[QUOTE=davar55;259749](1) I'm not in any way a conservative.

(2) I formed my own views independently.

(3) My political motive re AGW is simply to avoid the implementation
of anti-individual anti-freedom controls in the name of a non-issue.[/QUOTE]

(1) Call yourself what you want...your views are aligned with many conservatives..but by saying you aren't a conservative, the label "liar" comes to mind.

(2) That independence doesn't seem to include scientific evidence, is admittedly entirely political, and therefore very difficult to call independent. Where are the measurements?

(3) You call it a nonissue. When there are no bees to pollinate the crops, and there is no food, it will be a nonissue. Just because no bricks fly past your head, doesn't mean its not important. Why don't we start with removing unnecessary chlorine from the municipal water supplies? After all, noone is getting sick from the water....

And if you are worried about anti-individual freedom controls, may I be free to visit your house and shoot you? That's absolute freedom, but no one advocates it for some strange reason, and I can expect to lose my freedom (and possibly my life) if I act on that impulse. Freedom is a balance, and those concerned about global warming are actually just as concerned about it as you...but they have a long-term perspective and don't like the prospect of killing a few billion people because the climate changed and we felt it was too important to show off our wealth driving our large cars around.

[quote](1) Call yourself what you want...your views are aligned with many conservatives..but by saying you aren't a conservative, the label "liar" comes to mind.

(2) That independence doesn't seem to include scientific evidence, is admittedly entirely political, and therefore very difficult to call independent. Where are the measurements?

(3) You call it a nonissue. When there are no bees to pollinate the crops, and there is no food, it will be a nonissue. Just because no bricks fly past your head, doesn't mean its not important. Why don't we start with removing unnecessary chlorine from the municipal water supplies? After all, noone is getting sick from the water....

And if you are worried about anti-individual freedom controls, may I be free to visit your house and shoot you? That's absolute freedom, but no one advocates it for some strange reason, and I can expect to lose my freedom (and possibly my life) if I act on that impulse. Freedom is a balance, and those concerned about global warming are actually just as concerned about it as you...but they have a long-term perspective and don't like the prospect of killing a few billion people because the climate changed and we felt it was too important to show off our wealth driving our large cars around.[/quote]

Labeling other people is a dangerous, foolish game. A non-conservative,
non-liberal, independemt issue-oriented perspective lets one decide one's
views individually, rather than joining a crowd shouting its point of view
on either of opposite sides (when there are only two sides).

In the case of this issue, while numbers (of people on either side from
either political camp) might convince some, they don't convince me.
Non-scientists get their views on this from media and politicos.
The scientists who suggest that the issue is no longer open
(to discussion or disproof) and advocate major social change by us
and the world cannot be taken credibly.

Bees, chlorine, big cars may be some of your beefs, but AGW is
not the problem. I wonder what the AGWers short list of desired
changes would be.

Mellifluous words, all nonsense, none addressing the points you are responding to. Your willful ignorance is showing. Not one word to show that there is an iota of difference in your ideas and those of the koch brothers. YOU used socialist as an epithet, which is certainly typical conservative behavior. And you should stop using things that are made possible by these scientists, whose methods you refuse to learn and whose results you distrust. That especially includes the internet, and refrigeration.

You might begin by explaining to us how food crops will reproduce in the absence of bees.

I think you need to talk to some beekeepers, and try raising a few bees this year.

Otherwise, invisible demons that you don't think threaten you will kill you, unannounced.

And, if you wonder what's on the AGW'ers short list, wonder no more: They want living descendants, for a long time, that aren't miserable and don't have to live in fear or poverty -- that is great-great-great grandchildren, same as you.

[QUOTE=davar55;259749](2) I formed my own views independently.[/QUOTE]... without considering scientific evidence, apparently.

Have you ever gone to any of the sites I've linked to read what they have to say about the scientific evidence?

What scientific evidence did you take into account when forming your views?

If you're so "independent" of the conservatives, why is it that you have not yet stated even one single scientific fact about AGW?

Why have you said nothing -- not one word -- about the list of the "human fingerprints" of AGW that I provided? Did you even read it?

[quote](3) My political motive re AGW is simply to avoid the implementation of anti-individual anti-freedom controls in the name of a non-issue.[/quote]"non-issue"?

What evidence have you ever shown us that AGW is a "non-issue"?

And why do the expressions of your political motive that you have posted so closely parallel the anti-AGW propaganda that the Koch brothers and others have broadcast?

I'm not echoing anyone else AFAIK, anything I contribute
here in this forum is from head to fingers to keyboard.
If someones else have the same views, consider that a
second voice.

By short list I didn't mean what are you afraid of
losing, but what changes do you want to make on
the rest of us. This is why I won't even consider
discussing the nature or validity of the science
before discussing the intended socio-political
impositions, which are the crux of the issue, if
there is indeed any problem at all.

And FTR, AGW cannot possibly be a threat in the short term,
and if there is a long-term gradual effect going on, it will
become evident long before humanity is in trouble and will
be (I think easily) solvable then. It is not unequivocally
evident now or in the recent past, in fact weather patterns
cycle AYK. And no one bothered to address my personal
POV, namely a little global warming would be good for us.

[QUOTE=davar55;259829]I'm not echoing anyone else AFAIK, anything I contribute here in this forum is from head to fingers to keyboard. If someones else have the same views, consider that a second voice.[/QUOTE]Just exactly where did you first hear that AGW proponents want to impose totalitarian measures? Can you link us to any such evidence?

If you can't show us any evidence for that idea (AGW proponents want to impose totalitarian measures) -- and so far, despite my multiple pleas, you [I]haven't[/I] showed us even one single bit of evidence -- then why do you think you're on the right track, instead of having been fooled by someone's scary, but false, story?

[quote]By short list I didn't mean what are you afraid of losing, but what changes do you want to make on the rest of us.[/quote]I [I]wish[/I] that folks could have a better science education, so that they could understand science as well as I do, so that they could make better-informed decisions about matters involving scientific evidence. I know I've been fortunate to have a very, very good education in science, but I wish everyone else could have as good an understanding as I do.

This would be a great help in preserving individual freedoms, because it would enable each person to better evaluate pseudoscience or propaganda that was being falsely promoted as "scientific", and remove the effectiveness of manipulators who use such things.

The core of science is the realization, as Richard Feynman famously pointed out, that people have a great capacity for self-deception, and science is the best method we have yet developed for avoiding self-deception.

[quote]This is why I won't even consider discussing the nature or validity of the science before discussing the intended socio-political impositions, which are the crux of the issue, if there is indeed any problem at all.[/quote]Look at the structure of your own sentence there!

Your clause "why why I won't even consider discussing the nature or validity of the science before discussing the intended socio-political impositions, which are the crux of the issue" [I]depends[/I] on the conditional clause "if there is indeed any problem at all". So your first step, before discussing the socio-political matters, is to determine whether the problem exists. The way to do that is to consider the evidence for AGW.

1) If AGW exists, the proper way to handle the socio-political matters is to consider the best ways to meet that real problem -- and deciding on which ways are best involves consideration of the scientific evidence about the causes and consequences of AGW.

2) If AGW doesn't exist, then the proper way to handle the socio-political matters is [I]to expose the hoax for what it is by presenting evidence that refutes AGW[/I].

You give the impression that you think 2) is the case -- yet despite my repeated pleas for you to present evidence of the falsity of AGW, you never do so. Why not?

Suppose, in the 1950s, that Soviet communists said milk is good for children. Would that mean that the evidence that milk is good for children was suspicious, on the grounds that the aim of Soviet communists was to "build the superior Soviet citizen", so anything that furthered that goal was necessarily ipso facto politically motivated but scientifically false?

Or would the better course of action be to scientifically verify whether milk was indeed good for children, regardless of the political persuasions of those advocating its use? After all, if milk wasn't actually good for children, then scientific tests and measurements of the cause and effect of milk-drinking versus children's growth, strength and health would fail to confirm the "milk helps" hypothesis.

(Yes, this requires that the scientific tests be independent of political influence that would sway them away from an unbiased result, but you can safely assume [I]that's what I [U]always[/U] mean when I refer to "science"[/I] -- science that is strictly factual, without political influence. If I want to refer to political interference in science, I'll say so explicitly.)

[quote]And FTR, AGW cannot possibly be a threat in the short term,[/quote]If children don't drink milk, and don't get the principal nutrients of milk, such as calcium, from some other source, this wouldn't be a short-term threat (they're not going to fall sick a week after ceasing milk-drinking), but in the long term, their health is threatened by weakness of bones and teeth.

[quote]and if there is a long-term gradual effect going on,[/quote]... such as osteoporosis, in my example ...

[quote]it will become evident long before humanity is in trouble[/quote]Yes ... _if_ one does the proper tests and measurements of bone density. But you can't tell by just looking at a kid whether his bones are weakened by lack of calcium. And many ordinary medical tests don't detect this specific problem. Only tests that are intended to detect low-calcium or low bone density will show it.

However, all too often that actual fact is that someone's low bone density is discovered only after they break because of a fall.

[quote]and will be (I think easily) solvable then.[/quote]Do you think that if a 40-year-old adult falls and breaks a hip, and subsequent tests [I]then[/I] show that that person's bones are systematically weak from lack of calcium, that this is "easily solvable"? That somehow doctors can just inject some bone-strengthening substance and have them up and around (without a cast or brace) in just a few days?

In my grandparent's generation, it was very common on my mother's side of the family for old women to fall, break a hip, and be permanently bedridden for the rest of their lives -- because they had a genetic disposition toward not making best use of calcium in their diets. They got enough calcium, but it wasn't being properly deposited in their bones. I recall speaking to both my maternal grandmother and [I]her[/I] mother while they lay in bed with unhealing broken hips.

Nowadays, medicine has means of reversing that -- some drugs enable the body to better use calcium. My mother took one of them, and as a result never ever had a broken bone. But the difference was [I]evidence (based on tests designed to reveal that problem)[/I] and [I][U]preventative action[/U] taken on the basis of evidence[/I].

[quote]It is not unequivocally evident now or in the recent past, in fact weather patterns cycle AYK.[/quote]If you would actually read about AGW, you would discover that it's not that simplistic.

Yes, there are multiple cycles in progress, but climatologists have always taken all the known natural trends into account. There would be no reason to ever ignore any known natural cycle. Indeed, climatologists have often been the ones that discovered previously-unknown natural cycles!

But even when climatologists take all known natural cycles into account, they can't account for the recent temperature rise. By themselves, the sum effect of natural trends would have been a slight cooling over the past sixty years! Only when one takes into account the [I]additional[/I] effect of the manmade greenhouse gases, such as CO[sub]2[/sub] but also some others, can one account for the warming that's recently occurred.

The evidence for all that is explained at the sites whose links I've provided.

Do you want climatologists to [I]ignore[/I] the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases? If so, why don't you want those taken into account alongside the natural cycles?

- - - - -

[quote]And no one bothered to address my personal POV, namely a little global warming would be good for us.[/quote]1) You made that complaint before.

2) I [U]DID ADDRESS THAT PARTICULAR IDEA IN POST #821[/U]. I provided a link to where you could read a more comprehensive explanation of the effects, both positive [U]and negative[/U], of global warming.

[U]I resent your false accusation that no one has bothered to address your personal POV on that matter.[/U]

Please apologize to me for your false accusation.

The REAL problem is that you refuse to go to read the information!!

That -- your false accusation -- is all-too-typical of your arguments. You're figuratively standing there with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears, and complaining that no one has shown or told you anything.

Do you want to start writing truthful statements, or are you so entertained by repeating your false scary story and your false accusations that you refuse all efforts to show or tell you anything contrary?

It's your choice -- remain voluntarily and unnecessarily blind and deaf to the evidence for AGW (and keep making your false accusations) -- or open your eyes and ears to the truth.

Don't try to tell us that you _do_ pay attention to evidence, because [U]your own words have just demonstrated that you ignore our links to evidence[/U].

Why yes, if the soviet scientists promoted milk, I'd be worried for
the kids and would have decreased my milk consumption on principle.

[quote]
Suppose, in the 1950s, that Soviet communists said milk is good for children. Would that mean that the evidence that milk is good for children was suspicious, on the grounds that the aim of Soviet communists was to "build the superior Soviet citizen", so anything that furthered that goal was necessarily ipso facto politically motivated but scientifically false?
[/quote]

Requiring cars to be electric or hybrid rather than letting the free
market rule, putting carbon emission limits into a trading card system,
not allowing oil exploration and drilling in a free market method
(on this one I do think zoning is appropriate), etc, etc.

These are just a few odious totalitarian suggestions I deplore,
and the rest are similar. Green technology is not free technology.

And I stop reading long posts as soon as I hit two wrong or offensive
ideas. If you really still have a point to make, try to be brief.

Also I don't follow url links unless I get thru the whole post
and find a reason to.

But that's just me.

[QUOTE=davar55;259850]Why yes, if the soviet scientists promoted milk, I'd be worried for the kids and would have decreased my milk consumption on principle.[/QUOTE]That's just stupid.

[quote]These are just a few odious totalitarian suggestions I deplore, and the rest are similar.[/quote]Where did you [B]ever[/B] see someone who was instrumental in setting forth the AGW theory make totalitarian suggestions?

You've shown that (1) you value your own political motives more than truth, (2) you're careless about facts, (3) you're quite willing to spread false statements about AGW without any regard for their truthfulness -- as long as they coincide with your personal political motives -- and (4) you are willing to make a false accusation about participants in this thread even though any reader of this thread can see it's not the truth.

[quote]Also I don't follow url links unless I get thru the whole post and find a reason to.[/quote]What an amazing attempt to weasel out of being responsible for your own words!

Where is your apology for your false accusation that "no one bothered to address my personal POV, namely a little global warming would be good for us"?

I DID PERSONALLY ADDRESS THAT ISSUE in post #821, immediately after you raised it for the first time in post #820.

Where is your apology for lying about me right out here in public?

- - -

Show some integrity. Tell the truth. Apologize for telling falsehoods.

Didn't your parents teach you those things?

- -

Is there a crank score between aleph-nought and C?
 

[QUOTE=davar55;259850]Why yes, if the soviet scientists promoted milk, I'd be worried for
the kids and would have decreased my milk consumption on principle.

Requiring cars to be electric or hybrid rather than letting the free
market rule, putting carbon emission limits into a trading card system,
not allowing oil exploration and drilling in a free market method
(on this one I do think zoning is appropriate), etc, etc.

These are just a few odious totalitarian suggestions I deplore,
and the rest are similar. Green technology is not free technology.

And I stop reading long posts as soon as I hit two wrong or offensive
ideas. If you really still have a point to make, try to be brief.

Also I don't follow url links unless I get thru the whole post
and find a reason to.

But that's just me.[/QUOTE]

Davar:
You are espousing more conservative propaganda, right off of Fox News. Start reading whole posts, because there are invisible demons that will hurt you if you don't. Starting with the fact that Soviet scientists *did* encourage consumption of milk. They also encouraged consumption of meat, tea, and water.

Also, do you *really* think the market is free? What about the presence of about 100 thousand US troops in one of the prime oil-producing areas of the world, namely Iraq, paid for by the US taxpayer, who is coerced in to paying income tax to support it? Why is this kind of collective action not odious or totalitarian?

Finally, it is becoming clear that a "free" market has left some poison in your food supply (remember melamine?) and you need a doctor to help you think more clearly. I'd suggest vitamin D, on the basis of personal experience.

In his defense, I don't think that Davar55's concerns concerns about governmental opportunistic exploitation of calamities is meretricious. I think that Naomi Klein has identified a prevailing mechanism employed by big business, governments and policies in her book [URL="http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews?page=1"]"[I]The Shock Doctrine[/I]."[/URL]

[QUOTE=only_human;259868]In his defense, I don't think that Davar55's concerns concerns about governmental opportunistic exploitation of calamities is meretricious. I think that Naomi Klein has identified a prevailing mechanism employed by big business, governments and policies in her book [URL="http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews?page=1"]"[I]The Shock Doctrine[/I]."[/URL][/QUOTE]So, davar55's response to his (non-meretricious) concern about possible governmental opportunistic exploitation of a calamity is ... to deny that a possibility of the calamity exists, and certainly to take no action to avert the calamity?

The idea being that he'd rather be shown to have been right (about the coming governmental exploitation of AGW) than to take any action to prevent the government from having that opportunity?

I guess that does have the advantage of not having to put his principles on the line, doesn't it?

-

[QUOTE=cheesehead;259879]So, davar55's response to his (non-meretricious) concern about possible governmental opportunistic exploitation of a calamity is ... to deny that a possibility of the calamity exists, and certainly to take no action to avert the calamity?
-[/QUOTE]
Right. That is exactly my take of the situation. Because of obvious gaming of the system and opportunistic pushing of agendas conflated with times that actions must be taken and suspicion that some of the crisis are actually manufactured or overemphasized, he is unwilling to rationally examine the actual evidence. Certainly evidence has been manipulated and flat-out lied about in the past, as in the case of tobacco business interests.

davar55,

I'm waiting for your apology.

This has gotten far too personalized.

On the one issue, my POV is that a little global warming
might actually be a benefit to humanity and its planet.

Since "a little" is unspecified, I don't see how that POV
can be controversial.

The climate status quo that AGWers seem to want to
maintain or return to isn't that much different.

[QUOTE=Christenson;259863]Davar:
You are espousing more conservative propaganda, right off of Fox News.
...
Also, do you *really* think the market is free?
...[/QUOTE]

I don't "espouse propaganda", I'm just conveying my conclusions.
If the media says the same thing, it's just a coincidence.

And all markets should be free. Of course.

[QUOTE=davar55;259979]On the one issue, my POV is that a little global warming might actually be a benefit to humanity and its planet.[/QUOTE]If you'd go to the link I provided, you'd see a list of several benefits but also many drawbacks.

[quote]Since "a little" is unspecified, I don't see how that POV can be controversial.[/quote]Answer: when it's one-sided, like you present it, never mentioning the negative effects.

Is that because you know the negative effects, but are deliberately not mentioning them? That seems highly unlikely to me. Or is it (as I think more likely) because you aren't aware of the many negative effects of GW once it gets beyond just a degree or two? If the latter, then if you'd follow the link I provided, you'd get information about the negative side that you aren't mentioning now.

If you were truly as "independent" as you claim, you would already have done some reading on responsible (not sensationalist) AGW sites such as [URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/[/URL] and [URL]http://www.realclimate.org/[/URL]. But you never mention stuff that such sites would inform you about, so it seems that all your supposedly "independent" research has been quite one-sided and biased.

(Just as you obviously never bothered to go back to post #821 to actually check whether anyone had responded to your POV at #820, before posting in #878 your false accusation that no one had yet responded to #820. And so far, you haven't had the grace to apologize for that carelessness!)

[quote]The climate status quo that AGWers seem to want to maintain or return to[/quote]I think you'd find that AGWers just want to avoid the severe negative effects that are quite possible if we continue on our present course.

What is underappreciated by many anti-AGWers is that the climate effects of anthropogenic GHGs will last a _long_ time, and that because of feedbacks, measures to limit the effects have to be started well before the average person, not using scientific studies and measurements, will notice much change in everyday life.

It's sorta like how long it takes a cruise ship to stop or turn around -- if you wait until you're within a stone's throw of the dock before you shift the engines to full astern, the ship will just keep right on going to smash into the docks.

Suppose someone points out on a map that there's a reef five miles ahead. You can't see it yet with just your unaided eyes. If you wait until you can plainly see it with your eyes, it'll be too late to turn the ship enough to avoid the reef. So you have to start the turn _now_.

Both a cruise liner's course and the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases are not able to be changed if you wait until the average person not paying attention to the scientific measurements would perceive a danger ahead. Instead, one has to be familiar with how long a lead time is needed for starting a course correction, in both cases.

I wish you had experience with the system I played with when I was young. The object was to keep a pointer centered, but your input was only a control knob that affected the third derivative of the pointer's position. When you first saw the pointer move to one side, you had to start turning the control knob in the other direction right away, because it would take 30-40 seconds for this to show up as a change in the pointer's speed. But before the pointer had changed much, you had to twist the knob in the opposite direction right away in order to keep the previous input from overcorrecting. You had to think ahead about where the pointer would be 45 seconds in the future.

Same principle with anthropogenic GHGs. If we're going to keep from having disastrous effects, we have to start curbing them long before the disastrous effects start to appear obvious to the average person.

(Or do you _want_ most of Florida to be covered with seawater by a century from now?)

However, careful scientific measurements and observations _can_ see the beginnings of the negative effects happening now, so _now_ is when we have to start changing course to avoid their becoming catastrophically worse.

- - -

All I'm asking you to do is be courteous, fair (unbiased) and honest.

[QUOTE=davar55;259980]I don't "espouse propaganda", I'm just conveying my conclusions.
If the media says the same thing, it's just a coincidence.

And all markets should be free. Of course.[/QUOTE]

davar, *should* and *is* are very different.

And as for that coincidence, can you kindly provide us some *evidence* that you aren't simply repeating propaganda you heard on the media? How about a bit of analysis of the objective properties of something, based on *evidence*, such as the example below.

There are some very definite limits on markets. Why do we throw heroin dealers in jail? These people are, after all, just trying to create a free market...

P.S. Isaac Newton was a communist, but we know that Newton's law of gravity is very, very good. How?

[QUOTE=Christenson;259775]Mellifluous words, all nonsense ...
Your willful ignorance ... invisible demons that you don't think threaten you will kill you, unannounced ...

And, if you wonder what's on the AGW'ers short list, wonder no more: They want living descendants, for a long time, that aren't miserable and don't have to live in fear or poverty -- that is great-great-great grandchildren, same as you.[/QUOTE]

To the first part: attacking the person, not their words per se.

To the second part: I wondered what societal changes
to eliminate AGW that these socialists want most.
(Socialist an epithet? If you mean as a criticizing label,
then you're absolutely correct, that's what I intended and intend).

[QUOTE=davar55;260040]To the second part: I wondered what societal changes to eliminate AGW that these socialists want most. (Socialist an epithet? If you mean as a criticizing label, then you're absolutely correct, that's what I intended and intend).[/QUOTE]In other words, you're attacking the person instead of the AGW science.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;260047]In other words, you're attacking the person instead of the AGW science.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure not all people who believe AGW is a serious threat are socialists.

I'm sure not all socialists are AGWers.

I didn't intend to equate the two.

I was just trying to find out what the biggest changes to the
world's ways of life the advocates for AGW as a threat want
to see made in the lives of everyone.

I would say it's self evident that if someone wants to make
major changes in the economies of nations and the home lives
of individuals on the basis of this evidence, then their political
motives come into serious consideration.

[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=448jZuA5Y1I"]click[/URL]

[QUOTE=davar55;260050]I was just trying to find out what the biggest changes to the world's ways of life the advocates for AGW as a threat want to see made in the lives of everyone.[/QUOTE]In other words, instead of investigating whether AGW is scientifically sound, you want to investigate the personal characteristics of the people who are "advocates for AGW as a threat".

You have been, and are, conducting an [I]ad hominem[/I] attack.

(BTW, I think I probably qualify as an "advocate for AGW as a threat". Do you want to investigate my political motives?)

[quote]I would say it's self evident that if someone wants to make major changes in the economies of nations and the home lives of individuals on the basis of this evidence, then their political motives come into serious consideration.[/quote]... if one is conducting an [I]ad hominem[/I] attack rather than a scientific investigation of "this evidence".

- -

Suppose a well-qualified meteorologist warns you that a tornado funnel has been sighted and it's headed for where you live. He is a known communist.

Do you disregard the warning about the tornado, thus endangering the children who live with you?

- -

Suppose two equally qualified, independent meteorologists each warn you that a tornado funnel has been sighted and it's headed for where you live. One is a known communist. The other's political views are unknown.

Do you disregard the warning about the tornado, thus endangering the children who live with you?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;260053]In other words, instead of investigating whether AGW is scientifically sound, you want to investigate the personal characteristics of the people who are "advocates for AGW as a threat".

You have been, and are, conducting an [I]ad hominem[/I] attack.

(BTW, I think I probably qualify as an "advocate for AGW as a threat". Do you want to investigate my political motives?)

... if one is conducting an [I]ad hominem[/I] attack rather than a scientific investigation of "this evidence".

- -

Suppose a well-qualified meteorologist warns you that a tornado funnel has been sighted and it's headed for where you live. He is a known communist.

Do you disregard the warning about the tornado, thus endangering the children who live with you?

- -

Suppose two equally qualified, independent meteorologists each warn you that a tornado funnel has been sighted and it's headed for where you live. One is a known communist. The other's political views are unknown.

Do you disregard the warning about the tornado, thus endangering the children who live with you?[/QUOTE]

You used the word investigate, not I.
My suggestion that AGW zealots may have ulterior motives
is obvious to me. And why strawmanize communism?

If your motives are pure, why not just specify: what are the three
most important social changes you would impose on humanity to
solve AGW?

[QUOTE=davar55;260072]If your motives are pure, why not just specify: what are the three most important social changes you would impose on humanity to solve AGW?[/QUOTE](* sigh *)

[U]I already answered that request earlier[/U] in post #879 [U]immediately after you asked[/U], in post #878, [U]for my "short list" of "what changes do you want to make on the rest of us"[/U].

Please c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y re-read the three paragraphs in post #879 that begin with "I [I]wish[/I] ..." and end with "... avoiding self-deception".

(And please don't give me some guff about there being only one item there. You asked for my short list, I gave you my short list, and I don't have anything to add to it now.)

- -

After re-reading those paragraphs, if you still have questions about:

how a good science education is "important", or

how a good science education is a "social change" (answer: I was shoehorning my desired wish into your "social change" stereotype), or

how "I wish ..." is not an odious-enough imposition to satisfy your propaganda-driven stereotype of totalitarian AGWers, or

how a good science education could solve AGW,

or why I wrote "better" then, but "good" now,

feel free to ask for clarification.

Hey I think improving education in general and in science in particular
is a great goal regardless of the AGW situation. So we can certainly
agree on that. OTOH if most scientists lean one way politically, I'd
still be concerned about the potential biases that might show up in
their work. I mean, some people challenge ideas like the BBT and AGW.

[QUOTE=davar55;260072]My suggestion that AGW zealots may have ulterior motives is obvious to me. And why strawmanize communism?[/QUOTE]I was trying to make the point that you keep judging the people, and not the truth of what they say about the scientific merits of AGW, which is the same mistake you pointed out in the first line of post #891:

"To the first part: attacking the person, not their words per se."

However, my choice of hypotheticals (the communist meteorologist) for illustrating my point was poor. I'll try to come up with a better one.

In your case, you're confusing your dislike of someone's totalitarian proposed solution (even though I've given you multiple examples of nontotalitarian solutions) with doubt about the problem for which the solution was proposed. You're not taking any steps to investigate whether the problem is real (or whether you're mistakenly taking someone's politically-motivated anti-AGW propaganda for truth).

Whether or not a problem is real does not depend on what solutions anyone proposes. Yet you keep making the false deduction in that direction.

Consistent with that is that you've never (not even one single time) shown us any evidence to support your contentions about AGW falsity, whereas I've shown you multiple links (for which you make a flimsy excuse not to follow) to evidence that supports my contentions about AGW.

If you had a proper understanding of AGW (after studying both sides, not just the anti-AGW propaganda), I think you'd see why we need to begin solutions now, but those solutions don't have to be totalitarian.

Here's a summary article about CO[sub]2[/sub] emissions and effects that you may find useful:

"CO2 – Some facts, figures and outcomes"

[URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-Some-facts-figures-outcomes.html[/URL]

I recommend it not because it presents anything new, but because it's a well-written summary. Here are some paragraph headers.

Under "Emissions":

[B]213 countries
[/B][B]52 countries[/B]
[B]120 countries
[/B][B]41 countries
[/B][B]The Big Five
[/B]
Under "Effects":

[B]Sea Level[/B]
[B]Land Erosion[/B]
[B]Fresh Water
[/B][B]Rainfall Changes
[/B][B]Climate Events
[/B][B]Ocean Acidity[/B]
[B]Species Extinction
[/B][B]Human Habitat[/B]

The same skepticalscience.com blog has just finished posting an excellent four-part series titled, "Of Averages and Anomalies". It's about:

how a reasonable temperature record needs to be compiled,

how surface temperature trends are calculated, the importance of using temperature anomalies as the starting point before doing any averaging and why this can make our temperature record more robust,

how the four major surface temperature analysis products (GISTemp, HadCRUT, NOAA [URL="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php"]NCDC[/URL] and [URL="http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/ann_wld.html"]JMA[/URL]) [U]are[/U] produced at present,

and refutations of several common anti-AGW arguments based on misconceptions about our global temperature record.

The posts are:

"Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1A. A Primer on how to measure surface temperature change"
[URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/OfAveragesAndAnomalies_pt_1A.html[/URL]

"Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built"
[URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/OfAveragesAndAnomalies_pt_1B.html[/URL]

"Of Averages & Anomalies - Part 2A. Why Surface Temperature records are more robust than we think"
[URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/OfAveragesAndAnomalies_pt_2A.html[/URL]

"Of Averages & Anomalies - Part 2B. More on why Surface Temperature records are more robust than we think"
[URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/OfAveragesAndAnomalies_pt_2B.html[/URL]

Anytime you see anti-AGW arguments about the official temperature records, such as "it's impossible to calculate an average global temperature" or "surface temperature stations near parking lots or air conditioners skew the average' or "they dropped the coldest stations to make the trend look hotter" arguments, look to this series of posts for the refutations of those falsities.

skepticalscience.com already had a set of refutations for those arguments, but this series presents a broader coherent explanation of the temperature record that enables one to better see how so many anti-AGW arguments are based on misconception or misunderstanding.

National Geographic has a good "bathtub" graphic at
[URL]http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/05/carbon-bath[/URL]

[URL]http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/img/big-idea/carbon-bath.jpg[/URL]

Just out, from the American Geophysical Union in its [I]Eos[/I] publication:

"Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide"

[URL]http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf[/URL]

There's a widespread belief among anti-AGWers that volcanoes emit far more carbon dioxide than human activities.

[quote=Terry Gerlach]... In fact, present-day volcanoes emit relatively modest amounts of CO2, about as much annually as states like Florida, Michigan, and Ohio.

[I]Volcanic and Anthropogenic CO2 Emission Rates[/I]

Volcanic emissions include CO2 from erupting magma and from degassing of unerupted magma beneath volcanoes. Over time, they are a major source for restoring CO2 lost from the atmosphere and oceans by silicate weathering, carbonate deposition, and organic carbon burial [Berner, 2004]. Global estimates of the annual present-day CO2 output of the Earth’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes range from 0.13 to 0.44 billion metric tons (gigatons) per year [Gerlach, 1991; Allard, 1992; Varekamp et al., 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998]; the preferred global estimates of the authors of these studies range from 0.15 to 0.26 gigaton per year. Other aggregated volcanic CO2 emission rate estimates—published in 18 studies since 1979 as subaerial, arc, and mid-oceanic ridge estimates—are consistent with the global estimates. For more information, see the background, table, and references in the online supplement to this Eos issue (http:// www .agu .org/ eos elec/).

Anthropogenic CO2 emissions—responsible for a projected 35 gigatons of CO2 in 2010 [Friedlingstein et al., 2010]—clearly dwarf all estimates of the annual present-day global volcanic CO2 emission rate. Indeed, volcanoes emit significantly less CO2 than land use changes (3.4 gigatons per year), light-duty vehicles (3.0 gigatons per year, mainly cars and pickup trucks), or cement production (1.4 gigatons per year). Instead, volcanic CO2 emissions are comparable in the human realm to the global CO2 emissions from flaring of waste gases (0.20 gigaton per year) or to the CO2 emissions of about 2 dozen full-capacity 1000-megawatt coal-fired power stations (0.22 gigaton per year), the latter of which constitute about 2% of the world’s coal-fired electricity-generating capacity. More meaningful, perhaps, are the comparable annual CO2 emissions of nations such as Pakistan (0.18 gigaton), Kazakhstan (0.25 gigaton), Poland (0.31 gigaton), and South Africa (0.44 gigaton). (CO2 emissions data are for 2008 [International Energy Agency, 2009a, 2009b]; see also [URL]http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/meth_reg.html[/URL], [URL]http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/coal.html[/URL], and [URL]http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/lequere/co2/carbon_budget.htm[/URL].)[/quote]But what about volcanic supereruptions? Surely [I]those[/I] would exceed human emissions, right?
[quote]... supereruptions, defined as eruptions yielding more than 450 cubic kilometers of magma [Self, 2006]. ... Supereruptions are extremely rare, with recurrence intervals of 100,000–200,000 years; none have occurred historically, the most recent examples being Indonesia’s Toba volcano, which erupted 74,000 years ago, and the United States’ Yellowstone caldera, which erupted 2 million years ago. Interestingly, these calculations strongly suggest that present-day annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions may exceed the CO2 output of one or more supereruptions every year.[/quote]

invaluable proof of global warming (sorry if someone else posted before, I didn't waste my time to read this thread, prefer reading about some math, and learn something from that...)

Don't be sorry...that's funny!!!!!!

[QUOTE=LaurV;264138]invaluable proof of global warming (sorry if someone else posted before, I didn't waste my time to read this thread, prefer reading about some math, and learn something from that...)[/QUOTE]

Nice - "The thong remainth the thame"...actually no, it's getting smaller every year. I guess that makes Led Zeppelin a bunch of AGW-deniers?

-------------------

Quick order-of-magnitude comparison pertinent to Cheesehead's volcano/CO2 notes above, but for a more recent (and far more common) kind of large volcanic eruption:

- The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo released from 2.5-5 km^3 of stuff into the atmosphere, which is a combination of mineral dust and volatiles such as compressed superheated H2O, SO2 and CO2. Generously estimating 10% of the total eruptive volume to be CO2 compressed to roughly the density of liquid water, and using the high end of the eruptive-volume estimates, that means ~0.5 billion tons of CO2. Compare that (deliberate over)estimate to

- Human activities resulting in over 20 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year.

And as many folks have pointed out, such not-quite-super volcano eruptions are basically part of the natural atmospheric-GG-and-dust cycle, so would only matter if their average GG emissions dwarfed those of humans. But that is easily shown to be not true, both by OOM estimates like above or directly - If e.g. Pinatubo had emitted human-dwarfing (or even human-approaching) GG amounts, global measurements (including professor Keeling's famous long-running CO2 gauge on Hawai'i's Mauna Kea) would have showed a huge upward spike in 1991 - they most assuredly showed no such thing.

-----------------------------

Separate topic: Away from the economic-policy arena, I agree quite stringly with president Obama on some major issues, including the need to reduce U.s. dependence on fossil fuels in general, and on oil imports in particular:

[url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-fuel-standards-20110801,0,7404541.story]Fuel mileage standards: Washington gets something right[/url]: [i]Our view: Obama administration proposal to raise vehicle fuel efficiency standards is a win-win for automakers, the environment and national security[/i]
[quote]Lost in all the recent furor over the federal debt-ceiling and gridlocked Washington was a major breakthrough for the Obama administration and good news for the economy, national security and environment. Thanks to an accord reached with automakers, regulators, unions and the state of California, President Barack Obama proposed vehicle fuel efficiency standards last Friday that could dramatically reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

The new rules call for a 54.5-miles-per-gallon fleet-wide standard for cars and light trucks by 2025 — based on a 5 percent improvement each year beginning in 2017. That could reduce the nation's fuel consumption by 40 percent — 23 billion gallons annually.

Forget drilling for East Coast off-shore oil reserves or building new pipelines to tap Canadian tar sands or other questionable policies, this is a far more effective (and sensible) way to reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Altogether, the potential savings achieved by nearly doubling current fuel efficiency standards add up to what the U.S. last year imported from major suppliers Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined.

Just as importantly, the reduced consumption would yield tremendous benefits to the health and security of the country. It would mean reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 280 million metric tons and allow Americans to save $80 billion at the gas pump annually.

That Detroit actually endorses the new standards demonstrates just how far the philosophy of automakers has evolved — with or without a federal bailout. Industry executives recognize that global fuel prices aren't coming down and that consumer demand for fuel efficient vehicles is only going to rise in years to come.

No doubt the oil industry and its friends in Congress will try to derail the agreement and prevent the standards from being finalized next year. Lately, House Republicans have been going after environmental regulations, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, hammer and tong. They can argue that the new standards will raise new car prices — but that's a perspective that fails to account for the multitude of savings accrued through lower fuel consumption, cleaner air, and reduced dependency on Mideast oil.

What will be required to meet the new standards is innovation and new technology — and perhaps the sacrifice of those gas-guzzling full-size pickup trucks and SUVs that have proven so profitable to American manufacturers in the past. Hybrid and electric vehicles will likely play a bigger role in the future, but so might cleaner burning gas engines, better aerodynamics and lighter materials. All that innovation is expected to create jobs, perhaps as many as 43,000 of them in the auto industry alone.[/quote]

I can read a more sinister (note: not dexter) motive into Detroit: My 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid can get 50mpg in practice at 45mpg...and the Edison II, without batteries, gets 100mpg...and if Detroit doesn't start upping efficiency, who's gonna buy from Detroit?

A nice little government whip here will help spur on the giant Detroit Sloths, and, if the standards become impossible to meet, they can get some help from outside, the government, possibly financial or possibly in the form of design assistance from the national labs.....

Now, can I get some help getting my car off the road a bit more?

I was listening to a random San Jose/Santa Cruz area radio program last week, and it was pointed out that we are currently at a solar minimum, with sunspots disappearing for months on end......

Just read this on the news today:
[URL]http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/28/al-gore-compares-climate-change-to-civil-rights-fight/[/URL]

[SIZE=2][quote]Gore also wants people to give up meat and go organic to combat global warming. [/quote][/SIZE][quote][SIZE=2]"Industrial agriculture is a part of the problem,” Gore said. “The shift toward a more meat-intensive diet,” the clearing of forest areas in many parts of the world in order to raise more cattle and the reliance on synthetic nitrogen for fertilizer are also problems, he added.[/SIZE][/quote]
[SIZE=2]Get ready for a heat wave, folks. Me and my buddies are getting lots of steak at Outback tonight.[/SIZE]

[QUOTE=Oddball;270277]Just read this on the news today:
[URL]http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/28/al-gore-compares-climate-change-to-civil-rights-fight/[/URL]


[SIZE=2]Get ready for a heat wave, folks. Me and my buddies are getting lots of steak at Outback tonight.[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

You might want to think about this:
1) It takes an awful lot (like 10x by weight) of grain to feed a meat animal, so eating less meat does increase the carrying capacity of the planet's agriculture.

2) There's a direct correlation between eating a lot of red meat and heart disease.

3) A little bit of a lot of things (including some things we'd call poison, such as beta carotene) is good for you.

4) There's a direct relationship between feeding antibiotics to cattle and other meat animals and antibiotic resistant, flesh-eating bacteria.

So eat more vegetables, and more variety of vegetables, and a little meat. That is actually best for you AND the (rest of the humans on the) planet.

[QUOTE=Christenson;270282]You might want to think about this:
1) It takes an awful lot (like 10x by weight) of grain to feed a meat animal, so eating less meat does increase the carrying capacity of the planet's agriculture.[/QUOTE]
If you're worried about the planet's carrying capacity, why not reduce the number of children you have? It's much more effective than changing your diet, especially in the long run.

[quote]
2) There's a direct correlation between eating a lot of red meat and heart disease.[/quote]
Physical activity and good genes are far better predictors of heart disease than meat consumption. Besides, vegetarians are under-represented in the population of pro athletes and 100+ year olds. There's a reason for that.

[quote]
3) A little bit of a lot of things (including some things we'd call poison, such as beta carotene) is good for you.[/quote]
That's why you have to eat a variety of meat. Beef-only diets aren't good; you need chicken, turkey, fish, pork, and other meats.

[quote]
4) There's a direct relationship between feeding antibiotics to cattle and other meat animals and antibiotic resistant, flesh-eating bacteria.[/quote]
That doesn't mean giving up meat; that means switching from conventionally produced meat to organic meat.

[quote]
So eat ...a little meat. That is actually best for you AND the (rest of the humans on the) planet.[/quote]
I'm willing to consider driving less, living in a smaller house, and paying more for renewable energy in order to reduce my impact on the environment. But giving up meat? Too bad, you'll need to pry every last ounce of steak from my cold, dead hands!

[QUOTE=Oddball;270292]I
<snip>
That's why you have to eat a variety of meat. Beef-only diets aren't good; you need chicken, turkey, fish, pork, and other meats.
<snip>
That doesn't mean giving up meat; that means switching from conventionally produced meat to organic meat.

I'm willing to consider driving less, living in a smaller house, and paying more for renewable energy in order to reduce my impact on the environment. But giving up meat? Too bad, you'll need to pry every last ounce of steak from my cold, dead hands![/QUOTE]

How you planning on getting that variety of meat from Outback steakhouse again? You better at least meet me at the Red Lobster!

I'm not arguing you should not eat meat; I'm arguing you should eat a few more green vegetables; there's plenty of evidence that on average, americans consume more beef (and meat in general) than is good for them.

And yes, if you want to live to be 100, you had better start walking around a lot.

[QUOTE=Oddball;270292]If you're worried about the planet's carrying capacity, why not reduce the number of children you have? It's much more effective than changing your diet, especially in the long run.[/QUOTE]

Effective in the short to medium run, however, in the long run, it has devastating results. China has been trying to do that (crossed with cultural aversions) and the worst is yet to come.

Economic growth and gender equality (economics and law, respectively; two things China has yet to fully appreciate) lead to effective declines in the fertility rate. This has been the case in most western economies where domestic population growth is negative. Immigration has sustained population growth in these areas. Japan is the exception in the east (their immigration policy is ... complicated, to say the least).

In India, the fertility rate has [URL="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_statistics.html"]fallen by one half in the last 60 years[/URL], which, although significant, still means India will surpass China in in the next few decades as having the largest population in the world with well over a billion and a half. Brazil, too, has had [URL="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/brazil_statistics.html"]similar effects[/URL], however, their fertility rate is now below the replacement rate.

The heavy hand of direct policy need not be used in this case as the invisible hand is more effective.

[QUOTE=Christenson;270306]And yes, if you want to live to be 100, you had better start walking around a lot.[/QUOTE]
I'm in full agreement with you, Eric, about the benefits for each of us individually and everyone else of limiting our meat consumption.
One thing though in relation to the above quote: Oddball, as evidenced by [URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=13378"]this thread[/URL], is already a remarkably talented and accomplished athlete.:smile:

[url]http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110924/ap_on_sc/us_climate_the_disconnect[/url]

[QUOTE=Christenson;268612]I was listening to a random San Jose/Santa Cruz area radio program last week, and it was pointed out that we are currently at a solar minimum, with sunspots disappearing for months on end......[/QUOTE]

That would surprise my solar-physicist friends; we're coming out of a solar minimum, and the sun is perfectly reasonably supplied with sunspots:

[url]http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/sunspots/[/url]

is the picture now, we had an X-class flare on 7 September.

[QUOTE=Christenson;268612]I was listening to a random San Jose/Santa Cruz area radio program last week, and it was pointed out that we are currently at a solar minimum, with sunspots disappearing for months on end......[/QUOTE]Last year, on Astronomy Day (varies by year [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy_Day[/URL]) in a shopping mall there was a group set up with solar filters and projection screens during the day. I took a long look for sunspots, and didn't see any -- first time in my life I'd seen the Sun without any spots at all.

I hope this isn't too far off the subject, but I think it's ok since some of the last few posts talked about eating. What is a person supposed to do who can't eat alot of green leafy vegetables due to their vitamin K content? Thank you.

[QUOTE=Jwb52z;272776]I hope this isn't too far off the subject, but I think it's ok since some of the last few posts talked about eating. What is a person supposed to do who can't eat alot of green leafy vegetables due to their vitamin K content? Thank you.[/QUOTE]

It's WAY off topic...we were talking about the need to eat more vegetables....but not to the exclusion of meat.

If leafy greens are a problem, then you need to think about replacing the vitamins and minerals therein...the ones that aren't going to poison you...and fire your Dr if he can't help with this problem. Google for the name of the issue, as I doubt you are the only person in the world with exactly this problem.

CEOs call for tougher climate action
 

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15352764[/url]

[quote]Almost 200 CEOs of major companies call for tougher action on the climate. "Companies signing up include UK retailer Tesco, energy provider EDF, electronics company Philips, chemicals giant Unilever, eBay and Rolls-Royce.[/quote]
[QUOTE]On Wednesday, the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, representing more than $20 trillion in assets including banking giants HSBC and BNP Paribas, made a similar call.

They argue that governments acting quickly to implement tough climate policies would reap the biggest investments and the biggest rewards.[/QUOTE]



Paul

Getting back to the scientific evidence ...
 

"The Earth continues to build up heat"

[URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-Earth-continues-to-build-up-heat.html[/URL]

[quote=John Cook]New research has been published that finds the planet has continued to build up heat well into the 21st century. [URL="http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL048794.shtml"]Church et al 2011[/URL] extends the analysis of [URL="http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD012105.shtml"]Murphy 2009[/URL] which calculated the Earth's total heat content through to 2003. This new research combines measurements of ocean heat, land and atmosphere warming and ice melting to find that our climate system continued to accumulate heat through to 2008.[/quote]

[ATTACH]7215[/ATTACH]

(Higher resolution at [URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Total_Heat_Content_2011.jpg[/URL])

Here's another blog post on the same subject, but based on other papers:

"Global warming and ocean heat content"

[URL]http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/global-warming-and-ocean-heat-content/[/URL]

[quote=Gavin Schmidt]The connection between global warming and the changes in ocean heat content has long been a subject of discussion in climate science. This was explicitly discussed in Hansen et al, 1997 where they predicted that over the last few decades of the 20th Century, there should have been a significant increase in ocean heat content (OHC). Note that at the time, there had not been any observational estimate of that change (the first was in 2000 [Levitus et al, 2000]), giving yet another example of a successful climate model prediction. At RC, we have tracked the issue multiple times e.g. 2005, 2008 and 2010. Over the last few months, though, there have been a number of new papers on this connection that provide some interesting perspective on the issue which will certainly continue as the CMIP5 models start to get analysed.

The most recent paper was a new study from NCAR out last week that looked into what happens to OHC in models when there is are occasional 10 year periods with no trends in global surface temperatures [Meehl et al, 2011].

. . .

So what can we infer about the real world from these tests? First, we can conclude that we are looking at the right quantities. Total OHC changes are a good measure of the overall radiative imbalance. Second, there is likely to be a systematic issue if we only look at the 0-700m change – this is a noisy estimate of the total OHC change. Third, if the forcings are close to what we expect, we should anticipate that the deeper ocean (below 700m) is taking up some of the slack. There are of course shorter term sources of variability that also impact these measures (OHC changes associated with ENSO, solar irradiance variability over the solar cycle) which complicate the situation.

Two further points have come in comment threads recently that are related to this. The first is whether the changes in deep ocean heat content have any direct impact other than damping the surface response to the ongoing radiative imbalance. The deep ocean is really massive and even for the large changes in OHC we are discussing the impact on the deep temperature is small (I would guess less than 0.1 deg C or so). This is unlikely to have much of a direct impact on the deep biosphere. Neither is this heat going to come back out from the deep ocean any time soon (the notion that this heat is the warming that is ‘in the pipeline’ is erroneous). Rather, these measures are important for what they tell us about the TOA radiative imbalance and it is that which is important for future warming.

The second point is related to a posting by Roger Pielke Sr last week, who claimed that the Meehl et al paper ‘torpedoed’ the use of the surface temperature anomaly as a useful metric of global warming. This is odd in a number of respects. First, the surface temperature records are the longest climate records we have from direct measurements and have been independently replicated by multiple independent groups. I’m not aware of anyone who has ever thought that surface temperatures tell us everything there is to know about climate change, but nonetheless in practical terms global warming has for years been defined as the rise in this metric. It is certainly useful to look at the total heat content anomaly (as best as it can be estimated), but the difficulties in assembling such a metric and extending it back in time more than a few decades preclude it from supplanting the surface temperatures in this respect.

. . .[/quote]- - -

It should be noted that the author of this post, Gavin Schmidt, recently was announced as recipient of the first Climate Communications Prize of the American Geophysical Union.

"Inaugural Climate Communications Prize Winner Announced"

[URL]http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-34.shtml[/URL]

[quote]WASHINGTON, DC — In recognition of his exceptional work as a climate communicator, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) has selected Gavin Schmidt as the recipient of its inaugural Climate Communications Prize.

Schmidt is a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and co-founder of the RealClimate.org, a blog that covers areas of science related to climate-from present-day measurements to paleoclimate proxies, from natural climate variation to anthropogenic change. Schmidt has also worked with photographers on a popular science book, on museum exhibits, and on online courses and has often appeared on TV and radio and in print.

The award, which was established by AGU earlier this year, recognizes excellence in climate communication as well as the promotion of scientific literacy, clarity of messaging, and efforts to foster respect and understanding for science-based values related to climate change.
"AGU created this award to raise the visibility of climate change as a critical issue facing the world today, to demonstrate our support for scientists who commit themselves to the effective communication of climate change science, and to encourage more scientists to engage with the public and policy makers on how climate research can contribute to the sustainability of our planet," said AGU president Michael McPhaden. "That's why we are so pleased to recognize Gavin for his dedicated leadership and outstanding scientific achievements. We hope that his work will serve as an inspiration for others."

. . .[/quote]

The Empire Strikes Back ...
 

... which results in friendly fire.

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15373071[/url]


Paul

Not sure if this article has been posted- it discusses the apparent censorship by a Texas state agency of, among some climate change discussion, data that indicates that the ocean level in Galveston Bay is now rising by 3 millimeters per year, compared to a historic average of 0.5 mm.

Norm

[URL="http://www.chron.com/default/article/Professor-says-state-agency-censored-article-2212118.php"]http://www.chron.com/default/article/Professor-says-state-agency-censored-article-2212118.php[/URL]

Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now-agrees-global-warming-real-142616605.html[/url]

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;276534]Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now-agrees-global-warming-real-142616605.html[/url][/QUOTE]

So much for that next grant from the Koch brothers...

Yes, but given a choice...total loss of scientific credibility, or more grants, the credibility won out. It might also relate closely to his employability; a prominent UVA skeptic has run into all kinds of political hassles.

Or instead, could it be that his integrity and careful scientific methodology won out over funding/employment issues, political pressure, and his own prejudgment?

[QUOTE=Brian-E;276563]Or instead, could it be that his integrity and careful scientific methodology won out over funding/employment issues, political pressure, and his own prejudgment?[/QUOTE]

So we hope... but the presence of such pressures (even if we don't know which way employment, and possibly even external funding went) is undeniable.

[QUOTE=Christenson;276544]<snip>It might also relate closely to his employability; a prominent UVA skeptic has run into all kinds of political hassles.[/QUOTE]There are at least two different UVA folks who've prominently stated (opposing) global warming views, then have "run into all kinds of political hassles".

I presume that by "a prominent UVA skeptic" you mean Patrick J. Michaels, an anti-AGWer who may have been illegitimately collecting a government paycheck for 26 years. See [URL]http://cvillenews.com/2006/08/10/state-climatologist/[/URL]

Michael Mann, also at UVa, but on the other side of the AGW issue from Patrick J. Michaels, has been facing legal pressures from conservative anti-AGW folks, including Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, for quite a while. [URL]http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101210015[/URL]

Nothing quite like having someone know the details of my back yard better than I do..thanks for proving the point, cheesehead!

[QUOTE=Christenson;276772]Nothing quite like having someone know the details of my back yard better than I do..thanks for proving the point, cheesehead![/QUOTE]
Yes, but what point exactly?
If all you're saying is that climatology scientists (and other scientists) in the USA are subject to pressures to compromise their scientific impartiality, then I think we can all agree. It's appalling that that is so, but there it is. And that is indeed all you say in post #929.
I took issue however with the way you phrased post #927 where you seemed to be implying that Richard Muller was actually influenced by some of these pressures (maintaining personal credibility and future employment) in reaching his conclusions. If you actually meant that, you really ought to justify it with some evidence. If you didn't, it would be nice to know.:smile:

Note that while Muller now agrees that the Earth is warming at rates consistent with those generally accepted by the bulk of scientists whose work forms the basis of the IPCC report, he still maintains - and I agrre with him on this point - that the attribution of all or most of the observed warming to human activity is far from as "generally accepted" as the IPCC claims.

OTOH, he also shares my view that even if the case for anthropogenic GW is far from clinched, it is utter foolishness to not try to significantly reduce mankind's GW-footprint until the evidence is overwhelming, because by then, it will likely be too late to avert catastrophe.

[QUOTE=Brian-E;276777]Yes, but what point exactly?[/QUOTE]We've had so many anonymous references and cross-streams that it's confusing to figure out the pronoun antecedents. Please, let's all be more specific.

[quote]If all you're saying is that climatology scientists (and other scientists) in the USA are subject to pressures to compromise their scientific impartiality, then I think we can all agree. It's appalling that that is so, but there it is. And that is indeed all you say in post #929.[/quote]I think that's going too far beyond the very unspecific statement in post #929.

[quote]I took issue however with the way you phrased post #927 where you seemed to be implying[/quote]Again, your speculation on a specific attribution to post #927 goes too far beyond what is stated.

Please, let's all continue by making our comments specific enough to be unambiguous ... and refraining from speculation on specific attributions to vague statements without first getting a clarification of the vague statement.

[QUOTE=Brian-E;276777]Yes, but what point exactly?
If all you're saying is that climatology scientists (and other scientists) in the USA are subject to pressures to compromise their scientific impartiality, then I think we can all agree. It's appalling that that is so, but there it is. And that is indeed all you say in post #929.
I took issue however with the way you phrased post #927 where you seemed to be implying that Richard Muller was actually influenced by some of these pressures (maintaining personal credibility and future employment) in reaching his conclusions. If you actually meant that, you really ought to justify it with some evidence. If you didn't, it would be nice to know.:smile:[/QUOTE]

The point was the strength of direct and indirect political and economic pressures surrounding "climate science"....pushing in both directions.

I certainly hope integrity (difficult to differentiate from maintaining personal credibility) won out here. But we would be foolish to ignore the presence of pressure in both directions, and not to catalog some of its very likely effects, which was what I had started with.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;276843]the attribution of all or most of the observed warming to human activity is far from as "generally accepted" as the IPCC claims.[/QUOTE]It's generally accepted (97%) by actual practicing climatologists. The dissent is almost entirely by those who do not specialize in climatology.

- -

(BTW, I really hope you know better than to accuse me of using the 97% figure as evidence of AGW proof. It's evidence about whether the specialists in the field generally accept AGW, not about AGW itself.)

[QUOTE=Christenson;276921]The point was the strength of direct and indirect political and economic pressures surrounding "climate science"....pushing in both directions.

I certainly hope integrity (difficult to differentiate from maintaining personal credibility) won out here. But we would be foolish to ignore the presence of pressure in both directions, and not to catalog some of its very likely effects, which was what I had started with.[/QUOTE]The magnitude of pressure on climatologists to support AGW for unprofessional reasons is far exaggerated by anti-AGW folks.

- -

BTW, have you noticed that no one has ever publicly shown any actual evidence whatsoever of a supposed conspiracy by climatologists to promote the AGW theory in contradiction of evidence? ("Spin" of out-of-context quotations does not constitute evidence.)

The Evans 2006 study of downwelling longwave IR from the atmosphere is clinching proof of AGW. I've never seen any anti-AGWer try to refute (or even [I]mention[/I]) the Evans 2006 results. And it would be so easy to smash it (_if_ it were fraudulent, that is) -- replicating the measurements would require less than a million dollars worth of commercially-available equipment, easily within the resources of the Koch brothers or any fossil-fuel company, yet no anti-AGWer even [I]suggests[/I] this easy basic disproof.

The pressure to support it might be more along the lines of whether or not professional respect would be achievable without following evidence to its logical conclusions....

Why don't you point us at Evans, 2006...sounds like very interesting reading.

As it happens, A Google search on "Evans 2006" returned this abstract as the first result:

[URL]http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm[/URL]

(The extended abstract is at ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/100737.pdf)

but that wasn't guaranteed -- none of the next 29 (at least) items is relevant.

- - -

From the abstract:

[quote]The earth's climate system is warmed by 35 C due to the emission of downward infrared radiation by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (surface radiative forcing) or by the absorption of upward infrared radiation (radiative trapping). Increases in this emission/absorption are the driving force behind global warming. Climate models predict that the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has altered the radiative energy balance at the earth's surface by several percent by increasing the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere. With measurements at high spectral resolution, this increase can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. Radiance spectra of the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere have been measured at ground level from several Canadian sites using FTIR spectroscopy at high resolution. The forcing radiative fluxes from CFC11, CFC12, CCl4, HNO3, O3, N2O, CH4, CO and CO2 have been quantitatively determined over a range of seasons. The contributions from stratospheric ozone and tropospheric ozone are separated by our measurement techniques. A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.[/quote]

"The earth's climate system is warmed by 35C"
Yarrrr... How much it was the average "before"? Minus 10? I don't remember my grandpa wearing boots and gloves for all the year, including the summer time, even if in my country we had (and still have) terrible winters...

[QUOTE=LaurV;276961]"The earth's climate system is warmed by 35C"[/QUOTE]... compared to the hypothetical situation in which Earth's atmosphere has no greenhouse gases.

[quote]Yarrrr... How much it was the average "before"? Minus 10? I don't remember my grandpa wearing boots and gloves for all the year, including the summer time, even if in my country we had (and still have) terrible winters...[/quote]Such abstracts assume the reader has an adequate background for understanding the short references and assumptions in that compacted literary form.

In this case, "is warmed" was not intended to refer to a comparison of past vs. present or any other time interval. It's not "is warmer than it was ..." or "has warmed during ...". It's referring to the difference between the actual Earth situation and a hypothetical Earth situation in which the atmosphere has no GHGs.

- - -

BTW, the extended abstract ([URL]http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/100737.pdf[/URL]) doesn't even bother mentioning the 35C figure, I presume because that's a very basic item known to anyone professionally working on GHGs. Perhaps the abstract's first sentence is a quote from the full paper's introduction.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;276964] It's referring to the difference between the actual Earth situation and a hypothetical Earth situation in which the atmosphere has no GHGs.
[/QUOTE]

In this case I am happy we produced all this damages. Where I live now April is the hottest month of the year, when the temperature is over 35 in average (and about 5 degrees higher then in any other "monthly average" period of the year), and there is a nice local saying, as follows:

Wanting to emphasize how hot it is, comparing with the rest of the year, local people say: "If you resist here in April, then the rest of the year you will feel cold".

But they have no idea that is exactly the situation for me, without any figurative speech. I feel good in April, and a bit cold the rest of the year. Especially now, November being the coldest month, today we had +16C in the morning... :D

I can't imagine myself living in a world with zero Celsius average.... I will go home, take the drilling machine and put a hole in my refrigerator's CFC tank, to help the global warming... I assume it has one, but I am not so sure, it is a new one, and these days you can't trust the new refrigerators, they all use substitutes...

[QUOTE=LaurV;276969]I will go home, take the drilling machine and put a hole in my refrigerator's CFC tank, to help the global warming...[/QUOTE]Please, please, don't. :) Think of the poor upper-atmosphere ozone, I beg of you!

[QUOTE=LaurV;276969]In this case I am happy we produced all this damages. Where I live now April is the hottest month of the year, when the temperature is over 35 in average (and about 5 degrees higher then in any other "monthly average" period of the year), and there is a nice local saying, as follows:[/QUOTE]We did [b]not[/b] produce [b]all[/b] this greenhouse heating. The vast majority of it was present a billion years ago. Water is a powerful greenhouse gas; non-anthropenic CO[sub]2[/sub] is a powerful greenhouse gas.

As for the
[QUOTE=LaurV;276969]I can't imagine myself living in a world with zero Celsius average....[/QUOTE] you don't need to imagine it. For a start, your 35C is not your annual average temperature, it's your average in the hottest month. Absent the earth's atmosphere, the average temperature would be well below zero. Secondly, there's a world nearby which is at the same distance from the sun as the earth and doesn't have any greenhouse gas to modify its climate. It's the moon and we know very well indeed what diurnal and annual temperature ranges it experiences.


Paul

"Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases"

[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-jump-ever-seen-global-warming-gases-183955211.html[/URL]

(Warning: Some sources report amounts of carbon dioxide, but others report the amounts in terms of only the carbon contained in CO2. In the following article, both[B] carbon[/B] and [B]carbon dioxide[/B] are mentioned (I've boldfaced both), without any warning about confusing one with the other!)

[quote]The global output of heat-trapping [B]carbon dioxide[/B] jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of [B]carbon[/B] into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases.

. . .[/quote]Each molecule of [B]carbon dioxide[/B] weighs 3.67 times as much as just the [B]carbon[/B] atom in it. Always keep this in mind when comparing figures from different sources!

So, "564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of [B]carbon[/B]" means 2068 million more tons (1877 million metric tons) of [B]carbon dioxide[/B] in this context.

[quote]. . .

... the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel.

. . .[/quote]... continuing a steady trend:

Despite anti-AGWers' accusations of alarmism and exaggeration, real-world measurements continue to show that the effects of AGW are consistently [U]greater[/U] than the [U]worst-case[/U] projections from the IPCC.

Anti-AGWers' preference for believing a fairy-tale rather than reality is condemning their descendants to very uncomfortable climate changes.

[QUOTE=LaurV;276969]I feel good in April, and a bit cold the rest of the year. Especially now, November being the coldest month, today we had +16C in the morning... :D

I can't imagine myself living in a world with zero Celsius average....[/QUOTE]
It kind of depends on the situation. It was 46F (8C) when I was at the summit of Pike's Peak some time ago, and I wasn't cold at all. It's at 4300m elevation, so the thin air and strong sunlight made it feel at least 10 degrees C warmer.

Also, you can adapt to colder temperatures. In some winters, temperatures would fall below freezing every night for weeks. When the daytime temp finally got to the low 60s (~16C), it felt like a sauna and many people were wearing flip flops and shorts.

Once again, a conservative with an undeniably conservative record (e.g., having served in the administrations of Reagan, Bush, and Bush) has concluded that the scientific consensus on AGW is correct, and written about that in a conservative publication, neocon magazine [I]Commentary[/I].

Peter Wehner has written a two-part article for [I]Commentary[/I] titled "Conservatives and Climate Change-Part I" ([URL]http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/19/conservatives-and-climate-change/[/URL]) and "Conservatives and Climate Change-Part II" ([URL]http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/19/conservatives-and-climate-change-part-two/[/URL]).

As someone else points out ([URL]http://www.climatebites.org/2011/12/20/climate-change-narrativesat-last-a-thoughful-conservative-perspective-on-climate/[/URL]), Wehner "... separates the question 'Is it happening?' from 'What should we do?'”

Then, after a critique ([URL]http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/21/conservatives-skeptics-global-warming/[/URL]) by a [I]Commentary[/I] editor who attempted to justify conservative disbelief in AGW, Wehner wrote a third article, "Conservatives and Climate Change: Facts Need To Be Our Guiding Star" ([URL]http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/22/conservatives-climate-change-facts/[/URL]).

While browsing those Peter Wehner articles, I came across the site ClimateBites ([URL]http://www.climatebites.org/[/URL]), which describes itself as "... an online toolkit for climate communicators -- anybody who talks to the public about climate change. It offers language tools to help make your messages stick."

In addition to its commentary on Peter Wehner's articles, it has this communication tip:

"Note to self: 'It's the fear, stupid!'"

([URL]http://www.climatebites.org/2011/12/09/climate-communication-tips-its-the-fear-stupid/[/URL])

[quote]We have to address the fears. That is my #1 take away climate communication message from the AGU meeting in San Francisco.

For many skeptics, resistance to accepting climate science stems primarily from fear, not ignorance or misinformation. Fear of what could be “taken away” from them if government mobilizes to address this problem. This came up in session after session on climate communication.

The corollary: We can never make progress with ardent skeptics by arguing endlessly about scientific nuances, because scientific quibbles are so often defenses against deeper fears. We have to acknowledge and address directly the fears about solutions. This was the main point of fascinating AGU presentation titled “Creative Affective Solutions to Climate Communication,” by [URL="http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/aboutus/staff/kiehl/kiehl.html"]Dr. Jeff Kiehl[/URL](UCAR), a climate scientist also trained in psychology.

Fear of what? Well, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine discovering that you’ve been wrong about a strongly-held belief? It’s humiliating. Even scientists — schooled in objectivity, open-mindedness, and constant revision — sometimes get locked into positions and refuse to budge, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. And what will your friends say?

For those with even moderate libertarian or conservative tendencies, accepting the reality of climate change can threaten their
[LIST][*]identity, defined by their worldview and expressed by consumption patterns[*]peace-of-mind and sense of personal security[*]self-esteem; admitting error is hard for anybody[*]relationships, if friends and colleagues become alienated[*]consumer choice and freedom (e.g. light bulbs)[*]prosperity and economic security for future generations.[*]personal freedom and liberty, if government controls more areas of life.[/LIST] Needless to say, perceived threats lead quickly to anger — which is always rooted in either fear or hurt — at those who are threatening us.

. . .

More on dealing with fears about climate change and climate solutions, in a future post.[/quote]I know my own communication with anti-AGW folks has often been unpersuasive, so I'll be interested in the followup.

[URL="http://mattbruenig.com/2011/12/21/environmentalism-poses-a-problem-for-libertarian-ideology/"]This blog posting[/URL] by Matt Bruenig, and [URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/jan/06/why-libertarians-must-deny-climage-change"]this article[/URL] in The Guardian by George Monbiot appreciating Bruenig's argument, suggest that libertarians must deny human impact on the environment because admitting it would expose a gigantic contradiction in their philosophy. This idea goes more deeply into the first of the "fears" in the ClimateBites article which cheesehead cites, namely the threat to the libertarian's "identity, defined by their worldview and expressed by consumption patterns".

From the Monbiot article in The Guardian:

[QUOTE]But, for the sake of argument, Bruenig says, let us accept [the libertarian's argument]. Let us accept the idea that damage to the value of property without the owner's consent is an unwarranted intrusion upon the owner's freedoms. What this means is that as soon as libertarians encounter environmental issues, they're stuffed.
Climate change, industrial pollution, ozone depletion, damage to the physical beauty of the area surrounding people's homes (and therefore their value) – all these, if libertarians did not possess a shocking set of double standards, would be denounced by them as infringements on other people's property.
The owners of coal-burning power stations in the UK have not obtained the consent of everyone who owns a lake or a forest in Sweden to deposit acid rain there. So their emissions, in the libertarian worldview, should be regarded as a form of trespass on the property of Swedish landowners. Nor have they received the consent of the people of this country to allow mercury and other heavy metals to enter our bloodstreams, which means that they are intruding upon our property in the form of our bodies.
Nor have they – or airports, oil companies or car manufacturers – obtained the consent of all those it will affect to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, altering global temperatures and – through rising sea levels, droughts, storms and other impacts – damaging the property of many people.

[...]

Libertarianism becomes self-defeating as soon as it recognises the existence of environmental issues. So they must be denied.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Oddball;277085]It kind of depends on the situation. It was 46F (8C) when I was at the summit of Pike's Peak some time ago, and I wasn't cold at all. It's at 4300m elevation, so the thin air and strong sunlight made it feel at least 10 degrees C warmer.

Also, you can adapt to colder temperatures. In some winters, temperatures would fall below freezing every night for weeks. When the daytime temp finally got to the low 60s (~16C), it felt like a sauna and many people were wearing flip flops and shorts.[/QUOTE]

See the following:

[url]http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Next_Ice_Age_Delayed_For_Thousands_Of_Years_Warn_Scientists_999.html[/url]

Assume for the moment that the prediction of an on-coming ice age
within ~1500 years absent Global warming is correct.

A question for thought: Are the bad consequences of global warming
(including possibly having to abandon some coastal cities/losing parts
of Florida, droughts, crop failure, extreme storms etc. )
[b]WORSE[/b] or [b]BETTER[/b] than the consequences of an ice-age
would be???

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;285573]See the following:

[url]http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Next_Ice_Age_Delayed_For_Thousands_Of_Years_Warn_Scientists_999.html[/url]

Assume for the moment that the prediction of an on-coming ice age
within ~1500 years absent Global warming is correct.

A question for thought: Are the bad consequences of global warming
(including possibly having to abandon some coastal cities/losing parts
of Florida, droughts, crop failure, extreme storms etc. )
[b]WORSE[/b] or [b]BETTER[/b] than the consequences of an ice-age
would be???[/QUOTE]I would also ask: which would be better, warming in the near term or an ice age in the longer term?

[QUOTE=xilman;285577]I would also ask: which would be better, warming in the near term or an ice age in the longer term?[/QUOTE]

:smile: Of course there is a saying about the long-term. :smile:

Scylla or Charybdis?

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;285579]:smile: Of course there is a saying about the long-term. :smile:

Scylla or Charybdis?[/QUOTE]
:smile:
Such literacy as this is NOT ALLOWED!!!!! (Not!)

More to the point...if we made it warmer, and then it cools off, how much colder will it get when the ice age finally comes?

It all strongly suggests that the earth cannot sustain billions of humans in the long run.

Some say the world will end in Fire
Some say the world will end in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I'll hold with those who favor fire
But ice is also great
and would suffice

We have had a very unusually dry January here in northern California this year - sunny and daily highs in the 16-20C range nearly every day. We need rain, but if it's going to be an "Australian January", might as well get out and enjoy the balmy weather. I took a small field trip to one of our excellent local Santa Cruz mountains wineries yesterday, the Cooper-Garrod Estate Vineyard in Saratoga, for a bit of winetasting and enjoyment of the equestrian surroundings. One of the more-famous family members there is former Air Force and NASA test pilot George Cooper (there is a little historical display honoring his career in the tasting room), in whose honor some of the yearly "special batches", mainly blends of reds, are named. I'd always wanted one of the larger signed "suitable for display" bottles, so yesterday I splurged and bought a Jeroboam of the [url=http://www.cgv.com/wines]2006 F-86 Test Pilot[/url]. (Not cheap, but I get a 20% discount as a member of their wine club).

While doing a bit of research on the biblical origins of the names for the larger wine bottles (which are on the same page as I link to next), I came across the following interesting "green factoid" related to the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine Bottle#Environmental_impact]environmental impact of wine bottles[/url]:

[i]Glass retains its colour on recycling, and the United Kingdom has a large surplus of green glass because it imports a large quantity of wine but produces very little. 1.4 million tonnes are sent to landfill annually.[/i]

Perhaps the Brits (and other places having similar import/export disparities) should start an effort to re-use the green bottles more productively, e.g. by repurposing them to hold locally-brewed ales. A wine bottle is almost exactly double the size of the standard 12oz beer bottle used in the US, so would seem a perfect "beer for two", (or perhaps just one thirstly Brit). The green glass should also be remeltable (and perhaps green glass is recolorable into brown, if beer in green bottles offends local aesthetic sensibilities) into standard beer-bottle size. Do any UK (or perhaps German, Dutch, etc) readers know if the beer and ale industry there already uses mostly recycled glass?

Last August, I got to appreciate those mountains by being there..and visiting the redwoods, and riding the roaring camp and big trees railroad....quite a place....and even in August, the water was too cold to get into....

[QUOTE=ewmayer;286397][i]Glass retains its colour on recycling, and the United Kingdom has a large surplus of green glass because it imports a large quantity of wine but produces very little. 1.4 million tonnes are sent to landfill annually.[/i]

Perhaps the Brits (and other places having similar import/export disparities) should start an effort to re-use the green bottles more productively, e.g. by repurposing them to hold locally-brewed ales. A wine bottle is almost exactly double the size of the standard 12oz beer bottle used in the US, so would seem a perfect "beer for two", (or perhaps just one thirstly Brit). The green glass should also be remeltable (and perhaps green glass is recolorable into brown, if beer in green bottles offends local aesthetic sensibilities) into standard beer-bottle size. Do any UK (or perhaps German, Dutch, etc) readers know if the beer and ale industry there already uses mostly recycled glass?[/QUOTE]The green glass is indeed remeltable but, as you quote earlier, it remains green and can't easily be re-coloured except perhaps to an even less useable black by the admixture of brown. I've no idea whether recovered green glass is sold on to, say, France. Quite a few beer and cider bottles are green but even there the market is limited by the popularity of aluminium cans.

Paul

Not to distract the thread, but

[QUOTE]Color in glass may be obtained by addition of electrically charged ions (or color centers) that are homogeneously distributed, and by precipitation of finely dispersed particles (such as in photochromic glasses).[46] Ordinary soda-lime glass appears colorless to the naked eye when it is thin, although iron(II) oxide (FeO) impurities of up to 0.1 wt%[47] produce a green tint which can be viewed in thick pieces or with the aid of scientific instruments. Further FeO and Cr2O3 additions may be used for the production of green bottles. Sulfur, together with carbon and iron salts, is used to form iron polysulfides and produce amber glass ranging from yellowish to almost black.[48] A glass melt can also acquire an amber color from a reducing combustion atmosphere. Manganese dioxide can be added in small amounts to remove the green tint given by iron(II) oxide.[/QUOTE]

DarJones

Effects of Global Warming!

From the [i]Financial Times[/i], courtesy of Mish's econo-blog:

[url=http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/02/battle-over-eu-airline-tax-risks-carbon.html]Battle Over EU Airline Tax Risks "Carbon Trade War"; US Congressman Equates Tax to " Barbary Pirates for Safe Passage"; Insanity of Cap-and-Trade Revisited[/url]
[quote]An alliance of countries opposed to a carbon tax on airlines is threatening to tear up trade deals with the European Union and impose new taxes on EU carriers, in a sign the world’s first carbon trade war is edging closer.

A meeting has been called for next week by the 26 countries that have been fighting to stop Brussels’ charging airlines flying in or out of the EU for their carbon emissions.

China has already told its carriers to ignore the EU legislation which took effect from January 1 and US legislators are attempting to push a similar measure through Congress.[/quote]
Just to clarify: I do think it`s critical to curb global carbon emissions; I also think cap-and-trade is a highly dubious way of achieving that goal. (Not the principle in itself; rather it's more the co-option of C&T by the likes of the big Wall Street fraudhouses that I find telling.)

The co-leading of the above anti-C-tax coalition by the U.S. seems strikingly at odds with the Obama administration's laudable push to finally get back on track with respect to raising fuel economy standards for the US road-vehicle fleet. (One of the few areas I find them to actually have kept their loud promises of "change" with respect to their disastrous-on-all-fronts predecessor administration.)

Here's a detailed analysis of the scientific flaw in something that anti-AGW folks are fond of citing, and the response to recent attempts to get it corrected.

Now, it may be that the flaw originated as simply an arithmetic mistake, or a misreading of one data value, rather than any deliberate fraud. Any reputable climatologist would have no trouble acknowledging and correcting such a mistake. But then the anti-AGWers made several other changes that distort what the original chart portrayed.

The Heartland Institute, which recently republished the flawed chart, thus perpetuating both the original mistake and distortions and the incorrect conclusion drawn from it, refuses to correct the flaws and refuses to allow a qualified scientist (this article's author) to speak about the flaws at one of their conferences this month.

This article is notable as a prime analysis of how a typical scientifically-flawed anti-AGW argument originated and how anti-AGWers refuse clear and repeated requests by scientists to correct it.

"Dear Heartland, Stop using Arthur Robinson's Trick to Hide the Incline"

[URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/Sargasso-Sea-Not-Representative-of-Global-Temperature.html[/URL]

(In this case, a set of partial quotes cannot do justice to the quality of the article, so what I quote is just to give a flavor of the article. Please read the whole thing at the SkS site.)

[quote=Mark Boslough]Climate change is debated in letters to the editor of hometown newspapers all over the world. In the Las Cruces, New Mexico, Sun-News, one reader recently cited "a 1996 paper by Kiegwin (sic) in Science which showed that, despite the present having a CO2 concentration of 388 PPM, the present temperature is cooler than the average of the last 3,000 years, and that it was considerably warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, and the Holocene climate Optimum.” A few months later another reader asserted that “Keigwin, Science, 1996, shows present temperatures aren’t much different from the 3,000 year mean.”

Did the Keigwin paper really say that? And how is it that two non-scientists from a mid-sized New Mexico city would be so confident that a scientific paper published a decade-and-a-half earlier supports their belief that the world was warmer during Medieval times?

First, let’s review Keigwin (1996). ...

. . .

The misuse appears to have started in the late 1990s, when Arthur P. Robinson of the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (OISM) started the so-called “Oregon Petition” to collect signatures of people opposed to the Kyoto Protocol. With his son Zachary and two associates from the conservative George C. Marshall pressure group (Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon), he self-published a paper called “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” designed to look like a peer-reviewed article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US). It was mailed out with the petition to many thousands of engineers, dentists, veterinarians, and even some scientists. In January, 1998 it appeared in a periodical published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a political advocacy organization with a stated mission to “fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine.” The executive director of AAPS is also member of Robinson’s OISM. In it was their Figure 2, a modified version of Keigwin’s K4B.

. . .

Robinson and coauthors made several changes in representation and labeling. First they inverted the axes so time runs from left to right, but they were unaware that when paleoclimate data are plotted “years before present” means “years before 1950” so their data is shifted by about 50 years. Second, they removed the data from hydrographic station “S” which showed that recent temperatures are above the long-term average. Third, they neglected to label it as being a record for the Sargasso Sea. Fourth, they called it a global temperature in the text, saying, “For the past 300 years, global temperatures have been gradually recovering. As shown in figure 2, they are still a little below the average for the past 3,000 years.”

This paper became the basis for statements in two influential Wall Street Journal opinion pieces. ...

. . .[/quote]

Thanks for posting links to the complete article, Cheesehead. This is the same Art Robinson who is currently running for Congress in Oregon's 4th district, so this information is politically relevant. Robinson seems to have a penchant for using his sons as surrogates, as his son Matthew re-registered as a Democrat to run against Peter DeFazio, hoping to cause some fallout, but since DeFazio won, 90% to 10%, it didn't seem to have caused DeFazio any serious problems. But Robinson is having no problems raising money!

I thought this was interesting:

[url]http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/25/3265614/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html[/url]

Getting OT about the politics-science interface
 

[QUOTE=philmoore;301345]I thought this was interesting:

[URL]http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/25/3265614/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html[/URL][/QUOTE]Since the 1970s at least, think-tank-funding billionaire conservatives have worked to undermine trust of science among other conservatives (whose buttons they know how to effectively push) by portraying all business-as-usual-bucking science as political.

I recently saw an article (or maybe heard on radio) about how conservatives and liberals agreed on most environmental science issues a few decades ago but now diverge. I'll post in another thread if I can find it again.

From the article:
[quote]... Insurance rates could go up, it says.

. . .[/quote]Fortunately, some, at least, of the insurance industry has been waking up and acknowledging the likely long-term effects of AGW recently. Their customers may pay attention when that is communicated via insurance rates.

Again, I recently read some article about that, and will post in another thread if I can find it.

[i]Rolling Stone[/i] has a piece with a typically modest (not!) headline:

[url=www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719]Global Warming's Terrifying New Math[/url]: [i]Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is[/i]

Interesting that the article features "an easy and powerful bit of arithmetical analysis first published by financial analysts in the U.K.", because the same geopolitical dynamic caused and pervades the ongoing global debt crisis as is at work in the political paralysis on climate change, namely, human selfishness, short-term thinking and capacity to self-delude.

And note that while it's easy to blame politicians, why do we keep electing those same "idiots"? Because the root of the paralysis is at the individual level - the fact that we all "want to do the right thing" but that probably 99% of people aren't willing to do so if it requires them to make real sacrifices. The same selfish "my tribe against yours ... me and my brother against our tribe ... me against my brother" quality that allowed evolving humankind to survive a very uncertain millions of years and become the dominant species on the planet is now proving our undoing. Classic case of "a dynamic which does not scale well".

And just as with the debt crisis, we have the same useless kinds of language and "position papers"
[quote]The accord did contain one important number, however. In Paragraph 1, it formally recognized "the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below two degrees Celsius."[/quote]
"EMU member state budget deficits should be below three percent of GDP." Sound familiar?

[url=www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/world/asia/incentive-to-slow-climate-change-drives-output-of-harmful-gases.html?_r=1&ref=world]Carbon Credits Gone Awry Raise Output of Harmful Gas[/url]: [i]Manufacturers have ramped up production of a common air-conditioning coolant, counting on a windfall for destroying a byproduct under a United Nations program.[/i]
[quote]RANJIT NAGAR, India — When the United Nations wanted to help slow climate change, it established what seemed a sensible system.

Industrial gases were rated based on their power to warm the atmosphere. The more dangerous the gas, the more that manufacturers in developing nations would be compensated as they reduced their emissions.

But where the United Nations envisioned environmental reform, some manufacturers of gases used in air-conditioning and refrigeration saw a lucrative business opportunity.

They quickly figured out that they could earn one carbon credit by eliminating one ton of carbon dioxide, but could earn more than 11,000 credits by simply destroying a ton of an obscure waste gas normally released in the manufacturing of a widely used coolant gas. That is because that byproduct has a huge global warming effect. The credits could be sold on international markets, earning tens of millions of dollars a year.

That incentive has driven plants in the developing world not only to increase production of the coolant gas but also to keep it high — a huge problem because the coolant itself contributes to global warming and depletes the ozone later. That coolant gas is being phased out under a global treaty, but the effort has been a struggle.

So since 2005 the 19 plants receiving the waste gas payments — 5 of which are here in India— have profited handsomely from an unlikely business: churning out more harmful coolant gas so they can be paid to destroy its waste byproduct. The high output keeps the prices of the coolant gas irresistibly low — discouraging air-conditioning companies from switching to less-damaging alternative gases. That means, critics say, that United Nations subsidies intended to improve the environment are instead creating their own damage.[/quote]
Another in a long list of government (in this case, trans-governmental entity) subsidies having unintended (but predictably so, to anyone who realizes the subtlety that "humans are involved") consequences. Corn ethanol, anyone? "Liquidity provider" per-trade subsidies in stock exchanges?

The German news daily [i]Die Welt[/i] features a counterintuitive result regarding the effects of home insulation on energy consumption, namely that - especially in the context of classic European massive-wall home construction - insulation can significantly raise heating costs, because it destroys homes' ability to passively absorb solar warmth during daytime and retransmit it to the interior of the home later. Feed the link to Google translate for a full-article translation:

[url=www.welt.de/finanzen/immobilien/article109699115/Waermedaemmung-kann-Heizkosten-in-die-Hoehe-treiben.html]Insulation can drive up heating costs[/url]: [i]Several studies show a higher energy consumption for insulated homes. The results are especially critical because the federal government wants to tighten the energy saving regulations further.[/i]

It seems like what is really need is a "home cozy" - let the massive insulation-less walls of the home absorb solar radiation during daytime, then externally blanket the whole thing at night. :)

[QUOTE].....especially in the context of classic European massive-wall home construction - insulation can significantly raise heating costs, because it destroys homes' ability to passively absorb solar warmth during daytime and retransmit it to the interior of the home later.[/QUOTE]

My father was born on the border of Texas and Mexico. He told of his grandmother's adobe house, which he said had four foot thick walls. The house was reasonably cool during the 38+ C days which occur through much of the year in that arid area, but also comfortable during the much cooler nights.

Hurricane Sandy - I find the media avoidance of 'hurricane' simply due to the fact that it had lost that official status at the time of landfall silly, especially since said media replaced it with idiot-isms like "superstorm" - has the opiners at the NYT busily opining away:

[url=www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/opinion/kristof-will-climate-get-some-respect-now.html?ref=opinion]Will Climate Get Some Respect Now?[/url]
[quote]President Obama and Mitt Romney seemed determined not to discuss climate change in this campaign. So thanks to Hurricane Sandy for forcing the issue: Isn’t it time to talk not only about weather, but also about climate?

It’s true, of course, that no single storm or drought can be attributed to climate change. Atlantic hurricanes in the Northeast go way back, as the catastrophic “snow hurricane” of 1804 attests. But many scientists believe that rising carbon emissions could make extreme weather — like Sandy — more likely.

“You can’t say any one single event is reflective of climate change,” William Solecki, the co-chairman of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, told me. “But it’s illustrative of the conditions and events and scenarios that we expect with climate change.” [/quote]
Perhaps, but especially in the New York City area I suggest first discussing the much-more-tractable issues such as "why do even wealthy cities like New York continue to allow - and even encourage - the placing of vital transportation, electrical and communications infrastructure below sea level, guaranteeing that it will be flooded in a rare but inevitable event like a once-in-a-century-style hurricane?"

[QUOTE=ewmayer;316598]Perhaps, but especially in the New York City area I suggest first discussing the much-more-tractable issues such as "why do even wealthy cities like New York continue to allow - and even encourage - the placing of vital transportation, electrical and communications infrastructure below sea level, guaranteeing that it will be flooded in a rare but inevitable event like a once-in-a-century-style hurricane?"[/QUOTE]

Perhaps because it is much cheaper to occasionally pump out water from such infrastructure than rebuilding the above-ground "transmission and distribution" networks destroyed by wind?

And there are many countries who have territory below sea-level.

Look, let's face facts, shall we... Everyone knows climate change is real.

The debate is if it's anthropogenic, or natural.

Interestingly, those countries who have the most hydrocarbon reserves are either used to being warn, or will benefit from it being warmer. Northwest passage, anyone?

[QUOTE=chalsall;316685]Perhaps because it is much cheaper to occasionally pump out water from such infrastructure than rebuilding the above-ground "transmission and distribution" networks destroyed by wind?[/quote]
I'm not talking about simple stuff like transmission lines - there are good reasons to put those underground. I'm talking about things like electrical switching-gear closets, emergency generators, that sort of thing, which typically resides in some kind of compact utility closet or vault, which is structurally very strong but not proof against more-or-less complete submersion. Neither wind, rain nor even falling trees would be a major issue for above-ground versions of such highly reinforced structures. But immersion in water - especially saltwater - is typically lethal to such things, and in many instances it's not just a matter of pumping out the water, it's a complete loss. Also, once saltwater gets into stuff, you may never get it all out, and the resulting corrosion will continue silently but unabated.

It's useful to use all the automobiles that got immersed in saltwater as a metaphor for the deeper infrastructure damage: One can dry out and clean up such a car and get it running again in not-too-difficult fashion. But prospective used-car buyers have good reason to stay away from such vehicles (egad, again with "superstorm" silliness):

[url=www.examiner.com/article/after-sandy-used-car-buyers-need-to-beware-of-flood-damaged-vehicles]After Sandy, Used Car Buyers Need to Beware of Flood Damaged Vehicles[/url]: [i]Superstorm Sandy could unleash a new wave of damage on future unsuspecting used car buyers, as experts predict that flood-damaged cars will hit car lots across the country.[/i]

Also, there were instances of critical facilities like hospitals whose emergency generators failed. Completely unacceptable - such critical systems should be proof against "historically bad" scenarios times some multiple, by way of a safety factor. Worst historic storm surge in your area was N feet? Then you put all the critical stuff at least 2N feet above sea level.

[QUOTE]And there are many countries who have territory below sea-level.[/QUOTE]
The smart and wealthier ones of which have been historically proactive in this regard. For instance the Netherlands. Also, we're talking about one's of the world's densest and wealthiest coastal urban centers here, not frickin' Bangladesh. Moreover one which has been hit by similar weather in its recorded history.

[QUOTE]Look, let's face facts, shall we... Everyone knows climate change is real.

The debate is if it's anthropogenic, or natural.[/QUOTE]
That debate will likely still be raging long after we are dead and gone. Even if it were settled magically today, it would still be mostly irrelevant as far as the issue of "how should coastal cities protect themselves against events such as Sandy?" is concerned, since we can neither cool the planet nor move places like New York City to higher ground simply as a result of agreeing that "global warming is real".