she is in a poor breeding and survival environment the ‘nature of the beast’ will continue this behaviour in a more equitable environment (England). Analysis of census data by Leeds university social geographers shows that breeding-rate reduces but still settles-out substantially higher than that of the long-standing indigenous population. So perhaps there is a cultural imperative that transcends environmental circumstance (driven by males or driven by females?). Certainly, absence of contraceptive devices is only a part of the problem and the presence of contraception is only part of the solution.
Let’s take China and India:
Human population growth is determined by the number of breeding females (males generally inseminate quite widely, in every religious environment). National programmes to reduce total births-per-adult, (male-births-per-adult), and female-births-per-adult present internal social stresses in the short-term – not least by altering the age-profile of the nation as well as the sex-ratio. They also present problems of disparity and competitive advantage between nations that do and do not adopt these practices.
Let’s take humans and ants:
Both can adapt to incredibly high local population densities as long as the forage distance is sustainable and the resource transportation routes provide just-in-time supply all the time. In a stable local population (an ant-hill or a nation state) this can develop as an ‘ultra-urban’ culture – viz. Mumbai & Sao Paulo, with social diversity and stratification. But in unstable circumstance, perhaps where a populous nation wins all the hotels on the global Monopoly board, resource-winning and resource-hoarding become the dominant competitive strategy.
Let’s now take the climate:
Question: “Why would nature pick on climate when there are much easier ways to dispose of (humans)?” [polly gone @ #16]
There is global climate and there is local ‘microclimate’; an urban microclimate such as encompasses Mexico City can generate a whole cocktail of epidemics with the facility to become pandemics; but … “we have the technology”. Global climate is different; it takes note of the Anthropocene, and acts accordingly. Millions die, millions trans-locate, and the species adapts to the new circumstance. There is no going back; what we had is gone, what we have now is gone tomorrow (and I mean tomorrow). If we are REALLY unlucky, the earth loses its skin and the atmosphere bleeds into space [We will look like Mars with Ozymandias artefacts]. THAT’S WHY we do climate change / global warming research – to avoid being REALLY UNLUCKY.
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john_from_hendon
"Calling my detailed scientific criticisms "ad hominem" indicates that you did not read or understand my objections"
i'm no scientist but this from your post 1 looks ad hominemish to me:
"Where are the figures - nowhere - these people are NOT scientists. Just cheap propagandists."
i'm with hengistmcstone on this one
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#20 John from hendon
Your opinion that the models are presented with a false illusion of accuracy is unfounded. Each model is run with slightly different initial conditions and a probably density function results (PDF). Contrary to what you think (that the modellers have a cavalier attitutde toward uncertainty), the opposite is true. The models are run with uncertainty built into the primary variable and ensembled over may, may runs. The language used to describe the model results is probabalistic. It is difficult to imagine what else would be required. If the models are as inaccurate as you claim, the hindcasts would not be so accurate, would they?
The reality is that the PDF from different reseach groups tend to closely agree - that is a best estimate (i.e., highest chance of occuring) of a 3C sensitivity, a lower limit of around 1.1C and a long tail to aout 6.5C. These have come from countless peer reviewed, expert analyses. What is the basis of your crude +-5C assertion?
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Re 1.John_from_Hendon wrote:
"Ahh, the dreaded Arctic Ice core data rears it head again."
Where in the article is "arctic ice core" data cited for it to have "reared it's head again"? The article mentions arctic sea ice which has nothing to do with ice cores.
"Same questions: No answers as usual.
e.g.
Measurement error? Where is the detailed work on CO2 migration in the ice?
Systemic Model error? Where is the analytical error estimation of ignored perturbations - such a extra planetary effects - to the climate?
extra planetary effects - to the climate" might not even make sense. Have you double checked that your questions even make sense?
"Where are the figures - nowhere - these people are NOT scientists. Just cheap propagandists."
Where did you look for answers to these questions? Which researchers did you approach to find out? Which papers have you looked at in regard to ice cores?
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Re 21. Turron wrote:
"Since the current CO2 level is close to 390ppm and the temperature anomaly is roughly 0.45 deg C, the forecasting power of this aggregated model is already doubtful."
I suspect the 0.45C anomaly comes from the satellite temperature record. That temperature anomaly is not compariable with the equillibrium global average temperature in the table. The 0.45C figure is anomaly above average for the 1979-2000 period, wheras the equillibrium global average temperature figure is the amount of eventual warming due to the increase in co2 equivalent (not just co2) concentration in the atmosphere.
We are about 0.7C above preindustrial temperatures and the contribution to that from greenhouse gases would be the transient effect, not the equillibrium one.
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#25. SR wrote:
"The models are run with uncertainty built into the primary variable and ensembled over may, may runs.!"
Now you really are just being silly! The models do not (and indeed cannot) include all of the variables that effect the climate. It is all very well having a model that has the type of data you want to model and then claiming it is accurate - but the models leave out so many of the impacts on climate. For example: the acknowledged random effects of volcanic and activity and of asteroid impact, changes in the sun's activity. It is not possible to say that small changes in CO2 will have any predictable effect on planetary temperature unless the error generated by these factors is included. The models are just junk as they are grossly incomplete. The state of the development of climate 'science' is akin to the ancients when they had the earth at the centre of the universe. Their models are too structurally imperfect because they leave out so much. For their models to be worth considering proponents would have to show that the logical areas that they leave out are not likely to have a material effect on the predictions (where I have seen this mentioned at all they tend to say the reverse!)
What you seem unable to grasp is that to punch large holes in the myth of climate 'science' all that is required is to show that they have logically made unjustified assumptions, used data of dubious and imponderable accuracy. I do not have to show that I have a better model, just that theirs is junk! (I am not going to re-iterate the huge numbers of arguments that show that climate science is on doubtful ground here. But I am also not satisfied that the causality of CO2 is sufficiently proven - this also hinges upon the accuracy/inaccuracy of the CO2/Temperature data what I have been writing about today.)
#27. quake wrote:
"We are about 0.7C above pre-industrial temperatures and the contribution to that from greenhouse gases would be the transient effect, not the equilibrium one."
On work bunkum! Or more politely - frankly the accuracy you ascribe to the pre-industrial CO2 and temperature data is entirely spurious and because of that it is highly probably that all arguments like this are about as worthwhile as debating the number on angels on the point of a needle! In essence the CO2 and temperatures have such a poor level of accuracy that you could use figures of +- 2 or 3 perhaps more degrees and in consequence there is no point in the discussion. First you need to closely examine what global temperature is and how it is measured. It is not as though you have stuck a large thermometer into the patients mouth and read off a temperature - please critically examine the way it has been estimated and ask questions about systemic errors. E.g. the opening and closure of temperature measuring stations, re-locating of similarly named stations, the changes in the local environment at stations that have not moved and wonder why the data is presented with such accuracy. The same arguments but more so relate to CO2. By the way this is why the model did not predict the recent dip in temperatures.
In reality unless and until there is a working continuum of predictive models that link weather, extra planetary, intra planetary and micro orbital changes to climate climate science will not graduate from being a religion or sect!
My substantive point is that the so called climate science is attempting to shore up its shaky basis by linking itself to population management - not as it claims the other way round! Richard Black's blog is about the production of babies!
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Why is it that
i. blogs on AGW per se consistently and regularly attract hundreds of postings criticisizing the minutae of 'scientific' methodologies, and
ii. a blog on the AGW impacts on the human species, its global population and its societies attracts a mere handful?
Are we missing an opportunity?
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Listen chaps. I have a bit of a problem.
I can see that global warming will have a positive effect on food production and thus will allow population growth in future but I don't see any evidence that the slight rise between the mid 1970's and 2000 was the cause of growth.
If it was then has the slight drop this century cased a slowing of population growth?
If it wasn't then why are you so upset about it in relation to population growth?
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28 John_from_Hendon
Ok you're not a fan of Climate model estimates of the past or predictions of the future - what are you're thoughts on the physics that suggests adding CO2 to the atmosphere stores more of the sun's energy?
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It's happening, people!
Winter snow in Buenos Aires. Winter snow in Jerusalem. Crop failures in just-last-year fecund Russian breadbasket regions. Desertification in Canada. Sizzling pavements and roaring air conditioners depleting our capacity to function, running down the power supply and having a decidedly deleterious effect on the productivity levels of most economies (wobbly enough even in 'good' times).
And, yes, even the BBC joining in a "redesign" epidemic which is also, ultimately, about expending effort to upgrade something which perhaps did not actually deserve all the additional wattage consumed in the process. At the end of the day, Six of One buys you Half A Dozen of the other, and what exactly has been achieved, besides energy, manpower & time having been consumed? Unless -- maybe -- the result saves you wattage over time?
Take note with some satisfaction that there is "less illegal timber" being stripped from the land -- only remember that this decline also coincides with a sharp fall in demand for Everything, occasioned by the Great Economic Contraction That Is Almost Over (We Think) and the loss of all that purchasing power.
My favourite world population clock, the one from Berkeley's Galen Huntington, shows today's figures as 8.321 Billion and counting... Not being quite as obsessed with credentials and a cultic view of "science" (which is in fact quasi-Science, in terms of pre-20th century notions of Knowledge & Inquiry) as some of our interlocutors here, I am willing to consider the 8.321 number, like all the numbers, including those posted above, an Educated & Convincing Guess based on available data.
Does it really matter a great deal if the true number is even ten percent off the actual number -- the one that God would be in possession of, for those who believe in God, and the one that no human computer model can ever generate with absolute certainty for those who do not believe in an Overriding Absolute Intelligence?
We see the impacts of population in thorny issues surrounding migration & immigration, education & social policy. In times of economic distress, we see them most compellingly in the intense competition for job openings and in shrinking markets decimated by empty bank accounts...
We see the same impacts doing something as basic & familiar as watching the World Cup, when there are no haze-free shots of Africa to be found, "not even for ready money" as Mr Wilde would quip... Naively, I imagined Africa would still look at least in some parts like the gorgeous background of films from a couple of decades ago: "Out of Africa" -- or even the delightfully quirky "The Gods Must Be Crazy" series.
The saddest part of the last World Cup, from where I sit, was precisely this absence of raw, untouched, unpolluted landscape.
During the boom years, the affluent elites built up their fancy spas, their play-towns, their Dubais... Safely ensconced therein, linked to "their people" via satellite phone & away from all the riffraff (that would include anyone with less than a couple of dozen million in assets, presumably), the ultra-privileged for the most part operate under the assumption that there is "time enough" to "innovate" our way out of catastrophe.
In the nick of time arrive solar planes and flying cars, and I, amongst so many, am genuinely thrilled.
But innovation, in this case, is merely a twig -- more robust than a straw, but far from a lifeline -- that we flail at. We haven't even caught it yet.
Meanwhile, every day, considerably more than a million new lives are being added. The number of registered cell phones has surpassed five billion: that says more about standards of living moving inexorably to higher rates of energy consumption than any ice core data.
Meanwhile, it is becoming harder and harder to find gainful employment at an adequate wage. Universities are becoming too expensive to sustain at the newer levels of IT sophistication that have become the norm. Students are graduating into poverty, often burdened with crippling debt: and that is in the most advanced societies.
The notion that "the problem is older people in advanced societies are living for too long" is breathtakingly incoherent. The older people who are living longer -- for example, the ones in Japan, or in Italy -- are almost always from a generation & milieu that had the foresight to make at least some provisions for their own old age, whether in terms of actual property ownership, pension savings, or supportive social networks.
The ones I worry about most are not the elderly who, for the most part, will gracefully exit stage left when the oxygen supply gets a little thin. The ones I worry about are that under-educated, insatiably wattage-dependent, rootless, feckless, anti-social, narcissistic generation born c. 1980 and after. Far too many of them have no values to speak of; they may be p.c. and appear charmingly willing to embrace a hand-to-mouth existence, but their ignorance of History & their disdain for Policy -- for anything, in fact, that smacks of Planning & Follow-Through -- pretty much guarantees that will put even less thought into intelligent procreation than we, their Parents & Grandparents, did.
And that is why, while there is still some influence to be wielded by the Boomer generation, and while we are still -- thank God, thank the stars, thank yourself or your spouse -- hale and hearty, it is absolutely imperative that we stop dissuading women from going out there and voluntarily sterilising themselves as soon as they are ready to stop having more children.
By voluntary sterilisation I of course mean the laparoscopic tubal ligation procedure (which is mostly reversible, by the way) and not the removal of ovaries or wombs (which has been reportedly the way they sterilise women in Uzbekistan, and no wonder few healthy women would agree to such unnecessary major surgery).
You might be surprised by how ridiculously difficult it is to get many modern physicians to agree to "allowing" an adult have this simple, safe procedure done. It is, truth be told! Shockingly, it is! Even in such 'advanced, progressive' societies as California! Women have to demand it, then argue their case (!) sometimes to a whole committee of doctors!
This is a procedure that ought to be made available free of charge, anywhere in the world, if the WHO, the UN or any other international authority were actually serious about helping slow down population. Because we are not likely, the numbers now being so huge, to ever be able to reverse the trend. And we don't want to hope for some new superbug pandemic. And we don't want to "wait and see" what happens when oxygen levels over cities retreat to 11.8% or below... We don't want panics, cataclysms, catastrophes, tsunamis. We want manageable transitions, adaptive & mitigation strategies that give more of Civilisation a chance of lasting out the century.
And that means we have to begin to Trust Women to know what the right number of pregnancies is for their specific body, family situation and financial circumstances. If we could only start doing this one little thing consistently, in every country -- Trusting Women -- we would be buying ourselves a little more time to address the far more difficult issue, to wit: how exactly we intend to reduce our polluting presence & its adverse impact on the biosphere (AGW).
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Re 28. John_from_Hendon:
"frankly the accuracy you ascribe to the pre-industrial CO2 and temperature data is entirely spurious. In essence the CO2 and temperatures have such a poor level of accuracy that you could use figures of +- 2 or 3 perhaps more degrees and in consequence there is no point in the discussion."
The various global temperature records come with uncertainty ranges. For example here are 95% confident ranges for the HadCRUT3 annual global temperature values:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
If there was a lot more error in the temperature data then different groups using different subsets of the data and different methodologies would be apt to produce wildly different global temperature graphs. But what happens instead is that everyone finds the similar graph as that HadCRUT3 one, which suggests to me that the accuracy HadCRUT3 cite must be close to the mark.
"please critically examine the way it has been estimated and ask questions about systemic errors. E.g. the opening and closure of temperature measuring stations, re-locating of similarly named stations, the changes in the local environment at stations that have not moved and wonder why the data is presented with such accuracy."
The reported accuracy in recent years is such that each annual temperature anomaly has a 95% confidence range of about 0.2C. Have you considered that such a range is despite the issues you raise? Eg that without the problems you mention the accuracy would be better such as 0.02C instead?
The presented accuracy of the surface record has some independent verification too. The year to year variation in the satellite records in particular matches up well with the surface records. This is despite the surface record suffering the problems you mention. So I think the data is presented with such accuracy because it has such accuracy.
"The same arguments but more so relate to CO2. By the way this is why the model did not predict the recent dip in temperatures."
co2 measurements are actually more accurate than temperature. One reason is because co2 high up in the atmosphere being approximately the same concentration across the world, so you only need to sample it in a single location.
"In reality unless and until there is a working continuum of predictive models that link weather, extra planetary, intra planetary and micro orbital changes to climate climate science will not graduate from being a religion or sect!"
It's not necessary to understand everything in order to understand a lot.
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32. Maria Ashot wrote:
"It's happening, people!
... Desertification in Canada."
No it isn't.
"Sizzling pavements and roaring air conditioners"
But this does explain the urban heat island effect which skews the preceived surface temperatures.
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#29 GeoffWard wrote:
Why is it that
i. blogs on AGW per se consistently and regularly attract hundreds of postings criticisizing the minutae of 'scientific' methodologies,
For my own part, I do not mean to "criticisize the minutae" but point out that AGW is unadulterated pseudoscience from top to bottom. And furthermore, it is guilty of the same error that has given rise to practically all pseudoscience from alchemy to phrenology. The greatest minds -- including Newton -- are liable to make this error, but a terrible error it remains.
All discussions of AGW revolve around how much we are entitled to believe a theory, and what is the wisest action to take, given the quality of the theory. So it would be completely weird if these discussions didn't involve scientific methodology, wouldn't it?
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#23 Geoff Ward
I think you, as is sadly typical in many scientific quarters, may be overcomplicating something I put simply as - sex is pleasurable - at least in very general terms. That is the ONLY biological 'hook' necessary, the rest, as they say, is down to nature. I mentioned 'peer pressures' or 'conditioning factors' because 'civilised' humans always seem to have to have an 'excuse' for sex, built on love, lust, possessiveness, marriage, exclusivity, taboo, diseases, distaste, and so on i.e. we enjoy it so the 'state' (via conventions, moral codes, politics and/or religion) must stop us from doing so. We develop this sexual taboo with 'OUR' child making it exclusive, unique and more important than 'ANY' other child. Illogical and paradoxical since the driving force is 'pleasure' remember, with nature determining how many children may follow. There are some who foolishly believe you can understand the human condition!
Back on AGW, there are many feedbacks and influencing factors, some within our apparent control and some not. Isn't that the problem? What if these mechanisms are interchangeable so that what we think we control, because short term factors gives us a hint that we can, suddenly is taken from our grasp and another factor apparently 'out of our control' seems to come 'within our control'? Clutching at straws, I think describes it.
There are so many dynamics, including people themselves, that science is barking up the wrong tree if it thinks it has a handle on what drives the planet. Science needs to clean itself up and fast. If there is AGW we are doomed. But I don't think there is, or ever was, even in the head of the most ardent 'green', any chance humans can influence what happens next. Fantasy life played out on computer models by scientists and every bit as addictive as WoW.
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#36 polly_gone wrote:
the driving force is 'pleasure' remember
I regard this as a very serious but very common error. Interestingly it is practically the same error as lies behind the pseudoscience of AGW!
The vague idea behind it -- inspired by almost all religions -- all is that the mind is "spiritual" or non-physical. If the mind is a disembodied "centre of consciousness" like that, separate and isolated from the physical world, then everything the mind does is a matter of its own "internal economics".
For example, you think all motivation boils down to getting the right sort of internal conscious experiences -- i.e. pleasure -- instead of making sure the physical world "outside the mind" is arranged the right way, to match our goals.
In much the same way, many people think all knowledge boils down to having the right sort of internal conscious experiences -- "the feeling of certainty" -- instead of having our beliefs match the physical world outside.
That way of thinking emerges in science -- I would say pseudoscience -- with the idea that theory only has to match "data" we already have -- instead of matching the physical world outside, something that can only be achieved through testing.
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GeoffWard
You are using the language of academia to explain your ideas and that is fine, if you only want to communicate with academics. I trawled through google to see which GeoffWard you might be, but there are several contenders. You appear to have an academic fly-on-the-wall overview of what is driving population increase in areas of poverty.
To really understand the relationship between poverty and breeding, you would need to live as a really poor person for a while. Those poor people lucky enough to relocate to a place of relative stability and have access to a resource rich culture, will still have their original cultural baggage to contend with.
I believe the primary reason for women continuing to breed large numbers of children in a resource rich culture is that of alienation. If one does not have access to the same resources as others in the same culture, and one does not feel 'part' of that culture, having babies might seem the easier option.
Women coming from a resource poor culture to a resource rich culture will have that same feeling of alienation and may feel that having more babies will give them something to do, as work opportunities and cultural activities may not be quite so available.
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#37 bowmanthebard
Interesting, but I think you conflate the unconscious or subconscious with the conscious. I said "the only biological hook needed is pleasure" and since nature knows how minds work, and we do not, the production of chemicals on 'attraction' will immediately inform us where the "physical world' is going. Of course we may 'test' the situation in accord with our 'subconscious recollections' (turned into conscious memory by a process we really do not comprehend), but that may be driven by our wish to be in control of our passions, and pleasures. In other words 'testing' could simply be a part of our conscious game plan, or, put another way, an irrelevance. Unless 'fear' is involved, and fear is normally a result of subconscious efficiency, our conscious game plan is a conundrum.
When the conscious mind is distracted, as in a trance, our subconscious allows us to enter a realm entirely without fear, almost safe in the knowledge we can be awake to attack or defend in an instant and be stronger, fitter and more efficient than usual. Why? It is an unanswerable question but may have something to do with resting our consciousness because we have forgotten how to do so. People who visit ultra-trances that may last for several hours or even days emerge stronger and more empowered, refreshed in a manner sleep does not provide. The mind is sharper and more optimistic. Why?
I am not seeking to attack science per se, only to point out the many assumptions we could have made it has expelled without showing good cause to do so. In AGW I would argue more relevance has been left out than included.
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When will climate writers for the BBC get facts right? Can someone toasting their toes in the office get the article changed.
Comparative photos of Mount Everest 'confirm ice loss'
"Images taken from the same spot in 2010 by mountaineer David Breashears show that the main Rongbuk Glacier is shrunken and withered"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10660130
In fact they were taken in Oct 2007
http://asiasociety.org/video/policy-politics/himalaya-then-and-now
I'd also like to point out I havent researched yet the date (climbing season) of year George Mallory took his photos in 1921, compared to the date/season of year David Breashears took his photos in 2007.
Many thanks, if anyone knows please tell.
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environmentalists, scientists and government
want population reduction
want more people working
want to reduce the 'carbon footprint'
want society to take more responsibility for its personal needs
want less dependence on imports
do not want a population explosion but still want replacement workers
do not want the population dependent on handouts but do not provide adequate alternative solutions
do not want the population using excess energy resources but do not provide affordable alternatives
do not want a selfish society but allows corruption and decadence to rule supreme
do not want to continuously import more and more exotic goods but continues to obey ridiculous rules about the size and shape of fruit and vegetables produced in own country
The population
all want a reasonable standard of living (comparable to others in their community)
most want to find a cooperative partner, have families and spend time with their families
most want holidays away from where they live
most want a choice of food and clothing and housing
want household items and necessities
some want a chance to work their way out of poverty and ignorance
all want to be better off and more secure in work than out of work
all want access to jobs within their skill levels/jobs within their locality/ shops/ safe regular transport/medicine/dental treatment/ decent schools for their children, security/ other vital infrastructure/choice of entertainment during non work time
most want to save for a safe pension (that is not going to be gambled away and lost by large corporate groups)
business
wants profits
wants people to buy things, spending to the maximum load of what they can afford
has to compete with other business to survive
has to employ and to pay others
has to cover for losses and maintain good trading to keep shareholders happy
One would have to change the whole structure of society from top to bottom in order to keep everyone reasonably content with their lot. Does anyone have any fair ideas that the majority of people could agree to?
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"...I trawled through google to see which GeoffWard you might be, but there are several contenders. You appear to have an academic fly-on-the-wall overview of what is driving population increase in areas of poverty..."
" ...I believe the primary reason for women continuing to breed large numbers of children in a resource rich culture is that of alienation. If one does not have access to the same resources as others in the same culture, and one does not feel 'part' of that culture, having babies might seem the easier option...." (sensibleoldgrannie #38)
.........
Hi, SOG, nice to engage, having followed your offerings for some time. Re: which GeoffWard? - probably 'none of the above'. Helped create & run for many years one of the first handful of UK uni Applied Ecology programmes (evolved to Env St - Env Sci - Geog/Geol - GIS over the years) starting in the early 1970s. Happy years. Now living in NE Brazil, rubbing shoulders with just the type of 'poor' you describe. [Thinks: why do people posting hide their name, background, etc?]
You (#38) and polly_gone (#36) offer rationales for higher breeding rates of women in poor circumstances, polly using the argument that sex is just pleasurable (Jared Diamond's study (1992), Why Sex Is Fun), you using the arguments of self-validation & alienation. I would add: peer pressure, both within the family and the 'island' community of aliens in a foreign rich land (patriarch's island community view his family's worth by the fecundity of his woman/women). There is a legacy lag effect, but this should disappear in a few generations within these new circumstances - but still it persists. We observe this in the multicultural UK because its immigration has evolved, for many incoming races, as urban 'island' populations, with isolation favouring historic breeding practice. A true test of matters can come by comparison of isolated and integrated populations of the same incoming 'race' studied contemporaneously and with the usual research screenings. If peer-pressure is significant, then the speed at which 'incoming' breeding-rates approach the indigenous norm will test the hypothesis.
I was thinking about this alienation hypothesis wrt white single mothers in the UK underclass. If it holds good, then the birth-rate should be higher than the White British norm in the Leeds study; unfortunately the reverse is true (though I can immediately see the factors at work that make it so). Yes, these matters are at least as complex as AGW; and deserve to be treated with the same degree of close scrutiny.
And, in all these matters of feminine behaviour, I defer to the special understanding of you female posters; there are many things that we men can never understand. ;-)
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@Jack Frost #40
I'd also like to point out I havent researched yet the date (climbing season) of year George Mallory took his photos in 1921, compared to the date/season of year David Breashears took his photos in 2007.
That's a good point, and i don't have an answer, but i do recall Greenpeace having photographed an Antarctic (Arctic?) bay showing incredible ice loss compared with a photo taken in the same spot 50 years before. Trouble is, they chose different times of the year in a bay well known for natural seasonal ice loss as "proof".
/Mango
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Polly_gone (# 34) wrote (I have enumerated his/her phrases for clarity):
“There are so many dynamics, including people themselves, that:
1. "Science is barking up the wrong tree if it thinks it has a handle on what drives the planet."
The scientific community has a very good understanding of ‘what drives the planet’. It would be arrogant to assume that today’s scientists have a perfect understanding. Two hundred years ago human understanding of climatological, geological and anthropogenic processes were rudimentary; in another two hundred years present day understanding may appear similarly so. But can we say that science is barking up the wrong tree? No, the tree of knowledge has many branches and finding the fruits is not an instantaneous process.
2. "Science needs to clean itself up and fast."
There is little wrong with the Scientific Method as a paradigm and route to fundamental truths. The specific methodologies are variously simple to extremely complex, and, in their totality, the investigations so undertaken involve unimaginable complexities of association. Are the best scientists available in the world on the job? Yes. But the tree of knowledge sometimes fails easily to reveal its fruit on some branches under investigation. Different branches, different tools, different analyses …. Scientists can get closer to the world’s Holy Grail of a perfect understanding of global processes, but an absolute predictive understanding of global chaotic processes – unlikely. Are these scientist ‘cooking the books’? No, not in attempts to deceive others, though they may be themselves deceived until further or different evidence through research prevails.
3. "If there is AGW we are doomed."
There is no ‘if’ about it. Human activity contributes to the warming of the planet, and there is sufficient evidence now that it is measurable in its additional contribution alongside non-anthropogenic fluctuations. Dooming is both relative and absolute. Even now, we having to accommodate change in patterns of human activity and behaviour (relative dooming); we may, through our human inputs accelerate the non-linear process whereby the planet is no longer able to sustain human life (absolute dooming). We hope the world’s scientists are able to distinguish the point at which relative switches to absolute.
4. "I don't think there is, or ever was, … any chance humans can influence what happens next.”
Humans can do (and daily do) influence what happens next. Every day that we add an increment to the global ‘gas load’ that can not be absorbed into a long-term non-atmospheric sink we influence what happens next. Can we reverse adverse atmospheric processes? Yes, as evidenced by human control of CFC’s to minimise ozone holes in the atmosphere. But the ‘great game’ of optimising tropospheric temperature conditions for a human-dominated biosphere may be beyond science; it is absolutely certainly beyond the politicians.
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#44 GeoffWard wrote:
There is little wrong with the Scientific Method
But what is the scientific method, according to you? In my opinion, you have got it all wrong.
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Interesting stuff. I find environmental writers, such as George Monbiot, very annoying when they write articles saying that population growth is not a problem. They are right to raise the issue of relative levels of consumption, but that is only part of the picture.
People producing large families seems to be at the heart of so many of societies problems. "I need to drive a big car - because I have loads of children. I produce mountains of waste every week - because I have loads of children. I need a bigger council house - because I have loads of children. The schools are oversubscribed, there are not enough houses, the trains are crowded etc etc etc".
And the answer? Well you can't ban people from having lots of children in a liberal democratic society such as ours. You can however make having more than two children prohibitively expensive (not that it isn't already) through the tax and benefits system etc.
Technological innovation, behavioural change, better regulation, investment in greener alternatives are all great - but if your population is ballooning at the same time, then you are running up a very inconvinient escalator indeed.
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#46 Yorkurbantree wrote:
if your population is ballooning at the same time, then you are running up a very inconvinient escalator indeed.
There are at least two things wrong with this discussion.
The first is that people keep looking in the wrong places to find an explanation of why women have children, instead of looking in the right places to find an explanation of why men and women together have children. We are told that "sex is fun", or that "women are misinformed by men" -- both largely untrue, but anyway in both cases overly "proximate" explanations. I wish everyone would think in evolutionary terms instead. Men and women, like the rest of the living world, are habitually inclined to do things that get their own genes -- and not anyone else's genes, importantly -- into future generations.
The second is that hardly anyone is looking at what's going on where birth rates are falling. Typical AGW -- observation doesn't matter to them!
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35
"For my own part, I do not mean to "criticisize the minutae" but point out that AGW is unadulterated pseudoscience from top to bottom."
Hi bowmanthebard, could I ask what are your thought's on the Physics that indicates releasing more CO2 into our atmosphere will store more of the sun's energy in the Earths atmosphere? I'm not asking about past temperatures or future predictions - just that one tiny part of Physics.
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No. 34, you may live in the Canadian Rockies, but you haven't flown coast to coast over Canada recently.
I have. A number of times. The desertification is readily apparent to the naked eye. Maybe not in your chic chalet, but believe me: it is there, and even creeping into parts of BC itself...
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
49. Maria Ashot wrote:
"but believe me; it is there"
Complete and utter nonsense.
There is no process of desertification of any part of Canada. If you would like to provide one specific example of what you are claiming you saw, it would be most entertaining to hear it.
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#48 hotashes wrote:
could I ask what are your thought's on the Physics that indicates releasing more CO2 into our atmosphere will store more of the sun's energy in the Earths atmosphere? I'm not asking about past temperatures or future predictions - just that one tiny part of Physics.
I think the greenhouse effect is real. I think it's part of decent, honest science.
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#49 Maria Ashot wrote:
you haven't flown coast to coast over Canada recently.
I have. A number of times.
Would you mind reducing your whopping great carbon footprint from the planet a bit?
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.
Death is the problem. People are refusing to die.
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Birth-rates are generally ok in the UK, (approx 1.88) and certainly below replacement level. India and China are restricting births but, as their societies become first world, their old will refuse to die also.
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Many (most?) developed countries will need to import young people who, through their productivity, will pay the cost of us indigenous non-productive oldies.
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All other herd species in the world discount their old in the most fundamental way – moving on, removing protection, selective provision of food & other resources, etc. Humans, with sentience, imagination and abstract thought, place value on life itself – even post-reproductive life; firstly and in their evolution, because with age comes wisdom and, secondly, because of the knowledge contained in old brains. Then came the written word and, with it, the decline in the premium value afforded to ‘old’ age. Now, old age is viewed as a social and economic drain on the world society.
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We in the UK, and elsewhere in the developed world, already minimize the national resource partitioning afforded to this section of society. In the third world, where there is minimal state provision, the attenuated age-distribution charts evidence the inability of most families to keep their old alive through to ‘classic’ old age.
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The world has reached the stage where population-size exceeds some or many of the resource factors, the supply of which are necessary for human life (the ecological ‘laws’ of limiting factors). This condition is reached ad hoc around the globe, becoming worse where and when the water and food staple resources fail to meet local demand. Mortality selectively culls the old and the very young, even where resource-wars have been conducted by breeding-age adults such as in Ruanda.
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What to do with the old if society is structured to ensure longevity and resources are insufficient?
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Having read/seen Soylen Green and Logan’s Run, and believing that resource-wars and compulsory euthanasia are not preferred solutions except in extremis, elective euthanasia will become part of national lifespan strategies for many nations. But the most common national lifespan strategy will be passive inaction, as at present. We should, in anticipation of ‘extremis’, remove from our thinking that active strategies (or indeed passive strategies) are right wing, left wing or any other wing – necessity has no wings.
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Bowman thanks for the response. Further to this can I ask what are your thoughts on Harries 2001 paper that compared NASAs IRIS satellite measurements of the infrared spectra to data 26 years later from the Japanese Space Agency satellite IMG? The paper reported a drop in outgoing radiation at the wavelength bands that greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane (CH4) absorb energy.
The result has been supported by subsequent papers using data from later satellites (Griggs 2004, Chen 2007) and is consistent with theoretical expectations.
Do you agree that these measurements are also supported by Wang 2009, Philipona 2004 highlighting that surface measurements find an increasing trend of infrared radiation returning to earth?
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#55 hotashes wrote:
Bowman thanks for the response. Further to this can I ask what are your thoughts on Harries 2001 paper that compared NASAs IRIS satellite measurements of the infrared spectra to data 26 years later from the Japanese Space Agency satellite IMG?
It is a matter of supreme indifference to me, as I think it is a bit of half-baked astrology for morons.
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Ok Richard
Interesting article...Hmmmm, yet again we (the human race) are assuming we can control nature. Whatever we do, this planet we will exist in a constant state of change-climate change. Always has, always will. The order of climate forcing or drivers as they are called,will be nature defined, not some human hoax as is. Just get off the fence, step back and look at the forces at work....It's school boy science. Man has a history of over playing his own importance with misplaced confidence. Yes use the planet's resources wisely, look after nature. But just take a step back and LOOK at the big picture. Just stick to facts not fiction.
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#54 Geoff Ward
"People are refusing to die"
A good headline for a tabloid, and, sadly, just as inaccurate.
People die; they have no choice; never have done and never will. They do not choose to prolong life any more than a small child's unwise experiments with traffic invite certain death or injury. We all live on a thin thread within the chaos.
If there is AGW, noting your premature belief that there is no "if", it is not the numbers that are important, it is how those numbers live. Humans made lots of decisions as technology developed, almost all illogical as if driven by an electric shock, rather than the thoughts of an intelligent being. Transfer production to a 'cheaper' place where people are not so 'demanding'. Make more and more things to consume resources and make them bigger, flashier, greedier, including our children. Make things that last as little time as possible but always keep within a 'reasonable' period. Make things go faster, make people work faster and be damned with accuracy, integrity, honesty, concern. Jam the human day with as much detritus as we can so that, exhausted, the poor dears will never be able to think straight. Give them the image of a brighter tomorrow that can always be reached down a yellow brick road. Just do not tell them that the road is still under construction and no one actually knows where it is going to anyway. Fill them up with tablets, or traces of chemical that tease them about how good it could be. Alter the mind but be careful how far you go. Treat them like laboratory rodents, for they know no better and deserve much less. Make them vote, a jamboree, excitement once in a while because tomorrow could be much better than today, but they do not know the machine is rigged. Why have one armed bandits when two, three, four could be so much better? Flood their pathetic lives with the thrill of anticipation every day that it could be 'YOU'. Of course, in time, they will learn it was all an obnoxious joke.
And they will wonder why they put death off for so long.....
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56. bowmanthebard
"Bowman thanks for the response. Further to this can I ask what are your thoughts on Harries 2001 paper that compared NASAs IRIS satellite measurements of the infrared spectra to data 26 years later from the Japanese Space Agency satellite IMG?"
It is a matter of supreme indifference to me, as I think it is a bit of half-baked astrology for morons.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can I ask what are your specific rejections of this work?
As I said before this isn't a measure of temp., a past reconstruction or a future prediction. This is a direct measurement of infrared radiation over a period of time.
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re:#59
this is an interesting read
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/11/blame_it_on_the_satellite
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#59 hotashes wrote:
Can I ask what are your specific rejections of this work?
My specific rejections of this entire genre is that it is the blind and ignorant "gathering of data" rather than the testing of conjecture. If it were the latter, you could simply tell me its contents instead of referring to it as if it were a work of scripture.
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61 bowman
"Can I ask what are your specific rejections of this work?
My specific rejections of this entire genre is that it is the blind and ignorant "gathering of data" rather than the testing of conjecture. If it were the latter, you could simply tell me its contents instead of referring to it as if it were a work of scripture."
Please stop insulting me. There is no need for it.
The works show that infrared radition at certain levels is not being reflected out of the atmosphere but is being retained within the atmosphere. And that this is in line with predictions made by Physicists.
Which I think is hypothesis, prediction, test, & observation. Or as you stated 'test of conjecture'.
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#62 hotashes wrote:
Which I think is hypothesis, prediction, test, & observation. Or as you stated 'test of conjecture'.
What was the prediction, exactly?
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http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/population.html#anchor57006
British population growth reference as some look to other nations.
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@ 62 and 63.
i see hotashes' point, but incidentally bowmans response is also valid.
The work was set up to measure the balance of IR in the atmosphere (gross simplification), it looks at first pass to be decent work- however from my viewpoint there are a few issues-
1-we have no real comparison, i.e. we don't know what the baseline is as we're only measuring in the 'warming' phase (though the most recent data would be interesting given the recent warming 'stall').
2- as interesting as it is, you cannot DIRECTLY attribute this difference in IR to co2. it's a step in the right direction, but not the whole story.
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front page of the Times and nside, the science is settled, the enquiries exonerated the science...
Latest from the climategate Oxburgh science 'Enquiry'
The papers chosen to be reviewed from UEA, where Phil Jones has been accused of bad behaviour, the fair 'represenative set of papaers, chosen by the Royal Society, to be given to the panel.
Which the 'sceptics' said were not the work, of Phil Jones that was being questioned....
Who was consulted, that the selection of Phil Jones work being criticised was represntative of the papers being criticised?
None other than:
Phil Jones!!!
Outstanding..
Courtesy of FOI request finally coming through to Bishop Hill website...
Is it not this is the sort of thing the BBC used to do, investigate whitewash inquiries in the public interest...?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/7/18/more-on-oxburghs-eleven.html
Lest we forget, the science WAS NOT being looked at...
Lord Oxburgh wrote to Steve Mcintyre - Climate Audit, saying
"Dear Dr Mcintyre,
Thank you for your message. What you report may or may not be the case. But as I have pointed out to you previously the science was not the subject of our study.
Yours sincerly,
Ron Oxburgh "
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/01/oxburgh-and-the-jones-admission/
Outstanding, all over the media, they are saying the enquiries exonerated the 'science' !!!
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The prediction can be roughly summarised as; an increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere will lead to reduction in the sun's energy escaping the earths atmosphere, at specific wavelenghths.
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Yes, Daisy Chained (@58, re:54), we live our life in chaos and then we die. and how does this extend my argument?
Bowman & Hotashes: We all understand the polemic; please, please stop playing with each other's minds; it started ok but it's now getting 'not nice'.
Geoff.
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It’s happening, the greens are moving away from warming and onto population control, this article tries to link the two but really they are just passing the baton.
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LabMunkey #65 wrote:
bowmans response is also valid.
Thanks! I often make my points in "raving nutter" mode for effect -- and to make things a bit more interesting -- but there really is a serious purpose behind my ravings...
Suppose we pretend for a moment that only passing a test gives us a reason to believe a hypothesis. In that case, the deliverances of statistics are much, much less detailed than we might otherwise imagine. And the deliverances of the statistics of extrapolation contain too much unwarranted detail.
For example, suppose over years of medical practice as a GP (say) I notice that fewer children seem to suffer from asthma if they have already suffered from intestinal worms as younger children. If I only allow myself to guess what proportion it is, and then afterwards test my guess by predicting what proportion of a sample of former worm-sufferers will be free of asthma, the best I can end up with is just a very rough estimate. I might guess "between two-thirds and three-quarters", then predict that between 66 and 75 out of 100 children will be free of asthma. Even if I use more sophisticated statistical methods to find out how consistent a series of observed rates in a set of samples are with my hypothesis, the hypothesis itself remains very modest.
The other way of proceeding is quite different. It assumes that we start off with samples and then extrapolate from them to the larger population. The sample above would suggest that 66% of the entire population of former worm-sufferers are free of asthma. Repeated samples allows us to say how much "scatter" there would be in repeated estimates, given that that taken together these samples are perfectly representative of the population at large.
So not only does the second method appear to give me a more precise figure, it appears to give me additional information about how varied the population is. These appearances of precision are attractive, but even more attractive to many is the way the second method appears to remove all human guesswork from the procedure. But all that glisters is not gold!
Personally, I think these specious appearances are fatally misleading, and they lead us to embrace vast amounts of unwarranted detail. You can see such details proudly paraded in the newspapers -- about cholesterol, for example, or the latest cholesterol-reducing snake oil. Please notice how often successive "studies" of this sort contradict each other.
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@ 67
but does the increased IR tie directly into co2? is it assumptive that the co2 is to blame or do they have a way of telling - i.e. the specific wavelenght?
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Maria @ 49 & Rockies @ 51,
Thickening of the active layer and permafrost degradation lowers the ground water table and increases surface water drainage, resulting in a drier surface and hence accelerating land surface desertification processes. NSIDC scientists researching the topic: Tingjun Zhang, Oliver Frauenfeld, and Richard Armstrong.
This high latitude, permafrost melt-linked change, could well be producing desertification in Canada along the 0 degree C soil surface temperature isotherm, depending on drainage 'head' & characteristics of shield rock. Not as obvious as low latitude desertification because of the (arguably) less visually-obvious botanical effects, but potentially very important - not least via methane clathrate degradation.
Geoff.
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69. At 2:15pm on 19 Jul 2010, Smiffie wrote:
"It’s happening, the greens are moving away from warming and onto population control, this article tries to link the two but really they are just passing the baton."
........
Smiffie, you're worth more than this snide comment. Grab your cohones in both hands and engage in the debate. It's not a matter of being right or wrong - just voice your opinions; you (and we) learn a lot this way.
Geoff.
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"Anthropogene epoch" = big changes taking place on Earth laid at the feet of humanity's carbon footprints.
I do not, cannot, buy into this idea as such.
There is more than enough room on this planet, more than enough food on this planet, more than enough water on this panet to support the current world population and more.
However, if by "Anthropogene epoch", you are referring the humankind’s open hand of friendship, the doublespeak, the greed, the endless wars, etc. I will buy that idea.
What would be the societal, economic and technological shifts that might bring the human footprint down to the size without trading away hard-won prosperity? Whose prosperity? The western world?
The western world must stop its exploitation, bombing, and generalized destruction of the rest of the world - all of which maintains its propsperity at a terrible cost to the less advantaged of this world.
Who drills holes into the earth’s crust to find diamonds, oil and other valued commodities?
Who deforrests the forrests?
Who drops depleted uranium and white phosperous onto otherwise arable land?
Which countries consume far more than their share of commodities?
Which countries throw out more food than could feed all of Africa?
Children are not the problem; people have been having children are not the problem. Malnourished & deformed children are a problem. Which countries are responsible for most malnourishment and deformation?
Family planning is good; spreading the children will afford better opportunities. That being said, family planning is a major distraction from the real problem that arise from western standards.
Should Western governments spend money re fmaily planning? Is it morally right?
I ask this counter-questiona: Is it morally right to drop bombs, over comsume, and strip good forrested land bare to make western furniture?
As for emissions, we know which countries have the highest emissions; we also know that most of these countries have come up with some sort of carbon-cap so that they can go on doing what they are doing while dumping more responsibility onto poor, underdeveloped countries.
I trust American self-serving publications about as much as I trust that droning is carefully managed.
"The report concludes that the world is entering a new geologic epoch, sometimes called the Anthropocene, in which human activities will largely control the evolution of Earth's environment.
Yes, human activities of greed, monopily, exploitation, destruction, war and pestilence.
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LabMunkey #71
but does the increased IR tie directly into co2? is it assumptive that the co2 is to blame or do they have a way of telling - i.e. the specific wavelenght?
Yes! See the first figure in the article you linked to in #60
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/11/blame_it_on_the_satellite
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@ 75- but later in the article they show the dips in the signal correspond to volcanic eruptions- which means it's not a clear relationship between co2 and the absorbed IR.
hence the question.
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Ah! So the warmist have now come full circle, having lost all the scientific arguements, tried to cover their tracks on supposed enquiries, we now see them trying to tie AGW to population control.
I suggest you all read "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton as the man is 100% right.
Welcome back to the 1920's and Eugenics and that lead to????
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#76
I'm not quite with you there, LabMunkey
Figure 1 shows the change in long wave emissions at different frequencies over a 27-year period.
Figure 4 shows a 100-year timeseries comparing net forcings and temperature. It shows that temps fall during periods of volcanic activity (as expected), but it doesn't discriminate between frequencies at all.
This is one of a number of pretty unequivocal indications that modern warming is due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions
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#75 Er no CO2 molecules do not absorb IR it passes straight through them basically.
What the badly written article is trying to lead to is that in bound IR gets locked in so warming comes from both below and above when it does not.
Not going into much detail but it appears that the returning IR causes heating and is a result of refraction man made. However, the real debate is over how much of the CO2 can actually be involved in increasing temperature although nothing has yet be confirmed it seems that only the first 100ppm of CO2 is important and any additions fall off very quickly. Namely, the difference in temp between 300ppm and 400ppm is minor and not as we are lead to beleive in the propaganda, especially when we know earth temps have been a lot lower with much higher CO2 concentrations and without mans influence.
Some of the comments are great "97% of publishing in Climate change agree" What all 88 of them!!!
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Kamboshigh @77
1920's Eugenics lead to something that was the opposite of Eugenics, namely the murder of decent intelligent people by low intelligents thugs, survival of the thickest.
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Kamboshigh #79
Citations please. The article we've been talking about, which you claim is 'badly written' does in fact include full citations.
Your first sentence
What the badly written article is trying to lead to is that in bound IR gets locked in so warming comes from both below and above when it does not.
is frankly incomprehensible
... so to described the Economist article as 'badly-written' can only be described as chutzpah of the highest order!
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#67 hotashes wrote:
The prediction can be roughly summarised as; an increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere will lead to reduction in the sun's energy escaping the earths atmosphere, at specific wavelenghths.
But a real prediction has to explicitly say what will happen -- it has to say how much less of the Sun's energy will be observed at which specific wavelengths, or at least within which specific wavelength ranges. If the prediction came true, then the hypotheses that yielded it were corroborated, and we have a better reason to believe them.
However, if reductions were observed which were not explicitly predicted, and then the observed values were in effect treated as a "sample" or basis for extrapolation, and all the exercise is doing is generating more of the same unwarranted detail.
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82
"But a real prediction has to explicitly say what will happen -- it has to say how much less of the Sun's energy will be observed at which specific wavelengths, or at least within which specific wavelength ranges. If the prediction came true, then the hypotheses that yielded it were corroborated, and we have a better reason to believe them."
But the work in this field did make these predictions. This has been my point from the start
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Warmest year worldwide in history since weather records have been kept. First things first: Let's question the integrity of those collecting the data.
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#83 hotashes wrote:
But the work in this field did make these predictions. This has been my point from the start
In that case I'm impressed -- I'll look it up!
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bowmanthebard #85: In that case I'm impressed -- I'll look it up!
I take it back. I'm not impressed at all. The title of the paper is "Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra"
Do you know what "inferred from" means? It means the observations were not used to test a hypothesis but instead as the basis for an inference.
Please note the difference between
If H then O
and
If O then H.
These authors are attempting the latter, so they've got the observation-theory link completely the wrong way round. I'm underwhelmed.
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Human rights, as presently understood in the Western first world, would be compromised by population reduction programmes because the downwards rate of change of population size needed to contribute to reversing AGW would necessitate active, rather than passive, interventions.
.
I have introduced ‘elective euthanasia’ as a potential candidate, rejecting compulsory euthanasia; and others have recognised forced restrictions on the number of births allowed. But this will not be enough to rapidly reduce the world population and, at the same time, keep the age-distribution of the species in balance.
.
Smiffie (@ #80) introduces eugenics programmes to the debate, warning against their misuse. But any type of eugenics programme must be a misuse – as defined through national and international Human Rights legislations.
.
“Today (eugenics) is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted massive human rights violations on millions of people. The "interventions" advocated and practiced by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and classification of individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, promiscuous women, homosexuals and entire racial groups——such as the Roma and Jews——as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, euthanasia, and in the extreme case of Nazi Germany, their mass extermination.
The practices engaged in by eugenicists involving violations of privacy, ….., violations of the right to life, to found a family, ………… are all today classified as violations of human rights. The practice of negative racial aspects of eugenics, after World War II, fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide ..” Wiki.
.
It seems to me that eugenics produces a ‘partial’ (i.e. selective) approach to population reduction and will be wrong under any circumstances (However, most of these ‘interventions’ are occurring at any given time somewhere in the world, right now). Equally, a ‘passive’ approach to arresting pandemics of lethal human diseases is unacceptable, and unpredictable in its outcomes.
.
Perhaps the ‘passive’ approach WILL prove to be the only approach – competitive garnering of the world’s resources to nation states, tight border protection, and serious resource wars at national boundaries & beyond. If so, the Ruanda model of population control will prove to be the model of choice across the globe, and this International Crime will have to be re-defined as we will all be doing it.
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#84 ghostofsichuan wrote:
Warmest year worldwide in history since weather records have been kept. First things first: Let's question the integrity of those collecting the data.
-------------------------------------------
Well, when the 'data' includes vasts amounts of conjecture and shows the largest increases in temperature in areas with no stations, what the hell else are we supposed to do?
Accept it like sheep?
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GeoffWard at post 54
I know, and I think you know, how populations might be thinned if the numbers become critical. However, Soylen Green will not be on the menu just yet.
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BluesBerry @74 opined: "There is more than enough room on this planet, more than enough food on this planet, more than enough water on this panet to support the current world population and more."
Which planet is it you're living on? Clearly not the same one as me: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/
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GeoffWard @54 wrote: "Birth-rates are generally ok in the UK, (approx 1.88) and certainly below replacement level."
Birth rates are not the problem. Death rates are not the problem. The problem is the sum of the two rates, which, if it exceeds 0%, is, quite simply, too high.
A rate of increase in population of just 1% (and I believe that the global rate is slightly more than this) will mean a doubling of the population in just 70 short years - the proverbial 'three score plus ten' allotted to each of us.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function," said Dr Albert A Bartlett, and he has the problem in a nutshell: exponential growth sneaks up on you, and then clouts you over the head with a two-by-four.
Do yourself a favour and go see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY - all eight parts of it. Then come back and tell me that 'birth-rates are generally ok in the UK,' if you can.
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rniloc #90, #91.
"BluesBerry @74 opined: "There is more than enough room on this planet, more than enough food on this planet, more than enough water on this panet to support the current world population and more."
Which planet is it you're living on? Clearly not the same one as me" and ""The greatest shortcoming of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function," said Dr Albert A Bartlett, and he has the problem in a nutshell: exponential growth sneaks up on you, and then clouts you over the head with a two-by-four."
seems to me that the "greatest shortcoming of the human race" is persisting on yesterday's habits and thinking; I'm with BluesBerry, there'd be more than enough for all of us and more if only we (humans) weren't as immature. wars, divisions and corrupt global economics soak up vital resources but if we cooperated, we could address our problems.
"exponential growth" of human numbers isn't a realistic threat either since humans aren't (entirely) mindless; birth rates drop in places where people experience higher standards of living and improved medical care.
our current predicaments are due entirely to our own stupidity (like 200+ competing nation states and systemic, often faith-based, inequalities).
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jr4412 - you're right. I do agree with the sentiment of BluesBerry's position; but, as a friend of mine often said to me: "you're not taking account of human nature". Sadly, the problem is that humanity is not mature. And we don't have the luxury of enough time in which to grow up. Yes, if we were to suddenly wake up and cooperate, we probably could solve all of the problems. But that just isn't going to happen - any more than a zero population growth rate is going to happen, given that the man (and woman) in the street believe that their right to have as many children as they want is sacrosanct.
(In other news: 30,000 children in other parts of the world starve to death - every single day. But that's ok, because they're not OUR children.)
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72. GeoffWard wrote:
"Thickening of the active layer and permafrost degradation lowers the ground water table and increases surface water drainage, resulting in a drier surface and hence accelerating land surface desertification processes."
Well that's a stretch! I suppose one could say that the temporary drying out of anything is 'desertification.'
In any case, people who claim to have seen obvious signs of desertification while flying across Canada would not have seen the effected tundra.
And I'm guessing if these researchers go back there in 10 years they won't see this 'desertification' either.
But, in terms of Arctic 'desertification by the plague of locusts effect,' one real problem that some areas face is the insane overpopulation of nesting snow geese. Nobody likes to mention this because it goes against the 'extinction wave' doomsday story, but due to a fantastic conservation success the North American snow goose population has recovered and exploded. And they are turning the tundra in their nesting areas to stripped 'deserts' which will take a very long time to ever grow back - if these populations are ever reduced. However, despite the pleas of management agencies and unlimited hunting seasons in some areas, there just aren't enough hunters anymore. Rather ironic.
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77. Kamboshigh wrote:
"I suggest you all read "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton as the man is 100% right."
I agree. A marvellous work of fiction incorporating many inconvenient truths. And, in 2004, way ahead of his time to write that. Plus its a great read. I particularly enjoyed the nice touch of having the cannibals finish off the green Hollywood celebrity. A nicely fattened Gore with an apple in his mouth is probably something they would enjoy.
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86 Bowman
"I take it back. I'm not impressed at all. The title of the paper is "Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra""
I refer you to a body of research and you've decided to dismiss it because you don't like the title of the paper. Fair Enough.
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rniloc wrote (@ #91):
”Birth rates are not the problem. Death rates are not the problem. The problem is the sum of the two rates, which, if it exceeds 0%, is, quite simply, too high…….The greatest shortcoming of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function," said Dr Albert A Bartlett ….. see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY ….”
.
Rniloc,
you have the nub of the problem, and have focussed on the problem of unsustainable population growth, referring to dear old Albert Bartlett. He and I lectured on the topic contemporaneously in the 1970s; he from Maths in the USA and me from Applied Ecology in the UK. Is he still alive? I am – just! It was good to see the (youtube) lecture again, I did not know they had been transferred to the medium.
.
However, even the great Albert has problems with solutions to the problem (see his lecture; sect. 3, I think); not surprising since he was approaching the problem from maths and not the social sciences. He identifies in his lecture all the strategies that I focus on below and in my previous postings in this blog. As sensibleoldgrannie says at #89, “we all know how populations will be thinned if numbers become critical”
.
[***I attach below my last posting (currently being given ‘further thought’ by the moderators) in the hope that it will get past moderation. It contains key words that frighten moderators - like the ‘Ruanda model’ – as used in some of the best literature on the topic by Jared Diamond. The argument itself does not threaten the BBC and it falls well within its moderation policy … we shall see. ……..***]
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Human rights, as presently understood in the Western first world, would be compromised by population reduction programmes because the downwards rate of change of population size needed to contribute to reversing AGW would necessitate active, rather than passive, interventions.
.
I have introduced ‘elective euthanasia’ as a potential candidate, rejecting compulsory euthanasia; and others have recognised forced restrictions on the number of births allowed. But this will not be enough to rapidly reduce the world population and, at the same time, keep the age-distribution of the species in balance.
.
Smiffie (@ #80) introduces eugenics programmes to the debate, warning against their misuse. But any type of eugenics programme must be a misuse – as defined through national and international Human Rights legislations.
.
Wikipedia states: “Today (eugenics) is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted massive human rights violations on millions of people. The "interventions" advocated and practiced by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and classification of individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, promiscuous women, homosexuals and entireracial groups - such as the ‘Roma’ and Jews - as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, euthanasia, and in the extreme case of Nazi Germany, their mass extermination. The practices engaged in by eugenicists involving violations of privacy, ….., violations of the right to life, to found a family, ………… are all today classified as violations of human rights. The practice of negative racial aspects of eugenics, after World War II, fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide..”
.
It seems to me that eugenics produces a ‘partial’ (i.e. selective) approach to population reduction and will be wrong under any circumstances (However, most of these ‘interventions’ are occurring at any given time somewhere in the world, right now). Equally, a ‘passive’ approach to arresting pandemics of lethal human diseases is unacceptable, and unpredictable in its outcomes.
.
Perhaps the ‘passive’ approach WILL prove to be the only approach – competitive garnering of the world’s resources to nation states, tight border protection, and serious resource wars at national boundaries & beyond. If so, Jared Diamond’s Ruanda model of population control (The Third Chimpanzee, p.286) - resource-driven genocide - will prove to be the model of choice across the globe; and this International Crime will have to be re-defined as we will all be doing it.
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#96 hotashes wrote:
"I refer you to a body of research and you've decided to dismiss it because you don't like the title of the paper. Fair Enough."
Just quote the sentence or two of it in which a relevant prediction is made.
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GeoffWard @#87
It was Kamboshigh @#77 who introduced the eugenics programme to the debate, my comment @#80 was to point out that the Nazis turned eugenics on its head. I think that we will see some elements of the eugenics programme rebranded and that we will have to look again at our human rights laws.
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Observers of nature have so many chances to understand why the human species exactly mirrors the actions of its, cruder shall we say, ancestry. Build a 'nest' in a hostile environment - move it. Find there are no friendly environments - adapt or die. Except, for the moment, we have grown 'psychic' feelers, a sub-culture of spies, mingling with the 'dark lords' of what once was and thus, is to be. It is learning, just like its 'cruder' company. And, just like its cruder compatriots, it'll best not jump to conclusions.
The 'learners' are saying there is a 'magic dust', written about in folk lore, in legends, in secret codes stored only where the 'wise' can find them. They say there is only 'one truth' embodied in a 'god' who lived many moons ago when even darker lords held sway. The wisest of the 'learners' has sprung some of the 'secrets' but are thirsting for more. For knowledge equals power. Pretty soon, the cruder amongst them say, the wise will dress in hand spun silken robes and wear precious metals upon their persons. And, say the cruder, another cycle of destruction will have begun.
Some say this is the best recorded of all events the species has negotiated. Others say you will find nothing but lies in future history.
I say we have been here before.
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The problem with the article is it assumes scarcity and then that sets up competition on expenditure between birth control programmes and environmental programmes.
We have the know how and the technology to get off the addiction to fossil fuels and tap into the unlimited energy resources that we have at our disposal. We do that then we have the facility to resolve water supply and food supply issues.
Instead what we have is a serious and worsening problem with the markets for natural resources. Markets not pricing in externalities has been an age old problem but there is now an increasingly frequent problem of prices going up in markets where supply is in excess of demand.
What concerns me is that there will be an increasing grip of what are called market solutions to environmental change: carbon offsetting.
But this market is going to be queered before its properly up and running:
http://eandco.net/ Large chunk owned by Goldman Sachs.
http://www.ghgworks.com/ Has a "strategic alliance" with Goldman Sachs.
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/ What it says
Tech bubble, credit/property bubble, oil price bubble, food price bubble.
Derivative markets many times the value (supposedly) of the underlying assets from which they derive their value.
These structures - which we're taking as a given - are not fit for purpose.
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The facts are clear. The civilization humans have created has achieved in the blink of an eye conditions which offer individuals previously undreampt of freedom to travel, comfort, productivity, food supply, sanitary conditons, extension of life, amusements, education, communications, and other controls over living conditions all in bewildering variety which provide a more ideal condition for existance than prior generations of our species and related species could have possibly hoped for. The price that is paid is that for most of the energy to accomplish this we must burn fossil fuels which produce CO2 as a bi-product. All other technological alternatives have one or more serious drawbacks. These include lack of reliability of availability (solar and wind power), other highly toxic bi-products (nuclear), and limited availability compared to need (hydro-electric.)
The earth can only sustain so much additional CO2 before the greenhouse effect causes a change in climate that may become irreversible.
People all over the world want the same benefits of the technological advances those who are fortuntate to live in the developed world enjoy.
And so there is a stark choice. Accept climate change and adjust to it even though in the long run it will mean massive migrational shifts in population, changes in agriculture, extinction of some nations or develop technological alternatives which take time, huge investment, and have uncertain prospects, or control world population to a level that exists within emissions at a level that will not radically alter the climate, or force the relative minority who live with all of these comforts to give much of them up so that an increasing and uncontrolled population that doesn't can enjoy more of them. This last option is what people who call themselves "environmentalists" insist on and have been using persuasion and political power to try to enforce. In short they are telling us that America, Europe, Japan must live worse so that India, China, and Africa can live better. While many in Europe have a cultural history which leads them to believe that this scheme will not only work but accept it without protest or dissent, most of those in the United States do not. The marginal efforts to invest in what can only be realistically called a pathetic effort to impliment the minimal advantages and clearly inferior and more expensive alternative technologies is a waste of time, money, and energy that could be put to better use. Not only will this not change the ultimate outcome of uncontrolled world population growth, it won't even put a dent in the rate at which it is occurring.
Environmentalists have used many bogus arguments to persuade, one of their favorites being per capita CO2 emissions. A quick look at this shows it has no relationship to the problem. A more rational examination would be to look at GDP produced per unit CO2 emitted, in other words a cost benefit analysis. The per capita CO2 output would show that Americans who produce somewhat less CO2 than China have about a quarter its population. Stated another way America per capita CO2 output is four times as high as China's. But America's econmy is five times as large when using GDP as a measure. This means for every unit of CO2 evolved, America produces five times the benefit. And when the GDP per capita per unit CO2 produced is considered, that is the efficiency of producing a unit of GDP for each unit CO2 produce for each individual on average, Americans are twenty times as efficient as Chinese. Even this analysis ovesimplifies the problem as it does not take into account the types of products produced nor the climatic or geographical difference from nation to nation.
Environmentalists especially in Europe would impose restrictions on America but not on China at least not for awhile and China and India won't accept restrictions anyway. This without regard for what these restrictions on the US and Europe would do to the world's global economy not to mention America's and Europe's. It will not fly politically in the US. Americans will not accept what they consdider unfair and inequitable sacrifice. What is more, unlike the developing world, America's population grows only by immigration, the size of its native born population is stable.
So it comes back to population control just as it always did. But that is a taboo environmentalists will not discuss as it is far too politically sensitive and runs against the cultural shiboleths in many natios whose populations are out of control. We are not drowning in a sea of CO2, We are drwoning in a growing sea of people who among other things are creating an ocean of CO2 to drown in.
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MarcusAureliusII @102 wrote: "Americans are twenty times as efficient as Chinese."
This ignores the fact that GDP conveniently externalises a great many costs, such as the cost to us all of the raping of the planet in the name of the God of Economic Growth.
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MarcusAureliusII (@ #102) gives us ‘stark choices’:
“And so there is a stark choice:
(i) Accept climate change and adjust to it even though in the long run it will mean massive migrational shifts in population, changes in agriculture, extinction of some nations, or
(ii) develop technological alternatives which take time, huge investment, and have uncertain prospects, or
(iii) control world population to a level that exists within emissions at a level that will not radically alter the climate, or
(iv) force the relative minority who live with all of these comforts to give much of them up so that an increasing and uncontrolled population that doesn't can enjoy more of them. This last option is what people who call themselves "environmentalists" insist on and have been using persuasion and political power to try to enforce…… ”
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Marcus, you seem to think that there is just one type of environmentalist. I have many professional friends and colleagues that are environmental geographers (i), (iii); environmental technologists (ii); environmental engineers (ii); environmental sociologists (i), (iii); etc, etc. I think only my friends in environmental economics and environmental law would dominate your category (iv) – and many of these will be working for Goldman Sachs etc. on carbon trading.
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So, if I can make any sense of your argument – your category (iv) is made up of ‘tree-huggers’ (your ‘environmentalists’) and rapacious businessmen each pulling in opposite directions!
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By the way (1), do you see any role in your list for the environmental scientist?
By the way (2), you don’t seem to mention Consumption. If the USA is as good as you say at Production, perhaps it can show us the way to go with consumption …. Only a thought!
By the way (3), I’m an environmentalist very willing to talk to you about population control (as you can see from this blog). I do not consider it a taboo topic, even though the BBC is a bit shy. One approach might be to selectively cull those that consume most of the planet’s resources …. (I’m pulling your leg, but you see my point!)
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Seemingly bloody wars have been the most successful means of 'culling', at least if we include the genocide normally associated with them, before, during or after. Of course a nuclear war would be enormously efficient if it were not for the prolonged unpleasant aftermath for survivors.
However nature, bless her, has a history of finding a way of putting gluttons in their place, and, if humankind is guilty, I am sure she'll be on game already. Sorry but I just don't see climate change as the way.
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59. At 09:40am on 19 Jul 2010, hotashes,
You are wasting your time trying to talk science with bowmanthebard. His acceptance of the Physics of CO2 was just a tease. He has his opinion and he is sticking to it. Denigration of satellite data without any scientific basis is par for the course for deniers.
The problem with this blog it is hard to tell the true believers from the hacks related to the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute etc. Then you have the Rush Limbaugh ditto heads.
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71. At 2:32pm on 19 Jul 2010, LabMunkey, Oh I give up. The answer is yes, we do know what wavelengths each gas absorbs. It has been measured in the lab. It is basic physics. We know the concentration of gases in the Atmosphere. Measurements are taken regularly from balloons, rockets, aircraft etc. (The "pointless" data collection BowmantheBard objects to). The satellite measurements Ashes refers to are consistent with the models. You would think BowmantheBard would approve.
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86. At 7:51pm on 19 Jul 2010, bowmanthebard wrote:
"I take it back. I'm not impressed at all...."
Judging an article by its title. Such careful analysis. How could anyone doubt your serious intellectual and scientific analysis.
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GeoffWard;
"environmental geographers (i)"
After seeing a presentation by the US government's geographer (can't recall his name) on C-Span I corresponded with him by e-mail for awhile. He is an environmental expert and made quite an argument for the danger of returning to ice age conditions should the current CO2 induced warming trend continue. He said we are in a 200,000 year old warming period in a 28 million year old pleistocene ice age.
I was curious about his opinion regarding a report I'd heard around 1970 which predicted at that time that conditions in New York City would approximate those in Miami Florida at that time by the turn of the century due to global warming in the Nothern hemisphere induced by drying up of the Aral Sea. This ecological disaster was caused by hydroelectric dams and power stations built on feeders to the Aral Sea designed by American engineers in the 1930s under contract to Joseph Stalin. I'd forgotten about it until around the 1990s when I saw video footage of fishing boats sitting in the sand at the bottom of what was once the sea. They were next to piers and pilings that were quite tall. He didn't think much of the theory.
I was quite skeptical about claims of global warming until a few years ago when I saw photos of changes to the polar ice caps and of the Columbia glacier in Prince William Sound, Alaska which I'd seen with my own eyes in 1988. There's been a major change. I understood that this much ice does not disappear that quickly unless something big is happening.
Many economnists who are environmentalists look at a limited picture. What will cap and trade carbon credits do for Goldman Sach's investment picture, what opportunities will it create for new investments, what investments should be jettisoned? This does not relate to the bigger picture of what is happening to the world.
The US has always worried about the environment ever since Teddy Roosevelt, in fact ever since the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark. I remember the brown haze over Manhattan I saw from across the Hudson River every morning when I went to breakfast at school. That is now gone, it was cleared up. America has tried to conserve energy for decades. That's how we invented sick building syndrome, by making buildings too tight to conserve heated and air conditioned air trapping formaldehyde outgassing from plastic laminates. America is now the world's largest producer of electricity from alternative energy yet it is only about one percent of our electrical output. America is also the largest producer of electricity from nuclear power yet that is only 20% of our output.
America's seemingly insatiable thirst for electrical power and for fuel for vehicles and heating comes from its mobility, geographical size, and harsh climate. Those movies made in Hollywood California where it's always warm and sunny do not represent what most of America is like. Most of it has a harsh continental climate that is bitterly cold in winter, torrid and oppressively humid in summer. Trains, even high speed bullet trains won't work for us over our vast distances, the only effective way to move people around the country efficiently is still by flying. Video teleconferencing was invented here to cut down on travel but people want to see each other face to face when doing businesss.
If America were to actually cut its carbon "footprint" significantly, it is likely much of the world would starve to death. Cross America by plane on a clear day at any latitude and you will fly for hours over vast fields of crops as far as the eye can see in all directions. America's number one export is agricultural products even though only about one or two percent of the population works at it.
American consumption is driven by wear, obsolescence, and of course advertising induced desire to buy but in industry by need. The consumer economy is two thirds of the entire economy. Were America to stop consuming, much of the economy in many countries would grind to a halt. Can this go on forever? I don't know. It might. America's economic problems may be solvable with relatively marginal measures compared to the mess Europe is in, it isn't clear yet. But there will be years of sacrifice and adjustments to be made if it can be solved.
What will happen to the environment? It appears it will continue to change as the result of greenhouse gas buildup. China and India have said flatly they will not cut back on emissions. Europe can not strongarm America into falling on its sword. That is what many European "environmentalists" wanted. I think it was motivated by a desire to destroy America's economy because Europe couldn't compete against it. I don't see any real major change ahead. There will be marginal increases in alternative fuels but coal, oil, and gas will remain America's major source of energy for the forseeable future. Carbon capture looks to me (being an engineer) as a disaster on the way to happening. You cannot sequester vast quantities of CO2 gas forever, it will escape eventually and when it does, it will asphysiate anyone in the vacinity. That is what is believe to have killed thousands in Africa who lived near a large lake. A large bubble of CO2 escaped from under the lake and suffocatede them all.
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@ 107- no need to give up i was only asking a question!
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#108 HungeryWalleye wrote:
Judging an article by its title. Such careful analysis. How could anyone doubt your serious intellectual and scientific analysis.
I'm giving you a philosophical/logical analysis, not a scientific one. So is everyone who attempts to say how much a theory ought to be be believed, because that sort of judgement is not part of any scientific theory proper. It belongs to "meta-science" if you like.
I'm waiting for someone to quote the part of that paper that explicitly makes a prediction prior to testing it. Until someone manages to do so, it seems safe to assume it simply doesn't.
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Bowman I'd just like to clarify the point I trying to make.
Science concerns observations of natural world that enable predictions to be made. It is not about individual scientists making a prediction and then testing it – this can be part of the process but it is not the whole. I have constantly referred you to the work in this field, not just a specific paper.
You continue to focus down on specific parts instead of looking at the body of work as a whole.
The science of radiative physics is a long and complex with many predictions and tests made in the laboratory and out in the field. I've tried to find a brief summary of the work in this field concerning CO2 and although this is not perfect, as it ventures into other areas, it gives a feel for the overall story.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
The first part of this story is the development of the understanding of how CO2 interacts with the Sun's radiation. After numerous experiments, and predictions it came to be understood that CO2 absorbs and then radiates the Sun's radiation at specific wavelengths. From this a number of models/equations where created to describe these interactions. Concurrent with this process, scientists in the field discussed what the implications of increasing the level of CO2 might be. Again a number of predictions where made, but what was lacking was a way to test these predictions - observations where needed for the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere over time and a way of monitoring the spectrum of infrared radiation escaping from the earth atmosphere over time.
Now for the Harries 2001 paper. This was a piece of work to test the predictions implied by the body of research already carried out in this field i.e. that increasing the level of CO2 in the Earths atmosphere would reduce the amount of infrared radiation escaping into space at specific wavelengths. Harries et al. considered the observations of two satellites over a period of time, and compared this to the observed CO2 level in the atmosphere – their findings are nicely summarised in the graph in the article Labmunkey linked to. These observations supported the predictions made by the physical models/equations created by decades of observation, and support the conclusion that increasing CO2 levels in the Earths atmosphere reduces the amount of infrared radiation escaping from it.
The best way I can think of describing the difference between what you want me to provide you with and what I am trying to demonstrate is to use a quick example. Einstein hypothesised amongst other things that space and time where one. He created a model to describe this. This model has a number a number of implications which make a number of predictions (Einstein himself did not make these predictions but his model did). The baton is then passed to the scientists working in the field to work through the model to test it, work through the implications of what it suggests, and then try to see if these can be observed in the physical world.
You seem to be asking for the first part – the initial idea. I am trying to describe the rest.
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#112 hotashes wrote:
support the conclusion that increasing CO2 levels in the Earths atmosphere reduces the amount of infrared radiation escaping from it.
But that's hardly a controversial conclusion, is it? I've accepted the greenhouse effect since I was a child, and began to study elementary science. I would often remind everyone of it up when they were all worried about global cooling back in the 1970s. I do not mean to call any of the above into question.
What I call into question is the use of computer models as an alternative to testing, and the use of induction and statistical extrapolation as an alternative to the hypothetico-deductive method. What you describe above sounds to me like the latter -- standard, mainstream science.
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@Bowmanthebard, #111
I have a partial answer to your question "Where's the prediction" - partial because I don't have access to the full papers mentioned and am going by the abstracts and some on-line discussion of the contents - I am also, therefore, making no claims to the validity of the material it contains, but rather attempting to provide a bit of extra information so that those so-inclined to read the paper might have a better appreciation of what it is they're reading and what claims its authors are making.
The paper mentioned (Harries, 2001) talks of a "modelled difference spectrum" (which, I understand is shown in figure 2 of the paper). This would constitute the prediction. The model used to make this prediction is described in another paper:
"Line-by-line calculation of atmospheric fluxes and cooling rates 2. Application to carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide and the halocarbons", Clough SA, Iacono MJ, J. Geophys. Res.100 (1995) pp16519
In the abstract of this paper they state:
"A line-by-line model (LBLRTM) has been applied to the calculation of clear-sky longwave fluxes and cooling rates for atmospheres including CO2, O3, CH4, N2O, CCl4, CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-22 in addition to water vapor... Radiative effects associated with anticipated 10-year constituent profile changes, 1990-2000, are presented from both a spectral and spectrally integrated perspective."
(my emphasis)
I have looked further at the LBLRTM they are referring to and it harks back to a database called HITRAN (i.e. the HITRAN database is where the LBLRTM gets its spectral information and can be considered the basis of the model).
From the HITRAN website FAQ section it turns out that:
"The parameters in HITRAN are sometimes direct observations, but often calculated. These calculations are the result of various quantum-mechanical solutions. The goal of HITRAN is to have a theoretically self-consistent set of parameters, while at the same time attempting to maximize the accuracy."
So... some of the gaps in the Q-M theory are "filled in" with observation in order to arrive at as complete-as-possible a database which may actually be used to produce the sort of prediction Clough seems to have made, rather than being fully theoretical but not-quite-complete-enough to be used. I note in particular that the 1986 release of HITRAN (which must have been in use at the time) contains both calculation and observation in the CO2 spectrum.
So we come back to the old problem (which we have previously discussed at length) of the semi-empirical model... to what extent does the model result constitute a prediction? Does a corroborated prediction from such a semi-emprical scheme hold any weight?
To my mind it does on the condition that the full range of error associated with the neccessity of using observations to complete the model is explored. Whether this condition has been satisfied will take, I am afraid, a lot of reading of the background literature.
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Bowman
'But that's hardly a controversial conclusion, is it? I've accepted the greenhouse effect since I was a child, and began to study elementary science. I would often remind everyone of it up when they were all worried about global cooling back in the 1970s. I do not mean to call any of the above into question.'
Yes it is controversial as it is greatly miss understood by many skeptics and you yourself stated @ 35
"For my own part, I do not mean to "criticisize the minutae" but point out that AGW is unadulterated pseudoscience from top to bottom."
Which is where I enter this debate trying to demonstrate that it is not.
As for Global Cooling in the 1970s - more papers published where concerned with global warming, not cooling. Another oft reported myth unfortunately.
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bowmanthebard #35: For my own part, I do not mean to "criticisize the minutae" but point out that AGW is unadulterated pseudoscience from top to bottom.
hotashes #115: Which is where I enter this debate trying to demonstrate that it is not.
But would you defend astrology in a similar way, because it gets the positions of the planets right? Wouldn't it make more sense to observe a "mutual exclusivity" between various disciplines, the more incisively to demarcate them? I'd say the positions of the planets is determined by legitimate astronomy, and the greenhouse effect is hypothesized by legitimate physics. But predictions of a person's love life based on the moment of his birth, or of the future climate based on past tree ring growth belong to different disciplines -- they do not inherit the legitimacy of genuine sciences whose finding they "borrow".
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#114 Dave_oxon wrote:
The paper mentioned (Harries, 2001) talks of a "modelled difference spectrum" (which, I understand is shown in figure 2 of the paper). This would constitute the prediction.
I hope we're not talking at cross-purposes here. I'm stressing the importance of prediction because testing relies on prediction. The theory passes or fails the test when its prediction is found to be true or false.
By analogy, astrology is riddled with predictions, but they aren't used in tests.
The prediction you mentioned above -- I trust that was used as part of a test?
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#115 hotashes wrote:
As for Global Cooling in the 1970s - more papers published where concerned with global warming, not cooling. Another oft reported myth unfortunately.
Sorry, but first I don't believe that there's any reliable measure of the "number of papers published" on a topic, and second, I remember the 1970s clearly because I was a teenage science geek at the time, much interested in physics in general and the weather in particular. (I was the "weather forecaster" in my family.) I remember quite clearly how often it was reported in the newspapers -- and widely discussed by the general public -- that global temperatures had been falling for decades. The widespread anxiety at the time was of global cooling -- a fear that became specifically focussed at the end of the decade on the spectre of "nuclear winter". I don't think I met anyone who was worried about increasing temperatures. (Apart from in the moments just after the feared nuclear weapons went off!)
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118 Bowman
As for Global Cooling in the 1970s - more papers published where concerned with global warming, not cooling. Another oft reported myth unfortunately.
Sorry, but first I don't believe that there's any reliable measure of the "number of papers published" on a topic, and second, I remember the 1970s clearly because I was a teenage science geek at the time, much interested in physics in general and the weather in particular. (I was the "weather forecaster" in my family.) I remember quite clearly how often it was reported in the newspapers -- and widely discussed by the general public -- that global temperatures had been falling for decades. The widespread anxiety at the time was of global cooling -- a fear that became specifically focussed at the end of the decade on the spectre of "nuclear winter". I don't think I met anyone who was worried about increasing temperatures. (Apart from in the moments just after the feared nuclear weapons went off!)
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As interesting a story as this is maybe there is a lesson to be had here when discussing science. As a teenage Science geek maybe you should have been reading reputable science journals instead of getting your information from the Media.
If you had you could have told your friends and family in your capacity as “weather forecaster” that whilst the media maybe discussing global cooling most scientists in the field where actually discussing global warming.
Peterson 2008 discusses this issue stating only 7 papers between 1965 and 1979 predicted global cooling whilst 42 predicted global warming.
…Cue long winded analogy
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Peterson 2008 discusses this issue stating only 7 papers between 1965 and 1979 predicted global cooling whilst 42 predicted global warming.
…Cue long winded analogy
What did Peterson 1980 discuss?
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@Bowmanthebard, #117
"The prediction you mentioned above -- I trust that was used as part of a test?"
First, you may view the modelled difference spectrum by going to this website:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/321/
and clicking the link "PDF of Harries et al result from 2001" [a PDF file link] (it is actually the middle line of figure 1b from the paper, not figure 2).
I have now obtained and read a copy of the paper. At no point do they state "Our prediction was..." followed by "the results are...". I guess this would invalidate this work according to your strict interpretation of the scientific method!
I have my own reasons for holding the opinion that this paper does fulfill the requirements of the scientific method; from it I quote:
"We have reported above the agreement between the observed difference spectra and simulated spectra, which are calculated quite independently from basic knowledge of the atmospheric state."
(The basic knowledge referred to is the various concentrations of trace gases in the atmosphere in 1970/1 and 1996/7.)
It is the stated independence of the calculation from the measurement that makes this, in my opinion, a valid scientific prediction and test.
My reasons for thinking it is valid are that the prediction was essentially made by others working in the field who developed the methodology for calculating the "expected observed OLR spectrum". For example, from the references section I note the paper I referred to before (Clough, 1995) and also "The spectral signature of global warming", Slingo, Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc.123 p293 (1996). These would seem to be important component parts of the documentation of how to make the necessary prediction - Since the explicit methodology exists (in the form of MODTRAN3, incorporating the HITRAN database), I would argue that the prediction also exists even if the specific case being discussed has not been dealt with yet.
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