Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. (Vol 5)
Discussion
Camoradi said:
turbobloke said:
It's OK they're greenies. Any carbon dioxide molecules emitted by the actions of greenies carry a moralistic planet-friendly sticker made from recycled nucleons to warn off any incoming infrared radiation. The uncertainty principle won't scramble this key message as a Heisenberg Compensator has been thoughtfully borrowed from the Starship Enterprise.
Well that's put my mind at rest. Without information like this I could have easily mistaken it for a hypocritical act of childish attention seeking, encouraged by her parents.I actually feel sorry for the kid. I have an ominous feeling that her story in years to come may not be a happy one
Randy Winkman said:
Camoradi said:
turbobloke said:
It's OK they're greenies. Any carbon dioxide molecules emitted by the actions of greenies carry a moralistic planet-friendly sticker made from recycled nucleons to warn off any incoming infrared radiation. The uncertainty principle won't scramble this key message as a Heisenberg Compensator has been thoughtfully borrowed from the Starship Enterprise.
Well that's put my mind at rest. Without information like this I could have easily mistaken it for a hypocritical act of childish attention seeking, encouraged by her parents.I actually feel sorry for the kid. I have an ominous feeling that her story in years to come may not be a happy one
There's no reason for anyone to have anything but sympathy for her as a victim of extremists looking for (and finding) an appropriately youthful useful biped.
It may do her some good in some eyes of course. Possibly a Nobel Prize of the same token worth as Obama's and a place at whichever Ivy League uni is deepest into the green religiion. The price may not be clear, at any particular time, but we can hope that benefits outweigh the disbenefits.
Edited by turbobloke on Thursday 29th August 08:55
More good news mainly but not wholly for Americans.
The USA Navy shut down their Climate Change Task Force back in March. The pointless but costly 'force' was previously established after one of Obama's climate glands overheated. Possibly the White House denied it has any meaninful use beyond posturing which isn't meaningful.
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/us-...
The USA Navy shut down their Climate Change Task Force back in March. The pointless but costly 'force' was previously established after one of Obama's climate glands overheated. Possibly the White House denied it has any meaninful use beyond posturing which isn't meaningful.
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/us-...
[URL]BBC News - Climate change: Big lifestyle changes 'needed to cut emissions'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-494...
Nice to see someone being honest about the reality of tackling environmental issues.
I would love to see what social psychologists predict on how likely the general public will play ball.
Im sure there will be mountain of data and research on how people generally behave to things like this.
Smocked is a good example, I wonder how many people would still be smoking if all they did was warn people of the consequences and not increase the cost, I suspect a lot.
Humans even with clear information something will be highly damaging to us will carry on doing because they want to.
Its the substantial cost placed on cigarettes that stopped many people, the banning of it in certain environments.
That says to me all this warning about how we need to change our lives to save the world is going to do f all.
So that leaves green tax, and just banning people from using things and doing things. The problem with that it comes up against something call democracy. A plastic bag tax, a few pence on fuel, a slightly bigger electric bill all of which do nothing really to slow or stop environmental damage are one thing. Start making changes where people actually start to feel it. Then there will always be a Trump like character ready to say "sod that lets not bother vote for me".
Ultimately we are all smokers and it's us choosing how much they should cost.
I wonder how that would have gone if it was purely up to smokers in the past to come up with laws and costs to prevent people from smoking?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-494...
Nice to see someone being honest about the reality of tackling environmental issues.
I would love to see what social psychologists predict on how likely the general public will play ball.
Im sure there will be mountain of data and research on how people generally behave to things like this.
Smocked is a good example, I wonder how many people would still be smoking if all they did was warn people of the consequences and not increase the cost, I suspect a lot.
Humans even with clear information something will be highly damaging to us will carry on doing because they want to.
Its the substantial cost placed on cigarettes that stopped many people, the banning of it in certain environments.
That says to me all this warning about how we need to change our lives to save the world is going to do f all.
So that leaves green tax, and just banning people from using things and doing things. The problem with that it comes up against something call democracy. A plastic bag tax, a few pence on fuel, a slightly bigger electric bill all of which do nothing really to slow or stop environmental damage are one thing. Start making changes where people actually start to feel it. Then there will always be a Trump like character ready to say "sod that lets not bother vote for me".
Ultimately we are all smokers and it's us choosing how much they should cost.
I wonder how that would have gone if it was purely up to smokers in the past to come up with laws and costs to prevent people from smoking?
Not-The-Messiah said:
Randy Winkman said:
Looks to me like she's having an adventure lots of teenagers would be envious of.
Yes and if every teenage replicated her adventure it would be massively damaging to the environment. Wayoftheflower said:
Not-The-Messiah said:
Randy Winkman said:
Looks to me like she's having an adventure lots of teenagers would be envious of.
Yes and if every teenage replicated her adventure it would be massively damaging to the environment. 
ks reallyEven more good news as seen on Bloomberg today, the US EPA is looking to roll back over-regulation on oil well methane by removing storage tanks, pipelines / other transmission infrastructure from the existing aforementioned over-regulation.
With methane shifts following temperature shifts (as per tax gas e.g. Monnin et al plus the rest) and the half-life of methane in the atmosphere at around 6 to 7 years, retaining the over-regulation would reflect pointless and costly fretting inside or outside the faith zone (see Allen et al 2017 on the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived molecules such as CH4).
With methane shifts following temperature shifts (as per tax gas e.g. Monnin et al plus the rest) and the half-life of methane in the atmosphere at around 6 to 7 years, retaining the over-regulation would reflect pointless and costly fretting inside or outside the faith zone (see Allen et al 2017 on the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived molecules such as CH4).
turbobloke said:
Even more good news as seen on Bloomberg today, the US EPA is looking to roll back over-regulation on oil well methane by removing storage tanks, pipelines / other transmission infrastructure from the existing aforementioned over-regulation.
With methane shifts following temperature shifts (as per tax gas e.g. Monnin et al plus the rest) and the half-life of methane in the atmosphere at around 6 to 7 years, retaining the over-regulation would reflect pointless and costly fretting inside or outside the faith zone (see Allen et al 2017 on the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived molecules such as CH4).
TB, you're a bright bloke. What I simply don't understand is this: there is no way of knowing who is "right" in the climate debate. Science doesn't work like that. Data is open to interpretation. We don't have an experimental subject, only a set of hypotheses.With methane shifts following temperature shifts (as per tax gas e.g. Monnin et al plus the rest) and the half-life of methane in the atmosphere at around 6 to 7 years, retaining the over-regulation would reflect pointless and costly fretting inside or outside the faith zone (see Allen et al 2017 on the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived molecules such as CH4).
If one set of hypotheses is right, the planet's in trouble unless we do a lot of stuff, and when it can be irrevocably proved it will be too late to do anything about it. If another set of hypotheses is right, the planet's not in trouble at all, and some effort might be wasted.
IMHO, only a raving idiot would simply bet the house on the second hypothesis (or someone without children or dependents to care about).
Added to that, people and countries and companies represent a "high inertia" population that require very considerable stimuli to displace from their current trajectory. A lot of effort and pressure is needed to effect change.
The worse thing that will happen if we accept "hypothesis A" is that a lot of tech will be developed quickly, a lot of countries are going to find themselves freed from the shackles of dependency upon increasingly unstable oil-producing nations, and a lot of people are going to stop dying from respiratory problems (because those links *are* settled science, just not paid enough heed). So there's very little downside.
If you were Prime Minister, how would you explain to the country that - despite no irrevocably settled science on either side - you were just going to bet their futures on your hunch?
skwdenyer said:
turbobloke said:
Even more good news as seen on Bloomberg today, the US EPA is looking to roll back over-regulation on oil well methane by removing storage tanks, pipelines / other transmission infrastructure from the existing aforementioned over-regulation.
With methane shifts following temperature shifts (as per tax gas e.g. Monnin et al plus the rest) and the half-life of methane in the atmosphere at around 6 to 7 years, retaining the over-regulation would reflect pointless and costly fretting inside or outside the faith zone (see Allen et al 2017 on the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived molecules such as CH4).
TB, you're a bright bloke. What I simply don't understand is this: there is no way of knowing who is "right" in the climate debate. Science doesn't work like that. Data is open to interpretation. We don't have an experimental subject, only a set of hypotheses (snip)With methane shifts following temperature shifts (as per tax gas e.g. Monnin et al plus the rest) and the half-life of methane in the atmosphere at around 6 to 7 years, retaining the over-regulation would reflect pointless and costly fretting inside or outside the faith zone (see Allen et al 2017 on the misrepresentations of CO2-equivalent emissions of short-lived molecules such as CH4).
The agw hypothesis within climate models fails against empirical data such that the agw null hypothesis must be rejected – see McKitrick and Christy which I've referenced previously in this thread. I posted the data not just the conclusion.
Moreover in science and engineeering as we know it, if a model's predictions aren't borne out by data then scientists and engineers accept that the model is wrong, in climate 'science' the 'scientists' simply claim that the data is wrong and carry on using inadequate models' low skill falsified outputs to influence political policy.
Today's selection from the salient points of climate model failure: models get the degree and rate of troposphere warming wrong, the extent (not mere existence) of stratosphere cooling wrong, vertical profile wrong, ocean warming wrong, tropics cf extratropics warming wrong, feedbacks wrong TCR wrong ECS wrong and models show agw theoretical negative lapse rate feedback whereas satellite data do not, hydrology wrong, post-1950 Indian summer monsoon rainfall trend wrong, floods and droughts USA wrong for last 50 years, CMIP5 model regional projections deficient for Greenland, UK and parts of Europe, impacts including ice mass change wrong. The peer-reviewed publications relating to the above model failures are from: Lewis & Curry, McKitrick & Christy, Fife et al, Douglass et al, Christy et al, Saha et al, Hanna et al, Nguyen et al, Thompson et al, Allan, Mo et al, Spencer & Braswell, Lindzen & Choi, Mao et al.
I suspect you're a bright bloke too so let's faint each other with damn praise, but then I suspect you haven't spent the past 30+ years reading the climate science literature because it's (not) been part of your work. Feel free to play catch-up..
Wayoftheflower said:
Not-The-Messiah said:
Randy Winkman said:
Looks to me like she's having an adventure lots of teenagers would be envious of.
Yes and if every teenage replicated her adventure it would be massively damaging to the environment. They don’t spend their life whinging on the internet either. Too engrossed in the sport they love.
These are two of the best.
IPCC Person Folland at a meeting "The data don't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data, we're basing them on the climate models"
IPCC person Trenberth to IPCC person Mann in an email "there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong"
One side spouts this nonsense and the other side goes off and makes bad policy based on it. Lucky us.
IPCC Person Folland at a meeting "The data don't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data, we're basing them on the climate models"
IPCC person Trenberth to IPCC person Mann in an email "there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong"
One side spouts this nonsense and the other side goes off and makes bad policy based on it. Lucky us.
turbobloke said:
I;ve been saying the same thing in particular circumstances such as the TOA radiative imbalance and other near-zero issues but as a general remark it's a case of not quite; there's data and there's data. We have credible data that refutes the agw hypothesis and have had it for some time.
The agw hypothesis within climate models fails against empirical data such that the agw null hypothesis must be rejected – see McKitrick and Christy which I've referenced previously in this thread. I posted the data not just the conclusion.
Moreover in science and engineeering as we know it, if a model's predictions aren't borne out by data then scientists and engineers accept that the model is wrong, in climate 'science' the 'scientists' simply claim that the data is wrong and carry on using inadequate models' low skill falsified outputs to influence political policy.
Today's selection from the salient points of climate model failure: models get the degree and rate of troposphere warming wrong, the extent (not mere existence) of stratosphere cooling wrong, vertical profile wrong, ocean warming wrong, tropics cf extratropics warming wrong, feedbacks wrong TCR wrong ECS wrong and models show agw theoretical negative lapse rate feedback whereas satellite data do not, hydrology wrong, post-1950 Indian summer monsoon rainfall trend wrong, floods and droughts USA wrong for last 50 years, CMIP5 model regional projections deficient for Greenland, UK and parts of Europe, impacts including ice mass change wrong. The peer-reviewed publications relating to the above model failures are from: Lewis & Curry, McKitrick & Christy, Fife et al, Douglass et al, Christy et al, Saha et al, Hanna et al, Nguyen et al, Thompson et al, Allan, Mo et al, Spencer & Braswell, Lindzen & Choi, Mao et al.
I suspect you're a bright bloke too so let's faint each other with damn praise, but then I suspect you haven't spent the past 30+ years reading the climate science literature because it's (not) been part of your work. Feel free to play catch-up..
All fair enough, but I think it misses the essential point. Just because the proposed model is wrong does not invalidate the central hypothesis.The agw hypothesis within climate models fails against empirical data such that the agw null hypothesis must be rejected – see McKitrick and Christy which I've referenced previously in this thread. I posted the data not just the conclusion.
Moreover in science and engineeering as we know it, if a model's predictions aren't borne out by data then scientists and engineers accept that the model is wrong, in climate 'science' the 'scientists' simply claim that the data is wrong and carry on using inadequate models' low skill falsified outputs to influence political policy.
Today's selection from the salient points of climate model failure: models get the degree and rate of troposphere warming wrong, the extent (not mere existence) of stratosphere cooling wrong, vertical profile wrong, ocean warming wrong, tropics cf extratropics warming wrong, feedbacks wrong TCR wrong ECS wrong and models show agw theoretical negative lapse rate feedback whereas satellite data do not, hydrology wrong, post-1950 Indian summer monsoon rainfall trend wrong, floods and droughts USA wrong for last 50 years, CMIP5 model regional projections deficient for Greenland, UK and parts of Europe, impacts including ice mass change wrong. The peer-reviewed publications relating to the above model failures are from: Lewis & Curry, McKitrick & Christy, Fife et al, Douglass et al, Christy et al, Saha et al, Hanna et al, Nguyen et al, Thompson et al, Allan, Mo et al, Spencer & Braswell, Lindzen & Choi, Mao et al.
I suspect you're a bright bloke too so let's faint each other with damn praise, but then I suspect you haven't spent the past 30+ years reading the climate science literature because it's (not) been part of your work. Feel free to play catch-up..
To a few orders of magnitude, we know how the weather operates, yet even with enormous computing power we simply cannot model it with sufficient accuracy to be useful past a week or so. There are too many variables, too many dependencies, too many - to quote Rumsfeld - "unknown unknowns". We can't construct a theoretical model to any accuracy (way too many variables), and even our best numerical models just fail to converge beyond a certain point.
And yet, we know roughly how the weather works from one week to the next - the lack of convergence in our best numerical models doesn't invalidate our basic understanding of the weather.
I haven't immersed myself in climate science for 30 years. I have worked as an academic researcher in science, however. I've read and had to reconcile enough "conflicting" papers, where the "same" experiments apparently produced "different" results. I've also had to make policy recommendations to industry and others based upon the "best guess" of available science, measurements and opinion coupled with factors for financial and reputational / political risk (which often turn out to be by far the most significant factor in the "equation").
I note that you didn't answer the question I posed. My background is engineering, rather than say physics of mathematics. We engineers like to take the piss out of those with a theoretical bent who demand convergence. To rehearse and old joke:
2 people are locked in a room, sitting in the same corner; a mathematician and an engineer. In the diagonally opposite corner is a container of treasure. They are there to play a game. The rules are explained thus: you may take as large a step towards the treasure as you like, providing it is not more than half the distance remaining. When you reach the treasure you may take it. The mathematician thinks for a moment, then declares "I'm not playing as it is impossible." The engineer stands up, plays the game and, when he's no more than an inch or so away, leans over and takes the treasure.
I am absolutely certain that many - if not most - of the proposed AGW models are broken, or plain wrong. They will not fit observable data. They will not predict next week. Where they are many, they will never converge. If we require that they do, we are like the mathematician, cutting off his nose to spite his face etc.
The question we need to ask is whether there's enough support for the central tenet, that the planet's climate is on a course that (a) we can correct, (b) is effected by our actions, and (c) is undesirable in impact. And if there's not enough support, does it nonetheless raise sufficient concern as to represent a risk not worth taking to ignore it?
And the subsidiary question is whether there's in fact any downside (to mankind as a whole, not to individual people and countries) in doing so.
From where I stand, there is enough support to make the risk not ignorable. Furthermore, from the same standpoint, there's enough upside and very little downside to getting behind the idea. And, frankly, as an engineer the idea that there's enough cash floating around to get behind some really quite interesting technology that would never otherwise get funded so fast is a big bonus, because that tends to get others interested in science and engineering.
And as regards the "hysteria"? Well, let's imagine we found a meteorite that had a 50% chance of hitting us and annihilating all life (play along and forget that our planetary mechanics are probably more deterministic than that...). Let's imagine we found it in time to do something about it. And let's imagine it required most of the planet's states and peoples to get on board to solve the problem (even if simply making changes to their lifestyles to free up cash to pay for the solution). Would you say "hey, it is 50/50" and trust people to get on board? Or would you say "it is definitely going to hit us" (because there would be no other way to guarantee construction of whatever "solution" was planned)? The risk of failure is way too high; anything necessary to ensure success is reasonable under the circumstances.
It is true this is a bandwagon of sorts, and it is important always to be skeptical (in the constructive, critically-appraising way) of claims. But it seems true to me that the risk of embracing the "it is all nonsense" line is far too great for comfort. And this is the *political debate* thread, isn't that in reality all that matters?
Nickgnome said:
Wayoftheflower said:
Not-The-Messiah said:
Randy Winkman said:
Looks to me like she's having an adventure lots of teenagers would be envious of.
Yes and if every teenage replicated her adventure it would be massively damaging to the environment. They don’t spend their life whinging on the internet either. Too engrossed in the sport they love.
Wayoftheflower said:
Not-The-Messiah said:
Randy Winkman said:
Looks to me like she's having an adventure lots of teenagers would be envious of.
Yes and if every teenage replicated her adventure it would be massively damaging to the environment. Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff