Climate Change, real or codswallop?

Christophe3967

Rolf F wrote:

I've missed this place

Quote from Ben Goldacre - Bad Science column in the Guardian. He tends not to pretend to be an expert in the specific scientific fields but does know about data and how it is reported.

So as we career towards a mediocre outcome in Copenhagen, why do roughly half the people in this country not believe in man-made climate change, when the overwhelming majority of scientists do?

Firstly we have the psychological issues. We're predisposed to undervalue adverse outcomes which are a long way off, especially if we might be old or dead soon. We're inherently predisposed to find cracks in evidence that suggests we should do something we don't want to do, hence the enduring appeal of stories about alcohol being good for you.

Suggesting that personal behaviour change will have a big role to play, when we know that telling people to do the right thing is a weak way to change behaviour, is an incomplete story: you need policy changes to make better behaviour easier, and we all understand that fresh fruit on sale at schools is more effective than telling children not to eat sweets.

This is exacerbated because climate science is difficult. We could discuss everything you needed to know about MMR and autism in an hour. Climate change will take two days of your life, for a relatively superficial understanding: if you're interested, I'd recommend the IPCC website.

On top of that, we don't trust governments on science, because we know they distort it. We see that a minister will sack Professor David Nutt, if the evidence on the relative harms of drugs is not to the government's taste. We see the government brandish laughable reports to justify DNA retention by the police with flawed figures, suspicious missing data, and bogus arguments.

We know that evidence-based policy is window dressing, so now, when they want us to believe them on climate science, we doubt.

Then, of course, the media privilege foolish contrarian views because they have novelty value, and also because "established" views get confused with "establishment" views, and anyone who comes along to have a pop at those gets David v Goliath swagger.

But the key to all of this is the recurring mischief of criticisms mounted against climate change. I am very happy to affirm that I am not a giant expert on climate change: I know a bit, and I know that there's not yet been a giant global conspiracy involving almost every scientist in the world (although I'd welcome examples).

More than all that, I can spot the same rhetorical themes re-emerging in climate change foolishness that you see in aids denialism, homeopathy, and anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists.

Among all these, reigning supreme, is the "zombie argument": arguments which survive to be raised again, for eternity, no matter how many times they are shot down. "Homeopathy worked for me," and the rest.


Zombie arguments survive, immortal and resistant to all refutation, because they do not live or die by the normal standards of mortal arguments. There's a huge list of them at realclimate.org, with refutations. There are huge lists of them everywhere. It makes no difference.

"CO2 isn't an important greenhouse gas", "Global warming is down to the sun", "what about the cooling in the 1940s?" says your party bore. "Well," you reply, "since the last time you raised this, I checked, and there were loads of sulphites in the air in the 1940s to block out the sun, made from the slightly different kind of industrial pollution we had then, and the odd volcano, so that's been answered already, ages ago."

And they knew that. And you know they knew you could find out, but they went ahead anyway and wasted your time, and worse than that, you both know they're going to do it again, to some other poor sap. And that is rude.

Rolf, earlier in the thread is a reference to Real Climate which explains that it is not unbiased and cannot therefore be relied on.

Goldacre dismisses the CRU emails without comment and then does on to claim that there's no evidence of a global conspiracy amongst climate scientists. Sorry, but this is completely untrue. There is a whole raft of incriminating evidence pointing directly at the CRU, NASA GISS and The Met Office showing how they distorted the whole process.

When I catch my children lying they usually continue to lie despite the fact that they've been caught red handed. "I wasn't taking a biscuit" - even though they're holdinng the biscuit tin and have their hand inside. They simply don't know what else to do.

Goldacre persists in dismissing those who disagree. At least his colleague, George Monbiot has had the grace to apologise.

jedster

Sorry coming a bit late to this, some thoughts:

First what I believe:

1. the world is warming. I don't think many serious observers doubt this although some of the sceptics do point to a single very warm year about 10 years ago and say that the world has not warmed since then. I think even most of these people when pushed admit that argument is ballcocks - you need to consider the trend not look at isolated data points

2. There is very good evidence and well understood physics that this warming is substantially down to the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - principally CO2.

3. Burning of fosil fuels has put a very large amount of Co2 into the atmoshere in a very short time (geologically speaking!) - previous rises have been more gradual caused largely by an increased trickle of Co2 from increased volcanic activity over a very long (geological) time.

So yes I believe that human activity is causing global warming. This is not absolutely certain but then nor is the Theory of Gravity or the Theory of Evolution both of which I also believe in (incidently the clue to lack of absolute certainty is in the word "Theory", if it was certain it would be a "Law"). I think the quality fo evidence is quite similar between evolution and AGW.

Anthropomorphic global warming is like a religion.

You can't prove it, you can't disprove it.

As you can imagine I don't agree with the above at all. AGW is like any other field of science. It keeps getting tested but is a widely accepted theory because it fits the facts well and much better than any other we have at the moment. Like evolution.

Incidently the New Scientist web site has a great section covering the arguments for and against AGW.

So what should we do about it? Here I think there is more room for debate:

As Greg66 points out, man is highly adaptable (just think of the varying climates that we survive in) and the species should be able to adjust provided we don't have an acute catastrophe... Also some big land masses will probably get more productive with warming (Canada, Siberia) and it is possible that total food production capacity could rise even if the hugely fertile areas of Sub-saharan Africa, Northern India and China are wrecked.

Unfortunately there are two big arguments against just letting it happen and adapting:

1. A moral one - hundreds of millions of very poor people will suffer a lot in the process of adjustment (Bangladesh being only the most obvious)

2. A self-interest one - nuclear weapons. India and China have the bomb. They have billions of people dependent on some of the most fertile land in the world. If that land loses a lot of fertility over say 50 or 100 years then the world will have to accommodate them elsewhere. Billions. Can that be achieved in a peaceful manner or will it provoke confrontation between nuclear powers? First place to look might be fighting for reducing water resources from the Himalyas between India and China. If that happens, do we really think the consequences for us will be small relative to the cost of cutting C02 emmissions?

Incidently, in the course of my work I occasionally meet with senior military people, current and retired. Their long term threat assessment is dominated by these kinds of issues.

I think AGW is well established. I think the consequences of AGW are uncertain but potentially very grave. What should we do with that conundrum? I find the argument for paying an insurance premium in the form of more costly energy sources compelling.

I don't have a problem with people being sceptical. I do get frustrated by people who expound sceptical views without being arsed to do a little research (New Scientist website is a good place to start).

All the best,

J

tuxpoo

Christophe3967 wrote:

When I catch my children lying they usually continue to lie despite the fact that they've been caught red handed. "I wasn't taking a biscuit" - even though they're holdinng the biscuit tin and have their hand inside. They simply don't know what else to do.

Imagine how Far the child would lie of they were being paid huge amounts of cash to steal the biscuits and maintaining the lie would also maintain the cashflow!

Tux

Aguila

Greg66 wrote:

Ah. Back again. I thought you'd gone. Still smarting, eh?

Right: dictionaries. I am concerned with spelling and grammar, because to me, if a person can't be bothered to check their spelling or grammar, it undermines my confidence in them having checked their facts, or thought about the issue properly. You might think that's old fashioned, but there you are.

(BTW: Rain Man was good at sums, as I recall, not spelling
Second BTW: as I've explained before, what you advanced wasn't evidence. It was a collection of assertion and opinion. It's what gets generated after evidence has been considered. Distinguishing fact from evidence isn't always obvious. Example "You are 5'2"" is a fact. "You are short", OTOH, is an opinion. See the point?).

Secondly, "denier" is a spelling both of someone who denies, and a hosiery grade. It was a little J-O-K-E (see dictionary under "J").

Thirdly, yes, I've had a go at you, but read what you've quoted me as saying: in this thread. That's what Porgy was referring to. That's what I was referring to. Pedantic, you'll say. Careless, I say; see point 1 above.

Fourthly, your second point. Again - re-read what I wrote. It's not for me to convince anyone of anything. That's the task of those who want (for example) to dictate what cars people should buy.

Finally, I agree that we're not going to agree; IIRC I suggested some time ago we come back in 20 years and see who was right. Somehow, though, I suspect this isn't the last word.

Smarting? You'll have to try a bit harder than that. I left primary school 25 yrs ago.

Well, I have included a link to the Merc ML thread in this thread, so strictly speaking those quotes are in this thread too.

And I dont buy that you are not trying to convince people of something. IMO you are just as passionately anti-CC as others are pro it.

Happy to report back here in 20 years. In my diary.

TheStone

jedster wrote:

1. the world is warming. I don't think many serious observers doubt this although some of the sceptics do point to a single very warm year about 10 years ago and say that the world has not warmed since then. I think even most of these people when pushed admit that argument is ballcocks - you need to consider the trend not look at isolated data points

2. There is very good evidence and well understood physics that this warming is substantially down to the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - principally CO2.

3. Burning of fosil fuels has put a very large amount of Co2 into the atmoshere in a very short time (geologically speaking!) - previous rises have been more gradual caused largely by an increased trickle of Co2 from increased volcanic activity over a very long (geological) time.

True, but the extent of each is not that significant.

1. It's only 0.7C over 250 years !!!
2. If it's well understood, then they should be able to predict things better.
3. But CO2 is a small part and humans produce a tiny part of that.

cjw

jedster wrote:

2. There is very good evidence and well understood physics that this warming is substantially down to the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - principally CO2.


J

You would think so from what is said wouldn't you. However CO2 currently is around 380ppm. Historically it has been much much higher (in the 1,000s!) and the temperature doesn't vary particularly along with the CO2 levels.



The climate system is far more complex than simply increase CO2 = increase temperature.

greg66_tri_v2.0

That's an interesting graph, esp for the temp line.

Looks like the "natural" state of climate on the planet over the last few million years has been an ice age.

Pretty sure the advent of those ages was due to human intervention.

So maybe I'll invest in some merino thermals.

The Day After Tomorrow is our future!

Sewinman

To be honest who cares if Gregg66 or some of the other Tory types on this forum like to get excited about not buying anthropegenic climate change!

The policy makers are on board and will just tax such people into changing their lifestyles. A change of government won't make a difference to such policies either.

Christophe3967

Sewinman wrote:

To be honest who cares if Gregg66 or some of the other Tory types on this forum like to get excited about not buying anthropegenic climate change!

The policy makers are on board and will just tax such people into changing their lifestyles. A change of government won't make a difference to such policies either.

Nail. Head.

A glimpse of the real agenda...

Don't lets delude ourselves that we live in a democracy.

The odd thing about this redistribution of wealth is that the biggest beneficiaries will be our buddies at Goldman Sachs and all the other bankers who stand to make billions when the carbon trading market really gets of the ground.

Rich158

Surely the point is that the current level of climate change is man made, which isn't linked to what has happened historically over millions of years. Yes the global temperatures have fluctuated, and not always in line with CO2, does that therefore mean that the current dominant species (ie us) has had nothing to do with the current situation, and that we should just sit arround and wait for our demise. It's about evidence, which points to the current situation being man made. After all would you convict someone on their past record or look at whether the evidence actually points to them commiting the crime or not? Yes past evidence plays a part, but it's not the whole picture, and if you're going to use that graph to debunk the whole theory of man made global warming you may as well say it's down to the lack of pirates as well.

rolf_f

Christophe3967 wrote:

Rolf, earlier in the thread is a reference to Real Climate which explains that it is not unbiased and cannot therefore be relied on.

Goldacre dismisses the CRU emails without comment and then does on to claim that there's no evidence of a global conspiracy amongst climate scientists. Sorry, but this is completely untrue. There is a whole raft of incriminating evidence pointing directly at the CRU, NASA GISS and The Met Office showing how they distorted the whole process.

Not seen the evidence yet and I'm waiting for the outcome of the independant review. Honestly, whilst I can see it being possible that some organisations as a whole might try to distort the evidence, the concept that there is a global conspiracy of scientists is far fetched in the extreme. It just doesn't reflect how scientists think - the one thing they want to do is pick holes in the theories of others. Of course the current conscensus might be wrong but it is the best we have. If it wasn't, then there would be rather more convincing arguments against climate change than there are now.

I like the graph CJW posted. However, it cannot be used to comment on current climate change without a lot more info with it. At that scale of time, many other factors such as continental drift, sea level, overall land mass, vegetation extent etc come in to play. It is interesting but not really that useful on its own.

Sewinman

Christophe3967 wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

To be honest who cares if Gregg66 or some of the other Tory types on this forum like to get excited about not buying anthropegenic climate change!

The policy makers are on board and will just tax such people into changing their lifestyles. A change of government won't make a difference to such policies either.

Nail. Head.

A glimpse of the real agenda...

Don't lets delude ourselves that we live in a democracy.

The odd thing about this redistribution of wealth is that the biggest beneficiaries will be our buddies at Goldman Sachs and all the other bankers who stand to make billions when the carbon trading market really gets of the ground.

Fingers crossed Goldman's set up a carbon desk...I might get a job there!

il_principe

Anything individuals attempt to do to curb emissions is all a tad meaningless given how the Chinese scuppered Copenhagen...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6961666.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6855801/Copenhagen-a-world-at-war-over-its-future.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/china-stands-accused-of-wrecking-global-deal-1845911.html

Jay dubbleU

Given that we are currently living in an inter-glacial period and that as a species we have evolved during one of the coolest periods in earths history I believe it is inevitable that at some time temperatures will start to rise back to the historic average. How much of this is due to our activity is hard to be sure but if this is the end of the inter-glacial then we should expect warmer tempreatures anyway. Unfortunately one of the side effects of this is likely to be increased melting of the Arctic ice sheets resulting in more icebergs and desalinisation of the North Atlantic - this in turn will interupt the Gulf Stream meaning that we are likely to get weather closer to that of Nova Scotia than our current climate. Of course this is likely to be a temporary local phase before the temperature continues to rise.

Christophe3967

Rolf F wrote:

Not seen the evidence yet and I'm waiting for the outcome of the independant review. Honestly, whilst I can see it being possible that some organisations as a whole might try to distort the evidence, the concept that there is a global conspiracy of scientists is far fetched in the extreme. It just doesn't reflect how scientists think - the one thing they want to do is pick holes in the theories of others. Of course the current conscensus might be wrong but it is the best we have. If it wasn't, then there would be rather more convincing arguments against climate change than there are now.

Rolf - look at Ross McKitrick and Steven McIntyre's work and then consider how the climate community has sought to exclude it from appearing in any IPCC study.

Phil Jones the head of the CRU wrote to Michael Mann in 2004 saying that he would ensure that MacIntyre and McKitrick’s work was excluded from any IPCC report even if they had to redefine the peer review process in order to do so. He also mentions that if M&M hear that there’s a FOI act in the UK “I think I’ll delete it rather than send it to anyone”

When the scientific journal “Climate Research” published an article stating that the late 20th century was not in fact unusually warm, Mann wrote to Jones saying that “its pretty clear here that the sceptics had staged a bit of a coup” , and that we will have to “stop considering Climate Research as legitimate peer-reviewed journal”.

Another email exchange between Mann and Tom Wigley, discussing a scientist who they felt might have contradictory views stated “if we find evidence he is a sceptic, we can go through official AGU channels to have him ousted”.

There's plenty of other evidence but you won't find it in the main stream scientific press nor in the mainstream media, as there are too many vested interests. If you consider that almost every climate scientist relies on public funding, and that funding in turn might be reduced if there was no story, then you can see the scope for abuse. And stories about polar bears and rising sea levels make good copy.

Christophe3967

Sewinman wrote:

Christophe3967 wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

To be honest who cares if Gregg66 or some of the other Tory types on this forum like to get excited about not buying anthropegenic climate change!

The policy makers are on board and will just tax such people into changing their lifestyles. A change of government won't make a difference to such policies either.

Nail. Head.

A glimpse of the real agenda...

Don't lets delude ourselves that we live in a democracy.

The odd thing about this redistribution of wealth is that the biggest beneficiaries will be our buddies at Goldman Sachs and all the other bankers who stand to make billions when the carbon trading market really gets of the ground.

Fingers crossed Goldman's set up a carbon desk...I might get a job there!

Drinks are on you then

Sewinman

Christophe3967 wrote:

There's plenty of other evidence but you won't find it in the main stream scientific press nor in the mainstream media, as there are too many vested interests. If you consider that almost every climate scientist relies on public funding, and that funding in turn might be reduced if there was no story, then you can see the scope for abuse. And stories about polar bears and rising sea levels make good copy.

Nice logic - any science that is remotely news worthy is null and void and should be completely ignored from this day forth as it self-serving and untrustworthy and part of a global conspiracy. Only science from amateurs and discoveries made in the back of a shed can be trusted. That is all.

Christophe3967

Sewinman wrote:

Christophe3967 wrote:

There's plenty of other evidence but you won't find it in the main stream scientific press nor in the mainstream media, as there are too many vested interests. If you consider that almost every climate scientist relies on public funding, and that funding in turn might be reduced if there was no story, then you can see the scope for abuse. And stories about polar bears and rising sea levels make good copy.

Nice logic - any science that is remotely news worthy is null and void and should be completely ignored from this day forth as it self-serving and untrustworthy and part of a global conspiracy. Only science from amateurs and discoveries made in the back of a shed can be trusted. That is all.

Sorry, you're quite right on that point. I should have said that you won't necessarily find it in the mainstream journals. My point about vested interests remains though.

rolf_f

Il Principe wrote:

Anything individuals attempt to do to curb emissions is all a tad meaningless given how the Chinese scuppered Copenhagen...

China? I think America was ultimately more to blame. Absolutely hopeless.

Christophe3967 wrote:

There's plenty of other evidence but you won't find it in the main stream scientific press nor in the mainstream media, as there are too many vested interests. If you consider that almost every climate scientist relies on public funding, and that funding in turn might be reduced if there was no story, then you can see the scope for abuse. And stories about polar bears and rising sea levels make good copy.

You've done your research too well for me to do likewise! Still, I simply don't see that the public funding issue is relevant. If it were, we'd have much less man made blame on CC.

Besides - all this stuff on hospitals and the police being protected from cuts in coming years. No mention of any protection for investment into the environment and its protection. Shows how far up the ladder the Environment is in political terms (probably barely on the first rung!) - honestly, the authorities really don't care very much and would rather it went away (which it soon will ).

Porgy

Aguila wrote:

Second point, you criticise Porgy for shouting people down and dismissing any evidence from your side. Can you not see that this is exctly what you do in all your posts as well, just from a different standpoint??.

I don't think I do - have always tried to answer each point as I am able - in fact in the other thread I was positively encouraging those I was then calling 'sceptics' (out of fostering atmosphere of mutual respect) to provide evidence to convince me.

Given that this is a busy time of year both personally and at work - I have done my absolute best - and actually have a small pile of "sceptical" literature by my bed.

Haven't read anything to convince me yet though

il_principe

Rolf F wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

Anything individuals attempt to do to curb emissions is all a tad meaningless given how the Chinese scuppered Copenhagen...

China? I think America was ultimately more to blame. Absolutely hopeless.

Have a little read round this one. It seems that China set the US to fail. Sad really as Obama seemed to have far better green credentials than Bush, and CC debates aside I do believe that the issue of dwindling resources needs to be dealt with via a global consensus.

rolf_f

Il Principe wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

Anything individuals attempt to do to curb emissions is all a tad meaningless given how the Chinese scuppered Copenhagen...

China? I think America was ultimately more to blame. Absolutely hopeless.

Have a little read round this one. It seems that China set the US to fail. Sad really as Obama seemed to have far better green credentials than Bush, and CC debates aside I do believe that the issue of dwindling resources needs to be dealt with via a global consensus.

I thought the point was that Obama came to the table with nothing to offer - isn't the US still the second biggest polluter after China? I'd agree that the potential is there with Obama but America really has to act first.

Christophe3967

Surely the public funding issue is pertinent? This is after all our money they're spending. Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU. Between 2000 and 2006 Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.

The European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. Lots of scope for vested interest there maybe?

Why does the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm keeps ringing so loudly perhaps? The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than some of its likeliest beneficiaries?

Just a thought.

Porgy

Christophe3967 wrote:

[The tactic of simply dismissing any counter - argument as wrong, and implying that those people are in some way inferior, either intellectually or morally, is again a cheap shot. You know very well that there are plenty of highly qualified scientists prepared to argue against your perspective and call for a proper debate. A number of reasonable points have been made by various posters and as always seems to be the case, these have been dismissed as bogus without any substantive explanation.

I have never dismissed counter arguments out of hand - I've offered evidence for all my refutations - something most sceptics (being respectful again, see?) haven't done.

You're taking a reply I made to Greg66 far too personally. I'd replied to a post where he stereotyped environmentalists and climate scientists in the most insulting and demeaning way possible - and had been engaged in a run of personal attacks on me and others arguing from my side.

The comments I made were aimed at him and others of his ilk - and not aimed at those who have been arguing with evidence.

I'm interested to see what "highly qualified scientists prepared to argue against [my]perspective" have to say...my aim in this is to keep it a purely scientific / rational debate - I absolutely refuse to get into personal name-calling, and will not debate with anyone not willing to respect me in the way I am being asked to respect them.

jedster

BTW - this is a link to the New Scientist web page I mentioned

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... lexed.html

Roastie

Christophe3967 wrote:

... If you consider that almost every climate scientist relies on public funding, and that funding in turn might be reduced if there was no story, then you can see the scope for abuse.

Erm, no. Don't forget that a good deal of climate scientists are funded by oil companies, large power utilities and car makers. Where do you think the cynical press comes from?

Porgy

jedster wrote:

BTW - this is a link to the New Scientist web page I mentioned

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... lexed.html

Yeah but you can't believe anything that scientists tell you - it's all one big conspiracy I tell ya - and they're all in it together.

:roll:

Porgy

Roastie wrote:

Christophe3967 wrote:

... If you consider that almost every climate scientist relies on public funding, and that funding in turn might be reduced if there was no story, then you can see the scope for abuse.

Erm, no. Don't forget that a good deal of climate scientists are funded by oil companies, large power utilities and car makers. Where do you think the cynical press comes from?

+1 and they have a lot more money than the cash strapped public sector.

As recently as last year it was common to hear climate scientists whistleblowing about restrictions placed on them by fund-holders, many of whom are corporately sponsored.

The Bush government wasn't exactly supportive of climate change theory either.

This conspiracy theory is a fairy story like all other conspiracy theories.

Porgy

Sewinman wrote:

Christophe3967 wrote:

There's plenty of other evidence but you won't find it in the main stream scientific press nor in the mainstream media, as there are too many vested interests. If you consider that almost every climate scientist relies on public funding, and that funding in turn might be reduced if there was no story, then you can see the scope for abuse. And stories about polar bears and rising sea levels make good copy.

Nice logic - any science that is remotely news worthy is null and void and should be completely ignored from this day forth as it self-serving and untrustworthy and part of a global conspiracy. Only science from amateurs and discoveries made in the back of a shed can be trusted. That is all.

+1

I don;t often agree with you Sewinman 8)

Porgy

Christophe3967 wrote:

There is a whole raft of incriminating evidence pointing directly at the CRU, NASA GISS and The Met Office showing how they distorted the whole process

I'd like to see it.