Speed and Rush raised a thought that had occurred to me as I was shovelling snow this morning. Is global warming still occurring or was it just normal environmental variation? Thoughts?
Also, why do you think people started using the term "Climate Change" rather than "Global Warming"? Is appropriate or were they losing the followers as things cooled?
Speed Gibson What's not to like?
Think Progress Limbaugh GW Hoax
Limbaugh Kerry on GW with China
Climate Progress Account for Oceans
I don't what's happening, but I have not ridden my motorcycle yet and am getting grumpy. Though things are looking better for later in the week !!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
26 comments:
There is a difference between weather and climate and this topic is dumb as it has been debated on your blog before. Does anyone have anything new to add that is based on science? Channel 4 news is covering your question right now.
why do you think people started using the term "Climate Change" rather than "Global Warming"?
I think it's because we have more extreme events, and that they are more noticeable, than any warming or cooling of the climate.
" Is appropriate or were they losing the followers as things cooled?"
I think they were losing followers, because another side of the case was being presented. More people will buy your ketchup if you advertise it on tv. That doesn't mean advertising has made your ketchup either bad or worse.
Global warming isn't a big issue with me, but I do like to think I recognize bad thinking when I see it. Rush's analogy is really dumb. The fact that a doctor might be clueless about an issue hardly means he is a bad doctor. There is just a lot we don't know about the human body, just as there is a lot we don't know about climate. But is the possibility that a doctor doesn't know everything possible or impossible a reason to refuse it. In medicine, death is the only final diagnosis. I would like that not to be the case with respect to climate issues.
--Hiram
--Hiram
One of the things I often think about is the difference between truthfulness and credibility. That Rush thinks so poorly, IMO, undermines his credibility. I think for me, and for a lot of people, the jump from a lack of credibility to a conclusion about truthfulness is a very easy one to make. But I think that's wrong, or at least way too easy to do. In fairness to Rush, just because he doesn't reason well, doesn't mean he is wrong, or what he says isn't true.
--Hiram
Laurie,
What new topic would you like us to research and discuss? I am flexible.
I have a string of posts I want to address, but I can't until some paperwork gets finalized. Hint: I am now working at a different company...
Okay, so it is not the easy to come up with good blog topics.
After visiting some of my favorite new sites and blogs for the past hour I decided that Obama's use of drones was most interesting to me, especially as I have mixed feelings and can't decide if I support it or not.
Scott Shane’s thought-provoking questions about ‘targeted killings’ using drones
To respond to the current topic, the answer is No. Global warming is not over. There will be another cycle of it, just as there has been every 1, 30, 400, 1000 and 10,000 years of Earth's many climate cycles. What SHOULD be over is the yapping about humankind-- especially CO2 production-- having something to do with it.
The science is simple enough. If your theory is that manmade CO2 will create a catastrophic climate 100 years from now, you wait 100 years and see if it's true or not. That's science. Or, you wait 20 years and see if your predictions hold up that far, which of course they have not.
Let me say this another way: In order to prove that man-made CO2 will cause a climate catastrophe, you must prove every link in the "causal chain" between the two. That is, you must prove that you can measure a global temperature, first of all, and that you have done so successfully and accurately for hundreds if not thousands of years, and the same with CO2. Then you have to prove that atmospheric CO2 not just correlates with global temperature but, with rigorous science, prove that CO2 CAUSES global temperature to rise (note: it is insufficient to refer to Arrhenius and the greenhouse effect; you must quantify the effect and detail the climate's "sensitivity" to CO2 over a wide range of CO2 concentrations. This appears to be where the current computer models fail miserably.) Next, you have to prove that CO2 increase is the principle cause of global temperature increase, that human-created CO2 is the principal cause of overall CO2 increase, and only then can you start to prove that the predicted temperature rise will be catastrophic. And only at that point, 100 years from now, should the theory be accepted as scientific fact and public policy based upon it. Right now none of these links have been scientifically proven; all we have is some deeply flawed computer models, based on unproven assumptions, predicting results that have already diverged from reality – i.e. been disproven. The only thing still propping up this cockamamie theory is the vast expenditure of political puffery and snake-oil salesmanship masquerading as science.
J. Ewing
: In order to prove that man-made CO2 will cause a climate catastrophe, you must prove every link in the "causal chain" between the two.
But is that something we are interested in doing? Do we require "causal chains" before we act? We don't, for example, know the causal chain between environmental factors and various diseases. But is that a sufficient reason to ignore such correlations? The fact is, there are very few things in life that we know with absolute certainty. Inadequate and incomplete information is the norm, not the exception, and yet somehow we forge on by doing the best we can on the information we have. Medicine is one such area where we act on inadequate information. I don't know why climate issues aren't another such area.
--Hiram
I would say that we do, in fact, need a causal chain with substantial evidence behind it before setting out public policy, especially a public policy that would cost some $70 trillion in missed economic opportunity, resulting in the misery and death of millions of our fellow human beings. Even worse, even if you believe the faulty research and hyperbole of the UN IPCC, and do the calculations, you can reach the following conclusion: if the US immediately stopped producing CO2 – no burning of coal, oil, gasoline, natural gas, or plant material, no production of cement and no plowing of agricultural fields – the world would enjoy a reduction in the global temperature increase from roughly 7°F to 6.5°F, or one half of 1°! That hardly seems worth the expenditure of $70 trillion, especially when we could learn to adapt to any such temperature increase for far less IF AND WHEN it occurs.
I think we already do take a similar approach to medical matters. For example, we know that lung cancer exists, and that untreated it can be fatal. We know that cigarette smokers have far more lung cancers than non-smokers do (which is just a correlation but…) We can prove in the laboratory the mechanism by which the components of cigarette smoke harm human lung tissue. Our public policy response is a very inexpensive warning on cigarette packs. The causal chain is short and has considerable real science behind it, yet the extreme response of banning all tobacco products is never even considered. Why would we create a policy almost infinitely more extreme based on a long, completely unproven and largely unresearched causal chain that, even if taken at face value would not solve the problem?
J. Ewing
By the way, the 1/2 degree reduction resulting from killing every American (no heat, no shelter, no transportation, and no food) occurs 100 years from now! And if we could kill EVERYBODY on the planet with the same strategy, the IPCC says that temperatures would return to normal within 300 years. Fortunately, they are absolutely wrong with their global warming predictions, and even more wrong about their policy prescriptions even if their cockamamie theories were right.
Rush Limbaugh was impressed that a 13-year-old had evidence that global warming was a hoax. I'm not. A 10-year-old 5th grader can learn and scientifically demonstrate the same thing in just a few minutes.
J. Ewing
I would say that we do, in fact, need a causal chain with substantial evidence behind it before setting out public policy,
Oh substantial evidence, sure. And as I have often said, while correlation made not prove causation, it's often pretty good evidence of causation. And isn't it strange that the more important the issue, the lower our standard for substantiality often gets?
==Hiram
Rush Limbaugh was impressed that a 13-year-old had evidence that global warming was a hoax.
I would be impressed with a 13 year old who looks into those kinds of issues. But it's important to note that whether or not global warming is a hoax is an entirely different issue then whether it's valid. Rush should understand that where a 13 year old might not.
--Hiram
"But it's important to note that whether or not global warming is a hoax is an entirely different issue then whether it's valid."
You're going to have to explain that one. An invalid scientific conclusion or a hoax are equally poor foundations for public policy.
J.
You're going to have to explain that one.
A hoax can be where a scientist manipulates or creates data to fool someone. But simply because one person hoaxes or commits fraud, isn't relevant to the validity of the claims.
Credibility is something entirely different from truthfulness. Liars say truthful things all the time.
--Hiram
In this case, though, it is a distinction without a difference. We know that the scientists have been falsifying the data records and have not conducted their research in scientifically valid ways. We know they have deliberately suppressed opposition views, engaged in political grandstanding and taken the money that results from prostituting their scientific integrity.
There is no way their claims can be "valid," but I do hesitate to call them hoaxers. You would think scientists would be smart enough to know that's what they were doing, but I don't know they did.
Regardless, the jig is up. It is now obvious to everyone (as it should have been the moment Al Gore pontificated on it) that there are only four flaws in the Theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic (i.e. manmade) Global Warming, as it was originally (and most correctly) known. It isn't catastrophic, it isn't anthropogenic, it isn't global, and it isn't warming. Other than that...
J.
We know that the scientists have been falsifying the data records and have not conducted their research in scientifically valid ways.
Again, that doesn't mean their conclusions are false. The truth of a statement is never determined by who says it. Somehow in our national discourse, maybe it happened around the OJ trial, we as a nation really got confused about the difference between truthfulness and credibility. I blame the lawyers who are generally much more concerned with the latter than the former.
--Hiram
Still, if you haven't been truthful about the data, then the conclusions you tell us are to be drawn from it are not only invalid, but untruthful as well.
Again, there is no truth to the CAGW myth, no supporting scientific evidence, and therefore not a proper matter for politicians to become involved with "solving."
Laurie, is there enough scientific evidence here for you to consider?
"if you haven't been truthful about the data, then the conclusions you tell us are to be drawn from it are not only invalid, but untruthful as well."
Hardly. It's perfectly possible to manufacture data that proves true things. Just because an argument is a fallacy, doesn't mean the conclusion isn't true. What really bothers me is that we see this kind of thinking a lot, and we see it in different forms. On tv all the time, you see an assumption that a personal attack is the same thing as attacking their views. You also see the related phenomenon, a criticism of one's views is often seen as a personal attack, or an attack on one's right to speak.
--Hiram
Why on Earth would you manufacture data to prove true things, when the true data would prove the true thing? That's not only lying, it's stupid. And it doesn't apply here. These folks have manipulated the true data in order to prove something entirely different from the truth. One can argue incompetence in these "scientists" or one can argue that they are hoaxers and liars, but neither are admirable qualities to be sought in those prescribing public policy.
Why on Earth would you manufacture data to prove true things, when the true data would prove the true thing?
Historically, it can happen when there isn't enough good data to prove something true. I read somewhere that Galileo fudged some data in order to prove that the Earth revolved around the sun.
"And it doesn't apply here. These folks have manipulated the true data in order to prove something entirely different from the truth."
One can always do that with data, draw false conclusions from accurate data. That doesn't mean true conclusions are any less true. How a scientist selects and uses data has no impact on the weather.
--Hiram
"One can always do that with data, draw false conclusions from accurate data."
OK, so what kind of conclusions can you draw from data that has been deliberately manipulated so that the obvious conclusion is opposite what a reasonable person would draw from the real data? Again, you are assuming that the Warmists are drawing the correct conclusions, and that the data may be real or may be false. But the data they are using is KNOWN to have been falsified, while the real data, as best we can gather, leads one to the opposite conclusion.
OK, so what kind of conclusions can you draw from data that has been deliberately manipulated so that the obvious conclusion is opposite what a reasonable person would draw from the real data?
Really, it depends on the data. But manipulation of data can't change things in the physical world. Climate change science doesn't change because someone may have lied about it.
"you are assuming that the Warmists are drawing the correct conclusions,"
I am making no such conclusions. What I am saying is that climate science exists separately from any conclusion any scientist, any radio talk show host, and yes, any 13 year old, draws about it.
" But the data they are using is KNOWN to have been falsified, while the real data, as best we can gather, leads one to the opposite conclusion."
Unlike Rush, and the odd 13 year old, I guess, I don't have the expertise to evaluate the data or make this conclusion. I was absent the day at Brown Institute when they taught climate science.
--Hiram
"I don't have the expertise..."
Then listen to somebody that understands enough basic math and science to know that the data presented by the warmists does not square with reality, and their conclusions and recommendations, whether based on that data or just invented out of thin air, make no sense whatsoever. Again, you can choose to call them hoaxters, junk scientists, charlatans or just plain NOT smarter than a 5th grader, but they ought to be laughed off the stage and never, ever, consulted on public policy. Global warming, as they defined it when the "religion" was established, is over.
J.
Then listen to somebody that understands enough basic math and science to know that the data presented by the warmists does not square with reality, and their conclusions and recommendations, whether based on that data or just invented out of thin air,
I don't think the math or science here is basic.
==Hiram
As somebody that understands it, I assure you it is. If a fifth grader can figure it out, so can you. That's pretty basic.
For example, 143 times in the last 10,000 years we have had periods of global warming. It would seem this is a natural cycle.
J.
. If a fifth grader can figure it out, so can you.
I am pretty sure a fifth grader can't figure it out. And that's where I make the same mistake global warming deniers make. Because they absurdly offer the testimony of fifth graders as persuasive, it's easy to dismiss their claims as a whole. And yes, I know I shouldn't do that.
--Hiram
Actually, I can teach a fifth grader a pretty definitive refutation of the theory, including the demonstration, in about 5 minutes. Most 5th graders would not come up with it on their own, of course, because our public schools don't do a very good job of teaching other than the "party line."
Post a Comment