What Do We Think About Climate Change

[troy2000]

Troy,

I don't need to seek out an "Authority Figure" to tell me how to feel about some matter of importance. My preference is to learn as much as I can about the matter, using the rawest data available, and then form my own conclusions.

I like to do this with matters of science, as well. The science of climate and the mechanisms of greenhouse warming are certainly not 'beyond my understanding' and I'm certain that they are not beyond yours. So I learned all the arguments pro and con (Started out very pro, BTW, back in my Greenpeace days) and it became clear to me that somebody was wrong. The AGW argument was plausible; it could have been right. But the observational data have not corroborated even one corner of the hypothesis. This began to be true about ~17 years ago with ice cores, continued with Christy/Spencer's work with discovering how to get temp data from satellites, Then Lindzen's breakthroughs on clouds. You can't have a hypothesis where each piece fails a real world test but somehow is still correct.

So if 97 or 98 or 99.99% of scientists all endorse a hypothesis that fails every objective test, I'll still stand up and say so, because that's just how I am. They wrote didactic fables like "The Emperor's New Clothes" for a reason, you know.

Cheers!

Jimbo

It fails the smell test, Jimbo.

I hate to keep using the words ridiculous and nonsense, but what else can I call the idea that an entire scientific discipline is corrupt, and 97% of the scientists working in it are lying to us about the results of their work? And that governments worldwide put them up to it, and are backing the fraud for their own evil purposes? And that organizations like the Associated Press, which make their living dispensing news, are suppressing it instead? You label one reporter as biased, and I'm supposed to believe it somehow proves an entire not-for-profit news cooperative, with more than 4000 employees working in more than 240 worldwide bureaus, has been subverted and is lying to us about global warming?

Criminently, Jimbo. You keep packing people into the conspiracy like that, there isn't going to be anyone left to conspire against; the whole damn world will be in on it.

 

[wardd]

OK. I officially surrender. You guys must have more time on your hands than I do. You'll shovel this crap at me until doomsday, and I couldn't keep up with all of you if I tried. Nor would it do any good if I could; since paranoid conspiracy theories are irrational by nature, they can't be laid to rest with facts or appeals to reason.

But you will not convince me that 97% of the climatologists worldwide are involved in a hoax and a fraud--to consolidate government power; to obtain grant money; to save face and their careers; or for any other reason. That's as likely as the theory of evolution being a fraud and a conspiracy to undermine Christianity, or the 9/11 attacks being planned in the White House as an excuse to declare war on Muslims.

actually its only 96.5% they rounded it up to appear like more were in on the conspiracy

 

[Jimbo1490]

Troy,

The problem with your arguments is that you NEVER used "appeals to reason" but only appeals to authority, as in

"But you will not convince me that 97% of the climatologists worldwide are involved in a hoax and a fraud"

So by your own admission no one can ever convince you that the "authority" figure of your conviction is wrong. This is an appeal to authority, one of the basic logical fallacies. It also reveal a faith in the authority figure, because faith cannot be falsified.



If observational data showed CO2 concentration driving (preceding) temperature changes, I'd become a believer in AGW tomorrow! But they don't.

If we found that outgoing LWR decreases during thermal perturbation, I'd become a believer tomorrow! But it doesn't.

If we found out that there really is 25% fossil carbon in the atmosphere right now instead of <3%, I'd pick up a bullhorn and call for carbon cuts at any cost! But we both know that's not going to happen. The fraction will remain low, as it has always been, in direct contradiction to the predictions of the AGW narrative.

But if these observational data were to change in favor of AGW, I'd abandon my skepticism, certainly.

So what would it take for you to abandon your belief in AGW? If the answer is "Nothing!", then AGW has become a faith-based position for you, rather than a reasoned belief based on the science.

So for me the thing that fails the "smell test" is a hypothesis that cannot be confirmed by observations, temp. data being deliberately 'fudged' as above (and sundry other shenanigans), and the only "solution" that ever gets proposed just happens to be the largest tax hike in history, and the government gaining sweeping new powers over everything and everyone.

Oh, and it's the government that funds all the supposedly 'objective' research that makes all this "necessary". Talk about stink!

Jimbo

 

[wardd]

if all about you are running in panic and you remain calm, maybe you dont know whats going on

 

[troy2000]

Troy,

The problem with your arguments is that you NEVER used "appeals to reason" but only appeals to authority, as in

So by your own admission no one can ever convince you that the "authority" figure of your conviction is wrong. This is an appeal to authority, one of the basic logical fallacies. It also reveal a faith in the authority figure, because faith cannot be falsified.



If observational data showed CO2 concentration driving (preceding) temperature changes, I'd become a believer in AGW tomorrow! But they don't.

If we found that outgoing LWR decreases during thermal perturbation, I'd become a believer tomorrow! But it doesn't.

If we found out that there really is 25% fossil carbon in the atmosphere right now instead of <3%, I'd pick up a bullhorn and call for carbon cuts at any cost! But we both know that's not going to happen. The fraction will remain low, as it has always been, in direct contradiction to the predictions of the AGW narrative.

But if these observational data were to change in favor of AGW, I'd abandon my skepticism, certainly.

So what would it take for you to abandon your belief in AGW? If the answer is "Nothing!", then AGW has become a faith-based position for you, rather than a reasoned belief based on the science.

So for me the thing that fails the "smell test" is a hypothesis that cannot be confirmed by observations, temp. data being deliberately 'fudged' as above (and sundry other shenanigans), and the only "solution" that ever gets proposed just happens to be the largest tax hike in history, and the government gaining sweeping new powers over everything and everyone.

Oh, and it's the government that funds all the supposedly 'objective' research that makes all this "necessary". Talk about stink!

Jimbo

Jimbo, every time you claim some statement as 'settled,' 'verified,' 'provable' or whatever and I check it out, it turns out to be nothing of the sort. And when I point that out, it doesn't even slow you down. You just keep right on slinging.

Your credibility is rapidly approaching that of Frederick Seitz. There's a guy who was blatantly whoring his scientific reputation for money, from big tobacco and big oil. Yet you wanted me to go through the crap he got paid to write anyway, and analyze it as though it were serious science. Get real. There comes a point when I have better things to do than babysit your paranoia....

I'm going to drop out of these climate change forums now. They're all yours; enjoy.

 

[mark775]

Get over there and tag in for me with Cockatrice. There. I gave you some points.

 

[troy2000]

Get over there and tag in for me with Cockatrice. There. I gave you some points.

You mean I get to beat up on the little turd for fun and profit?

What a wonderful world this is.....

 

[Jimbo1490]

Jimbo, every time you claim some statement as 'settled,' 'verified,' 'provable' or whatever and I check it out, it turns out to be nothing of the sort. And when I point that out, it doesn't even slow you down. You just keep right on slinging.


I'm going to drop out of these climate change forums now. They're all yours; enjoy.

So put up or shut up:

Show us a single atmospheric CO2 residence time study, one that actually measured rather than 'modeled' the residence time (via the stable or unstable isotopes, the "Suess Effect" or whatever method) that indicates a long residence time for CO2


Show us an isotopic mass-balance study that shows that the present atmosphere contains a significant fraction of 'fossil' carbon, somewhere near the predicted 21% if the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 were due to anthropogenic emissions.

Show us your satellite temperature data that shows outgoing long wave radiation decreases at times of positive thermal perturbation, as we would expect to observe if the sum of the feedbacks for water vapor is positive.

Without resorting to the works of 'Team Hockey Stick' show us a temperature reconstruction that proves 20th century warming was anomalous in any way.

These should be easy tasks as there must be "thousands of scientists who've all come to these same conclusions".

I don't mean for these to be idle rhetorical challenges; they may be though simply because the data I'm asking for simply does not exist.

Jimbo

 

[Guillermo]

Thanks to Boston we have already been discussing the "97% consensus" argument till boringness previously in this thread (which was proved not to be true). Could we focus on discussing science matters, instead of personal beliefs, please?

It would be of great advantage to all of us if some of the posters in the "warming camp" could bring here new scientific data, papers, graphs, etc, supporting manmade global warming, for all of us to debate and learn. Lately this has not been done since Boston left, even if he posted once and again the same old info . Please excuse me, but I find some of the recent posters are limiting debate to rant around in the same kind of the previous religious-like discussion we all should avoid.

Cheers.

 

[troy2000]

Thanks to Boston we have already been discussing the "97% consensus" argument till boringness previously in this thread (which was proved not to be true). Could we focus on discussing science matters, instead of personal beliefs, please?

It would be of great advantage to all of us if some of the posters in the "warming camp" could bring here new scientific data, papers, graphs, etc, supporting manmade global warming, for all of us to debate and learn. Lately this has not been done since Boston left, even if he posted once and again the same old info . Please excuse me, but I find some of the recent posters are limiting debate to rant around in the same kind of the previous religious-like discussion we all should avoid.

Cheers.

Guillermo, I've bailed out. I honestly believe there is nothing I could post that would change a single mind here anyway, so why should I go looking for it?

After all, I don't have a dog in this fight. The only reason I have for discussing it is to pass the time, and it's no longer entertaining to do so.

 

[Jimbo1490]

Guillermo, I've bailed out. I honestly believe there is nothing I could post that would change a single mind here anyway, so why should I go looking for it?

After all, I don't have a dog in this fight. The only reason I have for discussing it is to pass the time, and it's no longer entertaining to do so.

Troy,

I've told you what you can post that would change my mind: Some data supporting the basic assertions of the AGW narrative. You might be surprised to learn that these are actually scarce.

For instance, for decades, the AGW alarmists simply ASSUMED that the feedbacks for water vapor were strongly positive, without a SHRED of actual evidence, just the same old computer modeling/circular logic. When very good scientists like Christy, Lindzen, Baliunas and Spencer actually devised methods of discerning the feedbacks from other effects, so that the sign and magnitude of the feedbacks could be discovered, whad'ya know, the feedback is actually negative, even strongly negative!

This is a central pivotal point of the AGW narrative because without a strongly positive feedback with water vapor, there's just NO WAY for CO2 to cause significant warming over and above the ~200ppm concentration, because it's at saturation.

And so it goes with each assertion: Attribution of CO2 rise, Water vapor feedback, CO2 concentration lags temperature change in ANY timescale. All the alarmists provide on these issues is obfuscations rather than explanations.


Jimbo

 

[TeddyDiver]

there's just NO WAY for CO2 to cause significant warming over and above the ~200ppm concentration, because it's at saturation.

I 'm speechless

 

[Guillermo]

Troy,
let me alter your quote, to show you what's my position:
"The only reason I have for discussing it is to pass the time and learn, and it's no longer entertaining to do so if we do discuss beliefs instead of debating facts"

Cheers

 

[troy2000]

Troy,
let me alter your quote, to show you what's my position:
"The only reason I have for discussing it is to pass the time and learn, and it's no longer entertaining to do so if we do discuss beliefs instead of debating facts"

Cheers

Guillermo, there are entirely too many opinions being quoted as facts in this thread. I'll agree with that.

 

[troy2000]

Troy,

I've told you what you can post that would change my mind: Some data supporting the basic assertions of the AGW narrative. You might be surprised to learn that these are actually scarce.

For instance, for decades, the AGW alarmists simply ASSUMED that the feedbacks for water vapor were strongly positive, without a SHRED of actual evidence, just the same old computer modeling/circular logic. When very good scientists like Christy, Lindzen, Baliunas and Spencer actually devised methods of discerning the feedbacks from other effects, so that the sign and magnitude of the feedbacks could be discovered, whad'ya know, the feedback is actually negative, even strongly negative!

This is a central pivotal point of the AGW narrative because without a strongly positive feedback with water vapor, there's just NO WAY for CO2 to cause significant warming over and above the ~200ppm concentration, because it's at saturation.

And so it goes with each assertion: Attribution of CO2 rise, Water vapor feedback, CO2 concentration lags temperature change in ANY timescale. All the alarmists provide on these issues is obfuscations rather than explanations.


Jimbo

Jimbo, this subject is your obsession--not mine. I have absolutely no doubt that you've already rejected anything and everything I could find on the internet, so why should I waste my time?

I went through this same sort of crap with a Young Earth creationist a couple of years ago. He demanded that I show him him just one transitional form...and simply rejected everything I showed him, as normal variations of the same species, an unproven connection, a deliberate hoax, so on and so forth.

Congratulations. You outlasted me like he did, so you "won" too. But I'm getting smarter, so I quit sooner this time. Now why don't you go harangue someone else?