Climate change - the POLITICAL debate (Vol 6)
Discussion
deeps said:
It seems to have emphasised a point and served its purpose rather well.
The AGWW are seething, shame.
Yes, it’s proved again that you just post any old rubbish to back up your conspiracy nonsenseThe AGWW are seething, shame.
First it was wattsupwiththat now its fake memes.
To “to emphasise the arson emergency“
turbobloke said:
Unlikely potus wannabe and Dem Sen Elizabeth Warren has demanded US banks provide their climate disaster plans. There must be workable templates around, after all New York has been under water since 2015 (then 2019) as predicted by agw settled soothsaying.
Ah yes, predicted back in 2005... 
deeps said:
turbobloke said:
Unlikely potus wannabe and Dem Sen Elizabeth Warren has demanded US banks provide their climate disaster plans. There must be workable templates around, after all New York has been under water since 2015 (then 2019) as predicted by agw settled soothsaying.
Ah yes, predicted back in 2005... As the world's most viewed site on global warming issues has been made popular today, hat tip to AGWW Stovey, they coincidentally have an interesting and logical article on the Arson Crisis..
Article said:
Nature predicts decades of worsening bushfires, and urges Australia to “show us what climate action looks like.. (snip)
Just one problem with this prediction – what exactly would these “more extreme fires” burn?
Once a forest suffers a severe fire, it takes years of regrowth before fire becomes a serious threat again. If climate change is causing droughts to worsen, if Australia is steadily drying and heating up because of climate change, there would not be a lot of regrowth. The tracks of the extreme fires which do burn would eventually function as massive firebreaks, preventing further large scale conflagration.
My point is, predictions that fires will get worse apparently without limit are absurd. Not only would these predicted superfires fairly rapidly run out of trees to burn, if all else fails, eventually people would bulldoze any trees which threaten humans, and cut firebreaks on a sufficient scale to contain any fires which do start; something the Australian government arguably should be doing anyway.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/23/nature-predicts-worsening-climate-driven-fires-burning-what/?fbclid=IwAR2VYmZlrs3mwOLo5EKA3dVB5XR9zg9cKlQoHI0jfCIQ4drXF23IEMB9a-AJust one problem with this prediction – what exactly would these “more extreme fires” burn?
Once a forest suffers a severe fire, it takes years of regrowth before fire becomes a serious threat again. If climate change is causing droughts to worsen, if Australia is steadily drying and heating up because of climate change, there would not be a lot of regrowth. The tracks of the extreme fires which do burn would eventually function as massive firebreaks, preventing further large scale conflagration.
My point is, predictions that fires will get worse apparently without limit are absurd. Not only would these predicted superfires fairly rapidly run out of trees to burn, if all else fails, eventually people would bulldoze any trees which threaten humans, and cut firebreaks on a sufficient scale to contain any fires which do start; something the Australian government arguably should be doing anyway.
deeps said:
As the world's most viewed site on global warming issues has been made popular today, hat tip to AGWW Stovey, they coincidentally have an interesting and logical article on the Arson Crisis..
Worlds most viewed site on global warming issues? Got a source for that claim?Article said:
Nature predicts decades of worsening bushfires, and urges Australia to “show us what climate action looks like.. (snip)
Just one problem with this prediction – what exactly would these “more extreme fires” burn?
Once a forest suffers a severe fire, it takes years of regrowth before fire becomes a serious threat again. If climate change is causing droughts to worsen, if Australia is steadily drying and heating up because of climate change, there would not be a lot of regrowth. The tracks of the extreme fires which do burn would eventually function as massive firebreaks, preventing further large scale conflagration.
My point is, predictions that fires will get worse apparently without limit are absurd. Not only would these predicted superfires fairly rapidly run out of trees to burn, if all else fails, eventually people would bulldoze any trees which threaten humans, and cut firebreaks on a sufficient scale to contain any fires which do start; something the Australian government arguably should be doing anyway.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/23/nature-predicts-worsening-climate-driven-fires-burning-what/?fbclid=IwAR2VYmZlrs3mwOLo5EKA3dVB5XR9zg9cKlQoHI0jfCIQ4drXF23IEMB9a-AJust one problem with this prediction – what exactly would these “more extreme fires” burn?
Once a forest suffers a severe fire, it takes years of regrowth before fire becomes a serious threat again. If climate change is causing droughts to worsen, if Australia is steadily drying and heating up because of climate change, there would not be a lot of regrowth. The tracks of the extreme fires which do burn would eventually function as massive firebreaks, preventing further large scale conflagration.
My point is, predictions that fires will get worse apparently without limit are absurd. Not only would these predicted superfires fairly rapidly run out of trees to burn, if all else fails, eventually people would bulldoze any trees which threaten humans, and cut firebreaks on a sufficient scale to contain any fires which do start; something the Australian government arguably should be doing anyway.
chrispmartha said:
He’s one to talk about misrepresentation, didn’t an actual scientist directly say TB was ‘misrepresenting’ what he wrote on here?
Tim Osborn (now director of the UEA CRU ) described turboblokes interpretation of his work as 'nonsense' when I contacted him trying to track down the source of one of TB's many unattributed images. Somewhat astonishingly to me this was just over a decade ago which may well explain why my tolerance for turbo branded propaganda is fairly low these days.I forget who the recent person was who someone contacted. I'm sure there have been lots more.
hairykrishna said:
chrispmartha said:
He’s one to talk about misrepresentation, didn’t an actual scientist directly say TB was ‘misrepresenting’ what he wrote on here?
Tim Osborn (now director of the UEA CRU ) described turboblokes interpretation of his work as 'nonsense' when I contacted him trying to track down the source of one of TB's many unattributed images. Somewhat astonishingly to me this was just over a decade ago which may well explain why my tolerance for turbo branded propaganda is fairly low these days.I forget who the recent person was who someone contacted. I'm sure there have been lots more.
I believe I'm now at 12 scientists that I've spoken to after turbobloke posted their work, claiming it supported his position.
The number who said he was right: 0
The number who said their work was being misrepresented: 12
It's why I stopped paying attention to the turbospam years ago. You have to wonder why he keeps doing it. It's bizarre.
By the way, if you're interested in (and not afraid of) the answers, I'd recommend doing it. There's no guarantee of a response of course but I've found most people were happy to answer questions about their work. Some even sent me the full paper that was otherwise behind a paywall.
Edit: the last one was Graeme Stephens from JPL at NASA, who said turbobloke was "misrepresenting the case totally".
Edited by durbster on Friday 24th January 23:34
Diderot said:
durbster said:
A44RON said:
durbster said:
Whatever this debate is about, it's absolutely not about objectivity or rational thinking. The evidence is overwhelming to the point where we can see even the most ardent deniers carefully re-positioning. This is about ideology, and tribal thinking. It's about the curious human trait that we will cling to what are, objectively speaking, totally irrational views if it means we can stay in the gang.
The thing is though, the evidence is not overwhelming. For starters, that 97% myth was debunked. There's an objective way of proving it too. Simply look for these thousands of scientists studying climate related fields that dispute AGW. If there are tens of thousands of scientists out there with research that disproves AGW, where are they? Where are they working? Where's their research? Where's their Twitter account?
But the 97% figure is only to illustrate to the public how accepted the science is, it's not really useful for anything beyond that.
You won't find them because they don't exist beyond a handful of people linked to the propaganda machine. So then the story goes that these people exist, they're just too frightened to say anything. And the evidence for that amusing claim is non-existent.
A44RON said:
There's just as much evidence out there from scientists stating the other side.
There really isn't any evidence that disproves AGW, let alone "just as much".Edited by durbster on Friday 24th January 07:27
El stovey said:
deeps said:
turbobloke said:
Unlikely potus wannabe and Dem Sen Elizabeth Warren has demanded US banks provide their climate disaster plans. There must be workable templates around, after all New York has been under water since 2015 (then 2019) as predicted by agw settled soothsaying.
Ah yes, predicted back in 2005... Whilst you’re not actively destroying the planet with your despicable and reprehensible aerial bus driving activities, maybe you could devote some brain activity to refuting each claim. Or are you suggesting that alarmist t
ts didn’t actually make such fantastical and laughably inaccurate predictions?"Fight fires with facts – not fake science".
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/19/fight-fires...
Article said:
“We are all born ignorant,” Benjamin Franklin once said, “but one must work very hard to remain stupid.”
Greens are incensed over suggestions that anything but fossil fuels and climate change might be turning green California and Australian ecosystems into black wastelands, incinerating wildlife, destroying homes and killing people. The notion that they and their policies might be a major factor in these fires gets them so hot under the collar that they could ignite another inferno. But the facts are there for all to see.
snip--- (lots of common sense) --snip------
Every one of these vital matters is within our power to control – if we can muster the political willpower to take appropriate action. None of them involves climate change.
It doesn’t matter if Earth’s or California’s or Australia’s average annual or summer temperature is 0.1 or even 1.0 degrees warmer. Or that a drought is a day, month or year longer than X. Or whether the climate and weather fluctuations are driven by human or natural forces. Or that America, Australia, Britain, China, India or Indonesia is “not doing enough” to curb fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions.
Climate change did not cause 129 million trees to die in California – or prevent the state and feds from removing the dead trees, thinning the forests, and clearing overgrown brush and grass. Ditto for Australia.
We must play the hand we have been dealt. That means acting responsibly and intelligently to prevent and respond to wildfires under whatever climate, drought, diseased and dead trees, or other conditions exist, wherever and whenever we live. Ben Franklin would be proud of us.
More at the world's most viewed site on global warming...Greens are incensed over suggestions that anything but fossil fuels and climate change might be turning green California and Australian ecosystems into black wastelands, incinerating wildlife, destroying homes and killing people. The notion that they and their policies might be a major factor in these fires gets them so hot under the collar that they could ignite another inferno. But the facts are there for all to see.
snip--- (lots of common sense) --snip------
Every one of these vital matters is within our power to control – if we can muster the political willpower to take appropriate action. None of them involves climate change.
It doesn’t matter if Earth’s or California’s or Australia’s average annual or summer temperature is 0.1 or even 1.0 degrees warmer. Or that a drought is a day, month or year longer than X. Or whether the climate and weather fluctuations are driven by human or natural forces. Or that America, Australia, Britain, China, India or Indonesia is “not doing enough” to curb fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions.
Climate change did not cause 129 million trees to die in California – or prevent the state and feds from removing the dead trees, thinning the forests, and clearing overgrown brush and grass. Ditto for Australia.
We must play the hand we have been dealt. That means acting responsibly and intelligently to prevent and respond to wildfires under whatever climate, drought, diseased and dead trees, or other conditions exist, wherever and whenever we live. Ben Franklin would be proud of us.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/19/fight-fires...
dickymint said:
^^^ nailed.
Nailed what? He has just cherrypicked some random predictions which I severely doubt were supported by the scientific community as a whole nor were backed up by decades of research. Shouting that some people got it wrong sometimes in the past is meaningless and sheds no light on whether current CC predictions are going to be correct. The actual predictions are much more nuanced in any case - is you read the IPCC reports they caveat all predictions and analyses with likelihood and probabilities.
Esceptico said:
dickymint said:
^^^ nailed.
Nailed what? He has just cherrypicked some random predictions which I severely doubt were supported by the scientific community as a whole nor were backed up by decades of research. Shouting that some people got it wrong sometimes in the past is meaningless and sheds no light on whether current CC predictions are going to be correct. The actual predictions are much more nuanced in any case - is you read the IPCC reports they caveat all predictions and analyses with likelihood and probabilities.
Here is one I remember personally , Doctor David Viner senior Climate research scientist at the university of east Anglia, talking on the news, explaining how snow would be a thing of the past within a few years.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/...
Digga said:
Thankfully, we have intellectual heavyweights like Niall Ferguson, who are pointing out the absurdity of this cult: https://summit.news/2020/01/22/historian-slams-gre...
Whilst not wanting to get drawn into where I sit on the AGW spectrum, I think there are a couple of obvious rebuttals to make to the view that the UK should be doing nothing because it's all China's fault:Niall Ferguson said:
60% of CO2 emissions since Greta Thunberg was born is attributable to China… but nobody talks about that. They talk as if its somehow Europeans and Americans who are going to fix this problem… which is frustrating because it doesn’t get to the heart of the matter...
Britain’s CO2 emissions peaked in 1973 and are now at their lowest level since Victorian times,” reports the Spectator. “Air pollution has plummeted since then, with sulphur dioxide levels down 95 per cent. Britain’s population is rising but our energy consumption peaked in 2001 and has since fallen by 19 per cent.
WHO absolute (rather than per capita) pollution map:Britain’s CO2 emissions peaked in 1973 and are now at their lowest level since Victorian times,” reports the Spectator. “Air pollution has plummeted since then, with sulphur dioxide levels down 95 per cent. Britain’s population is rising but our energy consumption peaked in 2001 and has since fallen by 19 per cent.
- since 19th century we have just outsourced mass production to the developing world, esp China. We still consume the stuff
- ditto food and Africa/ Asia
- indeed, the massive improvements in uk air quality speaks for itself in terms of the impact of economic activity (albeit a local scale, not a global scale)
- we have the ability to lead by example on more efficient tech
- indeed, as a supposedly developed country with a supposedly top rate education system, there should be a new generation of uk workers who can move into this area, now they have been freed from their forefathers roles of working down the pit, in the mill, factory, or all the other hazardous and polluting work China now does for us
Whatever your views on agw, I think waste of resources should be avoided as a default.
I don't think the free market can solve environmental issues effectively...
I do think global population is still an elephant XR et al don't want to talk about...they'd much rather smash up a Chelsea tractor.
So I can sympathize with a moderately successful businessperson taking umbrage with being gouged a £4k tax premium on a high emission car which in the scheme of things is negligible.
Maybe if politicians could be brave enough to decouple the revenue raising aspect, and squash the anti capitalists operating under a false flag of green, it would clear a political space to discuss climate in the broader sense?
But if you ask most local people what being "green" means, you'd get answers ranging from not building on the local green space, through to animal rights, through to the price of train tickets.
It's very hard for politicians to handle the local, national and global issues together (and still raise revenue of course, because people want more spent than they contribute each year)
Murph7355 said:
durbster said:
This is about ideology, and tribal thinking. It's about the curious human trait that we will cling to what are, objectively speaking, totally irrational views if it means we can stay in the gang.
You are failing to see that you are part of this problem. You are doing the climate change equivalent of speaking more loudly and slowly to someone who doesn't speak your language. And the results you are getting are the same.
What I'm describing above is not to be condescending to people, it's a known human trait. We all hold some illogical views and you have to understand that to know why you think what you think.
Murph7355 said:
Moreover, the arguments of what should be done even if you believe we are the predominant cause make little logical sense. They don't tackle the problem in the areas that would need tackling first by logical follow on, are hypocritical in the extreme and expect things of people that fight against human nature.
I've always said this thread would be far more interesting if it wasn't held forever in the swamp of anti-science by a tiny group of people. The discussion around how to tackle climate change without destroying our economies would be of much greater value than having to repeatedly debunk the same tired claims over and over. I mean, see above - Diderot's even going on about the weather stations at runways thing that he's got off turbobloke, something that I remember debunking myself at least four years ago. Ideally they would be ignored but I'd say there's also value in pointing out their misinformation and misrepresentations. Again. And again.
durbster said:
I mean, see above - Diderot's even going on about the weather stations at runways thing that he's got off turbobloke, something that I remember debunking myself at least four years ago. Ideally they would be ignored but I'd say there's also value in pointing out their misinformation and misrepresentations. Again. And again.
Yeah when that first came up I explained why the LHR record temperature wasn’t caused by a landing aircraft. The PH experts told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and didn’t know how jet engine work and how aircraft operated then that there was no such thing as reverse idle thrust. I even provided diagrams of Heathrow and the weather at the time and asked them to show me how the weather station was influenced but they still went with the turbobloke’s blogger that clearly had no knowledge whatsoever and said it was a particular landing aircraft. Some pretended they had relevant knowledge but used all the wrong terminology and it turned out they had relatives who used to make engines.
Once Diderot realised I actually land large jets at LHR he then kept banging on about my job and how it’s impossible to save fuel. Again I explained how the route and flight levels you fly can differ from the flight planned routes and why and you can easily negotiate short cuts and more direct routings and levels once airborne plus fly more efficient climb and descent profiles etc and save fuel on every flight, yet again though they knew better and said I was wrong and making it up.
He likes to now call me a bus driver and bang on about my job which is curious because he and his chums are so elusive about their jobs, likely because they’ve been shown many times to have spent years exaggerating their expertise and relevant qualifications and backgrounds. All the more odd when one of them (robinessex) even got banned for saying he wanted to find out exactly where I worked to contact my employer.
It’s a wonder these
Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 25th January 09:50
Digga said:
WHO absolute (rather than per capita) pollution map:
Who (no pun intended in any way) would have imagined that vast almost unpopulated parts of the world would be subject to micro-particle pollution that could be traced back to human activities?Indeed one wonders in passing that nearly all such maps seems to show the most extreme "bad" colouring (always assuming that the colouring principle used adopt red as bad and use a nominally linear range when appropriate) seem to appear most widely, but not exclusively, in places with relatively low population levels
For anyone else wonder about the same phenomenon the graph's Information button offers the following.
"Wherever possible, estimates have been computed using standardized categories and methods in order to enhance cross-national comparability. This approach may result in some cases in differences between the estimates presented here and the official national statistics prepared and endorsed by individual WHO Member States. These differences between WHO and national statistics may be larger for countries with small cities and settlements which may not be fully represented by the resolution of the WHO model. This may be compounded for isolated regions where air pollution is primarily from local sources and is experienced at very local levels. It is important to stress that these estimates are also subject to considerable uncertainty, especially for countries with weak statistical information systems.
Data source: World Health Organization
WHO 2018. All rights reserved."
I suppose in the case of the Sahara and the Saudi peninsular the regular problem would be dust. However if one was to exclude such sources the map would, presumably, be less dramatic and one could argue that in terms of health outcomes all sources matter - so there is no need to point out any boundaries between natural and apparently "human caused" particle generation.
El stovey said:
durbster said:
I mean, see above - Diderot's even going on about the weather stations at runways thing that he's got off turbobloke...
Yeah when that first came up I explained why the LHR record temperature wasn’t caused by a landing aircraft. The PH experts told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and didn’t know how jet engine work and how aircraft operated t...
Once Diderot realised I actually land large jets at LHR he then kept banging on about my job
I had a much simpler way to disprove it - I had a look at the weather station online to see if that particular station was always reading a higher temperature than others in the area, and it wasn't. Job done.
Edited by durbster on Saturday 25th January 10:00
durbster said:
Yes I remember that and I should have mentioned how your debunking was far more comprehensive than mine and judging by the outright bitterness of the comment above, Diderot took it personally and still hasn't got over it (or just accepted being wrong, weirdly).
I had a much simpler way to disprove it - I had a look at the weather station online to see if that particular station was always reading a higher temperature than others in the area, and it wasn't. Job done.
Plus he also got shown up for exaggerating his relevant background. I think that’s what he’s bitter about tbh. That’s no different to a few of the others though. I had a much simpler way to disprove it - I had a look at the weather station online to see if that particular station was always reading a higher temperature than others in the area, and it wasn't. Job done.
Microsoft are proposing to go carbon neutral in current operations and then move on to go carbon negative with the next 30 years.
The indication is that the current management have a plan to start to extract form the environment all of the 'carbon' they think they have emitted since start up.
In the last 2 weeks they have finally enacted their threat to stop supporting and fixing problems with successful and stable older products (Version of Windows 7) in favour of newer, still problematic, similar products with seemingly less reliability and stability than the products they are now abandoning.
For Microsoft this seems to be a recurring theme that does not always appear to have a good basis behind their decisions - other than making them, as a company and as senior manager extremely wealthy.
As a final act for Windows 7 users they seem to have removed some or all of the functionality that allowed people to use a background to their desktops. So far as one can tell this was unannounced. And possibly unintended.
So given they now propose to develop some technology to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, what sort of oversight will be necessary at the global political level to try to make sure they don't make a complete mess of the concept (should they somehow succeed - which they might given no financial constraints subject to the ability to gouge the world for the use of their products) and create a new low CO2 atmosphere along with whatever effects that might induce for flora and fauna to cope with?
After all they have a long record of the usual human frailties that go with both innovation and subsequent deployment and continued use. Can they, or any other organisation, be trusted to deliver a safe and successful product without significant oversight? Indeed one might wonder whether humanity has a means by which to provide such oversight.
Should oversight be a United Nations Competence?
The indication is that the current management have a plan to start to extract form the environment all of the 'carbon' they think they have emitted since start up.
In the last 2 weeks they have finally enacted their threat to stop supporting and fixing problems with successful and stable older products (Version of Windows 7) in favour of newer, still problematic, similar products with seemingly less reliability and stability than the products they are now abandoning.
For Microsoft this seems to be a recurring theme that does not always appear to have a good basis behind their decisions - other than making them, as a company and as senior manager extremely wealthy.
As a final act for Windows 7 users they seem to have removed some or all of the functionality that allowed people to use a background to their desktops. So far as one can tell this was unannounced. And possibly unintended.
So given they now propose to develop some technology to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, what sort of oversight will be necessary at the global political level to try to make sure they don't make a complete mess of the concept (should they somehow succeed - which they might given no financial constraints subject to the ability to gouge the world for the use of their products) and create a new low CO2 atmosphere along with whatever effects that might induce for flora and fauna to cope with?
After all they have a long record of the usual human frailties that go with both innovation and subsequent deployment and continued use. Can they, or any other organisation, be trusted to deliver a safe and successful product without significant oversight? Indeed one might wonder whether humanity has a means by which to provide such oversight.
Should oversight be a United Nations Competence?
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