Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 4
Discussion
skwdenyer said:
a touch of the Eric Laithwaites.
Pick the bones out of this force-diagramhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRPC7a_AcQo
MagLev
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vauFEgRdYks
It works - and has some commercial value.
skwdenyer said:
...For those of you kind enough to suggest I was talking some sense at some times, I'm sorry that I proved quite so publicly fallible.
A reasoned and polite response that reflects well on Mr. Skwdenyer imho. Not often you see it in NP & E and nice when it happens.You can resume the hand to hand combat now...
If we are entering a Maunder/Dalton phase, how long will it take to be established? Decade'ish?
turbobloke said:
There is no stability, no status quo to refer to or maintain, everything changes all the time...always has, always will. The atmosphere is unstable, climate is chaotic. Cherry picking start and end points for a carefully selected timescale is problematic and will lead to a false perspective.
The lack of stability is abundantly clear. And yet there *seems* to be a sort of stability surrounding the period of flourishing humanity. It need not be that humans per se are best-suited to a particular CO2 level; it may just as much be that the particular - almost-improbably-unlikely - circumstances that led to where we are now are based upon a fragile equilibrium.The planet will continually adapt. From its perspective, we are not invaders, but we are certainly not of paramount importance. If the winds of change blow away our place here, the planet will continue to turn nonetheless.
Perhaps not unreasonably, I rather like the idea of perpetuating mankind. And so if - *IF* - there is a fragile equilibrium which has coincided with the blossoming of mankind, perhaps it would be a good idea not to *needlessly* do things that *might* harm that?
In that context, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to look at all of the effects of mankind and consider which of those can be minimised, which eradicated, which mitigated (as far as we are able).
And that is, if you will, my prejudice. The arguments about how much, how soon, where, and so on seem actually to be pretty moot, because try as we might we do not have a "whole earth model" upon which to draw.
This just represents a straight dichotomy between those who have faith that nothing bad will happen if we do nothing about human-caused CO2 and those who have insufficient proof to satisfy them either way.
For those who have watched it, perhaps there is an analogue in the pushing of the button every 108 minutes in the TV show "Lost." Interestingly in that plot device, the disagreement was between the characters of Locke (if you like a "man of faith"), who believed in not deliberately risking everything and having faith that was the right call, and Jack (if you like a "man of science"), a skeptic who demanded a reason or explanation behind everything.
That conflict become distilled into the pushing of a button every 108 minutes. For those who have not seen the show, a group of airline crash survivors on an island discover a bunker within which is a computer terminal. The surviving resident of the bunker tells them they must reset a timer every 108 minutes to avoid a world-ending event. He then flees. Every 108 minutes they must decide whether to reset the countdown (they cannot stop it), or trust that the world (or at least the island) will not end if the countdown reaches zero. Loud alarms sounds when it reaches zero, and they have 4 further minutes to reset the counter.
Jack does not want the button pushed, because he cannot know for sure that it is necessary unless they stop pushing it (which might of course be the end of them all). Locke pushes the button because he believes that the countdown would not exist unless there was some actual reason for its existence, and that people with higher knowledge than him designed the system, so his faith (however that is described) pushes him to push it.
Over time, the characters' views change. Jack starts to believe in pushing the button (because he decides that the consequences of finding out what happens otherwise could be catastrophic), whilst Locke starts to imagine that the whole thing is a part of an observational study (having first convinced many around him to believe in the need to push the button, at least in part so that he himself can sleep).
In the end, the button is not pushed, the catastrophic event occurs, the bunker is destroyed, but the world (and the island) does not end. The risk was real, but the scale of outcome was not as great as feared. Or perhaps they were just lucky.
In this CO2 debate, we seem to be in a similar place. I used to believe (as TB you seem to) that the planet is large and durable and resilient and that nature will find a balance. I saw evidence to support my point of view, and I saw no evidence to the contrary; I believed the planet too large to have its destiny permanently compromised by man's actions. I concluded that the planet's atmosphere had changed many times over in pre-human times, and I believed that man and nature would adapt to change if (or more likely when) it came. And I viewed fear of human influence to be a form of conceit in mankind's sense of self-importance. As the character Jack did, I believed that the risk was not proven.
Over time (like the character Jack) my stance has changed. Now I would characterise myself as believing the downside risk of being wrong about the outcome is too great; that there's no "plan(et) b"; that there is no science that can tell me that letting - in this case CO2 emissions - continue unchecked is a good idea.
It seems to me that assuming the best is simply an odds chance (with unknown odds at that). Like the egos behind Long Term Capital Management (my earlier reference), modelling the past doesn't necessarily allow us to predict the future. As TB has said, picking arbitrary start, end and boundary conditions can result in a dataset that helps "prove" almost anything.
Somebody else said "ah-ha, but economics is not a science." No, it is not (not at the level practiced by those guys in any case - there is unlikely to be enough time left in the life of the universe to consider all of the permutations of people and circumstance sufficient to come up with even a broad-brush model of real economics). But it is actually a good example of how attempts at "scientific thinking" can be used in an unscientific way to achieve a fallacious result. Because their model fitted the available data, they believed that meant their model was correct. They went bust proving themselves wrong.
Even serious scientists end up in this predicament, when the data is complex and requires a degree of interpretation.
Medicine is a good example. A well-regarded 2005 study collated all major clinical research papers from 3 prominent journals over a 13-year period. Those 49 papers considered "major" were those cited more than 1000 times. The papers were considered as to whether their conclusions still held true even a year or two later - by systematically searching the literature. Those "major" papers dealt with the result of proper, scientific trials; not just lab results.
Of those 49 papers, 45 concluded a particular intervention was effective. In the time until review, only half of those findings had been positively replicated. 16% were outright contradicted by later research. 7% showed less efficacious effects.
Serious peer-reviewed reporting of serious, aparrently-sound tests and trials, nonetheless turns out to be wrong a lot of the time when exposed to wider testing and scrutiny. The more interpretation is required, the more likely it is to be proven wrong later.
TB and I appear to sit at different ends of a table upon which is laid out a great deal of scientific (and not so scientific) data and theory; along with a bunch of conjecture, faith, fear, uncertainty, and doubt; and accompanied by a generous helping of self interest, dogma, political shenanigans and corruption.
If I understand him correctly, TB's central thrust seems to be that those attempting to use "science" to "prove" AGW, the danger of CO2 level rises, and so on are being - at best - blinkered in their choice of data or biased in their interpretation of the same. TB seems to have faith in the balancing power of nature, and no fear that he may be wrong. He has deployed science to support his point of view.
For my part, I (now) see no conclusive proof that man's actions are not, or cannot, harm the planet (in such a way as to harm the prospects of mankind) and, therefore, I see no benefit in throwing the dice when there appear to be alternatives.
There is a third group; those who are convinced that man *IS* harming the planet, a subset of whom use their own pick of science in an attempt to prove their theory to the rest of us.
It is unlikely either of us will convince the other that they are wrong. That is in part, I fear, where some of the bad science comes in - attempts to "prove" that a viewpoint is wrong by offering up evidence and inference and theory. Not helped, of course, by the way in which science is often funded. I'm guilty of falling into that trap myself, as we've seen in this thread.
On the fictional island, it seems to me that TB would leave the button alone. I would once have left the button alone, but now I would push the button every 108 minutes because (and until) I could find a way to know with certainty that not pushing it was the right call. Those with "bad science" (in the AGW mould) would presumably find something to "prove" why the button was necessary without considering the alternative.
The difference between button pressed / button not pressed and the CO2 debate is quite simple from where I stand; in our case, we have a third choice. We can take steps to mitigate man's measurable outputs (as opposed to impact, something about which there is disagreement), and by doing so we can advance the course of science and technology and potentially remove some of the political problems around access to fossil fuels, and we can do it without having to accept the validity of either side's rationale and instead accept it as a rational piece of risk management with collateral benefits.
When cast in that light, I then find it hard to understand TB's position that seems to be that we should not do that, that we should not invest in finding alternative solutions. And that takes us to a place where it can seem that TB's belief that we shouldn't do these things is motivated - at least in part - by his faith and his desire to be proved right. Because if we mitigate the effects, we will never know who was right.
And that may, of course, do TB a disservice.
The pro-AGW scene seems to have its fair share of similar problems, too. Because the science doesn't (and in my view cannot ever) prove either side of the argument.
And that, in a long-winded way, is how we end up with my not being able to understand why TB (and others) seem so dead set against investing in technologies that might solve some problems, even if early generations are not as efficient as they might be. Is it so very wrong to believe that the ends (technological change and a shifting of the balance of global power away from those with fossil fuels) justifies the means (accepting, or at least not spending time arguing with, those who have hitched themselves so completely to the AGW cause)?
Good post S.
Nuclear is a good technology to decrease CO2 emissions. Green politics stops/slows down development there though!
Wind and solar seem to be dead ends.
I would like to see policies which promote energy efficiency. Cars are a great example...look at my eco 2200kg electric car!
Nuclear is a good technology to decrease CO2 emissions. Green politics stops/slows down development there though!
Wind and solar seem to be dead ends.
I would like to see policies which promote energy efficiency. Cars are a great example...look at my eco 2200kg electric car!
skwdenyer said:
The lack of stability is abundantly clear. And yet there *seems* to be a sort of stability surrounding the period of flourishing humanity.
You hit the nail on the head there and when you mentioned later the result of arbitrary start and end points (boundary values). Humans flourishing is a blip on the planet's changing climate timescale of several billion years - so far - and the stability is an appearance of stability, though I might disagree even on that point given a moment's thought (depending on start and end points!). The Minoan and Roman Warm Periods appear in data as warmer than the present. The Medieval Warm Period was probably warmer and then there's the Little Ice Age. That lot may be one man's stable climate but not this man. The atmosphere is indeed unstable and climate is for sure chaotic and constantly changing over all timescales at varying rates and extents.
As there is still no visible anthropogenic signal in top-of-atmosphere radiative imbalance data (energy) and no visible causal human signal in any global climate data (temperature e.g. UAH LTT) then inevitably manmade global warming is a matter of faith. If somebody believes in invlisible entities that should be visible, or takes somebody's word for it contrary to the motto of the Royal Society, or is prepared to set the scientific method aside and embrace something as nonsciencensical (!) as "the data don't matter" then what follows is belief not evidence-based science.
Which is why a certain climate scientist coined the term 'true believer' for somebody who takes takes such a path. I know because they told me. No names no pack drill.
skwdenyer said:
Ali G said:
Richard Feynman
I've seldom read him, except in the context of the teaching of science - upon which topic he always appeared to me be speaking a lot of sense.THAT is science, not a consensus, not a 'peer review' by pals, that is the real deal, the actual hardcore proper science.
Global shipping in 'historic' climate deal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-4375...
The global shipping industry has for the first time agreed to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes after talks all week at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London.
Shippings has previously been excluded from climate agreements, but under the deal, emissions will be reduced by 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 levels.
One minister from a Pacific island state described the agreement as "history in the making".
Shipping generates roughly the same quantity of greenhouse gas as Germany and, if it were accounted for as a nation, would rank as the world's sixth biggest emitter.
Like aviation, it had been excluded from climate negotiations because it is an international activity while both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement involved national pledges to reduce greenhouse gases........continues
Ships may have to operate more slowly to burn less fuel. New designs for vessels will be more streamlined and engines will have to be cleaner, maybe powered by hydrogen or batteries, or even by the wind.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-4375...
The global shipping industry has for the first time agreed to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes after talks all week at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London.
Shippings has previously been excluded from climate agreements, but under the deal, emissions will be reduced by 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 levels.
One minister from a Pacific island state described the agreement as "history in the making".
Shipping generates roughly the same quantity of greenhouse gas as Germany and, if it were accounted for as a nation, would rank as the world's sixth biggest emitter.
Like aviation, it had been excluded from climate negotiations because it is an international activity while both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement involved national pledges to reduce greenhouse gases........continues
Ships may have to operate more slowly to burn less fuel. New designs for vessels will be more streamlined and engines will have to be cleaner, maybe powered by hydrogen or batteries, or even by the wind.
Wobbegong said:
I suppose the irony being it is fire (the sun) that drives the climate......Wobbegong said:
Has the causal link between the gasoline and the death been rigorously proven by peer reviewed Boolean statistical analysis though?It's best not to jump to conclusions.
"In a suicide note found nearby, Mr Buckel wrote that he had immolated himself using fossil fuel to symbolise what he said was the damage human beings were doing to the Earth."
Nice work from The Team pushing The Cause over the years.
After he was vilified by true believers for heresy against doctrine by way of taking a position in keeping with the data and sound science rather than faith in junkscience and gigo models, Prof David Bellamy reckoned the only reason he wasn't burned at the stake was the carbon dioxide he would emit. Hmmm.
Condolences to the lawyer's family and friends and thoughts to the people cleaning up afterwards.
Nice work from The Team pushing The Cause over the years.
After he was vilified by true believers for heresy against doctrine by way of taking a position in keeping with the data and sound science rather than faith in junkscience and gigo models, Prof David Bellamy reckoned the only reason he wasn't burned at the stake was the carbon dioxide he would emit. Hmmm.
Condolences to the lawyer's family and friends and thoughts to the people cleaning up afterwards.
skwdenyer said:
And that, in a long-winded way, is how we end up with my not being able to understand why TB (and others) seem so dead set against investing in technologies that might solve some problems, even if early generations are not as efficient as they might be.
This takes us back to the first thing I read about AGW that made me realise why, as an Engineer. I was so uncomfortable with the presented evidence in the 'science' based approach. The book was from (god I have been interested in this s
t for a long time now) 1997 I think - An Appeal to Reason by Nigel Lawson. In that he stepped over the discussion about proof of AGW and dealt with the (then proposed) response, presuming the 'threat' was real. He carefully and rationally pointed out the economic illiteracy of it.
Here we are now, living the nightmare of pointless renewable energy 'investments' and other awful policy decisions. Worse still, by leaping to the solution and providing the present subsidy trough and skewed market mechanisms - all further innovation around 'clean energy' has effectively been curtailed. Big business is making big money as fast as it can turning the handle on a not-fit-for-purpose solution.
Historically Government never ever ever picks the right winners. They have tried once again and we are probably f
ked as a result.Nice balance post tho...
To add something more...
I think that the ratcheting up of AGW 'puff pieces' at present (witness R4 this morning for example) is potentially indicative (in climate model speak) of a growing recognition that not only is the solution we have been forced to pursue by our political elite flawed, but the world is about to really rock the 'consensus' boat too
Davidonly said:
skwdenyer said:
And that, in a long-winded way, is how we end up with my not being able to understand why TB (and others) seem so dead set against investing in technologies that might solve some problems, even if early generations are not as efficient as they might be.
This takes us back to the first thing I read about AGW that made me realise why, as an Engineer. I was so uncomfortable with the presented evidence in the 'science' based approach. The book was from (god I have been interested in this st for a long time now) 1997 I think - An Appeal to Reason by Nigel Lawson. In that he stepped over the discussion about proof of AGW and dealt with the (then proposed) response, presuming the 'threat' was real. He carefully and rationally pointed out the economic illiteracy of it.
Here we are now, living the nightmare of pointless renewable energy 'investments' and other awful policy decisions. Worse still, by leaping to the solution and providing the present subsidy trough and skewed market mechanisms - all further innovation around 'clean energy' has effectively been curtailed. Big business is making big money as fast as it can turning the handle on a not-fit-for-purpose solution.
Historically Government never ever ever picks the right winners. They have tried once again and we are probably f
ked as a result.Nice balance post tho...
To add something more...
I think that the ratcheting up of AGW 'puff pieces' at present (witness R4 this morning for example) is potentially indicative (in climate model speak) of a growing recognition that not only is the solution we have been forced to pursue by our political elite flawed, but the world is about to really rock the 'consensus' boat too
In terms of post content skwd has been very reasonable, avoiding abuse while demonstrating a willingness to acknowledge a dodgy reading base (in the case of carbon dioxide issues) which had been subjected to inadequate scrutiny.
The same applies to renewables.
Renewables Catch 22:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-...
Googles' Ultra Green Highly Qualified Scientists and Engineers Say Renewable Energy ‘Simply won’t work’:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-...
The "won't work" finding arose even after desperation had led the RE<C team at Google to consider fantasy technology including self-erecting turbines in robotic windfarms.
At the moment, renewables contribute aproximately 0% to meeting global energy demand. This hides that fact that they are unfit for purpose in terms of the politicians' wet dreamworld (decarbonisation).
Then there's the other fantasy, that renewables are fluffy and wonderful. The pollution caused by extracting and processing metals from lanthanides to lithium is horrendous but it seems that The Guardian doesn't cover it very often or very well or both, so certain people won't be exposed to the current horrors of renewables any more than they're exposed to their future inadequacy.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/asia/ba...
Forcing taxpayers to pay through the nose is one way of holding the day of reckoning at bay. As your final paragraph points out, the question is for how long?
Edited by turbobloke on Sunday 15th April 17:37
skwdenyer said:
And that, in a long-winded way, is how we end up with my not being able to understand why TB (and others) seem so dead set against investing in technologies that might solve some problems, even if early generations are not as efficient as they might be. Is it so very wrong to believe that the ends (technological change and a shifting of the balance of global power away from those with fossil fuels) justifies the means (accepting, or at least not spending time arguing with, those who have hitched themselves so completely to the AGW cause)?
i can't speak for tb ,but if that is the impression i have given you then i apologise. my main bug bear is the waste of resources and money while creating more problems in the quest to "save the planet". look at the damage increased production of palm oil has caused. all the crap fitted to diesel cars like egr valves pre dpf days that increased particulate and nox emissions while making the car less fuel efficient. all done in the name of lowering co2 emissions. the current nonsense of chopping down forests to create wood pellets that are shipped across the atlantic to burn in power stations in the uk. i could go on but i hope you get the picture.i wouldn't like to see all funding for climate science cut, just reduced to a sensible level and no more met super computers for a while. the green revolution has seen vast sums of taxpayers money end up in the hands of a few that already had a big pile of the stuff to start with. the carbon credits nonsense was the final straw for me, quite literally the taxation of thin air. there are a myriad of real world problems in relation to pollution ,deforestation (though funnily enough the increase in co2 is doing its best to address this), over fishing in some areas along with many more that could be physically solved if the focus on looking after the planet was directed correctly. few with the power to enable this seem interested in doing so,maybe it wouldn't make them enough money.
interesting journey to arrive at your position today , mine was similar but in reverse. (i also watched the lost series, though by the end i had almost lost the will to live
)wc98 said:
i can't speak for tb ,but if that is the impression i have given you then i apologise. my main bug bear is the waste of resources and money while creating more problems in the quest to "save the planet". look at the damage increased production of palm oil has caused. all the crap fitted to diesel cars like egr valves pre dpf days that increased particulate and nox emissions while making the car less fuel efficient. all done in the name of lowering co2 emissions. the current nonsense of chopping down forests to create wood pellets that are shipped across the atlantic to burn in power stations in the uk. i could go on but i hope you get the picture.
Hopefully.That post from skwd was the one that came closest to a personal angle out of all. The idea that anybody is "dead set against" something implies some sort of stubborn resistance to an obvious truth, when in fact the position being resisted is unsupportable. At which point the usual deep irony steps in with ideological uninformed support for climate fairytales and renewables mythology making certain individuals look dead set against the data and objective evidence. That's faith for you, impervious to reason and logic, as emphasised by a certain co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace who is now being written out of their history for his heresy against doctrine.
Todays Beeb CC puff story
Heatwaves 'cook' Great Barrier Reef corals
Prolonged ocean warming events, known as marine heatwaves, take a significant toll on the complex ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef.
This is according to a new study on the impacts of the 2016 marine heatwave, published in Nature.
In surveying the 3,863 individual reefs that make up the system off Australia's north-east coast, scientists found that 29% of communities were affected.
In some cases up to 90% of coral died, in a process known as bleaching.
This occurs when the stress of elevated temperatures causes a breakdown of the coral's symbiotic relationship with its algae, which provide the coral with energy to survive, and give the reef its distinctive colours.
Certain coral species are more susceptible to this heat-induced stress, and the 2016 marine heatwave saw the death of many tabular and staghorn corals, which are a key part of the reef's structure...............continues
Heatwaves 'cook' Great Barrier Reef corals
Prolonged ocean warming events, known as marine heatwaves, take a significant toll on the complex ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef.
This is according to a new study on the impacts of the 2016 marine heatwave, published in Nature.
In surveying the 3,863 individual reefs that make up the system off Australia's north-east coast, scientists found that 29% of communities were affected.
In some cases up to 90% of coral died, in a process known as bleaching.
This occurs when the stress of elevated temperatures causes a breakdown of the coral's symbiotic relationship with its algae, which provide the coral with energy to survive, and give the reef its distinctive colours.
Certain coral species are more susceptible to this heat-induced stress, and the 2016 marine heatwave saw the death of many tabular and staghorn corals, which are a key part of the reef's structure...............continues
robinessex said:
Todays Beeb CC puff story
This occurs when the stress of elevated temperatures causes a breakdown of the coral's symbiotic relationship with its algae, which provide the coral with energy to survive, and give the reef its distinctive colours.
Nope. Can be for a number of reasons including too much light (there are lots of other factors)........ And anyone who dives knows what a thermocline is...... Water temp can vary a few degrees and the temp of the ocean varies quite substantially between day and night (again, divers know this).This occurs when the stress of elevated temperatures causes a breakdown of the coral's symbiotic relationship with its algae, which provide the coral with energy to survive, and give the reef its distinctive colours.
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