Climate-gate

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Photizo, Nov 29, 2009.

  1. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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  3. Dr Mabuse Percipient Thaumaturgist Registered Senior Member

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    Wow... so you politicize something, and then think yourself able to think critically for yourself and go into what science should be. Of course you're one of 'them' other political party people if you disagree with the IPCC...

    "The worst deluded are the self deluded" - Christian Nestell Bovee

     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    No, there isn't. It's straight physics. You can duplicate it easily in a jar in the lab with a sunlamp.
    So the observation that warming from another cause initially boosted the CO2, in that order, in the past, is irrelevant. That isn't what boosted the CO2 this time, and the CO2 will have its effects regardless of how it was boosted this time.
    Tha's why I included the explanatory phrase immediately afterwards, for the readers of English. It can carry more stuff - dust, aerosols, etc.
    The media people running around making alarmist noises about "conspiracy! ZOMG! Al Gore approaches!" and appealing to known false intuitions among the ignorant - "CO2 is less than 1% of the atmosphere! How can it change the whole climate?" That kind of stuff.

    Not all the bs is from the Fox Camp. There is stuff like this:
    If you can read the rest of that article and figure out precisely what the two damaged "pillars" are, you are doing better than I am.

    He is very precise about the one that remains, and that he cannot deny without losing credibility: the data sets regarding global temp, which show a century old rapid warming trend.

    He appears to be suggesting that one of the others is the necessity of proving that the Medieval Warm Period temps were lower than our current temps, which would be a false assertion - they could be higher, at least locally, and the CO2 boost would still be the concern it is.

    The third one I can't really find in there. There's some empty stuff about "what do we really know about clouds etc", but the shape of the pillar is hidden by such rhetorical questioning. He jumps straight to the roof, the conclusion he wishes to regard as unsubstantiated: that the CO2 boost is causing the temperature boost.

    But it sounds good, doesn't it: - Two of the three pillars / loss of public trust / admit our ignorance and go back to real work - has that good old standup person of integrity reining in the irresponsible ring to it. It takes a minute to realize that no one has stopped doing real work for a minute in all this, no one is more responsible for the loss of public trust than the liars and media manipulators Chylek appears to be speaking in accordance with, and Chylek is at least as ignorant and likely to be wrong as any of the major researchers in the field.

    And in evaluating Chylek's approach, we notice a couple of redflag details. The rhetorical questioning in place of evaluatable assertion - in an open letter to his scientific peers no less - is already noted. But this is striking:
    That isn't true. A considerable part of the scientific community has been involved in several instances of media manipulation for political cause, including the concealment of the health effects of smoking tobacca and exaggerating the health effects of illegal drugs, various misdirections and obfuscations surrounding nuclear weaponry and power, and a wide range of issues surrounding environmental problems in general.

    Professor Chylek there appears to be omitting or overlooking the major common source of "misbehavior" by large numbers of scientists in the public arena, and that is industrial or military interest. If that omission is somehow related to his work at Los Alamos, a common source of politicized bullshit with the letters PhD attached to it, few will be able to claim honest surprise.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2009
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  7. wesmorris Nerd Overlord - we(s):1 of N Valued Senior Member

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    You didn't think we'd avoid being taxed for breathing forever did you?


    lol.

    Pardon.
     
  8. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    Sooner or later enough will be enough. The whole drama currently being played out locally in the US and also on the world scene is nothing other than live theater of the absurd...here is a short vignette suggesting how to restore sanity to everyday life:

    Commodus: Quintus, sword!
    [Quintus does nothing]
    Commodus: Give me your sword!
    [Quintus does nothing]
    Commodus: [to his guards] Sword, give me a sword!
    [the guards unsheathe their swords]
    Quintus: Sheathe your swords! Sheathe your swords!
    [the guards sheathe their swords]

    Commodus = You know who

    Quintus = the mass of formerly loyal, well meaning, average citizens who, because of the imposition of all manner of unreasonable and immoral policies have mustered the courage and resolve to expose the man behind the curtain.

    The guards = citizen fence sitters.

    If people only realised how simple the solution really is.
     
  9. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    I don;t think you are making sense here. The only parties making political hay out of global warming science are folks like yourself and the right wing whackos -those vary same folks who have trouble with associating melting surface ice around the globe with rising global temperatures. I don't understand how they can look at the science and then look at what your eyes and common sense tell you and say, no it ain't happening. It just doesn't make any kind of sense. It is like the "Body Snatcher" movie except this time it is real life.

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    Everyone seems to have lost what little common sense they ever had, if they had any.

    Even if, these hacked emails are truthful they represent only one small organization, one part of a much larger whole. And because their is corruption in one place it does not mean it exists everywhere. When all is said and done the overwhelming body of evidence as well as common sense indicates that the planet is warming.

    Finally, the citations or quotes you offered like other material that circulates on right wing websites has no proof of authenticity. How do we not know that is is just more fiction created by right wingers, ditto heads to support try to support their positions? The right wing has a nasty little habit of just making stuff up. I suppose that is the best you can do when the body of evidence is against you on almost every issue.
     
  10. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    How is that? Who exactly is meeting in Copenhagen today? Right wing wackos, or left wing true believers?
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's a Fox Camp propaganda frame, that false dichotomy.

    Reality is not that far biased toward the left.
     
  12. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, please. I was responding to the statement "The only parties making political hay out of global warming science are folks like yourself and the right wing whackos," which is simply ludicrous. The political left and the environmental movement have been joined at the hips since before Rachel Carlson.
     
  13. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    At Copenhagen they are trying to enact a solution to the problem. I don't see how one can see that as making political hay. There is a problem, they are addressing the problem. Addressing problems is not in and of itself making political hay.

    Those with agendas based on greed and who would ignore the truth; spewing specious meritless comentary in order to further personal agendas at the expense of their fellow men; and those who find solace in the siren's song of the corrupt, are the ones singing, nay yelling falsehoods and making political hay at every opportunity, regardless of the consequences.

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  14. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    Ozone isn't stable at room temperature and pressure, as I recall?

    I don't think that's the question, at least in my mind. The question is whether or not the current change in temperature is reversible or reducible via globally mandated cuts on carbon emissions, and whether whatever reduction or reversal is economically feasible.

    Either way, my point in responding to this thread was to point out that ``behind closed doors'', so to speak, the scientists may be much more candid (among themselves) about the reliability of the data and the predictive power of their models. But when it comes to talking to the popular press, I get the feeling that the climate scientists tend to over-state their case.
     
  15. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    I would also point out that so-called ``green'' technologies definitely are the way to go. I was talking to an expert in solar power at a Christmas party the other day, and the current state of the art in solar cells have something like a 40% efficiency, and I recently saw an article on BBC that claimed solar cells would be economically feasible in less than three years---that is, you will actually be able to save money by putting solar cells on the roof of your house. So the whole business of worrying about fossil fuels and carbon emissions will become less of an issue in the future.
     
  16. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    First off, where did that get us? The ozone depletion, like CO[sub]2[/sub] is a bit overhyped. The ozone layer reduces the intensity of UV-B radiation. It doesn't do squat when it comes to UV-A. The alarmist cancer numbers assume 100% of skin cancers are caused by UV-B, not UV-A. Tanning parlors, which by design emit primarily UV-A, falsified that notion.

    The cost-benefits analysis of the Montreal Protocol are overhyped. They ignore the economic benefits of using CFCs and over-inflated the benefits of the reduction in CFCs. Cancer is but one example. That said, a slight reduction in cancer rates and a slight reduction in environmental damage might be worth paying for. We're only talking about a few billions of dollars a year, after all. Chump change to a politician. Even if the benefit is the equivalent of moving 60 miles toward the equator.

    The proposed CO[sub]2[/sub] protocols are anything but chump change: well into trillions of dollars per year. The benefits are predicated on climate feedacks that have not been observed, and energy technologies that haven't been proven.

    BTW, those proposed impacts have there own nasty environmental impact; see this thread for example. Imagine the electronic waste that will result when you multiply the size of your laptop to the size of your roof.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The abandonment of reason and sense in environmental issues, by the political right in the US, is no reason to slag genuine environmental concerns or the people who address them as "making political hay".
     
  18. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Show me again where I was championing any particular solution?

    All I've said in this thread is that:
    1. Seemingly small changes in atmospheric chemistry can have big results, and used Ozone as an example.
    2. Up to a certain point, it's dictated by basic physics that changing the partial pressure of CO2 must result in increased emissivity, however the effects of that increased emissivity are what's open to debate.
     
  19. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    UVA doesn't cause direct DNA damage, but can create radicals, which can then go on to cause damage.

    UVB and UVC both cause direct damage to the DNA.

    What you're discussing appear to be discussing here doesn't neccessarily represent deliberate misinformation, or overhyping of the problem, it may simply represent how information has improved with time - my recollection of the history of the issue was that UVA was originally considered safe for precisely this reason, and this is why they only considered cancer rates in relation to UVB, because that was a known, primary effect and the assumed mechanism. Then more accurate information came along, and people realized the UVA was also dangerous through secondary effects that hadn't been considered (previously).

    So it's not neccessarily a deliberate over statement to exagerate the case and scare people into agreeing with the Montreal Protocol, it's simply better information as more information becomes available.

    By the way, I know there are other things to consider than just Ozone depletion, but you know that Australia and NewZealand have the highest skin cancer rates in the world.

    I happen to agree with you in some respects, however, that some of the alarmism regarding UV exposure has done more harm than good.

    But then, as Iceaura can attest (we've had a number of lengthy discussions on my opinion of, for example, Al Gore), I also happen to be of the opinion that some of the alarmism regarding global warming has done more harm than good.
     
  20. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Where did I say I thought that. I said 'used' the term, not 'coined'.

    Scientists prefer the term 'climate change' these days. It seems the naysayers are overly fond of the term 'Global Warming'.

    Some of those google hits were spurious to say the least, btw.
     
  21. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    I think both sides have abandoned reason and sense in the debate.
     
  22. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    On that touted email;

    ""The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." (Kevin Trenberth)"

    Turns out they were talking about tree ring data, ... talk about deniers pouncing on _anything_ to discredit real science.
     
  23. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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