Global Warming - Seems we needed this...

[EricBess]

Oversoul - sorry to keep you up so late

You spent a lot of time talking about my comment about Galileo. I agree with everything you said and perhaps I was too hasty, but the point I was trying to make was that there are still a lot of unknowns, as well as a lot of "scientific fact" that may be more complicated than we truely understand. You brought up Ptolemy and I honestly am not familiar with that, but it is a good example of what I am talking about. What if we were to discover that there was another factor in calculating the force of gravity that is completely irrelevant 99.99999% of the time. I don't question our fomulas for gravity, I merely point out that they are assumed to be correct because we have never encountered a situation where they aren't.

You say that there is a consensus about the cause of the earth's current warming trend. Perhaps you could enlighten me because while there may be a consensus that the earth has been warming recently, stating a cause of this warming at this point seems to be a conclusion about the data, which you agree is under debate.

And I never got the feeling that worldwide panic was your goal. It is always interesting have a conversation with you because you have a tendency to want to make sure that everyone has considered every implication of anything they say. Sometimes, I think you take it too far and fail to see a point being made because you don't agree with the way it is said.

Honestly, 75% of the time we have a discussion, I'm not even sure what your opinion is or whether you even have one

 

[Oversoul]

Oversoul - sorry to keep you up so late

Unless your name is Hewlett-Packard, you can't be held responsible...

You spent a lot of time talking about my comment about Galileo. I agree with everything you said and perhaps I was too hasty, but the point I was trying to make was that there are still a lot of unknowns, as well as a lot of "scientific fact" that may be more complicated than we truely understand. You brought up Ptolemy and I honestly am not familiar with that, but it is a good example of what I am talking about.

I think you see what I was getting at, but perhaps I should explain Ptolemy's model a little. I don't know the math behind it, but basically, in his model the solar system is geocentric (which is now obviously wrong) and the orbits are perfectly circular rather than elliptical. But the distinguishing feature is that everything is moving in merry-go-rounds on top of merry-go-rounds. Even though it's all ultimately going around Earth, there's this huge mess of circles that things travel in while they also travel in their bigger circles. So it all looks rather silly now. However, this was in the second century. No telescopes or anything. The values from the tables generated with Ptolemy's model were all correct as far as anyone back then could tell. If you'd wanted to know where in the sky Mars would be at a certain date in the future, the model could tell you and you could wait and observe and confirm that it was correct. It had practical applications. There were other factors, but I think that's a big part of why Ptolemy work was considered the ultimate authority on astronomy for centuries. It gave correct answers.

I'm confident that people in the future will look back on some of our scientific explanations now as completely wrong. But whatever does turn out to be wrong, the practical applications can't be. They might not be good enough to the level of detail people will be able to get later (as Ptolemy's model failed when new advances like telescopes came around). But they'll still have been accurate now. That won't magically change. It never has, anyway.

Of course, predictions about global warming are necessarily extrapolations and it is true that we should be more cautious when relying on them than we would be with interpolations. But it sure looks like some of the stuff that would attribute a portion of the temperature increase to human activity (burning lots of stuff) is so very closely related to techniques that do have reliably confirmed accuracy in other applications that it would be very bizarre for them to be wrong by that much.

What if we were to discover that there was another factor in calculating the force of gravity that is completely irrelevant 99.99999% of the time. I don't question our fomulas for gravity, I merely point out that they are assumed to be correct because we have never encountered a situation where they aren't.

Well, that's actually pretty close to something that really happened. Einstein's general relativity was able to account for the results of an experiment that classical Newtonian gravity could not account for. But that didn't make everything about the old model wrong. It was still good to the approximations under which it had been applied for centuries. And it still is. Only when certain extremes are introduced is the incompleteness a problem.

You say that there is a consensus about the cause of the earth's current warming trend. Perhaps you could enlighten me because while there may be a consensus that the earth has been warming recently, stating a cause of this warming at this point seems to be a conclusion about the data, which you agree is under debate.

There are points about which there certainly is debate, yes. But there are always points somewhere about which there is debate. If two astrophysicists argue, perhaps heatedly, about whether particular observations describe something as a a single star or as a binary, I'm not going to throw out all of astrophysics. If two paleobiologists can't agree on whether one fossil species is a descendant of another one, that doesn't mean I'm going to throw out all of paleobiology. Perhaps you mean that there is debate about key details behind whether there is or is not any anthropogenic global warming at all. Well no, not that I've seen. Or rather the "debate" has been between scientists who do have a consensus and cranks who can't keep their story straight and appeal to the general public at every turn rather than trying to settle their dispute in a scientific arena.

And I never got the feeling that worldwide panic was your goal. It is always interesting have a conversation with you because you have a tendency to want to make sure that everyone has considered every implication of anything they say. Sometimes, I think you take it too far and fail to see a point being made because you don't agree with the way it is said.

That wasn't so much because I seriously thought that you might believe I wanted to instill panic as it was a sort of reminder that there are positions other than "humans are not a factor in any global warming at all" and "ZOMG we're all gonna die from the global warming unless we all buy hybrids and build a trillion windmills!!!"

Honestly, 75% of the time we have a discussion, I'm not even sure what your opinion is or whether you even have one

EB, if you want my opinion, all you have to do is ask for it. Probably, I wasn't stating my opinion (or emphasizing it anyway) because of my conviction that opinions aren't important as, well, facts. We all have opinions, but I want to know more about an issue than just what people's opinions on it are. I want to know what they base their opinions on and how they formed their opinions and a bunch of other stuff.

My opinion is that a significant portion of the warming that's going on is the result of burning fossil fuels and that to say that much isn't just a guess, but is strongly supported by the data. To say more than that, though, that's where things get tricky. How much warming will result from this? Will the effect continue at its present rate, plateau at some point, or even accelerate because of positive feedback loops? We don't know. How long do we have before we will know? We don't know. What will be the global trend do to local climates (it seems entirely possible that people in some areas would benefit from the warming while people in other places would find it deleterious)? We don't know. But it is my opinion that, whatever the answer to any of these is, we have bigger problems to deal with, some of which might be addressed by things that would also help us figure these ones out.

My opinion is that we will find a solution somehow. In the meantime, what should we do? Well, the effects of global warming are but one concern when it comes to our behavior of digging hydrocarbons out of the ground and burning them with reckless abandon. There are local environmental impacts at the sites where the fuels are extracted (especially with coal). There's ocean acidification, which is getting less attention than global warming probably because it's below us rather than directly affecting us, but it could potentially slow global warming down while also doing far more damage than global warming would. There's peak oil/coal, which may or may not already be happening and which we should be ready for by not putting all of our energy eggs into one burning hydrocarbons basket, especially since it's unnecessary to do so.

And don't forget that when we're not burning fossil fuels, we're using them for a whole lot of other things. I listed them in a post in another thread two years ago...

I realize that all of the neat solvents and resins and adhesives and disinfectants and detergents and lubricants and pesticides and explosives and dyes and preservatives and waxes and propellants and paints and surfactants and thickening agents and polymers and carbon composites we've become accustomed to are made from oil. Oh, and we use coke in making electrodes and important catalysts for purifying metals too. We need kerosene to store reactive materials. Then there's tar and asphalt. And a little thing called plastics we've been using a lot of. Let's not forget MEDICINE. Yeah, most drugs are synthesized from petroleum.

So aside from being an environmental concern (and one that could kill us all if ocean acidification behaves more severely than we hope it will), burning this stuff all up is also a huge economic concern. Furthermore, we can't keep doing it. Even if we wanted to. We're going to run out at some point whether we do anything about that or not. I'd prefer to enter that situation well-prepared.

Oh, and when I wrote that I wasn't counting petroleum used directly as a "base" in products, often ones used to insulate something. And I wasn't counting fuel uses in internal combustion engines that do burn it up, but where another type of motor wouldn't be feasible, which seems virtually bound to happen. So that's two more.

Right now, we can get away with extracting lots of oil and coal and burning most of it while using the leftovers for that other stuff. But failing to adjust our habits would be reckless and arguably consigns future generations to deal with our having used up the "good stuff" that they could have put to better use than lighting on fire to make a little light and heat when we already had other ways of getting light and heat anyway.

And I think it's just good sense diversify our energy sources. Of course, we've already done it to some extent, but coal still makes up the majority.

 

[Oversoul]

Getting back to the ice core questions...

#1: I was going to try to convey how tricky this is and that the answer isn't straightforward, but then I realized that there is a sort of simple answer. The most recent years from which we have ice core data are from, well, now...

...kind of. I mean, the gas pockets, which are important in analysis, don't form instantly. But in relatively shallow cores, there actually are annual layers. Those get compressed deeper down the core. Which leads to...

#2: And this I still don't think I can answer adequately. Pressure is huge when it comes to ice cores. It creates problems for getting the cores out in the first place, keeping them from falling apart once they are out, and analyzing the data. I don't know all the ways that this is compensated for, but even despite all the modern tools used, it isn't perfect, and getting a reading on a specific year, while quite possible in the upper part of a core, becomes impossible in deep cores. Of course, this means that the data is typically only good for general trends and not telling anyone what things were like in the exact year 78,230 B.C. or anything like that.

 

[Spiderman]

This appears to have been the busy topic last week....

Just as an aside, there was an article in my paper last week about how the snowstorms seemed to contradict global warming and it explained that it wasn't contradictory at all. A warmer planet melts more glaciers/ice stuff, which goes into the sea and as evaporation goes on, more moisture is held in the warmer air. So bigger snowstorms are a result of the larger amount of moisture.

All you need is the temperature to be around freezing, give or take a couple of degrees, and no one's arguing that global warming has advanced enough so temperatures no longer reach freezing in the world

 

[EricBess]

Oversoul - I'v already said this, but I admit that when it comes to a lot of the scientific understanding of things like the ice cores, I don't really have a lot of knowledge of how things are done, or even what data is being produced.

Let me see if I understand your point about Ptolemy. If I understand correctly, what you are saying is that it is less important whether the models themselves are correct, as long as the information obtained by the models is accurate. I guess I don't disagree with that, but I do think it is important to realize that there always exists that very miniscule chance that something will arise that is outside what our model would have predicted. In fact, I think historically, when things like that have happened, it often leads to a re-evaluation of the model and often further to a scientific breakthrough. I don't have any specific examples, but I seem to recall something like this in the back of my mind.

I think I said earlier that my opinion was that man hasn't caused any global warming. I aknowledge that I may be wrong. However, let me expand that. If man has caused warming to the planet, I don't think that it is truely significant. Some of this opinion comes from a religious view that God knows what he is doing.

We do seem to agree, however, that regardless of your opinion of why, we should learn to respect the planet and look for better sources of energy in the long run, for our own good and/or for the good of the planet.

Now, on the ice cores, how long has the technology been around and how long have they been looking at data from ice cores? Intuitively, it seems that it would be very difficult to get data from more recent years. Personally, therefore, I question how they can make assertions with any degree of confidence. Any good scientific experiement has a control group which is used to show that the data extrapolated matches observed events. Since we don't have measurements to compare against for historic data, and the observed data from recent years hasn't undergone the same treatment as previous years, I question how they can make any confident assertions. Perhaps they have some methods that I am aware of and I'm sure they have a greater understanding of what they are looking at.

Saying this, I further aknowledge that I really don't care enough to research and see if perhaps they have addressed some of these issues. I will grant that some of the trends might make intuitive sense. If you see a thicker layer or a more crusted layer, or...there are certainly some interesting trends and we can see what might cause that sort of thing, but I think it would be difficult to make a positive assursion as to the magnitude of the implications.

 

[Oversoul]

This appears to have been the busy topic last week....

Just as an aside, there was an article in my paper last week about how the snowstorms seemed to contradict global warming and it explained that it wasn't contradictory at all. A warmer planet melts more glaciers/ice stuff, which goes into the sea and as evaporation goes on, more moisture is held in the warmer air. So bigger snowstorms are a result of the larger amount of moisture.

All you need is the temperature to be around freezing, give or take a couple of degrees, and no one's arguing that global warming has advanced enough so temperatures no longer reach freezing in the world

Freeman Dyson has gone so far as to say that the warming "isn't global." And that is, in some sense, true. I'd prefer "isn't uniform" personally, but whatever. Typically, when the global warming is reported quantitatively in a temperature scale, what is meant by that is the global mean temperature in the lower atmosphere. But that can easily go up while it's slowly getting colder in some regions.

Oversoul - I'v already said this, but I admit that when it comes to a lot of the scientific understanding of things like the ice cores, I don't really have a lot of knowledge of how things are done, or even what data is being produced.

Let me see if I understand your point about Ptolemy. If I understand correctly, what you are saying is that it is less important whether the models themselves are correct, as long as the information obtained by the models is accurate.

Pretty close, I guess. What I really wanted to get at was that while models, including ones that scientists are using today, are quite likely to be wrong or incomplete, the parts that have practical applications won't be the problem. I'm sure we both use electricity for a lot of things. Presently, I have an alarm clock, a ceiling light, a computer, monitor, and speakers all in this room and all requiring electricity (and not just any electricity, as I'm sure you know). Physical and chemical theory have several components that deal with electricity and some of those might be wrong or incomplete. But the parts that have been applied to make all this stuff we're using work, and that must be right in order for the applications to work, well now, those parts cannot be wrong. It just isn't possible.

That's one of the most fascinating things about science. It's one thing to have a model that seems robust. But if it is used to do or make something in such a way that if the model (or the part of it that's being used anyway) is wrong, the thing being attempted cannot be done or cannot be made, that's really something. No matter what happens that makes other parts of a model wrong, no matter what we'll have to discard in the future, the practical applications are something we get to keep. They're a sure thing. Or at least as sure as people can be about anything.

And it isn't immediately obvious, especially because you won't see this most places (I'd blame the journalists, but it's not all their fault, as I know some scientists just don't care either), but much of the science that goes into extracting and analyzing ice cores, not all of it, but quite a bit of it, either does have practical applications of its own or is a close cousin to something else that does and is slightly modified in order to account for some oddities that are specific to ice cores. And I don't mean practical applications in the sense that providing information about glacial cycles over hundreds of thousands of years is a practical application (although one might argue that it is). I mean things that can be tested today. I'm confident in saying that those parts can't be wrong. That doesn't mean that nothing from ice cores or interpretation of them can be wrong, but every aspect that I've bothered to study and that I can understand looks quite reasonable.

I guess I don't disagree with that, but I do think it is important to realize that there always exists that very miniscule chance that something will arise that is outside what our model would have predicted.

Yes, but as I said before, and I know that there was a lot of text in the post where I said this, that isn't a good reason (or any reason really) to reject a working model.

In fact, I think historically, when things like that have happened, it often leads to a re-evaluation of the model and often further to a scientific breakthrough. I don't have any specific examples, but I seem to recall something like this in the back of my mind.

I think you mean like Kuhn's notion of paradigm shifts. Some examples might be the shift from Ptolemy's geocentric cosmology to Copernican heliocentric cosmology, from the static universe to the big bang, from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics, and from geosynclines to plate tectonics.

It goes without saying that the revolutions an upheavals of scientific theories is almost certainly not over. But this seems to have little bearing on the accuracy of the scientific techniques that implicate human burning of hydrocarbons in global warming. One could say that they might all be wrong, but it's sort of like saying that the planet might actually be flat. An extreme example, but it's the same principle really.

And by the way, if the evidence for anthropogenic global warming really is wrong, it would seem (although I'm not positive of this) that because so many independent methods corroborate each other here, the level of scientific revolution necessary for those disparate scientific theories to be incorrect would be such a big deal as to make any petty political squabbles on global warming insignificant by comparison.

I think I said earlier that my opinion was that man hasn't caused any global warming. I aknowledge that I may be wrong. However, let me expand that. If man has caused warming to the planet, I don't think that it is truely significant.

And you know what, it might not be. Unlike some people, I'm not taking the position that it definitely is. Another thing Freeman Dyson has noted, and I forget where he got this but I can look it up, is that it's possible, albeit seemingly unlikely, that anthropogenic global warming could stave off the next ice age.

My stance is that I have absolutely no idea how significant it is. It looks potentially significant. Not so significant that it should be the #1 priority of the whole human race or anything. Not a doomsday scenario significant. But it's certainly something to look into. But yeah, I don't know for sure. Significance is hard to gauge.

I don't think you can make a serious estimation of how significant it is without investigating that somehow. At best, it seems like you have a wild guess as to the significance.

Some of this opinion comes from a religious view that God knows what he is doing.

Okay, I'll bite. Let's say, hypothetically, that in some number of decades, rising seas (as a result of global warming) adversely affect several coastal communities in the world. Maybe a whole lot of deaths. Maybe not that many, really. Probably a whole lot of people losing their homes and livelihoods though. Now, I know there are some people who content that something along these lines will happen in the near future and I don't agree with them. But forget them. That's not what this is about. As far as global warming goes, a scenario like this is at least within the realm of possibility. If this happened, it would be significant, right? And if you're seriously saying that it wouldn't happen because of some sort of divine interference or mandate, then what about other things like this that have already happened? For instance, the 2004 tsunami. What about that?

And I want to make it crystal clear that this is not any sort of claim about any gods or lack thereof based on the fact that they let the 2004 tsunami affect all those people. That's not what I'm getting at. I'm pointing out that saying they wouldn't let global warming happen in any significant way seems to contradict the fact that these sorts of things can happen (and already have happened).

We do seem to agree, however, that regardless of your opinion of why, we should learn to respect the planet and look for better sources of energy in the long run, for our own good and/or for the good of the planet.

Yes, and I do rather wish that global warming weren't such an entrenched part of the rhetoric on these issues because it's really not the most important part, not even close. But whatever.

Now, on the ice cores, how long has the technology been around and how long have they been looking at data from ice cores? Intuitively, it seems that it would be very difficult to get data from more recent years.

Hm, ice cores must be counter-intuitive then (although I can't figure out the recent years being more difficult seems intuitive, but it's possible that I'm just weird). It's actually the more distant years that are difficult to get data from. For a few reasons...

1. In more recent years, the ice sheets form annual layers that are actually pretty neat. Further down a core, the ice is so compressed that this is impossible. Telling how old a deep part of a core is can be not just tricky, but imprecise. Often, only ballpark figures are possible.

2. Beyond certain depths, the enormous pressure will cause the hole being drilled to close up if care is not taken to prevent this. I have read a little about the engineering methods used to deal with this problem, but I confess that I don't really understand them. They keep the hole open somehow, I guess. But it sure doesn't sound easy.

3. Ice that has been under intense pressure for millenia is apparently quite brittle. If a huge section of the ice core shatters before it can be analyzed, that's a whole lot of wasted work. The shallower bits aren't quite as fragile.

4. Compression can not only affect the ice itself, but can cause the trapped air pockets to run together somewhat. This can be dealt with, but still leaves some imprecision in deep core sections.

Personally, therefore, I question how they can make assertions with any degree of confidence. Any good scientific experiement has a control group which is used to show that the data extrapolated matches observed events. Since we don't have measurements to compare against for historic data, and the observed data from recent years hasn't undergone the same treatment as previous years, I question how they can make any confident assertions. Perhaps they have some methods that I am aware of and I'm sure they have a greater understanding of what they are looking at.

An ice core isn't a single, simple experiment. Multiple types of data are collected from them, and these are tested against different things, so there isn't one control. There are lots of controls. Even for a particular type of sample (like carbon dioxide) there will hopefully be multiple "control points."

Ice cores are tested against each other, against direct environmental measurements that have been taken and recorded over time, against dendroclimatology, against known volcano eruptions, against other geological types of data such as boreholes, and in a few rare cases it's even been possible to apply Carbon-14 dating.

And the techniques used are not unique to ice cores and have been tested extensively. For example, estimation of atmospheric temperature using ratios of oxygen isotopes in ice goes all the way back to Harold Urey in the 1940's or 1950's (I forget which).

And I'm sure there's more, but I don't know/remember all of it. I do think it's fair to suppose that the top paleoclimatology researchers in the world aren't all missing or neglecting basic principles of scientific experiments and just deciding to fudge everything.

Saying this, I further aknowledge that I really don't care enough to research and see if perhaps they have addressed some of these issues. I will grant that some of the trends might make intuitive sense. If you see a thicker layer or a more crusted layer, or...there are certainly some interesting trends and we can see what might cause that sort of thing, but I think it would be difficult to make a positive assursion as to the magnitude of the implications.

But it is difficult. No one's saying that it's easy.

 

[train]

and yet more reading material and discussion fodder...
From the american thinker

 

[Spiderman]

Is the American Thinker unbiased or does it have an agenda? Just looking at the sidebar, it appears to be pro-Republican (which indicates a bias to me).

And if you're seriously saying that it wouldn't happen because of some sort of divine interference or mandate, then what about other things like this that have already happened? For instance, the 2004 tsunami. What about that?

And I want to make it crystal clear that this is not any sort of claim about any gods or lack thereof based on the fact that they let the 2004 tsunami affect all those people.

<tongue in cheek> Don't forget, that's Pat Robertson's stance about why New Orleans got hit with the Hurricane and why the earthquake happened to Haiti

 

[train]

Is the American Thinker unbiased or does it have an agenda? Just looking at the sidebar, it appears to be pro-Republican (which indicates a bias to me).

what I have always looked at was their education and professional experience that they bring to the table...

they have an agenda - but base their articles more towards informing the public - and not necessarily "driving" the public. A few times there may be strong sentiment on issues - but I haven't seen any downright bashing...

from their about:
American Thinker is a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans. Contributors are accomplished in fields beyond journalism, and animated to write for the general public out of concern for the complex and morally significant questions on the national agenda.

There is no limit to the topics appearing on American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions, strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military is emphasized. The right to exist and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us. Business, science, technology, medicine, management, and economics in their practical and ethical dimensions are also emphasized, as is the state of American culture.

Staff

Thomas Lifson, editor and publisher, calls himself a recovering academic. After graduating from Kenyon College, he studied modern Japan, sociology and business as a graduate student at Harvard (3 degrees) and joined the faculty at Harvard Business School, where he also began the consulting career that was to lead him away from academia. He also taught sociology and East Asian studies at Harvard, and held visiting professorships at Columbia University and the Japanese National Museum of Ethnology. As a consultant, he has worked with major companies from the United States, Japan, Europe, Asia, and Australasia at the nexus of human, organizational, and strategic issues. A Democrat by birth, he became more conservative in adulthood as reality taught him that dreams of perfecting human society always runs smack into human nature. In 2003 he founded American Thinker. He appears frequently on the Dennis Miller radio show, as well as other talk radio programs.

Richard Baehr, chief political correspondent, is a management consultant in the health care field, and is the president of Richard A. Baehr & Associates. He frequently serves as an expert witness in healthcare litigation cases involving planning and financial matters. Richard has had a long interest in the Middle East, and American politics, and is a frequent speaker and writer on these subjects. He has spoken at many Jewish organization meetings, synagogues, and colleges on various topics: Israeli-Palestinian relations, the war in Lebanon, American politics and Israel, the future of Israel and the Middle East, and American political trends... Richard is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Kenyon College. He is married with two adult children.

Ed Lasky, news editor, is a former lawyer, and now a stock trader. Northwestern University, B.A. economics, University of Michigan Law School-J.D., Master of Management, J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University)... A read-aholic husband of one and father of three wonderful kids (twin girls, and a son), Ed is focused on politics, media monitoring, and foreign affairs. He started being concerned about the future when he had children. 9/11 was a motivating factor, as well. He feels fortunate to live in America

Rick Moran, blog editor, is a professional writer/editor living in Streator, IL. He is a contributor to American Thinker as well as being its associate editor. He is also Chicago editor of Pajamas Media and is proprietor of the website Right Wing Nuthouse.

Larrey Anderson, submissions editor, is a writer and philosopher. He studied comparative religion, philosophy, and law at Harvard, Penn State, and Catholic University of America. He served three terms as an Idaho state senator including a stint as chairman of the Health and Welfare Committee. He retired from the senate for health reasons. He has written four books.

Marc Sheppard, environment editor, is a senior partner in a technology consultation and software development firm on Long Island, where he lives with this wife and three children. A healed former liberal, he swapped his subscription to Rolling Stone for National Review over 20 years ago. Now an unrepentant skeptic, he writes commentary on culture, media, education and politics, with a watchful eye on their ideological hijacking through the misrepresentation of science and technology.

J.R. Dunn, consulting editor, has been involved in several fields of business including real estate, infotech, and PR. He managed a real estate corporation in Northern New Jersey for a decade beginning in the late 70s. (Think Glengarry Glen Ross.) During the dot-com epoch he worked at a pioneering Wall Street business database firm until 9/11 wiped out many of the company's clients. In recent years, he has worked for Novita, a New Jersey political PR agency. His first book on politics, dealing with the inexplicably overlooked fact that liberal policies (criminal justice "reform", the CAFE standards, the DDT ban, etc.) tend to kill Americans by the tens of thousands. Provisionally titled Death by Liberalism, the book will be appearing later this year.

 

[EricBess]

Okay, I'll bite. Let's say, hypothetically, that in some number of decades, rising seas (as a result of global warming) adversely affect several coastal communities in the world. Maybe a whole lot of deaths. Maybe not that many, really. Probably a whole lot of people losing their homes and livelihoods though. Now, I know there are some people who content that something along these lines will happen in the near future and I don't agree with them. But forget them. That's not what this is about. As far as global warming goes, a scenario like this is at least within the realm of possibility. If this happened, it would be significant, right? And if you're seriously saying that it wouldn't happen because of some sort of divine interference or mandate, then what about other things like this that have already happened? For instance, the 2004 tsunami. What about that?

And I want to make it crystal clear that this is not any sort of claim about any gods or lack thereof based on the fact that they let the 2004 tsunami affect all those people. That's not what I'm getting at. I'm pointing out that saying they wouldn't let global warming happen in any significant way seems to contradict the fact that these sorts of things can happen (and already have happened).

To be clear - I'm not saying that certain things WON'T happen. What I am saying is that I give God more credit with being in control. When large-scale events happen, they happen for a reason and based on natural law. As for what Spidey said tonge-in-cheek...I think Pat Robertson is an idiot. I'm not saying that the Hatian government couldn't stand a bit of humbling, but what he said was just stupid. A lot of very good people lost everything. No one gets through this life without facing a significant number of challenges first.

 

[Spiderman]

No offense train, but taking their "about" to tell what the site is like is like having a Cokes saleperson say why Coke is better than Pepsi

Here's what I've found from other places:

News Trust

The articles published are often mentioned on The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Michelle Malkin

It’s one of the best conservative online magazines on the Internet.

So yes, I'd say they have a bias...

Let's get some science sources rather than political affiliations...

 

[train]

No offense train, but taking their "about" to tell what the site is like is like having a Cokes saleperson say why Coke is better than Pepsi

But coke is better... In case you didn't get the memo...

Let's get some science sources rather than political affiliations...

Well - I left it as to pointing at the site's article - but aside from the abstract it provides - the links to the scientific publications are within it... as shown in this link...
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf

 

[Spiderman]

But coke is better... In case you didn't get the memo...

hey, you're preaching to the choir

Well - I left it as to pointing at the site's article - but aside from the abstract it provides - the links to the scientific publications are within it... as shown in this link...

Ah, thanks. That looks better. I missed there were links in the article.

 

[train]

Ah, thanks. That looks better. I missed there were links in the article.

Yeah - they don't spell the link out - but they word it with "here" and other basic directional/reference keys...

 

[EricBess]

Oversoul - I have a question that you might be able to clarify. Earlier, you stated that there is a general consensus among scientist concerning the causes of global warming.

However, the article train linked to seems to debunk a lot of the specifics of what happens with greenhouse gases and so forth.

My question is, when you said that, what specifically is the "consensus"? For example:

Is there a general consensus that the earth is warming? (pretty sure, yes).
Is there a general consensus that the earth is warming more than it should be normally?
Is there a general consensus that such a warming trend is due to man's influence?
Is there a general consensus that specific man-made influences are the cause? If so, what?

And these questions build on each other. Honestly, most of my information comes from sources where you are likely to hear both extremes, but nothing in the middle, while you seem to be more involved with communities where actual data would be discussed.

My suspicion is that if there is a general consensus at all, it gets fuzzy when deciding whether there are man-made factors and stops when it comes to discussing specific causes.

Thanks.

 

[Oversoul]

I will get to Train's link at some point, but since I've got a little bit of time left at school for the day and EB asked me questions directly, I'll respond to them...

Is there a general consensus that the earth is warming? (pretty sure, yes).

Yeah.

Is there a general consensus that the earth is warming more than it should be normally?

Well, it's kind of complicated. I do think that there is a scientific consensus that it's warming more than would be accounted for by the normal cycles. But it isn't doing so by all that much. Also, saying "should" makes it sound like for this to happen is a bad thing, which it probably is, but that is a separate question really.

Is there a general consensus that such a warming trend is due to man's influence?

The entire warming trend or the part that is more than would be expected? The warming trend is certainly not all due to man's influence. But there is a consensus that part of it is.

Is there a general consensus that specific man-made influences are the cause? If so, what?

Well, an increased greenhouse effect would be the explanation, but most greenhouse gases we've been polluting the atmosphere with have fortunately not been in large amounts. Carbon dioxide though, is an exception. As far as I know, the other pollutants, although they may present other problems that might be much more serious locally, are not at levels that would be problematic when it comes to global warming.

My suspicion is that if there is a general consensus at all, it gets fuzzy when deciding whether there are man-made factors and stops when it comes to discussing specific causes.

Sort of. I mean, I can only speak from a rough understanding because no one knows all the numbers on that. And it depends on if you want a consensus of climatologists specifically, atmospheric scientists in general, the entire scientific community, everyone who has anything to say on the matter, etc. I think the consensus is quite strong when it comes to the warming trend and actually still quite strong when it comes to attributing the abnormal increase to human burning of hydrocarbons (mostly coal, although oil-based fuels are big too). But beyond that, it definitely drops off. While there are of course some scientists who make specific and bold predictions about what will happen in certain time frames and such, I don't think that has consensus behind it.

 

[EricBess]

Thanks Oversoul. So it would probably be fair to say that there is a general consensus that we can't really explain why it is warming as much as it is based on cyclical data, but there are many opinions as to whether we might be lacking information. There is a general consensus that if the earth is indeed warming more than a cyclical trend dictates, then man is the more likely cause of the discrepancy?

That seems reasonable.

 

[Spiderman]

Just want to note that it was stated over the weekend that the temperature for Maryland (or Baltimore?) for January was 1.8 C warmer than the average (but can't remember the time period for how long the average is kept)

 

[train]

that's a sign of Regional warming...

see link... Ice core evidence for significant 100-year regional warming...

(Though admittedly, the link is not for your area Spidey...)

 

[Oversoul]

Train...

So you accept ice core data that indicates a local trend, but don't accept alignments in composition for many regionally disparate ice cores indicating global cycles (and atmospheric composition changes that match these cycles)? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm not saying that this is your position because I'm still a bit confused on what your position actually is. It just seems that you're readily accepting the interpretation of the data for this article, but not for others. Now I am not at all saying that this article is wrong somehow. I have no reason to claim that and it looks legitimate to me (since we can only see the abstract, I can't really say much beyond that). But I don't really see the method behind granting that the researchers probably have it right here and saying the opposite elsewhere.

EB...

Yeah, pretty much. I do rather dislike "cause" when it comes to these things because what we really mean (or what I really mean, anyway) is causal factor. There are other factors and it would behoove us as a society to get a grasp of them because then we'll have a better idea of how climate, as a system, operates and the true effect of the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide beyond a simple, "Well, it has a warming effect to some extent and we have some vague idea of what that extent actually is."

One of the major concerns and, as far as I can tell, a main reason that global warming has become so hyped in recent years, is the possibility of all the extra carbon dioxide triggering or accelerating a positive feedback loop. There's some good evidence that climate changes in the past have been influenced by positive feedback loops. For example, if one happens now, it could be along the lines that the increase in greenhouse gases causes a bit more warming, which causes a bit more greenhouse gases (from a couple of sources and for reasons that are too complicated for me to expound on in this post), which causes even more warming, and so on until we end up with a lot of warming. But how likely is this to happen now? Hard to say. I would say not likely enough to happen just yet that it should be our number one priority for everyone on the planet or anything like that, but likely enough that we should still address it somehow. Others might disagree, of course.

Now then, I said I'd get to Train's link. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but that article has given me just a bit more respect for Steve Milloy. If you don't know who he is, that's not too important. You can go look him up or something. Anyway, what he does is, and not just about global warming, is pick and choose from the scientific literature and use half-truths and obfuscation to convey that whatever is convenient for him is correct and whatever is not is "junk science." One possible word for that is "sinister." But one thing that I can't remember anyone ever catching him doing is flat-out making crap up. And I have to give him credit for that. Not so for this Gary Thompson guy.

It has been said that debunking lies takes much longer than it took for the liars to tell them. I've experienced this problem myself. However, it isn't always true. I can debunk Gary Thompson's lie in less space than it took him to tell it. Are you ready? Here we go...

The link between carbon dioxide and global warming was originally proposed in the 1890's by Svante Arrhenius, largely based on work by other scientists showing that the greenhouse effect was dependent on the atmospheric concentration of water vapor and carbon dioxide and that carbon dioxide was on the rise in the 1890's (attributed to the industrial revolution) than it had been in previous decades. Arrhenius' work relied on a fact, already well-known at the time: that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas. It had been demonstrated by a least as early as 1890 that carbon dioxide behaves this way in Earth's atmosphere and even before then carbon dioxide's properties had been studied in laboratories.

In order for Gary Thompson's claim about what the satellite data says on carbon dioxide to be correct, carbon dioxide cannot behave in this way. I'd have to read the papers he cites to have an idea of what the data actually does say, but I don't need to do that to know that his claim can't be right. In order for it to be right, a fact that has been tested again and again and known since the 1890's about one of the most well-studied molecules in all chemistry is necessarily wrong.

And I'm not that gullible.