Global Warming Debate

[Earniel]

Yesterday was 14 October 2009 in the United States. It is quite cold across this country today: Missoula, Montana, has just reported record cold temperatures for this time of year; State College, Pennsylvania, is extremely cold; Chicago is the coldest it’s been in 82 years; and the cold weather is moving east. One of my friends in New Jersey told me it was snowing at his home today.

I keep seeing the argument of certain cold weather being put forward as an argument against global warming. It means little to me as an argument, because I think it's the wrong scale to look at this issue. If it's about global warming and climates on a world scale, you do have to look at the bigger picture. Whether your toes are cold is not going to determine whether you have a fever or not.

Think about it, can the recorded cold spells on one continent be used to state the whole world cannot be warming? Do you actually believe the global climate and the many different weather systems are that simplified? If it was, we wouldn't be having this discussion!

Climates all over the world are linked in so many intricate ways, we still do not understand them all. For one, one has to consider the presence of climate-processes that with a raising of temperature in one place, can lead to a lowering temperature in other places. One therefore cannot take localised cooling as a sign the world isn't warming. And there is far, far more to climate, than just temperature.

Now, what makes more sense: the idea something people did heated the earth’s surface? Or that the sun is doing something interesting? This is the all-time great tech support question: If your computer won’t start, did you check to see if it’s plugged in? Look at the mechanism: all our heat is coming from the sun. Before blaming people for something, check the power source.

Hm, do you think this has not been looked into? If the sun's output is increasing this should be easily proven. We have several satellites monitoring and observing the sun for decades. But if the sun's output is changing, keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily mean the earth's temperature will follow the exact same path. Earth has many variables.

In any way, if the sun is causing global warming, the answer should be evident in NASA's records. A brief look at the NASA website indicates that their opinion is: while the sun may be of influence, it is not considered the sole nor defining cause of global warming. So we've checked the plug, but it looks like there's something else going on in our computer nevertheless.

Then she surprised me by telling me that her publication, which had been in business since the 1920s (and remains in business today), kept old articles it had printed and regularly recycled them, changing the names of the celebrities and various details of the story to update them for republication: it looked like a new story, but it was really a tall tale that had been around for twenty or fifty years.

This touches on something which I consider a significant sour point in this debate and in anything related to science news: poor science reporting. A poor or mis-representation of science in the press can really botch up matters. Journalists who don't understand the subject matter, or give it a spin to make it more sensational, are not going to give a correct representation.

Let's be honest, can 95% of the population really be considered to be grounded enough in meterology to decide on the raw climate data whether global warming is a fact or a delusion? Not anymore than we can treat cancer on our own, or build a train out of scratch. No, we're going to have to trust experts at some point.

And people like me (and I daresay all the people on Entmoot), who are not specialised enough in matters to read and judge the scientific studies themselves, are going to have to rely on derived news articles and if those are written poorly... well, we're pretty much screwed in understanding climate change.

Catastrophic global warming clearly does not fall into this category. If catastrophic man-made global warming were truly indisputable, its proponents would not need to attack each and every person who disagrees with them as if they were heretics or infidels.

I think it is more a problem of people than of the idea. I've stopped saying generalisations like 'scientists/students/cat-owners etc would never do that.' because the moment you make such a statement, someone will prove you wrong and do just that. The way people defend or argue about an idea, a theory, a whatnot, says more about the people involved, IMO, than the idea they discuss. I think it is important to -if you want to judge ideas on their own worth- to seperate the idea of the people, although it's often rather difficult to do that.

[The Gaffer]

Earniel, these are all the problems of living in a kleptocracy masquerading as a democracy.

The loudness of the voice is in proportion to the size of its wallet, not merely the weight of its evidence.

[unauthoritiveness]

definitely people has to live and learn about changes in our world

[inked]

Gaffer, are you suggesting that GB is a recovered kleptocracy and the USA is not? I believe you folks pioneered worldwide empire and destruction of habitat in pursuit of wealth and still benefit from it? Why not set a good example and return all the stuff from elsewhere and garden a bit?

But I did like the kleptocracy bit, nice neologism.

[D.Sullivan]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

I keep seeing the argument of certain cold weather being put forward as an argument against global warming. It means little to me as an argument, because I think it's the wrong scale to look at this issue. If it's about global warming and climates on a world scale, you do have to look at the bigger picture. Whether your toes are cold is not going to determine whether you have a fever or not.

This is an interesting article I just read concerning the "cooling trend" that backs up your point pretty well.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/...global_cooling

[The Gaffer]

Yeah it's a bit like someone going outside and it's a bit chilly and going "Pah! Global warming my arse."

This is something that really clearly characterises the "sceptic" camp in the way they cite data. Just because there is one year where the world stopped setting all-time records for the hottest temperatures everywhere, they go "it's a hoax".

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by inked

Gaffer, are you suggesting that GB is a recovered kleptocracy and the USA is not? I believe you folks pioneered worldwide empire and destruction of habitat in pursuit of wealth and still benefit from it? Why not set a good example and return all the stuff from elsewhere and garden a bit?

But I did like the kleptocracy bit, nice neologism.

No we aren't recovered yet; have you seen the state of our economy? In some ways we are in a worse state than the US. We can't even bring ourselves to stop the most brazen of the thieves from paying themselves bonuses with our tax bailout money.

Although, since you ask, I think we do have a useful perspective on empire, having given most of it up more or less willingly. Other countries that are at the earlier stages of empiracy ('nuther one for ya!, this one all my own work) might do well to learn something from it.

[inked]

Well, how's pseudoscientocracy work for ya?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425...trophe.html#at

A history of the IPCC and its alleged 1500 scientists, among other things.......

And, on this side of the POND, we have: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3606/T...sensus-is-fake

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by inked

Well, how's pseudoscientocracy work for ya?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6425...trophe.html#at

A history of the IPCC and its alleged 1500 scientists, among other things.......

And, on this side of the POND, we have: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3606/T...sensus-is-fake

Interesting reading.

[The Gaffer]

Bloke flogs his own book on a right-wing, anti-climate change newspaper. How shall I call thee Bogus, let us count the ways..

"The first began back in the Seventies when a number of scientists noticed that the world’s temperatures had been falling for 30 years,"

Bogus. Previously shown such on this thread.

a handful of the scientists who passionately believed in this theory

Bogus

carefully staged testimony

Bogus; note to readers: usual right-wing tactic of accusing their opponents of doing what they themselves do.

In fact, the IPCC was never intended to be anything of the kind. The vast majority of its contributors have never been climate scientists. Many are not scientists at all. And from the start, the purpose of the IPCC was not to test the theory, but to provide the most plausible case for promoting it.

Bogus. This is in fact true of the opposition. They will take anybody and give them scientific credentials. Including this Booker bloke, who has no scientific education at all.

This was why the computer models it relied on as its chief source of evidence were all programmed to show that, as CO₂ levels continued to rise, so temperatures must inevitably follow.

See? He doesn't even know what a computer model is.

etc etc

Gah, puke. The only thing worth reading on that page is the comment:

When someone like Chris Booker so deliberately distorts the data on such a critical issue as climate change just to sell more of his books, what do you suggest we call him?

For a fuller deconstruction of Booker's mendacity, see Monbiot:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...stopher-booker

[inked]

Gaffer, I am hurt, hurt, hurt. You never even mention pseudoscientocracy!

[Alcuin]

From the Daily Telegraph:

Climate change belief given same legal status as religion

An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs. ...

[The Gaffer]

Sorry inked. I reckon the term applies to pretty much all politicians of every hue, sadly.

Looks like we're going to have to find room for pseudotheocracy as well.

[inked]

Gaffer, from the article above your post (linked), I would say that the kleptocracy that is England has moved from simple to complex: it will now enable persons to go to court over inanity and establish a philosophocracy, thus enabling theft by intellectual dishonesty. I do not deny that the hysteria of climate changers resembles religious belief, I have actually stated it - but on the same principle of scientific unprovableness. It seems, then, that one may have difficulties with all sorts of "philosophies" imagined as religions. Socrates might not think it so.

When you hear that BELIEF in climate change is awarded the status of religious belief in law, you know it has arrived at an inanitocracry.

Let us not hear any complaints when Luddites or flat-earthers bring discrimination claims against evolutionary paradigms enforced against them, okay?

[The Gaffer]

Well, interesting one. I kind of agree. (Arg!) The line between knowledge and belief is a blurred (not to mention tedious) one.

However, the article has been heavily spun. Hey, it's in the Torygraph, which has also repeated your view that climate change is a religion, so no surprise there. They have conflated "environmentalism" with "climate change" in order to bolster their own belief that the case for climate change is not proven.

What the judge said was that the man's belief in environmentalism might meet the judicial criteria for "religious belief" the law sets out in the context of the protecting people from discrimination on the basis of their religious belief.

(Hey, the UK has a specific law to protect religious belief. All religious belief. Funny how the uber-right-wing Christian Zealots dotcom websites don't link to those stories, isn't it? Why do you think that is?)

The tests are:

• The belief must be genuinely held.

• It must be a belief and not an opinion or view based on the present state of information available.

• It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life.

• It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.

• It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

This will now go on to be tested at a tribunal.

Personally, I think it fails the second of these tests. But when you think of "environmentalism" instead of "climate change", the question suddenly becomes "so what?" EDIT: Here's a useful quote from a comment on the Grauniad's Comment is Free discussion:

Most enviornmentalism isn't evidence based. Obviously climate change is supported in scientific fact, but the belief that we should maintain nature and preserve biodiversity is as much a faith based position as the Christian principle that we should be good to one another or the Buddhist concept of karma. The is no inherent objective value to a Tiger, but we believe there is.

The other thing to say was that if you read the story, the man was subjected to ridicule. He was ordered to personally take an international flight to deliver his boss's Blackberry to him. This was done to humiliate him because of his strong environmental views, including a belief that air travel is damaging. In that context, it is a wee bit like ordering a Jewish person to eat a bacon sandwich.

So yeah, I shouldn't really have to remind you, but context matters.

Meanwhile, in the non-trivial world, the US is dragging its feet YET AGAIN on doing something about it. Go to the back of the class. Or, better, write to your congressperson expressing your disgust at his or her wanton disregard for your children's and grandchildren's futures.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...enhagen-treaty

Although isn't it interesting that sub-states (California, New York, Scotland) are actually far more active than their governments.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-climate-group

[inked]

Nobel Prize winner on facts of earth's core temperature:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns_4p...layer_embedded


I cannot begin to express how this impresses me. A politician cannot do math, obviously - the way they treat taxes and spending, but REALLY, errors on the order of 10 to the second power from a man who thinks global warming is happening because of tenths of degrees?

He obviously deserves his igNOBEL prize for mathematics...........

[Jonathan]

Well... As funny as the factual error was in itself (), it was still just a split second of slipping on the facts. It had no real bearing in his argumentation for geothermal energy.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

...it was still just a split second of slipping on the facts.

Sadly, no. It is the pattern of the distinguished gentleman.

You might also consider this from today's edition of that paragon of right-wing revisionist denialism, Der Spiegel:

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

[Earniel]

Say Alcuin, did you ever look at the several responses on that long post of yours?

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Say Alcuin, did you ever look at the several responses on that long post of yours?

Yes. I did.

I commend to you Eric Hoffer’s short masterpiece, The True Believer.

To know a person’s religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

and

When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.

A more ancient version of these observations, 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (NIV):

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.