It's been a bad week for deniers

If I had a dollar for every skeptic that took the time to register to this site to post the same old crap we've listened to for years......

Maybe these guys should try and hang out with a few scientists before they make assumptions.

 

There are a lot of corporations making a lot of contributions to energy efficiency, sustainability, and even the matter of corporate carbon footprint. They vary in degree. I don't think it has been posed here at PC that all (or even most)corporations are evil. So, that might be something of a red herring (um, spruce).

What I read from corporate leaders (even in the energy industry) is that many wish they could do more, but their first responsibility is fiduciary - to the shareholders.

So, absent a general acceptance that CO2 emissions do have external costs, fossil C costs will be set by the market and ignore externalities. If/when that changes, the same corporations will have financial incentives to do more.

Not much otherwise to add to the recent discussions. Welcome, Plan 9. Funny that most often when I am extending PC welcomes, it is to Prius drivers reporting their first problems. Hope that yours is treating you well.

And nobody cares that CO2 forcing is down by 20%? I thought it was good news for both sides of the aisle.

 

Rich climate scientists are also not offering to bail out Greece, Italy etc...

Da noive.

 

They're only doing what they're told. It's the definition of profit that's the problem. Any and every economic model that ignores euphemistic 'externalities' is fundamentally flawed.

 

But now we have living proof of evolution. It seems that Plan 9 has evolved out of TREB and ufourya It is all a grand conspiracy to tax us all to death and redistribute our wealth!

Icarus

 

Yes.

Now, I have a question--Is there one shred of empirical evidence that higher CO2 levels will result in catastrophe?

I already have the answer--No.

So, what is the point of your question?

 

i suppose you pose the same question to your meteorologist on whether it will or will not rain

 

Your supposition is incoherent.

 

what conditions guarantee rain? or would you only accept that there is empirical evidence of rain is the prediction was 100%?

 

The point is separating the politics from the science is impossible in threads like this.

I certainly get irritated at the wildly exaggerated fear mongering, attention getting, and claims of catastrophe that are commonplace in these discussions. I'm just as irritated that efforts to understand climate change, CO2 balance, and the "actual" effects that may, or may not occur are considered as part of a conspiracy. Here are my categories:

1) FACTS-CO2 levels are rising, almost entirely due to burning fossil fuels. The ocean water level is rising. There is a lot more burning yet to occur.

2) DATA-Ice Caps and Glaciers are diminishing. Warming at the higher latitudes is definitely occurring.

3) EFFORTS-Models are constructed to determine the linkages between the facts and data. Lots of work done and yet to be done. It will be a slow process with many mistakes and followup corrections.

4) POLITICS-Jump to one extreme conclusion or the other. No in-between. You must either be on one side that we are doomed unless something dramatic is done right away or that it is all a run-away conspiracy.

 

Thank you for the considered reply. Politics and climate science are, unfortunately, intertwined. It is my view that momentus decisions affecting the environmental and economic welfare of billions should not be based on half-baked, unproven ideas.

Here is an interesting site that presents more than one side-- You may, or may not, be familiar with it:

Climate Debate Daily

 

sigh...




em·pir·i·cal [ em pírrik'l ]

1. based on observation and experiment: based on or characterized by observation and experiment instead of theory

No empirical evidence ties high CO2 levels to catastrophic results. We know that meteorolgists can look at weather conditions and predict with some reliability. Events bear out their predictions.

The odds are good that if all the inhabitants of Olympia, WA go stand outside all day tomorrow (11/27/2011), 90% of them will experience some rainfall. We know from experience and observation that my meteorologist is a better prognosticator than Michael Mann is a reconstructor of ancient temperature or Al Gore and Jim Hansen predictors of global climate mayhem.

We KNOW that despite higher CO2 levels, there are no more incidences of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, etc., etc., than in the past.

We KNOW that Phil Jones, Michael Mann, and all the Climategate characters are dedicated to one point of view and slant the science to bolster that view. One has only to read the evidence.

 

Or,, alternatively, as many rational people suggest, that we do the simple(r) things now that we know will have multiple beneficial impacts at modest costs. Things like increased CAFE standards, insulating our buildings, encouraging mass transit, encouraging general conservation as well as reasonable alterntives! As has been demonstrated time and again, people can live quite comfortably using less net energy.

The multiple benfits are, to name a few, greater efficient use of dwindling fossil fuel, slower energy cost rise going forward due to decreasing demand, greater national security due to less dependence on oil etc, etc.

If reduced CO2 is a side benefit, what is the harm? Only an grossly misinformed person would consider that our enery costs going forward are going to do anything but go up.

If we price energy at some where near it's real cost, and make current subsidies transparent, people can make rational choices with thier pocket book. Drive a Hummer, feel free, but pay for your fuel at it's real cost.

It isn't all or nothing, it isn't draconian, it is simply common sense. A I have stated over and over again, we live just fine consuming ~1/5 of the national average, just by making a concerted effort to not waste energy! It really is that simple.

Icarus

Ps. I would posit that ufourya has never spent anytime in the arctic or sub arctic and seen up front what is really happening, in the world outside his little sphere.

 

you state we have no "empirical" evidence that increased levels of CO2 cause what?

ok we do have evidence that increased levels of CO2 slows the rate of heat dissipation which is not a theory but actually proven within a closed and controlled scientific experiment.

so would you be questioning the effect of CO2 in an "open" scenario that the Earth could be loosely construed to be?

or the mechanics of how hot spots (actually spots that are only slightly warmer) and cold spots react with each other to cause weather "events?"

or the snowball effect of reduced sea ice causing oceans to absorb much more heat which causes more ice to melt?

what we really have is a pendulum of trends that are leading to ever worsening weather events. sure we can take a year long average of this and that and find we are .0001% above normal but when that norm contains record snows along with record heat there are other things that we need to examine.

the mechanics of rain are well known so why is it so difficult to predict? most of the predictions are based on past events, not by what we can measure and see coming over the horizon. so weather predicting is a culmination of existing conditions along with using histories of wind patterns to create a likely weather scenario.

sure we can its gonna rain especially when we have a half dozen converging conditions that cause rain but we cant predict where, when or how much.

we just had a pretty good rain storm last week. started Monday Night, ran till Wed morning. predicted rainfall totals TUESDAY MORNING was 2 to 5 inches. with a prediction like that, how could you miss?

now obviously i am simplifying the actual mechanics of weather prediction but it does parallel global climate change.

all we can do is understand the mechanics of basic temperature change which we do. tracking external forces that control that temperature and what effect that temperature change could possibly do. so that means there is no 'if this measures at "X" then "Y" will happen with "Z" force.'

i have a friend of mine who grew up in Forks, WA. his grandfather built a shack out on the beach about 50 years ago or so. my friend was shocked when he went to that shack a few years ago to find out the ocean had swallowed it up.

the beach was pretty much gone. now the coast at Forks is known for very treacherous weather conditions. 40-50 mph winds along with a few hundred inches of rain makes it a well "weathered" place.

so maybe eventually everything would be eroded away including the massive rocks that stick up out of the water all over the area. but the shack was probably washed away because of the one foot rise in sea level. but how can a foot of water make that much difference?

well, add 50 mph winds, high tides and all of a sudden, one foot of water can mean (and did) total destruction to an area that had been there thousands of years.

but then again, you are obviously an intelligent soul with an agenda that is just as obvious so you already know all this.

 

I am glad that uforya directed our attention to

Climate Debate Daily

as it may represent the most comprehensive views that one can find. Short of reading the scientific literature of course.

I'd wish that they had included

The Discovery of Global Warming - A History

and

CO2 Science

But those are only nudges not knocks.

How Monckton missed being listed as a personality eludes me! Perhaps one needs a website and Monckton hasn't one?

Anyway, there is plenty to consider there, and to test your reasoning skills

 

I'm going to sidestep stating that we have a global warming problem since I don't know the future. (Running short of gas may cause more social decay than warmer climate?) What I will say is that we do have a pollution problem and a diminishing fossil fuel problem, both of which have solutions that would benefit ALL if dealt with sensibly.

Two examples of previously & successfully addressing serious worldwide issues were the green revolution preventing large food shortages and the Montreal Protocols preventing massive ozone depletion. In both cases I cannot say what would have happened if either had not occurred. We can definitely say that the "cost" of the solutions were hardly a significant negative impact. Both required science and policy to work together.

If we were to approach the fossil fuel depletion problem and pollution issues as the core focuses, then one of the "side effects" would be all the actions would also address a global warming problem, if it indeed exists. If not, at least we would have sustainable energy and less pollution.

 

Snowball fight!!!

http://arstechnica.com/science/news...aximum-suggests-lower-climate-sensitivity.ars

 

F8L, you are arguing with a troll.

 

Yup!

 

No I'm not. I gave that up years ago. Notice I didn't directly address it. I wasted enough energy on the earlier versions. I responded in a conversational manner to you guys in an effort to illustrate how unoriginal this one is. Maybe if it used new material that sounded like they understood science and climate change at the base level it would be rewarded with a real debate. lol