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 Frazzled wrote:
Clearly we need to outlaw volcanoes.

It would probably be the most productive thing congress has done in the past 6 years.

 Minx wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
places like the manhattan institute have pretty good non biased science on this kind of thing

Why would i rather read a non-scientist's view than the relevant scientific publications?

non-scientist?

is that what you call experts in their fields conducting peer reviewed research?

are you looking for a literal degree in "doing science"? or does the lack of the word "science" in the title just throw you off?

The author is a researcher with accreditation in the environmental field, and the facts presented have been peer reviewed. The Manhattan institute has been a leading reputable research group for decades.

again, you keep acting like 100% of scientists agree on this, they clearly do not.

Heh... I guess climate change is becoming a hotter (bad pun... sue me ) topic on the 'net lately.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Excerpt:

The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now. It does not mean global warming is a delusion. Flat though they are, temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century remain almost 1°C above their level in the first decade of the 20th. But the puzzle does need explaining.

Essentially... we still don't know what we don't know.

 easysauce wrote:


http://www.manhattan-institute.org/energymyths/myth10.htm

That graph conveniently misses the CO_2 absorption by plants, oceans, etc (it's mentioned in the text though). Before the industrial revolution the CO_2 levels were lower and stable due to that previous equilibrium. We have changed that in the last hundred years.



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 whembly wrote:
The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now

It's not that puzzling if you take the increasing heat content of the oceans into consideration:

(The figure shows the observed change of heat content.)

RIght... I get that. Now, answer me this... is that normal?

Deny climate change all you want. It's totally fine to justify your choice to abstain from adopting policies designed to tackle it because you've got the fear.

It'll be more expensive to tackle later than it is now. Who cares though? It's obviously a conspiracy.

 easysauce wrote:
again, you keep acting like 100% of scientists agree on this, they clearly do not.

Lol, wow. Your supposed example of scientists not agreeing is a poll asking random people whether they agree with the statement "do scientists agree", not a poll of scientists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 easysauce wrote:
The Manhattan institute has been a leading reputable research group for decades.

You mean "a leading conservative advocacy group". Come back when you have legitimate peer-reviewed scientific journals to cite.

HotHouse here we come!

 whembly wrote:
Wait... so now I'm the "activist group" here?

No the activist causes are the various environmental groups that overstated various parts of global warming in order to get a shock effect. Those people have worked to reduce overall confidence in the scientific understanding of climate.

Yeah... here's the thing Seb, You and I are probably a lot closer on this issue than we think. The difference is maybe the "urgency" to do something about it.

Acting in a small and moderate fashion now is vastly cheaper than having to act in an extreme fashion later on.

Many of the problems I have is that certain groups (both sides if I may add) with agendas will take these studies, and push it as gospel. That Hockey Stick graph is one such example...

But none of that matters when the scientific body itself has consensus. Seriously, 97% of people active in the field of climate change are on side, 3% are on the other – and that’s an old number that’s probably gotten even more lopsided. As a scientific question it is fething done, the debate in the field is now about how fast, exactly what will happen and all of that stuff.

Many of the conclusions of these studies aren't robust... hence why it's intensely debated.

The 'intense debate' within the field is on specific technical matters - how fast, exactly what will happen etc. The debate over whether it is happening, whether it is caused by man etc... that's only in the political sphere. This is Galileo vs Pope Urban VIII. It is people who study this for a living trying to explain what science knowns, up against people know nothing who demand they be listened to as much as the experts.

Back in school... we learned that in order to conduct a proper scientific "investigation", scientists must first formulate a falsifiable hypothesis to test.

An alternative and null hypothesis... must also be defined and validated.

So... take the IPCC or NASA hypothsis: That human-related greenhouse gas emissions will result in dangerous global warming.

The null hypothesis is that currently observed changes are the result of natural variability.

To invalidate the null hypothesis requires, at a bare bones minimum, direct evidence of human causation of specified changes that lie outside usual, natural variability.

Which has been done, and was done in the 1990s. You see, they had fairly decent models for this stuff even then. At that point there was a real debate in the field, between people who said this was due to greenhouse gases, and other people who said it was just part of cyclical pattern, and would soon return to norm. We then continued to watch temperature patterns, and guess what - while specific cyclical patterns were observed those models that relied purely on cyclical patterns completely missed the underlying temperature increase and had poor predictive results. Meanwhile, those models that did include some measure of underlying temperature increase based on predicted carbon emissions had much stronger predictive powers. That's your hypothesis and your null right there.

fething hell Seb... that 97% figure is demonstratively disingenous and disproven. Is Forbes a reputable enough for you?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/?&_suid=139464373288105051434799097478

There's actually two sources for the 97% figure. The first source is a study that simply asked scientists in many fields of science if global warming was real and if it was caused by man. Most scientists said it was, but not by a strong majority… but when you narrowed it down to people actively working in climate science it was found that 97% answered it was.
Anyhow, in the article you link to, what we see is basically the latest goal post shift. Giving up on ‘there’s no climate change’, and then giving up on ‘but we don’t know if it is caused by man’, we see the latest stalling effort – ‘but we don’t know if it is severe enough to do something about it so we better not do anything about it’. And then, with glorious moxie, the hack who wrote the article rejected a metastudy of the field by claiming the question reviewed only looked at the old stalling tactic his side used, not the new stalling tactic. Supposedly for him to accept the answer the scientific studies must show that climate change is severe enough to require action… which is complete nonsense because concluding what policy positions government must take is not what science does.

And to answer your question on whether Forbes is good enough… it’s a bad question. Forbes has some high end reporting, particularly on business, but it also has opinion pages, and those pages like anywhere else vary wildly depending on the columnist. And this guy, judged just on this article, is one of the less capable partisan hacks out there.

Okay...whatever dude. You are awfully dismissive that there's even a chance that these studies can be wrong.

I'm not dismissive of the idea that they can't be improved, or refined, or updated. But the idea that they are wildly wrong is just not a possibility. The idea that human carbon emissions are impacting global temperature is now basically as established as gravity and evolution.

There's a huge scientific community that refutes that.

I await eagerly your list of links from climate scientists active in the field that show that.

Yea, but not to the degree of the uptick on that hockey stick graph. That was the point man.

Sure, and I think that’s something that needs to be clearly set out. We aren’t talking about The Day After Tomorrow here. Those are Hollywood movies, and bad ones at that. We are talking about a steady list of negative consequences over multiple decades.

You're talking about the market adapting to the business environment.

I'm talking about that it's crazy pants to institute policy based on something that is still going through a major debate in the scientific community.

No, not the market adapting to the business environment by itself, but adapting as a direct result of market design put in place by government policy. You see, right now greenhouse emissions are free to the emitter, and costly to the rest of us. So you change that, you put a price on those emissions and watch the market adapt, shifting to lower emission technology and elsewhere reducing production that isn’t justified by the end product.

And no, there isn’t a debate within the field. That’s a story sold by moneyed interests.

I need to find the past plans... but, iirc, the US's Carbon Tax initiative was much more severe than anywhere else.

They claimed that about our policy as well. It was bs.

But, getting the Global Market to sing the same tune is like herding cats across a river.

Only if you try and push them (via regulation). If you draw them towards you (by properly pricing carbon) then it should work okay.


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 Frazzled wrote:
So are you going to immediately recommend full conversion to nuclear reactors, global fracking to release larger natural gas deposits, and mandated GMO crops which can produce greater yields?

If not then your ignoring "climate change."

I would advocate all those options, yes.

I'm often quite annoyed that people are so indifferent to the certainty of emissions from coal plants, but terrified of the small possibility of nuclear disaster.

Fracking is absolutely the way forward (the tech has improved massively since the early days), and the GMO freakout by the hippies is fething infuriating.


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 Da Boss wrote:
I don't see how fracking reduces global warming, so I'm not particularly pro fracking.

It's a fairly clean burning fuel.

I also have no problem with greatly expanded nuclear plants and GMO crops - we've been monkeying with these since we've been growing them - but am still at least somewhat concerned by fracking and it's consequences, such as polluted groundwater and earthquakes.

Nuclear is bothersome when you think of future implications. It's an OK here and now solution if we have no Cheeky Chernobyl accidents.

I was initially pro fracking but the more I've looked into it the less keen I am on it. It requires a disgusting amount of water to do and the "propant" that they use is highly toxic and unlikely to be filtered from such water. In the US and Africa I think they use drying basins, so while the chemicals don't go straight back into a main watercourse they still manage to infiltrate the environment in other ways.

 whembly wrote:
No one is debating what's happening... the debate has always been if it's man-made, natural or both.

From your own link...

"The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/?&_suid=139464373288105051434799097478

I wish you guys would agree to just one set of goalposts.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
No one is debating what's happening... the debate has always been if it's man-made, natural or both.

From your own link...

"The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/?&_suid=139464373288105051434799097478

I wish you guys would agree to just one set of goalposts.

Eh... you're reading too much into this.

I'm going to bow out because no one is going to convince any here.

You keep pushing that 97% figure (based on ridiculous small sample) as gospel.

o.O

 Medium of Death wrote:
Nuclear is bothersome when you think of future implications. It's an OK here and now solution if we have no Cheeky Chernobyl accidents.

Even if we do have another Chernobyl accident it's still an acceptable solution. Let's ignore the fact that Chernobyl was a case of a really old and badly designed reactor combined with incredibly stupidity and disregard for safety rules, and assume that the price of nuclear is an occasional disaster. That seems bad, but only if you ignore the fact that coal power (which will probably replace nuclear) also kills people through horrible pollution. The only reason we think that nuclear is more dangerous is that when nuclear power kills people it does so with a big news story, while coal just quietly increases the number of deaths from cancer. It's the same kind of poor risk evaluation that makes people terrified of dying in a plane hijacking, but think nothing of the much greater risk of dying in a car accident on the way to the airport.

And of course another Chernobyl incident is incredibly unlikely for the previously-mentioned reasons. A better example would be the incident in Japan, where a natural disaster way beyond what anyone thought was possible combined with a deliberate coverup by the plant owners still had limited impact outside the area of the plant itself and (IIRC) didn't kill anyone.

Yeah, modern nuke power plants are very safe. And the waste material is inert and easily stored in underground bunkers for eternity.

 Grey Templar wrote:
And the waste material is inert and easily stored in underground bunkers for eternity.

As opposed to the toxic waste produced by coal plants, which has a nasty habit of getting into our water supply because we just leave it out in the open and hope that nothing breaks?

 whembly wrote:
Eh... you're reading too much into this.

I'm going to bow out because no one is going to convince any here.

You keep pushing that 97% figure (based on ridiculous small sample) as gospel.

o.O

You aren't getting off that easy.

You said the 97% figure was bad, and to establish that you linked to a column that said "The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming."

And then you later claim that "the debate has always been if it's man-made, natural or both".

Well, which is it? Is the debate over whether any part is man-made (in which case the 97% figure is sound, has asked a valid question and utterly refutes your claim)? Or is the debate over whether the consequences are severe enough for us to do something about the issue, and you are (like the column) conceding that yes, climate change is caused by man?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Even if we do have another Chernobyl accident it's still an acceptable solution. Let's ignore the fact that Chernobyl was a case of a really old and badly designed reactor combined with incredibly stupidity and disregard for safety rules, and assume that the price of nuclear is an occasional disaster. That seems bad, but only if you ignore the fact that coal power (which will probably replace nuclear) also kills people through horrible pollution. The only reason we think that nuclear is more dangerous is that when nuclear power kills people it does so with a big news story, while coal just quietly increases the number of deaths from cancer. It's the same kind of poor risk evaluation that makes people terrified of dying in a plane hijacking, but think nothing of the much greater risk of dying in a car accident on the way to the airport.

And of course another Chernobyl incident is incredibly unlikely for the previously-mentioned reasons. A better example would be the incident in Japan, where a natural disaster way beyond what anyone thought was possible combined with a deliberate coverup by the plant owners still had limited impact outside the area of the plant itself and (IIRC) didn't kill anyone.

Really good answer on all points.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's the same kind of poor risk evaluation that makes people terrified of dying in a plane hijacking, but think nothing of the much greater risk of dying in a car accident on the way to the airport.

it's funny, driving is far and away the most dangerous thing we do, but we think nothing of it - driving when we're tired, when we've had a few drinks, not wearing seat belts, and so on.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Eh... you're reading too much into this.

I'm going to bow out because no one is going to convince any here.

You keep pushing that 97% figure (based on ridiculous small sample) as gospel.

o.O

You aren't getting off that easy.

You said the 97% figure was bad, and to establish that you linked to a column that said "The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming."

And then you later claim that "the debate has always been if it's man-made, natural or both".

Well, which is it? Is the debate over whether any part is man-made (in which case the 97% figure is sound, has asked a valid question and utterly refutes your claim)? Or is the debate over whether the consequences are severe enough for us to do something about the issue, and you are (like the column) conceding that yes, climate change is caused by man?

*cracks knuckles*

First, let's get the 97% figure out of the way... look at the chart:

See where that 97% figure came from? 75 out of 77 answered yes to #2.

So..apparently, the majority of AGU members polled didn’t think this poll on climate change consensus was worth returning.

Consensus my ass!

This figure/study is continually pushed throughout the 'net and I can facepalm enough to keep up.

Now... to answer your question: It's irrefutable that there's measured global warming. The debate is really what impact, and by how much does humankind contribute.

Ok let's see you want the newer industrial power houses China India etc etc to change how they operate cause it is damaging to the environment. When the old industrial leading countries have been doing it for years. Right good luck with that.

For the whole global warming cleaner industry green energy. good luck cause if the all mighty dollar or your currency is going to rule at the end of the day. So as long as they are making the cheddar. Who cares if the rest suffer, Greedy rules the world and I don't see people who can really change this to worry about the future generations as long as they are good here and now.

The day clean energy become the have too is when the oil is gone till then hello money.


My 2 cents

 whembly wrote:
So..apparently, the majority of AGU members polled didn’t think this poll on climate change consensus was worth returning.

Which means that the actual percentage is probably greater than 97%, since scientists who are skeptical of the accepted theory would be highly motivated to get their votes counted, while scientists who agree with the majority are likely to just shrug and not bother with such a silly "controversy". Therefore the "no" group is probably over-represented in the survey results.

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
So..apparently, the majority of AGU members polled didn’t think this poll on climate change consensus was worth returning.

Which means that the actual percentage is probably greater than 97%, since scientists who are skeptical of the accepted theory would be highly motivated to get their votes counted, while scientists who agree with the majority are likely to just shrug and not bother with such a silly "controversy". Therefore the "no" group is probably over-represented in the survey results.

Yeah... in the original paper it had this blurb:

We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.

So, 2/3rd didn't have a position?

Probably the best way to describe it is that "97% of articles on global warming that take a position on the matter either implicitly or explicitly endorse that human activity is causing some global warming"

Since the vast majority (98.5%) of these papers don't quantify how much warming, that's about as far as we can go... no?

That's so far removed from the usual hysteria pushing the 97% figure that, ermahgawd... we must do something no before we die next year! Give all of our monies to Al Gore... he'll save us!

Climate change surveys are a bit like evolution studies, the ones that show the greatest dissent require polling scientists to who aren't really qualified on the matter. 'Scientists' aren't experts on everything, only their specific fields. The fact that if you cast a net wide enough you can get 'scientists' who doubt evolution doesn't make it less true or suddenly create a controversy worth building policies around. But there are politically strong and wealthy groups invested in promoting the controversy, as there is with the movement against global warming. Mainly because efforts to curtail it would affect oil companies and heavy industry.

I worked with plant scientists and attended conferences with similar groups. I don't recall anyone disputing climate change or even that humans were playing a role, yet even then there were a couple of creationists I worked with, so it's not as if people of very unconventional scientific views didn't exist. Nationally there wasn't debate about whether climate change was happening, it's well beyond that, the focus was on what we can do about it regarding future food security because of the impacts it has on currently fertile land and the spread of crops and diseases. People who think global warming means we'll be growing mangos and vineyards in the UK don't have a clue.

 whembly wrote:
So, 2/3rd didn't have a position?

Do you honestly think that this is a good argument in favor of your side? If 2/3 of the papers expressed no position then they expressed no position, they didn't express a position of neutrality and/or uncertainty. For example, the paper may have come up in a search with the term "global warming" (which is how they got the pool of papers), but actually be about something other than the yes/no debate and therefore not have any reason to take a side. Or the author may not have felt the need to take an explicit position in the abstract (IOW, the short summary at the beginning of the paper) when the issue is so uncontroversial among the actual experts, just like papers in physics don't usually put explicit agreements with basic laws of physics in their abstracts.

So what we actually see here is that there is near-unanimous agreement on the issue, and the denialists are an irrelevant minority.

 whembly wrote:
*cracks knuckles*

First, let's get the 97% figure out of the way... look at the chart:

See where that 97% figure came from? 75 out of 77 answered yes to #2.

So..apparently, the majority of AGU members polled didn’t think this poll on climate change consensus was worth returning.

Because the majority of scientists are outside of the field and don't go making conclusions on areas that aren't their field of study. Honestly, it'd be nice if all scientists showed that discipline.

I mean, I get sent stuff like this on accounting standards from time to time, and because my financial accounting knowledge is woeful, I understand it enough to generally understand what they're proposing to change, but nowhere near enough to know if changing it is a good idea. So I don't respond.

Now... to answer your question: It's irrefutable that there's measured global warming. The debate is really what impact, and by how much does humankind contribute.

Do you want to start naming major scientific institutes that believe the issue is still up for debate.

Because I can have lots of fun with the copy and paste game;
American Association for the Advancement of Science "The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society."

American Meteorological Society "It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide."

U.S. National Academy of Sciences "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

From the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26845103

The BBC has to adopt "clear editorial guidelines" for its reporting on the issue of climate change, MPs have said.

The BBC has to adopt "clear editorial guidelines" for its reporting on the issue of climate change, MPs have said.

The Science and Technology Committee said the organisation played a "central" role in informing the public.

But some editors were "poor" at determining viewers' and listeners' level of expertise and sometimes pitted lobbyists against "top scientists" as if their views had "equal weight".

The BBC said it did "not believe in erasing wider viewpoints".

In its report, the committee said news teams, including those on Radio 4's Today programme, had committed the mistake of attributing the same weight to opinions and scientific fact when covering climate science.

'Impartiality'
Its chairman, Labour MP Andrew Miller, said: "Given the high level of trust the public has in its coverage, it is disappointing that the BBC does not ensure all of its programmes and presenters reflect the actual state of climate science in its output.

"Some editors appear to be particularly poor at determining the level of scientific expertise of contributors in debates, for instance, putting up lobbyists against top scientists as though their arguments on the science carry equal weight."

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

The BBC does its utmost to report on this complex subject as clearly as possible using our specialist journalists”

BBC spokesman
The report suggested the majority of the public did not have a good understanding of climate change or its causes and many people would like to be better informed.

The MPs called on the BBC to develop "clear editorial guidelines" for commentators and presenters, encouraging them to challenge statements from either side of the climate policy debate that strayed too far from accepted scientific facts.

The report also criticised the government and its agencies for failing to provide "clear, consistent messages", which had had a detrimental impact on the public's trust in climate science.

It said: "As a matter of urgency, the government needs to draw up a climate change communication strategy and implement this consistently across all departments."

'Refreshing strategy'
A BBC spokesman said: "The BBC does its utmost to report on this complex subject as clearly as possible using our specialist journalists.

"While the vast bulk of our interviews are with climate scientists, as part of our commitment to impartiality it is important that dissenting voices are also heard.

"We don't believe in erasing wider viewpoints even if the select committee doesn't agree with them."

He said the BBC took "care to reflect all viewpoints in the debate" about science and to give them "due weight".

And Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said: "The government is already proactive in communicating the science of climate change, using the media, climate scientists and trusted third-party organisations as a medium to do so.

"We are continuing to maximise all communications channels, including digital, social media and traditional media, whilst refreshing our strategy to help improve how climate change is communicated to the public."

Scientific Fact.
Trusted third parties.
Top Scientists.

Heres an idea - Tell us climate change is happening - the possible causes - and the end result has the potential to be bad for our current way of life. The debate as to what is causing climate change needs to be held separately as far as possible.

Lets have some honest debate as to possible repercussions of climate change on our way of life and discuss ways which we can adapt.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Nuclear is bothersome when you think of future implications. It's an OK here and now solution if we have no Cheeky Chernobyl accidents.

I was initially pro fracking but the more I've looked into it the less keen I am on it. It requires a disgusting amount of water to do and the "propant" that they use is highly toxic and unlikely to be filtered from such water. In the US and Africa I think they use drying basins, so while the chemicals don't go straight back into a main watercourse they still manage to infiltrate the environment in other ways.

So whats your mythical plan then?

 Frazzled wrote:
So whats your plan then?

How about we make use of that gigantic nuclear fusion reactor up in the sky until we get nuclear fusion under control in a stellarator?

Thats cute. It might work if we had the global power needs of 1907.

 Frazzled wrote:
Thats cute. It might work if we had the global power needs of 1907.

Are you sure?