Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
(OP)
Well, not a hoax as the original thread was initially careful to consider, and as anticipated there, a new tranche of emails has now been released.
Yes folks, its Climategate 2.0 and better late than never(I was anticipating a second release much earlier as revealed in the original threads).
Now the interesting question is: How clever were the scientists at the time?
I have two scenarios:
(a.i) at Climategate, the scientists could assume whoever leaked the data leaked all they had.
If it caused a serious enquiry then their files would be investigated by outsiders.
Since the leaked data was validated as genuine it all had to be discovered still on the servers.
But if they were intensively investigated that investigation would reveal a lot more damaging material.
So the best winning strategy would be to sanitise anything not leaked and try and explain away was what released and hope for a favourable whitewash (as actually happened).
(b) assume whoever leaked had access to everything. In that case sanitising what wasn't released would reveal, if a searching enquiry were conducted, that they'd sanitised the files but there is option (a.ii)
(a.ii) whoever leaked leaked all they had access to. A serious enquiry would access a lot more damning data.
Hence the question of whether to sanitise or not sanitise has only one winning solution in the event the politicos have to conduct a real enquiry and not a whitewash: sanitise the files.
Of course, the only winning strategy depends on there being a lot of breaks in their favour but the only alternative is to cop a plea and take up voluntary work for Barnardos.
So I'd really like to know if anyone can access their files and see just what exists and what doesn't. It would be very difficult to claim the new files are fabricated and the original files not so any gaps in the official files would be most revealing.
PS what I liked was this from Delingpole:
He can't plot data in Excel? and we were supposed to take him seriously as a scientist?
Yes folks, its Climategate 2.0 and better late than never(I was anticipating a second release much earlier as revealed in the original threads).
Now the interesting question is: How clever were the scientists at the time?
I have two scenarios:
(a.i) at Climategate, the scientists could assume whoever leaked the data leaked all they had.
If it caused a serious enquiry then their files would be investigated by outsiders.
Since the leaked data was validated as genuine it all had to be discovered still on the servers.
But if they were intensively investigated that investigation would reveal a lot more damaging material.
So the best winning strategy would be to sanitise anything not leaked and try and explain away was what released and hope for a favourable whitewash (as actually happened).
(b) assume whoever leaked had access to everything. In that case sanitising what wasn't released would reveal, if a searching enquiry were conducted, that they'd sanitised the files but there is option (a.ii)
(a.ii) whoever leaked leaked all they had access to. A serious enquiry would access a lot more damning data.
Hence the question of whether to sanitise or not sanitise has only one winning solution in the event the politicos have to conduct a real enquiry and not a whitewash: sanitise the files.
Of course, the only winning strategy depends on there being a lot of breaks in their favour but the only alternative is to cop a plea and take up voluntary work for Barnardos.
So I'd really like to know if anyone can access their files and see just what exists and what doesn't. It would be very difficult to claim the new files are fabricated and the original files not so any gaps in the official files would be most revealing.
PS what I liked was this from Delingpole:
Quote:
Here's Jones flaunting his ignorance:
I keep on seeing people saying this same stupid thing. I'm not adept enough (totally inept) with excel to do this now as no-one who knows how to is here.
What you have to do is to take the numbers in column C (the years) and then those in D (the anomalies for each year), plot them and then work out the linear trend. The slope is upwards. I had someone do this in early 2006, and the trend was upwards then. It will be now. Trend won't be statistically significant, but the trend is up.
And here's Cumbrian Lad's comment below:
The fact that a scientist who is in charge of a major global data set claims not to be able to plot two columns in a spreadsheet is dumbfounding. Not only that, but he feels sure that relatively few people around him could either.
The line "I had someone do this in early 2006..., " suggests that it is the sort of menial task he'd leave to a non technical assistant. Now, I've some time for delegation of appropriate tasks, and keeping the best brains thinking, not engaged in mundane tasks, but data analysis is part of the science surely.
He can't plot data in Excel? and we were supposed to take him seriously as a scientist?





RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Still his reputation has been cleared by the people on his side, so who are we to argue? Just shut up and get back to work so they can all fly to Durban paid for by your taxes.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Maybe this is a topic best left for the ethics forum, but I'll ask it here: if the scientist or engineer or doctor or tax accountant is shown to have acted unethically, is all of their work/research/diagnoses/tax returns automatically considered to be suspect because of the unethical behavior?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Yes, a life's work can become suspect because of getting caught once. Sad, but true.
If an accountant is shown to be diverting funds from a client, the first thing the police do is audit every penny the guy has control over.
If an engineer is sued for a design, the plaintiff will shine a microscope up every thing he has ever done.
And if a scientist is found adulterating data then every bit of work he's done in his life is now suspect. In climate "science" every single data set has data that has been "normalized". Normalized data is data that has been adjusted for "known anomalies" like the heat island effect. Trouble is that these data sets are so big that climate scientists have found it inconvenient to capture the original data and the only thing in the data sets is adulterated. Now if everyone agreed on the magnitude and direction of the changes then the normalization would be marginal, but they don't. If on top of this discipline-accepted adulteration of the data, some scientist makes non-accepted adulterations to bias the results in a direction then if the world is too lazy to kill him they should at least discredit him for all time.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
For me, it has always been just about the science, and I tried (my apologies to those for whom I was not successful) to avoid ad-hominems. But after this second round of leaked emails, my ethics claxon went off, and I think that the whole lot of them should be discredited, and every paper they wrote should be withdrawn, as should b every paper that referenced these discredited papers. Start all over again. And if you can't, because you lost the unadulterated data, well too bad. If you can't even reproduce your results, then neither can others, which means it was never science to begin with.
One that note - how many of you fellow engineers that publish papers or otherwise contribute to archival journals have been looking at archiving rules for data, etc. I know that since the first climategate emails came out, I have been much more diligent on my paper reviews to avoid any "pal" reviews. (All of this reminds me that I need to email one journal editor to discuss said journal's archiving of data policies).
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The potential prize is unimagined wealth that will make the Oil for Food fiasco look like a penny ante poker game in your mom's basement (and several new billionaires came out of that). So the community of climate scientists has a real incentive to SHOUT that their models have proven beyond all possibility of a doubt that global warming is real and that it is caused by greenhouse gases. 15 years ago every single damn one of them would have agreed with my assertion that "computer models never prove anything, they are useful tools to indicate profitable avenues of investigation, but they don't prove anything". Today the whole industry has circled the wagons around the concept that ONLY computer models can prove hypotheses about complex systems.
I had a chance to read the peer-review comments about an AGW paper a few months back. Every single comment was grammar and punctuation. Nothing about the manipulated data, the misleading scales on the graphs, and the blatant cherry picking of data stations (one of the stations used was actually sitting in the effluent of the HVAC system on a high rise building, measured temperature was 40F higher than the TV reported for a high that day).
Cap and Trade schemes have a real potential to drive the global economy back into the dark ages, with no potential to do good for the planet.
I've never been asked for the underlying data for any paper I've ever written. If I ever am (and the computer I stored it on is still functioning) then I'll be able to produce a raw data set and a dataset with any modifications that seemed to be justified (occasionally instruments fail high or fail low, including these in an analysis is counter productive).
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
"A scientist discovers that which exists. An engineer creates that which never was."
Theodore von Karman
John R. Baker, P.E.
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I believe in the 1500's - there was what they called a mini Ice Age.
So - the question is this normal or something we need to worry about??
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Scientists behaved unethically at times. They are human. That's all the emails reveal. If it is about redistributing wealth or whatever other nefarious conspiracy theory people are accusing them of today, where are the emails with references to their Russian overloards, where are the emails lamenting about how they are pressured by Big Government to lie through their teeth, where are the emails boasting about their gravy trains and the Bentleys and Rolexes they are earning by perpetrating this "hoax".
The only thing that climategate truly revealed is that:
1) Scientists are human, sometimes get annoyed and act in a less than perfect manner here or there, but overall are hardworking and concerned about the validity of science
2) There simply is no massive hoax here
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
One of the big names in the field had "proof" that we were entering an ice age in the 1970's. Now he has "proof" that the earth is going to boil from AGW. In both cases his "proof" was adulterated data and manipulated computer models.
The reason that Climategate fizzled is: (1) the sound bytes were too long for the media's attention span; and (2) the media has a vested interest in AGW being real (fear in the population sells papers). A global conspiracy does not require smoke-filled rooms, it just requires a common goal: the future aggregators get really rich, the "scientists" make a great living, and the media sells advertising--yep, AGW is real enough for that.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
That the media and others could gain from AGW being real doesn't mean that it isn't. The media and others gain from scaring people about anything, real or not. There are thousands of real issues in the world that the media (or government, or business owners) can use to scare you with. Why go through the enormous effort (and risk) of perpetrating a fraudulent one?
Like most conspiracy theories, this one is supported only by speculation and gut feelings. There is no proof that scientists that do not support AGW do not get grants or jobs or publications. There are hundreds of scientists who publish inconclusive research, or who research aspects of climatology that have nothing to do with AGW whatsoever. Climate scientists would make far more money in private industry than they could working for public universities or government. People don't become scientists because they want to be rich, they do it because they want to understand nature.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
http://www
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
We've had three or four discussions on this topic in this forum that have each run to over 100 long posts. I went back through and read them a few months back. You know what? I couldn't find a single instance where someone changed their position because of the cogent arguments the other side presented. Not one.
It seems like we all parse each others posts to find the nugget that can be attacked and ignore the rest. The "Deniers" all seem to be talking to each other. The "Anti-Humans" all seem to be talking to each other. This thread is unlikely to be any different.
The Anti-Humans talk about "thousands of scientists all in agreement can't be wrong", retreating glaciers, reduction in Antarctic ice, and increasing sea level.
I keep saying "Models cannot prove anything", and no one has refuted that. Other Deniers question the morality of adulterating data. Others list about the same number of glaciers that are advancing as the number that are retreating. Some talk about the reduction in Antarctic ice as normal calving. Others talk about inconsistent techniques for measuring sea level.
Let the games begin.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
That may very well be true. But you could make the identical argument for saying it would be a major loss of income and a major embarrassment to the medical industry if cancer turned out to be a non-issue. Or to the security industry if crime turned out to be a non-issue. It doesn't mean we should be skeptical that those things might be hoaxes. That's my only point. Skepticism of the true motives of some messenger perpetrating the issue is fine. But this should not be automatically extended to skepticism of the scientific validity of the issue itself.
I've gone back and read some of them too, and have spent a lot of time on other forums discussing the issue. What you say rings true on this forum as well as any other.
What motivates me to post is not to convince those I am talking to, but to try to show those who may be reading from a neutral perspective--who are genuinely unsure--that at least the issue has some legitimacy behind it. In many forums it seems like skeptics dominate and that can create the false impression to those uneducated that there really aren't any counter arguments to the skeptical claims, when in reality there are. Skeptics should not be any more immune from skepticism than the "Anti-Humans" (never heard that one before, not even sure what it means) should.
All of your example claims from both sides seem to be in reference to whether or not the planet is actually warming. I thought everyone had already moved past the point of arguing whether or not there is any warming in the first place (natural or anthropogenic).
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It is better we argue the facts here, then at the baliot box. Because the ballot box should be about more important things (not the biggest blow hard).
And it is valid to point out what harm is it if we do or don't do anything (and the risk if we are wrong).
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
"Anti-Human" came from Michael Creighton's State of Fear. His contention was that the environmental law firms from PETA to Sierra Club had a membership that simply hated their own race.
There seems to be universal agreement that the climate is changing. Which is good because there never has been a time that it didn't change (I just read on the Weather channel that it has been six years since a Cat 3 hurricane hit the U.S., longest stretch in over 100 years without a Cat 3, boy this "increased volitility" of the weather is tough).
The argument is about the impact of Man. EU is trying impose a $100 Billon tax on the "richest" countries (mostly on the U.S. and China) to pay the "poor" countries for "climate control" (not clear what that means). As a cynic I have to think that if we cave to this nonsense at least $98 Billion of it will be in Swiss (or Grand Cayman) bank accounts within 6 months. The organizers say that without this infusion of capital, global warming will become "catastrophic and irreversible" in 2017. In 2005, the data of irreversiblity was 2012. MODELS NEVER PROVE ANYTHING.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I know cancer is a legitimate issue. That was my point: it is a logical misstep to point to scammers or suspicious officials or whomever and use that as a reason to question for one second the scientific validity of the issue. The two should be completely separate.
Ah. Thank you for clarifying.
So to stay true to this black/white extremist view of the world, if it makes someone "Anti-Human" to believe that a certain human activity may have inadvertently caused a problem, it must mean that deniers believe humans have never cause any problems for themselves, ever. People concerned about environmental issues are "Anti-Human", so I dub deniers as the "Humans-Can-Never-Do-Wrong" crowd. [/sarcasm]
You almost started to talk about science, then delved into politics. For the record I don't find anything wrong with questioning the effectiveness of a certain policy. Personally I have never spoken in favor of any particular policy. It's an issue that is far murkier (and much less interesting, in my opinion) than the scientific question of attribution.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
No, the world is not black and white. It is many shades of grey. I do believe that it is anti-human to hate the human race, and the AGW argument exhibits a large degree of hate for the human race. Mankind has done many things to the environment that were wrong. Rivers shouldn't catch fire. Rain should not melt statues. Playgrounds should not be toxic. But, all of the things man has done to the environment have been local. The air quality in the LA Basin is horrible, but by the time you get to Barstow the air is clear. Hong Kong harbour is filthy, but 50 miles out to sea you wouldn't know that Hong Kong is there. The pH of the rain in Denver is slightly basic.
Bottom line is that there is NO science in this discussion, it is just politics and economics.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I'm sorry, but that is a far stupider point than my simple (and really quite benign and obvious) argument that one should separate the scammer from the scientist.
To be concerned that some members of the human race caused a problem for the human race is in no way implying a hatred of the human race. If anything it is the opposite: it is expressing a concern for human well-being and considering this issue that humans happened to cause as part of that concern. If you really can't understand that simple idea as being theoretically possible--that some humans might have (purely inadvertently) caused some problems for themselves and other humans--then I really don't know what to say.
You seem to be so hopelessly entrenched in conspiratorial politics that you can't even embrace an extremely simple and rational point, i.e. that humans could might actually be capable of accidentally causing a challenging problem for themselves. Not an armageddon, but a problem that requires ingenuity. I do feel that we are incapable of this ingenuity. If that is an 'anti-human' view in your point then you have a very pessimistic view of the intellectual capability of the human race.
If you feel that environmental problems can only possibly ever be localized, and not global, then please demonstrate the science for that claim. Because it is quite a bizarre and subjective claim to make.
Well, that is your paranoid opinion and you're entitled to it. But if you really feel that the entire body of research on climatology is based solely on ulterior political and financial motives, and no hard empirical and theoretical evidence, then I'm sorry but your sheer lack of education on this issue means that we simply have no common ground, and there is no point in continuing this discussion.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
1) CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing
2) In small scale experiments CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas
3) The global temperature is increasing
4) man is rapidly burning fossil fuels
5) 4 causes 1
6) 1 and 2 cause 3
7) modifying 4 will affect 3
8) 3 is a bad thing
Of those I agree with 4, 1 (from a very low base histrically), 2 but would point out that /so far as this effect is concerned/ the atmosphere is so saturated with CO2 that more makes no odds, 5 the numbers seem to line up, 3 yes, we are coming out of an ice age, good.
6 7 8 are the crux of the warmisti religion, and are respectively completely unproven, unlikely even by their own modelling, and wrong, for human beings if not polar bears.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Well, that just ignores several effects such as pressure and doppler broadening, and that the upper atmosphere is not saturated. Of course the logarithmic effect of an increased gas is incorporated into every climate model predicting warming (i.e., it isn't news.)
Except that the planet came out of the ice age 8,000 years ago, and has been cooling to the next ice age ever since then--at least until about ~100 years ago.
That a greenhouse gas would cause global warming is not 'unproven' it is a very straightforward application of fundamental laws of physics, and not disputed by any of the prominent 'skeptical' scientists. If you have an issue, talk to Lindzen or Spencer, as they have very clearly acknowledged the reality of the greenhouse effect and gone as far to say that 2x CO2 would at the very least effect a warming of 1 C.
As for warming being a bad thing, it's not warming that is the fundamental issue, it is the resulting climate change. This is the climate that human civilization has adapted to. It is the climate in which we have laid our farms, built our cities, laid political boundaries and constructed coastal infrastructure. A change of 3-5 C would potentially represent a climate change as significant as the difference between an ice age and today. A scrambling to adapt to a new climate means abandoning current infrastructure, crossing political boundaries, and trying to plant food on land that wasn't previously able to handle it. It would be a problem. Again, not the end of the world, but a problem among others. I really don't understand why that scenario is so terrifyingly impossible to accept that people feel a need to flat-out deny it. It is a challenge, but nothing that humans cannot deal with. That you would feel it necessary to deny that humans might possibly face a challenge, rather than simply acknowledge it as a challenge to be overcome, reflects an underlying lack of confidence in the capabilities of the human race. Quite "Anti-Human" if I may use the term ironically.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I just typed out a long rant about how easy it is to claim "laws of physics" when you are making stuff up, but I deleted it. I've decided that I've had as much of your condescending nonsense as I'm willing to tolerate and will quietly bow from the discussion. I believe down to my soul that AGW is an economic and political discussion (and no I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I know that nothing I say will prove that point to you). You think that manipulated data and computer models have proven a scientific point. I have no chance of changing your position on that either. It has become a "My God can beat up your God" discussion and I'm bored with it.
Enjoy yourself.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
You have not provided a single scientific argument yet claim to be more knowledgeable about science than me...and then presume that *I* am the condescending one.
Live in your own world. Reality will move on without you. I did not automatically assume that you were a conspiracy "nut" but nothing you have said has even attempted to prove that you were not, so I am left with no other assumption.
You keep talking about manipulated data and faulty models but have not once verified this claim with any piece of evidence. Believe in this if you want. And believe that I am simply ignorant and wrong in my morals--hell, believe I'm a red-blooded communist, I really don't care. I guess asking for scientific proof makes one a communist. Shows how little faith you have in the capitalist's appreciation of science.
I'm sorry that you feel I am ignorant for simply not subscribing to your pompous idea that *your* view of this scientific topic is the only correct one.
Perhaps one day you will actually make a strong scientific point, at which point I will be happy to listen.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
we did all the science to death.
See previous threads and see also other websites. See also the comments above about the debate not changing anyone's minds.
I'd like to draw your attention to this article and ask you to see where you fit in.
The two things that stand out in Climategate and Climategate 2.0 is that people like Phil Jones et al are not acting as scientists, but advocates. Worse still their science is corrupt and they are corrupting the scientific process.
I am surprised also at the extent to which they have corrupted the scientific media to an extent that brings other science into disrepute.
When I was nowt but a lad I read New Scientist (science for dummies) and Nature.... I was sitting around in a hospital wiring room yesterday and was surprised to find New Scientist and to see how poorly it compares today with previously.
In two issues were articles talking up the idea that individual citizens would take legal action against "big oil". There were also plenty of stories which BBC like were filled with AGW dogma.
So where was their balance?
One of the issues coming from the latest Climategate is the extent to which Jones, Mann et all seek to manipulate the scientific press and have editors removed and scientists dismissed from their jobs.
None of this is good or defensible.
There is a big risk in creating policy based on corrupt science provided by corrupt scientists.
Oh, and actually, climate change advocacy is on the way out. This is probably not a thread we are likely to return to soon.
The opportunity to create a world government (as undemocratic as it can be) based on climate change has passed.
And the determination that we have reached 7 billion population has been made. It isn't exact but in a well prepared "impromptu" comment on a BBC radio 4 food program we got a nice lecture about the dangers of a population of 9 billion on food supplies and water.... note they have already leapt to 9 billion not 7. No idea when or if we will reach 9 billion - such facts are never relevant. In other words, the BBC is already shifting its ground and just as they got together with the Tyndall Centre to set up Realclimate I suppose they'll follow the established procedure and set up "RealPopulation" or something similar very soon.
The new issue is population.
Just as soon as they can figure how to make money out of it, but the BBC has already climbed onboard this one. When they start talking about population problems on Antiques Road Show you'll know they've found the real money maker.
One of the key presentations was "Education and population – Sir Crispin Tickell. He is advocating educating women and girls......
Dave Gardner over at Numberwatch added a link to this NICK Clegg triggered fresh outrage at Britain's spiralling overseas aid budget by pledging £355million of taxpayers' cash to educate girls in poor countries. which suggests they have a start on the money.
Of course, the big concern is just how quickly we can finish of the AGW scam before it does any irreparable harm. Before, for example, we have artificial volcanoes located amongst the wind farms.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Although I really don't see how an article about droughts--or hurricane strength or sea level rise or what have you--is more "alarmist" than articles claiming it's all a massive hoax aimed at forming a unified socialist state. The latter seems far more sensational and alarmist than anything that has ever come out of the IPCC. But maybe that's just me.
Redirecting back to the science...
I've seen plenty of other websites and other threads. I have yet to see a single scientific argument put forth by the deniers that shows that AGW is incorrect, and I have found the evidence supporting AGW to be quite persuasive. So do many others, including many scientists who were once very skeptical.
If you have a hard factual scientific point that is contrary to some basic tenet of AGW, feel free to open it up for discussion. Otherwise I'm really not interested.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It went like this: "Yea, well my dad can beat up your dad".
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It is more personal than that, it is their pension funds that are heavily invested in AGW scam money makers.
Now you may have missed it but the idea of Multi-Lateral Cross Boundary treaties was up for debate at CAP 15 or whatever it was called. The idea was that the situation was so serious that what was needed was an organisation with its own revenue raising powers and its own enforcement powers i.e. a world government.
I'm pretty sure we don't yet need a Godwin's law descent for illustrations of how the unthinkable can suddenly become not only thinkable but a reality, at least, not of you consider the rantings of some of the more influential sponsors of AGW.
OK, maybe no one called it a world government but that is what it amounts to.
Want a precedent? Look at the EU - inbuilt mission creep leading toward a small scale version of a World government. No one can pretend the EU is democratic nor ever intended to be, that was just rhetoric. In that case the threat to be averted was a another world war. And still they are trying to achieve their own revenue raising powers and their own enforcement policies and none of it with any form of democracy.
And you don't think the same could happen on a global scale with AGW as the great scare?
You need to get out more.
By the way, the science is irrelevant. We have no science, it is about money and power. AGW was the excuse, a very necessary excuse for the next big scare after the cold war and they are now lining up the next one which is population.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
If the people doing the science are unethical, can we trust their science? Simple question.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Not influence or advocate policy.
This is most clearly illustrated in the various reports on particulates to the UK's Environment Agency. The draft report is detailed reasonably clear and impartial. It reports the concensus on each aspect and it discloses source data and how they handled it.
It is devoid of emotive terminology and refers to morbidity and life expectancy. As it refers to particulates among the population it is quite solid stuff.
Compare and contract to a report, using computer models to try and simulate results, on particulate emissions from shipping and their effect on populations and you will see where impartial science has given way to advocacy.
The report is brief, the data hard to track the computer models obscure and the language is highly emotive talking about deaths as if due to one time exposure to toxins rather than, as ought to be the case, the impact on life expectancy as a result of a life time exposure.
Challenged on this the author has ignored such criticisms.
There was a discussion (it rarely reached the level of debate) on the BBC radio the other day where a scientist was saying it was OK to advance opinion and recommend policy.
Sorry.
No.
The value of science is when it is dispassionate and objective.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It positively disgusts me how many engineers I encounter, both here and elsewhere, who can't get past the idea that there are risks such as AGW that we cannot conclusively prove, but which are worth tackling anyway. They fail to use the same analysis on this issue that they use on any other risk mitigation issue they deal with professionally. In my opinion they mostly do so out of fear of what the resulting changes will do to their current way of living. That sort of thinking is beneath the dignity of our profession in my opinion, and society at large NEEDS our profession to do better on this and other issues.
My argument in past threads has evolved through debate, but the fundamentals are still consistent, not because I'm pig-headed and closed minded but because nobody has refuted them:
1) No credible person is disputing that humans have nearly doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration since we started burning fossil fuels. Many arguments about alternative sources of CO2 such as volcanoes etc. dwarfing our fossil emissions are easily refuted by reference to the DIRECTLY MEASURED atmospheric CO2 concentration data we have, which happens to match very well with the indirect CO2 concentration data climate scientists also use. So the argument is not whether or not CO2 has increased and will increase further unless we change our consumption patterns- the argument is merely whether or not this "forcing" we're putting into the system, which is rather obvious to anyone who understands basic physics, will have a significant effect or not.
2) Nobody can show anything other than a probability or risk of detrimental AGW- the climate modelling is too complex to do this. Hence, some people get caught on this fact and can't move past it, feeling that the "change nothing" option is the best one in the face of uncertainty. But probability times severity of harm in this case gives the issue a huge risk index- one we cannot ignore and simply study until it has been proven by virtue of having already happened. AGW is a HAZOP issue for risk mitigation, no different than any other we engineers tackle on a daily basis except that the scope is planetary. Our ability to reverse it after it has happened is very limited- all we can do is adapt.
3) Fossil fuels are finite and have higher value uses to humankind than using them as fuels- especially when much of that use is currently inefficient and wasteful to the extreme. Finding a way around the fuels uses for fossil carbon is something we're going to tackle anyway, and the sooner we do it the easier it will be on all of us. Many people here freely admit that they believe in this, but their belief is a mile wide and an inch deep as they don't believe in spending any money to make this happen. They worry about the economy as it exists now too much to risk changing it with a carbon emissions tax etc. I personally think that a carbon emissions tax makes excellent sense as a conservation and use diversion tool for such a finite and valuable resource, whether or not AGW is a real problem.
4) Carbon sequestration would cause us to p*ss through our finite fossil reserves even faster, and hence is a suspect solution at best.
5) AGW is only one of many "problems of the commons"- economic negative externalities- that we need to fix via taxation in order for free markets to do their job properly. Systems which attribute costs to those who do not cause them are flawed and need to be fixed. the alternative, i.e. subsidy of what we consider to be "virtuous energy", is economically unsustainable and puts idiot government in charge of picking which technologies should be winners and losers. This keeps the smart money out of the whole arena and delays properly dealing with the problem.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
This is usually promoted based on two options:
AGW is true and we do nothing and we are all doomed.
AGW is not true but better safe than sorry because to do nothing and AGW is true is unthinkable.
This is like that old chestnut "Is it better to be rich and unhappy or poor and happy?" in that the way the proposition is framed is designed to evoke a specific answer.
Or you could sit through an encyclopaedia/double glazing/conservatory salesman's pitch to see how they lead you to the inescapable conclusion that you have to buy what they are offering plus, if you waver they ring their manager and get you a special "don't tell anyone or they'll all want it" buy it now price.
So let's fill in the other other options they don't want you to consider.
I'll make it easy by taking the old chestnut.
There are four options, not two:
The original two are again:
- Rich and unhappy
- Poor and happy
To which we must add:- Rich and happy
- poor and unhappy
Do the same with the precautionary principle applied to climate change and figure out what the downsides are to fixing something that ain't broke.For example, spending a fortune and bankrupting our economies unnecessarily.
Spending all our money fixing something that doesn't need fixing and then finding we don't have the resources when we need to do something about something that is broke.
My biggest concern is that the money we spend on windfarms and solar energy and lose in carbon trading scams, not to mention the downturn in productivity we impose could deny us the chance to develop some meaningful new energy sources e.g. fusion power.
here is one of the many alarmist examples of this on YouTube (This is one I remember commenting on some years ago).
Elsewhere you see the precautionary principle labelled as:
"Precautionary principle: A rational Decision rule with Extreme events" (Berkley University conference on ambiguity, uncertainty and climate change).
You have to be brave to challenge the statement and ask why is this rational? In fact it can be anything but. It is worth not accepting these bold declarations at face value but thinking about it.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
1) Yes atmospheric CO2 levels have risen coincidentally (and I mean that in both the meanings) with humans burning fossil fuels. Correlation does not equal causation. Temperatures have risen and fallen under scenarios of increasing and decreasing CO2 levels. Where's the irrefutable science that demonstrates increased CO2 = catastrophic warming?
2) We've discussed this before. I have already presented my take on the risk management aspects here. You may happen to disagree with the value and weightings that I put on the ledger, but I have presented that as a risk-management scenario. You happen to believe that mitigating the source is better, I happen to think that the evidence shows that adapting post-facto is the better solution. Your statement is patently and demonstrably false (and, unfortunately, stating such falsehoods weakens your argument).3) We agree that the finite-ness of fossil fuels are a reason for concern. Where we disagree is that I think that it should be addressed head-on, fully and openly discussing the merits as such. You think that the AGW scare is the perfect excuse to piggy-back and achieve the same ends without actually addressing the issue.
4) Couldn't agree more.
5) Problem of the commons - we'll continue to agree to disagree.
What is new here, and I have asked the question of dawei87, and I will directly ask you: the scientists whose job it is to determine the science that you and I argue about, have been shown to have acted unethically and with malice and forethought. So, based on that fact, is their science suspect? If not, why not? (Please at least tell us that you are appalled by the unethical behavior of certain individuals).
One last thing about the precautionary principle - you do understand that the absolutely correct implementation of the precautionary principle specifically excludes applying it?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
In this case AGW is looking more and more like the tea pot every day.
Now if I can get Schroedinger's cat in somewhere.... Oh, but wait, there is a problem with that damn cat which we can only resolve, it appears, by assuming spontaneous wave collapseor some other objective collapse theories......AGW exists only when we are not measuring it. The moment we measure it, it undergoes spontaneous collapse and we have one or other of its eigen states it is either true or it is not true and so far ...?
yes, I like the idea of quantum theory applied to AGW.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Thanks jmw,,, that was it, along with the Agnostic Atheism Wager.
"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I don't like dismissing any theorys. But if it is simple things like recyleing cans because it saves 50% of the energy, I can do that.
However, if you want to gas prices to increase by 50 to 100%, I disagree. It's just a theory until it has been proven.
Precautionary does not mean whole hog. It means proceed with some amount of concern (somewhere between none and some).
I actually want to see hard facts before we see any regulations. What I do on my own is how much I feel is worthwhile.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
TGS, thank you for the question and apologies for the delay in replying.
"Are you trying to justify unethical behavior"?
Not at all. I didn't reject the significance of the emails automatically, but I did approach them with a degree of skepticism. I thought that's what a good skeptic was supposed to do? Surely you don't condone those who lap up truncated quotes and say good night without bothering to find out what they really mean. And I have yet to see a single quote that did not become far less serious when brought into its actual context.
"Do you do justify unethical behavior in your work as an engineer?"
I would not condone someone engaging in deception in the field of engineering. But I would also not accept the practice of looking at the thousands of emails that I, or you, or anyone else in the field has sent over the past ten years, quote mining and cherry picking sentences (or even parts of sentences) that seem suspicious, and using that against the author of the emails.
Do you really think there is no piece of any of your personal emails that when totally removed from context might make you appear in a less than flattering light? If so you must have an extraordinarily cautious approach to the wording of your informal emails that you believe are (and always will be) kept private from the general public.
"If the people doing the science are unethical, can we trust their science? Simple question."
It should make us skeptical of the science, sure. And it did. That's why they were investigated. By no fewer than six different organizations (Penn State, the UK House of Commons of Commons Science and Technology, University of East Anglia, the US EPA, The Department of Commerce Inspector General, and the National Science Foundation).
All six of them, while finding some reason to criticize scientists, found that the overall integrity of the science was sound.
I can agree that they are guilty of being reluctant to release some information that should be public. In response to Climategate (the first one) they released huge amounts of data that was not before available. These "new" emails are not new, they are from pre-climategate times bringing up the same problems about withholding information. A problem that has been adequately addressed by greatly increased transparency of data and methods. That's why this new release is stale bread.
Now, can you see why the emails in fact reveal that there is no significant hoax going on? Keeping in mind that these emails are private, the scientists had no reason to hold back from what they were really thinking and really wanted to say to each other.
And what do they demonstrate? Scientists arguing and debating about the integrity of various pieces of data, or figures, or papers. They are engaging in the very practice of skepticism and open-mindedness and internal argument that skeptics talking of collusion seem to claim isn't happening. They are arguing against cases of exaggeration, personal bias, and scientific oversight--all things that they are supposedly guilty of purposely accepting every day and without a second thought.
Climategate has been the biggest nail in the coffin yet to the hypothesis that AGW a total bald-faced lie perpetrated by scientists perfectly colluding together (which to be fair is an idea that you don't appear to subscribe to yourself, at least not to the extent of some others here [including one individual who feels that "science is irrelevant"] so this point is not specifically directed to you.)
We can agree that they should have handled FOIA requests and the divulging of information better. But it's a lesson they've been beaten with so thoroughly in the aftermath of Climategate that I suspect that climatology currently has more of its data and methods available to the general public than any other modern field of science.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
And I think that's perfectly legitimate and I would probably completely agree with your entire opinion on this. What's unfortunate is that people are so bogged down in the idea of the hoax that meaningful and productive discussions about what the best solution might truly be do not even get a chance to start.
I see comparisons made to Russell's Teapot. My answer to that would be to take another Dawkins favorite and argue that with religion it shouldn't matter. You don't believe in God out of fear of being wrong. That would be pretty unflattering to God if he did exist. But in any case it is a purely personal question.
AGW is not personal. It either exists or it doesn't, and eventually it will be proven one way or the other beyond the doubt of even the most hardlined skeptic. In 50-100 years, no one will be arguing about the reality of AGW anymore. We will all have the answer when we turn on the weather channel or walk outside, unlike the question of faith in which that answer only comes after we die, at which point most people stop debating. But what I think what Molten was getting at—and this is a frustration I share myself, particularly among engineers—is the demand that no action can be justifiable until this point of certainty (lying in the indefinite future) has been obtained. Why that's frustrating is that it's essentially a demand to wait until AGW has already played out its worst effects.
It's understandable to want certainty before taking big actions, but the nature of this problem means that we simply don't have that luxury.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Q: "If you lived in Canada, like I do, how much would you spend to stop it getting warmer?"
A: "owg, Canada is generally considered to be one of the countries that will have a net benefit from AGW."
So the answer is zero, we agree.
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Unethical is to act on your own interests solely for your own gain by cheeting, lying, or other criminal activity.
To discuss how a common event, or movement is to your gain is not unethical.
In some ways we all have a gain or loss if the climate should change. Why is that a problem?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The fact that the apparent warming appears only in the homogenised data and not in the raw data, the fact that they are concerned that even in the homogenised data there is insufficient warming for their case....
I wouldn't buy a use car from any of these people far less invest trillions in fixing something that most probably isn't broken.
The various false claims made about warming (or are we talking about abrupt climate change now? or maybe its "catastrophic climate change"?) and while they talk about various effects masking the true extent of global warming maybe the case is that various effects are masking the true extent of global cooling.
It may just be that we really are in a mini ice age and the precautionary actions recommended may actually make things a damn sight worse because the re-inforce an existing (natural) trend.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
You state that AWG is not personal and it either exists or it doesn't, but the question of the existence of God is a personal one. I have to disagree. While someone's belief in God is entirely personal, the existence of God, like AWG, is not subjective. One clear difference is that AWG is a matter of degree, while the existence or non-existence of a supreme being is absolute, and has nothing to do with personal belief. Unless of course you want to approach the question from more of a quantum viewpoint.
"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
maybe not burning fossil fuels will reduce the concentration of a trace gas by a significant amount, maybe not. maybe not burning FFs will have other unintended -ve effects ... restrict global economy, more importantly global economy and standard of living.
i think we can allow the burning of wood, since it is reasonably renewable.
maybe we adopt sustainable life-styles and accept the limitiations that would place on our society.
IMVHO, i don't think anyone can prove the occurrence of AGW (or not). if they were cooking the books to get the result they wanted ... how can that be acceptable ? how can you write that off as a human failing ?? if i cooked my calcs, and something bad happened, someone would cook my goose !
i think the AGW claim is based on "even if it isn't, can you take the risk ?" and the "deniers" is based on "how do you know it'll make ANY difference ?".
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
So we have people buying chain saws (which burn fossil fuels) and harvesting their firewood in an unsustainable way.
Now let me see, when we consider just how much woodland was lost due to agriculture and fuel use in pre-industrial times, I wonder how long wood will last with 7 billion people using it and happily logging it late at night and not replanting or managing it properly... and if we look for examples of economies dependent on wood for fuel do we see a happy people or a people who have so deforested the land that the first rain washes everything away?
Wood is a luxury.
It will also have to compete with "bio-fuels" and food. And we still have to leave somewhere for the orang outang to live.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I see more wood poaching because people want to place them in there homes for a month.
But isen't one biofuel natural gas?
In all honestly, there already is logging, but all the smaller stuff is left because there isen't much of a market.
And if you buy your wood at the grocery story you must be preaty stupid. Most people buy wood in much larger sizes, with a much lower cost of packaging.
Or maybe you would perfer we use dung as a fuel.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
A picture of rows of cow pies drying in the sun, caption said it was a more "sustainable" fuel than wood. Well. Maybe for some people in some places, (I mean I personally don't own any cows, nor do I own enough trees to talk about in terms of fuel) but I think most anyone would agree it would be difficult to find a poorer fuel that cow dung, excepting no fuel at all.
Is this really an environmental approach to energy or just... (Words fail me).
Regards,
Mike
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Hint: look in the mirror.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I can think of plenty of examples of how it's unethical to think of your own interests first, forgetting about the interests of others, even if you don't commit a crime in the process..
If you're first in a lifeboat and can man the oars, is it unethical to row away from the rest of the survivors still in the water because that will mean there's more water and provisions for you?
Is it ethical to leave your children a huge debt? That would be in your interest- you'd have more to spend now.
If Canada were to not join a global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions merely because we're a big and growing exporter of fossil fuels and we feel that global warming will benefit most of our landmass (regrettably not the portion of our landmass where 80% of our population lives), I guess that wouldn't make us unethical. It would make us self-serving and very poor global citizens- international paraiahs actually. But then again, fossil fuels have us globally dealing with all sorts of paraiah states already, so nothing new there.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
At what point do we leave behind self-serving, and become ethical? You go to the store and there is one loaf of bread left. Do you take it, or leave it for someone more in need?
I suppose you could say it is more ethical for Canada to not sell there oil, and gas, because it could cause global warming. But what about all those unemployed oil field workers?
Is it unethical to ignor all this global warming stuff because it is an unproven theory? Or is it unethical to force everyone to do everything they can, because it might be real?
Ethics is something each of us must decide. I don't believe in taking anything that isen't mine. But just as the national debt is mine, so is the national resources. And I intend to use what I need.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I guess our consumption has droped in recent years (I don't know the percentages).
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
btw, isn't methane a much more "effective" GHG have CO2 ? isn't methane produced by land-fills (and swamps). complaining about landfills (as a source of methane) would have provoked much less laughter than pointing to cow farts ... but then maybe there was a vege agenda at work too ?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Thanks for your posts. Just wanted to add two recent articles that appeared in the Globe and Mail:
"It took 30 hours of flying, but Inuit hunter Jordan Konek has arrived in the land of surfers and palm trees with a message for the world's politicians: Climate change is real, and it could devastate Canada's Arctic people."
htt
"Canadians want Ottawa to be part of an international treaty to combat climate change, and would even support carbon taxes as a means of meeting the country's emission reduction targets, a new poll suggests."
h
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Valuing your country (or your generation, or any of the other things you talk about) isn't ethical or unethical - it's just that - a value judgement. What is unethical, is the sleight-of-hand that goes on whereby one uses something to justify something else, only slightly related (molten - I'm talking about your wanting to reduce fossil fuel usage, but applying a carbon (sic) tax because of global warming); or hiding data from lawful FOIA requests; or obfuscating scientific inquiry because it doesn't support a "cause"; or interfering with the peer review process so that contrary opinions are unable to be published; or plain, simple, outright lying. That's what is unethical about this whole mess.
Molten - if you really, truly think that cranky or myself are acting unethically because we think that the science behind AGW is a load of manure, and we support the unfettered exploration and exploitation of our natural resources, then here's put up or shut up time. I am registered in AB, SK, and ON. You can find my specifics by clicking on my name. If you really truly think that I have acted in any way unethical, in violation of the ethical standards of any of the Professional Associations, then please file charges against me in one or all of the jurisdictions. If not, then I am satisfied that we have a different set of values; we'll agree to disagree.
If any of these "scientists" were engineers registered anywhere in Canada, the "Climategate" or "Climategate II" e-mails would serve as prima fascia evidence of unethical conduct, and I would be the first to register a complaint. Unfortunately, they are all "off-shore".
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Whether you have a dog in this fight or not, if you actually read and reviewed the reviews/investigations/inquiries that you write about, you would quickly realize that they are some of the worst whitewashes to be generated in a while. And after what has happened at Penn State, with the whole Sandusky-affair, can you look me in the eye, without laughing, and say that you trust that university to police itself against external (or even internal) allegations.
Here's an exercise for you, to take this into a more neutral light. In each of these "investigations", change the names into names of politicians. Instead of global warming, and all the related discussions, replace it with "giving money to your union/business partners". Now review the "investigations". Whitewash, right? Unethical behavior, no?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I've read several of the reports, and more importantly for where you're coming from, I've read many of the skeptical bloggers complaining about why the reports were insufficient. What I see basically amounts to:
This contributor to this paper has a 10% stake in a carbon trading company. That guy made a positive statement about this environmental group which 15 years before had a member make this extremist statement in public. That guy was appointed by this politician who said XYZ about a carbon tax. On and on and on. This investigation didn't cover this one point in detail and I think it should have been covered in better detail. The panel "appears to have done this" and "seems to be biased in this sense". They used this word instead of that word in this sentence. I didn't like any of the member on the panel of this investigation. They weren't objective. They were too vague here. They were too specific here. They are all doo-doo heads.
On and on and on and on. It's all suspicions and unfounded speculation, like all conspiracy theories. If you truly believe that every single investigation was whitewashed then that's a positive claim, and your burden to prove it. Similarly if you think that the science is significantly fabricated or being lied about, that is a positive claim that is your burden to prove. And mind you the accusation of mass collusion and dishonesty is a much stronger claim than the claim that they are simply generally being honest, so it requires comparatively greater evidence.
No problem.
Now can I please have access passwords for the backup servers which hold all of the private emails that you have sent over the past 20 years? Then give me some time to quote mine, cherry pick, and send my report off to the engineering boards of every province that you are registered in. A few weeks ought to do it.
But I know, I know...upon investigation they will probably exonerate you and say you really didn't do anything that bad. But what do you think, I'm some kind of sheep who will take THEIR word for it? I mean, they are your cronies and you're all in on these despicable, almost criminally unethical acts together.
Dirty drain on society, the whole lot of you.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I have seen small power plants run off land fill gas, and the natural gas produced by that land fill, is dirty, but usable.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It really doesn't matter if you consider natural gas a bio fuel or not, it is a biofuel. There are at least 50 patents currently pending for designer microbes that rapidly covert biomass to methane (which is actually over 98% of what we call "commodity natural gas" that is heating the hot water in most of our houses). Historically, natural gas has been too cheep for it to be worthwhile to try to capture the methane emissions from digesters, land fills, termite mounds, etc., but that source of fuel makes way more sense than solar panels and wind farms.
When gas-to-liquids plants become more mainstream (two very large GTL plants are currently in the permitting process, one in the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana and one in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania) and methane becomes a significant feedstock for transportation fuels the prices will go to where they need to be to support sustainable activities. Methane as a biofuel makes worlds more sense than any of the current ethonal stupidity.
As to the U.S. exporting petroleum products, we always have exported oil and gas. It is a convenience thing. It is more convenient to export petrol from the Houston area and import it from somewhere else into New Jersey. I've seen cases where we imported crude from Trinidad, and then exported the refined products, it is just economics. Net imports have increased every quarter since 1977. The rate of imports has had seasonal variations, but it never goes down. And won't until GTL (in some form, current technologies have some hair on them) is mainstream.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Plus, as the least polluting energy it was considered, briefly, as "green".
The greenies have put paid to that and god forbid we should any of us have huge reserves of shale gas to use.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Gee why can't we capture that heat from the ground and use it to heat our homes. Some sort of reverse carnot cycle device requiring energy to save energy.
Or better why not just build our homes into the ground instead of above it. Oh, I forgot they won't look as nice.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Regards,
Mike
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Do you actually understand the concept of ethics? Here's a good start for you:
My issue is with the apparent violation of articles 3 and 4.
If I worked for the government, or any other institute that received public financing, you would be more than welcome to file a FOIA request, and I would be legally obligated to provide that to you (and I would, in order to remain ethical). However, I do not, and therefore, you will need a court order to my various employers in that regard. Oh wait - hiding data from lawful FOIA requests, or denying them without legal mandate to do so, is what we're arguing about here. Are you still thinking that there was no unethical practice here?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
You're also getting dangerously close to changing the null hypothesis. Do you believe that the null hypothesis has been satisfied in this whole scientific mess, or not (that what we are observing is natural variability, and that the hypothesized attribution of anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the observed changes may not be causal)?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
But I have seen homes where the ground was pulled up over the home. Just a mound of ground with windows poping out.
I don't have mold problems here.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
http://
Climate Change is the new religion: Can't prove it, just like the existence of God.
Give it a rest....
______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Try this one as an example..
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Did you just confuse my obvious mocking of the denier interpretation of climategate with an actual, serious personal attack? I guess I would expect nothing less from a paranoid conspiracy theorist. You guys always think that someone is out to "get" you.
So I take it that's a "No" on giving me your personal emails? Well then, the ethical thing for me to do must be to steal them like your hacker hero did, right? Whatever it takes to get those really juicy bits. Like that time in 2002 when you may have said "...but here I'm suspicious this might be biased...". Or in 1996 when you could have said something like "...and we weren't sure about that so we made a SWAG". Or in 2005 when your boss may have said "...the customer won't know that..."
I may even change the words a little to make them conform better to what I want them to say about you. Then I will embed them within a flashy article and surround them with the most venomous language that I can muster, and push it out onto the internet without giving you the first second to explain what those quotes were actually referring to.
You don't say anything about this behavior, but act like anyone who ignores a FOIA request should be burned at the stake. FOIA requests, mind you, that were at times raining in at a frequency of 10 per day from a person who everyone KNEW was only asking for the information so that he could perform his amateur analyses and fill his blog with pretty graphs and strong adverbs attacking their work, attacks that his "skeptical" readers would swallow up and regurgitate for years to come, all the while automatically ignoring any objections made to the validity of his attacks.
Strictly CRU dissented from FOIA, I know. But ignoring requests put forth by an individual that they knew had the malice intent of misrepresenting and distorting the information that he got in order to attack and disrupt the progress of their work...I'm sure I could find several broad categories of engineering ethical dilemmas that such a situation would fall under.
I'm not changing anything. We are not talking about the hypothesis that human CO2 emissions are a significant factor in raising the planet's temperature, we are talking about the hypothesis that scientists are perpetrating a deliberate scientific hoax for some political or financial reason. They are two completely separate hypotheses. The first hypothesis being wrong does not mean that the second hypothesis is right. It is very possible that AGW could simply be a mistake, the result of imperfect science, WITHOUT there ever being any grand conspiracy.
I believe the first hypothesis to be somewhat strongly supported—at least more strongly than any other scientific hypothesis that I have seen. I am however deeply skeptical of the hypothesis that there is a conspiracy going on. That there is not a conspiracy is the null hypothesis that we have been talking about.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Ah, so you are prepared to defend this breach of the law.
Malice?
Malice is hat is evident from the emails.
What the researcher wanted to do was what the scientific method demands, see the data and see the methods.
Science is about putting up a theory and inviting all and sundry to knock it down. The science is good for just as long as it withstands such an assualt.
But did you look at the comparisons between the raw data and the "homogenised data"? did you see that the warming comes form the homogenised data and is not evident in the raw data?
Did you read Harry's comments (the programmer who had to write their programs for them - these guys who can';t even manage excel and yet are creating statistical analyses of manipulated data) and have you looked at the latest information on the hide the decline issue? Did you know they already knew the hockey stick was a joke but said nothing and put it out anyway?
These guys are not scientists as we know them.
They cannot be trusted.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
You can argue that the risk of AGW is not significantly proven to take any action against it. I would disagree with you, but I don't maintain that holding that position itself is unethical.
But that's not what owg implied in his dumbfounding post. He implied that even IF the risk of AGW is significant, Canada shouldn't spend a cent toward ameliorating this risk because Canada would (very arguably) see a net benefit from warming. I certainly DO view that as unethical.
Expressing a point of view is not unethical. Debate between open-minded people is productive as it helps all to refine their points of view. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be participating in this.
I also have no problem with Canada offering a legal prduct for sale to people who want to buy it.
What I have a problem with is Canada shirking its responsibiltiies to the international community over worries which are related solely to the cost to us. Last I checked, Canada's government does not dispute the science around AGW although some members of the Federal Conservative government might privately hold that view. If I understand our national position correctly, it is that we'll only join in collective action after everyone else has joined. "Everyone else" of course means the US, since China's recent agreement to join wasn't sufficient.
Of course ethics are about value judgments! As a society we talk about normative values- individual values are free to differ, but most people feel a certain way about things and that's what our laws are based on. You may not value the property rights of others, but society will still put you in jail if you steal. Oh wait- they'll put you in jail if you steal a little. If you steal a lot, "society" might give you a bonus- so yes, our normative values are at least a little in dispute in a democracy. But by and large, we tend not to take kindly to neighbours crapping in the community pool, even if their motivation is to reduce their own water/sewer costs, or because they argue that crap is organic and natural and hence can't be considered harmful...
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Why, for example and if we believed it, should we make the lives of countless millions of people a misery for the sake of a few thousand Islanders who thin k sea level is rising.
Warming and cooling, its the same argument.
Some people will be better off and some worse off.
A classic example expounded by warmers is that if temperature increases there will be a lot more heat deaths in the summer.
On the other hand, something not accounted for by the warmers, warmer winters would mean far fewer cold related deaths, especially amongst the old and some would argue that the increase in heat deaths would be far outweighed by the decrease in cold related deaths.
I would suggest that it might possibly unethical if warming was a unbiversally bad thing for someone to pursue their own comforts at the expense of 7 billion other people's, but that isn't the case, is it?
In fact, tha'ts one of the issues.
With 7 billion and rising, food production is important and warmer weather means bumper crops.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
As JMW writes, we still have to understand the harms that warming (or cooling, for that matter) cause. Actual, real, quantifiable harms.
As a side-note to this, from the recent Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) work, only about 66% of the stations, the total of which represent 39% of the earth's surface - not evenly distributed - recorded warming in the period 1950-2007. That means that a full one-third of stations recorded a cooling trend. So, while we have been discussing warming, actual data shows some stations (33% of stations, the total of which represent 39% of the earth's surface) have cooled in this period of global warming. Also I should note that BEST came with no attribution - which is really the crux of the issue here, isn't it?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
If they had started with the less expencive things, I might have gone along to a point.
Going along with AGW theory, dosen't make me feel good, and actually is making my life style decline. So I basicaly have a negitive view.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
So let me get this straight - you think that it is OK that UEA (and, don't forget the current fight at UVa) unlawfully disregarded a lawful FIOA request because they didn't like the requester, and what they might do with it? Would you think the same if the one doing the disregarding was a government and the requester was a journalist?
Oh - and if you are going to make claims that UEA dissented from the FOIA request from an individual, etc - name names and provide citations. Without facts, all you have provided is innuendo.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The data BEST is using is very suspect. The BEST study uses data
from earth stations that produced flawed data.
see: http://www.surfacestations.org/
I visited the two sites near me (<50 miles). Both sites were compromised. Each station was near an exhaust fan. The pictures were added to "surfacestations" and were shutdown in the late 90s by NOAA.
BUT the data remains in the NOAA database.I suspect there is more cooling occuring than BEST shows. The amateur stations (5) show cooling in the same area.
ron
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I spent the US Thanksgiving holiday in Carlsbad, California and didn't see any rising sea level. It seems to be where it's been for the last, oh, twenty years I've been going to Southern California. The coastline along the Gulf Coast doesn't seem to be rising either. It's been in the same place over my 52 years on earth. But, I am not taking measurements of anything just coarse observations of a lot of time spent on the beach.
It's OK to disagree. I've read some of the posts and reached the conclusion that some of you vehemently and disrespectfully dislike any dissenting view on the "scientific" conclusions of AGW. That disrespect has spilled over from the few participating in this thread to the "whole lot of you." That is unacceptable. David and TGS4 are intelligent and highly capable of reasoning as good as anyone on this forum and possibly better. Others are in their company.
Everyone has an agenda. People want all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons and they'll do anything to justify their positions. If you don't believe it, watch any political election. Consider the divorce rate in the USA. Everyone conspires for something. Apply those thoughts to the scientists, too. After I graduated with my BS, I read Science until too many retractions had been printed because the scientists biased their experiments to get the desired results. That caused me to view the whole thing as primarily a farce. I dropped my subscription and didn't read another issue that arrived.
To believe that all people possess no motives, good and bad, is a path for being taken advantage of and quite possibly in a bad way.
Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Was that also found in the climate models?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
So how many bozos will sign us up to this?
Do the people on this planet get a say in anything any more or is it just a bunch of self appointed self important totalitarian idealists?
My first thoughts were that Christpher Monton had gone off his trolley and was spoofing the document.... till I downloaded it and read it.
He's serious and he's right.
This is a document written by some grade A loony tunes and we ignore what is happening at our peril.
What is "comodified"?
The "rights" of nature?
And some PC speak:
And what the heck does this mean:
Who wrote this garbage?
And in what language (I can only assume they wrote it in Hittite and used Babel fish to translate the lot in one go)?
Here is a nice proposition couched in choose this dire option or this even worse dire option but do not chose something sensible:
Wow! 50% or 85% reduction in CO2! Should we start learning how to nap flints now? And will the mammoth return to be hunted? That's the sort of society they will leave us with after also banning armies.
Ban armies?
Go take a look.
Military activities are harmful to the environment and should be banned.
Technology:
And that means?
I think we can work it out.
And:
and an intellectual property grab:
Heck, go download and read this document and see what sense you can make of it.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
How do you reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100%?
Is there a new math that no one told me about?
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The "more than 100%" is not the worst thing in the paragraph. These idiots are planning to "ensuring stabilization of the global temperature at a maximum of a 1 degree Celsius increase". They never heard of sun spots? Orbital precession? As I keep saying, this is just a wealth transfer, not an effort to protect the globe.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The whole thing is an attack on the west.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Well, whether AGW is real or not, he lunatics are firmly in control if this "historic agreement" is anything to go by.
The deal is going to do little for the climate since the Annex 1 parties have to do all the cutting while the rest receive money and technology and the freedom to do what they want.
China is well capable of undoing all that the west does.
It already is.
It would be nice if they made China and Annex 1 country with the "more than 100% reductions".
Of course, with any treaty one of the keys to "success" is implementation.
Chances are this may well be a nice piece of paper but as the realities sink in they may find getting the implementation is difficult.
The Greens have lost some of their power in the EU and the UK has already signalled it isn't going to go all out even on its already less than "more than 100%" CO2 reduction.
Implementation means the individual treaty states putting domestic legislation in place.
With luck, by the time the lunatics return home, they will be given their medication and shut away somewhere where they can do no damage.
But it requires a lot more noise from the electorates to make the politicians a lot more nervous than they have been for some time.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
But they appear to have agreed it in any event.
I suggest meeting them all off their planes and upping their thorazine doses.
This care in the community thing has gone too far.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
We could happily meet this target if we reduced our population by 90-95% which would make them very happy indeed.
Perhaps "happily" isn't the best word choice, but it will have to do.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
ht
One quote:
"Our early December Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts of the last 20 years have not shown real-time forecast skill even though the hindcast studies on which they were based had considerable skill."
Does this mean that they couldn't tell where it was going with any certainty, but could tell with a great deal of accuracy where it had hit?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It gets even flakier when they put in the whole storm track and tell the model to track the storm--that exercise has maybe a 30% success rate with model following the track.
Weather models can't reliably predict what is going to happen in the next 6 hours (I live in the Rockies and the effects of the mountains and valleys are just too complex for the models they use). A weather model looks at an area about 1/4 the size of the continental U.S. and can't predict this afternoon. I'll leave you to estimate the "accuracy" of the models that try to predict global performance for the next 50 years.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
All they are doing is dropping one very early seasonal prediction.
Predicting climate is not the same as predicting weather.
The chaos that is weather balances out over the global scale. It is the result of uneven distributions of heat throughout the planet and how those distributions *within the system*. Climate change is based on how the overall heat flux changes, the balance of the inward vs. outward transfer of energy through the boundary of the system. That's why we are talking about global changes of fractions of a degree per decade, not tens of degrees per day like we see in local weather: because short term local variance averages out.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Problem solved. You're welcome world.
IC
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
That said, there absolutely nothing more morally reprehensible than denying a hypothesis with even the slightest bit of evidence that millions could be adversely affected. Especially when you're not directly involved in climate science.
I know a lot of ostensibly smart engineers who are climate skeptics. And, while skepticism is a healthy approach to most everything, many you also need to realize that you're talking outside your field of expertise and that the consequences of climate change could be potentially enormous and irreversible.
Engineering is a field of action: things get designed, built and used. And things don't get built without energy. Engineering exists solely on the basis of available energy sources. I think there's a strong cognitive dissonance with engineers regarding the negative effects of our primary energy source- fossil fuels, from which all modern human progress (good and bad) springs.
I suggest you read the scientific JOURNALS (not the hyped news articles and editorials) yourself. Read the ones on the efficacy of determining global CO2 levels, on using isotopic analysis to determine that the additional CO2 is from fossil fuel combustion, removal of solar forcing noise from the temperature measurements, etc. Then you can perhaps have an informed opinion.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Man will truly be a victim of his own arrogance.
"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Except that when millions of voting citizens vehemently deny that the problem exists in the first place, it DOES make it an issue. It completely stifles the discussion that I agree should be taking place, which is what the best use of resources truly is. Hard to have that discussion with a conspiracy theorist who won't concede anything other than that it's all a big fat lie.
Part of the problem may be that many of the skeptics and "skeptics" out there tend to believe that those who are convinced that the science is sound are also convinced that the policies are sound. The disconnect seems to be in feeling it is necessary to question the science, when in reality what they have most issue with is something completely separate, be it media portrayals, green marketing, domestic and global policies, etc.
BTW, good post Jafka
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
As engineers, I think that we have some notable insight into the thermodynamics of complex systems (an insight that seems to be lost on some of these "scientists"). For example, this idea of a global average temperature. What a load of cr@p. The relevant measure is enthalpy, which for air is calculated using the temperature and the relative humidity. Is this EVER discussed? NO!
Which air has more enthalpy: 110°F (43.3°C) in Phoenix, AZ at an RH of 15%, or 85°F (29.4°C) in Seattle with an RH of 95%? The Phoenix air has a specific enthalpy of 65.21 kJ/kg, while the Seattle air has 95.53 kJ/kg. However, from the climatologists, they will say that Phoenix is hotter than Seattle. Well, the dry bulb temperature is higher, but the energy necessary to increase the temperature is much (50%) more in Seattle. So, from an engineering perspective, if we are actually interested in the energy of a system (and these climatologists are always prattling on about energy fluxes and balances, etc) shouldn't we be measuring the energy?
And they want to generate an "average" worldwide surface temperature for a range of bloody cold (and dry) in the polar regions to hot and sticky-set in the tropics. Come on - give me a break. This type of stuff is what is observed in the JOURNALS of the climatologist "scientists" all the time, but it doesn't even get one out of 2nd year thermodynamics for an engineer (or 4th year HVAC for mechanical engineers).
And Jafka - really - you want to revisit the concept of risk? I run circles around people on a daily basis about risk, risk management, and risk mitigation. Why would the use of the precautionary principle lose me my job when I do risk management for a real job, yet is flogged as the best thing since sliced bread when it's other peoples' (tax-payers) money? Give your head a shake.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
If "millions of people" say the earth is flat, does that make it so? If a majority of the population believes that taxing the rich will do anything for the deficit beyond reducing the capital available to industry, does that make it so?
Jafka,
I'm in Durham, NC today and just finished a long meeting with EPA management about an air-quality rule. I don't think you can call me uninformed on climate science since my clients are paying my exorbitant hourly rate for me to talk about it. Your statement:
truly rubs me the wrong way. First, I can think of many things much more reprehensible than denying an hypothesis. Second, here's an hypotheses--The earth is flat. I can find many thousands, probably millions of people who absolutely believe that hypothesis, not as a joke but as a deeply held belief. My working definition of "belief" is "acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data".
Every single person who believes in AGW is exhibiting an acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data (computer models do not, can not, and will not ever prove ANYTHING, and there is no untainted data). AGW is a religion, not science. The religion of AGW is very much like the religion of the Spanish Inquisition--any non-believer is automatically a heretic and should be, must be scourged.
So please keep your condescending attitude to yourself.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Energy is discussed all the time, it just happens to usually be in the form of ocean heat content, which is by far where most of the energy from the radiative imbalance has been stored.
ht
And humidity is certainly important. This was realized even in the day of Arrhenius. But if tropospheric specific humidity increases with warming temperatures (which it does) then tropospheric enthalpy is certainly increasing as well, is it not?
The belief that thousands of scientists are colluding to perpetrate a scientific hoax on an unprecedented scale solely out of motivation for personal gain, or under some type of coercion, is a conspiracy theory in every sense of the word.
I'm not implying that everyone who has doubts about some aspect or the other of climate science is a conspiracy theorist. I'm saying the conspiracy theorists are conspiracy theorists. A spade is a spade and I'm not going to sugar coat it just because you don't like the term.
Um, no? I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. I already made it clear that I think the opinion shared by these millions is indeed wrong.
Ah, right. Because the only explanation that makes sense in your mind for someone disagreeing with your almighty opinion on a scientific question is that they are some kind of religious sheep who "hates the human race".
It couldn't possibly be that they looked at the question same as you did and simply reached a different conclusion.
...and either cut out the "anti human" and "religious" garbage or quit whining when you get labeled a conspiracy theorist for believing in a conspiracy theory.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Are you actually getting your information from SkS? Could you at least try a less biased (and more trustworthy) source? How about http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/, which is decidedly much less of a hockey-stick. Heck, it's leveled off for the last 9 years (eye-balling it).
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Global average temperature is useful when the metric being talked about is global average temperature. To talk about it alone is not necessarily to imply that nothing else could be of interest.
I don't 'get my information from SkS' but I do enjoy their synthesized graphics based on scientific papers.
But anyway the purpose of the graphic was not to illustrate recent rises, but rather to contrast the difference between oceanic vs. atmospheric warming, so your link is in no way inconsistent with my original point. And even though you don't agree with the general theme of SkS, it doesn't mean that everything they put out is wrong. If they are right, then nothing else matters.
And it's hardly even a contentious point anyway...if anything, it's the skeptics who love to point out the high heat capacity of oceanic waters more than anyone, as it supports the argument that AGW is not a serious problem since the oceans act as a buffer for extreme temperature swings.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I'd like to point out that I know a lot of truly smart engineers who are climate sceptics. In fact I know a lot of truly smart people who are climate sceptics.
Maybe I should go one further ans suggest that far from their being a concensus, there are a lot of truly smart climate scientists who are sceptics.
I might also add that I know a lot of people who are complete idiots who believe in AGW.
And, to be scrupulously fair, there are also some people who believe in AGW and that it makes a difference, who are also pretty smart and we even have some pretty smart engineers on that side of the fence. They are here in these various threads.
Now, frankly, we already went through this uncertainty principle business before, and it isn't worth going through again. You either accept it or you don't, but I will add something else that takes us outside of the engineer's world of logic and an example that isn't climate science:
If 90% of the population of a country do not want to remain part of the European Union.... what right has their government to insist they remain a part of the European union and pay heavily for the privilege? I use this as an example.
The point is that in a free society, the people have the right to have their majority wishes respected.
They have, in a democracy, one other fundamental right: the right to be wrong.
No one has the right to force them them to do something they don't want to do.
No one has the right to make decisions on their behalf because "they know better".
Now sure, in the past and in some cultures (e.g. totalitarian states, tribal cultures or absolute monarchies) what one person says is law or you lose your head, but these days many of us live in supposedly free societies.
Evolution will tell if this is good or bad. And heck, what does anyone care if the human race is wiped out? They'll still be animals and an extremely resilient nature.
The thing is much of the argument is going to be decided not based on the logic and the science but on emotion. Emotion derives from the primitive brain stem - the fight or flight instincts- and these can be played upon and are being played upon by the climate scientists.
They are desperate to find the right words sufficiently emotionally loaded to bring about a policy they want.
Policy is not the business of scientists.
The moment they get involved in policy their scientific objectiveness goes out of the window and they are not to be trusted. And the moment they start loading there "science" with emotionally loaded terminology is the moment they have corrupted their own science and they no longer should be treated with respect.
It is has been shown that emotions play the biggest part in how most people (excluding engineers) make their decisions.
The duty of scientists is to present facts, so far as they can and to formulate theories and make predictions based on those theories that can be tested.
But above all, the duty of the scientist in such arenas as this is to inform.
Inform, not influence.
Who do they inform? the policy makers who require an absolutely balanced and impartial presentation of the facts so that they can make a rational and reasoned judgement.
Once any "scientist" departs from emotionally neutral language and starts promoting policies they have decided upon they no longer can be called scientists or trusted to be objective.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
So the eco-warriors are all squeaky clean?
Here is a lawsuit being brought by [link h
It appears Chevron are alleging that the managing environmental scientist at Straus Consulting has been colluding to falsify her own reports in order to "extort" money from Chervon.
They managed to obtain video evidence of a conversation in which this becomes apparent.
Money talks and there is far more money in AGW and related eco- actions than there is in big oil.
The point is that just because they (the climate scientists) are scientists doesn't mean they are honest nor that their dat is honest or honestly handled.
In the case of some it is apparent that some of them have no computer skills whatsoever and some (e.g. Phil Jones) can't even use Excel. And yet, when these people homogenise (adjust) the data and when that homogenised data shows warming where the raw data does not we cannot help but be concerned, certainly concerned enough to suspect the science, especially where it is so obviously not impartial by policy driven, and to also suspect the possibility that it isn't just inept but corrupt.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Expert credibility in climate change
Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC... Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field surveyed here support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
There is no doubt in my mind that the people who actually study this subject for a living, and hence have at least a reasonable claim to being properly informed in the matter, actually think that AGW is a credible threat. To me it is FAR more credible to think that this consensus represents humankind's best scientific opinion on the subject, than it is to consider that this 97% of properly informed people are all so systematically biased by virtue of how they are compensated that they are in cahoots and are knowingly selling us a bill of good. Hence, I tend to agree with the majority opinion.
Does that make me religious? Or a sheep?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Your beliefs are your beliefs. You've looked at information that you found compelling and reached a position. It really doesn't matter that someone else can look at the same data and reach a different conclusion.
I can look a "proof" based on computer models and call "foul, computer models cannot prove anything". Others look at the same "proof" and say "that is the best we can do so we have to use it".
You look at sea level data and see a cause and effect of man's activities, I see that every single projection of sea level change in the last 20 years has been incorrect--the most optimistic projection in 1990 was that most of the inhabited islands in the South Pacific would be uninhabitable by 2010, others had the crises occurring sooner. Real estate in Fiji is still on the market as we approach 2012 and is still pretty expensive.
You look at average global climate temperature graphs and see 0.5-2C change as significant, I look at it and see the uncertainty of the instruments is about +/- 2C (calibrated range is typically 0-100C, and most of the instruments have an uncertainty +/-2% of calibrated range), and any number within the dead band has to be assumed to be the same number. I see data that has been "corrected" for "known effects" like the "heat island effect" that no one seems to be able to agree on its proper magnitude.
Many of the things you see as evidence of AGW, I see as evidence of an inherently unstable biosphere with built in macro negative feedback loops.
The beautiful thing about beliefs is that you really don't have to justify them to anyone.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The evidence from the emails is that there has been a cabal at work actively trying to supress publication of contrary papers.
on what basis did they compile this list and are there only 1372 climate researchers?How do they define a climate researcher?
what related disciplines with complimentary skills were included or excluded?
What was the point of such a paper/research except to show a specific result.
How many articles/papers published were trivial?
Is their no weighting according to the status and qualification if the researchers or no weighting as to the quality of the papers?
I would hazard that a minor change or too to a definition might make all the difference.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
David, you're a very smart guy and I respect your right to look at the data and draw your own conclusions- but you've completely missed my point.
I personally do not consider myself qualified to draw conclusions based on the data. I don't practice in that field or anything remotely close to it. Instead, I defer to the majority of the people who actually DO have expertise in that field.
When presented with
a) the idea that the scientific process, though not perfect (i.e. like all other human institutions), tends to actually work in advancing, over time, our evolving best understanding of this and other scientific topics, or
b) that the community of people qualified to make a judgment on this issue are all in cahoots, promulgating a myth for their own personal gain,
I pick a). Call that an irrational deference to authority if you will, but I don't think so.
THAT is fundamentally where we differ.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Now, if I presented you with evidence of unethical behaviour and malfeasance by said "authority", would your opinion change? I'm not talking about conspiracies or anything like that. Just simple evidence of unethical behaviour, would you consider changing your opinion?
(Note that this is a hypothetical question - I may or may not have such evidence.)
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
It really dosen't matter if it is human caused or not. What are the possible solutions, and are most of the people willing to live under those solutions?
If the answer is to ruin our life style for almost no gain, then the answer is likely no.
But for someone to yell that we must give up on driving our cars, and heating our homes right now or else. I need some proof.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Again, I don't care about the data attempting to show the warming which may or may not have already occurred. There are plenty of unsteady-state factors which can retard or accelerate that warming. What matters to me is that the overhwelming majority of people who actually study the underlying science see enough of a probability of essentially irreversible harm that it is worth warning us about. Yes, that matters to me, big time!
As to cranky's "Who cares, if doing something about it will cost too much or might not be effective", I've already given you all my answer to that chestnut. Few have disagreed with it- though I suspect that most of the dissent with the scientific opinion on the matter is actually based far more on the fear that underlies that statement than it is on any sincere concern over fraud amongst the climate scientists.
Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels is something we need to do anyway because they are FINITE. Starting now, in earnest, will make it easier for everyone because we'll at least have these fossil materials as feedstocks to help us through the transition. As I said, I do believe that this renders questionable at best a reliance on carbon sequestration and storage as a means to deal with this threat. No- instead we need to use energy FAR more wisely than we do now- in everything we do- and we'd better get on with it.
Fundamentally, people don't like paying for energy- but they're very willing to pay for what energy PROVIDES them- comfort, ease, transport etc. We engineers can, if we're compensated properly by an economics which truly values this effort, find ways to provide all those things far more efficiently than we do now. Though change will be necessary for everyone, the only people who might suffer out of this will be the ones who won the geological lottery in the first place. Even they won't suffer much, as the demand for fossil material as feedstocks will be increased rather than decreased. Their riches will simply last longer.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
And just so you don't answer with a rhetorical question, here's what it would take for me to have confidence that the science behind the claim that the changes that we are experiencing are human-induced, unprecedented, and irreversible (ethics and all aside):
1) Demonstration that the magnitude and rate of change of temperature is unlike anything that has ever been experienced on this planet.
2) Demonstration that temperature change follows lock-step with CO2 concentration throughout geologically-comparable time, excluding the natural cycles (AMO, PDO, ENSO, Milancovich, etc) with CO2 being the leading and temperature being the lagging indicator.
3) Demonstration that we understand how the above-noted natural cycles work and influence the surface temperature.
4) Demonstration of all of the above without resorting to computer simulations.
5) Use of air enthalpy (including humidity effects) when measuring the energy of the atmosphere, and not temperature.
6) Experiments (not computer simulations) that demonstrate the feedback effects of clouds - at least the first and second derivatives of temperature with respect to cloud cover.
A couple of things that, are in my opinion, sufficiently demonstrated already:
a) That the CO2 concentration increase has an anthropogenic component.
b) That we don't know enough about all of the influences that our sun has on our climate. The recent CLOUD experiments at CERN throw significant doubt about the claim that TSI is the only variable from the sun.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Just because the globe is warming does not prove that CO2 is the culprit.
There's this thing called "correlation," and there's this other thing called "causality," and they're not necessarily the same thing.
Funny thing about anthropogenic carbon, it scales upward with human population. Funny thing about the human population, it scales upward with a whole slew of things that warm the planet, not just carbon. If you plotted Miles of Roads vs Global Temperature, it'd be just as strong a correlation, because Miles of Roads increase with human population too.
What else scales with human population? Ever noticed how a Wal Mart parking lot is hotter than a forest? That's "albedo," and it's almost never modeled properly by the climate scientists, because their best interests are served by downplaying its effects, even though the Urban Heat Island effect is so big you can see it from space.
What else does the expansion of human population cause? Major changes in the hydrologic cycle. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, clouds trap heat at night, and reflect sunlight during the day. Changes in cloud cover are another thing that's never modeled properly by atmospheric chemists.
I read the UN's report on global warming. They had the gall to say that a corn field was cooler than a forest, and therefore the effects of albedo due to human population expansion were to cool the planet instead of warm it. I'm no genius, but I've walked through a corn field, and those guys are full of what's in the next pasture down the road. Bull turds.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
That it may have happened before naturally without man's hand doesn't mean that it can't happen with it. To argue that it does mean this is to argue that since deer died naturally before humans were around, humans are not capable of killing deer.
Maybe what you mean is "demonstration that the magnitude and rate of temperature change is not explicable through known natural means"; in that case I would fully agree that this is a critical demonstration to make. But to demand that a similar magnitude and rate should never have happened before does not make sense to me.
This was already shown LONG ago to not be the case, at least over the past ~500K years—it is accepted by every climatologist out there that CO2 lagged temperature rises by about 800 years, and this point is not in any way inconsistent with AGW.
CO2 acts as both a feedback and a forcing. In the past it was a feedback, because the only natural means by which CO2 could possibly increase at regular geological intervals was through a temperature increase. Temperatures began to rise, and 800 years later CO2 followed. The temperature rise lasted for about 5,000 years, which mean CO2 was a factor for 5/6 of the temperature rise; it was just the beginning 1/6 that was caused by something else.
CO2 was a feedback because it is a proven greenhouse gas, and because it is naturally released during a warming climate due to Henry's Law. To demand that the Earth should have had some mechanism of releasing CO2 at regular intervals independent of temperature changes is to demand a mechanism currently totally unknown to geology—and therefore, probably doesn't exist. But I really don't understand why it needs to exist.
Not to mention that "Demonstration that temperature change follows lock-step with CO2 concentration throughout geologically-comparable time, excluding the natural cycles" is a rather odd statement. If you are talking about geological timescales before human intervention, how the heck could they be anything but "natural"? Are you saying there should be geological evidence of AGW before AGW ever existed?
ENSO, PDO, Milankovic, and solar cycles are all included in calculations of warming. They have all been ruled out. A long time ago. That's why climatologists are convinced there is a non-natural cause to the recent warming.
All we have is empirical data through proxy records and (relatively) recent observations, and theoretical calculations based on concise laws of physics. Unless you are demanding these calculations be done with slide rule and chalk board, I don't understand what your aversion is to using computers for the latter piece.
Specific humidity is measured on the long term global scale. Temperature is measured too. You have everything you need to calculate total enthalpy through time over the past couple of decades. Knock yourself out.
But as I already pointed out, total energy change of the atmosphere is over an order of magnitude less than the total energy change of the ocean. That's why it's not talked about as much as you would like: because if you're going to talk about total energy, it's oceanic energy that dominates the discussion.
Terrific idea (really!) How might such an experiment work?
Really, I would love to see more experiments. I'm just inclined to think that there is some difficulty with carrying them out in a meaningful way, and THAT is why they are not more common.
I mean it's hard to control something as big and open as the atmosphere, so designing something that is beyond the class of mere observation and more of a controlled "experiment" seems quite difficult. But, again, it sincerely sounds interesting and I would love to hear your thoughts of how it could be done. I would even be interested in personally contributing my free time to help the experiment (really).
Perhaps we and others here can put our minds together and find a truly unique way to contribute to the field of climatology.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
On the left is a field. On the right is a forest. Which one is darker? What do darker colors mean with respect to the amount of visible radiative energy that they absorb?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Should we enslave ourselves to do this? Or is it better to allow the natural progress of technology to develop new solutions. Why not nuculer power, or thermal solar, or renuable natural gas? Why has photo electric, and wind power been chosen?
The question I think I have is why has this route been picked, and not others? It sure looks from my perspective that there is an agenda, because of the limited number of solutions allowed to move forward.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
False dichotomy. Obviously.
Been chosen by whom? Who is the specific party that you are complaining about? Because nuclear, thermal solar, and renewable natural gas (assuming you mean landfill and other bio-methane production) are all being used today, and considered by many people to be a valuable part of the solution.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
"Why has photo electric, and wind power been chosen?" - cranky108
"Been chosen by whom?" - dawei87
I can't answer many questions posed on this subject but I will have a shot at these two.
WHY-
In Ontario, Canada, photo electric and wind power have been chosen because hydro opportunities are scarce, nuclear scares people, and coal is a dirty word because of all that carbon.
BY WHOM-
By the Ontario Provincial Government.
ARE THESE GOOD CHOICES-
I suspect the Ontario Government in the past chose hydro power and that worked out quite well. I doubt that these two choices will do as well.
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Why- I have no idea, except they don't know all the facts.
My guess is it is a cycle like fashion, and we now have these flavors of the decade. When the bad things of these come out the fashion will change to something they don't know all the facts about.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
And what happens to that absorbed energy? Any analysis that looks solely at color and not a full energy cycle of the biological processes involved is short sighted. Any analysis that ignores the blatant fact that human civilization creates deserts by permanently changing the hydrologic cycle is short sighted. Any analysis that attempts to deliberately cover up or disregard orbital imaging of the urban heat island phenomena, to try and funnel all the research money towards CO2 is at best only half science and half political.
There is a lot going on with anthropomorphic climate change other than atmospheric chemistry. The most obvious evidence of this is how climate change tracks better with anthropomorphic carbon than total carbon. If you have to come up with excuses to ignore the effect of volcanic CO2 then chances are your actual correlation is actually with "anthropomorphic something-else."
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Orders of magnitude more CO2 comes from biological (or "natural") processes than comes from smoke stacks and car tail pipes. AGW is political, not scientific.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
"Arctic temperatures are rising fast, and permafrost is thawing. Carbon released into the atmosphere from permafrost soils will accelerate climate change, but the magnitude of this effect remains highly uncertain. Our collective estimate is that carbon will be released more quickly than models suggest, and at levels that are cause for serious concern.
We calculate that permafrost thaw will release the same order of magnitude of carbon as deforestation if current rates of deforestation continue. But because these emissions include significant quantities of methane, the overall effect on climate could be 2.5 times larger."
http:
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
What links this to carbon taxes in the US? Unless you are wanting to reforrest what are currently cities in the US.
However in the Western US that is different. The cities were not carved out of forrests, and the natural rain may not support trees.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
report and policy summaries. Our results reveal that survey respondents generally agree about the nature, causes, and consequences of climate change, and are in agreement with IPCC findings. We also found that there is strong support for a variety of policy initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
http://
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
How is that a different perspective? I read a similar report about Mexico City nearly 20 years ago, and a somewhat similar report about the Los Angeles Basin nearly 30 years ago.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The study was done on the second worst polluted city in the world using the same methods the US EPA uses to study air quality.
The study shows that dispite the poor air quality the number of deaths from the poor air quality is not significant.
The US EPA study (2009) of US cities shows "hundreds of thousands" of deaths in the US due to poor air quality in the US.
Bear in mind that the study in China is supported by the US EPA.
In effect the study in China negates the study in the US.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
CO2 does not leave patuclite matter on walls or in your lungs.
So I see where patuclite matter above a certion concertration is a concern. CO2 regulation dosen't meet that level of concern.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The vast majority turns into heat. My point was that anthropogenic activities in the form of deforestation effect a negative radiative forcing. If you are trying to emphasize that some of the radiative energy gets used for photosynthesis, then the greater efficiency of crop plants compared to forest trees only serves to strengthen this effect, not negate it.
The effect of urban heat on the surface temperature record is a legitimate question to raise, but it has been sufficiently shown to be without merit.
For all global surface records, surface stations are compared with rural ones to factor out this effect:
http:/
Windy nights (which dilute urban heat effects) show no less of a trend than stagnant nights:
http
"Good" stations agree with "Bad" stations:
h
Then there's the fact that surface stations and satellites agree very closely...
http:
Etc. Etc. There are so many nails in the coffin to the idea that UHI has a significant effect that anyone who continues to parrot it as a legitimate concern is clearly being driven by a motivation that's far less than 50% science.
Measurements of atmospheric CO2 reflect total CO2 concentrations, not the "anthropomorphic" fraction, so i have no idea what you're talking about here.
By the way,
an·thro·po·gen·ic: Originating in human activity
an·thro·po·mor·phic: Having human characteristics
Again, you've totally lost me. What "excuses"? Who is ignoring volcanic CO2?
It's dismissed as a significant factor because volcanic contributions to atmospheric CO2 are undercut by anthropogenic contributions by a factor of over 1:100.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I'll admit I only read the abstract and it looked like all the other sky-is-falling reports on that subject. If it negates EPA garbage I'll have to go back and read it more carefully. Thanks for persisting.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The effect of particulates is usually carefully stated as the effect of long term (life time) exposure to particulates on life expectancy.
The effects are not directly known or detected; the studies cannot detect a direct link between particulate levels and life expectancy because there are other factors that also affect life expectancy.
What they look for in the data is a change in particulate levels and a change in life expectancies.
Hence a factor in the data is the change from coal fired heating to gas fired central heating or in urban communities, the shift of major industry from town and city centrers to peripheral sites... the impact of the car has some positives....
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Much of the US uses natural gas or propane for home heating. Very little is from coal. Coal's usage is mainly from larger users like power production, which is well regulated in terms of patictulit matter ( I still hear people look at that polution, and pointing at the cooling towers [which use recyled water]).
The dirtest of fuels, in terms of paticulite matter, is now wood. And people use wood because of the lower cost than the over regulated other fuels.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Or because it looks pretty and is 'renewable' (or at least can be) - just saying.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Other power plants are cofueling with used tires and calling it green. It increases efficency because of higher BTU values. And it is very low cost.
No doubt some wood is being sold in those nice $3 packages.
Some wood is being consumed in the form of pellets, which seems to solve several of the problems of stick.
On the other hand I toss chunks of wood in with me charcoal to add flavor, and smell (I hope they don't count this as renewable).
Tree farming in the US has become a big business, for several usages. Home farms, holiday trees, and yard decerations. But mostly trees grow in land set aside, and fence rows (farmers use as wind blocks).
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
That's a bunk premise, for the same reason as above. If the wind carries the heat away, then the heat is elsewhere. That study is just as dumb as if I did one near a factory and determined that the local CO2 didn't make the factory any hotter than somewhere without a CO2 source. All climate modeling, CO2 or otherwise, is based on the idea of a global energy budget.
Meaning they're both going up at the same rate, which is what you'd expect in the farm house analogy, particularly if there's a big fan blowing hot air all around the house. ("weather") Just because they're both going up doesn't give you any meaningful information about what's causing the globe to warm.
I see *zero* "nails in the coffin" for UHI. Care to link any more? I notice you didn't link anything that said mankind turning a forest into a corn field, and a corn field into a desert, cools the planet instead of warming it, I'm very interested to read that link if it exists, and I'll kindly ask you to defend it.
The truth is that all climate models by their very nature are laden with coefficients that the modelers can tweak to calibrate the model. In order to make the model match existing data, they tweak those coefficients as part of the calibration process. And if you calibrate the model against CO2, then of course it's going to show you that warming tracks with CO2. You calibrated it that way! You could just as easily calibrate it against miles of roads or words in books or number of pirates. Anything that scales with human population. In fact, if you look at Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth hockey stick graphs, the start of the warming upswing more closely matches the start of the modern human population surge than it does the beginning of the CO2 spike.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Watts and his ilk frequently claim that urban stations are biasing the overall temperature record. It doesn't make any sense at all to claim that *all* stations are showing a bias regardless of their proximity to urban sources. NO ONE, not even skeptics, make the argument that the waste heat from tail pipes and refrigerators are causing the observed warming *everywhere*; you are truly unique and misguided to think that this argument has any merit. You are at this point not making the urban heat island bias argument, but rather (ironically) claiming that anthropogenic activities are causing the entire planet to warm—an argument that at least on its surface I have no problem with.
You wave away my sources and hound me for more without providing the first piece of scientific evidence yourself. Do you have a single scientific source demonstrating that urban heat is responsible for any appreciable fraction of global warming? And please spare me gut speculation (which you have already given) and pretty pictures of temperature stations next to BBQ pits (which I suspect you will give me). I want a legitimate scientific study demonstrating through rational calculations that the observed global warming is due to waste heat and other urban heat sources.
Yes. Unfortunately for your premise, the sun—through the radiative forcing associated with an increased greenhouse effect—causes an imbalance far greater than the warming associated with urban heat sources.
That's because you want it to be the case that urban heat is causing the entire planet to warm. I suppose next you will be arguing that the anthropogenic beach urination effect is the true cause of sea level rise.
Sure:
http:/
Compared that to the greenhouse gas radiative forcing of 2.9 W/ m^2, you get two orders of magnitude difference. Not that it should be "ignored", but there is a clear scientific reason for why it is not considered to be very important: it simply isn't that powerful. Not political, just hard numbers.
I didn't think I actually needed a link claiming that light colors reflected more sunlight and stayed cooler than dark colors.
Keep in mind I was referring to lower atmospheric temperatures, not the temperature at the exact surface. Obviously if you sit under a pine forest you will feel cooler than under the direct sun in a corn field. But at the top of the pine forest, you are warmer due to the darker colors. This effect carries over to make the lower troposphere as a whole warmer.
Right. It couldn't possibly be that the industrial revolution is what allowed for that population surge to take place in the first place.
The relationship between CO2 and temperature is not a simple statistical correlation that has been "tweaked". To claim that it is displays a gross misunderstanding of the development of climate models on your part. The numbers are not simply fudged to give a desirable result, they are based on rational laws of physics. Hindcasting involves tweaking dozens of parameters (not just CO2) to make it agree with past observations of temperature, not past observations of CO2 vs. temperature.
By the way, it seems though that you are shifting away from science and into conspiracy theory, claiming that models are simply being manipulated for political reasons. This is an extraordinarily strong claim to make, as it implies a scientific fraud on a scale never before witnessed in history. And as such it is *your* burden to prove this fantastical claim. Otherwise it is just boring speculation.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I'm not making that argument at all. That's a dumb argument. You don't even need the "global temperature record" to show global warming. You could throw all the data in the toilet and still make a very easy case for global warming, in fact a more solid case, by simply looking at glacial recession as your indicator. Global temperature records aren't great, and are full of measurement holes. The recession of the glaciers is easily tracked. (incidentally, glacial recession tracks more closely with human population growth than it does specifically with CO2) The globe is warming and anyone who says otherwise is politically motivated.
But there's a difference between these two statements:
"The globe is warming" and
"The globe is warming completely because of CO2 emissions and no other reason."
Proving the first does not prove the second.
You keep mischaracterizing "my premise" in a wild attempt to attack it, without taking the time to listen to it at all. Entirely unsurprising in this "debate." Urban heat islands are primarily an albedo effect due to how asphalt interacts with *sunlight* differently than forest. You should do a little research.
I have no agenda here, you clearly do. I don't "want" anything, and your line of continuous personal attack is not only childish, it's unprofessional and bordering on a violation of the terms of use of this website. That said, lets look at your sarcastic example, and go through the obvious and easy debunking procedures for it, and you'll see some surprising parallels with some of the articles you've linked.
All of the pee in the world does not make the ocean rise. Why? The pee, before it was pee, was groundwater or surface water. Before it was surface water, it was rain. Before it was rain it was clouds, and before it was clouds it was in the ocean. Peeing in the ocean is simply one link in the global hydrologic cycle, moving water that used to be in the ocean back into the ocean. Put simply, you can see how it neutralizes easily if you draw your control volumes properly. Drawing them improperly leads you to silly conclusions.
What does that tell you about a study that says "wind carries the urban heat away, so it doesn't affect the globe's mean temperature." ..?
That's about direct heat generated by human machinery, not about the changes in sunlight absorbed due to urbanization, deforestation, and agriculture. Try again?
No, you need a link that says terraforming the planet to suit our purposes for agriculture and urbanization on such a massive scale that it's easily seen from space doesn't change the global energy budget.
A leaf does not produce the same warmth to its adjacent area as a slab of green asphalt does, because something else rather interesting is going on inside the leaf. It's capturing energy and using it in chemical reactions, and this goes on on a massive scale. If you believe the paleontologists, it's where the oil comes from. This very important process is ignored in every treatment of the effects of albedo on climate I've read. Got a link to one that takes it into account? I'd love to read it.
Of course it was. That the industrial revolution produced more global effects than simply a change in CO2 is my entire point.
Not really. Ask a bunch of atmospheric chemists what the problem is, they're going to tell you atmospheric chemistry, especially when their research dollars depend on it. Where things get political is with scientists supporting the Kyoto protocol, when no credible study ever has shown that Kyoto would have an effect, even if atmospheric warming were 100% due to CO2, which I absolutely don't believe it is. And that's a separate discussion that I don't even want to bother having, because it gets into who's moving which money where (Goldman Sachs) to take advantage of "carbon trading."
I'm an environmentalist. I believe it's important we reduce pollution, and CO2 is among the things we should reduce. I think the greatest damage CO2 is doing to our environment isn't even in the skies, it's in the oceans, which are slowly changing in pH as CO2 forms carbonic acid and dissolves the world's coral reefs. Google that, it's terrifying. There are other geopolitical reasons to reduce CO2 emissions as well, most particularly that tying the US economy to a globally traded commodity puts us at great economic risk if the dollar collapses. There are many reasons to reduce CO2, and in particular our dependence on foreign oil.
But as an environmentalist, I'm very afraid of what's going to happen to the environmental movement when CO2 is exposed for the faked up bogey man that it is, in terms of its effects on climate. The backlash when the truth comes out will hurt all environmentalism.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Well, there are many skeptics who I suspect would like to throw feces at you for saying that. But I personally agree that glacial recession is just one of many observations indicating warming.
I never said it was warming because of CO2 "and no other reason." I simply think CO2 is the dominant factor.
We already agreed that it changes it; we just have disagreement on the magnitude and the sign of that change.
You are the one making the positive hypothesis that the observed warming trend is due to anthropogenic albedo changes, so it really should be your responsibility to prove this claim, not mine to disprove it. But since it is a new argument, I found it interesting enough to work out. Anyone can feel free to correct my math where they see fit. (And yes, I am aware that this is a simplistic calculation. By omitting something I am not implying that it should not be considered, I am simply creating a baseline calculation and I welcome any added complexity you would like to contribute.)
Estimating the temperature change due to a change in albedo is relatively straightforward using Stefan-Boltzmann and assuming a blackbody.
Teff = [S0(1 – A)/4sigma]^.25
where Teff is the temperature of the surface in K, S0 is the solar constant, A is the albedo, and sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.
The Earth's current albedo is approximately 0.30. The solar constant is 1370 W/m^2 and sigma is 5.67*10^-8.
Plugging that in, we get an effective temperature of 255.0 K. Lower than reality, but we are of course ignoring the greenhouse effect so this is expected.
Now, to calculate the effective temperature of urbanization we need an estimate of 1) The percent of the surface area that is urbanized and 2) the approximate albedo of an urbanized area.
Estimates for the first factor vary, but a recent estimate found it to be around 3% of all land area, so we will go with that. I make no judgment on how valid this estimate is compared to previous, lower estimates.
http://w
Of course, albedo extends beyond just land area, so this 3% needs to be translated to a global fraction, which makes it 0.876% of Earth's total surface area, assuming the Earth is 70.8% water.
As for number 2, urban albedo ranges from 0.10 to 0.20, though some are much higher. From Table 2, here:
htt
We will be very conservative and say it's 0.10 everywhere, which is only slightly higher than the average albedo of pure asphalt.
Taking a weighted average, we get a new (urbanized) global albedo:
.99124*.3 + .00876*0.1 = 0.298
And a new Teff = 255.16
Compared to 255.0, that is a temperature difference of 0.16 C across the entire time span of human urbanization, under the very conservative assumptions of urbanized surface area and its average albedo. As compared to ~ 0.8 C observed over the past 100 years.
Of course I ignored agricultural lands in this calculation; since agricultural lands represent a much larger surface area, and since their albedo tends to be higher than what was previously there, I stand by my claim that direct anthropogenic albedo changes force a negative radiative forcing, not a positive one.
You emphasize that asphalt and a leaf of the same albedo do not have the same temp since the leaf does more than the asphalt, and I don't disagree with that.
You get a double positive whammy by replacing a forest with a parking lot, but you get a double *negative* whammy by replacing a forest with a lighter agricultural field, since agricultural crops are better at photosynthesizing than most natural plants. And since global agricultural land represents an area more than ten times greater than urban land, I just don't see where there is any opportunity for a positive forcing. Interested to see your math.
Except that the paper was not talking about warming of the entire planet, it was talking about urban bias due to poor station siting. You were not making the urban bias argument, but there are many people that do.
Again, this is moving beyond skepticism and you are now making a positive claim that there exists an unfathomably large scientific hoax going on. A strong claim requires strong evidence, of which I see very little if any. I find arguments like 'follow the money' to hardly be convincing. Unless you can demonstrate a strong argument for why a real, existing problem would *NOT* logically receive research funding, then the mere existence of funding does not make me the least bit skeptical.
That there might be businesses or governments seeking to take advantage of AGW for personal gain is a separate question irrelevant to the science. There are those who will try to gain and profit on absolutely anything that happens in the world, and I see no reason why we shouldn't expect people to take advantage of AGW too.
But seeing big businesses profit through greenwashing or carbon trading markets does not itself make me skeptical of the existence of AGW, any more than seeing businesses profiting on security guards and alarm systems would make me skeptical of the existence of crime.
I'm familiar with ocean acidification and agree that it is of great concern, especially considering many agronomists believe that the only way we will feed (and power) 9 billion people is through massive-scale marine aquaculture.
It's not a bogey man. For that matter it's also not Armageddon. It will not cause an ice age over night or send tidal waves of sea level rise flowing into NYC. But it is a problem that exacerbates many other problems that humanity will face throughout the 21st century. I do not know the magnitude of this problem, no one does. I believe it's at least possible that the warming will surpass 3 C by the end of the century, and that concerns me. Even if it stays within 1 C it can cause problems. And considering that skeptics such as Spencer and Lindzen acknowledge at least a 1 C warming associated with 2x CO2, and that the planet is on par to greatly exceed 2x, I have yet to find any comfort from skeptical arguments.
By the way, I see you're an environmental engineer. My degree was in environmental engineering too, from UF :)
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
So while we're ball parking it, let's say agricultural lands have a quarter the albedo delta as compared to the "untouched" condition, and cover eight times the area that urban lands do. That'd be another 0.32 C, for a total of 0.48 C. 60% of warming right there. And that's presuming that the ordinary greenhouse effect doesn't amplify those numbers any.
Hardly something to neglect, when crafting an elaborate carbon trading policy. Hell, your simple calculation for urbanization alone is 20%. 20% is not insignificant. 20% is not something you can wish away.
I completely disagree with this. All natural lands have layers of ground cover, forests moreso than grasslands, but agricultural lands have a single plant, no layering, and no ground cover between plants. And they're hotter. You can either trust me on this, or find out for yourself and spend a day picking tobacco. The climate modelers have got agriculture all wrong, because they've never spent any time out in a field.
Not when so much money from these very businesses and governments is being pumped into the science, in the form of research grants. You find what you're supposed to find according to the people paying the bills. It's not that they're faking it on purpose, it's just that they're putting all sorts of validity into models that are calibrated against CO2, so the models show a correlation. Mistaking correlation for causality is a very, very common error in science. And computer modeling cannot, cannot, determine causality. I don't blame them for some kind of conspiracy. I merely blame them for presuming causation from the correlation they've identified. And why wouldn't they, when their job depends on it? I would too.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
B.E.
htt
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Ever the optimist huh berkshire?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
"In 2009, the Heartland Institute, which has received significant funding from Exxon-Mobil, expanded its audience beyond teachers and students with a pamphlet, called The Skeptic's Handbook, mailed to the presidents of the country's 14,000 public school boards."
http://w
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
But I covered my butt by mentioning that it could provoke it even more.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
If you produced peer-reviewed definitive proof that there is a god, there are people whose religion would require that they doubt it.
Same with the AGW religion. "Belief" is "acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data", and both sides of the AGW discussion have a significant number of religious zealots who will not be convinced by facts, let alone an article from GizMag which actually sounds disgusting.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I went to school in the same country Kenat did. During the time I was in school, 1950s-60s. The teachers assured us that global warming by increased carbon dioxide production could never happen, because plants would make use of the increased CO2 levels to become more plentiful and luxuriant, sequestering the carbon, and thereby negating the whole thing, according to them the system was in balance.
Is what is going on now totaly political, or is there a change in scientific fact?
Or did my teachers have their facts screwed up?
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
We're about the same age, and I remember the same hypothesis. I can remember wondering (many years later) if that "balance" idea was based on data or wishful thinking. The more I've learned, the more I think that no one has ever proven a single unassailable hypotheses about the global climate.
I saw some pure, unadulterated data the other day on CO2 levels at several high-altitude sample points (one of them was Mona Loa in Hawaii, I can't remember where the other points were) that showed CO2 in the atmosphere pretty constant at 290 ppm until the late 1960's and since then it has increased to around 320 ppm. I was able to accept that data as accurate, unadulterated, and unbiased. I was not able to accept it as a cause of anything, but I accept the measurements.
I saw some other data that says that the last ice age freeze-dried billions of tons of organic material that has been trapped in the permafrost since then. I've seen data that looks to me to be unadulterated that says the the latitude of the permafrost is retreating and that trapped organic material is now subject to biological processes that have been delayed in the deep freeze.
The hypotheses that this seems to me to support is that the warming earth is releasing CO2, not that CO2 is warming the earth. That is just a "belief", not a fact. Others look at this data that seems to be whole and pure and draw other conclusions.
I look at adulterated data and reject it out of hand. Others look at it and see truth. This religion will not be resolved until the next ice age.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Brother
Praise the lord
( or is it politicaly incorrect to say that? )
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
My problem with the whole dialog, is it's either "AGW doesn't exist" or it's "Kyoto Treaty." The middle ground, where maybe AGW is caused by a lot of factors and not just carbon, is ignored by science because nobody has a financial interest in funding research like that.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Fist came the idea of AGW promoted by Maurice Strong and then came the "science" to support the theory along with the suppression of countervailing views.
He it was who encouraged the recognition of NGOs as influential in UN debate and policy making.
This may seem the wrong way round to many rational people but rationality has nothing to do with it.
Maurice Strong set out to become influential within the UN and had his first job there in 1947.
In 1972 he was director general of the first UN environmental panel.
He it is that is credited with starting the AGW scam.
He is also one of the principal beneficiaries and is associated with Al Gore in carbon trading schemes.
He is worth a lot of money now and spends a great deal of time in China promoting, among other things, cheap Chinese cars to destroy the US auto industry (not electric cars or environmentally friendly cars, just cheap cars).
See Zdas's thread "Anti-Human"
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
You Tube
He must be right.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
He isn't the only commentator.
That's why I suggest doing your own googling.
Actually, I am now having doubts about the validity of the proposed regulation of the internet which is supposedly about regulating piracy of copyright material (music, films etc.) and which has prompted google to go on strike. I begin to suspect that the real target might be to clamp down on the independent voices being raised against the trend of the established mainstream media.
It may seem I am entering conspiracy mode late in life but I hope not. In my youth I very nearly succumbed to the Von Daniken style of off the wall sags including the Club of Rome report, Silent Spring, the Screts of the pyramids and so on and I am resistant to 419 emails and free energy scams so I hope I have a degree of cynicism and that I do not easily succumb to such scares. But there seems to me to be just too muh evidence that there are some crazy people who ought to have been institutionalised but who were instead given the keys to the funny farm and far too few of us question it.
Too many believe that scientists are absolutely honest and ethical in all fields and believe that everything will work out for the best.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Now we are being told to work to prevent AGW for our own good, no matter what the cost.
Even if it is real, has anyone done a cost benifit analisis on what is being proposed or done?
If it costs me a dollar, and I get a dime of benifit, I have lost something.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Except my ballpark numbers were grounded in reality.
Agricultural lands have a higher albedo, not a lower one. If you want to start getting into indirect effects, then you can bring up the greater albedo after snowfall on cropland vs. temperate forest due to the cropland's relatively shorter profile. Or that albedo tends to decrease with increasing height even if leaf coloration is constant. But you can't just call it a "lower albedo" because you think the effect of ever-so-slightly lowering the ceiling that receives direct sunlight (canopy vs. soil/crop) somehow makes the entire troposphere warmer.
Elevation--at least on the scale we're talking about--doesn't matter, and the albedo of an object is fixed based on its color, not its location. Crops are of a higher albedo, which means that less sunlight is absorbed in the surface of the Earth. It is reflected back into space and not considered as part of the incoming energy budget. The energy budget is thereby unbalanced, with more going out than what is coming in, which (all else being equal) would force a cooling until a new equilibrium were reached. This fact is independent of whether or not a tiny sliver of the lower atmosphere became warmer than it was before the trees were felled.
Elevation difference doesn't affect the basic balance of absorbed shortwave against outgoing longwave. Increasing the 2nd most significant greenhouse gas by a factor of 40%--or 100% or 200%--does however affect this balance by reducing the efficiency of outgoing longwave.
I do not wish it away, I add it to the entire pot of anthropogenic albedo modification and get a net negative number. So too, for that matter, has *every* peer-reviewed study of surface anthropogenic albedo change.
Not to mention that the urban numbers were extremely conservative, and also represented a longer timeline than just the last 100 years.
While I've seen plenty of arrogant people expressing their opinion that scientists are just a bunch of drooling morons, I have to say this is the first time I've seen someone imply that they were literally dumber than cows.
ht
So, neither government nor business are supposed to fund science? I had no idea. After you've finished climatology, you may want to forward that memo to every other scientific field in the world.
Unless you have documented evidence of a scientist having received funding with the understanding that his results had better support AGW (or else), this is pure speculation. Receiving funding for a study and having that result go in favor of AGW theory does not mean that it would have gone a different way if the funding had come from a more neutral source.
To claim it does is a surprising leap in logic from someone who clearly otherwise appreciates the pitfalls of assuming causation from mere correlation.
They don't "calibrate against CO2 ". The radiative forcing of CO2 is very well defined based on laboratory experimentation and the long-understood laws of spectroscopy, not to mention direct observational evidence from ground and satellite stations which measure the trend in radiative flux associated with the wavelength range absorbed by CO2 and other GHGs. This radiative forcing is combined with dozens of others, incorporated into extremely complex climate models that take into account a wide variety of factors.
Known and parameterized values are calculated within a likely certainty range and fine tuned by running thousands of iterations and comparing them against temperature observations, not CO2 vs. temperature correlations. A lot of small detail is missing but the biggest players are fairly well understood. Models are not, as you seem to think, Temperature = [black box] * CO2, where that black box can be manipulated haphazardly until they stumble on a result that will please their overloards.
The methodologies of many climate models are freely available for your reading enjoyment. I suggest taking the time to gain an appreciation for their complexity before making unfounded claims as to their inadequacy.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
No, it's maybe it does exist with CO2 being the major driving force, or maybe it isn't. The question of what should be done in response to this driving force is absolutely separate.
I would completely agree with you if you said that the Kyoto Protocol is worthless. Please do not assume that just because someone is convinced of the science of AGW, that he/she must automatically endorse any solution suggested to mitigate it. I have personally never been convinced by the effectiveness of ANY government policy that I have seen on the table.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Example: How long had the Spanash-American war taxes been on our phone bills, and few of us knew about it.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
There is no question in the literature that CO2 concentrations have increased significantly as a result of human burning of fossil carbon. Unlike the global temperature issue, this is not a result of forecasts or models but is based on MEASUREMENTS- measurements any high school chemistry student can do. It is based not only on the averaging of MANY direct measurements from MANY atmospheric stations all over the world, but it is also cross-calibrated against ice core data and the many other indirect means of obtaining estimates of past mean atmospheric CO2 levels.
CO2 atmospheric measurements happen also to correlate very well with the results of a relatively simple mass balance of the fossil carbon we've burned over time, combined with an estimate of the mean CO2 half-life in the atmosphere- an estimate which is also based on measurements and which by the way needs not be very accurate to give a reasonable answer anyway.
You are defending your hypothesis that everything is OK and natural, on the basis of an ever-growing conspiracy theory. Just curious: do you also believe in caloric?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I don't accept the the measured increase implies a source of the CO2. I also don't accept the amazingly tennuous correlation between fossil fuel consumption and the magnitude of CO2 change. I reject about half the assumptions that went into that analysis.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I do find it curious that you invoke "cows moving to a forested area to get cooler" as evidence that agricultural fields are cooler than forests. I would contend it's pretty reasonable evidence of exactly the opposite.
And my argument is not about elevation effecting albedo, my argument is about climate modelers getting the energy balance wrong if they think cotton fields cool the earth more than forests do. Cotton fields do not cool the earth more than forests do, for a host of reasons. Not the least of which is how much energy is being used up in the biochemical processes of photosynthesis in the two cases.
If you take an aerial photo of a forest, and an aerial photo of a parking lot spray-painted green, the albedo looks the same, but the effective albedo is different because photosynthetic effects are being neglected. The same error is made comparing a forest and agricultural lands, which are barren between plants and do not perform the same amount of conversion of radiant energy to stored chemical energy. This is what makes a forest cooler than a corn field, and a corn field cooler than a tennis court. The surface of the earth is a giant biochemical reactor, that uses radiant energy to turn inorganic chemicals into organic matter, on a massive, planet-wide scale. This is ignored in the modeling, as far as I'm aware, but huge changes have been made to this giant plant sized biochemical reactor by human population expansion.
Feel free to prove me wrong with a link to a study that discusses this particular effect, and then we can examine the merits of that study. But I'm not going to play the Internet Insult Game with you any longer. It's a childish waste of time. If I want that, I'll go argue about SEC football on some other website.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
My point was that OF COURSE it feels cooler under a tree compared to an open crop. I already said that many times. That doesn't mean that it makes the entire *atmosphere* hotter. If I stand on a hot asphalt parking lot in the sun I am hotter than if I stand under the shade of a hot asphalt roof. The energy balance of earth is the same, but the tiny volume of air in which I stand is cooler because the roof blocks radiant energy from getting to me and the ground I stand on.
You keep saying that but have yet to back it up. Crops are engineered and hybridized to grow much, much faster than natural trees. That means they photosynthesize FASTER, which means if you are giong to invoke chemical reactions, then it only strengthens the case of a cooling effect of agriculture.
No, it isn't. The forest feels cooler because the sunlight is being absorbed and re-radiated at the canopy, rather than on the soil and/or on your skin. The result is that the volume of air under the canopy doesn't get nearly as much radiative energy as does the canopy (or field at ground level), and so stays cooler.
A crop is warmer than a forest but if you were standing at the canopy of the forest it would be equally warm, if not warmer, than you feel at the surface of a crop (negating secondary effects like wind)
And you're ignoring the major effect of increased snow-cover albedo, which is hugely important in temperate zones that typically had thick forests replaced with flat crops.
I already said that with two equal albedos--one biological and the other not--the biological one would be cooler. The question is the difference between agriculture and forests.
Many biological effects are taken into account in climate models, including those dependent on tempearture, CO2 concentrations, deforestation, and precipitation.
Again, it's your burden to research and support *your* hypothesis.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
For the life of me I can't figure out who's ahead:)
Regards,
Mike
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The Fate of Greenland
Lessons from Abrupt Climate Change
"Geological evidence suggests that Greenland has already been affected by two dramatic changes in climate: the Medieval Warm Period, when warm temperatures in Northern Europe enabled Norse exploration and settlements in Greenland; and the Little Ice Age that followed and apparently wiped out the settlements. Greenland's climate past and present could presage our climate future. Abrupt climate change would be cataclysmic: the melting of Greenland's ice shelf would cause sea levels to rise twenty-four feet worldwide; lower Manhattan would be underwater and Florida's coastline would recede to Orlando."
http://mit
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
If you divide the volume of the Greenland Ice Sheet by the surface area of the world's oceans, you get a 24 ft increase in fluid level. I don't think that the earth's oceans are actually constrained to today's boundaries (neither does MIT since they say that Orlando gets a beach) and relatively small increases in the surface area make a significant impact on the magnitude of the elevation change.
Bottom line is that the amount of water captured in ice is not a constant. It has changed many times over the millenia and will change many more times before the sun runs out of fuel. Articles like you linked are simply an effort to increase the level of fear in the population. That makes for newspaper sales and for grants for climate scientists. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy for individuals to see their own personal self interest aligned with fear mongering.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Begging the question is the technical term.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Nope. My position is it could be stuff other than carbon. If your position is that we are sure it's primarily carbon, then it's your job to rule out everything else other than carbon.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
And it *COULD* be fairy dust from Europa or the reflection from a thousand orbiting teapots. To demand that every creative idea be ruled out before an already strongly supported hypothesis be accepted is a fantastically convenient way to delay action until never, because the wonder of human creativity means that there are precisely infinity "alternative" explanations that might be dreamed up. There will NEVER be a time when SOMEONE won't be able to think of a different answer, and that is the case for every single scientific theory out there. Same tactic the creationists do when offering their little prizes for someone to "prove" evolution: they never pay up because they can always just flip to the next page of their notepad and say "well what about THIS explanation?"
If you make a legitimate and strong case for your hypothesis then it should be my burden to address that hypothesis if it is contradictory to the one that I support. But you haven't; so far your case has amounted to little more than speculation and "maybes" with a bit of conspiracy theory. There are thousands of flavors of that floating around and I'm not really interested in indulging it further. I think I have already spent more time entertaining it than most others would. If you take the time to develop a strong scientific argument then I'll be very interested to read it, because at the very least your idea *is* original, and I respect that. But I'm not going to continue doing your homework for you.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Under the scientific method it is every scientist's task to try and disprove the original hypothesis.
But I forget, the scientific method has been suspended for the duration.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
Sorry it is a badly formatted long quote, but it raises so many things that are missing from the AGW debate, and the general style of papers seen when they involve computer models and their calibration. Remember, in Feynman's opinion if you don't do this stuff you aren't doing real science.
"But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science.
That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying
science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just
hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific
investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now
and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity,
a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of
utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if
you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you
think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and
things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other
experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can
tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be
given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know
anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you
make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then
you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well
as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem.
When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate
theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that
those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea
for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else
come out right, in addition."
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The data from Mauna Loa correlate well with data from many, many other weather stations, and with the ice core data.
No credible scientist disputes the rise in atmospheric CO2.
While you are correct that correlation, even strong correlation, does not prove causation, it is possible to check the validity of the correlation of CO2 with fossil carbon combustion by many secondary means. This has been done, repeatedly.
Again, you can dispute the importance of atmospheric CO2 forcing on overall global temperature and I'll have some respect for that position, although I don't share it. But to dispute the atmopheric CO2 concentration rise itself is pretty clear evidence of bias in your analysis.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Checking the correlation between "temperature" and CO2 is done using methods that are typically +/-100 years for the recent data and +/-1000 for the older correlations. The granularity of this data simply does not support a determination of whether CO2 is a leading, lagging, or non indicator of climate change.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Here is some interesting time-lapse photography:
http://www.extremeicesurvey.org/index.php
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Wouldn't that pretty much put the entire peninsula under water?
"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Pay close attention to the red lines.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
"... Since the early twentieth century, with few exceptions, glaciers around the world have been retreating at unprecedented rates. Some scientists attribute this massive glacial retreat to the Industrial Revolution, which began around 1760. In fact, some ice caps, glaciers and even an ice shelf have disappeared altogether in this century. Many more are retreating so rapidly that they may vanish within a matter of decades..."
http://ns
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Not exactly what I was brought up to think of as "calm scientific discourse". More like what you'd expect from the tabloids.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
wind t€urbines seem to be spinning less than spinned about as in this article which looks at a recent self-serving declaration by Renewables UK.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
This must be one of the few exceptions:
New sat data shows Himalayan glaciers hardly melting at all
Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Denier !!
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/300424/300424
I think they are beginning to suspect something.
B.E.
The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Also, the writer does not understand that one season, over one continent, is not indicative of global climate. Ask North Americans how their "winter" went this year; we've been setting record highs from temperature and record lows for snow fall all winter.
Garbage "journalism" like this, from either side, does not belong in a rational conversation about an important topic. We need to stop polarizing the debate.
People wonder why these topics always turn into a huge argument...
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The horse is dead. Please stop beating him.
Maui
www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
i think the sun'll burn out before people change their opinions ...
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Oh, it is? Well why didn't someone say so?
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I think more likely you will feel more of the hands of goverment around your .... (whatever you want to add).
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
This is want people need to recognize.
Regards,
Mike
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I suppose that in the meantime, a little sprinkling of fairy pixie dust should help...
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
But I wouldn't say that expanding production of wind turbines is a "waste". They supplement existing generation facilities, and give private investors more confidence for risking their money on related products, e.g. efficient storage techniques. I doubt many people would be as willing to put money investing in storage techniques if the prospect of government-backed wind subsidies were more grim.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Regards,
Mike
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Amongst the many many admirers of renewable energy the National Trust (in the UK) stood out and they were strong supporters of wind power.... until they saw the light. Or rather they saw the darkness and the blight on the landscape.
The National Trust has now denounced wind power quiet vehemently.
The UK Government, still pretty gung ho about all this AGW nonsense, is being advised to be careful as the NT has 4 million loyal members naturally inclined to like pastoral scenery old castles and ruined abbeys, Country houses and national monuments. Not exactly naturally inclined to wind turbines at the best of times and the National Trust Board has to be very wary of its members.
National Trust members are all pretty much solid electors and a fair bet would assess a substantial proportion as normally voting Tory.
IT is thus a distinct possibility that Cameron may have to think carefully about this especially with over 100 back benchers starting to realise they have nothing to fear from the government whips and who recently discovered (way after the electorate) that Cameron is not actually a Tory.
So between the back benchers and the NT membership maybe we have a glimmer of light here.
Storage. Ah yes.
In Scotland, noting how sheep like to sleep on the roads at night and more so since the nice old style brown chipping stone surface has given way to black tarmac, it was proposed to install a heat sink to conduct heat from the roads to underground storage so they could release it in the winter months.
For electricity, the latest bright idea seems to be to super cool air and store it somehow. Then, when they want the air to drive turbines they heat it up.
Unfortunately some one asked about efficiency and got the brush off.
And yes, efficiency of storage schemes never seems to be raised.
We have a certain capacity and we seem to always get far less than capacity. Now of what we have we use some of the energy storing energy and more of the energy recovering energy.
Oh, and the other thing in the UK is the government is trying to halve the feed in tarrifs.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I think you have defined the thing that SHOULD be the golden fleece--effeciency. I'm looking at microturbines for a project and found a case study that was generating far more power than they needed and putting the excess into the grid for the sole purpose of generating heat for an Olympic swimming complex (I won't argue that keeping 500,000 gallons of water warm is socially responsible, they are going to do it regardless of what anyone wants). The process got 87% of the energy of the fuel into a useful form. The microturbine replaced grid power (which tends to get about 25-30% of the energy from the fuel consumed) and a significant steam load (the boiler got around 60% of the energy from the fuel).
Projects like that should be shouted from the steeples. Instead we hear about some really marginal "green" activities (e.g., ethanol which is less effective than bio-diesel, industrial scale solar panels which are less effective than everything, and wind farms that increase emissions of bad stuff because the plants that have to supplement them emit lots of NOx, SOx, and BTEX when they have to start up cold to fill in the deficiencies).
We should be looking for incremental effeciency improvements (just because it is always good to spend fewer resources on something you are going to do anyway) instead of political BS.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Conversation may not have been the appropriate term; it is more of a debate. And like debates, the debaters are not trying to switch each others position; they are defending their side through points and counter-points to inform neutral parties.
This is how this topic should be discussed and a lot of the comments in this thread do contribute to a good debate (I've found a lot of this thread very interesting). However, when someone makes a "point" along the lines of "you're an idiot and your side is crazy" then the debate breaks down into a squakfest. (note that I'm speaking to the article and not a post)
I've talked to this point in other threads but the terms and language we use cannot be slanderous to the other side, it should focus on providing evidence to the side you are defending or dissecting the evidence provided by the other side.
SnTman,
I should clarify, the content of the article, other than the "one cold season = global warming is false" comment, is not what I'm questioning, it's how it was written (see above).
However, I would like to comment that although wind may not allow you to close down other plants, it can be an important contributor to your energy portfolio and usually decreases your overall $/kW produced and emissions/kW produced. For example, if you are primarily hydro and you have a drought, wind can help minimize the amount of import electricity you need. If you have primarily natural gas and gas prices get hiked up or you go above you quota for supply and have to pay penalities (assuming your an importer of gas), wind can minimize that impact. It all depends on how it works with your other forms of generation.
But, as you stated, it is not the "answer" to renewable energy supply on its own. That I definitely agree with and get just as frustrated when it gets paraded around as the miracle cure.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
But, hey, it's entertaining.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Then there is the separate roadblock of why a few select efficiency measures--such as using smaller cars or more efficient light bulbs--result in millions of paranoid people shouting about how the government is using these measures as an excuse for some sadistic, communistic power-grab. But that's its own mystery.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Conventional wisdom says you are exactly right about wind turbines having no ongoing emissions. Trouble is that conventional wisdom generally glosses over the details.
I've read three different articles over the last year where people who operate fossil fuel power plants are claiming that they have to take their plants all the way cold when the wind turbines are generating power (because of the pressure they are under to minimize CO2 exhaust), and when the wind starts to die they have to do a cold start really fast. All of their emissions control stuff requires hot, steady state operations and they all have a Startup/Shut-down/Maintenance (SSM) exemption to the emissions standards. So if they have to cold-start the plant 2-3 times a day, the total harmful emissions is much higher than it would be without the turbines. CO2 is lower, but NOx, SOx, BTEX, and VOC is much higher. I think you can lay the increased HAP and VOC at the door of the wind turbines and say that they are far from zero emissions.
Hydro is another iffy topic. The dams that contain the water used in hydro-electric power are there for a bunch of reasons. The primary one is usually flood control. The flood control goal has a release schedule built into it. Generally that (very complex) release schedule has very little flexibility built into it and if they are releasing more water than the turbines can use then they bypass the turbines--throwing the potential energy away. Every gallon of water that is bypassed because of wind turbines is a unit of potential energy that was wasted. Somewhere in the future some amount of fossil fuel will have to be burned to do the work that the bypassed gallon of water would have done.
I'm a big fan of retail "renewables". A solar panel on a remote well site to operate the automation is amazingly effective. A windmill lifting water for a stock pond has been a great idea for hundreds of years.
When we try to make "renewables" wholesale the economics simply don't scale up. Happens all the time, if one beer makes you feel good 30 should make you feel great, right? The law of unintended consequences just keeps raising its ugly head.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Shouldn't it be the same for energy solutions? Too slow and they don't make a respectable impact, too fast and you waste money trying to do too much before you're really ready do it effectively. Then the project collapses and for years you vomit at the mere thought of touching that particular variety of energy.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
I implied it was wind turbines the government was cutting the feed in tariff on but I think now it is solar panels.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Really like the line about the beers:)
Regards,
Mike
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
A lot of very good points.
The uncertainty in the generation of wind means that other plants are cycling up and down to try and keep up, this is no good. However, I see wind as a back-up, not as a primary form of generation, and that it can have a role, if used properly.
As dawei87's metaphor alluded to, if you rush these renewable forms in, because it improves your chances of re-election, and they fail then you could turn people off of a technology. This is exactly what is happening and the results are that people are starting to discount them across the board. This is wrong, they have a role now (maybe smaller scale like you said or back-up to other forms) and, I believe, will have an increasingly important role in the future.
You also have to remember that conventional forms of generation have had decades of development and lessons learned from successful/failed implementations. We need to expect renewables to have growing pains as they do require more research and development.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
On a retail scale, wind as a backup could make some sense, but I'm having trouble coming up with a scenario where I can tolerate a grid outage on a calm day if my backup is a wind turbine (or on a cloudy day if it is solar). Maybe if I'm using the turbine to keep a monster UPS charged (or pumping water to a catchment on top of a bluff and plan to run a water turbine for backup, in which case I'd run a pump off the blades instead of a generator, but that is just an effeciency tweak on the same concept).
If I install a 500 MW wind farm, my rate of return is going to suck if it is just a backup. People making that kind of investment are planning on it being primary and any backup is someone else's problem. And we put extra junk into the air.
David
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
They do this anyway as people's use of electricity changes, for varying reasons and frequencies. If they can accept the challenges of uncertain demand, I see no reason they cannot also learn to accept the challenges of uncertain supply.
Great point.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
Each design of plant has a ideal, and maximum ramp rate, and to exceed that rate just dosen't happen easy.
I thought wind power coupled with pumped water storage was a good idea. But once you understand the losses in the storage are around 50%, and wind power in many cases costs more, then it dosen't look so good.
But on a small scale lots of ideas look good. They just don't scale very well.
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
The pdf transcript is available.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? Part 2.0
HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca