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inconvenient truth- errors? 34
- Thread starter davefitz
- Start date
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2
- #122
Boy, this is more fun than TV (but what isn't?).
They say life imitates art and here we are with engineers imitating life. Since we are none of us climatologists (and none of us have the credentilas of some of the protagonists out there in the world of "Global Warming") all we can really do is take up our positions and throw web links at each other.
Then we question the ethics/morality/honmesty of the various organisations which propose the views we least like.
This thread isn't really going to go anywhere because we will none of us make that telling argument nor provide that final proof. All we can hope is that we can trust the experts in this field to recognise it for us when it happens.
At the moment we have the opposing sides building up heaps of stones and we need a climatologist (with his credability still intact) to tell us when one of them starts to look like a house.... and still there will be disenters, there still those who think the earth is flat.
The very dissent between experts and think tanks, Universities and government advisory bodies tells us that there is no concensus and that we are a long way from it.
I think we can all agree that the contributors to this thread are as divided as the "experts" and probably it would be as well to leave it at that before virtual blood gets spilt.
On the other hand, the most encouraging thing is that there are interested minds on both sides prepared to do there own thinking and not have it done for them by the media. Sadly, the majority of the population haven't done there own thinking since the printing press was invented....
JMW
( where there are a couple like this on the same idea).
They say life imitates art and here we are with engineers imitating life. Since we are none of us climatologists (and none of us have the credentilas of some of the protagonists out there in the world of "Global Warming") all we can really do is take up our positions and throw web links at each other.
Then we question the ethics/morality/honmesty of the various organisations which propose the views we least like.
This thread isn't really going to go anywhere because we will none of us make that telling argument nor provide that final proof. All we can hope is that we can trust the experts in this field to recognise it for us when it happens.
At the moment we have the opposing sides building up heaps of stones and we need a climatologist (with his credability still intact) to tell us when one of them starts to look like a house.... and still there will be disenters, there still those who think the earth is flat.
The very dissent between experts and think tanks, Universities and government advisory bodies tells us that there is no concensus and that we are a long way from it.
I think we can all agree that the contributors to this thread are as divided as the "experts" and probably it would be as well to leave it at that before virtual blood gets spilt.
On the other hand, the most encouraging thing is that there are interested minds on both sides prepared to do there own thinking and not have it done for them by the media. Sadly, the majority of the population haven't done there own thinking since the printing press was invented....
JMW
electricpete
Electrical
I think if you stick to credible sources (large recognized scientific/technical organizations), there is not nearly as much disagreement as if you read every link that comes up on google.
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moltenmetal
Chemical
jmw: the "situational science" reference details the deliberate, successful strategy of those whose ideology isn't supported by observations and our current understanding of how the universe works. The strategy is to turn the natural to-ing and fro-ing of scientific debate and discussion, plus the ravings of the lunatic fringe, into an argument which attempts to discredit the scientific consensus. That this political/ideological strategy works with technologically educated folks like those participating in this forum is extremely disheartening to me, and leaves me wondering if humankind is smart enough to survive long-term.
For some, the standards of "proof" required for action, especially action requiring alteration of our lifestyle and our economy, are too high to ever be met on this issue. For something as speculative and frankly impossible to accurately model as the earth's climate, "proof" of the etched-in-stone variety is quite frankly impossible.
But to conclude that the "do nothing" option is the best one, based on this uncertainty, is utterly moronic!
These folks don't understand how we engineers manage uncertainty. If we used a "do nothing until the harm is proven" approach to everything we did, the dead from engineering mistakes and misjudgments would be piling high on a daily basis. But we DON'T use this approach with virtually anything we do. We manage risk on the basis of the preponderance of probabilities- we do not require certainty to take protective action!
Why on earth would we behave differently with respect to the climate- something we all depend on and are utterly powerless to repair once it goes wrong?
For some, the standards of "proof" required for action, especially action requiring alteration of our lifestyle and our economy, are too high to ever be met on this issue. For something as speculative and frankly impossible to accurately model as the earth's climate, "proof" of the etched-in-stone variety is quite frankly impossible.
But to conclude that the "do nothing" option is the best one, based on this uncertainty, is utterly moronic!
These folks don't understand how we engineers manage uncertainty. If we used a "do nothing until the harm is proven" approach to everything we did, the dead from engineering mistakes and misjudgments would be piling high on a daily basis. But we DON'T use this approach with virtually anything we do. We manage risk on the basis of the preponderance of probabilities- we do not require certainty to take protective action!
Why on earth would we behave differently with respect to the climate- something we all depend on and are utterly powerless to repair once it goes wrong?
I suppose co2 levels are based on models predictions difficult to be accurate and based on lobbies’ conveniences. In one side we have the ambient fundamentalists, on the other side we have the industrials dependent on fuel fossils, maybe the truth of CO2 global warming (inconvenient or not) is in the middle of this two opposed ideas.
![[atom]](/data/assets/smilies/atom.gif "[atom] [atom]")
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1
- Thread starter
- #127
My take on this debate is:
a) the debate can be better analyzed by social psychologists than by engineers
b) regardless of whether CO2 is causing the climate changes, the climate is changing slighlty. Regardless of efforts made to stop it, the most likely long term repsonse by humanity is to adapt to it by moving to cooler areas. The changes are occurring slowly enough that the collective memory loss that occurs as each generation departs will solve the political issues- we will forget what is like to have a diverse ecosystem, etc.
What is not directly solved by a do-nothing attitude is that there is also occurring at the same time a rundown in fossil fuel resources. For example, the often touted estmate that the US has 200 yrs worth of coal deposits is based on the stipulatin that it is at the 1990 rate of coal consumption- if you correct the estimate for cosnumption increases due to expected use of gasification and CTL plants, the US DOE now estmates only 70 yrs of coal deposits.
So, it is interesting that the same political and technical measures that would address "global warming " would also tend to reduce the shock that would occur as the "peak " in fossil resources is reached. Withouts such measures, the shock to the current power structure could be politically catastrophic.
a) the debate can be better analyzed by social psychologists than by engineers
b) regardless of whether CO2 is causing the climate changes, the climate is changing slighlty. Regardless of efforts made to stop it, the most likely long term repsonse by humanity is to adapt to it by moving to cooler areas. The changes are occurring slowly enough that the collective memory loss that occurs as each generation departs will solve the political issues- we will forget what is like to have a diverse ecosystem, etc.
What is not directly solved by a do-nothing attitude is that there is also occurring at the same time a rundown in fossil fuel resources. For example, the often touted estmate that the US has 200 yrs worth of coal deposits is based on the stipulatin that it is at the 1990 rate of coal consumption- if you correct the estimate for cosnumption increases due to expected use of gasification and CTL plants, the US DOE now estmates only 70 yrs of coal deposits.
So, it is interesting that the same political and technical measures that would address "global warming " would also tend to reduce the shock that would occur as the "peak " in fossil resources is reached. Withouts such measures, the shock to the current power structure could be politically catastrophic.
moltenmetal
Chemical
davefitz: that analysis is very interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for contributing it!
I'm not worried about our ability to find new ways to exploit existing, marginal fossil fuel reserves. If merely "running out" is the concern, we'll have a very long time based on using coal, coal bed methane, methane hydrates, tarsands, oil shale etc., despite how inefficiently we use these. The planet will choke long before we reach these limits, and we along with it, unless we do something to wean ourselves from our addiction.
I'm not worried about our ability to find new ways to exploit existing, marginal fossil fuel reserves. If merely "running out" is the concern, we'll have a very long time based on using coal, coal bed methane, methane hydrates, tarsands, oil shale etc., despite how inefficiently we use these. The planet will choke long before we reach these limits, and we along with it, unless we do something to wean ourselves from our addiction.
Gasahol perhaps? Is that carbon neutral? Shame about the methane.
Er, I believe the Max Plank institute and their latest "clarification" (or an attempt to exit the climate change argument into which they strayed) which suggests we should not be alarmed by methane production by reforestation, but it shows that until they did the study, no-one had accounted for this unkown.
Incidentally, I like their comment:
"Even if land use practices have altered plant methane emissions, which we did not demonstrate, this would also count as an anthropogenic source, and the plants themselves cannot be deemed responsible."
So what is it man has been doing for the last several millenia? Is it OK for animals to affect the vegetation? what is "anthropogenic" and what is not?
Perhaps the only real way to cut consumption and maintain lifestyle is to develop a more responsible attitude toward sustainable population levels.
Of course, this will cause far more friction than the "what to do about CO2" debate.
Incidentally, has anyone agreed what environment we wish to protect?
Nature abhors a vacuum.... it also abhors the status quo.
So let's be honest, our real concern for the environment is how it affects us personally and to hell with everything else.
And that is why the angst; what is ideal for one is not for another.
So now some propose to change it in favour of one particular scenario "Stop the clock!" everyone yells, this is as good as it gets, or, actually, we need to back up a bit to an earlier idyllic time and it doesn't matter that we can't pove it yet, it is enough to suppose it might be true.
Take a look back into pre-history and what you find is that climate change that has taken us from one extreme to another and as the environment changes so too does the plant life and the animal life.
Even without ELEs (extinction level events) we see evolutionary changes where some species become dominant and others go extinct. That is a fundamental of nature.
So how can we justify stopping climate change? Will we stop at stopping just the bit we think we are responsbile for or will we find a compulsion to go further. How long ebfore we are designing the environment "we" want?
Earth life is adaptable.
Life has yet to become extinct in all its forms even in the most extreme of conditions. If we take away change, and where do we stop, what does that do for future generations? Is our responsibility just to people or to all life? To all future life?
Do we trap the bnext generation into accepting a rigidly enforced ecoregime in which it always rains on Teusdays but only at night? Sure as eggs is eggs, it won't stop wat just greenhosue gases. People aren't like that and governments less so.
So yes, what we are really concerned about is us.
But who is "us"? is it westerm consumerism we wish to protect? eskimos? do we want to preserve Faroe Islanders rights to hunt whales? or do we sacrifice that for something else altogether? Who's version of an ideal world are we seeking to protect, to enshrine for ever?
Of course we all have opinions about what is and what isn;t acceptable. The problem is that we none of us can agree.
If we mess it up, so what? Touh on people but cnature could care less. There will just be no more people around, or at least, not in SUVs, but perhaps in the stomachs of the latest species winner in the survival stakes.
Nature could care less about people, it isn't The Environment that is at risk, just our environment... In natures environment climate changes and species die out to be replaced by others.
So here we are, trying to preserve our (this century's, this specific mindset's) version of the environment, yet within this "our" we have competing viewpoints as to what we should and should not preserve.
Or am I wrong, is someone suggesting we want to revert to last years environment, last century's? who is the arbiter of what we want and don't want in our environment?
Which is the Shangrila we want?
OK, elephants are in, mosquitos out, European brown rat out, Pandas are in (because they are cuddly, is that a survival trait?)tetse fly out. SUVs are out, unless we can all have one, Air conditioning is in(?)Australian rabbits are out. Shell and BP are out (no matter what they say on their webistes) the yellow meadow ant is in (it is vegetarian). Oh, and opponents of the global warming theory (and "don't knows" and "wait for the evidencers") are also out. And I'm out. Actually, I'm not sure I want to be in even if i had a choice, if in means more nanny state and government by "Frankenstein's" complex.
So changing sea levels affect some people adversley and others beneficially. Warmer climate means population moves toward the poles, this is, after all what people and animals have doen forever, south in ice ages and north when the climate warms. Of course, if you have a condo in LA, migration is out, if you live in an RV perhaps you too can migrate with the seasons.
So who are the beneficiaries of stopping/reversing climate change? All of us? I doubt it very much, especially if it means changes to the environment (not just climate but socio/economic and technological) to meet this requirement.
For all those of you who favour the global oil company conspiracy theories behind everything, what makes the climate lobby any different?
Doing nothing isn't an option?
How about doing, as the history of attempts at environment control show all too well, more harm than good because we don't understand the problem sufficiently well and maybe we never will, at least, not enough to meddle.
Wasn't it government scientists who introduced kudzu into the US?
And no, I'm not advocating we do nothing (the stock response to nay sayers is to accuse them of being poluters); I thoroughly agree with meaningful regulation of our wastes and am active in trying to support reasonable initiatives but if the option is we quit life-as-we-know-it altogether or go for something really way-out and with doubtful benefits, count me out. I wouldn't survive in a forest anyway.
Does anyone find it ironic that governments who advocate climate change policy still put up street lights in rural areas that stay on all night whether anyone needs them or not, that take away school buses so that the schools are surrounded by 4x4s delivering children one at a time?
Yes, there are a lot of options to control how we impact our environment and many of them that are far more palatable and probably more imediately effective but ignored.
Of course, if climate change is happening and can be proved and there is a causal link between us and it, not just coincidence, and if we can and should do something, come back and talk some more.
Should means that we can justify what we do for the benefit of all and that it won't, long term, be harmful to the planet (which is quite capabale of managing itself, it just didn't expect to be hijacked by people thinking they know what's best for the planet as well as themselves) and can guarantee the results will actually be beneficial and not just another mess of unexpected consequences.
Last point: is a government agency to be trusted?
Is it impartial and acting in everyones best interests?
That would be a first!
But maybe we should re-evaluate the German Eugenics programs of the Hitler era anyway?
Tony Blair's government?
Tony thinks smoking is harmful.
If smoking is harmful, ban it entirely, but no, health alarms justify huge tax hikes (with no proven impact on smoking; in the UK all it does is increase smuggling) and hey, Bernie Ecclestone needs tobacco sponsership for a bit longer so, after a donation to the party, he gets and excemption for Formula 1 racing to continue to advertise smoking....
Climate change? what a great excuse for a carbon tax as if that is going to have any more impact than tobaco tax... you just pay more for the same polution and it justifies wind farms all over the place even if of doubtful benefit.
So if Tony Blair's government agencies are behind climate change, I want to know what the catch is. I'd sooner believe a 419 email from Nigeria telling me that millions could be mine than that government agencies are genuine, impartial, staffed by saints and have all the answers denied to everyone else.
JMW
Er, I believe the Max Plank institute and their latest "clarification" (or an attempt to exit the climate change argument into which they strayed) which suggests we should not be alarmed by methane production by reforestation, but it shows that until they did the study, no-one had accounted for this unkown.
Incidentally, I like their comment:
"Even if land use practices have altered plant methane emissions, which we did not demonstrate, this would also count as an anthropogenic source, and the plants themselves cannot be deemed responsible."
So what is it man has been doing for the last several millenia? Is it OK for animals to affect the vegetation? what is "anthropogenic" and what is not?
Perhaps the only real way to cut consumption and maintain lifestyle is to develop a more responsible attitude toward sustainable population levels.
Of course, this will cause far more friction than the "what to do about CO2" debate.
Incidentally, has anyone agreed what environment we wish to protect?
Nature abhors a vacuum.... it also abhors the status quo.
So let's be honest, our real concern for the environment is how it affects us personally and to hell with everything else.
And that is why the angst; what is ideal for one is not for another.
So now some propose to change it in favour of one particular scenario "Stop the clock!" everyone yells, this is as good as it gets, or, actually, we need to back up a bit to an earlier idyllic time and it doesn't matter that we can't pove it yet, it is enough to suppose it might be true.
Take a look back into pre-history and what you find is that climate change that has taken us from one extreme to another and as the environment changes so too does the plant life and the animal life.
Even without ELEs (extinction level events) we see evolutionary changes where some species become dominant and others go extinct. That is a fundamental of nature.
So how can we justify stopping climate change? Will we stop at stopping just the bit we think we are responsbile for or will we find a compulsion to go further. How long ebfore we are designing the environment "we" want?
Earth life is adaptable.
Life has yet to become extinct in all its forms even in the most extreme of conditions. If we take away change, and where do we stop, what does that do for future generations? Is our responsibility just to people or to all life? To all future life?
Do we trap the bnext generation into accepting a rigidly enforced ecoregime in which it always rains on Teusdays but only at night? Sure as eggs is eggs, it won't stop wat just greenhosue gases. People aren't like that and governments less so.
So yes, what we are really concerned about is us.
But who is "us"? is it westerm consumerism we wish to protect? eskimos? do we want to preserve Faroe Islanders rights to hunt whales? or do we sacrifice that for something else altogether? Who's version of an ideal world are we seeking to protect, to enshrine for ever?
Of course we all have opinions about what is and what isn;t acceptable. The problem is that we none of us can agree.
If we mess it up, so what? Touh on people but cnature could care less. There will just be no more people around, or at least, not in SUVs, but perhaps in the stomachs of the latest species winner in the survival stakes.
Nature could care less about people, it isn't The Environment that is at risk, just our environment... In natures environment climate changes and species die out to be replaced by others.
So here we are, trying to preserve our (this century's, this specific mindset's) version of the environment, yet within this "our" we have competing viewpoints as to what we should and should not preserve.
Or am I wrong, is someone suggesting we want to revert to last years environment, last century's? who is the arbiter of what we want and don't want in our environment?
Which is the Shangrila we want?
OK, elephants are in, mosquitos out, European brown rat out, Pandas are in (because they are cuddly, is that a survival trait?)tetse fly out. SUVs are out, unless we can all have one, Air conditioning is in(?)Australian rabbits are out. Shell and BP are out (no matter what they say on their webistes) the yellow meadow ant is in (it is vegetarian). Oh, and opponents of the global warming theory (and "don't knows" and "wait for the evidencers") are also out. And I'm out. Actually, I'm not sure I want to be in even if i had a choice, if in means more nanny state and government by "Frankenstein's" complex.
So changing sea levels affect some people adversley and others beneficially. Warmer climate means population moves toward the poles, this is, after all what people and animals have doen forever, south in ice ages and north when the climate warms. Of course, if you have a condo in LA, migration is out, if you live in an RV perhaps you too can migrate with the seasons.
So who are the beneficiaries of stopping/reversing climate change? All of us? I doubt it very much, especially if it means changes to the environment (not just climate but socio/economic and technological) to meet this requirement.
For all those of you who favour the global oil company conspiracy theories behind everything, what makes the climate lobby any different?
Doing nothing isn't an option?
How about doing, as the history of attempts at environment control show all too well, more harm than good because we don't understand the problem sufficiently well and maybe we never will, at least, not enough to meddle.
Wasn't it government scientists who introduced kudzu into the US?
And no, I'm not advocating we do nothing (the stock response to nay sayers is to accuse them of being poluters); I thoroughly agree with meaningful regulation of our wastes and am active in trying to support reasonable initiatives but if the option is we quit life-as-we-know-it altogether or go for something really way-out and with doubtful benefits, count me out. I wouldn't survive in a forest anyway.
Does anyone find it ironic that governments who advocate climate change policy still put up street lights in rural areas that stay on all night whether anyone needs them or not, that take away school buses so that the schools are surrounded by 4x4s delivering children one at a time?
Yes, there are a lot of options to control how we impact our environment and many of them that are far more palatable and probably more imediately effective but ignored.
Of course, if climate change is happening and can be proved and there is a causal link between us and it, not just coincidence, and if we can and should do something, come back and talk some more.
Should means that we can justify what we do for the benefit of all and that it won't, long term, be harmful to the planet (which is quite capabale of managing itself, it just didn't expect to be hijacked by people thinking they know what's best for the planet as well as themselves) and can guarantee the results will actually be beneficial and not just another mess of unexpected consequences.
Last point: is a government agency to be trusted?
Is it impartial and acting in everyones best interests?
That would be a first!
But maybe we should re-evaluate the German Eugenics programs of the Hitler era anyway?
Tony Blair's government?
Tony thinks smoking is harmful.
If smoking is harmful, ban it entirely, but no, health alarms justify huge tax hikes (with no proven impact on smoking; in the UK all it does is increase smuggling) and hey, Bernie Ecclestone needs tobacco sponsership for a bit longer so, after a donation to the party, he gets and excemption for Formula 1 racing to continue to advertise smoking....
Climate change? what a great excuse for a carbon tax as if that is going to have any more impact than tobaco tax... you just pay more for the same polution and it justifies wind farms all over the place even if of doubtful benefit.
So if Tony Blair's government agencies are behind climate change, I want to know what the catch is. I'd sooner believe a 419 email from Nigeria telling me that millions could be mine than that government agencies are genuine, impartial, staffed by saints and have all the answers denied to everyone else.
JMW
It's definitely true that this is a polarized discussion, and the consensus is that Earth is warming. What is not in consensus is what is the cause - especially since the oceans, the largest heat storage mass by far, are not heating - in fact have been cooling lately. Arable land destruction (and development generally) will warm the land too. Methane has not increased in years.
The other side of the equation is the question is warming bad. It has not been in Homo sapiens history - in fact it gives us an advantage. Cooling has always been the problem, despite what the climate luddites proclaim.
And, in spite of the shortsighted view, the carbon tax wannabes have their own agenda - especially Gore et al.
Imagination is more important than knowledge - who said that? Imagine wheat growing all the way to the Arctic Ocean, and ice free shipping from there globally. Would that be so bad? I'm not sure that it would. We should find out though - so we should put money into research instead of hobbling civilization.
The other side of the equation is the question is warming bad. It has not been in Homo sapiens history - in fact it gives us an advantage. Cooling has always been the problem, despite what the climate luddites proclaim.
And, in spite of the shortsighted view, the carbon tax wannabes have their own agenda - especially Gore et al.
Imagination is more important than knowledge - who said that? Imagine wheat growing all the way to the Arctic Ocean, and ice free shipping from there globally. Would that be so bad? I'm not sure that it would. We should find out though - so we should put money into research instead of hobbling civilization.
This is really a conundrum discussion the hearth is absorbing more heat from the sun than the heat she radiates so the hearth is becoming warm and warm. Volcanoes, solar flares, nuclear explosions industry emissions, airplanes and urban traffic, fossil fuels, forest fires, population increasing, all seem to be contributors for this so called “global warming”. Who has the “magic stick” to inverse the situation? Our behaviour? Governments? Industry? Research? New Energies? World solidarity?
We have to interiorise seriously this problem for the benefit of future generations and before we “all gone”.
We have to interiorise seriously this problem for the benefit of future generations and before we “all gone”.
Fossil fuels have sulphur.
A large power station would produce sufficient sulphur oxides which contribute to global cooling to balance the CO2 contributing to global warming i.e. global warming neutral on average.
SOX causes health hazards and "acid rain".
At one point fossil fuels contributed 33% of the SOX in the air, 30% being from land based fossil fuel consumption.
Ultralow sulphur fuels have been successful in reducing the SOX contribution from land based burning alomst entirely. What's left is that in marine fuels and we are starting on that now.
The CO2 continues to be produced.
Anyone got any data on "global warming" related to when we cut the sulphur from fuels?
Do the models include for this data?
Isn't this single issue thinking just what we need to avoid? I can imagine the same arguments applied to sulphur as to global warming, "We don't know everything but we can't afford to do nothing. It makes sense to take the sulphur out now." This is treating symptoms (SOX)not the cause: fossil fuel burning.
Until the models account for everything, until we can anticipate consequences, don't get stampeded ar do the stampeding.
JMW
A large power station would produce sufficient sulphur oxides which contribute to global cooling to balance the CO2 contributing to global warming i.e. global warming neutral on average.
SOX causes health hazards and "acid rain".
At one point fossil fuels contributed 33% of the SOX in the air, 30% being from land based fossil fuel consumption.
Ultralow sulphur fuels have been successful in reducing the SOX contribution from land based burning alomst entirely. What's left is that in marine fuels and we are starting on that now.
The CO2 continues to be produced.
Anyone got any data on "global warming" related to when we cut the sulphur from fuels?
Do the models include for this data?
Isn't this single issue thinking just what we need to avoid? I can imagine the same arguments applied to sulphur as to global warming, "We don't know everything but we can't afford to do nothing. It makes sense to take the sulphur out now." This is treating symptoms (SOX)not the cause: fossil fuel burning.
Until the models account for everything, until we can anticipate consequences, don't get stampeded ar do the stampeding.
JMW
tgmcg
Mechanical
- Feb 21, 2004
- 191
Moltenmetal,
"But to conclude that the "do nothing" option is the best one, based on this uncertainty, is utterly moronic!"
It is a certainty that Earth will one day be hit by a massive meteor, if not asteroid, which will result in the deaths of millions.
Is it likewise "utterly moronic" to do nothing about this threat, which is arguably more certain to occur than catastrophic global warming?
Resorting to such ad hominem attacks against men of science, such as ourselves, who hold a different opinion on the matter does not enhance one's credibility....no matter how loud one shouts.
"But to conclude that the "do nothing" option is the best one, based on this uncertainty, is utterly moronic!"
It is a certainty that Earth will one day be hit by a massive meteor, if not asteroid, which will result in the deaths of millions.
Is it likewise "utterly moronic" to do nothing about this threat, which is arguably more certain to occur than catastrophic global warming?
Resorting to such ad hominem attacks against men of science, such as ourselves, who hold a different opinion on the matter does not enhance one's credibility....no matter how loud one shouts.
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