It's a shame how here in the U.S. and across the world how the loudest mouth gets the most attention while the truth lingers.  Unfortunately, such a propaganda machine causes harsh economic conditions while putting people into a panic, forcing technology changeovers and exhausting capital resources within short time intervals.

Now I will say I believe in pursuing alternative energy sources.  My reasoning is simply in avoiding the fickle energy market, which seems to grip the world so tightly.  In simple lean manufacturing terms, we, engineers, should always pursue higher efficiency and reduced waste.

With that said, being engineers we have the answers.  We're also intelligent enough to decipher data, false or true.  This man should be banished from his profession, much like what would happen in a small engineering firm.  As entrepreneurs and business leaders, we can actually use logic and reasoning rather than devious data to prove a course of action, not sell one.

I think further reading from John Coleman (founder of the weather channel, later fired for not supporting global warming) would be very enlightening to the readers on this forum.

Kyle

Kyle Chandler
www.chiefengineering.net

 

The people who are selling these ideas are in good positions to make money from us buying into there ideas.
Very simular the the method used by playboy, to sell a life style where they make money from it (Hey how about a global warming bunny).

The idea of fireing people for disbeleaf of a flawed theory, is somewhat chilling. But this is a simular hole that a large part of the news media is facing. Everyone believes the sameway so they can't see why there ratings are declining.

As for loud mouths, I'll have to agree. I tried to educate people, but screamers typically don't like education. I've given up, they keep screaming and I'm tired.
I strongly oppose AGW, have done a bit of research and found some of the flaws. Not to say that there has not been a warming trend, because there was some, but going as far as to blame it on anthropogenic causes and commiting financial suicide.... well, I'd like more concrete data before harking out cash. Unfortunately, if this keeps going on, my cash will leave me before I have a chance to hold on to it.
Now and then I give greenies some enlightment but I still get their religious propaganda thrown back at me, with no real scientific data to back it, obviously.
I have gone as far as agreeing that the industry should pay for pollution (not only gaseous emissions) but instead of taxing it, why not allow them to do a write-off of investments in pollution reduction?
That did not go overly well. Apparently people that believe they can somehow forecast something as vast as weather/climate well into tens of years in the future, cannot figure out how to account for pollution reduction.
I've given up, they scream and I go back to my world, where 1+1=2 and not maybe 3.5 in about 50years.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Wow 1+1=3.5 in about 50 years.
Is that the new fuzzy math of global warming?
Or maybe that is the reason the averige IQ is only 100.

Did anyone see the recent Forbes article on ethonol, in the special issue?
The carbon savings of corn ethonol is about the cost to produce the same. Yet it gets tax benifits, and is loved by the geens.

If we do the math on wind it probally comes out the same with the carbon used to make the steel.

So many of these seem to be just job/money schemes for rich people. Yet we pay more so someone else can feel good.

Cranky108 - the average IQ is 100 because that's how it's defined

Whether climate change is natural or being accelerated by people isn't really the issue (as other people have said in the past) what we should be focussing on is whether the planet can actually support our demands on it. There's a phrase (in ecology i think) called "carrying capacity" which is applicable...can the planet actually support the growth in populations which demand energy usage at the levels of "western" society - probably not!

It's "too big" a problem to solve unilaterally so all the countries will continue to debate the issue (for however long it takes) and eventually market forces will dictate when resources start to dwindle... but nobody knows when that will happen so it's head in the sand for another big problem (never mind who owns the resources...)

Natural selection in the human population (which is currently being stalled by technological intervention) will eventually take place whether that's via climate change / flooding affecting agriculture (via flooding or drought) or folks not having enough energy to stay warm because fuel resources are scarce (or too expensive)

IMO we need to consume less and strive to be as efficient as possible - learn to be happy with what we have and not what adverts on TV say we need...is it only me or does anyone else remember when "stuff" used to last a lot longer. Consumer goods / TVs / Cars all seem to have a built in obsolence whereas before they were just used until they were unrepairable - now it's not unusual to be told that something is beyond "economic repair" i.e. it's cheaper to buy a new one than repair the old one...it's like a juggernaut we can't even get off anymore because (certainly in the UK) most if not all the repair shops have gone out of business!

OK rant over - i'm going to have a cup of coffee now

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary - William of Occam

well i disagree with "Whether climate change is natural or being accelerated by people isn't really the issue" 'cause the politics drivng AGW leds directly to redefining the problem from "climate change" to "control atmospheric CO2", which IMHO leads to solutions that don't help the "problem".

 

rb -

The wool is being pulled over the public's eyes by those wanting to make a buck off the fear - e.g. Al Gore.  The human tendency to get sucked into original sin helps the leeches...

Well, a pretty interesting site altogether.
I guess that because we are mostly surrounded by successful inventions we tend to neglect the fact that the successful inventions are the tip of an increasingly bizarre iceberg.
(Until the American Inventor TV show).

I had to chuckle when looking through the section on monowheels (http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/motorwhl/motorwhl.htm#1) and when we get to the Greene and Dyer (1869) monowheel the comment is made that the seat is rather high with an ever present risk of "Gerbilling".

Gerbilling.
Love it.

Actually, it would probably be the next big fad if one were to produce a modern version, I mean, you see people getting into giant inflatable balls and rolling themselves down hills so why not?

I'm surprised the section on two wheeled cars stops where it does because, unless I am very mistaken, there is a modern extension to this concept complete with stabiliser wheels that let down. Switzerland somehow figures in my memory. ANy ideas?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

You know it's funny how you don't hear nearly as much about ozone depletion anymore.  Maybe it has to do with onslaught of new products like new refrigerants, compressed canisters (not using CFCs), better smog control and the Air Force doing ozone drops at high altitudes.  Plainly said, some people made a lot of money.  It's hard to make as much of an issue anymore.

I think the same will happen with climate change.  We'll have a change in energy resources and waste management and become at least somewhat efficient people.  After that is addressed, it'll be hard to ask people to do much more.  But, of course, people will notice the climate will continue to change.  Welcome to life.  Everyone will follow with the everlasting words, "Well, sh#@!".  Like LCruiser said, fear drives money out of people.  Self-interest, that's something that'll never change.

Kyle Chandler
www.chiefengineering.net

 

Well, a pretty interesting site altogether.
I guess that because we are mostly surrounded by successful inventions we tend to neglect the fact that the successful inventions are the tip of an increasingly bizarre iceberg.
(Until the American Inventor TV show).

I had to chuckle when looking through the section on monowheels (http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/motorwhl/motorwhl.htm#1) and when we get to the Greene and Dyer (1869) monowheel the comment is made that the seat is rather high with an ever present risk of "Gerbilling".

Gerbilling.
Love it.

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

You can go to either the UAH MSU or RSS MSU sites, get the satellite data, and do your own spreadsheet curve fits - you will see that the global temperature has been declining this century.  Even the northern hemisphere - despite the black carbon pollution on the northern ice - has been cooling this century - just barely, but it has.  The relatively pure southern hemisphere is cooling quite fast.

"the truth ! ... you can't handle the truth"

"don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up"

"blasphemer!  
All I said was ..."

LCruiser - Yes the global temperature appears to have been going down this century. However an argument against taking this too seriously is that the data is too weak to get a decent RSquared. When you add data back to say 1900 you get a decent RSquared but the temperature trend is up. I don't know enough statistics to figure this out, maybe someone else does. A handy site to look at temperature versus time with accompanyin statistics is http://alanpburke.homeip.net/ClimateChange/Temperatures.aspx
 

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

• http://alanpburke.homeip.net/ClimateChange/Temperatures.aspx

owg -

The Urban Heat Island is a funny thing.  It is supposedly corrected for, but even after that "correction" urban sites have warmed much more than rural ones.  Here's a good site for that:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Anybody quoting anything except the satellite temperatures is quoting gigo information.  The RSquared is only important looking for monotonic trends.  

The fact is that some "scientists" have been raising the alarm for decades, and we've kept pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.  Well, we're still doing that but the temperature is falling.  How come people don't get that?  This cooling trend has been predicted for years, by this method:

http://www.dsri.dk/~hsv/Noter/solsys99.html

But aren't we looking for a monotonic trend? Oh no something else to think about, my head is starting to hurt.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Christopher Booker continues to pick holes in the propaganda surrounding the AGW hypothesis in the Sunday Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/23/do2310b.xml
but what I found interesting were the "readers comments". The first declared CB a "t**t" though why he didn't actually say "twit" I don't know.
Others offered more measured comments supporting him with links to recent reports about the arctic ice trapping whales that will now have to be culled.
Back come the AGW with a comment "Christopher Booker is a deluded liar." and so on. One AGW supporter did offer a link but it was to the UK's Met Office... er not reliable I would think.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Yet this Winter we keep setting record high tempetures. And the march for global warming in Washington was interrupted buy the unusually large amount of snow.

You just can't see something like this by standing in one place. The gulf stream moves and makes the local weather hotter or colder depending on what it's dragging along.

Now has anyong seen a chart showing recourds of sunlight on earth? Has it been determined anywhere that this is stable?

"Now has anyong seen a chart showing recourds of sunlight on earth?"

Better would be a chart showing solar irradiance above the atmosphere over the decades.  We should have at least 100 years of such data, given that sounding balloons, rockets, etc. have been around at least that long.

Gee, why there is such a chart... see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar-cycle-data.png

The second and third images are particularly interesting, showing peak values in the last century, and mostly in this last half.  And the top chart is interesting when viewed in reverse order to the bottom two, noting that peak solar irradiance during the last sunspot maximum peaked at lower levels than in prior decades.

But, sunspots don't correlate at all to global temperatures, or so I was told by an astrophysicist at the U of Wash. a year or three ago...

Right.

bio-fuels... bio-fuels.... Wouldn't these biofuels also create GHGE? Ok, we do not burn fossil fuels, we burn our food instead... that will ALSO create CO2 emissions AND deplete our food supply.
Am I missing something here? why are the greenies supporting bio-fuels?

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

I don't think that anyone has tried to understand or perform research on the subject of increasing life span and the proportional increase in menopausal women. I've noticed a severe decrease in temperature in the last few years where I live.

Lets see, we burn our food in our cars, and we pay farmers to not grow crops. What do they have in common other than more money? Oh, and we have genetelicly modified crops to increase our food supply.

Wouden't we just be better off if we insisted farmers use horses in place of tractors? (reduse oil imports, reduce crop yields, make farmers more money with higher crop prices).

 

OMG I started a franchise!

3rd set already arent we opinionated!

 

The ultimate test would be to require farmers to burn alcohol from grain and see if any net product emerges.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/ap_on_re_eu/eu_poland_climate_science

Well, there you go.

V

Oh, but it gets better: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/oil-business-climate-change-flooding

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

We are borg, we will make you pay for global warming.

Or you can join us and plant trees in death valley.

It's all emotion, very little fact (Where's the beef).

Per unotecs' link we can see what it's all about.

"Give me some money".

Regards,

Mike

Looking at unotec's article, I think it's funny how two of the failures claimed during the UK flood of 2000 were power loss and train service cancellation.  The people weren't complaining when that fossil fuel energy gave them electricity and means of transportation but blame it and even want retribution when it fails.  It's a clear case of don't bite the hand that feeds you.

If we start seeking financial gain from the courts because of nature's fury, where does it end?  Although I feel for people stranded in the Midwest or Coastal regions (U.S) and other parts of the world with violent weather, you CHOOSE where you live.  You also must accept the consequences of that decision, just like in many other scenarios.  You build below sea level, expect to be flooded.  Engineering can't always bail you out.  Alright, I'm done venting.

Kyle Chandler
www.chiefengineering.net

 

So kchan711, we should not be concerned about the consequences that happen to people from other than weather causes?
Earthquakes, forest fires, volcanos usually don't happen to people in the midwest US.

The issue is simply that no place is completly safe from mother nature, and deversity of living area is the best chance for a species to survive (yes also the human species).
Pitty the species that can't adapt.

This thread is about weather and climate change, but other areas also have horrible natural disasters like the ones you pointed out.  It's also noted that I never said leave concern to the wayside in any area of the world, but you need to accept and adapt to the area you live.

Oh, and the worst natural or artificial (depends how you look at it) disaster is the human being.  Adaptation and working with our environment are not among our numerous attributes.

Kyle Chandler
www.chiefengineering.net

 

Having lived in the midwest, I'm sort of sensitive to people saying no one should live there because of tornados.

We do need to adapt to where we live, or adapt where we live. And after a point it isen't cost effective to adapt, but it is cost effective to move.

We are able to adapt, but more than that, it takes technology to adapt or change our enviroment. And if we look at where that technology comes from, it is from having to solve problems.


 

I am always rather shocked when I find Engineers on the this side of the argument. It seems clear to me that you all should have received the type of education required to do a high level analysis of the topic or at least trust the peer review process to ultimately give you an increasingly accurate picture of what's going on.

I can also understand how difficult it is to challenge your own base assumptions. When something becomes part of political discourse it becomes nearly impossible to back track away from any opinion or world view. So I will try to make as pleasant of an argument as I can.

First, the theoretical underpinnings of anthropomorphic climate change appears to be very robust. As with any new area of study there has been drift over the past twenty years as exponentially more brain/hours are dumped into studying the system. There has been zero research that has withstood the rigor of peer review that challenges its fundamental premise. What does this mean....? It means that the same process that yielded the solid state physics of the transistor, the nuclear physics of modern thermonuclear weapons, and the double helix of DNA says that the surface level atmospheric temperature will rise. This makes sense at a fundamental physics level. You increase the quantity of a compound with a vibrational absorption band in the IR in the atmosphere and you will increase the total absorbed energy of the atmosphere.

Second, the peer reviewed attempts to understand the implications of this indicate that the additional heating caused by doubling the amount of CO2 most likely will have serious consequences for us. There are lots of academic battles being fought in this arena. However, keep in mind that these researchers are trying to unravel an amazingly complex nonlinear chaotic system.

Third, there are "scientists", and even PhDs, that are publicly opposed to the foundations of the consensus conclusions of the climate change field. These people are pariahs. They are cranks trying to capitalize on the intense conviction of some in this country to prove to themselves that climate change is simply scare mongering. They get paraded around talk radio where they can pontificate about the folly and agendas of the climate change crowd. They publish books instead of journal papers. They give lectures instead of testing their Earth shattering hypothesis.

This whole thing reminds me the atmosphere that surrounded Relativity during the 20's and 30's. We have the benefit of growing up during the time when Einstein was considered the apex of intellectual achievement. What would you have made of it at the time when an extremely vocal group of Nobel Prize winning scientists tried to shout down General Relativity? Would you have been caught up in Deutsche Physik? Or would you have asked Nobel Prize winners Philipp Lénárd and Johannes Stark if they had any experimental evidence for their "aether" theory?

When a pamphlet was published entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, Einstein retorted "If I were wrong, one would be enough."

The difference being that Einstein's 'model' makes good predictions that can be tested accurately.

Any attempt to 'test' the climate change models (by predicting what will happen over the next five years and then comparing it with what really happened) has resulted in a bit of feet shuffling and harumphing about fine tuning.

 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

"The difference being that Einstein's 'model' makes good predictions that can be tested accurately."

That is also because General Relativity is a model of a fundamental property of the natural world. Such theories are relatively easy to prove or disprove due to the nature of the experiments.

Trying to perform numerical analysis to provide predictions of chaotic systems is difficult. Trying to do that when you are still exploring the fundamentals of the systems is damn near impossible. You only end up with trend lines. The variabilities are measured in months and years.

 

Agreed. So the models are inherently noisy and cannot be used to make predictions to the accuracy claimed for them. Since anthropogenic CO2 is only around 3% of the CO2 in the total cycle it is absurd to claim that the effect of the 3% is able to be modelled given all the other effects in the models.

Incidentally how can the strength of weight of numbers of objectors to Einstein be an argument FOR the IPCC report, which claims that the consensus is in?
 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

b2theory - You have one word correct:  "apparent".

There are 12 times as many scientists skeptical of "global warming" than there were authors of the IPCC document:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6 or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/12xIPCC

  "Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History'"    



 

Again if the model is correct, should it also be usable to determine a best solution.
So what we have now is a unworkable model, and many forced solutions, most of which do more harm than good.

Other than the orignal predicted problem, we also have forced solutions, and more harm.

What ever happened with the reduction in CF4?
Why can't we use CF4, the rest of the world does?

Models are currently a joke.  Computers are not yet robust enough.  Models don't even predict that warm air rises.  

They are supported by non-thermo types who can make money off "global warming" or original sin religious types who need some belief system.

i'd draw another difference between relativity and global warming ... was einstein trying to politicians to part with money ?  einstein's theory and models wouldn't've reached the ears of politicians of the day (well, maybe 40 years later when someone thought to make a bomb out of them).

the point is global warming is a political effort (rather than a scientific one) and IMHO politics is undermining the much vaulted "peer review".  if peer review is to be trusted, then how come the original Mann "hockey stick" is now considered by many to be an artifact of someone's imagination.  why didn't one of the referees challenge the data model ?

if the models are so good (ie their projections can be trusted) then why are "all" of their short term predictions wrong ?  if the short term predictions are invalid, why should we believe the long term ones ??  sorry, you can't say it's because climate/weather is difficult to forecast.

Lcruiser,

Do you have anyone to reference aside from people like Booker, Morano and Motl?

These people aren't atmospheric scientists. They are just noisy commentators.

Your 100% assuredness of your own position and your tendency to quote commetanry as fact is rather telling.

Stirring the pot - apparently the sun makes a difference.

Solar Link to 50% of Warming During the Past 100 Years?
There is a new paper 'in press' in Geophysical Research Letters by Eichler et al entitled, 'Temperature response in the Altai region lags solar forcing.'

The Abstract states:

The role of the sun on Earth's climate variability is still much debated. Here we present an ice core oxygen isotope record from the continental Siberian Altai, serving as a high-resolution temperature proxy for the last 750 years. The strong correlation between reconstructed temperature and solar activity suggests solar forcing as a main driver for temperature variations during the period 1250-1850 in this region. The precisely dated record allowed for the identification of a 10-30 year lag between solar forcing and temperature response, underlining the importance of indirect sun-climate mechanisms involving ocean induced changes in atmospheric circulation. Solar contribution to temperature change became less important during industrial period 1850-2000 in the Altai region.

In the Results and Discussion the authors write:

"Our reconstructed temperatures are significantly correlated with the 10Be and 14C based solar activity reconstructions in the period 1250-1850, but not with the greenhouse gas CO2 (Figure 2b). This indicates that solar activity changes are a main driver for the temperature variation in the Altai region during the pre industrial time. However, during the industrial period (1850-2000) solar forcing became less important and only the CO2 concentrations show a significant correlation with the temperature record. Our results are in agreement with studies based on NH temperature reconstructions [Scafetta et al., 2007] revealing that only up to approximately 50% of the observed global warming in the last 100 years can be explained by the Sun."

Whilst this paper supports studies by Scafetta et al, it is clear that solar factors are still poorly understood, and there are many factors other than CO2 or Solar involved in climate change. A correlation with post industrial CO2 does not necessarily imply causation. For example, Tsonis et al, 2007 investigated the collective behavior of known climate cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, and the North Pacific Oscillation. By studying the last 100 years of these cycles' patterns, they found that the systems synchronized several times. In cases where the synchronous state was followed by an increase in the coupling strength among the cycles, the synchronous state was destroyed. Then, a new climate state emerged, associated with global temperature changes and El Nino/Southern Oscillation variability. The suggestion is that this mechanism explains all global temperature tendency changes and El Nino variability in the 20th century.

abstract at;

http://climateresearchnews.com/2008/12/solar-link-to-50-of-warming-during-the-past-100-years/

the paper is at;

http://www.agu.org/contents/journals/ViewPapersInPress.do?journalCode=GL
 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

And does the prediction indicate the effects of volcanic activity? This is a variable that can make the models deviate from the prediction.

As volcanic activity can add a decade or more of CO2 to the atomsphere, where would that put our atempts to control CO2 emmissions?

Also volcanic activity can place enough ash to supress solar radation reaching the earth for several years after the event.

It's no wonder the models aren't correct.

Watched a program about a mass extinction event when 95% of life was wiped out.
Baldrick (Tony Robinson?)was the commentator.
I was confused because so much Sulphur was released causing terrible cooling and so much CO2 was released causing terrible warming and he used the terms climate change and global change so often that at the end I was convinced that we had caused the extinction (and not the basaltic lava flow from the massive Siberian volcanic activity).

The only thing that puzzled me was to figure out how what we do in the 20th and 21st centuries could have such far reaching effects as to wipe out life 250million years ago. But once you can show that we cause global warming and the sun doesn't have any effect (sorry, correlation isn't causation... the AGW types have already addressed any heresey that the sun causes climate) then this was a snip.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Tomfh -

Apparently you didn't follow the link.  Let me try again, this time to the full report:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&;FileStore_id=37283205-c4eb-4523-b1d3-c6e8faf14e84

or

http://preview.tinyurl.com/ipcchistory

There are quotes there from 650 scientists.  

And, I'm not sure what you mean by "100% assuredness of your own position".  My position is that models are too primitive to predict *anything* because, for one thing, they don't even predict that warm air rises.  There is no doubt that increasing CO2 tends to warm the surface, all other things being equal.  However, all other things are *not* equal, and there is no evidence the signal is even detectable, let alone that the warming would be "bad".  Warming has always been good for mankind.  It is cooling that has been bad.  What, exactly, are you talking about concerning my position?

Here's the acid test:  How many people live on the 10% of the land closest to the poles, and how many people live on the land closest to the equator?  It doesn't take much to realize that warming isn't necessarily a bad thing.

So, um, b2theory, you seem to have gone a bit quiet. Are you still shocked that we haven't all dived under the media-driven steam-roller of consensus? I may be fat, and I may be squishy, but that is one juggernaut I ain't jumpin under.

 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Lcruiser,

Yes I followed the link. It's not a report, it's just a petition. So 650 scientists have signed it. So what?
700 scientists signed "A scientific dissent from Darwinism". Such lists are propaganda, not scientific evidence.

Besides, the list of 650 isn't even a particularly good propaganda effort. I was expecting 650 climate scientists to have signed it. Instead it's stacked with economists, geologists, chemists, meteorologists, a horticulturalist, and...drum roll, "an Award winning NASA astronaut".

Although I agree that the list makes for a bit of propaganda machine, I still trust the chemist for information over the others, including the climate scientist.  He/she most likely has a better understanding of the natural world, much like a physicist does as well.  Put them into a room with some engineers, and we might actually get some solutions to real problems.  Just a thought...

Kyle Chandler
www.chiefengineering.net

 

greg,  that looked like a really interesting find, but the agu.org link doesn't find the article (any more ?), no hits on "Eichler" ... maybe the article is now "unhistoried"

I think you have to buy it.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Sorry, for the delayed response to your comments. Working and grad school finals left no time for other conversations for a bit.

GregLocock (Automotive):
Agreed. So the models are inherently noisy and cannot be used to make predictions to the accuracy claimed for them. Since anthropogenic CO2 is only around 3% of the CO2 in the total cycle it is absurd to claim that the effect of the 3% is able to be modelled given all the other effects in the models.

Not so fast. You cannot throw out the models because of public the squabbing over the degree this month or that month vs a year ago, as goes on almost daily in the media. The models predict a general trend that agree with past observations. It is more than likely that the future climate will agree with the model-predicted trend.

Also, your claim about about the percentage of CO2 emissions against the natural emission levels is both kind of correct yet obviously misinterpreted. It is in reality closer to 5%.  That 5% or so is additional flux beyond the equilibrium sources and sinks that have kept CO2 at roughly 270 ppm for the past 10,000 years. That total additional flux in CO2 will establish a new equilibrium as it is integrated over the decades of industrialization. This fits the observations. We have raised the equilibrium by over 100 ppm.

incidentally how can the strength of weight of numbers of objectors to Einstein be an argument FOR the IPCC report, which claims that the consensus is in?

My point wasn't to argue consensus. I wanted to make a direct comparison between the current cultural conflict. The climate change consensus has peer reviewed science on its side. Just as Einstein did. Yet both experience(d) extraordinary opposition from crowds that had their world views torn up as a result of their positions. I even go so far as to point out that Einsteins detractors were far more credible than those of the consensus view on climate change.

 

b2theory -

I'm not sure how you can support models when they don't even predict that warm air rises.

Do you not remember your thermo?
 

The problem with models is the same as what they say about computers, garbage in, garbage out. Who, other than the database keeper, knows what is, and isen't in these models.

As has been said,'Trust but verify'. We haven't verified anything yet.

My personal observation: it is getting colder and the satellite photos of arctic ice have little correlation to average earth temperatures.   The amount of water contained in all glaciers, (volume), divided by the surface area of the oceans,(area), gives increase potential in ocean depths.  This arithmetic exercise has been quoted by idiot news casters as being many meters in depth.  Please try it as a intellectual problem to gage the stupidity of this crisis, (Apologies to the great humanitarian Al Gore).

Another personal observation:  It sures seems hotter now when the sun is hitting me.  For sure I burn and tan faster than I did as a young person.  The number of people with skin cancer is on the rise.  Wouldn't an increase in CO2 in the atmoshere tend to absorb or reflect some of the sun's infrared and ultraviolet radiation away from us surface dwellers?

As civilperson says, it is getting colder.  The temperature trend this century continues to be downward by the only objective measure we have, which is MSU (satellite).  Every year since the turn of the century has been colder than 1998.

A glimmer of understanding coming out:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1217/1

Hey, it's snowed in Lafayette, LA last week - first time in 20 years.   

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

As a long time global warming skeptic I am coming around. The following url should take you to a plot that may be useful as a basis for discussion. It seems to me that the next 5 to 10 years should tell us if the planet is warming due to CO2. This should tell us how to interpret the last 10 years of no warming. If we get another 10 or even 5 years of no warming I will be back among the skeptics. Too bad about the economic slowdown, that will certainly muddy the waters.
 

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

• http://ca.geocities.com/marylcurry@rogers.com/ipccchartl.jpeg

Sorry about the link, try this one:
 

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

• http://ca.geocities.com/marylcurry@rogers.com/ipccchart.jpeg

No doubt it is getting hotter, it was 75 F (high) here on Sunday.

No doubt it is getting colder it was 19 F (high) here on Monday.

I much preferred Sunday:)

Regards,

Mike

Cranky108 (Electrical)      

The problem with models is the same as what they say about computers, garbage in, garbage out. Who, other than the database keeper, knows what is, and isen't in these models.

As has been said,'Trust but verify'. We haven't verified anything yet.

You mean that you haven't verified anything. These models are open source and widely available as part of the publishing and peer review process. People that are qualified to review them do. They are constantly improving.   

civilperson (Structural)      

My personal observation:.....

CajunCenturion (Computer)     

Hey, it's snowed in Lafayette, LA last week - first time in 20 years.

Your anecdotal observations are irrelevant. Be a better scientist. If you have an engineering degree worth anything this was a prerequisite.   


LCruiser (Civil/Environme)      

As civilperson says, it is getting colder.  The temperature trend this century continues to be downward by the only objective measure we have, which is MSU (satellite).  Every year since the turn of the century has been colder than 1998.

Why would you argue an 8 year trend against an undisputed 100 plus year trend?

The 100 year record is not "undisputed" by any stretch of the imagination.  Urban Heat Island "corrections" are extremely subjective.  The only objective record is the satellite record.

2008 tropical temperatures 5th coolest in the last 30 years.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4687

P.S. models may be "improving" but they still can't even predict that hot air rises.

Don't EE's have to take Thermodynamics?

LCruiser (Civil/Environme)

The 100 year record is not "undisputed" by any stretch of the imagination.  Urban Heat Island "corrections" are extremely subjective.  The only objective record is the satellite record.

No they are not. You want them to be disputed. In no meaningful way is NOAAs data wrong.



But since you wanted satellite data, we have plenty of that as well.



LCruiser (Civil/Environme)      

P.S. models may be "improving" but they still can't even predict that hot air rises.

Don't EE's have to take Thermodynamics?


Yes, yes they can.

read the section on Benard cells.
[http://www-evasion.imag.fr/Membres/Fabrice.Neyret/publis/EWAS97.pdf]

or you could read:

MODELING OF BUOYANCY-DRIVEN FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER FOR AIR IN A HORIZONTAL ANNULUS: EFFECTS OF VERTICAL ECCENTRICITY AND TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT PROPERTIES; Numerical Heat Transfer Part A: Applications, Volume 42, Number 6, 1 November 2002 , pp. 603-621(19)


Don't post blogs. Qualified people with valid ideas publish.


 

The graphs of temperature from b2theory have a vertical axis scale of approximately +/- 0.5 degree C.  This much accuracy is shown with curve fit line when the vertical gradient in still air can be 1 degree per foot and the water temperature variation with depth is 10 times greater.  Horizontal distance variations can also exist as well as time variations as either daily or seasonal variation.  Lots of assumptions from thin differentials over a century of data from a variety of recorders with calibration techniques that have never been tested across the decades.

b2theory,

That is just absolutely ludicrous.  You can check the published studies behind this page if you want, but I have and this page is an accurate representation.  If satellite temps are accurate, those two numbers (UAH MSU and RSS MSU) will be close.  How close are the other numbers?  If you think they are objective, I think you need to redefine objective since the others are all over the board:

http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.html  

civilperson (Structural)     

The graphs of temperature from b2theory have a vertical axis scale of approximately +/- 0.5 degree C.  This much accuracy is shown with curve fit line when the vertical gradient in still air can be 1 degree per foot and the water temperature variation with depth is 10 times greater.  Horizontal distance variations can also exist as well as time variations as either daily or seasonal variation.  Lots of assumptions from thin differentials over a century of data from a variety of recorders with calibration techniques that have never been tested across the decades.

Dear lord. That is your criticism?  When you look at the Farmer's Almanac do you honestly start thinking about the temperature gradient differentials of the myriad of weather stations and observations required to compile it?  

I guess we should through all of the NOAA data out. They obviously have no idea what they are doing.  

b2theory,

There are two, and only two, types of error:  random and bias.  You are confusing the two.  Ground based temperatures are frequently taken in urbanized areas.  That introduces bias errors from UHI.

http://www.surfacestations.org/   

LCruiser (Civil/Environme)      


http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.html

Junk Science....see the fifth paragraph of my original post.

Find me current and defended article in the Journal Science, Nature, or AIP that says one of the following.

1) CO2 concentrations have not increased by over 100 ppm in the past 150 years.

2) Increase in CO2 will not lead to an increase in surface temperature.  

This is the null hypothesis of the climate change consensus. The first person who can disprove one of these points wins a Nobel Prize.

You would also make me a very happy person. If we could exploit our coal and gas reserves with out consequences I would be thrilled.

You have convinced me that you are simply a contrarian. As evidenced by your comments about fluid modeling, You don't strike me as someone who engages in honest dialog. So I am done responding.  

 

b2theory,

That's fine.  If you don't want to listen to reason you can follow the leader like most people, which is what the Al Gores of the world are counting on.  Of course CO2 levels have risen.  Of course an increase in CO2 will tend to increase temperature.  However, is it an overriding concern?  That's what *you* need to prove to yourself - or, it appears you just accept the dogma - "drank the koolaid".  Well, sorry, but temps have been going down for the last 10 years.  After all the alarmists have been saying that the increases in CO2 are going to cook us, it's been cooling.  Sorry to disappoint you.   

Lcruiser,

Convection orginates on the microscale and thus is parametrized in the models. I don't quite understand your obsession with the fact that the models don't generate convection from first principles. I mean, what next, a rant that finite element analysis can't explain the origin of elasticity?

 

Tomfh,

"Global Warming" theoretically holds more heat closer to the surface, correct?  More heat at the surface should cause more convection, correct?  Not in the models...

Quote (b2theory):

Your anecdotal observations are irrelevant.

Quite right.  Direct observation has no role in science.

Quote (b2theory):

Why would you argue an 8 year trend against an undisputed 100 plus year trend?

Why would you argue a 100 plus year trend when you've got almost 5000 years at your disposal?  Looking back over that time frame, you'll see that temperature is cyclical, and there was been at least two times over that interval, pre-industrial times in fact, when the average temperatures were higher than they are today.  Further, we're coming off one the most extreme cold periods in the last 5000 years, and the warming trend has been on going for roughly 400 years.  The current warming cycle began two hundred years prior to industrialization, and the rate of warming has not increased during the industrial period.  Yes, the CO₂ levels have increased dramatically during the last 200 years, but the rate of global warming has not.

Why would you want to use only a 100 year trend on the upslope of a, so far, 400 year warming cycle to predict the demise of a cycle that been active for at least 5000 years?

Quote:

I am always rather shocked when I find Engineers on the this side of the argument. It seems clear to me that you all should have received the type of education required to do a high level analysis of the topic or at least trust the peer review process to ultimately give you an increasingly accurate picture of what's going on.

Any good engineer, or any other reasonable person for that matter, will tell you that it's very simple.  When politics and big money are involved, science and objectivity usually take a back seat, especially to those preaching doom and gloom, for they are the ones who usually end up with the money.

Quote (b2theory):

Be a better scientist. If you have an engineering degree worth anything this was a prerequisite.

As you indicated in your fifth paragraph, you are quick to dismiss and disparage those who hold views different than yours.  I'm amazed how quickly you dismiss the signatories to this letter.
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/un-signatories.html
Your quick and easy use of ad hominem attacks sadly speaks volumes towards your own practice of science.

Personally, I'm glad that you're passionate about your beliefs and are willing to stand up for what you believe to be an objective and scientific understanding of this extremely complex situation.  But please keep in mind that this is an extremely complex situation and one that we, as a scientific community, know very little about.  Although we're learning more and more, we've just scratched the surface in our knowledge and understanding of all the factors and inter-relationships involved.  It only stands to reason that there will be varying opinions about the topic.  Let's hope that we're no too quick to dismiss others out of our own ignorance and arrogance.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

CajunCenturion wrote:
"When politics and big money are involved, science and objectivity usually take a back seat, especially to those preaching doom and gloom, for they are the ones who usually end up with the money."

It might be instructive if you could identify some of the cases to which you refer. The cases would preferably have the following properties.

1) A scientific theory is put forward by a large group of scientists. They offer proof.
2) The theory requires major spending to solve the problem or take advantage of the opportunity.
3) The money is spent,the scientists are praised, their supporters get rich, but the problem does not go away or the benefits do not show up.
4) Subsequent research proves that the theory was bogus.

I am still trying to decide whether or not I believe the global warming story. I hope the approach that I suggest may shed some light on the subject.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

personally, i'd prefer Eng-tips to stop cashing in "global warming" by removing the google ads on this thread.

to owg, maybe the CFC's issue is an example ... i've "heard" that solar storms were mostly responsible for the depletion of the ozone.  the difference is that in this case the costs were reasonably absorbed (by the consumer), and i think it was probably a reasonable response to a situation we hadn't expected (CFCs at high altitude).

 

I do not support AGW, there might have been global warming effected by natural causes, but as far as anthropogenic ones... well...
My problem is that the science behind AGW is very iffy, to say the least, and the money spent on grants, etc... would be far better spent elsewhere within the environmental issues we have. Pressing more immediate and tangible issues.

And yeah, the asbestos, CFC, etc... scams have left me very skeptic of these full blown scares

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

CajunCenturion (Computer)      

Why would you argue a 100 plus year trend when you've got almost 5000 years at your disposal?  Looking back over that time frame, you'll see that temperature is cyclical, and there was been at least two times over that interval, pre-industrial times in fact, when the average temperatures were higher than they are today.  Further, we're coming off one the most extreme cold periods in the last 5000 years, and the warming trend has been on going for roughly 400 years.  The current warming cycle began two hundred years prior to industrialization, and the rate of warming has not increased during the industrial period.  Yes, the CO2 levels have increased dramatically during the last 200 years, but the rate of global warming has not.

Why would you want to use only a 100 year trend on the upslope of a, so far, 400 year warming cycle to predict the demise of a cycle that been active for at least 5000 years?




The data to compare climate data withing the Delta T anomaly seen in the past 100 years is only reasonably accurate back 1700 years. Based on that data, the past 50 years have been the warmest in history.




Any good engineer, or any other reasonable person for that matter, will tell you that it's very simple.  When politics and big money are involved, science and objectivity usually take a back seat, especially to those preaching doom and gloom, for they are the ones who usually end up with the money.




No. Only a very cynical person would say such a thing. That is what the peer review process is for. That is why science demands transparent methods that yield reproducible results. That is how orbital mechanics were developed in the shadow of extremely critical and threatened religious institutions.




As you indicated in your fifth paragraph, you are quick to dismiss and disparage those who hold views different than yours.  I'm amazed how quickly you dismiss the signatories to this letter.
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/un-signatories.html
Your quick and easy use of ad hominem attacks sadly speaks volumes towards your own practice of science.





I dismiss the multiple attempts to cobble together large groups of "experts" to sign documents that refute an evidence supported theory. That is criticism of a failed attempt at an argument from authority. That is not an ad hominem attack.


But please keep in mind that this is an extremely complex situation and one that we, as a scientific community, know very little about.  Although we're learning more and more, we've just scratched the surface in our knowledge and understanding of all the factors and inter-relationships involved. It only stands to reason that there will be varying opinions about the topic.  Let's hope that we're no too quick to dismiss others out of our own ignorance and arrogance.




If the critics of the consensus position have something to add to the science then they can publish. Their ideas will be evaluated on their merits. If they are proven correct they would turn our understanding of climate dynamics on its head. They would also clear the way for a long overdue expansion of our use of coal and natural gas energy supplies. I would love this to be the case. It would make our challenges so minor compared to reality.

Most don't have anything worth publishing. Instead they go directly to non-peer reviewed publishing methods and activism. Some of them have published. None of the published challenges to fundamental premise of climate change have stood up, period.

I am not quick to dismiss ideas I haven't seen over and over and over again as completely invalid. The problem is that there is a tremendous amount of adversary content which is readily accessible to people who want to arm themselves for arguments against the consensus view on climate change. People such as LCruiser absorb Junk Science and Climate Audit like a sponge. They then walk in here, and everywhere, and parrot argument after argument. I simply don't have the time to deal with people that are simply jousting without ever yielding obviously erroneous points. He cites content created Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who have no credibility or training in the fields upon which they claim to be the only reasoned opposition. The only thing that has elevated them from the obscurity of their basements is the political agenda of non-scientific gatekeepers at the Congressional level and higher.

My big personal problem with this particular thread, as I originally stated, is that you are people that should know better. You have the training. You may not do research and development on a daily basis, but you understand the experimental grounding of the knowledge you use in your day to day work. You understand the methods by which the equations landed in your text book.

I have always considered engineering to be applied science in its purest form. Unfortunately it has convinced me that Engineers are terrible scientists. If you have a question about a scientific debate going on, you do a lit search. You don't go to climateaudit.com.

I feel like a modern medical doctor that has walked into a room to find his contemporaries bleeding patients to remove the bad humors.  

Seems to be a lot of trust being placed in the peer review process which isn't justified.

Science isn't a democracy. It doesn't matter how many believe something to be true on either side.
What matters is the theory, the predictions and the testing of predictions.




 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

b2theory,

I see we have a focal point of our disagreement.  You call my citing of McIntyre and McKitrick (M&M) inappropriate because they are outsiders to the climate science "scene".  I think that is very telling.  M&M illuminated an egregious error by Michael Mann et al (the MBH98 "hockeystick"), one that was based on unsound science.  The entire scientific world knows that.  The difference is that some people think that Mann et al were kind of close so it was okay, even though it suppressed past variability and fanned the flames of alarmism.  However, the fact is MBH98 then tried to cover it up, and in fact their cronies started a website to defend it - realclimate.  The bigger issue is not that they used bad science, but that they covered it up.  That turned the problem from a mistake to a cover-up.  Ignorance to intentional deception.  If you don't have a problem with that, that's your trip.  However, don't come waltzing in here backing bad science and saying those of us who know the science is incomplete are somehow dishonest.  You are practising *religion* by espousing the position to "just believe the experts".

As for the "peer review" process surrounding said inbred climate scientists, here's a peer reviewed study on that:

http://tinyurl.com/hswrong



 

There is a bright side: flatulence is associated (at least in cows) with global warming. If that can be similarly associated with other mammals, then as long as we keep flapping our gums, we can't build up enough pressure to vent to atmosphere. South Park did a brilliant expose related to spontaneous human combustion and global warming. Perhaps if this conversation keeps going, both global warming and South Park can both be minimized.

B2theory,
In your first post in the thread, forum and website you open by saying:

Quote:

I am always rather shocked when I find Engineers on the this side of the argument. It seems clear to me that you all should have received the type of education required to do a high level analysis of the topic or at least trust the peer review process to ultimately give you an increasingly accurate picture of what's going on.

One supposes that your primary interest is in climate rather than engineering per see but one does presume that you will have read the original and the two extensions of this thread as well as the other threads on climate on this site.

I suspect you should be shocked by any consensus view whether in the engineering or scientific communities where that consensus relates to the whole concept. Consensus would indicate a closed mind set of the community or group associated with that concept which is the end of any further development of ideas or concepts. Very few concepts are ever realised fully formed and most usually start with one precept and thereafter successive debate and evaluation refines and expands well founded initial precepts and rejects ill-founded concepts.

There is no way that the climate science or any science can ever hope to be so complete that there is not room for improved understanding.

Ergo, if no one questions the concept either in its entirety or in its detail then there can be no advance in understanding and there is nothing where there is not at least some scope for dissent.

What should surprise would be that there is no dissent about AGW and especially so where there are "trained minds" or at the very least, suspicious minds.

It would have been satisfactory for you to adopt one or other position in the argument and to bring new ideas or research into the discussion without your opening statement appearing to have been designed to challenge this community with the idea that as engineers, tere is no room for dissent.

Presumptive and patronising and assumes a position of superior intellect that you are right and those who disagree are wrong. This may well be true but it is not proved by defining engineers as those who agree with you and the IPCC and thus those that do not agree as not being good engineers.

I guess that others have made allowances for your newness to the forum but your opening has rankled some what and I finally had to comment.

However, that aside and excused, I look forward to new arguments, a new perspective and new data being brought to the discussion.

I would like to suggest that what should also be surprising is the extent to which politicians have accepted and adopted the AGW concept without requiring an independent study group, a control if you will, to try and recreate the original work (difficult as the Wegeman report, indicated by LCruiser, says where the data has been manipulated in an unsatisfactory and not fully open manner, and where the computer model used has not been openly available for evaluation.

Furthermore, I should expect that a fully independent study group should also be asked to formulate its own approach to climate change for comparative purposes.

The test of any theory should be that it is fully open and susceptible to independent duplication of the results much as cold fusion has been subjected to such testing and found wanting in that the original research results could not be duplicated meaning either that it was unsound or not properly understood.

I see no evidence of any such independent duplication.

What, we then ask, is it that we expect of the peer review process?
Peer review, especially such as is adopted for publication of articles, cannot necessarily endorse the science but simply assure that it is honestly done and honestly presented by competent and suitably qualified reviewers. The science itself may ake much longer to evaluate.
By the same token consensus is no measure of the truth or otherwise of any theory; the truth, such as can be found, will be dependent on that theory being rigorously tested and adapted as new data and insights become available and, most importantly, on the predictions made from the theory being testable and provable.

I may be wrong but it seems to me we still have an unfounded theory and one for which even the most basic predictions have failed to produce any satisfactory ratification.

Well, short of any new ideas, data or science, I guess we will be doomed to repeat ourselves, but each time shouting louder and louder at each other.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

It begins to look as if argument is now academic since Obama has appointed Prof John Holdern to the post of scientific advisor...
Here is a sample of his thinking:
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/uploads/2007_11-6_Forum_(NXPowerLite).pdf
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Wow - the guy drank the koolaid for sure.

Page 5 - he uses Hansen's temperature, by far the most alarmist of all "measurements", and his "error bar" doesn't even include the possibility the satellites are right.

Page 6 - He doesn't even understand the role of the sun in modulating galactic cosmic particles. He talks about solar "input" - and the use of the term input vs. output (of the sun) shows an imbalance in his frame of raference.

55 more pages of the same stuff.  Sickening.
 

jmw (Industrial),

I took a day off to think about your comments. I don't think that you are being entirely unreasonable. So I will try to explain to POV my reaction comes from.

I am a full time working EE that is also a PhD student. I am not part of any active climate research. My background is applied optics, mechatronics, and analog hardware design.

I would see my world view as a through back to the days of the enlightenment. I am a slave to science. Data and method are unmerciful and unforgiving companions in life. [I know how pompous this sounds. Feel free to laugh at me because I am right now.]

I see the modern world as one of dimming intellect and exploding egos. As the internet has gone to the populace over the past twenty years, it appears to be weakening the scientific footing which led to its own development. Instead of becoming a tool of knowledge and enlightenment, it has become a tool of confusion and means to buttress failed ideas. The ease with which charlatans and hacks can develop channels for mass broadcast is breath taking. In the short-term this appears to have muddied the waters of nearly every single societal question of any significance. Everything needs to be organic for no reason at all. There are poisons and "toxins" in everything. A President, that is regarded for his ineptitude, is widely believed to be at the center of   a false flag operation that took down the WTC. Idiots are emboldened not to vaccinate their kids because they can google "vaccnine" and "autism" and find sites warn against the "scientifically" prove causal link between the two.

If this were only the minority and the crazies participating in this carnival of ignorance who would really care? At some level I could even see it as good fun. However, these internet driven notions are exploding into real life and there are consequences.     

There is another insidious trend that is contributing to this firewall of ignorance. A very coherent, and twisted, notion of "debate" has crystallized in our country. There is a notion that you must provide equal weight for the opposition position of every topic. In peoples minds and in the media, this allows pseudoscience to be elevated in merit to the level of disciplined and controlled science in the name of being "fair and balanced".

If CNN is doing a story on the Autism Scare they will have a medical doctor with a background in infectious disease on to debate with Jenny McCarthy. If you criticize the outlandishness of the situation you will be accused of squelching debate. The puppets of pseudoscience will claim that they only want a debate on their topic. This appears to be their tactic when confronted with repeatable scientific experiments that invalidate their closest world view. They mask their social/political/religious agenda as a scientific one.

People need to remember that society is quite capable of coming to conclusions on things. We no longer debate whether the Earth is flat. "Debate" has been transformed into a means to indefinitely clutch to our beliefs when they are proven to not conform to reality. Debate is dead because people forgot or refuse to admit that they can actually be lost.

Now onto a more personal and self critical thought..... I used to be just like my opposition. I denied the existence climate change and attacked the perceived political cabal that was pushing it. I used nearly every single argument that LCruiser uses.

Then I got my BSEE. I immersed myself in physics and applied science. Being a history geek, I became very interested in how we know what we know. I learned that maybe the best part of the story is not what we have learned over the past two centuries but how we learned it. I saw stories of scientists  who were far more interesting because their intellectual courage than their scientific prowess. You have people who come to experimental conclusions that upset their own closely held views on life, religion, and the very nature of the universe. When confronted they transformed their world views. It is far harder to challenge your own views than those of anyone else.

So how do you do this? How can you trust your conclusions? The enlightenment gave us patterns of critical thought such as the scientific method. Over the past two centuries this has been the cornerstone of the scientific publication and review process. The decades of scientific journal publications are the lab book of our entire civilization. If you discover something new, you publish your hypothesis, methodology, observation and conclusion. If you have done this accurately and faithfully, then others will be able to replicate it. In this public forum, people have the ability to critique your methodology and conclusions in a reasoned manner. If your work is flawed it can be amended or thrown out entirely.

Being curious and willing to trash my notions of reality I started reading the literature around climate change. I feel I have a decent grasp of both the state of the science and how it arrived where it is. As a result I came to the conclusion that the consensus view of warming during the past 150 years is accurate and there could be consequences down the road.

I will yield that there is indeed actual debate as to what that means when the rubber hits the road.  What happens to hurricanes when there is more thermal energy in the atmosphere? There are predictions that go lots of ways. What  will happen to the climates of various regions and how will it affect agriculture? Again, there are some good indications that we might be much worse off, particularly in Americas western cattle country. Yet, there don't appear to be any hard and fast predictions.

If you were to ask me to make a reasoned policy decision I would base it on the fact that much of our civilization is built around coastal regions. The potential destabilizing affects of serious damage to these regions seems very compelling to me. That is neither here nor there.

Now to the heart of it... Much of the so called descent or denial of anthropomorphic climate change is rooted in pseudoscience. Like it or not, that is reality. I will not convince LCruiser  or you that M&M are hacks or that you should be extremely suspicious of the Wegemen report. This is a conclusion that you have to come to for yourself.

What is extremely irritating to me is that engineers have a fairly sound scientific background. We all sat in physics  and laughed as the med school students struggled. I also know that engineers tend, for some reason, to be a very conservative bunch. While I don't mean to universalize my own experiences, I am surrounded by people that are clearly putting their politics ahead of science.

What do you actually know of Dr. Hansen's work? Have you read his papers? Have you read the follow up done on his work? Do you realize that there are hundreds of other scientists involved in this research. Did you go to any of the most reputable scientific journals and start pulling articles? Or, do you Google search your topic and scour websites until you find one that meshes with your understanding.

For example you state...
I would like to suggest that what should also be surprising is the extent to which politicians have accepted and adopted the AGW concept without requiring an independent study group, a control if you will, to try and recreate the original work (difficult as the Wegeman report, indicated by LCruiser, says where the data has been manipulated in an unsatisfactory and not fully open manner, and where the computer model used has not been openly available for evaluation.

To me this indicates that you haven't even done the slightest actual research into this topic. If you had you would have know that there were two reports commissioned. One was deliverd by Wegemen's group and the other was delivered by the National Academy of Sciences. If you did some more reading you would discover that they affirmed Mann's "Hockey Stick" graph. [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7097/full/4411032a.html]. If you did some more digging you would discover that the multitude of data gathered since 1998 has largely supported Mann as well as providing a more detailed an geographically diverse  picture.

What do you use to draw your conclusions? I will argue for the reasons given above that peer-reviewed science is the only thing worthy of your time.

If your conclusions are based only on an intense loathing of Al Gore... well then I don't really blame you. I will admit that both sides have their trolls. Yet, take a more critical look. You will find that data available makes this a slam dunk.     

One more thing... I will say one thing in defense of Hansen.  The guy is human. He is also a vanguard in many ways. Thus, his work has received a disproportionate amount of scrutiny. It has just as many errors as the next guy's. Any errors in his work has been interpreted by those on the outside as a  reason for the wholesale dismissal instead of the typical corrections that come with the development of any evidence based theory. Even Einstein had to make corrections to General Relativity. Cut the guy a break and realize that he may have had a much tough road than you can imagine.   

I will also apologize for my abrasiveness. I was too rude.     

I like your autism example.

This is exactly the problem and why we are increasingly less trustful, less blindly accepting of everything we are told.

In the UK the MMR jab scare is exactly similar but the interesting thing is these stories don't originate from some quack or from a lunatic fringe, or from some conspiracy theorist let lose on the internet, they mostly originate with some doctor or other who needs publicity, who needs grants or who needs to be published or just needs his ego stroked or who may even be well meaning but doesn't understand statistics or RR ratio significance levels.

While there is much to criticise I do not believe we should seek to censor the internet because I happen to think it has been instrumental in preventing an abuse of position and abuse of trust by the very fact that it has provided a medium not just for cranks but also for honest and diligent "deniers" who have been denied a direct right of appeal.

No, you may not on my behalf call for the debate to be closed or the right to debate to be denied to people who hold opposing views.

I say again that you seem to consider it alarming that so many engineers haven't accepted AGW as "fact" and I consider it healthy.

Very healthy.

Quote:

I used to be just like my opposition. I denied the existence climate change and attacked the perceived political cabal that was pushing it. I used nearly every single argument that LCruiser uses.

But you didn't at that time, post here and say:

"I am always rather shocked when I find Engineers on the this side of the argument. It seems clear to me that you all should have received the type of education required to do a high level analysis of the topic and conclude, as I have, that it is nonsense."

We are no longer prepared to accept that doctor knows best but we are increasingly encouraged to question and seek to understand and make our own decisions and by extension we should be able to question anyone and everyone especially when what they claim will have a great impact on our lives.

In this case the second opinion seems to raise some serious questions about the original diagnosis and prognosis.

Engineers are more logical than most and thus you should not be surprised that many question Hansen et al. Nor should we be surprised that others accept what has been proposed.

I do not have blind faith in the IPCC as some sort of scientific elite sitting on mount Olympus.

Not all scientists are honourable, honest nor have they all the same high levels of integrity we expect and some do cheat, do falsify data, do plagiarise etc etc because, as you say, they are only human.
And that is why we do not just cut them a break and accept what they say blindly and especially not when so much is at stake. We question, we see others question and we look at the answers given.

The human response when you have floated a huge mistake is to try and prop it up. The visible effect is no different whether Hansen believes or does not believe. We just see what appears to be a single person who has made a claim which has the most far reaching import for us all and we are to simply accept? Where is the reproducibility? where are the proven predictions?

When those answers make sense, when we see the full scientific method applied then we may start to accept.

The UN is a political animal.
It is not some rarefied scientific community and as such it demands that its every utterance is scrutinised with the utmost care.

I haven't had the pain/joy to sit in on the IPCC meetings but I have sat through many days of MEPC meetings of the IMO, another UN institution dealing with the environment, and I have seen just how what seems plain and logical and sensible can be turned on its head in meetings. The very fact that I was in attendance and have had some slight impact should tell you how dangerous it would be to accept the "doctor knows best" theory because we aren't just on the internet, we are in  the committee rooms as well, along with FOE and Greenpeace and other NGOs.

Scary.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

And as for predictions:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24820442-25717,00.html

On the subject of Prof Holdern, he shows in his presentation, the problem of the monsoons.... in other research, the monsoon weather patterns, droughts in other parts etc have been allegedly caused by global chilling.... itsellf due to pollution more readily provable, that of particulates from fossil fuel burning and the irony is that SOX emissions, so steadily and significantly reduced in parts of the world and from shipping, are one cause. There are calls (from a Nobel prize winning scientist) for sulphur to be fired into the atmosphere using rockets and artillery (more recently the proposal is for artifical volcanoes).

Oh well.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

You know, following that last post I realised we have it all wrong.

We think that truth, fact and proved or disproved theories are what it is all about when it is far simpler,what we do will depend on what the King Maker says .... by King Maker I mean the man with the power to determine, through his vast media empire, who shall govern us and what we shall believe, or not believing, pay for anyway; Rupert Murdoch. What he says in his red tops and via his media is what the red top readers will believe.

The man is here:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/07/b122948.html

Sadly, I have to tell you he has now decided he believes in Global Warming after all:
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Rupert_Murdoch_Changes_Mind_On_Global_Warming_999.html
SO that's it guys, better start putting aside some money to pay for it all.   

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Damn, I would have liked to have seen that.... maybe I should become a Sun reader...
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/14/news/companies/pluggedin_gunther_murdoch.fortune/index.htm

His campaign gathers pace.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Quote:

Seems to be a lot of trust being placed in the peer review process which isn't justified.

Very true.

Here is some additional reading on the subject of peer-review.

British scientists exclude 'maverick' colleagues, says report

Peer review as scholarly conformity

Challenging dominant physics paradigms

Trial by peers comes up short

Peer Review is Censorship and Intimidation

Peer-censorship and scientific fraud

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

CajunCenturion (Computer)

Very true.

Here is some additional reading on the subject of peer-review.

I read your first two articles. I must say that I don't think you understand what the term "maverick" means. Try to defend science in the face of todays pseudoscience and you will very quickly see that creationists, the anti-vaccine crowd, HIV denial, climate change deniers, and other charlatans have zero interest in actual science. They are interested in the appearance of being scientific. Some groups are going so far as to create their own "scientific" publications. That way they can claim their work is peer-reviewed. I kid you not that there are peer-reviewed "publications" that claim the HIV doesn't cause Aids.  

I would agree with their point that simply shouting down the cranks doesn't really change anything. In fact it plays in to their fantasies of the loan wolf against the establishment.
 

==> I kid you not that there are peer-reviewed "publications" that claim the HIV doesn't cause Aids.
That's nothing new, and it precisely proves the point.  Putting trust and confidence in peer-reviewed publications is meaningless.  Justifying your arguments because they appear in a peer-reviewed publication is no justification at all.

==> I must say that I don't think you understand what the term "maverick" means.
I think there is a lot of stuff you don't understand.
 

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

Quote:

I would agree with their point that simply shouting down the cranks doesn't really change anything. In fact it plays in to their fantasies of the loan wolf against the establishment.

No, simply shouting down the cranks doesn't change anything; nor does calling them pariahs, accusing them of engaging in pseudo-science, questioning their intelligence, and then patronizing those members of the engineering profession who contribute to these discussions.

I hope you go on to read the other papers as well.

----------

Let's look carefully as what you've said.

In your post of 10 Dec 08 22:16, you said

==> First, the theoretical underpinnings of anthropomorphic climate change appears to be very robust.

I commend you for recognizing the theoretical nature of the position, and that the position is not one of fact, but one which appears to be robust.  Further, you later reinforce those uncertainties abound when in your post of 10 Dec 08 23:32 you say,

==>Trying to perform numerical analysis to provide predictions of chaotic systems is difficult. Trying to do that when you are still exploring the fundamentals of the systems is damn near impossible.  You only end up with trend lines. The variabilities are measured in months and years.

Sounds pretty clear that we're dealing with a chaotic system, and I think everyone is well aware of that.  Further, that we're still exploring the fundamentals of the system, that providing predictions is damn near impossible, and so far, all we have are trend lines with measurable variability.  Yet, it appears robust, and you proceed to berate scientists and engineers who don't blindly fall in line and accept it at face value.

In your post of 18 Dec 08 13:06, you state that,

==> The climate change consensus has peer reviewed science on its side.

It's obvious that you hold the peer-review process in high esteem, but in your post of 10 Dec 08 23:32, you state that

==> I kid you not that there are peer-reviewed "publications" that claim the HIV doesn't cause Aids.

So should we trust peer-reviewed publications or not?

In your post of 10 Dec 08 22:16, you said,

==> There has been zero research that has withstood the rigor of peer review that challenges its fundamental premise. What does this mean....? It means that the same process that yielded the solid state physics of the transistor, the nuclear physics of modern thermonuclear weapons, and the double helix of DNA says that the surface level atmospheric temperature will rise.

First of all, you don't know there has been zero research.  Nevertheless, the answer you offer to the rhetorical question is essentially saying that the veracity of your theory rests in lack of published evidence to the contrary.  And since there is no evidence to the contrary, then this theory ranks right up with those you enumerate.  I can only speak for myself, but I don't accept this claim on those merits, nor any claim which depends on the lack of evidence to the contrary.

Like you said, it's theoretical, it appears robust, it's a chaotic system, we're still exploring the fundamentals, and providing predictions is damn near impossible.  On those points, I think, at least I hope, we all agree.

My final comment will be to reiterate the closing paragraph in my post of 19 Dec 08 10:03.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

CajunCenturion (Computer)

I think you may have misunderstood my comments. I mentioned the HIV denial example to illustrate the attempt to appear scientific when clearly you have a political agenda. Those articles can be found in "Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons". Sounds official, right? Thats the point. I would not extend that criticism to any of the top science journals. Science, Nature, AIP...etc.

Because you obviously don't understand what my stance is I will spell it out explicitly. I am not aligning myself with the militant climate change crowd(You might actually be surprised as to what my course of action would be.). I am simply defending the science.

The science says that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will increase the mean temperature in the atmosphere. The evidence says that the industrialization of the global civilization has increased the total CO2 concentration by over 100ppm. There has been an anomalous increase in the global temperature over the past 150 years that corresponds with the predicted link between CO2 and global climate. It is almost certainly warmer now than at any point in the past 500 years. With a lower degree of confidence, the data indicates that we are warmer than any period during which we have reliable proxies, this includes the medieval warm period.

The proceeding statements are the result of peer-reviewed, reproducible experiments that has been subject to some of the highest scrutiny that has ever been applied to any area of research. If you want to argue that you throw that out on some perceived grounds of widespread academic fraud perpetrated by a cabal of socialist scientists, I don't know what to say to you. I want to call you an idiot. However, this will not cause you to challenge your beliefs. I will say that your line of reasoning deviates significantly from anything that would allow for objective criticism and honest discussion. I will also say, as I have tried to say before, that you aren't acting in a manner consistent with someone who has spent a tremendous amount of time in Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry...etc.


I make no claims as to the implications or future trends. That is what I meant by inferring the system is chaotic. It is obvious that it will be very difficult, though not impossible, to make high confidence predictions as to the implications of any future warming. However, I believe it is impossible for you to engage in useful discussion without recognizing what we do know with a high degree of certainty.

I also recognize that there is a tremendous amount of pseudoscientific garbage floating around masquerading as science fact. For example, do you have any idea how many times I have heard that volcanoes produce more CO2 annually than humans. How many times have you said this with out doing some fact checking? In reality humans emit 130 times the amount of CO2 generated by volcanoes.  

i think the key difference of opinion (belief?) is how significant is the impact of AGHG on global climate compared to, say, the sun.

some say that AGHG is dominated by non-AGHG change agents, so measures directed towards changing AGHG won't have a significant effect on climate.

others obviously think otherwise !  some think it is the dominate change agent; some think that mitigating even the small contribution of AGHG is worth "any" cost.

i think it is a different discussion to consider that climate change is acoming, and we as engineers should be looking to ways to help sustain our existence (maybe even prosper) in the face of these changes.  the most efficient means for generating energy, the most efficient means for using energy.

it is also an entirely different discussion as to whether we should consume fossil fuels on a more efficient ("eco-friendly") manner. i guess that though the "greens" have been politically active for decades and have accomplished some degree of change but not enough ? that is untill Al Gore took up the gauntlet ??

So if global warming is a problem, why are the most intrusive proposels to solve it being offered first?
Why not propose the least costly, and least intrusive solutions first? The answer is simple, there is a politicle agenda. And thats the main reason the science is being questioned so hard.

After all the greenies have questioned each and every clean coal proposel so far, and none of them seem good enough. If this wasen't political, then why isen't even a 10% reduction good enough as a start? Or why isen't there a big demand for nucular energy?

[quote]I mentioned the HIV denial example to illustrate the attempt to appear scientific when clearly you have a political agenda. Those articles can be found in "Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons". Sounds official, right? Thats the point. I would not extend that criticism to any of the top science journals. Science, Nature, AIP...etc.{/quote]
Fine, but my point was that the "learned" genuine journals are not to be trusted either, nor reports from ostensibly qualified and authoritarian sources.

In other words you can't expect us to simply roll over and accept every utterance of a scientist without question. Those days are long gone, if they ever really existed.

Now that goes ditto for "peer reviewed".

I am not being political.
I am simply somewhat surprised by the attitude with which you have approached this topic on this site and with these engineers.

You may not have intended to be patronising but that is how it seemed. You have gone on to say:

Quote:

....climate change deniers, and other charlatans....

I presume that if we choose to disagree with you that that is us, charlatans.

B2theory, welcome to the site, welcome to the debate and especially welcome if you come with the idea of a discussion among your peers, not your inferiors.




 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

jmw (Industrial)

Fine, but my point was that the "learned" genuine journals are not to be trusted either, nor reports from ostensibly qualified and authoritarian sources.

In other words you can't expect us to simply roll over and accept every utterance of a scientist without question. Those days are long gone, if they ever really existed.

Now that goes ditto for "peer reviewed".


I am reading what you are saying and the only way I can interpret it is to mean: "We can know nothing." Do you mean to say that a reproducible experiment has no more merit than a cranks ramblings?

What is your criteria to believe an concept to be true?


I am simply somewhat surprised by the attitude with which you have approached this topic on this site and with these engineers.

You may not have intended to be patronising but that is how it seemed. You have gone on to say:

I wouldn't classify the typical lay person as a climate change denier, even if they fail to see the forest for the trees. I leave that for the jerks who are profiting from the muddying of the waters. It is my belief that if you spread disinformation as an authority on a subject that can result in potentially negative consequences for people you are a charlatan. You might not agree with my applying this label to climate change deniers, but I imagine you would agree to the word "charlatan" for other less controversial people who exhibit this behavior.


B2theory, welcome to the site, welcome to the debate and especially welcome if you come with the idea of a discussion among your peers, not your inferiors.

Take a step back. Look at some of your own words. In fact look at the initial post in the thread....

Oh dear,
just what do you have to do to lose the last shreds of credibility?

Tell me honestly folks, how many engineers would still have a job with a track record like Hansen?

As someone who has taken the time to educate them self on the topic, I am offended by your tone. Who the heck are you to slander Dr. Hansen? Who has told you that his credibility is anything other than flawless? My first impression, is that you haven't read a shred of the research on the topic. At this point you haven't done anything to change my mind. In fact, if I am understanding your previous statements, you don't care what any research of any kind says.

So what is the point of this debate? I certainly do not consider you inferior. However, I don't just think you to be wrong about climate change, I consider your views about science to be deeply flawed. I also fully expect you to believe me to be some poor mindless drone who has "drank the kool-aid".

To that end I feel that it is a requirement to not only defend the fundamental premise of climate change but modern science as an institution.  

 

We remain mutually offended.

You have quite evidently joined eng-tips not as an engineer (this is the only forum you subscribe to and the only thread) but as a convert to AGW and thus we have no true appreciation of your credentials as anything other than an AGW supporter, one who claims to have "seen the light" and cannot undsrtand why educated engineers should not all also have seen the light.

You do not say how you would have entered this discussion in your days before your epiphany but if you are saying you would have been equally robust then fair enough, we would have enjoyed your eating humble pie.

None of us here claims to be expert on climate change, self taught or not, but we do try and learn from each other and from such science as is evident in the world but we recognise that we do not have the answers here, we simply want a better understanding. There are proponents of both sides here but I don't recall a similar approach to this topic at any time previously.

If you want to drop the superior "I have seen the light and don't understand you guys who have not" attitude and offer something new then please do so and we will get along a lot better.

If you are going to present yourself as an authority, autodidactic or otherwise, you'd better bring credentials. No one else here has has that presumption. You have not established any credentials in any other field for us to otherwise judge you and you do not appear to have brought anything new to the debate (or did I miss something?).

You claim the link between CO2 and AGW but do not explain why CO2 lags Temperature and you do not come and explain to us how "greenhouse gas effects" can continue above a certain saturation level to continue to increment the temperature, nor why with corrections to the temperature data more significant the the change predicted we should place such trust in the disputed temperature data.

Most of the people here post in numerous threads and have been judged by their peers in their own fields which lends them some credibility as engineers. In this forum we none of claim to be expert and it is where we can bring differences of opinion (not assumed status) to the discussion.

But who are you to point the finger at my comments on Hansen when your own comments on M & M are before us.

Please, take another look at what you have said and approach this community with some better understanding of what and who it is.

You may, from your comments have quite a strong opinion of who I am and thus we are mutually ill informed since we have only this thread and these last posts to inform us.

However, had you been an engineer who had taken the trouble to visit this site in your engineering capacity and contribute as others have done you might find yourself better acquainted with the other members to whom you apparently feel so superior.

You seem to feel that the IPCC is untainted with human fallibilities. If you have sat through any IPCC meetings then please enlighten us.  I have not. The nearest I have come is spending more days than I'd like in MEPC meetings (the MEPC is a committe of the IMO, another UN organisation) which were enough for me to realise that politics and science do not happily co-exist. By the way, you will be encouraged to know that I have had my own small impact on environmental issues which ought to worry you and ought to make you wonder if similar morons have been at play in the IPCC....

Otherwise feel free to bang on as much as you like since it may appear I am the only one offended here and now is when I will shut up.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Well, jmw may be the only one offended, but I am certainly amused.

My whole professional life has been concerned with taking and analysing dodgy and misleading data, and then building dodgy and misleading models, and trying to use those models to predict what changes I should make to unrepresentative prototypes in order to improve the final product.

On average, I have succeeded.

One thing I have learnt to be very wary of is the dangers of extrapolation, and the dangers of using models that are not based in physics. Specifically, with climate change, they are using models that must, by necessity, work by extrapolation, from a noisy data set, in a chaotic system, as opposed to a car which is, by and large, deterministic.

Worse than that, the models are not physics based. That is, they predict that warming of the atmosphere at a certain altitude is the most important criterion, so the model, and the data, should agree on that. They don't.

SO, they've got noisy data, and a model that doesn't agree with its driving parameter. And they are going to use this to predict the future 50 years out, and ask for gross changes in the expected standard of living of 3rd world countries, and some annoyance in first world countries, as a result.

Forgive me if I use an Anglo Saxon expression, but, you've got to be bleep kidding me.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

jmw (Industrial)

Fair enough. I have been lurking on this site for awhile. There is a tremendous amount of insightful information from nearly everyone who posts. You are right that I should be contributing in other threads.

I guess I wasn't overly compelled as I was primarily trying to read from the beginning many of the threads in certain areas of interest.

As I gave you my credentials before. The only thing I can add is that I am moving into a more pure research role. This is forcing me to rely more and more on published work, particularly in the areas of optical phonons and plasmons.

I will state explicitly that I am by no means a climate expert. The more I learn on the subject the more I realize I know nothing. My previous comments should indicate that I am dedicated skeptic. We live in a world of almost continuous disinformation. To ignore it is to invite disaster(in my mind).

I came across this thread and saw it for what it was... a conservative climate change "pile on". I also know from past experience with people holding such positions that you are convinced beyond convincing. I have close friends, that I don't look down on, that hold that position. I have learned that you will very quickly end up a lonely man if you call everyone and hold their feet to the scientific fire.

Like I said initially, this thread struck a cord because it wasn't the typical losers at Fark or Digg spouting off. It was my peers. Try to look at it from my perspective. My background is in Physics in addition to Electrical Engineering. I have profound respect for all of you based on an understanding of how difficult it is to find success at what we do. Thus, when (in my eyes) I see such obvious errors in critical thinking I am really blown away. When I say this I am not trying to call you stupid or make you feel inferior. I am trying to tell you that you are thinking about this problem all wrong.

Now, I am trying to make this topic as much as possible about the grounds upon which you sort through conflicting messages. This is not tangential to the topic. This is at the heart of it. There is obviously enough conflicting information to cause extreme dissonance. At which point people seem to make up their minds based on idealogical affiliation.

Keep in mind that, while my current criticism is directed towards a traditionally conservative stance, I see the same level of uneducated crap from my liberal friends. This often results in them vastly overstating the problem and its potential consequences(See the Day After Tomorrow).

So I have tried to ask you: How do we know what we know? How do we free ourselves from analysis paralysis. Is there so much uncertainty that real knowledge is impossible.

I apologize if I have offended you with respect to my comments on M&M and ClimateAudit. I may have brought a lot of baggage to this discussion regarding them. I should have provided a much more detailed explanation as to why they are considered pariahs everywhere except for conservative talk radio.

I hope this post will help to frame my position and motivation. I will try to post detailed and sourced arguments regarding the individual nuances of this intellectual conflict. Maybe I will change your mind.

As an aside, I went to sleep last night wondering why no one has ever put together a diagram of how we know what we know. I had the same though while watching Weaponology on the Military Channel. I think the lineage of knowledge is fascinating. It would be very cool to see a diagram of ideas, experiments, and seminal papers as they have progressed through time. Ideas build on each other as successful experiments provide us with an even more detailed understanding of nature.

I most likely won't post until after the holidays. Until then, merry Christmas and have a safe happy holiday with your family and friends.    
 

I was requested to elucidate my objections to Holdren's work here:
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/uploads/2007_11-6_Forum_(NXPowerLite).pdf

and thought I'd post up some comments, in case b2theory or anyone else wants to actually talk about the subject.


P 5 Uses Hansen's subjectively "corrected" temperatures instead of the objective satellite temperatures.

P 6 Uses the fallback to illiteracy in discussing solar influence - talks about solar "input" change vs. galactic cosmic ray (gcr) influence. Cosmic rays are not even mentioned in the document.

P 8 Presents as fact the assumption temperatures are driven by CO2, when temperature change *leads* CO2 change in the record.

P 9 Presents assumed global temperatures from 1950's as fact. Before satellites we knew nothing about Antarctic temps, for example. Others also based on Hansen's subjective interpretations.

P 10 (and throughout) again presents unproven theory as a "matter of fact" reason for changes. Solar modulation of cloudiness could be causing this change, as could be land use changes in China.

P 11 Again (still) ignoring potential for land use and gcr changes.

P 12 UHI and black carbon effects are particularly extreme in the Arctic, but not mentioned. In fact he goes on to ignore that fact throughout.

P 16 Ignores increased reporting and encroachment onto flood plains.

P 17 Ignores the reason there are more intense fires is because we keep putting them out instead of letting them burn to clean out the underbrush and thin out the forest.

P 18 Again ignores increased reporting as a reason.

P 19 Back to China, ignoring land use changes.

P 21 The most egregious - blames "global warming" on deaths that might have occured anyway, and ignores fertilization effect of increased CO2 which has no doubt decreased starvation in other cases.

P 23 Heat waves kill the infirm. Mortality rates decline after a heat wave. Cold, however, is an equal opportunity killer.

P 26 Drought projections are from simplistic models that don't even calculate, for example, convection, or increases in flora from CO2 fertilization. Note he does not say "possible" he states this graph (and others based on simplistic modeling) as fact.

There are a few. I have skipped several.

"One thing I have learnt to be very wary of is the dangers of extrapolation, "

And that from fairly mathematically well-posed models, probably without any in-built chaotic behavior, unlike any real climate model (which any good gas dynamics major will tell you is the quintessential problem to define the term "ill-posed").  To take any chaotic system, and attempt to predict its future behavior based upon numerical simulations is folly of the highest order (no matter what number of such simulations by no matter what number of fools).  Even the best NASA scientists won't predict orbital motions of planetoids beyond a certain point, because the system (Newton's laws) is chaotic for the general n-body problem.  

I see a lot of arm waving when it comes to the discussion of errors from these numerical simulations of our climate, all of which boil down to "it predicts the past climate quite nicely".  Right, but the system itself is unpredictable in its behavior, so there is very real uncertainty in any extrapolation, and that fact gets glossed over by the media, and our objections to the pronouncements from the code jockeys seem to keep being ignored.

But with extrapolation you should be able to get a range of possibilities, and certenty factors when deveating from the norm of the prediction.
No where on the common news has anyone given a range and certenty factors. We are expected to be like sheep and believe what is said (uck bad taste).

Even if the journals are correct, that's not what is being told to the common public.
 

Sorry, Greg, realized after re-reading your post you'd already pointed out most of the ideas in mine...

LCruiser,
It appears we are out of date, the Terms global warming and its successor, climate change are now obsolete. Prof Holdern prefers "climate disruption":
http://climatespin.blogspot.com/2008/08/words-matter-call-it-climate-disruption.html
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Even what it's called is continuously changing! I wonder if the models predicted....

Regards,

Mike

Hmmm.  I wonder if "climate disruption" will convince people that weather itself (which *is* "climate disruption") is caused by man and we need to donate even more to the collection plate of the carbon broker preachers.  No doubt, since there is more weather coverage now than ever before and every "disruption" makes the headlines...  

Does more weather disruption = more wind power? Makes one wonder.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4044147/Global-warming-climate-deal-possible-under-Obama-presidency-says-Lord-Stern.html

Oops!
I like the picture that accompanies this which is of Obama and Gore.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Yes, the mutually clasped hands looks like they both went to the same charm school. Also its too bad about all that damned snow and ice. What the world needs now is a pic of a frozen polar bear.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Oh great. Watch you wallet.

Do clasped hands signify a "done deal", mutual understanding?
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Yeah, now the debate is REALLY OVER.

Regards,

Mike

hey, at least whilst they're holding each other's hand, that means they've only got one free to plunge into our wallets ... i'd prefer to see a good old bear hug ... keep them there hands where we can see them !!

News article on Drudge, they want to tax cows at $175 per head.

What next a tax on breathing?

cranky108, well, yeah, we have to get people to minimize the CO2 emitted when exhaling.

Its a dangerous pollutant, you know. A permit needs to be required.

Regards,

Mike

White is the new Green!
Sorry to borrow from the fashion world's silly statements but apparently a "scientist" suggests that making our roads and buildings white would solve the global warming problem.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/4269109/Paint-cities-white-to-tackle-global-warming-scientist-says.html

Quote:

"I just don't see a downside to this idea. It benefits everybody and you don't have to have hard negotiations to make it happen."

I guess he hasn't asked anyone for input. Let's see, that will take a shed-load of paint (which contains resins) and a huge amount of Titanium Oxide.

I would also guess that we'll all go blind (Actually, I'd guess this guy has shares in Polaroid Sunglasses).

Incidentally, note on this page the link to an article claiming that the atmosphere was warm in the ice age -  I may have to read that, it is not something that would have mediately occurred to me.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

One theory on ice ages holds that it is the loss of the arctic ice cap that triggers ice ages.  Open water in the arctic ocean allows a significant increase in snowfall in the northern latitudes such that one winter's snow doesn't all melt before the next winter's snow begins and it "snow balls" from there.  Eventually there is enough snow coverage to reflect enough heat back into space that things cool down enough for the arctic to freeze over again removing the moisture source, reducing the snow fall to less than what will melt over the summer.  Warming of the oceans can easily lead to an ice age.  

Er, let's see.
If we cover the planet with snow and ice the albedo is such that a lot of energy gets reflected back into space and hence we stay cool.

Disguising the planet as a snowball is supposed to mimic this.
However, if we believe the other theory then maybe we will actually get hotter?
Now the earth has been in a snowball phase, at least once, and the only way we got out of this, (according to the TV show so what do they know?) was due to a massive volcanic event that would today be considered an extinction level event. Pretty much what Yellowstone is expected to do one day but in this case it was in what is now Siberia (?)

According to this warm ice age theory CO2 could act to reflect heat. So, CO2 is now not a greenhouse gas but a climate change gas. I'm glad we got that cleared up.
Of course, they don't say where all this CO2 came from in the ice age but never mind.
This is the Baked Alaska approach to earth sciences and climate change but who knows, all things are possible.

I'm just waiting for the fossil evidence to show that the dinosaurs has an industrial society that makes us look like tree dwellers still and that they were responsible for their own extinction.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4332784/Despite-the-hot-air-the-Antarctic-is-not-warming-up.html
Well, the lack of data doesn't really say it either way but the invention of data for weather stations that don't exist is interesting.
This article is of course by a critic of global warming but it does beg some questions, not least about the continuing credibility of Michael Mann.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/extref/nature07669-s1.pdf is a source for information on "reconstructed temperatures".
Now with all these reconstructed temperatures etc what they are reporting is 0.1degC rise per decade over the last 50 years.
Or, 0.5degC over 50 years or  0.01degC per year.




 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Why is every thing in a fraction of a degree? What are the margens of error?
Seems to me that the the tempeture changes hourly by upto several degrees day and night. So how do you correlate a fraction of a degree from man made sources, and a fraction of a degree from nature made sources?

What is the margen of error?

Or, to put it another way, the signal-to-noise ratio?

Regards,

Mike

That's why I think most objective people consider satellites the only reliable source of data.

Some actual facts about mathematical modeling of nonlinear systems.

While I too question the validity of the computer models to predict climate change, some of the reasons that people give are downright laughable.

Do any of you know what the key feature of a chaotic system is?  Give up?   Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. In fact, in the book "Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos" by Steven Strogatz, the following definition is given:

Chaos is aperiodic long-term behavior in a deterministic system that exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

One key thing to understand from this definition is that the system is deterministic.  There is no "noise" in the inputs as some here have put it.   

Mathematical models of nonlinear systems will typically employ an iterative solution.   This means that small errors can grow quickly, a feedback system if you will.   In a real sense, this means that for a chaotic system long term prediction is nearly impossible.   The term used for this phenomenon is time, or event horizon.   So it does not matter how sophisticated your code, your computers, or your weather data gathering instruments are, there is a very real limit on how far out you can accurately predict the weather or climate change. The thing is, these differences in initial conditions can be imperceptible, yet lead to completely different results.   

Here is a little non-linear game you can play.   You can do it on your calculator or write a program if you like.   When solving a model iteratively, the results of one iteration are fed back into the model as initial conditions for the next iteration.   To prime our feedback iterator, pick a number, any number, and square it.  Next take that result and square it and so on and so on.  What happens?  As engineers we all know that 0.999999999 and 1.0000000000000000001 are all equivalent to unity.   Now take these three numbers and put them into your feedback iterator.   You will quickly see that these three initial conditions lead to very different results.     
 

Well now, here is some useful "scientific" logic:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4358167/Climate-change-irreversible-warn-scientists.html

Quote:

Contrary to popular opinion, halting carbon emissions will not see temperatures reduce before the year 3000, according to the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory.

So how is this the case?
On the one hand we are asked to believe that anthropogenic emissions over the last 50-100 years have caused climate change and on the other that even if we reversed this situation it would not halt global warming any time soon... at least 1000years according to these people.

The curiosity is that Ms Solomon says:

Quote:

"Climate change is slow, but it is unstoppable - all the more reason to act quickly, so the long-term situation does not get even worse."

Er, excuse me but if the damn thing is unstoppable, and if reducing CO2 does nothing , why do we still have to flog ourselves to death to try to do something we know to be futile?
Do they really understand what they are saying?
Unstoppable presumably means cannot be stopped. So the only reason to try and do something is if you can do something meaningful.
In other words, the old St Ignatius Loyola prayer:
    God grant me the serenity
    to accept the things I cannot change;
    courage to change the things I can;
    and wisdom to know the difference.

So, if climate change (natural or anthropogenic) is unstoppable why do they want us to carry on with expensive schemes to cut CO2?.

Well, the essence of what is said is we should do these things to stop it getting worse.....
So how can something have a profound worsening effect if you don't stop doing something and no effect at all if you do stop doing something? I'm lost.

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

After 52 iterations and with 15 decimals (excxel can't take more): 0.10539922436471200000000000000000000000000    5910520808.50178000000000000000000000000000000000000
 

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Well, I think its pretty evident that the climate is governed by NEGATIVE feedback rather than positive, or else it would have "run away" thousands or millions of years ago.

Regards,

Mike

After 20 iterations 1.001 gives:
1.4562198745419688285229741392991e+455

and 1.002 gives:
7.446845228718415350443743565781e+909

The x^2 feedback iterator is very simple, yet it illustrates some very interesting behavior of nonlinear systems.   Not only is there a large sensitivity to initial conditions, there are different distinct behaviors that are a function of the initial conditons.   For any number less than 1, the iterator will eventually converge to zero, for any number greater than one, the iterator will eventually blow up, and for 1, the answer is always 1.   So depending on the intial conditions, the iterator can exhibit stable or unstable behavior.  This is where chaos kicks in.

Look at how roundoff error leads to chaos:  We would all agree that 1.002 is equivalent to 1.0015.  Now consider that the initial priming value of our iterator is in all reality 1.0015.   This value is some quantity of interest that is measured by some type of device with only three places, so naturally the measured value will be rounded up to 1.002 ( or maybe just truncated to 1.001).  For 1.0015 after 20 iterations, the result is:
3.7527800070685574894315284829489e+682 (this is the "real" answer).  At the top of the post the values for round off and truncation are given.  Look at how different the results are simply based on how the initial data is processed.   Why is this glossed over when computer models of global warming are discussed?  





 

SnTMan,
 The one bit of global warming propaganda that does hold some bit of mathematical basis is the idea of "tipping points" that Hansen is talking about.  It is very possible that the climate could be exhibiting stable behavior (just like entering 1 into the x^2 iterator).   However if there is a slight perturbation in the system, it could go very unstable very rapidly.  Thermal runaway is a good example of this phenomenon.   If you take an electric device that has an efficiency that decreases with increasing temperature, and say, run it at 20W with 100CFM, it will stabilize at a fixed temperature.  If you slowly increase the power, but keep the airflow constant, at some point the device temperature will begin to rise.  This will reduce the efficency of the device, which will in turn cause it to run even hotter.   Eventually the temperature will run away. Depending on the system parameters (power load, air flow) the system can exhibit stable or unstable behavior.

 

For more on these concepts see:

http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/~fischel/Lorenz97/wheel.html

This page gives a brief explanation of the chaotic water wheel developed by Willem Malkus at MIT.  It is a physical representation of the Lorenz equations.

Or do a google search on:

Ed Lorenz
Van der Pol Oscillator
Limit Cycle
James Gleick

Why are these factors 'glossed over'?

They have to be glossed over. Otherwise it would mean that the intended audience is educated to understand how a simple variation of initial conditions can significantly efefct the result. They would need to understand math. Which unfortunately very few do. (I do not include myself, even though I understand and work with a little more signs than + & -, math is a world on its own, specially in complex statistics).

In my opinion, the root of the problem is that it is far easier to believe and accept an impending doom blindly caused by something that is beyond my grasp of understanding and because 'scientists' say so than to actually use a little grey matter and common sense and THINK. Evaluate and learn a little math.

My opinion only

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

spongebob007, I have a nodding familiarity with the concept, however I have to think the climate system is pretty much self-damping, based on past behavior.

Regards,

Mike

But not entirely so since we have had some extremes at very rare intervals, including an Iceball Earth (during which we are supposed to belief the atmosphere was actually quite warm due to CO2....).

On the whole, though, I would have to concur that the climate is pretty stable and largely self-correcting. What we see in terms of variation is like "control" hunting; i.e. in any system with variables no control system will give a precisely flat control of the regulated parameter and the more variables the more this is the case. Given the range of different factors that affect climate, the surprise to me is that the system is as stable as it is.

One does wonder if those earlier extremes will ever come back again in the normal course of things.
Has the maturation of the sun and the Earth meant that some of those conditions necessary to the "run-away" effects no longer can exist? Be nice to think so but how can we ever know?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

jmw, I didn't mean to imply stability within a "comfortable" range, just that the climate has never proceeded to an extreme, either hot of cold, and stayed there as with a classic positive feedback.

If the asteroid impact that is widely believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs did not provide a sufficient perturbation, what could? That was a perturbation of a scale mankind can only dream of:)

Regards,

Mike

Snowball Earth:
http://www.snowballearth.org/overview.html
http://www.snowballearth.org/what.html
On the other hand, some researchers believe they have disproved the snowball theory:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1857545.stm
But whichever you believe, there is this:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Prehistoric-Ice-Ages-Averted-by-Carbon-Dioxide-99025.shtml
Oops!
On the other hand, some scientists believe that CO2 caused an ice age:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4061092/Greenhouse-gases-could-have-caused-an-ice-age-claim-scientists.html

Quote:

The scientists studied limestone rocks and found evidence that large amounts of greenhouse gas coincided with a prolonged period of freezing temperatures.

Such glaciation could happen again if global warming is not curbed, the university's school of geography, earth and environmental sciences warned.

(the "Baked Alaska Pudding" theory).
By the way, scientists now believe dinosaurs could survive the cold which means that the extinction theory about a nuclear winter finishing them off is under question following discoveries of dinosaur fossils in Siberia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/4330218/Dinosaurs-could-survive-cold-conditions.html

So many theories storngly supported at one time or another and then falling away... all except AGW.

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

For those of you who think I have been tough on Hansen, here is what his boss thought:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320

Quote:

"Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,"

Some good links.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Yet many scientists have been dismissed for decenting points of view, or for the fact that they worked for energy companies.

This still looks like a false issue being cramed down our wallets.

The fact is that even with bad smog days people still want to travel to work by car by themselves. And mandating change will only make a large number of voters mad.

Your an engineer, find a more acceptable solution than higher taxes, smaller cars, and bikeing to work.

Most of us want a cleaner enviroment, but few of us want to be in the poor house because of it.

Here's a good link on climate models, and Realclimate to boot:
http://climatesci.org/2009/01/29/real-climate-suffers-from-foggy-perception-by-henk-tennekes/


 

The questions that nobody seems to ask, and certainly nobody in the AGW camp wants to be addressed are the following:

If global temperatures were to increase, why is necessarily a bad thing?  Why are the global temperatures that existed at the start of the 19th (or 20th) century deemed to be the baseline from which all deviation is marked as "bad".

Certainly there will be consequences, changes that need to be accommodated.  However, aren't we (humans) the best when it comes to adapting?  So, it's warmer - deal with it.  So, the sea levels rise - deal with it.  So, there's more (or less) rain in your corner of the globe - deal with it.  If the local climate is not to your liking - move.  that's what our ancestors did throughout history - they found a climate that suited them and stayed there (or moved with the familiar climate).  And I don't like the answer of "millions of people in (insert poor country here) will die if this happens".  When the choices are move or die, I bet that most people will choose the former rather than the latter.

We could argue until we're blue in the face about whether or not the global temperatures are increasing, or whether the cause (or effect) of that is CO2 concentrations, or whether humans are the cause of this, but my answer to most of it is - who cares?  Climate changes - either adapt or die.  Isn't that what evolution is all about?

<Gets off his soap box>

TGS4 -

Those are very good questions.  First off, mankind has always thrived under warm conditions.  When the globe cools is when we have starvation etc.  If it were not for the Holocene we would still be living in caves or in Africa.

Secondly, the temperature record began at the coldest time of the last 8,000 years, so why is warming back up such a problem?

Then, climate is not the problem anyway.  Overpopulation is.  There is a high probability that the biggest problem in the foreseable future is near, and it is the destruction of arable land.  We have x people to feed and y arable land to feed them.  The critical ratio is x/y.  If x goes up, Earth is not sustainable.  However, if y goes down it's not sustainable either - and y is going down.

There are of course additional considerations, such as how robust crops are - and the higher the CO2 concentration, the more robust they are.

The acid test as far as I'm concerned is to look at how many people are on the 10% of land closest to the equator and compare it to how many people are on the 10% of land closest to the poles.  It's evident that we can take warming much more easily than cooling...

Yes, but the polar bears will die...

It would be less costly financially, life quality, etc... To adapt into a warmer climate than commit the financial suicide the AGW supporters propose, no question about that.

On top of that, the policies being created are based on very 'iffy' science, which has many questions to ask and many more answers to provide before it should have been taken as an irrefutable fact.

In any event, should we look after the environment? YES!!!

Should we look after the GLOBAL environment? NO!!

The best approach is to look after YOUR own backyard before there is a world wide policy (the bible, I think, said so: love thy neighbour). A global policy is too broad to actually have any significant control over it and obtain any significant results.

I think we should look after our immediate environment and start by remediating/optimizing it. And I am not talking about GHG, but water, soil, etc... Recycle your stuff; don't waste water, energy, etc... Only this way and only if it becomes a wide spread culture, betterment/preservation of the environment can happen. And on top of that, quite probably your wallet will appreciate if you don't waste.

In my little world, and chances are in most of this forum's members' too, we strive to save energy, reduce materials consumption, decrease or eliminate waste, recover whatever we can for useful purposes, save energy. That, in my mind, is what can make a difference for the environment in the long run. I think these types of practices can actually provide a sustainable development.

As far as taxing the industry because of emissions, I say BU!$#!7!!!! That is not going to work! The government wants me to fork over money to pay for emissions?!? Hah, the church used to have the same policy in the middle ages, selling indulgences! They already proved it does not work!

The pull and push has to come from the industry by striving to optimize resources, which most of us already do. We try to be as energy efficient as possible, reuse what can be reused, fix what's broken, reduce the waste, otherwise the bean counters will be breathing down our necks (heavier than they already do).

So, whichever the case might be, if instead of creating global policies to hamper and damage the industry, the resources were allocated in creating a culture that promotes better practices, our wallets and grandchildren will thank us.

Build locally, hire locally, preserve assets and optimize resources. This will reduce environmental impacts and... yes, help the economy.

My opinion, only. But I do live by these principles, at work and at home.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Hi,

I'd like to start this post by assuring everyone that I am by no means a trained Climate Scientist. However, I do have an opinion on the issue of climate change that I have formed based on study in My University Engineering Degree,
The media, the internet and per reviewed scientific sources.

I note that in this debate data sets can be presented without any clear explination of their interpretation. When this data is presented that says temperature is going up or that data is presented saying tempurature is going down the method of calculation, the location and frequency of sampling and so on are not always specified. For all I know, the data presented on www.junk-science.com could the measured tempurature at the coldest place in america on any day which would possibly be in decline, yes.

Unfortunately, the variables and their influence on the "climate", i.e another whole set of variables, rainfall and temperature in any particular location are all related in ways that are so complicated and chaotic that they are beyond the capacity of our understanding and computation to predict.

Thus, there are a number of models, approximations, that are intended to be an indication of what is likely to happen to the climate based on past prediction. Their interpretation usually includes some statistical measures of liklihood, error etc etc.

However notwithstanding all this, even the skeptics among us will admit that there are intelligent people on both sides of the debate that will claim their own tale. My opinion is that if there is even a sliver of doubt that we may be cooked ourselves and our planet with our consumption of any particular resource, then, given the potential outcomes from the over consumption, isnt it prudent to undertake some basic risk assessment?

Likelihood that CO2 and other fossil fuel emmissions are causing irreprible and lasting damage to the earth

1 Certain
2 Very Likely
3 Possible       X
4 Unlikely
5 Not Possible

Consequence of irreprible and lasting damage to the earth
1 Dire           X
2 Severe
3 Moderate
4 Minor
5 None

     Liklihood.
Cons| 1    2    3    4   5
 ----------------------------
  1 | 1    1    1    2   3
-----
  2 | 1    1    2    3   3
 ----
  3 | 1    2    3    3   4
 ----
  4 | 2    3    3    4   4

  5 | 3    3    4    4   4
 

  That gives us quite a high risk rating.
  That means some mitigation measures SHOULD be taken IMHO.

Instead of arguing about weather there is such a thing as global warming, which we have established there possibly is, what are the best mitigation measures.

Lets start by looking at removing the hazard all togther.


... My opinions on that another day.


On a personal note:


Unotec (Chemical)

"In any event, should we look after the environment? YES!!!

Should we look after the GLOBAL environment? NO!!"


There seems to be a global problem in which America, my home country Australia, China and India may be big contributors to lasting and irreprable damage to the earth. What if this problem cant be solved by looking after our own backyard in isolation?

  

[b]which we have established there possibly is[/b}

or maybe not then?

Excuse me if I ignore the call for precautionary measures, I think we already covered the "precautionary principle" in the two preceding threads.

Something else came up in the news:
There are some who believe CO2 reduction/sequestration etc is tilting at windmills; futile and unlikely to have any impact on global warming.
These are the advocates of geo-engineering; expensive, off the wall but with the potential to deliver significant results, they say.
This Telegraph article looks at some of them:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/4641586/Can-geo-engineering-rebuild-the-planet.html
This article doesn't mention Nobel Prize Winner Prof. Crutzen's sulphur guns proposal which seems to have morphed into a plan for artificial volcanoes somewhere along the line (now that's messing with nature big time, as indeed all these schemes are; it appears that a recent Chinese earthquake was trigged by the vast amounts of water retained by a new dam and that a similar event was consequent on the Hoover Dam construction and filling... some of these plans are ambitious and the very fact they may have some effect suggests we ought to worry that the effects they have may not be what we are expecting).

But, [quote]In the 1960s, two Russian scientists set out ambitious plans to reshape the world around us: to reverse the flow of rivers, shoot tiny white particles into space to illuminate the night sky, and melt the Arctic to water fields of Soviet wheat. "If we want to improve our planet and make it more suitable for life," wrote NP Rusin and L Flit, "we must alter its climate." [quote]

This suggests we have a moral dilemma as well.
If global warming thaws the tundra, well, it may get muddy for a bit, but how long before they address that problem and can start to populate the area and begin to access the vast mineral reserves?

It is not in the Russian interests to stop global warming.
What is good for some is not good for others and this alone is probably enough to ensure no multi-lateral efforts will ever succeed.

Actually, since we are now in a cooling cycle of 10years (according to some) or 20 years (according to others) and while not predicted by the computer models, it is dismissed as a temporary reprieve from warming by them (as I understand it) Some nations may find this is not such a good thing and would welcome a return of warming trends.

But, a moral dilemma? yes, is it right that some countries should act to restrict global warming when it adversely affects another country?

At what point would that constitute an act of aggression?
Are we back at weather warfare?
Would we end up in a new "cold war"? (no pun intended, honest )

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Another AGW skeptic... http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/general/view/2009_02_15_Former_astronaut_speaks_out_on_global_warming/srvc=home&position=recent

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

WhiteyWhitey,

Have you done a risk assessment for the financial suicide proposed in order to mitigate -the yet unproven- AGW? The financial impact is a fact.

On top of this, how many reasources have been allocated for technologies that are proven not to be cost efficient but by being subsidized? This money would see much better use looking after other types of pollution before taxing emissions.

If the industry has local limitations (Mexico City's pollution prevention programs as an example) that will alleviate micro-climate changes (island effects) the benefit ripples would be felt globally, if they are indeed a global effect.

Think where all this emmissions' tax money goes to: to fund technologies that are no only un-economical, but also carbon positive. (in the best of cases, after being filtered through a few pockets and purses)

That would be one of the strongest reasons I think we should look after our own backyards first. Otherwise you'd be like Gore, polluting but buying (according to him) credits for what you are doing (and hoping that they actually offset what you're doing)

I rather deal with soil and water pollution first and curve the emissions by doing a process efficiency approach. Instead of taxing emissions, give tax credits for enhancements. As engineers we strive to save on our heating bills anyway.

On top of that, assuming that there is an AGW, what are the chances of actually making a difference when you put politicians and their policy at a global scale? look at local decisions (economy for one). The politicians tend to make all the wrong choices until the only one left is the right one.

Are you actually willing to submit to that? I think a much stronger approach would be local rather than global, and would preserve our own environments, the ones we are actually familiar with and where we can actually control what's going on.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

politicians act in their own best interest (like most people).  

successful ones are good at convincing us that our best interest just happens to coincide with their's.

less successful ones just take the money and run.

You know what the funny thing is about politics? The most charismatic person tends to get elected, not the best suited to do the job.
I can't recall meeting many charismatic accountants, which would be what running a country economy might require.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Unfortunately the charismatic accountants are running the banks now and HELPING the government sort out the mess they created and are getting richer by the minute while everyone else goes backwards.

WhiteyWhitey - I take issue with your risk assessment assignment of Consequences of warming as "dire".  Please justify that assignment.

I would put the consequences as between minor and moderate.  The planet has been to equivalent temperatures (or higher) before and will do so again, whether through AGW or some other action.  The planet has not gone off it's orbit, wobbled off its axis, lost all of its atmosphere, or any of the other consequences that I would place in the "Dire" category.  That would put your entire risk as a 3.

Given that - wouldn't it be money better spent to adapt to the change, rather than try to stop it?

TGS4, I agree with you, but W/W evaluated "Consequence of irreprible and lasting damage to the earth". And I agree, an irreparable and lasting damage to the earth would be DIRE. So he is technically correct here.
Funny, the so-called-AGW forecasted a 0.5ºC increase in what, 10 years? Needless to say they went from "warming" to "change" to "disruption".
I can hardly call it a "damage", if it were to occur. It is a change. More than that, a very adaptable change by all flora & fauna. Some might dissapear, maybe. Most would adapt.
But, if you're a greenie, you have to make it sound DRASTIC!!! in order to get funding. No money ever goes to a mild cause.
And I am not saying that W/W is a greenie, just that the nomenclature he so chose to use would deem the "Consequence of irreprible and lasting damage to the earth" dire.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

yes, but if you extrapolate that increase into the future, in 100 years you'd have 5deg, which would be significant.

this is the same as dogbert's strategy for creating $1m from $1 ... invest it, and wait 100 (maybe 200) years ...

  

So, if we are experiencing a cooling period... that will lower the global average temperature, right?
Now, assuming this is cyclical and global cooling and warming happens with regular intervals, which it does... how does that work on the extrapolation?
Oh, not to worry, according to the news from when this theories sprang, there is not going to be enough fossil fuel to last that long... oooffff! we're safe.
Well, safe from AGD (D for disruption), now how are we going to power up?
Something doesn't make sense here.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Unotec - good point about the "Consequence of irreparable and lasting damage to the earth".  In that case, I would classify the probability as remote, somewhere between unlikely and not possible.  Result - overall risk is still 3 - medium.

Now, if we start talking about the earth's magnetic field weakening to the point of not providing protection for the atmosphere from the solar wind, now that's something that would have a dire consequence of irreparable and lasting damage to the earth.  And that has a probability of at least possible - it happened on a sister planet - Mars.  That's a high risk, but I don't see any money going to people who are trying to prevent that from happening.

Or let's talk about impact from large near-earth objects.  It has definitely happened before - so likelihood is high (given a long enough time frame).  And consequences would be in the severe range (or perhaps dire if you used to be a dinosaur).  That's a high risk, but I don't see any money going to people who are trying to prevent that from happening.  At lesat not on the magnitude of the AGW folk.

So, to all the AGW sympathizers - why is the risk of "global warming" more important than these two I've mentioned?  Why is it more deserving of money and attention?

TGS4... shhhhhh!!!. you might give them other tax-payer funded ideas.. Maybe all the electric power lines are affecting the earth's magnetic field!
Another thing I've noticed when AGW is discussed in a little less religious way, such as here... It never lacks sarcasm at the end.
And this I also see as an issue, since most scientists probably saw it as such an absurdity that they did not react in time and now we are paying the consequences.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Hi Forum!

In regards to my risk analysis,

My language is somewhat alarmist looking back over it. However that is probably due to my emotinal attachment to the issue so my passion for the subject is oozing from my vocabulary. Sorry. :)

However, I would still regard the possibility of humans messing with the gears of the earth somewhat scary. I spose im imagining the earth as some delicately ballanced (Or equally chaotically balanced) system that predicting the out comes of mild warming of the climate would to me possibly risk a big output. No human or machine algorithm (That I am aware of) can yet prove me wrong unfortunately.

Regarding other risks factors to human life of this magnitude, eg asteroid impact, magnetic field weakening (??!!)

We actually seem to have control over this effect on the earth via our consumption of and emmission of the greenhouse gas products. Fossil fuels, cattle farming, deforestation etc etc. Therefore while we cannot hope to stop a species ending asteroid hitting the earth i would argue that we can take steps to slow or prevent the globe from warming due to human impact.

This brings me to a second point
"Given that - wouldn't it be money better spent to adapt to the change, rather than try to stop it? "

i this case I would argue that seeing there is a risk That everyone has guaged between 3 and 1 there should be the thought of mitigation measures. The first mitagation measure, the most effective, is removing the risk altogether.

I know there is going to be an argument somewhere there for getting more bang for your buck by adapting to our new simmering hot pot of a globe but my thoughts would be that not everywhere can adapt, the effects of one countries emmissions can often be felt remotely from that country, eg ice caps, the maldives etc etc and not all of these countries will have the money to implement these measures.

Anyhow, I think my feelings on the issue are clear. I think what it comes down to is the fact that I believe consumerism without consideration of its real cost in terms of the environmental resource cost are a damaging human practice and that eventually it will be our end (Sh*T it, im getting alarmist again)... or maybe roaches and red spiders will be our end, not really sure.  

Im as guilty as any by the way.

:) Cheers.
 

Er, meteor strikes... well, yes there is something that might be done and I understand that is why they are working on solutions; collision with dark comets are also in its remit.

But, we do have a range of catastrophic scenarios we can worry about and maybe some we can't.

The list of potential disasters is pretty long and includes gamma ray bursts within 30,000 light years (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3351496/Gamma-ray-burst-that-was-heading-for-Earth-detected.html) collisions with dark comets or ordinary comets, meteors, large earth orbit objects, magnetic field dsruption, solar flares on a massive scale, and so on.
Then we have volcanoes, earthquakes, mud slides, floods, (including Tsunamis).
Somehow, Global warming isn't one of the most abrupt nor the most concerning.

We have limited resources. Too limited to spend on the wrong problem or on non-existent problems.



Earthquakes... maybe.
Volcanoes... maybe.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Quote:

MM: I believe consumerism without consideration of its real cost in terms of the environmental resource cost are a damaging human practice

I completely agree, but not towards global warming. I'd loath to see many beautiful places turned into wasteland because of over exploitation. There are many ecosystems that serve a crucial role to life in this planet and tend to be very hardy. On the other hand, this should not be an excuse to destroy the ones that, even though are not crucial, are still part of the cycle.

Quote:

MM: that eventually it will be our end

I disagree. It might be the end of the type of life we enjoy, but as much as destroy the planet, I hardly think so.

Quote:

JMW: We have limited resources. Too limited to spend on the wrong problem or on non-existent problems.

YES!!!! That is exactly what I have been striving for!!
Unfortunately that is not a large enough concept for the law-makers to embrace and win votes. It would mean focusing into multiple different areas and managing the approaches and projects. It is far easier/simpler to embrace a one overall global concept than to actually understand and try to manage a multiple smaller approaches.

The global solution, nobody expects results fast. The smaller ones would force to give quicker results and the politicians would loose face rather quickly.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

So if global warming is such a problem, why not start with smaller solutions that have big impacts?

Am I the only one who has noticed it is so difficult to recycle? I can throw plastic away, or I can collect it, then drive to some remote place and give them away. Same with batteries, paper, cans and electronics.

To keep the my tires aired up it costs 0.75 cents, so usually I can wait several weeks.

My roof is a dark color, only because it is the fashion.

So instead of another tax, why not make it easer for people to do the right thing.

Hey want to buy my old fridge?

Don't get me wrong - I too am all for conserving finite resources (i.e. fossil fuels), and have been doing my part to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

What I don't understand is the pseudo-religious fascination with keeping the world the same as it was in 1990 (or some time around there), like the entire world was the Garden of Eden that needs to be preserved for all eternity.  Seriously - the tectonic movement of the continents has moved once-lush locales to the South Pole.  Oh my Gawd - the Eden there is now forever destroyed!  Maybe we should try to stop tectonic movement...

Since when has "Change" been a curse world.  As in Climate Change.  The systems on this planet have been in a constant state of change since planet started to coalesce.  Imagine the changes that occurred that resulted in Earth having an atmosphere, and then that atmosphere changing due to organic life forms appearing.  Maybe Earth pre-organic life was better - maybe we should go back to that state?  Or maybe change is one of the few inherent constants in the system.

Thought experiment - if we reduced anthropogenic CO2 emissions to exactly zero tomorrow, would Climate Change stop?  Would the world return to the idealized 1990 Eden?  Would it stay there forever?

My answers - No, Possibly for a brief period of time, and No.  Simply look back at the geological record to see what has happened in the past.

Maybe when we're looking at time periods that had climates that we should strive for, maybe we should look back to the last Ice Age.  I understand that many parts of the world were lush oases.  Hmmmm - maybe not - my locale was covered in 1km of ice.  On the flip side, the warmer areas south of me had plenty of melt water for plants, maybe irrigation, maybe white water kayaking.

OK - enough soap box - real question - Why is the reference for all AGW discussions (temperature, ecosystem biodiversity, etc) referenced to one particular date?  Why that date?  Was the world Eden then?

We are not concerned with climate change in itself, because of course the climate has always been changing. What we are concerned with is the rate and extent of current changes to the climate.

As for 1990, it's just a reference point.

 

Are the "rates and extent of current changes to the climate" abnormal from a geological perspective?  No.

Tomfh - I appreciate that you are not concerned with the climate changing, but the vast number of proponents of AGW and the subsequent efforts to "reverse" said change seem to have the opposite view - they are concerned with the change itself.  Otherwise, why reference a single point in history?

Anyway - what's the concern about the rate of change?  Even if it were an order of magnitude faster than anything that has been experienced in the history of the planet - who cares?  Why the alarm?

Climate change is such a frustrating, confused, mis informed argument.

I'll have to bow out. but before I do, one last emapssioned plea. :)

I have a belief that humans in their consumerism have upset a natural balance on earth that is cause rapid changes to the climate, a lot of people dont.

I believe that this changes poses threats to the continuation and diversity on earth, a lot of people dont.

I believe that the continuation and diversity of life on earth is important, a lot of people dont.

Thanks for the new perspective.

Andrew

 

WW, I am glad you changed a little your point of view and I still agree with part of your "plea". Which I see not really a plea but a call for common sense.

If we try to conserve energy, reduce waste, control and manage logging and do all those little environmentally friendly things, we will not only be preserving the environment but, in the long run, most of those will prove to be saving money too.

Yes, human kind has devastated many ecosystems, but this has mostly been because of poor ethics, major greed and complete mismanagement of resources (Hey!! This rings a bell akin to the stock market!!).

The earth and its resources are there for us to benefit from their use. But this use has to be ethical in an environmental way.

The only value I see in the AGW scam (to me) is that brings to light the environmental consciousness.

The enormous down side is all those wasted financial resources for the enrichment of a few (and sometimes not even this) and the fact that there is so many people that will scream Global Warning and Impending Doom but will littler streets and waste more than needed.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Seems to me that we are using so few sensors to develop a proof of a theory, and trying to act to fix the wrong problem.
If our estimates of sea ice are dependit on the miscalabration of one sensor, then we really don't know that there is a problem. There is so little data behind either argument, and it seems each side is ignoring some data. So how can we make a conclusion either way of who is really telling us the truth?

Do we believe some one who would profit from this type of hoax, or some one who works for an energy company?

All I know is the implyed and real taxes that hit my wallet, and my loss of fredoms.
 

Aha!
Greenies go nuclear!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/4786835/Greens-see-the-light-on-nuclear-power.html
There is probably a catch somewhere but it appears some greenies have had a change of heart.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

About darn frikkin time!!

Electrical power should be nuclear, mobile power should be fossil fuel.

Let's see now how this fares and for how long.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Climate is cooling this century.  Look at the satellite temps, which are the only ones without subjective adjustments.  Also, here's something new from Japan Society of Energy and Resources:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/print.html

Summary
Three of the five leading scientists contend that recent climate change is driven by natural cycles, not human industrial activity, as political activists argue.

Kanya Kusano is Program Director and Group Leader for the Earth Simulator at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology (JAMSTEC). He focuses on the immaturity of simulation work cited in support of the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Using undiplomatic language, Kusano compares them to ancient astrology. After listing many faults, and the IPCC's own conclusion that natural causes of climate are poorly understood, Kusano concludes:

"[The IPCC's] conclusion that from now on atmospheric temperatures are likely to show a continuous, monotonous increase, should be perceived as an unprovable hypothesis," he writes.

Shunichi Akasofu, head of the International Arctic Research Center in Alaska, has expressed criticism of the theory before. Akasofu uses historical data to challenge the claim that very recent temperatures represent an anomaly:

"We should be cautious, IPCC's theory that atmospheric temperature has risen since 2000 in correspondence with CO2 is nothing but a hypothesis. "

Akasofu calls the post-2000 warming trend hypothetical. His harshest words are reserved for advocates who give conjecture the authority of fact.

"Before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for truth... The opinion that great disaster will really happen must be broken."
 

And we are supposed to trust a translation!?! Just kidding. I did read the document before and was amazed.
This guy just confirmed what has been said for the last three or four years. The value I see is that it is in an 'independent' report, meaning, it is not associated to the same sources that have been saying this.
I hope there will be more of these types of studies coming out, before the politicians go full board in taxing for a non-existing problem.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Remember Saddam's supergun?
A cap pistol by comparison with this one, intended to shoot reflecting sheets into space to shield us from the sun and "fix" global warming.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/4839985/Scientists-to-stop-global-warming-with-100000-square-mile-sun-shade.html

I don't know what worries me most about this. The fact that it needs to be reversible... else we'll be shielded from the sun during an ice age.
Someone, on the video, does talk about unintended consequences but with a "we know what we are doing" kind of condescension as if, having remembered the law of unintended consequences that are immune..

I thought Prof. Creutzen was bad enough shooting sulphur up there but .....

This is just the sort of investment the crazies trying to dig us out of recession will invest in.
On the other hand, the time scale is such that we'll probably be freezing our butts off before it gets finished (but someone will still be saying that this is just a temporary cooling cycle and global warming is getting set to bite even harder when it ends and we're gonna need this then.

By the way, how come cooling cycles are temporary but warming is not?
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Browsing around I also found the picture that tells a serious story here:
http://surfacestations.org/
The picture is a map of the US showing the surface stations already surveyed with colour coded symbols representing the potential temperature errors.
In the presentation (follow the link on this page) it describes how the surface station project began with the 1979 decision to change from whitewash to latex paint on the Stevenson screens to see if there was a possible bias in the temperature readings.
Yes, it appears there is: comparative tests showed "several" degrees difference. I do hope that computer model knew about what paint was used, where and how the station was installed and which ones had light bulbs installed.  
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Here's something new about the source of "Global Warming" hype:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/carbon_regulation_one_scientis.html

And from there, via a search for Dr Robert Watson (now apparently a director both with the World Bank and the Tyndal Centre), we arrive at another interesting site:
http://www.sovereignty.net
but I'm not sure what to make of them.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

SI believe that Global warming is part of a UN conspiracy to establish Global Governmant. They appear to be in the "there is no warming, period" camp

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/inconvenient-truths-dont-believe-the-greenwash-1635867.html

 

Tomfh - who is "SI"?

sovereignty international
http://www.sovereignty.net

apparently not affiliated with diamonds international nor tanzanite international.
 

Thanks TPL, that is a great article on the greenwash.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

TPL,
The author(s) of that article seemed to be comfortable enough on his/her/their fence.
AGW? no opinion.
CO2 increase good or bad? no opinion.

Actually, that isn't a bad position.
Too often journos like to present us with their opinions as if their opinions meant a whole lot to anyone but themselves. Tell me the facts but don't, please, tell me how to think.
I like to make my own (often wrong) choices.

And then there are celebrity "causes".
So Leo Di Cap owns a prius.
Big deal. Well, actually, they seem not so impressed themselves.
The celebrity cult is quite worrying. Why, because some one is a celebrity, does their opinion on climate or any other damn thing, except perhaps whatever it is made them a celebrity, supposed to be so much better than anyone else's opinion.   
In fact, people like Ted Danson may be good or entertaining actors but their views on climate are no better or worse than anyone else's views.
Yet Danson can, through his celebrity and through his creation (www.Oceana.org), do an inordinate amount of good or bad because celebrity to mean credibility.
It doesn't equate. But there he is on his home page telling congress to stop offshore drilling. He may or may not be right; but his status as a celebrity should not allow his opinions more weight than anyone else. that isn't democratic... but what is?

So maybe I like the idea of a reporter simply presenting information and letting me make up my own mind. (though there are ways to present information... balance is what is called for).

On the other hand, may it is dangerous to let people make up their own minds.... about joining the EU, about adopting the new constitution, about joining the single currency, about wind farms, about climate change, about choosing politicians... come to that.

Old banger Vs hybrid? well now, perhaps we should look for more responsible car manufacture... maybe we should design cars that last far longer and are capable of many many more miles before they go to the scrap heap.

Can we extend life expectancy and charge more for the car? What is the average lifetime mileage for a car? how do we extend it and what is the practical environmental limit and how can we encourage that?
Taxes, of course, the politicians opium. Maybe we should and could encourage more expensive but longer lasting cars. And, come to that, more expensive but longer lasting everything.
You know, not just a bag (supermarket) for life but everything (even spouses...?)
You want a new car? swap with someone else.

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

While on the sie I thought I browse around a bit and found this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/australia-fires-a-climate-wakeup-call--experts-1606105.htmlbit

Hmm. Yet I thought, from the case of one home owner (http://www.scoop.co.nz/multimedia/tv/world/18417.html) who was fined for creating fire breaks around his home, the only one to survive in his community, that the problem was bit more than simply climate change. Unless, of course, climate change impels governments to pass stupid laws that do more harm than good.... oh, yes, of course. It does, but then so does pretty well anything, not just climate change.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I came across a statement the other day regarding the amount of fuel that a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) uses. "1 litre of fuel burned in a VLCC transports 1 tonne of cargo (crude oil) 1736 miles." So based on that I figured that a VLCC shipping Light Arabian crude from the Gulf to New York Harbor (about 13,800 statute miles,14 knots, 36 days) would burn the equivalent of 0.48% of its cargo. This is relevant when comparing the carbon footprint of crude from Canada's oil sands versus crude from the Middle East. I suppose the VLCC burns marine diesel, that is why I used the word "equivalent". I have no basis on which to check this estimate. Any comments?

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

VLCCs often burn recovered volatiles i.e. part of the cargo that used to get lost.
Now whether they mean 1 litre of fuel purchased or 1 litre of fuel in addition to recovered volatiles...

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Good point jmw, I will need to check that out. So the number could go up whether they burn recovered volatiles or just let them vent to atmosphere. In the latter case the relevant number would be fuel plus cargo shrinkage. And it would be better to capture and burn for at least two reasons.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

It looks like recovery of VOCs is fairly recent, maybe not yet throughout the fleet. Industry estimates are for 0.15 to 0.25% of the cargo lost without recovery equipment. The article I checked said they re-absorb the VOC into crude from the bottom of the tanks. So I guess its a wash. Of course absorption is not free, there are pumps involved. So fuel is likely about 0.48% of cargo plus say 0.2% loss if no recovery. But I will check my initial reference if I can find it.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

The link for the source of  "1 litre, 1 tonne, 1736 miles" is shown below. From the context it looks like it is for fuel not fuel plus recovered VOCs.
 

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

• http://imsf.info/papers/Gdansk2008/IMO%20reduce%20emissions%20-%20Ranheim.p
• and
• the
• environment

Tunguska 1908 and Primorye 1947.

If we check the catalogue of "things that could happen and will be bad for you" we can see not just earthquakes and volcanoes, but meteor impacts.
These are things we know have happened and can happen again, indeed, will happen again.
Anyone living along or near the San Andreas fault knows the "big one" is coming, we just don't know when. and Yellowstone is a giant caldera waiting to go bang.
But meteor strikes?
The last big one that had a significant impact was probabl;y the Yucatan Peninsular strike alleged to have possibly ended the reign of the dinosaurs.
However, we should consider that we are increasingly more vulnerable to smaller and smaller impacts. SO while we might suppose that much of the available material to cause damage has already been significantly depleted there still remains a lot of material floating around the solar system just waiting its time.
The thing is we are now a much more dependent society than ever before. We live in a JIT society with very few reserves. We depend on manufacture matching demand with minimal reserves of food or energy and our supplies are increasingly fragile and thus, probably, more vulnerable to the lesser impacts than ever before. We don't need a climate changing event to cause us harm.
Even a minor event such as the two that happened last century might be expected to have a more significant impact if they happened this century... simply because we have more assets spread around for a meteor to impact on.
The too there are significantly more people spread out over the target.
The thing is, whatever the rate of depletion, however long it has been going on, there is still enough dangerous material out there to give us some nasty moments.

So, how many events this century and what scale? How much impact would the last centuries impact have if they happened this century or they struck somewhere else than Siberia? or into the sea? Actually, suppose they had impacted on the sea and not the land? what would have been the effect? or if they impacted either polar region?

We cannot assume we won't have such impacts this century.
We cannot assume they will be smaller. We cannot assume there won't be more of them.

OK, so there is now a study of near earth orbit objects and some are concerned about comets. But have we found them all? And what will we do if we find one headed for earth?

A good primer is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event

Now OK, how do we weigh this in the balance?
Suppose we detect a largish lump of space rubble headed our way. How much time would we have to do something and what would we do?

Suppose we now have a recession and no money because we spent it all on windmills.
Triaging the potential problems, I'd say we need to be ready and able to sort out rogue meteors and comets. We need to be able to evacuate significant parts of the planet, if we know in time, when earthquakes and volcanoes threaten (which requires we continue to invest in the science of predicting such events) and we need to invest in the means to move people and continue to feed the planet.
I'd spend money here before I'd even think of worrying about a few degrees temperature change with progressive effects not necessarily harmful.

So,
I ask you:
What are the events we should prioritise?
What are the problems we should anticipate?
How should we address them?

What have we forgotten?


 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I can certainly answer the last question: we've forgotten common sense favouring tabloids and scandals

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

So what if we knew when the big one was coming. Would we not expect the same reaction as New Orlens?
So why isen't the same thing happening with the climate change? Or maybe it is. But then again it isen't big storm cloud.

Our leaders don't seem to look at real world facts, they react to people's fears. (Sort of like driving by looking at the passangers face).
And the problem is the majorty of people calling for climate change legesation, really aren't that bright. How else can some one explain the ease it was to have these people sign up to ban Di-hydro mono-oxide, that chemical used by so many power companies.

Cranky,
did you miss the point or did I misunderstand when you said:

Quote:

So why isen't the same thing happening with the climate change? Or maybe it is. But then again it isen't big storm cloud.

.I sincerely would like there not to be a big investment on cliamte change but some investment in other things: not on "climate" change because there is no clarity on
(a) what the cause is; or
(b) if we can do anything sensible; if
(c) a bit of warming is/is not harmful.
On (c) many would argue that we are better off with a warmer more CO2 rich environment.
On (b) there is some debate about whether or not reducing CO2 will do any good and many now suggest that geo-engineering is the best solution.

But when it comes to (a) that is what the debate is about. Is it well enough understood? Are the computer models to be relied upon? Is the original data reliable? (the change is smaller than the manipulations, the source data is increasingly suspect and so on).

Plus, no matter what they say, we are being offered something that is progressive, a trend to which we can adapt if we must: we have demonstrably survived a range of climate changes far more severe than promised by doing absolutely nothing (except maybe migrating a bit and wiping out Mammoths - over hunting is said to have been the cause of their final demise).

When I mention earthquakes, volcanoes, and meteor/comet/asteroid impacts we are talking about things that have happened, where we didn't do too well out of them and they will happen again.

Now tell me, can we afford to do something about all these things? If not, where should our current priorities lie?

If we just consider meteor strikes, then we should know that probability and incidence are two different things. It may be that we only expect one ELE every couple of million years on average but we cannot say we will have another couple of million before the next event, it might be tomorrow. Indeed, there are many smaller objects for which the probabilities are grater that can do very serious damage but about which we probably could do something.
At the moment some near misses have come about with very little warning indeed.

And yes, New Orleans is a good example of where money could and should have been spent to do something but wasn't. Now it may be it wasn't for political reasons etc but when it happens again and someone then says "we had no budget for levee improvements" what then?

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

jmw - I think we need to do better than just survive as a species. Perhaps we need to start developing scenarios including, do nothing and maybe lose a few million or tens of millions, try to hold CO2 around ?? and just get poorer, lose say a million folks, knock CO2 back down to say 1940 level and maybe get very poor for quite a while, and lose only thousands. I am undecided on global warming as a function of CO2 concentration but we need to know the likely outcomes from various strategies.  

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

owg, in my opinion we are one of the species that has adapted the best so far.

I do agree with jmw: stop wasting money away in an improbable problem with a consequence much more dire than its assumed damage.

We can adapt to a different climate.

An extended disease (pesticides) famine (bio-fuels, destroying forests, imbalancing many species) and waste of resources in a pro-green action will cost more lives in the end than global warming (name it, wars, terror, whatever you can envision if the resources in a global scale are allocated wrong).

Talk about natural selection where only the wealthy will survive.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Population growth combined with decreasing arable land area is a prescription for disaster many times bigger than "lose only thousands".  Until we get population growth under control, nothing else is important.  It may be that the enhancement of crop growth due to increased CO2 will give us a few decades reprieve.

I don't think anyone with any ability to comprehend the big picture would refute that the shock to the economy of $4 gas and $5 diesel is what kicked us into this recession/depression (we don't even know how low it will go yet).

Unless we get population growth under control, we are in for a calamity with repercussions no one can predict.  Homo sapiens' ability to scrounge resources portends a truly tragic scenario for the biosphere.

"Global Warming" not only is the least of our problems, it may be a blessing in disguise.

No I agree we should not be spending much on GW. My question is: Why are we treeting this apperent disaster any different than say New Orleans. We seem to be good at sticking our head in the sand. So what is the difference?
The difference is a this global agenda to apperently hog tie the American economy.

If the desire here is the survival of the species, then why aren't we looking at deversify our living areas. Why aren't we living on the moon, mars and beyond?

And if GW really is a problem, why isen't nucular power part of the solution. Also some of the simple things like painting roof's white to reflect the sun light.

Simply, this can't be a real problem, or we would be looking at the simple solutions first.

This is not to say some solar and some wind isen't good, but then again there is a stability limit.
  

Further up is the link to painting things white.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

The Leipzig declaration and signatories can be found here:
http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/leipzig.html
Follow the link at the bottom for the list of signatories.

http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/statment.html from the same site is a list of atmospheric scientists also not willing to be lumped into the "consensus".

Same site: the report of the NIPCC:
http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/4990047/Al-Gore-World-will-agree-new-climate-deal.html

I sincerely hope not!

(and do I hate celebrity endorsements.... what does Will Smith know that I should consider his utterances as "authoritative"? or Ted Danson's, etc. etc. I wish celebs would stick to doing their jobs. Celebs are near as bad as hackers, botherders, spammers, phishers et al when they move outside their box)

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

On the other hand, Al Gore may just be trying to talk it up if we believe this comment on a minority report:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=fc6818d6-802a-23ad-4803-b2ed231c1d7d


JMW
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It isn't just me that wants celebs back in the box.
Coincidentally I find this comment in the opening:

Quote:

A lot has changed over the past six years since I started to speak out against the likes of Al Gore, the United Nations, and the Hollywood elite.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I don't have time to read this entire thread, so forgive me if I'm reinventing the wheel here.  I do have a few comments:

(1) Using biomass or sugar to make and burn fuel or produce goods does not increase emissions.  A mass balance (the first thing you learn as a cheme) would tell you that using carbon on the surface of the earth doesn't not increase the total carbon in the system.  Bringing carbon up from under the earth (oil, coal, exc) does increase the total carbon in the system.  There is lag time, of course, between being its release as CO2 and being fixed back as plant material.

(2) Using biomass a fuel will not deplete our food supply.  Or at least the market has to be evened out before we know what the true cost is - specifically the federal government favoring/supplementing big US agriculture while putting crushing tariffs on foreign sugar (a possible fuel supply) has to be taken out of play before we can really prove that corn ethanol will the inflated price of food.

(3) I would argue that it's impossible to predict with any certainty what our actions are doing to the planet.  Short term data indicates an alarming rise in things like CO2 but we all know Al Gore's correlations don't separate cause from effect (i.e. does an inc in T cause inc CO2 or visa versa?).  On the long term, our "alarming" data looks like a joke – the planet whips around from one extreme to the next without any apparent periodicity... Looking back far enough we see that the planet might be going into an ice age and our greenhouse stimulating may actually save us.  But because our existence (or pollution input) has happened on such a small time-scale and because our system (the earth) has never seen this before, we can't say anything about exactly what will happen.  We'll never know because we'll all be dead when the facts come in.

(4) We can't be certain we are changing the climate but we can be certain that are polluting and dependent on an outdated energy source that is not sustainable.  Add to that, the fact that energy is also sold to us by countries that don't have our best interest at heart - more specifically countries that despise our way of living and would rather see us dead.  Biofuels from corn offer an immediate solution, which sets up the infrastructure and industry to move away from petroleum and even eventually away from corn to second generation cellulosics.  That and any other sustainable energy source – wind, tide, hydro, nuclear, whatever is better than business-as-usual.
 

Increasing the production of biofuels will increase prices somewhere. Food cost, lumber cost, etc. Because of the shift in production of land. Unless you increase the amount of land in production, or concerate on the use of waste products.
On the other hand, the acceptance of other fuels will depend on the simularities they have to existing fuels.
Example, the use of wood pellets for heat. The acceptance has been slow because of the cost of the equipment to handle and use the pellets.
Or example ethonol mixed with gasolene, the acceptance has happened rather quickly as it seemingly has no added cost to use.

Re: Cranky108.

Yup but the shift in land use for corn-to-fuel from corn-to-food should be shift back once grasses and other more robust plants are used for fuel.  Corn requires huge imputs but grasses (so-call second generation biofuels) can be grown on "bad" land with much less energy input.

Yes E85 gas is a great example - if we double fuel economy to say ~50mpg shift all cars to E85 within 5 years, we'll put a huge dent in private sector transporation fuel demand.  It won't solve the problem of big trucks or power plants but it's a start.  The upside is that all that ethanol is produced or at least refined here, providing jobs to americans.

By the way, a pellet stove?  What a waste - some guy has to chop your wood, process it into cute little pellets, bag it, and sell it to you at Walmart just so you'll burn it?   

Actually corn is a grass, and if the grass part is used with the grain, then you could have a double crop.

The problem with many bad lands is that it won't support the intentency of crops you would expect. Bad meaning rain fall, soil, slope, etc.
Any many bad lands are now used for cattle which if used for biofuels would increase the food cost.

I had a pellet stove and the pellets were a waste fuel. They were made from used wood pallets from the shipping industry. With my consumption of about 3 tons a winter, walmart was a last resort (The baskets just won't hold more than a few hundred pounds).
The advantage was there wasen't all these stupid unknown charges on my bill every month (What's the difference between cost of gas, and energy charge).

 

Well, good luck getting 50 mpg on ethanol :)

Regards,

Mike

FYI:

corn = stover (cellulosic) & kernels (starch)

Corn Ethanol is made from the kernels.  The remaining stover is typically tilled back into the land (or so i've heard).  You could argue for using the stover as a fuel (burned to heat starch-->sugar process) or digesting the stover (cellulases), but it's best to move away to from corn to celluse-rich grasses that can grow with less effort.
 

Why is ethanol so tied to biofuel, and biodiesel, wood, wood products, methane, straw, and bagwaneese not so thought of as biofuel? Is there a bias to ethonol?
And since biodiesel is the only one that has a energy content close to gasoline, or diesel fuel, and is a liquid, it seems more likely biodiesel will stay.
 

"Is there a bias to ethanol?" Recommend asking Archer Daniels Midland.

Regards,

Mike

Good point.  Seems easier to pump up ethanol content of gas rather than have everyone switch to diesel.  You can also use the sugars to make a more energy dense fuel than ethanol.  It's the biomass --> stuff part that's important.

Come up with bio-octaine, and you will have a winner.

"Is there a bias to ethanol?" Recommend asking Archer Daniels Midland.

I think they'd struggle to provide an unbiased view.  About 4 years ago I shared a bus ride with a couple of chemists from ADM.  They complained that the government was unfairly subsidizing alternative fuels other than theirs, and said that they'd really do great things if their fuel had a level playing field.  
 

ivymike, exactly my point. How much advantage do they need to "level the playing field"?

I've said this before, but, I would like to see all market distorting policies, of whatever description, removed from all forms of energy production and supply, and let them fight it out in the marketplace. Whoever can supply me with the least expensive, most reliable energy gets my business.

Never happen.

Regards,

Mike

I think the sugar lobby, and sugar import restrictions are at the root of the ethonol unlevel playing field. If these were lifted ethonol should be much cheeper because of the cheeper cane sugar.
So here's goverment, restricting something, at the same time adding incentives for it.
So I ask why not grow sugar beets here? (sugar lobby again). My conclusion is we talk about it to be happy, but we don't do it because some one is in the goverment pocket.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30210066/

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Seems to me some sort of collection system would be less intrusive. That should lessen the carbon hoofprint of the dairy industry.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Granted methane emmissions have increased because of man, but don't you think there are other places that would be easer places to capture of methane. And any place you capture it would reduce the total emmissions.

If we do capture the methane, then what do we do with it? Well it makes a nice fuel, however it would then emmit co2.

The grass-cow-co2 cycle is a stable cycle without a gain or loss in total carbon content, so co2 should not be important.

 

CO2 and H2O are far less potent greenhouse gases than methane, so burning methane as a fuel is a good thing if you care about greenhouse gases.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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If that's true then coal seam methane harversting should be a good thing. Or the harvesting of methane from land fills.

So not all co2 is bad, but a better option to natural methane production.

But will carbon taxes reflect that?

I've mentioned before my idea that given the cost & mass penalties associated with current hybrid technology it should be focused where it has the best pay-off which is probably in vehicles that see a lot of stop & go.  Examples I've mentioned before would be Taxi's & delivery vehicles in urban settings.

Here's one attempt in the van field.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30334501/wid=18298287


 

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"Or the harvesting of methane from land fills."

Being done, and yes they are relying on carbon credits to make it worthwhile.

One of my stupider investments.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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Once upon a time, in the UK milk would be delivered door to door using battery powered milk floats.

We also had trams in large towns and cities.

Of course, trams are making a comeback and with sensible measures to support them they appear to have a great advantage over buses (though what, I'm not sure).
I do recall that Santa Barbara has a electric bus between the center and the beach and I would suggest there is a lot of opportunity to expand on such systems.
Let us accept the assumption that electricity is automatically better than fossil fuel and not wonder where the electricity really comes from (maybe the stork brings it?).

Personally I would suggest that every major town or city use its ring road system to serve a rail terminus and that all goods should be shipped by rail, sorted out in the terminus and distributed locally using electric powered vehicles.
Anything that shifts freight of the roads and onto rail for the bulk of its journey has to be a winner with me whether it is environmentally friendly or not.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Probally a wonderful idea, if only it was workable. At least in some places it maybe.

Here the rail lines go through the middle of town, and they are powered by 4 or 5 4500 Hp diseals, to carry the 100+ rail cars following. And very few stop here, except to allow another train to go the other way.
Rail is not the perfered way to ship things, as it is much slower than truck, and there is more damage.
A good part of the problem with railroads is the shortages of double track, and drivers. Which is about the same problem with trucks, a shortage of wide roads, and drivers.

Shifting isen't so much the problem, as just to increase capacity of all of the above.
 

jmw, once upon a time before Dr Beeching (spelling?) got his way that may have been a practical suggestion for the UK.

However, Santa Barbara doesn't have a ring road, in fact the main 'across town' route is the highway.  So it wouldn't do much for the elecric bus riders locally.

http://sbeti.org/SBEBus.PDF

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On April 21 I wrote.
"Seems to me some sort of collection system (tied to cows) would be less intrusive. That should lessen the carbon hoofprint of the dairy industry."
It was not meant to be taken seriously. I thought the "carbon hoofprint" reference might indicate that.
Next time I will add a just so there is no confusion.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Oh, humour?
During the war when petrol was in short supply, cars had gas bags on the roof that allowed them to burn town/coal gas instead. Putting a bag on the cow and then transferring it, when full, to a car might be a good idea.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Who wants to design the solid/gas separation system though

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So if the gas bag idea cought on, how long do you think it will be before someone tries it on other animals, or gassey humans?

However if cows were raised, like pork, in sealed houses, then the problem should be easer.
However the free range movement would be very upset by that idea.

 

No they wouldn't, they'd insist we all become Vegans (instead of Vulcans)

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Live long and prosper.

What is the deal with flairing of gases at refinereys, and gas processing plants? They must have some BTU value as they always have a flame.

Also if they wanted to capture co2 would a ethonol plant be a good place for that?

cranky108, a lot of cattle are raised in feed sheds or the like for at least some of their life.  As you point out during this time somehow gathering their waste (both solid and gaseous, and perhaps less usefully liquid) is quite feasible and already done to some extent.

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Ive read the term 'global warming' many times in this thread. The Scientists no longer use this term as they now realise that some areas may actually get colder, they now use the term 'climate change'.

Hence the thread title

Quote:

"Educated" opinions on climate change - Part 3

Didn't you start the first one csd72?

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csd72 (Structural) 27 Apr 09 14:10  
Ive read the term 'global warming' many times in this thread. The Scientists no longer use this term as they now realise that some areas may actually get colder, they now use the term 'climate change'.  

Correct.  They now claim almost any weather excursion from average - hot, cold, wet or dry.

 

Hmmmh, I would hesitate a bit calling those scientists... But in any event, Climate CHange no longer applies either, now it is "Climate Disruption"

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Kenat,

Yes I did, way back then. Different job, different country now.

LCruiser,

Yes and they claim the temperatures are rising in the spring and falling in the fall!

Give them a break, climate science is newer than computer engineering. It is like designing a building and inventing the codes as you go along -  the learning curve is huge.

Even if the evidence is not totally compelling, what if they are right!



 

The global temperature, according to satellites, has been declining this century.  Also, increasing CO2 is good for the biosphere - that's all we really know.  We do need to find out what the effect on climate is - but the alarmists ignoring that the sun's inactivity allowing more gcr's and increasing albedo is quite ... interesting.

So, what if, in this time of overpopulation, we need that extra CO2?  That seems likely, whereas decreasing temperatures while CO2 has been increasing (supposedly further and further out of equilibrium) flies in the face of global warming dogma.

csd72,

Quote:

Give them a break, climate science is newer than computer engineering. It is like designing a building and inventing the codes as you go along -  the learning curve is huge.

but I do not remember many politicians scavenging my wallet to pay for the errors on the code, mishaps, lies, doom and gloom, end of civilization, etc.... So no, I do not give them a break. For a break they would have had to be ethical at first.Unfortunately, while the heart was in the right place "stop wasting", the way things developed is far from acceptable. Carbon trading, Kyoto, biofuels subsidy, taxes, taxes....

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

Dare we ask these politicians to retract these laws and taxes? Dare we ask them to apologize?

Cleaning thing up a bit did not hurt. But limiting people for a theory that can't proven. That is just beyond.

 

"Cleaning thing up a bit did not hurt."

Are you sure?  I remember some of the environmentally inspired rules, regulations etc. being a bit of a pain at a previous employer.

I wonder if any jobs in 'heavy polluting' industries got off shored at least in part due to 'Cleaning thing up a bit'.

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Kenat,

That can be a good thing. I never buy locally produced paper, I prefer to cause deforestation on the other side of the world:)

Anyway, america has had it too easy for too long - low taxes, cheap fuel, cheap goods, leanient pollution laws. You start to believe that you cant live without these things but the rest of the western world does and survives well too.

Actually csd, the job I was thinking of was in the UK.

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So what exactly do you call cleaning things up a bit?
Maybe we have different points of views on what is a bit.

If getting rid of choking smoke (like burning tires)is a problem to you, then I disagree with you. This is the definition of a health concern.

CO2 is a clear oderless gas, which isen't very noticable at current levels to anyone without special equipment. And I don't believe causes runaway climate change.

Dividing line should be a measured health concern, not theory that can't be proven or measured.





 

Well, the hours spent trying to estimate how much shipping material we used, even though an awfull lot of it got re-used or recycled could have been more usefully spent on other stuff, at least from a business point of view.  This was because of some environmental rule or standard as I recall.

Then there was the fun of bringing the metal treatment plant up to the latest environmental standards, and the paint shop.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done or doesn't have benefits, but to claim as you do "Cleaning thing up a bit did not hurt." doesn't ring true to my ear.

I now remember why I quit reading these threads.

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No you didn't, Kenat, you're still reading and replying!
You may be getting a little frustrated though as, I suspect, we all are.
It would be really nice to have some more science or some believable reproducible data untainted by dubious challenged manipulations.

It would be nice if someone could ask Michael Mann et al (and et Al Gore) what role they think the sun has in climate and what we are to do about water vapour.

It would be nice to think that Lysenkoism died out long ago.
It would be nice to think that the current cooling spell would reach some kind of magnitude and duration that it would be considered a natural part of the natural cycle and not an abnormality or not just something else caused by man (the effects of pollution also contribute to global chilling - chilling is the word to use in searches, not cooling - are said to "mask the effects of global warming when in fact it might possibly be more truthfully said that CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning are about balanced by the cooling effects of SOX emissions) which leaves us where?)

Of course, the AGW types will only acknowledge the cooling cycle as significant once we have spent untold trillions on eco-engineering, enough so they could claim that the all that investment in wind farms and whatever had shown some benefits.

Actually, that reminds me of a story:
A man who every day took his usual seat on the train from Basingstoke to London, each day watched with increasing curiosity, another regular passenger carefully tear up his Times Newspaper into tiny little bits and spread them all around his feet.
Finally curiosity got the better of manners and he asked the question:
"Pardon me, and I apologise for disturbing you, but why do you do that?"
The newspaper shredder looked up and replied "Oh, its to keep the elephants away."
"But there are no elephants!" exclaimed the other.
"I know," he replied, "effective, isn't it?"


 

JMW
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Kenat,

Even more imporant. The UK is polluted enough as it is.

By the way, the environmental thing has been going on for decades here from before climate change was a real issue.

This is for a very good reason as there is so little environment left over here and any pollution effects a lot of people due to the dense population.

csd72,

I do not know where you live, but

Quote:

This is for a very good reason as there is so little environment left over here and any pollution effects a lot of people due to the dense population.

as far as I can tell, humans ARE part of the environment. We tend to modify it a little more drastically than other species but, sorry, you and I belong to nature. (BTW, ask some farmers or lease road workers whether beavers affect their environment or not).

Quote:

This is for a very good reason as there is so little environment left over here and any pollution effects a lot of people due to the dense population

well, gotta define environment first. Wild? maybe a little left, I'll agree, but we gotta live somewhere. If the human race was to spread thin just to avoid the urban destruction of the environment, just think of the millions of km2 of roads needed then, or power, or gas or....
And

Quote:

By the way, the environmental thing has been going on for decades here from before climate change was a real issue

I have worked FOR the environment all my professional life and I am a tree hugger, just not a fanatic. If, and I say IF, we are effecting the GLOBAL Climate, I first need to see proof, sustainable, scientifically sound, before putting a smile in my face looking how my taxes drain my bank account and go into non sustainable processes that, in occasions, burns my food!

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

There was a news article about more of the antartic ice sheet breakingup. I got to thinking about another news story of several years ago, about the silting of streams.
So what if the silting of streams, caused by erosion, increased the salt level of oceans (not global warming).
How would this effect things?

Is it possible the effects, called global warming, are actually caused by a different polution than the one they are trying to regulate? And maybe the globe isen't really warming?
 

Interesting thought, cranky.  Human beings use a lot of salt, not just in our food, but as the basis of a lot of manufacturing, maybe all of it involves salt at some point in the process, if we dig far enough.  

I think we could start something with this, without even very much effort.  Chart salt mining, annual salt production, etc. vs. apparent ice cap thickness or acreage or volume over time (clearly there is a correlation, salt production today is the highest it's ever been, and ice caps are the thinnest)*.  We all know that correlation == causation, so don't bother to expend a lot of effort to justify that chart.  Try and find historical records of ocean salinity over time (some ancient Peruvian monastery probably measured salinity for the past 500 years).  Find archeological records that you can circumstantially link to salinity levels (some kind of crustacean shell density perhaps, or the number of dendrites in fossil seaweed leaves, or...?).  Then go stand before Congress and testify that we need to cap global salt production.  Discuss fossil salt vs. sea salt production, claim that sea salt is a "renewable" or green technology, vs. fossil salt production.  Propose legislation that lets industries trade their salt discharge or lack of same to salt miners.

Let me know when you are ready to "go public" with this, I want to short sell my salt mine stocks, and buy shares of sand companies, tire chain and snow tire producers, and auto repair companies.  Oh, and stock up on beef jerky.

---------
* - just like there is a correlation (although an inverse one) between pirates and global temperatures.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FSM_Pirates.png

Oh, and in case anybody was wondering, I am being totally serious here, no sarcasm has ever passed this keyboard (I use antiferrous software to prevent unwanted bouts of irony).

btrueblood.... *&^*^%... don't start it! I enjoy my salt in my food too much!
But cranky's gotta point!! Salt, deforestation, etc... might actually be more of a problem, globally, than emissions.
There, some scientist can pick up this and get a grant for research!

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying " Damn that was fun!" - Unknown>>

The acid levels of the sea are apparantly a concern.

I vote we dump a bunch of tums in, let's see their stock rise.

Oops, I wasn't going to read this thread again, darn it.

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We could also tie the salt thing to obesity, and make it twice as big as the current climate change thing. And double the proposed tax increases.

I actually don't hate all salts, only MgCl.
 

OK, so the age of the oceans/earth is a function of the salinity from just that mechanism...
http://unmaskingevolution.com/27-oceanage.htm
But there is a hell of a lot of salt already in there.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Download this book free of charge from http://www.withouthotair.com/
"Sustainable Energy — without the hot air"
It is by a physicist and quantifies some of our energy options. He summarizes global warming but treats it as a fait accompli. I would have preferred some pros and cons since I am not yet convinced.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Just an Australian columnist's view, but he is one who does his homework.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25402980-5007146,00.html

"We could also tie the salt thing to obesity"

Wait, would obesity not drive global cooling?  I'm imagining acres of untanned white flesh reflecting the sun's rays...and now I'm trying not to imagine it...darn.

If you want to see the obesity thing in action, just go to the beach.
This is also the reverse of erosion, or the transportation of sand from the ocean to some place inland.

ewww....

imagine snow caped mountans, as the earth slowly gets colder from the lack of sun spot activity.

We can fix that, just add CO2.

cranky108 (Electrical) 5 May 09 23:00:  
"imagine snow caped mountans, as the earth slowly gets colder from the lack of sun spot activity.

We can fix that, just add CO2."

Maybe - then again, increasing CO2 has never warmed Earth before...  
 

Agree that increasing CO2 may have never warmed the Earth before.
However I am seeing more in print that the Earth is cooling, and we still have congress wanting to regulate CO2.
It appears more and more about regulation then CO2.

So I'm thinking the CO2 issue is a side bar to the desire to regulate a moot point.
Or as a congressmen once said "There's to much consuming going on out there".

"Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life."

Richard Lindzen
 

anyone who questions mans ability to affect the environment should check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

We can always use wood for heat. Which is somewhat conforting as it is very difficult to regulate, tax,and control, while causing govermental issues with deforrestation. Sort of last resort for many.

csd72, the ocean's landfill as it were.

Never heard of it before. Interesting.

Regards,

Mike

A while ago, maybe on the first of these threads, I brought up the idea of a battery pack for electric cars that could be swapped, a bit like the packs on some cordless drills (but bigger) in a scheme similar to the way propane tanks are exchanged.  At the time Greg mentioned he'd seen such ideas before.

Well, while not yet in production or here's a relevant news story.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30744602/

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KENAT, been used for electric forklifts forever...

Regards,

Mike

Rings a bell now you mention it SnTMan, but I dont' remember them being quite as easy to switch etc.

KENAT,

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The bit they don't show is the hard bit. Behind the scenes they must be moving charged and discharged packs around, and interrogating the on board diagnostics so as to determine the battery's condition. Economically it is hard to imagine it'd be worth doing this manually.

Anyway, yes that is a bigger uglier version of what I'd imagined, it is very similar to how we 'stuff' the engine driveline and suspension into a car.



 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

What would be the cost of changing bettery packs, versis other moble energy technologys?

How about a distribution system of low BTU biogas to fill up cars in a simular manor to how propane is used and distributed in the US now? It's green, and somewhat compatable with what is already existing.

It also dosen't have as much of a cold weather problem as batteries, and can produce a usable heat for the passengers.

If low BTU gas needs help then a E100 fuel can be vaporized into the intake.

I agree that CNG (possibly supplemented with biogas) or similar seems probably easier to deal with than hydrogen, electric/battery and some biofuels for many applications.

While I've seen various parts of the puzzle I'm not totally sure why it isn't more actively persued.

KENAT,

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Sometimes I think the wave of people follow the flashy things.

They are not interested in the not so flashy things like biogas, former gas, wood, or simular technologies. Although they are more practicle.

However, when it comes to the price tag, people vote with there dollars, and we see the not so flashy technologies shine. Unless there is a goverment substidies involved like wind power and solar.

KENAT, I never said they were easy to switch...

I know one thing, after reading about Obama's plans for mileage and emissions limits, I'm stocking up on good, used pickups:)

Regards,

Mike

How many used pickups do you have so far?

I am however interested in the new technologys to make the older vehicles more efficent. The power generating shocks, and thermal electric generators that fit around the exaust pipe. To bad Detroit never developed these.

Actually when you think about it, small cars have much more problems in the Winter with ice and snow build up. Which will probally mean cities will have to spend more on street work with large snow plows (Again more unfunded mandates).

And where oh where will all that salt end up?

cranky108, well since you asked....

I currently have two Nissans, an '84 bought new, now the sparest of spare cars, and a '94 bought used, my daily driver.

I have an '02 Silverado 1500HD for towing the travel trailer, both bought used.

My previous post really meant full-size work trucks, since apparently the new ones are going to get REALLY expensive.

See "Big Autos Could Get Too Costly"

http://www.tulsaworld.com/twpdfs/2009/FINAL/W_052009_A_3.PDF

Regards,

Mike

What a bummer that they think 28MPG is good for a small car.
My old 86, S-15 still gets better than that on the highway. Although the 4 cylinder has it's limits.

The real answer is the car companys will cheat. Mileage will be measured with all the accessories turned off, and after the car is warmed up.
So in the Winter with the warm up, or in the summer with the A/C you won't get the rated mileage.

They will make the cars smaller, and more expencive, and they will spend all there time on the drive train, ignoring other more efficent ideas.

White roofs?
Well, guess who has picked up on this loony tunes idea now:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5389278/Obamas-green-guru-calls-for-white-roofs.html
A quick look at Google earth will show we really should be painting tree leaves and grass white - except for parts of Spain where poly tunnels for fruit and veg virtually cover vast areas of the land surface.
ime to invest in one of the paint companies maybe?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I agree with the sentiment of the emissions rules but not with the method.

Increase the tax on fuel to more in line with other western countries, and the demand for fuel efficient cars will increase in response. The offshoot benefit is that this money can be sowed back into bridge and highway upgrades or repair.

I disagree with those who claim that this will detrimental to the economy. Did the sudden increase in jet fuel prices make that much of a difference to air traffic?

There could also be a system of tax relief for those industries that are most effected by the increase such as freight companies

White roofs and roads, This shoudld be fun to watch over the next few years.

It should also change the equasions for global warming. We will see if it does.

It also seems to be polorizing the global warming community. Those that want to regulate, and those that want a solution.

Bet Al Gore diden't see this comming.

Did you see how many airlines went bust recently?
Can you claim that increased fuel costs didn't contribute to their problems?
The airlines can claim that as does British Airways which just posted a huge great loss. Rumours now that BA and Delta will combine.... ever wonder why you get such crappy service on aircraft now or why Ryan air wants to charge passengers to use the WC?

Now if we were to accept that increasing fuel tax had no effect on air traffic then it failed its alleged purpose which is to reduce traffic and reducing traffic has to mean that some one somewhere suffers a loss from their economy. (Unless we suspec t that the excuse of climate to increase taxes is just a tax raising dodge in which case tax will be the max the traffic will bear without shutting down the cash flow).
We don't have electric aircraft... nor nuclear, nor wind turbine powered. We do have more and more efficient aircraft.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/5370024/BA-warns-on-jobs-as-it-plunges-to-a-record-401m-loss.html

But scratch Delta, that was my Brother-in law mishearing the English news on the Spanish Iberia possibility....  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I live in the desert (120F is about the warmest I've seen), a lot of the older homes/buildings have white roofs etc..  Always seemed quite sensible to me, in preference to the dark grey/black shingles.

I did see an article that the local climate effect of all the dark surfaces in urban areas is measurable and increases local temperature and affects local weather patterns.  However, I can't quote chapter and verse on the research methodology etc. so take it with a pinch of salt.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

KENAT, it is interesting that in past times homes and buildings kind of followed reqional practices suited to the conditions. Big wide porches here, earth sheltered there, etc.

Everything looks the same everywhere you go now, at least in the U.S. I doubt the neighborhood assn. will go for white roofs:)

Regards,

Mike

http://www.urbanheatislands.com/

First we were told to put solar panels on our roofs, now they want the roofs white. So will we be expected to paint the solar panels white?

In a hot area, a white roof makes since, just like a dark roof in a cool area. But what about people inbetween? Should we be expected to paint our roofs white with water colors every spring?

Don't be silly cranky108.  Just get reversible roofs

KENAT,

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cranky108, getting rid of all that leftover latex is a big deal these days:)

Just to reinvigorate this post.

I came across the following lecture on the web, it is fascinating what they say about climate change and everything in general:

http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html

Thanks for that link csd72. It leads to a lot of interesting stuff. I like the idea of not needing to know whether Global Warming is or is not a threat. Bjorn says its not a priority anyway.

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Great link but what about the 2008 conference?
The trouble is that he is being sane, rational and thinks that is how things should be done and how decisions should be taken.

I don't know if he thinks that is how things could be done or if he is just amusing himself.

If we look carefully, we'll see that this is the antithesis of how governments understand and decide things.
How the UN decides things is even less logical and the "unifying" agency for global action is the UN.

Of course, in the militant anarchist approach to controlling the world, adopted by greenies, is to gain influence in as many such bodies as possible. This is Archimedes "give me a lever and a place to stand and I'll move the world." approach. Simply leverage power in niche organisations and let the influence reach out and control the lives of billions.

In such cases the decision criteria will never be as BL describes it. They will be based on the best way to maximise fear (ignorance helps) and how to leverage that into something that will destroy society. They also know politicians are their unwitting or uncaring dupes who see the deliverable as their way to control voters.

Small wonder the no one is going to spend anything meaningful on AIDs, nor on malaria.

Most importantly, he lacks and will be denied the right media response, he has already been categorised as a "denier" and as an economist and not a climatologist.
This is not a message that the media will help spread.

So, top of the list is climate change and its going to stay there.
Sad, but there it is.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Here is a link to a 2008 Copenhagen Consensus Conferencence summary.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/126753.html
Combatting HIV/AIDS dropped from #1 in 2004 to #19 in 2008. Since these tend to be long term projects, this instability is a bit disturbing. Still global warming held firm in last place, even in a longer list.

 

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Here is a link to the top 30 from 2008.
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=953
Note that R&D on low carbon technologies made it in at #14, but Global Warming mitigation only, was a solid #30. I am baffled to note that Copenhagen 2009 (December) will be all about climate change. What did I miss?
 

HAZOP at www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

Of course, there is a flaw in these arguments too.
The premise that climatologists should tell us about climate change and malaria experts about malaria but that economists should price it all up is fine, so far as it goes.

BUT; I am wary of making decisions based only on the economics, I think we have all seen what happens to companies when the bean counters move in and I would hope that isn't what is happening here.... OTOH, compared with the way they do it now, bring on the bean counters.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I think the diffference here is that when it is a company the accountants are there to juice as much profit out of the system, whereas in this case they are trying to get as much done with a finite level of money. I can see how this could work.

Unfortunately there is no perfect form of comparison.

Particularly when we really don't know the benefits vs. the costs of CO2 increasing.  

There is an argument to be made that convection is the buffer for ghg's - the more ghg's, the more heat closer to the ground, the more convection. Evaporation/convection moves a huge amount of heat from the surface to the mid troposphere.  The average global rainfall is about a meter per year.  Figure out the joules yourself.  That's about 100 w/m^2.  A couple percent change in that number alone wipes out the difference from the CO2 increase.

Just found this article:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25648336-30417,00.html

cracking stuff!

http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&;FileStore_id=c4ca8586-9be7-4337-8fce-f1dda1897279

Good links satchmo.
From the first I was immediately struck by:

Quote:

Europe's current policy and strategy for supporting the so-called "green jobs" or
renewable energy dates back to 1997, and has become one of the principal
justifications for U.S. "green jobs" proposals. Yet an examination of Europe's
experience reveals these policies to be terribly economically counterproductive.

Hmmm. another example of selectivity when counting up jobs generated it fails to comment on jobs lost especially in support industries. I came across this somewhere else, if I could just think where....

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Can we close this thread and start a new one? Load time is getting silly.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Good idea! But we need to insert a bit more debate into it as interest seems to be waning.

csd72, I thought "the debate is over":)

Who won?

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

I did!