Some Interesting Articles On Global Warming

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

If you fart on a continuing basis it will help the icebergs all melt but Meanioni will not invite you to the newly beach-fronted property.

Good one. I will invite him, but only if he shows us his party trick of lighting his farts with a candle.....

[Medilloni 6]

If I fart on a continuing basis (and I do) do that contribute to GW?

I've been itching to bring that up Bruce, but I thought is was soooo uncouth

And, seems it really would be 'man' to blame for this gaseous debate, 'cos women say they naver cut the cheese....

When the icebergs all melt, I'll invite you all to my newly beach-fronted property - Meds you can bring the dancing girls; Oli can bring the beers and Murray can bring, er... his robo-willy

Nah Meani Wan, Muzza will bring his fighting c#cks

[Oli 1]

Anyway, I come back to the original point of the thread - we've had a lot of debate about other things, but remember - NASA is tweaking historic temperature data and has been doing so for some time. Moreover, the net outcome of their tweaking does not come to 0 (which using probability calculations it should), it favours global warming.

Irrespective of whether the data is deliberately being biased or has happened by accident/incompetence, their tweakings are affecting the final results of all GW studies. As a scientifically-minded person, this troubles me and makes me ask how can we rely on any subsequent studies based upon this data when we don't even know 1) if it is accurate and 2) what effect these tweakings will have?

Murray, Oli if this tweaking is taking place - you should be as concerned as I am about it....

Not particularly. The reasons for the revision are outlined very clearly in an email sent from the lead researcher:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/200...ghtUpstairs.pdf

Given the large number of studies indicating the same trend I really don't see what the story is here. Scientists make mistakes, then they fix them. They are only human after all. Sorry, but I'm still not convinced who benefits from this shadowy conspiracy, nor do I see any scientific data which flatly contradicts GW- you're just picking at details.

[Oli 1]

Oh and this one: http://www.oism.org/pproject/

A petition signed by 31,000 American scientists to say that they do not follow the consensus on GW.

So, Murray, Oli you want to play the numbers game - as I understand it, that represents about 15 times more scientists than contributed to and support the IPCC report....

Oooh is that a consensus?...

As I understand it, the only qualification for that petition is that you had to have an undergraduate degree in science- any science. Among the respondents was a man with a degree in "Ballistics and Crime Scene Management".

The petition also included a paper written by one of the sponsors of the petition, Arthur Robinson- "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" and was printed in the same typeface and format as the official Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing. In reality, this paper had nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences. Robinson was not even a climate scientist, nor had his paper ever been published.

Hardly an objective test:

In any case I prefer to focus on the science rather than the consensus. As you say consensuses can be wrong- but it is certainly considerably rarer than them being right.

[Max Mosley 2]

Oh and this one: http://www.oism.org/pproject/

A petition signed by 31,000 American scientists to say that they do not follow the consensus on GW.

So, Murray, Oli you want to play the numbers game - as I understand it, that represents about 15 times more scientists than contributed to and support the IPCC report....

Oooh is that a consensus?...

Honestly Chris. You're a smart guy. Do you actually believe that survey has any credibility whatsoever? If you do, it explains so much about your views on GW. If you don't, I wonder why you post it. A comprehensive rebuttal can be found here and I will only summarise the main points.

31,000 scientists you say? Well, let's look at some of the names to have appeared on this list of distinguished experts: Dr Red Wine, Dr Frank Burns, Michael J Fox and Geraldine Halliwell! Several names appear more than once, and it has been impossible for anyone to trace many of them. Anyone can sign up to this thing online and claim to be an expert. The petition has never been independently audited and they refuse to even tell us their methodology. Here is an amusing quote from the guy who runs the petition:

Several environmental groups questioned dozens of the names: "Perry S. Mason" (the fictitious lawyer?), "Michael J. Fox" (the actor?), "Robert C. Byrd" (the senator?), "John C. Grisham" (the lawyer-author?). And then there's the Spice Girl, a k a. Geraldine Halliwell: The petition listed "Dr. Geri Halliwell" and "Dr. Halliwell."

Asked about the pop singer, Robinson said he was duped. The returned petition, one of thousands of mailings he sent out, identified her as having a degree in microbiology and living in Boston. "When we're getting thousands of signatures there's no way of filtering out a fake," he said.

OK, but presumably a lot of them were real scientists you say? Well, even according to their own unverifiable claims, in fact barely 9,000 of them even had PhDs. It turns out that me, you, Cav, Maure, Oli and many others on Tf1 could sign up right now! I am completely serious. Does that sound like a credible group of experts to you?

But 9,000 PhDs is still pretty good you say? Well, very few of these degrees are in anything relevant to climate change. Having a PhD in physics doesn't ensure you know anything about climate change any more than you would trust a GP to perform brain surgery. Sure, the GP would do a better job than the layman, but not by much.

Still, perhaps there were some experts in climate change you say? Of course there were, but not very many. In 2001, Scientific American took a random sample of those claiming to have a PhD in a relevant area and here is their report:

Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition—one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers—a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.

So there you go: a 'small fraction' disagree, and thus the vast majority agree, like I always said. And remember that was back in 2001, whereas if anything the consensus is even more popular now, as you can even see from the fact that 6 skeptics above had changed their minds between 1998 and 2001, compared to 11 who hadn't (back in 2001).

You can repeat the same calculation regards all the scientists involved. There is good reason to believe that this petition was sent to a massive number of people. So 9,000 PhDs backed it out of 500,000 in America alone; 31,000 'scientists' backed it out of 10,000,000 in America alone.

Also let's be clear about what it is that these people signed up to. Here is the declaration they signed in full:

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

So does this even reject the consensus view? The consensus does not include the predictions of 'catastrophic disruption', which are just propaganda.

Anyway, I come back to the original point of the thread - we've had a lot of debate about other things, but remember - NASA is tweaking historic temperature data and has been doing so for some time. Moreover, the net outcome of their tweaking does not come to 0 (which using probability calculations it should), it favours global warming.

Irrespective of whether the data is deliberately being biased or has happened by accident/incompetence, their tweakings are affecting the final results of all GW studies. As a scientifically-minded person, this troubles me and makes me ask how can we rely on any subsequent studies based upon this data when we don't even know 1) if it is accurate and 2) what effect these tweakings will have?

Murray, Oli if this tweaking is taking place - you should be as concerned as I am about it....

Data gets revised all the time. Unless you can show something unusual about this particular revision it doesn't worry me at all. And sometimes things get revised in one direction more than another: scientific opinion isn't a random variable! If you think it is, you should make a bet that eventually we will all think the world is flat again.

Furthermore, even if there were reason to suspect foul play (and that is a huge if!) how do you know that the fiddling didn't happen before and the 'tweaking' is only undoing previous bias. Personally I think this is far more likely (but still less likely than genuine changing of opinions). After all, it is arch-skeptic George Bush who is funding NASA, so I can't see why there would be an incentive to talk up climate change. This line of reasoning is supported by a survey conducted amongst US government climatologists which indicated that 46% said they were under pressure to remove mention of global warming when reporting their findings to the public. Interestingly 61% of NASA climatologists reported that the situation had 'improved' in 2006, which is perhaps relevant to your impression of 'tweaking'.

An old article, but nonetheless interesting, esp. the comments about economists and consensus - Murray take note!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm...16/ccpers16.xml

Obviously the consensus can be wrong - I never said otherwise. But more often than not, when the vast majority of experts agree and give us advice, it is wise to take it. No one can understand more than a few issues perfectly, so everyone has to trust experts most of the time.

Btw I think it's a generally crap article, although from someone I usually listen to. I'm not an economist but her claims that 'almost the entire academic economic establishment' opposed Thatcher is bollocks, written by a Thatcherite for the Daily Torygraph. In fact years before Thatcher came to power, at least 2 of the geniuses behind her policies won the Nobel Prize for Economics: Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. As soon as someone wins the Nobel Prize for Physics by challenging GW let me know, Ruth! And the physics she refers to at the end is again easily questioned. She has a vested interest because she always argues against regulation on economic grounds.

Interesting article. We are at an economic crossroads in Spain and I wish our goverment read more articles like that and less rubbish about Global Warming, Alliance of Civilizations, antinuclear pamphlets, etc.

Zapatero is a dunderhead. Why did you elect him?

[Max Mosley 2]

As I understand it, the only qualification for that petition is that you had to have an undergraduate degree in science- any science. Among the respondents was a man with a degree in "Ballistics and Crime Scene Management".

The petition also included a paper written by one of the sponsors of the petition, Arthur Robinson- "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" and was printed in the same typeface and format as the official Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing. In reality, this paper had nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences. Robinson was not even a climate scientist, nor had his paper ever been published.

Hardly an objective test:

Indeed. The NAS issued an angry response, and the petition apologised without removing the names.

In any case I prefer to focus on the science rather than the consensus. As you say consensuses can be wrong- but it is certainly considerably rarer than them being right.

Yes it is better to focus on the science. But I think their whole argument collapses if they are incapable of accepting a basic fact.

[AleHop 0]

Zapatero is a dunderhead. Why did you elect him?

That's something I ask myself everyday but I've not been able to find a reasonable answer. He got most of the votes from the left radicals and now those political parties have nearly disappeared. That saved his a##.

BTW, a dunderhead perfectly describes him.

[spitfire 0]

here is something of interest. and it is pretty recent! I don't think anyone else has posted this but if so sorry I missed it

No smoking hot spot

David Evans | July 18, 2008

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.

read the whole story here http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...36-7583,00.html

OK now go ahead and start discrediting this guy... you know that is usually your only response IE: my scientists know more than your scientists and other such schoolyard patter.

this is just one more example. People are begining to realise that the sky is indeed not falling!

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Ah Muzza you fell for it Yes I was being naughty with the 31,000 signature petition. But I was trying to prove a point - namely that "consensus" can be misleading. You still don't get it that consensus means diddly squat. Sometimes the consensus can be right but the consensus is influenced by prevailing fads, peer pressure, the need to feel loved, politics, whatever.

Personally if you had 999 scientists who had a consensus and 1 who did not (and that 1 person happened to be right) - I'll stick with the one person thank you very much. Of course, many times the consensus is correct or appears to be, but it is dangerous to blindly believe that just because it is a consensus it is correct. The consensus was that Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Iraq - Oops... The consensus was that the Titanic was unsinkable - oh bugger, etc....

And I should add the Dr Halliwell is highly respected in these parts, but is it her colleague Dr Bunton who has a couple of fine points that I would like to see raised

Anyway you keep batting them at me and I'll bat 'em back (I have Google too)

400 scientists who are sceptics - and seem fairly respectable!

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JZ...ag=artBody;col1

And Olly, yet again you selectively throw articles at me to prove you are right and that my buns are going to get globally warmed. Well the article you mentioned is even made reference to in the original link I posted below - read the link and you will see that they make many other salient points re global temps and dismiss the excuse used by NASA.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/go...sa_thermometer/

I also should mention the whole business about shrinking ice caps. There seems to be a widely-held belief that world is going to be consumed by a global sea rise - bye bye Bangladesh, etc. And the Arctic disappearing is going to cause us problems.

Just to remind you, Arctic is sea ice and if it melts it will make no discernible difference to the overall sea-level (schoolboy physics). Antarctica on the other hand is freshwater ice and would cause problems, except that it is getting colder, especially in the middle, more ice is being deposited and scientists generally agree that because it averages -40 C there any small rise in global termperature will have no major effect.

So, I am still trying to work out what the problem actually is with GW....

- Higher temperatures = more plant growth = less famine

- Higher CO2 levels = ditto

- Sea levels not likely to change (really)

- History demonstrating that during previous warm periods, the world has flourished

- Warmer temperatures = less deaths due to cold weather

- Higher temperatures = worse weather? No, calmer weather actually

- More malaria? Nope that is a myth.

So what is it exactly that we are trying to prevent????

- Animal migration/changes in eco systems - has happened thousands of times before

er.....

[Max Mosley 2]

That's something I ask myself everyday but I've not been able to find a reasonable answer. He got most of the votes from the left radicals and now those political parties have nearly disappeared. That saved his a##.

BTW, a dunderhead perfectly describes him.

Yes. I quite liked the guy you had before. Can't remember his name now. Friend of Blair and Bush. Jose Aznar or something.

OK now go ahead and start discrediting this guy... you know that is usually your only response IE: my scientists know more than your scientists and other such schoolyard patter.

No, I've tried to keep the issues simple. If people can't even understand the simple fact that skeptics are in a small minority in the scientific community (when the previous link you yourself gave us told you so!) then how can we possibly discuss academic research done by 'rocket scientists'. I don't think you have bothered to check up on anything that you've posted and that makes scientific debate impossible. Here's what my search on google revealed about your latest link.

David Evans claims to be a 'top rocket scientist' who actually does climate modelling. That's the impression you got, right? Well, 2 minutes on google will easily show you how misleading he is. In reality, he is no climate modeller by his own admission. In fact, he admits on his own blog that he can't even understand the models:

I am not saying the IPCC carbon sensitivities are wrong necessarily, I'm saying that I can't see or follow their calculations

He says further:

the only figures offered to me are from opaque models. I find that unsatisfactory of course, because I do not know the assumptions built into those models, the input data, or how the calculations were made.

So he is far from an expert. Btw all the assumptions used in these models are publicly available. They're not kept secret, obviously. He's just too lazy to look them up before pretending to be an expert just because he has a PhD, which wasn't in anything to do with climate change. The guy has only ever published one academic paper - nothing to do with climate change - back in 1987!

If you want scientific rebuttals of his stupidity, you could easily find them too. Here is a genuine climate scientist showing us how wrong Evans is. And more and more and more articles can be found if you only bother to question your own preconceptions.

this is just one more example. People are begining to realise that the sky is indeed not falling!

I would actually say more and more of the public and politicians are being convinced that GW is a genuine problem. Every scientific body of any note accepted that a long time ago. Your examples just show how little skeptics bother to do their research. They make me more convinced than I ever was before.

[Quiet One 15]

Wow...such a heated debate. Har Har! Get it? Heated!

I'll get my coat...

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Wow...such a heated debate. Har Har! Get it? Heated!

I'll get my coat...

Actually, you are wrong, the consensus says that this debate is in fact cooling over time

[Max Mosley 2]

Ah Muzza you fell for it Yes I was being naughty with the 31,000 signature petition.

OK. But I noticed Med was fooled too!

Does a consensus always mean didly squat to you? How do you make decisions about things you are not an expert in? Let's say you become ill tomorrow and the doctor says it's important that you take some medicine. Would you likely take his advice after a brief discussion with him, or go home and read all the research that was done? Well, you're a smart fellow so maybe just maybe you might actually look at the research. Let's say that 928 peer reviewed papers suggested the medicine was effective and safe, and precisely none said it wasn't. But, suppose some doctor somewhere in the world said in a newspaper interview that the medicine might cause cancer and that you really ought to take something else. He didn't provide any peer-reviewed evidence for this, and every medical organisation in the world told you it was a load of nonsense. That one opinion matters as much as the 999 opposing ones? And you would do nothing until the science was proven beyond doubt?

Is your latest link a serious link or just another joke? Have you made sure to look at the names on it yourself or are you just trusting that they are 'prominent scientists'? If you're not willing to trust 999 scientists' opinions over 1, then presumably you wouldn't be so naive as to blindly trust one journalist's report?

A cursory examination will tell you that there are tons of economists and sociologists on that list of 'prominent scientists'. But it gets better - they've included inventors and TV weather presenters! And many of these supposed deniers actually are not deniers at all.

Anyway, I don't doubt that there are tens of prominent scientists who do genuinely disagree with the mainstream view. There might even be hundreds (not on that list, though). But how many academic scientists are there in the world? Half a million?

[Oli 1]

And Olly, yet again you selectively throw articles at me to prove you are right and that my buns are going to get globally warmed. Well the article you mentioned is even made reference to in the original link I posted below - read the link and you will see that they make many other salient points re global temps and dismiss the excuse used by NASA.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/go...sa_thermometer/

What does "selectively throwing articles" mean? I am showing you an email (rather than an article) to give you an idea of why data might be revised from time to time, and that that is not indicative of some sinister conspiracy.

I apologise if that was linked to in the article- I can't see it anywhere (admittedly I am a bit slow today- 95 degree heat). Which page is it on?

As for the rest of the article- it really doesn't say anything that I haven't covered. It doesn't claim to prove or disprove GW (it can't, since it focuses on the RSS data, an even smaller subset of data than NASA). It only shows that the data has been revised, which we know already. It claims this is "systematically biased in favour of GW", and I just don't see where it draws that conclusion from. Why is the RSS data any more trustworthy?

The article can be summarized in one of its final conclusions- "We are not qualified to analyze that or second-guess the experts. What is being examined is the quality and stability of the data being used by people making those claims". In other words, we are not experts but we're going to criticise the data without having a proper knowledge of how the data is being used.

Even funnier is in the comments section, the writer defends his use of USA trends rather than global trends, saying "There is no reason to believe that US temperatures behave in a tremendously different fashion from the rest of the world.". He fails to reply when someone points out the US is a landmass and most of the rest of the world is water.

I also should mention the whole business about shrinking ice caps. There seems to be a widely-held belief that world is going to be consumed by a global sea rise - bye bye Bangladesh, etc. And the Arctic disappearing is going to cause us problems.

Just to remind you, Arctic is sea ice and if it melts it will make no discernible difference to the overall sea-level (schoolboy physics). Antarctica on the other hand is freshwater ice and would cause problems, except that it is getting colder, especially in the middle, more ice is being deposited and scientists generally agree that because it averages -40 C there any small rise in global termperature will have no major effect.

And at the edges, where it is melting? It's less than -40 there. The sea level is rising (measurably)- is this a concern?

So, I am still trying to work out what the problem actually is with GW....

- Higher temperatures = more plant growth = less famine

- Higher CO2 levels = ditto

- Sea levels not likely to change (really)

- History demonstrating that during previous warm periods, the world has flourished

- Warmer temperatures = less deaths due to cold weather

- Higher temperatures = worse weather? No, calmer weather actually

- More malaria? Nope that is a myth.

I agree with you about the malaria. The rest is rather Anglocentric- think about the rest of the world- expanding deserts and so forth. I'd also be interested to see why warmer temperatures=calmer weather. As far as I know that question is still very much unanswered.

In any case the point is that the climate model explains that Carbon Dioxide and temperature are intertwined in a positive feedback cycle. Once the warming begins it will accelerate until long after the problem is corrected. The problem is nobody is quite sure how much warming will take place before it does. The cautious approach would be therefore to act now so we are in a position to try and reverse the warming before it gets too extreme. If we're wrong and the temperature reverses, what have we lost? We've increased our ability to provide clean energy, and thus reduced our dependence on foreign oil, and in the meantime learned a ton about the way our climate works.

Now I know this assumes the climate model is correct, which I know you don't believe. This is merely intended to show why it is of concern if all the climatologists turn out to be right.

[spitfire 0]

hey Murray. So I clicked on one of the supposed infallable links you gave and low an behold it's someone who prooves that the GHG lobby is indeed ready and willing to diddle the numbers if it suits them even as they claim ANYONE who disagrees with them is wrong. here is a quote cherry picked in the style I learnt from you (I only imitate the best)

"It is also obvious that a warmer atmosphere has the potential to hold more water vapour (itself a GHG of course), and although the magnitude of this effect isn't known with certainty, the most plausible first-order estimate (supported by models and data) would be that relative humidity will stay roughly constant. This gives another 1C, making 2C in total. [The numbers here are intended as ballpark estimates, please let's have no quibbles about the precision.] "

There, you see, he knows he is just ballparking numbers but still we are supposed to take him seriously and slay anyone who dares to disagree, note also how i can just pull the one qoute out and ignore everything else that is said, I even if I might kind of agree with this guy in general on some points.

Now I am going to try to enjoy the last long weekend of this unusually short and cold summer...you know this has been a cold year it almost makes me think that the globe might have cooled a bit ...oh but there I go letting observations and experience get in the way of doctrine...pardon me....I will submit myself to the Star Chamber for appropriate judgement....

[Max Mosley 2]

All the arguments from the skeptics are now just getting silly. First we have Chris showing a petition, then saying it was only a joke. Then he gives another equally ridiculous link. Spitfire, you gave a list of deniers, and have ignored the fact that if you'd spent 2 minutes on google you'd have realised that they don't deny it at all.

Now you're completely ignoring the fact that your boy Evans admits he's out of his depth; whereas the fact that someone else on a blog entry makes an estimate of something (and makes clear that it's an estimate) apparently discredits him? Honestly this is pathetic.

The point of those blogs was to show the errors that Evans has made, and estimates suffice when Evans's errors are so glaringly obvious.There are computer models if you want more precise figures, but they are not so good for a simple blog entry that is aimed at the general public because the principles at work are often obscured behind the complicated maths.

Clearly there is a lot of uncertainty in exactly how much warming a given amount of CO2 will cause. But that's the same when you go to a doctor: if he gives you some medicine he can't tell you to 3 decimal places how much better you will be by 12:03am the next day, but he can probably say that you're quite likely to be somewhat better, and that's good enough.

Oh and I don't think I've 'cherry-picked' quotes out of context at all.

[maure 1]

Wow, the amount of delusion is amazing, just amazing. My face hurts from laughing.

The profound misunderstanding regarding what science is and does explains nearly everything... abnormal psychology, the rest.

The GW fanatics present their "arguments" as if trying to get a script sold in Hollywood. You see, they "explain", the scientists of the world, millions of them, are like an army of robots, all of one mind, all a huge consensus... so, you see, it's all so big that if you disagree, then, it is a huuuuge conspiracy because, you see, millions, zillions of scientists are all thinking alike and...

Is it really possible to be so ignorant and blind?

The only true thing one can say about the "vast majority" of scientist is that they have nothing to do with GW. Ultimately, able thinking heads in any field are not that many (except when selling to Hollywood) and if the field is producing anything of relevance, it is because these few worthy heads are pulling in different directions...

[maure 1]

So, another hurricane is threatening the states.

How come we hear about it now since climate models are sophisticated enough to, not only PREDICT, by EXPLAIN too?

Why doesn't at least _one_ of the "vast majority of scientists" (that Murray claims are in-the-know) alert the world with enough time to save lives?

Some 100 people are already dead. Millions are at risk. Again, since it is claimed that the information is available, why hide it? Why allow people to die?

Conspiracy?

Nope. When push comes to shove, ignorance is all we have... and the know-it-all are nowhere to be found.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Does a consensus always mean didly squat to you?

Muzza, your total basis of belief for GW rests on the idea of a consensus. It is also based upon the conviction that scientists understand how our climate works. This is nothing but academic arrogance.

To answer your medical question - who would I trust? Well that's a good question - if my life depended on it I'd probably take both medicines Although not as dramatic I did face a similar situation recently where the doctor said I had high trigylcerides in my blood stream. Conventional cure = statins, a potent medicine which is known to have nasty side effects. My doctor happens to be a bit unconventional and he suggested the use of fish oils - natural and few if any side effects. Guess what? It worked.

The problem with going with the consensus is that it is based upon the knowledge prevalent at the time. Times and times again it has been proven that the consensus view is not always right. We arrogantly look back and laugh at people in the past and the foolish decisions they believed then. e.g. conventional wisdom when cars came out was that if you went over 40 mph you would suffocate from lack of oxygen - now we laugh and think this is funny. However, whilst we have a better grip on some things, we are still clueless as to how most of the world works around us - and new ideas come out all the time which change scientific perceptions.

I submit to you (and Oli) that GW may possibly exist, however it is based upon:

• An incomplete understanding of our climate (go on, prove to me that we really understand how it works)
  
• A model that is not proven to be taking place - greenhouse effect with CO2 is not proven as I understand it
  
• Based upon an incomplete, small, inaccurate data set (NASA fiddling, what is the global temperature exactly? Known gaps in data and some data which has been calculated/made up)
  
• A model which ignores other effects, such as solar changes, water vapour
  
• A model which does not explain certain things (the apparent lag between ice-core data and CO2 levels; recent global cooling, the period of warming prior to industrialisation when CO2 levels were lower)
  
• Panic scenarios of potential disasters (I still ask the question - what, exactly are we trying to prevent?)
  

Its this last point I am going to focus on again - the IPCC paper took the worst case scenario when talking about sea level rises. As I have said already Arctic ice is irrelevant as it will not contribute to rising sea levels. Antarctic ice is the main issue and unless you can prove otherwise, the level of warming is unlikely to melt that polar cap (certainly to the level of dangerous sea-level rises).

And so what if the levels do rise? They have done this many times over the planet's existence - so Bangladesh, the Cayman Islands and bits of Holland might have problems. So, there will be an emigration of people (which has happened before) and are you really saying that we should restrict the economic activities of developing countries, punish ourselves with taxes, invest in technologies which are questionable (e.g. nuclear)? to save Bangladesh and a few other small islands? Why don't we invest in those countries, find a way of moving people? etc Isn't that a better long term investment than building thousands of wind turbines and associated gas power stations?

And Oli, you say I am being Anglo-centric - no I am not. OK so some deserts might extend (this has happened before), but equally some areas of tundra will become more viable for other eco-systems. Higher temperatures and more CO2 - remember, ideal plant growing conditions.

Is man that arrogant that he can assume he understands and can control the planet? Utter bollocks. We are but a pimple on the global timeline.

Personally I believe all this activity is grossly misplaced. I would rather countries invested effort into preventing and curing famine, AIDS and Malaria - the biggest killers of our time, especially in Africa. I bet you if you looked at investing all the money pouring into GW activities into those three areas we would save 100 times the number of people who are projected to suffer/die from GW.

[Medilloni 6]

OK. But I noticed Med was fooled too!....................

Moi, earlier...

...but that was an interesting read Meani Wan (against others that support the opposite view).

Naughty fellow Muzza, I'm a layman, I find all of it interesting, for me the jury is still out:P Though I am looking for 'balance' - the pro GW is put across as alarmist, the other side as 'Mr Angry' (I don't mean those on here, I mean in a political sense), hence my hunt (and interest!!) for information that I can trust, is unbiased and is presented with complete transparency.

How do you make decisions about things you are not an expert in?

I'm enjoying everyone's comments here, in awe of how much time people have to spend on Google too - my job is 99% involved in Google and I still wouldn't have the time to do what you lot are! However, I'd be interested to know if any of those with such staunch views (either way) would consider themselves qualified to comment authoratively. Is anyone here expert/qualified in related theories/studies in GW, climate change etc etc? Or have their beliefs led them to purely back their pov? And I'm not being sarcy, it's understandable. But not unbiased....

Layman's tale :

The wee one (he's 10 btw) comes home from school just before the summer break and asks why everyone "will choke and become overheated". Inside his schoolbag is a teacher's explanation of GW - her view was that it is purely man-made and refers solely to man's activities - no mention of Earth cycles, volcanoes, the Sun etc etc. Long story short, she scared 30 kids s##tless.

The kid's homework over the summer holidays is to write a story of what will happen, and what life will be like in the next 20 years, her bullet points to help them with this homework are (painstakingly copied!!):

"Include in your story what you think about the following:

What you think about the air we breathe, will it be more difficult? [ffs!!! 8 of those kids are asthmatic you stupid cow!!]

When we can't use water out of the tap what will we need to do?

When there are no wild animals on the Earth will it change our lives?

When all of the forests have gone how will this this affect us?"

........there's more............

Maybe this (above) isn't relevant here, but this stupid bitch of a teacher knows eff-all (authoratively, scientifically) about GW and passes it on to children as gospel. I have to find a way to help him understand that whilst what she said could be right, there remains the possibility that she's wrong, and that the people she learnt from could be wrong. They could be wrong completely, half right, a little right, what?

He's nearly finished the homework using the word 'if', as in, 'if' GW is what they are told it is. I wonder if he'll be in trouble? I think so.

Crappest post I've ever put up here, sorry, but GW will alter/change/spoil lives if it's correct, it'll alter/change/spoil them if it's not. My biggest concern is whether our children will learn to question for themselves on this issue, as opposed to blindly becoming 'The Third Reich' of GW.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

In any case the point is that the climate model explains that Carbon Dioxide and temperature are intertwined in a positive feedback cycle. Once the warming begins it will accelerate until long after the problem is corrected. The problem is nobody is quite sure how much warming will take place before it does.

Well that's one theory.

Allegedly there have been ultra-high CO2 concentrations before. A theory also doing the rounds is that before life as we know it came into existence, the planet's CO2 were markedly (hundreds of times) higher as a result of volcanic activity. This caused increased cloud formation, increasing the planet's albedo - more light/heat reflected back and instead of a runaway Venus scenario, the planet cooled and turned into a giant snowball.

So this begs a few questions:

- How come its not a snowball now? Well, an interesting phenomenon took place - the increased cloud cover lead to massively increased precipitation - constant pouring of rain. This dissolved the CO2 to form carbonic acid which reacted with alkaline calciferous rocks to create limestone/chalk. So the planet corrected the CO2 levels by raining it out. Evidence for this comes from rock strata.

- How come the planet didn't turn into Venus? Indeed.....

The cautious approach would be therefore to act now so we are in a position to try and reverse the warming before it gets too extreme. If we're wrong and the temperature reverses, what have we lost?

Why? We would be the only era on our planet that has given any consideration to what things are going to be like in 100 years+ time. All of this is based upon scientific guesswork. We are seeking to restrict economic development of developing countries, burdening our business and people with taxes and diverting billions of funding into one area, when it could be used to help find a cure for cancer, AIDS, prevent malaria or invest in infrastructure.

So you're the president of the world now - you have $50 billion to invest - where are you going to spend it? On something that might possibly happen, based upon possible projections/ideas and might cause problems/deaths or on helping living, breathing people now who are dying because of inadequate access to medicines, food, clean water and pesticides.

If you back GW and it turns out to be wrong, could you live with your conscience knowing that millions have died preventable deaths?

And why all of a sudden are they backing this, when they have failed to act in the past? If our governments are that caring about the world situation, why didn't they act when we thought an ice age was on the way? Why did they sit on their hands with famine in Africa until a faded pop-star shocked them into action.

We've increased our ability to provide clean energy, and thus reduced our dependence on foreign oil, and in the meantime learned a ton about the way our climate works.

Ah you've hit the nail on the head "reduced dependance on foreign oil" - ....hmmm

And no, clean energy is a fallacy, like I have said. Wind power is not clean - it carries an added CO2 burden, wave power is in its infancy, solar is inefficient and expensive...... Fossil fuels are hear to stay for many, many years.

Now I know this assumes the climate model is correct, which I know you don't believe. This is merely intended to show why it is of concern if all the climatologists turn out to be right.

Nope I don't believe the data is accurate and that we have enough of it and accurate models built on it to draw conclusions. I cannot think of any other situation where so much action has taken place, based upon such incomplete and dodgy data and modelling.

The inconsistency of governments is also staggering.

Biggest outputers of CO2 globally? Oceans and animals

...of human origin: Cars? Planes?

Nope: shipping and industry - yet you show me where governments have acted with such fervour to reduce shipping CO2 outputs and even industrial outputs to any significant degree. Its all based upon consumers - why? Because they are easy to tax and easy to scare/control.

[maure 1]

The hurricane creeps closer.

No word yet from the the GW wisemen (or from the "vast majority" of scientists)...

[Quiet One 15]

The hurricane creeps closer.

No word yet from the the GW wisemen (or from the "vast majority" of scientists)...

And that means:

a) You are omnipotent and know whether somebody who believes in GW actually made a connection or not or even if there is a really relevant connection between a single hurricane and a GW theory. If you meant that nobody mentioned any connection between an increase in hurricane's frequency and intensity, then you must have read the Reader's Digest version of GW, because there are articles aplenty about that issue.

You know that according to the GW theory, ANY climatic event anywhere must be directly related to GW, otherwise the theory must be wrong, whether it is a hurricane or a sunny but cold november monday at Frankfurt. GW MUST give some kind of connection or fall be demolished by sarcastic comments with no further analisys whatsoever.

c) The hurricane somehow disproves the GW theory. Perhaps because winds means more cold air hence no warming? Perhaps because you believe its like some kind of giant fan which will bring fresh air all across the globe? Because it will dissipate all the farts from cows in Haiti and southern USA? What is the connection you are trying to establish? Or is it just a sneering comment with no purpose whatsoever?

[Oli 1]

Sorry for the multiple posts here. For some reason the board restricts the number of quote tags I can use per post.

[*]A model which ignores other effects, such as solar changes, water vapour

No, it takes them into account- solar activity has reduced since 1975, yet the temperature has gone up.

[*]A model which does not explain certain things (the apparent lag between ice-core data and CO2 levels;

This has been explained in an earlier post. Discovering how the feedback mechanism works is the primary difference that the IPCC report of 2007 is so different from that of 2001, and why so many scientific bodies switched their position from "don't know" to "man has almost certainly heated the world up".

recent global cooling,

That is well explained in the model. Temperatures fluctuate- you can't just focus your attention on whichever timespan suits you the most.

the period of warming prior to industrialisation when CO2 levels were lower)

Well explained in the model- due to solar activity and proximity to the sun, neither of which are above average right now

[*]Panic scenarios of potential disasters (I still ask the question - what, exactly are we trying to prevent?)

I agree that the tabloids have blown a lot of this out of proportion, but that doesn't disprove the principle. As I've stated right from the start, I don't think everybody's going to die in 100 years, nor do I think we should all stop having babies (or even using our cars- I drive a Mustang for god's sake). I'm arguing that it is a problem, a relatively easily solvable one, but that pretending it isn't happening could turn it into an insoluble one.

Its this last point I am going to focus on again - the IPCC paper took the worst case scenario when talking about sea level rises. As I have said already Arctic ice is irrelevant as it will not contribute to rising sea levels. Antarctic ice is the main issue and unless you can prove otherwise, the level of warming is unlikely to melt that polar cap (certainly to the level of dangerous sea-level rises).

In the short term, yes. What about the Greenland ice sheet? That has plenty of fresh water in it- enough to raise the sea levels by about 20 feet.

And so what if the levels do rise? They have done this many times over the planet's existence - so Bangladesh, the Cayman Islands and bits of Holland might have problems. So, there will be an emigration of people (which has happened before)

At gigantic cost to the developed world which is going to have to feed/rehouse all these people. Bangladesh is underwater most of the time now anyway- we pour money into the country but it makes no difference. Where would you suggest we put these people then? Maybe we should bring them to England! Except I forgot- English people hate "forreners", so instead we just keep pouring money into a black hole.

and are you really saying that we should restrict the economic activities of developing countries,

nope

punish ourselves with taxes,

nope

invest in technologies which are questionable (e.g. nuclear)?

France seems to manage.

[Oli 1]

to save Bangladesh and a few other small islands? Why don't we invest in those countries, find a way of moving people? etc Isn't that a better long term investment than building thousands of wind turbines and associated gas power stations?

Now you are living in fantasyland. Why can't everybody just move somewhere nicer? World politics doesn't work like that, and even if it did the associated cost would be several orders of magnitude higher than the investment required to increase our alternative fuel sources. Think it through- where are they going to go? And remember we are not talking about "Bangladesh and a few other small islands" (Bangladesh isn't an island by the way), but every town and city in the world that is on the coast.

And Oli, you say I am being Anglo-centric - no I am not. OK so some deserts might extend (this has happened before), but equally some areas of tundra will become more viable for other eco-systems.

Yep, I can accept that's the case. But it's still going to require a massive upheaval. How's this going to work exactly? Are we all just going to move Northwards? Will existing land borders remain the same? I hope Denmark's got a good army because Greenland's going to become hot property.

Sounds like great fun.

Is man that arrogant that he can assume he understands and can control the planet? Utter bollocks. We are but a pimple on the global timeline.

We made a hole in the ozone layer, I'd remind you. That's a fairly major effect. Or do you think that's a myth too?

Personally I believe all this activity is grossly misplaced. I would rather countries invested effort into preventing and curing famine, AIDS and Malaria - the biggest killers of our time, especially in Africa.

That's pouring money into a black hole. We have no idea if there is a cure for AIDS or malaria. Famine is largely due to governments, not lack of ideal growing conditions. To cure famine you're going to have to fix all those countries- not an easy task. How much money has the Iraq war cost? Half every American's tax burden already goes straight to the military.

I bet you if you looked at investing all the money pouring into GW activities into those three areas we would save 100 times the number of people who are projected to suffer/die from GW.

I don't. Have you any idea of the amount of money you're talking about? How exactly do we cure famine? I think your estimation of the money "pouring into GW activities" is grossly exaggerated.