Is Global Warming Unstoppable?

[NevadaPrius]

Originally Posted by icarus

...

I hope that during Christmas when I'm 60 I'm still with my smoking hot wife and I am surrounded by my loving children and we are drinking hot cocoa in the snow.

Unrelated to you, I really hope I'm not a sad lonely old troll who can't read.

Merry Christmas Icarus! I gotta go - family time!

[ufourya]

I have been reluctant to get into a discussion of the 'Precautionary Principle'. My reluctance stems from the fact that so few of the simple declaratory sentences (not to mention the compound or parenthetical) seem to penetrate the counsciousness of certain readers here. I also know in advance that a discussion of meaphor and simile will be unproductive.

But, since we're having so much fun and, thankfully, things haven't sunk to pure ad hominem attack, open minds might find it useful or instructive.

Some have posited the following - Even though there is no empirical evidence that humans are causing or will cause global catastrophe (through the continued emission of CO2), we should cut CO2 emissions just in case. The way we will do this is by taxing or by other means make burning fossil fuels so expensive that their use will be reduced to the point that temperatures will cease to rise and the world will be saved for future generations. We don't care if scientists publish peer-reviewed literature demonstrating that causes other than rising CO2 levels have major influence on climate fluctuations, cutting CO2 must be accomplished to save our children, our children's children's children's children's etc. We are concerned about future generations and you are not.

My humorous response would be, "What have the little buggers ever done for ME?" But as we know, there is no humor appreciated here.

Since the proponents of this view don't know within what context to discuss it, let's examine the new environmentalist power tool - the 'Precautionary Principle'.

To be fair, I'll post a link to the lefty encyclopedia Wiki:

Wingspread Conference on the Precautionary Principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wingspread_Conference_on_the_Precautionary_Principle

'When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.[5]"

Does anyone appreciate how this so-called principle might be more dangerous than useful? I surely do, but I'm betting my children's children's children's future (and I may not have any kids either) that power brokers and governments will misuse this idea - that they will abuse it to the detriment of mankind. I'm also betting that eco-fascists will not appreciate turning the principle around and examining the reverse idea of doing nothing if you can't prove a good reason for doing it.

So, I'll be helpful in that regard as well.

Precautionary Tale - Reason Magazine

...Environmentalists often liken technology and economic growth to a car careening down a foggy road. They suggest that it would be better if we slowed before we crashed into a wall hidden in the fog. The Precautionary Principle, its champions believe, "would serve as a `speed bump' in the development of technologies and enterprises."

Unfortunately, these principles and tenets may sound sensible to many people, especially those who live in societies already replete with technology. These people already have their centrally heated house in the woods; they already enjoy the freedom from want, disease, and ignorance that technology can provide. They may think they can afford the luxury of ultimate precaution. But there are billions of people who still yearn to have their lives transformed. For them, the Precautionary Principle represents not a speed bump but a wall....

[ufourya]

Icarus, since you can't grasp the concept of someone linking to a post which contains statements made by a third party, I'll explain it again.

Icarus asks Ufourya - I asked you a perfectly straight forward question, " Are you asking us to believe that you have had a change of heart regarding the causes/effects of global warming as a result to the so called "climategate" emails?"

Simple question.

Simple answer. No.

Really complicated answer beyond grasp of some:

I, ufourya, did not make a statement indicating that 'climategate' E-mails changed my mind about global warming. I posted an article where someone else - another person, not myself, not ufourya - indicated that the climategate E-mails changed HIS mind. OK?

That's it.

Hope all have a Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah.
Enjoy the holidays, all you atheists.

[patsparks]

Originally Posted by icarus

And if some had brains they would be human! LOL

Don't drop to their level mate, they will beat you with experience.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by ufourya

Icarus, since you can't grasp the concept of someone linking to a post which contains statements made by a third party, I'll explain it again.

Icarus asks Ufourya - I asked you a perfectly straight forward question, " Are you asking us to believe that you have had a change of heart regarding the causes/effects of global warming as a result to the so called "climategate" emails?"

Simple question.

Simple answer. No.

Really complicated answer beyond grasp of some:

I, ufourya, did not make a statement indicating that 'climategate' E-mails changed my mind about global warming. I posted an article where someone else - another person, not myself, not ufourya - indicated that the climategate E-mails changed HIS mind. OK?

That's it.

Hope all have a Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah.
Enjoy the holidays, all you atheists.

Thank you, was that so hard? RadioPrius had mentioned that it was only as a result of the leaked e-mails that he had had is epiphany. I was just asking you if that were the case,

Once again, simple question, simple answer, in spite of NvP's attempt to make it something other than it was!

[hyo silver]

Originally Posted by ufourya

...thankfully, things haven't sunk to pure ad hominem attack...[/I]

They haven't? This thread reads like 800 posts of insults, and maybe 10% science.

[Alric]

Information IS beautiful

Climate Change: A Consensus Among Scientists? | Information Is Beautiful

[NevadaPrius]

Originally Posted by Alric

Information IS beautiful]

Unfortunately information is also misleading.

The first graph is completely worthless. It tells you nothing. It says that there are 12,900,000 scientists and that 31,000 signed the petition project. That means nothing. That does not mean the other 12,000,000 disagree with the petition project, and it no way tells you about their beliefs one way or another. By their standards, I am scientist. I have not signed the petition project. I'd only even heard about it relatively recently. If I didn't have to be bothered with mailing something in or however it works I probably would sign it.

The second graph is also misleading. It says it is a survey of 10,257 earth scientists. Well, according to the link you provided:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

Only 3,146 people answered that survey. (That is 1/10th of the number of people who signed the petition project saying they did not think that humans are the major cause of global warming. )

Also, their definition of climatologist is a little funny:

In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total).

By that definition, Michael Mann would be considered in that population but we all know he technically shouldn't be. So would Steve McIntyre.

Also, the questions are rather vague. Let's look at the second question:

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

Does significant mean "an important contributing factor" or does it mean "the driving force"? I think that CO2 contributes to climate change, but I think we greatly exaggerate the amount. How would I answer that question?

The question should have been "Do you agree with the hypothesis of global warming as presented in the most recent IPCC report?"

From the comments of the site you posted:

Are you seriously trying to claim 12,904,852 scientists agree with the consensus? Even Al Gore never claimed more than a couple of thousand.

Beautiful visualizations, but such poor understanding of math and sampling… this is almost a textbook definition of lying with statistics.

This is an utterly ridiculous presentation. 12.9 MM scientists in the US? You include IT graduates, engineers, etc? Basically anyone with a science degree?

Then you say, only 31,478 scientists disagree. First off – as an active Professional Engineer, no one asked me my thoughts, you just dump people like me into the 12.9 MM who are in agreement.

IMO, your analysis is on shaky ground and about as meaningful as the supposed settled science behind AGW.

What a silly graph. I’m no anthropogenic climate change skeptic but this is a horrible mangling of data. You include all scientists in the country but only the skeptics from a petition? That’s not very scientific.

As an engineer I can tell you why engineers at least do not like it;
- The measurement data does not yet give a clear picture thus one cannot make conclusions (you need a longer timespan for accurate measurements to satisfy the engineer).
- We only have one earth, to do good experiments one has to have several earths and change one variable at a time to see what influences what ;-).
- Computersimulations are there to model what one can see and to confirm this, not what will happen in the future. This to me is a serious concern though, as I really believe computersimulations are not ment to look far ahead, certainly not when the variables that have to be taken into account are not very clear or cannot be predicted accurately (world population growth for example).

Thus from those things it is from an engineers point of view very hard to ‘believe’ the climate story. On the other hand; we need to look at our energy spendings anyway, oil is not there forever and fusion energy is an engineers wet dream; I only see a win-win situation ;-).

This is a great visualization, but it only shows half the story. Out of the 12,904,852 scientists how many actually agree with the IPCC report? From the data I have seen many that are cited in the IPCC do not agree with the report’s conclusions. Most importantly the scienctific process is not by consensus, but facts and data. Unless you are drinking the “kool aid” the facts and data should make one skeptical.

Hey, how about visualizing the 97% of CO2 that is natural in origin vs the 3% that is man made? Better yet… let’s visualize water vapor the greatest green house gas… How much more water vapor do we spew in to the atmosphere than CO2? How about visualizing the IPCC scientists? You think they’re all climatologists? The railway engineer leading them surely isn’t.

How about visualizing the volume of the oceans vs the volume of gas in the atmosphere? How about visualizing the size of the sun ( 98% of the solar system mass) vs the Earth.

I’m normally a big fan and follower of this website… however, this article is really really using bad, bad statistical practice.

I don’t know if man has induced any global warming or not on the Earth, I’m open to both sides of the discussion, honestly, but to claim that all scientists who did not sign a certain document believe one way against the other and then to put it to graphics?

Terrible. This information is not beautiful. This information is BS

You can not claim that the lack of signing the PetitionProject.org site with their opposition therefore means they are a climate change believer. There are real issues here and bad information does NOT help.

Perhaps engineers are more likely to disagree because their livelihood is less dependent on things like peer perception and obtaining government funding.

So, you’re comparing the total number of scientists that exist in the US to the number that have signed a petition. That’s kind of disingenuous, as the presentation makes it look like 12m scientists have actively agreed with the consensus. Comparing active disagreement with passive agreement is not the same. It’s apples and oranges.

The best I’ve been able to find about consensus is Global Warming Scientific Consensus which claims “97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures” based on a study of 3,146 Earth scientists.

So, I agree that there is overwhelming scientific consensus, but this presentation doesn’t do anything to support the cause that climate science is open and honest.

What’s the term for information design without integrity…. oh yes, rubbish.

Well, that was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction on my part, allow me to expand. Your question driving this graphic was “how many scientists made up ‘The Consensus’”. However, all your graphic tells us is how many “scientists” signed a specific petition. It’s not an accurate representation of the number of scientists who are skeptical, and by extension, tells us nothing about the number of scientists that are part of The Consensus.

t seems rather disingenuous to claim that all scientists that haven’t signed the petition agree with the consensus. It might be more convincing if it were restricted only to climate scientists who were more likely to have an informed opinion.

It’s really not fair to assume that everyone who didn’t sign a particular petition believes in human-induced climate change.

I suppose it depends on whether there is any interest in being fair. That first graphic is so blatant in its disregard for presenting any actual useful information that I don’t think fair was ever really a consideration.

You guys have got to start reading your links before you post them. A failure of epic proportions, Alric.

(It's hilarious you post a survey that had 1/10th the number of responders as compared to the people that signed the petition project.)

Edit: Heading out - Merry Xmas to my AGWers!

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/2...rs-visualized/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/2...itical-agenda/

“Give us time to consider, to test alternative hypotheses, to falsify theories—to do our work without worrying if the results support your causes.”

[Alric]

And the Petition Project is more valid because.....?

The points of the survey are:

1. The petition project is not a representative sample of US scientists.

2. When you ask the people with expertise disagreement with AGW is less than 1%.

[icarus]

Alric,

"And the Petition Project is more valid because.....?"

Because NvP posted it, and everyone knows he is the only one who knows the truth.