What Do We Think About Climate Change

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Jimbo1490

At least now I have a little hope.

Just a bit curious.. do you have a coalplant and a Hummer or smth else

[Guillermo]

I hope he'll change for the good, Jim.
If he does, we can propose him to create a new world wide organization named NSSWCA (No Sun Spots Will Cool your Ass) and name you, Perry and me to preside it. We can invite Boston as an opposing lecturer.

Cheers.

[bntii]

(11-18) 17:46 PST LOS ANGELES -- In his first speech on global warming since winning the election, President-elect Barack Obama promised Tuesday to set stringent limits on greenhouse gases, saying the need is too urgent for delay.
Many observers had expected Obama to avoid tackling such a complex, contentious issue early in his administration. But in videotaped comments to the Governors' Global Climate Summit in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, he called for immediate action.

"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all," Obama said. "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high, the consequences too serious."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNBE146VPK.DTL


In New Zealand

"A week is all it has taken for John "Speedy" Key to stitch up deals with ACT, the Maori Party, and United Future, phone the Governor-General, and today announce his new Cabinet line- up."

"Key has cleverly side-stepped a couple of potential ACT landmines over climate change, law and order, and government spending by essentially promising swags of reviews."

"The suspension of the emissions trading scheme sounds impressive but in reality, since nothing except forestry enters the carbon-trading scheme until 2010 anyway, there is plenty of time for another review. And Key is not promising to turf out the scheme post-review. Quite the contrary; he has recommitted New Zealand to meeting its Kyoto Protocol responsibilities."
"Mr Key today played down the significance of the draft terms of reference for the review, saying they were a proposal from Act and the final terms would be altered after National input.
He said he personally believed human-induced climate change was real and it was still possible National would pass an amended ETS into law within the time-frame it had promised - which "broadly speaking" was the end of September next year."
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/New_Zeal...trading_scheme

[Guillermo]

What a pity! We'll not invite Obama as a member of the NSSWCA!

Now,
"Climate in the early Pleistocene varied with a period of 41 kyr and was related to variations in Earth's obliquity. About 900 kyr ago, variability increased and oscillated primarily at a period of 100 kyr, suggesting that the link was then with the eccentricity of Earth's orbit. This transition has often been attributed to a nonlinear response to small changes in external boundary conditions. Here we propose that increasing variablility within the past million years may indicate that the climate system was approaching a second climate bifurcation point, after which it would transition again to a new stable state characterized by permanent mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere glaciation. From this perspective the past million years can be viewed as a transient interval in the evolution of Earth's climate. We support our hypothesis using a coupled energy-balance/ice-sheet model, which furthermore predicts that the future transition would involve a large expansion of the Eurasian ice sheet. The process responsible for the abrupt change seems to be the albedo discontinuity at the snow–ice edge. The best-fit model run, which explains almost 60% of the variance in global ice volume during the past 400 kyr, predicts a rapid transition in the geologically near future to the proposed glacial state. Should it be attained, this state would be more 'symmetric' than the present climate, with comparable areas of ice/sea-ice cover in each hemisphere, and would represent the culmination of 50 million years of evolution from bipolar nonglacial climates to bipolar glacial climates."

Nature 456, 226-230 (13 November 2008)

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

But probably this is the real reason about Obama's love for the GW scheme (taken from the link bntii provided):

"It will ... help us transform our industries and steer our country out of this economic crisis by generating 5 million new green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced"

Nothing to opose to that, as it will create jobs to many people in the USA (and in the first world, generally speaking) and cut the exterior oil dependancy, which is good. But this sounds close to what Perry and I debated earlier in this thread: AGW may be (or become) a new tool of imperialism, now tinted as eco-imperialism.

Cheers.

[bntii]

Here is a Bush bit:

"Addressing global climate change will require a sustained effort, over many generations. My approach
recognizes that sustained economic growth is the solution, not the problem – because a nation that grows
its economy is a nation that can afford investments in efficiency, new technologies, and a cleaner environment."

President George W. Bush 2003

[Jimbo1490]

Along with that you could add that we did not end the stone age because we had run out of stones, but because we found something better with which to work. It will be the same for burning petroleum distillates; when we find something better, we will surely make the switch. Finding that something takes a bit of prosperity, quite a bit, actually. Prosperity is the 'goose' that lays the 'golden eggs' of technical innovation. Limiting carbon will make everyone poorer. There's not even a question of this, really; only a question of how much poorer. So the carbon cutting schemes have the potential (likelihood, really) of killing the goose so the innovation that might bring us that 'something better' never happens or is severely delayed.

On top of that, the best estimates are that the most aggressive carbon cutting schemes proposed will have no measurable impact on climate whatsoever.

Jimbo

[Boston]

well that elicited a huge response
the demon consensus must have struck a nerve

I haven't had a chance to read through all these but I did get a decidedly polite private message from Jim asking me to please read the rebuttal of the orseskes study
I thought it only fare to do so although both studies are rather outdated
a brief review found the following although there may be other relevant reactions not listed


before Peiser made his objections Orseskis corrected herself and a correction was printed
this is not uncommon as science demands a level of accuracy not always easy to attain
science Magazine then went on to flatly rejected Peiser’s rebuttal letter stating

From: Etta Kavanagh [mailto:ekavanag@aaas.org]
Sent: 13 April 2005 22:39
To: Peiser, Benny
Subject: Your letter to SCIENCE

Dear Dr. Peiser,
After realizing that the basic points of your letter have already been widely dispersed over the internet, we have reluctantly decided that we cannot publish your letter. We appreciate your taking the time to revise it.

what they didnt say in the rejection letter was that there were a few more holes in the Peiser study (than in Orseskes) that they had found dishonest at best

Peiser performed his survey with the keywords 'global climate change' and searched for 'all document types' (which would include non-scientific, non-peer reviewed publications) rather than limiting the search to 'articles' (i.e., peer-reviewed publications) as in Oreskes' study.

Peiser later admitted that it was a mistake to include the papers in his survey and said that his main criticism of Oreskes' essay was "that [Oreskes] claim of a unanimous consensus on [anthropogenic global warming] (as opposed to a majority consensus) is tenuous"

In a letter that Peiser submitted to the Australian Media Watch Peiser explained that he had retracted some of his original critique and elaborated on some of his comments: "I do not think anyone is questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact.

any when I get time Ill skim through and see whats shaking loose
interesting that the mention of a consensus stirred up the nest so hotly

hmmmmmmmmmmmm
how about another stir

In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are “very likely” the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability.

Here’s a list of scientifitic organizations that support the IPCC’s assessment..

The International Council of Acadamies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS).

European Academy of Sciences and Arts

Network of African Science Academies

National Research Council (US)

European Science Foundation

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Federation of American Scientists

American Meteorological Society

Royal Meteorological Society (UK)

Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences

International Union for Quaternary Research

American Quaternary Association

Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London

International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics

International Union of Geological Sciences

European Geosciences Union

Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences

Geological Society of America

American Geophysical Union

American Astronomical Society

American Institute of Physics

American Physical Society

American Chemical Society

American Society for Microbiology

American College of Prevenetive Medicine

American Public Health Association

American Medical Association

American Statistical Association

The Institute of Engineers Austraila

The Environmental Protection Agency (US)

Federal Climate Change Science Program (US)

Here’s some that agreed with the IPCC assesement who’s statement included the term scientific consensus…

American Association for the Advancement of Science

US National Academy of Science

American Meteorological Society

and here’s one that was noncommittal ..

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (weird huh?)



…actually in July 2007 the American Association of Petroleum Geologists revisied their statement.



That means no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.

[bntii]

Originally Posted by Boston

That means no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.

Foul! I call foul..

The NSSWCA is not listed and they are definitely not in agreement.

[Jimbo1490]

Back in the day, eugenics was accepted by all the major national and international scientific bodies, including several from your list above. I suppose if it wasn't for WWII and all the revelations that followed shortly thereafter, many of these would have continued in their support of eugenics at least into the 1960's and later.

These 'consensus' arguments are meaningless to most of the people reading this thread; we know how easy it is for the majority to go astray; just look at history for examples.

The AGW hysteria has done no harm whatsoever to the petroleum industry; au contraire, it has HELPED them tremendously! Because environmentalists have successfully blocked US efforts to develop our own petroleum resources, a 'scarcity mentality' has developed among oil traders (who actually set the prices, just as with so many other commodities), driving prices way up. There's no real 'reason' why oil prices should have got so high; present prices are proof of that. Oil rises and falls on just the ANNOUNCEMENT that more oil has been found here or there, or a big storm is headed toward the Gulf of Mexico. No real 'reason' just a mind set; a 'feeling'.

I remember a cartoon in an old Mad magazine from the 70's of a farmer driving out to a single pea plant in the middle of a big field. His arm is protruding from the window of his limousine and he's watering the single pea plant with a little bucket. His arm reveals that he's dressed in a fine suit and there is gawdy jewelry on his hand. In the distance behind him you can see that he's got one pea plant every 100 yards or so.

The implication is that it's not in the farmer's interest AT ALL to plant more peas and drive the price of peas down. Likwise, it's not AT ALL in the interest of the petroleum industry to find and drill more oil and drive prices down. They can make FAR more money pumping less at higher prices. The environmentalists are doing the oil companies a fine service, something for which they would otherwise find themselves called to uncomfortable hearings in front of a hostile congressional committee, if they had done it themselves.

Jimbo

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by Boston

well that elicited a huge response
the demon consensus must have struck a nerve

That means no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.

I know the Russian academy does not concur. Are they not of international standing?

Jimbo

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by bntii

The NSSWCA is not listed and they are definitely not in agreement.

But Boston, you keep on not answering questions and posting already known information! Why????

[Boston]

Foul! I call foul..

The NSSWCA is not listed and they are definitely not in agreement.

very funny
a quick search reveals no such organization
only thing that came up was
NSWCA
the Nebraska Scholastic Wrestling Association
Im betting they have no opinion on the subject

G
in regards to why I am limiting my responses to one question per read
I can only waist so much time on this fruitless discussion as I think the decisions some people make are based more on choice than on scientific evidence
so many questions get raised, and when answered, receive rather than acknowledgment a quick pass onto some other hardly viable question
I actually just dropped in to see who was still stuck on the subject
never intended to get roped into some hopeless effort to convince a group of folks who rather than admit that 90% of data does concur, focus on questions concerning the 10% that does not; it seems obvious that a group of mostly engineers is having a hard time with the basic empirical method by which most science is based



Jim
Ill check out the Russian academy
when they made there statement
and when the report I quoted was released
my bet is its a mater of timing as to the accuracy of that statement
however it makes little difference
the minority view is outnumbered a hundred to one if one at all
seems a pretty dam clear consensus to me

[bntii]

Originally Posted by Boston

very funny
a quick search reveals no such organization
only thing that came up was
NSWCA
the Nebraska Scholastic Wrestling Association
Im betting they have no opinion on the subject

Perhaps I got the acronym wrong...
It is a international body of some standing which deftly presents the counter argument.

[Boston]

still my previous statement pretty much covers it

it makes little difference
the minority view is outnumbered a hundred to one if one at all
seems a pretty dam clear consensus to me

from dictionary.com
con⋅sen⋅sus   [kuhn-sen-suhs] Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun, plural -sus⋅es.
1. majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
2. general agreement or concord; harmony.
Origin:
1850–55; < L, equiv. to consent(īre) to be in agreement, harmony (con- con- + sentīre to feel; cf. sense ) + -tus suffix of v. action

from the miriam webster online dictionary
Main Entry:
con·sen·sus
Pronunciation:
\kən-ˈsen(t)-səs\
Function:
noun
Usage:
often attributive
Etymology:
Latin, from consentire
Date:
1843
1 a: general agreement : unanimity <the consensus of their opinion, based on reports…from the border — John Hersey> b: the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned <the consensus was to go ahead>
2: group solidarity in sentiment and belief
usage The phrase consensus of opinion, which is not actually redundant (see sense 1a; the sense that takes the phrase is slightly older), has been so often claimed to be a redundancy that many writers avoid it. You are safe in using consensus alone when it is clear you mean consensus of opinion, and most writers in fact do so.

face it folks
there is a consensus view concerning global climate change and its not exactly a close call either
matter of fact its been referred to as the most lopsided view ever in the history of scientific theory
with near total agreement bordering on unanimous if not actually unanimous within the scientific community

best
B