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Man Based Global Warming....

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by dbermanmd, Dec 22, 2008.

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  1. viking31

    viking31 Member

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    Those who choose not to believe in AGW have been labeled as contrarians, skeptics, and other labels associated with negative connotations implying a closed mind, limited intelligence, and allies of corporations with only selfish intentions.

    Hmm, I wonder how those who believe in AGW label themselves? Experts, forward thinkers??? Please, Mr. Alric and other AGW types, share with us your special label as an AGW person or is the unselfish quixotic crusade to rid the world of CO2 induct modesty to remain silent.

    Rick
    #4 2006
     
  2. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    You are claiming the Arctic ice loss is due to AGW. I am saying that claim is unsupported by at least two recent studies.

    The first attributes cyclical variations and is not able to attribute AGW. It does not mean that it is not a factor, but it hardly supports your case.

    The second also does not support your case. It says winds are responsible for the ice loss.

    So please provide evidence that AGW is responsible for current arctic ice conditions if you are going to make that claim.
     
  3. Fibb222

    Fibb222 New Member

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    This is like the 20th AGW thread I've seen go back and forth like this.

    As usual there is a lot of biased thinking and rationalization. See yourselves exhibiting any of these? I've highlighted the one in red I think most apply:

    from wikipedia:

    • Bandwagon effect — the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthinkherd behaviour. and
    • Base rate fallacy — ignoring available statistical data in favor of particulars.
    • Bias blind spot — the tendency not to compensate for one's own cognitive biases.
    • Choice-supportive bias — the tendency to remember one's choices as better than they actually were.
    • Confirmation bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
    • Congruence bias — the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses.
    • Conservatism bias — the tendency to ignore the consequence of new evidence. (Related to base rate fallacy.)[1]
    • Contrast effect — the enhancement or diminishing of a weight or other measurement when compared with recently observed contrasting object.
    • Déformation professionnelle — the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one's own profession, forgetting any broader point of view.
    • Denial[verification needed] — the tendency to disbelieve or discount an unpleasant fact.
    • Distinction bias — the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.[2]
    • Endowment effect — "the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it".[3]
    • Experimenter's or Expectation bias — the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agrees with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appears to conflict with those expectations.[4]

    • Extreme aversion — the tendency to avoid extremes, being more likely to choose an option if it is the intermediate choice.
    • Focusing effect — prediction bias occurring when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.
    • Framing — by using a too narrow approach or description of the situation or issue. Also framing effect — drawing different conclusions based on how data are presented.
    • Hyperbolic discounting — the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are.
    • Illusion of control — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot.
    • Impact bias — the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.
    • Information bias — the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
    • Irrational escalation — the tendency to make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken.
    • Loss aversion — "the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it".[5] (see also sunk cost effects and Endowment effect).
    • Mere exposure effect — the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.
    • Moral credential effect — the tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.
    • Need for closure — the need to reach a verdict in important matters; to have an answer and to escape the feeling of doubt and uncertainty. The personal context (time or social pressure) might increase this bias.[6]
    • Neglect of probability — the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
    • Not Invented Here — the tendency to ignore that a product or solution already exists, because its source is seen as an "enemy" or as "inferior".
    • Omission bias — the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).
    • Outcome bias — the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
    • Planning fallacy — the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.
    • Post-purchase rationalization — the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.
    • Pseudocertainty effect — the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.
    • Reactance — the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.
    • Selective perception — the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
    • Status quo bias — the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same (see also loss aversion, endowment effect, and system justification).[7]
    • Von Restorff effect — the tendency for an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" to be more likely to be remembered than other items.
    • Wishful thinking — the formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality.
    • Zero-risk bias — preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
     
  4. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    It's a matter of what is your source of information. If you use peer-reviewed publications your conclusions will be different than if you use blogs and newspapers only to support your preconception.
     
  5. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    Where did I do such thing? Like I said, I was just showing Dr. Berman's newspaper reference was incorrect in claiming there wasn't climate change because there was no change in global amount of sea ice.
     
  6. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    I don't know. People who read science journals?
     
  7. darelldd

    darelldd Prius is our Gas Guzzler

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    Easy! Haven't you been paying attention? We're "arrogant" for even considering that man-based GW might be happening.

    Or did you think that the name-calling only went one way? That wouldn't be much fun, would it?
     
  8. Fibb222

    Fibb222 New Member

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    Because of my awareness of the normal cognitive bias failings of the human mind, I choose to accept the majority scientific conclusion on controversial issues, but try to also keep an open mind towards contrary opinions.

    But at this point, to deny that AGW is real is just crazy, IMHO. I have faith (a bad term perhaps) that the consensus by climate scientists as expressed by the IPCC reports is probably correct and that it would be prudent to drastically reduce emissions.
     
  9. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    I look at it as a risk management situation. We don't really know Wth is going to happen because many of the earth's processes are poorly understood. To me, that dramatically increases our risk of a catastrophic failure. We're sailing in uncharted waters... that's not good. We ought to be taking steps to mitigate the risk and that means carbon emission reductions.
     
  10. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    Sorry if I mis-interpreted.

    So you agree then - there is no empirical evidence to support that AGW is responsible for arctic sea ice loss.
     
  11. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    Fair enough. However, I would say the likelihood that any reasonably attainable co2 reductions would have a measurable impact on global climate are close to nil.

    Firstly, the role of co2 in driving climate is minimal (again - let's review the 20th C global temperature profile in concert with CO2 emissions - you will see little correlation through most of the 20th C and where you do see correlation - from 1980 to around 2000, most of the jump occurs suddenly around the post 1998 El Nino years- therefore is unlikely related to CO2).

    Secondly, even a relatively small scale reduction CO2 such as that proposed by Kyoto proved unattainable.

    Thirdly, even had Kyoto been fully attainable, the reduction in projected temperature outcomes would have only slowed "global warming" by about 6 years.

    My conclusion - there is really no reason to get worked up in a lather about CO2 reductions. In the likely case, any reasonably attainable reductions will have little impact on temperature outcomes. And in the case that they could affect outcomes, they would have to rely on conversion to an energy source that to date, is unknown / unworkable, at least on the required scale and timeframe.

    Just my 2 cents.
     
  12. icarus

    icarus Senior Member

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    What are your kids gonna do if you are wrong????

    Icarus
     
  13. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    Not besides the fact that global temperature is rising and ice is melting...?
     
  14. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    Good. File this report to the IPCC's thousands'o-climate scientists effort. Somehow they disagree with your straightforward conclusions.
     
  15. dbermanmd

    dbermanmd New Member

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    Freeze?

    What if we institute all the proposed plans to potentially combat man based global warming... what do you think the consequences of those actions will be?
     
  16. dbermanmd

    dbermanmd New Member

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    I think you forget to tell NASA something:
    Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: 2008 Meteorological Year Summation

    Excerpt:The meteorological year, December 2007 through November 2008, was the coolest year since 2000,

    and correct me here,,, that NASA had to correct some of these data points because of errors they made in inputting - errors made on being warmer than it really was.

    Quick question,,, is solar activity at play here?
    Another quick question,,,, has this pattern of warming and cooling every happened before,,,, or is man responsible for all of this climate changing now?
     
  17. viking31

    viking31 Member

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    Bingo. All above simply cannot be refuted, even by those who believe in AGW.

    True, but that's not the reason for governmental driven AGW. Belief in AGW, especially by governments, can produce tremendous tax revenues. Virtually anything (even including our food sources!), whether man made or natural, has been considered to be taxed for its CO2 output. And, just like any good story, it gives governments a rallying point in the fight against "evil forces" with the evil force being CO2.

    The net result will be an overall slowdown of the world's economies, growth, and a disproportionate burden on the lower socioeconomic classes of the world. But that's OK - as sure as the great global warmer of all, the sun, rises in the east each day we will be told by the experts there is going to be a little sacrifice needed to win the battle of excessive CO2.

    Rick
    #4 2006
     
  18. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    I just want to rebut your conclusion that global warming is crap based an a single day's observation with another localised weather observation.

    It was on the news today that in 2008 we had above average annual average temperatures over the year for the 16th consecutive year.
     
  19. Celtic Blue

    Celtic Blue New Member

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    It can easily be refuted, but with Denialists its like Ground Hog Day so what's the point of playing?

    Oooooo....let's raise the specter of scarey govt. and taxes too!!! BOO!

    Seeems like we got in the "Incredible Shrinking Economy" mode over the past few years by having Denialists in charge who failed to tax enough to pay their bills even in good times. They encouraged wasteful and ill advised investment in obsolete technology, trying to turn back the clock. Imagine if we had not cut taxes, kept the budget balanced and instead invested the TRILLIONS squandered differently...say in energy efficiency and renewables over the past 8 years. Too late! Now the money is gone, but the clock is still moving forward and the only things growing are debts, foreclosures, unemployment, store closings, and bankruptcies. We won't be able to even consider balancing the budget for years because it is going to take an incredible amount of deficit spending/loaning to ourselves just to get through the next few years without collapse.

    Uh, no. That fallacy has been what Denialists have been claiming for decades. (The masses bought it until the most recent oil shock and the last election.) They've been proven wrong time and again. Instead we've followed the denialist camp's "burn, baby, burn" approach and it has led to global recession that is teetering on the brink of depression. (It would be in depression now without the MASSIVE international interventions that so far have prevented complete financial market collapse.)

    There is no reason that changing our energy sources should to lead to a slowdown, quite the opposite. In fact, if we reinvest in transforming our infrastructure and changing the way we use energy it should result in greater growth, not a slowdown. It does take longer to get rolling, because the investments are longer term, not the "gold rush" mentality that seems to have controlled energy policy under Cheney/Bush. Ahhhh, but that's the rub isn't it? The real problem is short term thinkers (see denialists, business/govt. for the past decade) don't get that. Their time horizon for investment is about 6 months when it should be 10 years. That's the way banks, Wall Street, and govt. have been run this decade...the one that will go down as a "lost decade."

    If you want a slowdown, place your bets on a resource that you are exhausting that has a high potential for catastrophic side effects (Global Warming.) That's what we've been doing. Great economy we have isn't it?

    What all the denialist claims boil down to is this: let's hope that the natural/solar/whatever cycles were actually headed for substantial cooling of the planet, because if they were not we have made a real mess. That's not a bet most rational people would make. It's called wishful thinking, which is about all you've left us.

    p.s. Here's another thought...since about all the markets have been good for over the past decade is in producing bubbles that wipe out tens of trillions in our investments, how about creating a bubble around alternative energy and letting it run a decade. I mean, if you are going to p*** investor's money away, why not do it while actually building something that will have positive benefits even after the bubble collapses?
     
  20. JSH

    JSH Senior Member

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    Just to clarify I was using the word arrogant to describe research scientists that believe that they have everything figured out and have created a near perfect computer model to predict the world's climate for the next 100 years.

    I've also spent enough time in and around universities to come to the conclusion that arrogance is one of the dominate traits in academia and that finding sources of research funding has replaced teaching as the primary focus of universities.
     
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