Global Warming:The Politics and Science of Fear

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by madanthonywayne, May 13, 2007.

  1. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    DH thank you for your response. I will read some about these things and maybe have some intelligent questions

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    I haven't made any judgements. One can always find a link to a website that supports your cause, so these things are pretty meaningless.

    And I don't have a defaut---because I don't know the science. And I seriously doubt that many people here (on both sides) have a firm understanding of the science either. This, of course, means that a bunch of people cut and past things they read on the internet, and ridicule the other side for being so short-sighted.

    The point that I want to make is that if you don't really know the science (i.e. you haven't figured it out yourself), then one has no basis to make claims of these sorts.

    So the question stands---does anyone here actually know what they're talking about, or is this information coming from third hand sources?
     
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  3. Facial Valued Senior Member

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    Ad-hom. I hope you aren't driving one yourself. I bike everyday to school.
     
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  5. sandy Banned Banned

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    No. I walk everywhere. Or use my roller skates or skateboard.

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    I'm not the one pushing the global hot air agenda. I don't care if people drive/fly their Hummers, trucks, SUVs, limousines, sports cars, boats, jets, and everything else they want as long as they want.

    The little bit that riding a bike contributes is nothing to offset cows and big industry. But it's a nice, liberal idea. I know the liberals want us all to ride bikes. But not them. They get to have all the big toys. Practice what they preach, not what they do!

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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The science is just a little bit better now.
     
  8. URI IMU Registered Senior Member

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    You fooled, they fooled, y'all fooled

    >> These are the same liberal moonbats who were decrying global cooling in the 70s. We weren't fooled then and we're not fooled now >>

    All are fooled, proponents and opponents.... the prevailing climate will flip very soon

    LOL, I expect they are/were correct; the present overpressure of carbon dioxide has upset the equilibrium... just a symptom of a much greater and very grave climatic disruption

    But wait a few more years and global drought, followed by a snowball Earth will certainly be a joy to behold.

    Thank God !
     
  9. sandy Banned Banned

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    More ice and snow storms in Europe. Damned global warming.

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    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ews.html?in_article_id=458562&in_page_id=1811


    Argentina cold wave prompts record demand for electricity...

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=latin_america&sid=av0tvGQPKLKU


    At least 16 dead and 1500 stranded as freak snow storm hits Nepal...

    http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=nw20070529095234381C871116

    Oh, and 4 inches of hail piles on Denver...

    http://www.denverpost.com/ci_6013256

    Damned global warming...
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2007
  10. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    Sandy:

    Right now, record heat waves are ocurring in Moscow Russia, Rochester NY, Orissa India, and elsewhere. These heat waves, like your posts on wierd weather neither prove nor disprove global warming. Using the weather in one spot on the Earth at one point time to disprove (or prove) global warming is incorrect use of anecdotal evidence, a logical falacy.

    Sandy, you have made this and other logical falacies on this topic that I can only think this is intentional. Using logical falacies can be a rather clever way lieing. I suppose that lieing in the name of God is OK in your eyes.
     
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I can't emphasize enough, incidents of snowstorms will not dissapear by global warming, in fact science shows they could increase in some areas. The warming leads to greater amounts of moisture in the air, which can fall as snow. It only has to be colder than 32 degrees to snow. If the average temp in an area at a certian time of year happens to be 20 degrees, and it goes up to 25, it will still snow, and it will still be warming.
     
  12. sandy Banned Banned

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    Sorry. I still don't buy it. Neither do most scientists or Americans. Sure you will have your moonbats that will jump on any bandwagon just to have a cause. But most of us don't think it ranks up there as one of our top 10 problems.
     
  13. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    Sandy, once again you are bearing false witness. I ask again, is lieing in the name of your religion an acceptable act in your religion? Does the ninth commandment not apply?

    The vast majority of climate and weather scientists concur that global warming is real. Most of these scientists also agree that global warming is caused by humans. These are the only scientists who count as scientists in this regard. While chemists, physicists, pyschologists are scientists, their opinions on global warming must be treated as those of any other lay person.

    The vast majority of Americans agree that global warming exists. The lay community is split on whether global warming is man-made or natural.

    Here is where global warming gets interesting:
    • The vast majority of economists agree that proposed solutions to global warming, particularly the Kyoto accords, would be very, very bad for the economy. Climatologists are not economists; their opinions on the economical effects of their proposed solutions are not worth very much.
    • The vast majority of climatologists agree that implementing the Kyoto protocols would not do much to stop global warming.

    Instead of discussing this topic honestly, you use red herrings, anecdotal evidence, and a host of other falacies. Please start being the good christian you claim to be and stop f***ing lieing.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Approximately 28 percent of American adults currently qualify as scientifically literate, an increase from around 10 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Miller's research.

    That means 72 percent are scientifically illiterate!
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Hmmmm. You are allowing, I hope, for some people other than the actual researchers to have good and well-founded opinions ?

    At what level of "knowing the science" does one's ability to follow an argument, and compare it with another argument, appear?

    Let's say, for example, that someone (me) simply takes the researchers' word (in the published papers from the Mauna Loa observatory, the abstract and conclusions paragraphs) for their establishment of the fossil fuel combustion origin of a third of the CO2 in the air - which closely matches the increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2, about 50%, over the past hundred years, leading to the conclusion that the increase is from accumulation of fossil fuel combustion product.

    It's a very complex and statistically based argument, and although a brief inspection of it shows no obvious flaws, I haven't the knowledge or resources to vet it thoroughly. It's published and peer reviewed, it's stood for years now, and I just accept it.

    Is that OK?

    Next step: we have several sources of estimation for the comparative heat trapping effects of the various atmospheric gasses. Say they put water vapor at around 70 - 75% of the total heat trap, and CO2 around 20% IIRC (if I dont recall correctly, just ride along for a while to the point). Taking this, and ignoring for the moment the fact that the boost is not linear, we have an anthro contribution of about 7% of the total heat trapped.

    That is, I think, very obviously significant. Anything over 1% would be significant. It does not require deeper undersanding of the science involved to be recognized as worth paying attention to. It is enough to lend back-of-the-envelope credibility to claims of climate effects, and to cast reasonable doubt on any attempt at simply dismissing the problem without paying attention to it.

    Is that OK?

    Next step: we (I) may know, somehow, that the nonlinearity of the CO2 concentration's effects in fact favors ascription of significance - that the concentration has been (by chance or complex establishment) hovering around the steep part of the curve, and small boosts would have amplified effects rather than damped ones. Further, we (I) may know somehow that the water vapor is largely a side effect of the CO2 concentration - without the CO2, the air would be much colder and drier, while increases in CO2 heat trapping increase the water vapor retention capability of the air - amplifying the direct CO2 effect.

    Now I am disposed, on this sketchy scientific background, to give more credence on less argument to claims of significance, and demand better argument from those claiming insignificance. And in fact just the opposite has been my experience - the anti-GW crowd has been featuring very bad arguments, full of logical flaws and spurious claims.

    So is my position reasonable, although I am not a scientist or expert in the field?
     
  17. URI IMU Registered Senior Member

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    >>> So is my position reasonable >>

    As a sophist, yes, but as a scientist NO !

    Forget CO2, its rise is a symptom of a much greater climatic problem. The CO2 sink is corrupted, the hydrology cycle is corrupted, the thermal cycle is corrupted... not much left to corrupt is there.... and its all because of OIL.

    Remember the atmosphere is surrounded by an absolute cold heat sink.

    Its our ocean warming that is the problem

    Now why is this, because warm water is supposed to evaporate more water vapour and thus cool... we should not be getting ocean warming !

    I understand that my words mean nothing to laypeople, but the novel "The Death of Clouds" lays it out in kids speak.

    Y'all better start getting real.

    omegafour.com
     
  18. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    all i know is that is something wrong with the balence in the earth temperture cause 70 in febuary is not normal in chicago
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2007
  19. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know ice. At some point, even the most well-educated layman is taking somone's word for it, right?

    Well, ok. Two things. First you haven't checked the calculations yourself, so how can you be sure? I know how peer review works---you send your paper to a journal, and they send it to a third (neutral) party. That person may or may not take their job seriously. And at the end of the day, it may be the person's graduate student who is actually reviewing the paper.

    But ok. Say they take their job seriously. If that person has a vested interest in some particular science, or some particular result, they will push it. For example, I just got a paper back from peer review, and some of the comments were "You should cite authors X,Y, and Z...". (I'll forward you the email if you doubt me

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    )

    All of this aside, the process basically works. And some peer reviewed research is published on both sides of the debate, which SHOWS it works. But the main place that science happens isn't in conferences or journals, its over coffee and in hallways of the geology department, etc. What you see in the literature is a highly technical account of all of these conversations, which is then trickled down through various pathways, into a form that most people can digest. But again, if you don't read the original literature, and do the calculations yourself, you really can't be sure of anyone's result.

    And if you're not PART of that dialogue, then all you have is an outside account of what the debate really is. So you can say "So and so said this..." and I can say "Well, my so and so said that your so and so is wrong, so take that..."

    The other thing is "I just accept it". Maybe this is a difference between physics and climate science. Physics is much more solid in the sense that anyone can do the calculations. If I don't believe, say, that the gravitational field inside a spherical shell is zero, then I can go and calculate it. I understand that some climate science models, and some sets of observations, may be so large and complicated so as to effectively prohibit anyone from repeating the experiment. If this is the case, then I really have no response.

    So, for example, statements like

    are almost completely meaningless. What does "7% of heat trapped" mean? How does this effect temperature, because heat and temperature are not the same thing? Does 7% more heat mean 7% more temperature? Why is 7% bad, but 1% ok? There's no substance to these statements, other than you can phrase it in a way that sounds like you know what you're talking about. (No offense intended, please!)

    Your position is certainly reasonable. But so is an equally informed layman on the other side of the debate, for the same reasons. The fact that sandy is aparently the only one arguing the other side, and that she is pretty ignorant of the differences between weather and climate, doesn't mean that there are not others like you out there. And when the two of you talk, you quote statistics at each other---the winner of the dialogue, if there is one, is the person who can counter each of your statistics with his own, +1. You can't disprove his statistics with anything other than statistics of your own.

    I think my main objection to people talking about things like this is that they approach a scientific question in an unscientific manner. People attempt to justify a certain social agenda, based on science that may be still up in the air, and which they don't know. If the science was that solid, I wouldn't read in the paper about the number of famous climate scientists who are beginning to change their minds.

    If you want to justify your social agenda on a "better safe than sorry" attitude, then fine. Honestly I feel that the anthropogenic global warming explanation holds more water than some of the other ``natural'' explanations I've heard, even though it doesn't sound like it

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    The fact is that we DONT know the dynamics of the atmosphere well enough, and we only really have one Earth. But make no mistake that the numbers you are quoting are still debated by scientists, over coffee and in hallways. Make no mistake that I can find equally convincing numbers, if I spent a few days with the literature, to completely disprove your case, I'm sure of it.
     
  20. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    And 30 in Texas in April isn't normal either. Nor are any of the weather phenomena Sandy linked to.

    Climate and weather are two different things.
     
  21. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    Can you support this claim that "most scientists don't buy it", or are you pulling things from your clevage?
     
  22. sandy Banned Banned

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  23. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    All cleavage. The purported proof is just an opinion piece. It starts with the statement
    Don't Believe the Hype
    There's no "consensus" on global warming.
    The author never shows any sort of evidence to back up that headline statement. In fact, he disproves it:
    Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.
    There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming.
     

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