Myth of "Consensus Science" Explodes, APS reverses stance

[icarus]

Originally Posted by TimBikes

Sorry to disappoint - that was not my posting and I disagree with that premise. So you now have permission to re-read my post.

You have my most humble apology! I misread the original post and thought it was you. My shame should have been directed at Amped instead! I have indeed shamed myself in my response to you and as I said,,I am sorry,

Icarus

[Godiva]

If you'll look at the italics below, you'll see where I got the 928 papers from. The italics is a quote from a different Priuschat thread. I didn't make it up or research it. Just quoted it over from a post by MeganPrius (without citation, mea culpa). But she provided one HERE.

And in my reply I used the very last entry, the 928 papers (if anyone had bothered to read what I wrote). It was a nice sound bite. Personally, I don't care how many peer reviewed papers it is to one. I still say the one is a doofus.

I don't see why I should be more accurate than Fox News. (Although I usually am. They have a license to lie and make stuff up.)

If you don't like it....bite me.

Originally Posted by Godiva

Who do I look to for the facts on Climate Change? Physicists or Climatologists? Decisions, decisions. A single op ed piece or 928 peer reviewed papers?

Maybe I should wait for the AMA and Bar Association to weigh in. Can't really decide until the licensed Architects have presented their peer reviewed papers.

After all, what could G8, Brazil’s Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias, France’s Académie des Sciences, Italy’s Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Russia’s Academy of Sciences, the United State’s National Academy of Sciences, United States of America, the Royal Society of Canada, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, the Science Council of Japan, the Academy of Science of South Africa, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the Academia Mexicana de Ciencias, the Royal Society, United Kingdom, Malaysia’s Academy of Sciences, New Zealands, Academy Council of the Royal Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Australian Academy of Sciences, the Woods Hole Research Center, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the National Research Council, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS), the Federal Climate Change Science Program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the UN Project on Climate Variability and Predictability, the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, American Chemical Society, the American Association of State Climatologists, the US Geological Survey (USGS), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), the World Meteorological Organization, Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospherice Sciences, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Australian Meteorological And Oceanographic Society, the Pew Center on Climate Change, and 928 peer reviewed scientific journal papers know? None of them are Physicists.

Oh, wait. John Coleman, the local weatherman, says it's all bunk. So there you go.

[Godiva]

Originally Posted by robbyr2

Flatearth types?

Luddites?

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by icarus

You have my most humble apology! I misread the original post and thought it was you. My shame should have been directed at Amped instead! I have indeed shamed myself in my response to you and as I said,,I am sorry,

Icarus

LOL! No problem Icarus. Really. No apology necessary. I've pulled that one myself once or twice in the "heat of the moment". Look, I hope I haven't been insulting - certainly don't mean to be. I truly understand why some people are concerned about climate change. I came from a position of believing it a bit, then doing a lot of research - to not believing it much at all - to doing a lot more research and landing up a bit in the middle. I'm sure my views will evolve more in the next few years as well as more research is done. All I'm saying is that there is what I consider to be a pretty large body of evidence that says, yes, CO2 has an impact. But no - it's not really as bad as the media and a lot of advocacy groups make it out to be. But hey, I will admit the science is complicated and often contradictory. And reasonable people can come up on different sides of the equation.

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by Godiva

If you don't like it....bite me.

I've laid out my case about the Oreske paper based on 4 observations about her qualifications as well as the study methodology, and the best you can come up with is "bite me"?

It's always interesting - and I'm making an assessment here based on other "Godiva" posts - how supposedly open-minded liberals can in fact be so closed minded - and not even realize it.

But hey, whatever.

[tripp]

Wow, I don't check this thread in 2 days and it's run amok. I found the data on posts #2 and 3 in the very article that amped posted (at the time they were down near the bottom). I jumped over to the APS site and sure 'nuff...

I do agree that consensus can be a dangerous thing. It has a tendency to produce group think and stiffle people asking important questions. That said, the onus is, at the moment, on the denialist to poke holes in the current "consensus" view. Up to this point they have not been able to do that.

Like dogfriend, I'm not a practicing climatologist. I have a degree in Geology, some post graduate work in Hydrology, but in the main I've been a programmer for the last 10 years. Simply looking at the vast quantities of carbon that we put into the atmosphere annually, it's hard to image how we couldn't be having an impact. Many of our other activities have clearly left a noticable imprint on the face of the planet and it's only getting worse as more and more of the people of the earth (who are also getting more numerous) adopt more energy intensive life styles.

Tim has pointed out the uncertainty of climate models and current limitations of the science. To me, this is the most dangerous aspect because it means that our risk is much higher because we simply don't know what the hell is going to happen with much certainty. As such, I think that we're obliged to mitigate our risk. We need to act in a prudent and responsible manner. We have (to simplify things) two obligations. First, to the preservation of the current climate regieme (as much as we can at this point) because it contributes a vastly to our economy, our way of life, and our well-being (not necessarily in that order). Second, we need to mitigate risk to our economy by not going overboard with #1. By continuing to refine the science we can optimize our response, but we need to start mitigating risk now, with the information, flawed as it may be, that we have now. We'll never have perfect, completely convincing data, and waiting for that fairy tale scenario is only increasing the chances that we'll suffer a catastrophic change.

[Fibb222]

Originally Posted by tripp

Tim has pointed out the uncertainty of climate models and current limitations of the science. To me, this is the most dangerous aspect because it means that our risk is much higher because we simply don't know what the hell is going to happen with much certainty. As such, I think that we're obliged to mitigate our risk. We need to act in a prudent and responsible manner. We have (to simplify things) two obligations. First, to the preservation of the current climate regieme (as much as we can at this point) because it contributes a vastly to our economy, our way of life, and our well-being (not necessarily in that order). Second, we need to mitigate risk to our economy by not going overboard with #1. By continuing to refine the science we can optimize our response, but we need to start mitigating risk now, with the information, flawed as it may be, that we have now. We'll never have perfect, completely convincing data, and waiting for that fairy tale scenario is only increasing the chances that we'll suffer a catastrophic change.

Yup, time to play it safe and make the changes that give us our best shot at keeping our economy and civilization intact - i.e. getting our emissions down and giving new technologies (and jobs) a chance to flourish.

[TimBikes]

Originally Posted by tripp

Wow, I don't check this thread in 2 days and it's run amok. I found the data on posts #2 and 3 in the very article that amped posted (at the time they were down near the bottom). I jumped over to the APS site and sure 'nuff...

I do agree that consensus can be a dangerous thing. It has a tendency to produce group think and stiffle people asking important questions. That said, the onus is, at the moment, on the denialist to poke holes in the current "consensus" view. Up to this point they have not been able to do that.

Like dogfriend, I'm not a practicing climatologist. I have a degree in Geology, some post graduate work in Hydrology, but in the main I've been a programmer for the last 10 years. Simply looking at the vast quantities of carbon that we put into the atmosphere annually, it's hard to image how we couldn't be having an impact. Many of our other activities have clearly left a noticable imprint on the face of the planet and it's only getting worse as more and more of the people of the earth (who are also getting more numerous) adopt more energy intensive life styles.

Tim has pointed out the uncertainty of climate models and current limitations of the science. To me, this is the most dangerous aspect because it means that our risk is much higher because we simply don't know what the hell is going to happen with much certainty. As such, I think that we're obliged to mitigate our risk. We need to act in a prudent and responsible manner. We have (to simplify things) two obligations. First, to the preservation of the current climate regieme (as much as we can at this point) because it contributes a vastly to our economy, our way of life, and our well-being (not necessarily in that order). Second, we need to mitigate risk to our economy by not going overboard with #1. By continuing to refine the science we can optimize our response, but we need to start mitigating risk now, with the information, flawed as it may be, that we have now. We'll never have perfect, completely convincing data, and waiting for that fairy tale scenario is only increasing the chances that we'll suffer a catastrophic change.

Hey Tripp. As you know, I'm all for conservation and reducing our use of fossil fuels. That said, let's assume the alarmist view is accurate - maybe 2 - 4 degrees, or even 6 or 8 degrees global warming due to CO2 (a case that is only in the models and not borne out by any empirical observations, I might add).

What amount of CO2 reduction is required to mitigate this temperature increase? Or, thought of another way, what impact will a reasonably attainable level of CO2 reduction have on future temperatures? It has been calculated that Kyoto would only delay modeled future warming by 6 years.

I'm all for wholesale conversion of our economy to more sustainable forms of energy, but practically speaking this is a long way away under even the most optimistic scenarios and unlikely to have much of an effect on global temps under any probable schedule.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by TimBikes

LOL! No problem Icarus. Really. No apology necessary. I've pulled that one myself once or twice in the "heat of the moment". Look, I hope I haven't been insulting - certainly don't mean to be. I truly understand why some people are concerned about climate change. I came from a position of believing it a bit, then doing a lot of research - to not believing it much at all - to doing a lot more research and landing up a bit in the middle. I'm sure my views will evolve more in the next few years as well as more research is done. All I'm saying is that there is what I consider to be a pretty large body of evidence that says, yes, CO2 has an impact. But no - it's not really as bad as the media and a lot of advocacy groups make it out to be. But hey, I will admit the science is complicated and often contradictory. And reasonable people can come up on different sides of the equation.

I still think you are wrong however in your opinion of climate change. I urge you to read "The weathermakers" by Tim Flannery.

Icarus

[tripp]

Hey Tripp. As you know, I'm all for conservation and reducing our use of fossil fuels. That said, let's assume the alarmist view is accurate - maybe 2 - 4 degrees, or even 6 or 8 degrees global warming due to CO2 (a case that is only in the models and not borne out by any empirical observations, I might add).

What amount of CO2 reduction is required to mitigate this temperature increase? Or, thought of another way, what impact will a reasonably attainable level of CO2 reduction have on future temperatures? It has been calculated that Kyoto would only delay modeled future warming by 6 years.

You'd have to weight it against the expected losses to the economy due to the worst case environmental scenarios. If we can expect trillions of dollars in damages then I'd say that we'd be able to go negative on CO2 output and come out ahead.