[QUOTE]I think it's now a waste of time convincing deniers, that global warming is real. The fact we now have a negative word in the media for them - 'denier', they aren't getting any fans. With the weight of evidence against them, how many more mountains of evidence would you need to convince them? There's not enough carbon in the ecosystem needed for the paper required.[/QUOTE]

Nothing better than using ad hominem attacks on opponents! :lol:!

[QUOTE=3.14159;222232]Nothing better than using ad hominem attacks on opponents! :lol:![/QUOTE]

You clearly do not know the meaning of "ad hominem attack".

An ad hominem attack dismisses the arguments of someone because of
[b]who they are[/b]. (I.e. 'don't believe Tommy because he is an <ethnic>)
'don't believe Tommy because he is stupid' is dismissing the arguments of
Tommy based on his observed behavior (i.e. Tommy shows stupidity).
It is NOT an ad hominem attack.

Describing someone's behavior (i.e. denial) in an adverse way is not an
ad hominem attack. Nor is labelling someone a 'denier' an ad hominem attack.
Nor is insulting someone an ad hominem attack.

[quote=R.D. Silverman;222233]You clearly do not know the meaning of "ad hominem attack".

An ad hominem attack dismisses the arguments of someone because of
[B]who they are[/B]. (I.e. 'don't believe Tommy because he is an <ethnic>)
'don't believe Tommy because he is stupid' is dismissing the arguments of
Tommy based on his observed behavior (i.e. Tommy shows stupidity).
It is NOT an ad hominem attack.

Describing someone's behavior (i.e. denial) in an adverse way is not an
ad hominem attack. Nor is labelling someone a 'denier' an ad hominem attack.
Nor is insulting someone an ad hominem attack.[/quote]I made this very point, though in less detail, shortly before he was banned for a while. Looks like he didn't take the opportunity to educate himself.


Paul

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;222233]Describing someone's behavior (i.e. denial) in an adverse way is not an ad hominem attack. Nor is labelling someone a 'denier' an ad hominem attack.
Nor is insulting someone an ad hominem attack.[/QUOTE]

Disagree on the latter points - there are various flavors of [i]ad hominem[/i] argumentation, one of which is known as [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem]Ad hominem abusive:[/url]
[quote]Ad hominem abusive usually involves insulting or belittling one's opponent in order to invalidate their argument, but can also involve pointing out factual but ostensible character flaws or actions which are irrelevant to the opponent's argument.[/quote]
Cheap tendentious labels such as "denialist" qualify as "belittling". (Though agree that the milder "denier" is not necessarily meant to belittle.)

As the above wiki entry - which is impressively written, sounds like at least one legal expert did some writing here - explains, whether an insult counts as [i]ad hominem[/i] argumentation depends on how the insult is deployed:
[quote]Gratuitous verbal abuse or "name-calling" itself is not an argumentum ad hominem or a logical fallacy.[5][6][7][8][9] The fallacy only occurs if personal attacks are employed instead of an argument to devalue an argument by attacking the speaker, not personal insults in the middle of an otherwise sound argument or insults that stand alone. "X's argument is invalid because X's analogy is false, there are differences between a republic and a democracy. But then again, X is idiotically ignorant." is gratuitously abusive but is not a fallacy because X's argument is actually addressed directly in the opening statement.[/quote]

Personally, I much prefer argumentation ad homonym...

[quote=ewmayer;222251]
Personally, I much prefer argumentation ad homonym...[/quote]

Will that be the [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y"]five-minute or the full half hour[/URL]?

[QUOTE=garo;222344]Will that be the [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y"]five-minute or the full half hour[/URL]?[/QUOTE]

No arguments in this room. This is abuse. Try room 12A down the corridor.

[quote=R.D. Silverman;222202]Yes, he did. Clearly.[/quote]"Clearly?" I'm surprised that your usual logical precision is not in evidence here.

[quote]He stated that the problem was "far down on his list of concerns"[/quote]So, you're trying to persuade us that being of low concern implies not requiring sacrifice??

It's of little concern to me that I might be paralyzed, or my life might end, by being hit by a train just as I've managed to toss a baby to safety after freeing it from its safety seat in a car stalled in the train tracks ... because I don't expect to ever be in that situation! That doesn't mean it wouldn't involve sacrifice by me, does it?

This idea is inspired by a recent actual incident here. Even though I briefly imagined putting myself in the same situation while watching the video taken by a bystander, I didn't, until now, consciously incorporate the idea of actual death. (In the real event, the rescuer was injured, but survives.)

More simply: it's really low on my list of concerns that I might have to sacrifice myself while defending my country against armed invasion.

[quote]and his other statements indicated that he was almost totally concerned only with his immediate well-being.[/quote]So? He may well not be concerned at all with either of the possibilities I describe above, yet both involve sacrifice.

This image via [URL="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/global-warming-denial-part-96"]Barry Ritholtz[/URL].

garo,

It is probably just a coincidence but your chart looks similar (at least to me) to the government spending chart apocalypse posted in the Mystery Economic Theater 2010 thread [URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=220609&postcount=397"]Government Spending[/URL]

Thank you for your time,

Mathew

Matthew that is a non-sequitur.

In other news, Jeremy Grantham lays out a beautifully argued essay in his latest quarterly missive.

[QUOTE]

[B]Everything You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes[/B]
1) The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, after at least several hundred thousand years of remaining within a constant range, started to rise with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It has increased by almost 40% and is rising each year. This is certain and straightforward.

2) One of the properties of CO2 is that it creates a greenhouse effect and, all other things being equal, an increase in its concentration in the atmosphere causes the Earth’s temperature to rise. This is just physics. (The amount of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as methane, has also risen steeply since industrialization, which has added to the impact of higher CO2 levels.)

3) Several other factors, like changes in solar output, have major influences on climate over millennia, but these effects have been observed and measured. They alone cannot explain the rise in the global temperature over the past 50 years.

4) The uncertainties arise when it comes to the interaction between greenhouse gases and other factors in the complicated climate system. It is impossible to be sure exactly how quickly or how much the temperature will rise. But, the past can be measured. The temperature has indeed steadily risen over the past century while greenhouse gas levels have increased. But the forecasts still range very widely for what will happen in the future, ranging from a small but still potentially harmful rise of 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit to a potentially disastrous level of +6 to +10 degrees Fahrenheit within this century. A warmer atmosphere melts glaciers and ice sheets, and causes global sea levels to rise. A warmer atmosphere also contains more energy and holds more water, changing the global occurrences of storms, fl oods, and other extreme weather events.


5) Skeptics argue that this wide range of uncertainty about future temperature changes lowers the need to act: “Why spend money when you’re not certain?” But since the penalties can rise at an accelerating rate at the tail, a wider range implies a greater risk (and a greater expected value of the costs.) This is logically and mathematically rigorous and yet is still argued.

6) Pascal asks the question: What is the expected value of a very small chance of an infi nite loss? And, he answers, “Infinite.” In this example, what is the cost of lowering CO2 output and having the long-term effect of increasing CO2 turn out to be nominal? The cost appears to be equal to foregoing, once in your life, six months’ to one year’s global growth – 2% to 4% or less. The benefits, even with no warming, include: energy independence from the Middle East; more jobs, since wind and solar power and increased efficiency are more labor-intensive than another coal-fi red power plant; less pollution of streams and air; and an early leadership role for the U.S. in industries that will inevitably become important. Conversely, what are the costs of not acting on prevention when the results turn out to be serious: costs that may dwarf those for prevention; and probable political destabilization from droughts, famine, mass migrations, and even war. And, to Pascal’s real point, what might be the cost at the very extreme end of the distribution: Definitely life changing, possibly life threatening.

7) The biggest cost of all from global warming is likely to be the accumulated loss of biodiversity. This features nowhere in economic cost-benefit analysis because, not surprisingly, it is hard to put a price on that which is priceless.

8) A special word on the right-leaning think tanks: As libertarians, they abhor the need for government spending or even governmental leadership, which in their opinion is best left to private enterprise. In general, this may be an excellent idea. But global warming is a classic tragedy of the commons – seeking your own individual advantage, for once, does not lead to the common good, and the problem desperately needs government leadership and regulation. Sensing this, these think tanks have allowed their drive for desirable policy to trump science. Not a good idea.

9) Also, I should make a brief note to my own group – die hard contrarians. Dear fellow contrarians, I know the majority is usually wrong in the behavioral jungle of the stock market. And Heaven knows I have seen the soft scientists who lead finance theory attempt to bully their way to a uniform acceptance of the bankrupt theory of rational expectations and market efficiency. But climate warming involves hard science. The two most prestigious bastions of hard science are the National Academy in the U.S. and the Royal Society in the U.K., to which Isaac Newton and the rest of that huge 18th century cohort of brilliant scientists belonged. The presidents of both societies wrote a note recently, emphasizing the seriousness of the climate problem and that it was man-made. (See the attachment to last quarter’s Letter.) Both societies have also made full reports on behalf of their membership stating the same. Do we believe the whole elite of science is in a conspiracy? At some point in the development of a scientific truth, contrarians risk becoming flat earthers.

10) Conspiracy theorists claim to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven by scientists desperate for … what? Being needled by nonscientific newspaper reports, by blogs, and by right-wing politicians and think tanks? Most hard scientists hate themselves or their colleagues for being in the news. Being a climate scientist spokesman has already become a hindrance to an academic career, including tenure. I have a much simpler but plausible “conspiracy theory”: that fossil energy companies, driven by the need to protect hundreds of billions of dollars of profi ts, encourage obfuscation of the inconvenient scientifi c results.

11) Why are we arguing the issue? Challenging vested interests as powerful as the oil and coal lobbies was never going to be easy. Scientists are not naturally aggressive defenders of arguments. In short, they are conservatives by training: never, ever risk overstating your ideas. The skeptics are far, far more determined and expert propagandists to boot. They are also well funded. That smoking caused cancer was obfuscated deliberately and effectively for 20 years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.

We know that for certain now, yet those who caused this fatal delay have never been held accountable. The profi ts of the oil and coal industry make tobacco’s resources look like a rounding error. In some notable cases, the obfuscators of global warming actually use the same “experts” as the tobacco industry did! The obfuscators’ simple and direct motivation – making money in the near term, which anyone can relate to – combined with their resources and, as it turns out, propaganda talents, have meant that we are arguing the science long after it has been nailed down. I, for one, admire them for their P.R. skills, while wondering, as always: “Have they no grandchildren?”

12) Almost no one wants to change. The long-established status quo is very comfortable, and we are used to its deficiencies. But for this problem we must change. This is never easy.

13) Almost everyone wants to hear good news. They want to believe that dangerous global warming is a hoax. They, therefore, desperately want to believe the skeptics. This is a problem for all of us.

Postscript
Global warming will be the most important investment issue for the foreseeable future. But how to make money around this issue in the next few years is not yet clear to me. In a fast-moving field rife with treacherous politics, there will be many failures. Marketing a “climate” fund would be much easier than outperforming with it.

[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=garo;222484]This image via [URL="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/global-warming-denial-part-96"]Barry Ritholtz[/URL].[/QUOTE]

So, based on the recent runup, would you say this is a good shorting opportunity? Is there a 2x inverse ETF for global temperature? ;)

Thanks for the Grantham note - excellent summary, I agree with nearly everything he says. My main objections have been with respect to the repeated overstatements of the scientific "certainty", which is the opposite of the "never overstate your case" scientific tradition he notes. OTOH, with an issue this politicized, facing a determined industry-funded denial-and-doubt lobby - the analogy with tobacco is spot on - it's easy to see how one would feel pressed to make one's case sound as unequivocal as possible.

As he notes, countries which embrace green-tech and take a (very modest - the "this will destroy the U.S. economy" is the usual industry-lobby hyperbole) hit to their bottom line in the short run will be the winners in the long run. Unless most of the world fails to do so, and we (or our descendants) all end up the losers for it.