The Mother Lode of Denial

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Dredd, Aug 29, 2011.

  1. Dredd Dredd Registered Senior Member

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    One professor advances the notion that the Marshall Institute is the womb of the mother of all climate change denial. :shrug:
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yup. Probably.
     
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  5. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Empirical studies need resources to be done properly. Theoretically, if we gave one POV 75% of the resources and an opposing POV 25% of the resources, with all else being equal and all the scientists trying to do their best job, the result will be 75% or the preponderance of the data will support POV #1. it does not mean it is the correct one, rather it means where the resources fell.

    The science can be perfect on both sides, but since empirical is not exactly cause and effect, but needs a lot of resources, the tie breaker goes to whoever has the most resources. It is not occincidence that slanted empirical funding occurred during the Democratic Admins. These people already wanted to go solar ,but needed science to appear to make it official. All you do with empirical is stack the resource deck.

    To prove me wrong, let us shift the resources, in the same proportions, but to the other side. All else being equal, now the opposite side can generare the preponderance of the empirical data. It is called political science.

    It would be nice if science could buffer itself from government and industry so it can become pure and not quite as mercenary. If you were in any good paying science position, that was dependent on others for funding, the boss has th final say of life and death. If he does not like something, it would career suicide to pursue it. You can do better, politically, by kissing butt. That is why those who oppose the boss tend to be targets, less others speak out. An example needs to be set. The rest of the mercenaries get to play holier than thou.
     
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  7. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    The thing that most people today don't seem to understand is that thisa has been done.

    Up until the mid to late '60s the idea was largely dismissed as a scientific curiosity, and the list of people willing to work on it was very short.

    What changed, ironicaly, was the cold war. The cold war led to a desire on the behalf of the governments to be able to keep track of what the russians were doing, which required a better understanding of the physico-chemical properties of the atmosphere (among other things) so the government sank a bunch of money into atmospheric research, one of the spin offs of which was better information about it. This new information led the scientific community to the modern conclusion (the idea itself has been in scientific literature since 1880 or 1890).

    So no, your proposal isn't really what's needed, because that would actually set science back to where it was 40 or 50 years ago.
     
  8. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    I am not sure about that. There are many upgrades in technology and thinking since that time. The global warming label was revise to climate change. This label is now consistent with both sides, since everyone assumes change, since that is the nature of the earth.

    The idea of manmade global warming created the slanted resources. This has been revised not to reflect warming. If anything all the experts, with all those resources, who were off target need to justify the waste connected to their lack of insight. If we had balanced from the beginning we would be further.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2011
  9. Dredd Dredd Registered Senior Member

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    But who flipped their flop?

    If you watch the lecture by the university professor I link to you will know that changing the label was done by a republican political operative named Luntz to try to dampen the impact of the way it might otherwise sound.

    Global warming folks have not changed the adjectives.

    That republican operative (Luntz) later recanted and accepted the reality of global warming.
     
  10. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    That was an excellent talk, thanks Dredd.
     
  11. veggiepatch Registered Senior Member

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    I imagine that the Marshall Institute is some "doyen" of expertise in some disipline, somewhere, somehow.

    Love it when the OP fails to give background info to other readers with the assumption of prior knowledge. Typical American....just remember, you're not the only country in YOUR universe (or Private Idaho).
     
  12. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Well, the talk was about why America seems to be uniquely the home of global warming denialism...and no, I've never heard of the Marshall Institute before this, this isn't common public knowledge here either.

    The Marshall Institute has no credibility whatsoever, as the talk says...it's more a PR firm masquerading as scientists.
     
  13. veggiepatch Registered Senior Member

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    So the Marshall Institute is directly connected with Al Gore. I'm not wasting my time researching facts or fallacies when the OP should give the casual reader some insight into what their point is.
     
  14. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    No, it's directly connected with the Republican party, who are the other ones...the ones who are trying to stop us from doing anything to slow down or stop climate change by misleading the public.

    The talk is a full hour, so how someone's supposed to summarize that into a reasonable size for a forum post I don't know.

    You could just go listen to the linked presentation... I thought that was the OP's idea?

    You do know that if you slide your cursor over the underlined text in the OP, it's a link, right?

    Here it is http://ecocosmology.blogspot.com/2011/08/exceptional-american-denial.html

    But if you don't want to, it's not really your politics, true.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2011
  15. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    No it wasn't.

    It has ALWAYS been the International Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC at the heart of the discussions on the possible impact of Anthropogenic changes to our Climate.
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The truth is that global warming doesn't always mean local warming, so climate change is a more appropriate term. In some places the warming will lead to more precipitation including snow, in other places it means drought. But this warming is unprecedented in recent history as far as the rate of warming.
     
  17. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    Nice cover Spidey . Unprecedented in "resent" history . So the question in my mind is : Has there been warmer periods in earth history ? I seen a lot of information that says no . The world is hotter than it has ever been . I don't know if that is global warming Ideology or fact ? The science is o.k. with Me . The science that says the earth is warming . How bad is that ? Dramatic change displaces we can all agree on . Do we care about displacement ? I think we do when we feel personally threatened by it . Otherwise who gives a crap, let someone else deal with it. Peripheral bad news that don't concern Me . That is the impression I get as the general mind set of the individual . If this was not true then there would be no poor people in the world . My take ! The quicker we bring the rest of the world out of poverty the quicker we can do something about the problem . Until that day you are pissing in the wind

    O.K. consider this in America or developed countries ( maybe just America , I don't know cause I am American so all I can be sure of is my American life style ) Prosperity in economic systems is based on high production? High production is the root cause of degradation to the environment? You see a conflict. Goals out of alinjment
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2011
  18. wlminex Banned Banned

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    Spidergoat #13:

    BUT . . . it is NOT unprecedented throughout the climate history measured/inferred (from oxygen isotopic evidence) over geologic time. There have been MUCH warmer climates in the geologic past that pre-dated man's arrival on the scene . . . . attributable to what? I'll leave it to you to easily Google search for the facts.

    wlminex
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2011
  19. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Yes it does.
    There is NO suggestion of "local cooling" as an effect of the increase in GHGs.
    I think what you might be getting to is that local cooling based on natural cycles, such as ENSO, might have a greater local impact than GHGs and so a local cooling event doesn't negate the overall warming trend. But long term there are no regional areas that are expected to get cooler because of GHG accumulation.
    See IPCC.

    No, it's the more appropriate term because the climate is more than just temperature.

    Not particularly.

    The warming from ~1910 to 1940 was of the ~ same magnitude and rate as the warming from the late 80s to 2010.

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    And the swings in temp aren't unusual for the last several thousand years.

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    And that has to be in consideration of where we are in the current short warm period between glaciations.

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    Concern about climate change remains about what COULD happen, not about what HAS happened.

    Our temperature at present is quite livable.

    The concern is that if we don't reduce the growth of atmospheric CO2 we may increase it by more than 2C from where it was around 1980.

    Arthur
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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  21. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    1910 was extremely hot weather. I read things in history were it was documented . It is used as a grading devise . Haven't had weather this hot sense 1910 . Fires were out of control too . Big fires in Montana and 9 out of 10 fire fighters died at one incident . Horrible news back in the day and the event is still revisited in our local rag occasionally. How bout the time from 1850 to 1910 ? How much warming went on between that period ? Over all avarage ?
     
  22. wlminex Banned Banned

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    . . . A famous paleontologist (?) once stated: "The present is the key to the past" (re: interpreting geologic observations and processes). I'd argue that, regarding current climate change arguments: "The past is the key to the present".

    wlminex
     
  23. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. The levels of warming of the late 20th century aren't greater in magnitude or rate than the earlier part of the century, but changes BEFORE the middle of the Century aren't particularly linked to Anthropogenic changes. (by ~mid century CO2 levels were only about 30 ppm above pre-industrial levels and Methane only about 250 ppb above, and zip CFCs) Which is why the IPCC starts discussing anthropogenic changes at mid-century.

    http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms2.html

    The first half of the 20th Century was considered pretty normal warming, which is why the Zero line is normally drawn where it is, and the warming that we have actually experienced "above normal" is only ~.4 C, and for that small amount of warming there are probably just about as many positives as negatives.

    For instance you say plants and animals are being negatively effected, but the actual studies of Net Primary Productivity show a global increase of about 3% per decade. Since animals live off of plants, they are also enjoying the increase.

    http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0530earthgreen.html

    Since most of the warming is still in the higher latitudes, at night and during the winter months, the negative impacts are actually modest.

    So far.

    The issue, and the current general scientific concensus is, that for a margin of safety we need to hold the global temp rise to no more than 2C above mid 20th Century levels and to do so we need to cut CO2 emissions ~30% of 1990 levels within ~ a decade from now (and ~ twice as much by 2050).

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2011

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