Burt Rutan convincing presentation on AGW

Simple but elegant. So far half-way through... looking forward to finishing and the rebuttals.

 

Burt Rutan killed John Denver. Or, his plane did. Or, John's flying did. Not sure. Good stuff, tho

 

Completely worthless stupidity... From atmosphere in the time of the Dinosaurs to ecological harms of DDT, just about every fact this loser presents is not only false but the exact opposite of the truth.

 

Feel free to enlighten us. Cite please.

 

Here's someone else's take: Drinking Liberally in Cincinnati: Burt Rutan is Full of Hot Air

I started reading Mr. Rutan's copy with interest, but his anti-science zeal soured me.

 

More: Some Questions for Rutan | Open Mind

Erudite examination of Rutan's analysis.

 

He seems to be more driven to make his point than to really do science. He also likes to make broad statements from conclusions he has drawn, not from the facts he has presented.

 

The opening description of Rutan does not mention SpaceShip One, which I would like to add. He is a gifted designer and engineer and will long be remembered for these accomplishments.

 

It's a waste of time trying to cite the entire body of scientific literature that shows evidence contrary to idiots who sit around thinking up ways to lie to themselves and others about negative impacts humans are causing to earth's ecosystems. And if Rutan and others can't cite real science, why waste the time showing real citations to his clueless minions?

But I will offer a couple main points that makes it clear why this article makes me lose all respect for Rutan as an influential person when it comes to science and technology.

1) The greening of the earth's surface does not magically happen when there is more CO2 in the air. And while it's true some plants and trees grow more vigorously with more CO2 many species grow slower, or even go extinct. The greening of the surface of the earth is a function of land use. Deforestation and desertification, draining of wetlands and destruction of shorelines and estuaries is essentially eliminating our planets CO2 absorbing capacity. For example when the Mayan culture died off from European diseases the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere decreased by more than 20 ppm simply because the forest and plants were allowed to grow back and bury their lost civilization in forest.

2) Giant insects and reptiles did not thrive because of an abundance of CO2, they got so huge an thrived because the planet was not being deforested, which meant oxygen was so overly abundant that giant 3 foot long bugs and 75 foot long reptiles and other creatures massive creatures could thrive. The more oxygen available the more oxygen consuming species can thrive and increase in size!

Point being... Our planet has critters that breathe in oxygen and exhale CO2... Our planet also has plants and trees that breathe in carbon and breathe out oxygen... The pendulum swings from one extreme to the other depending on different epochs of planetary history.

Of course if you're an imbecile that agrees with Rutan you probably want citations/proof of that, right?

Here's how to prove it yourself:

Put a plastic bag over your head and tie it one really tight so you can't ever get it off and tell yourself that climate change doesn't exist within your own little plastic bag world and keep telling yourself that until you're dead!

 

Rutan is a aeronautical engineer,,not a scientist, and admits it.

Bottom line, I would fly in his planes, but not in his global climate "opinion"!

Icarus

 

You'd think that with his many decades of experience / record setting amount of flight hours he'd have looked out the window and noticed a change / rapid loss in primary forests on every continent?

In every country in the world at a rapid rate, where once was lush carbon absorbing forests is now a barren moonscape, or at best a place of perpetual weeds and farming stunted trees.

Of course if you are of the mindset that you need to clearcut more forest because there's not enough C02 fertilization to make the earth green, well... it's the same as saying carbon sequestration is interfering with our ability to fertilize the atmosphere with more Co2 so the earth will magically grow green again.

So glad this faction failed to buy its way back into the White House!

 

Oh boy... the over-dramatization which this discussions nearly always lead...

Personally I was simply asking for information that refuted what Rutan was putting forth. But it always ends in insults.

 

That's it exactly... Some want to be over-dramatic and some want to be the extreme opposite of that. To act as though that extreme-level of polarization of the issue is somehow too much heat for your sensibilities... That's pure folly... If you can't stand the heat maybe the kitchen isn't the best place for you? I mean there's a whole planet on the dining room table that you could quietly be gnawing away at right now? Why waste time thinking about what it really takes to so efficiently serve it up to you?

 

The Tamino wordpress link may provide scientific responses to Rutan's pdf. As usual, I can't open wordpress sites.

Spiderman can check it and see.

 

Thanks T, I knew I could count on you to provide a relevant and helpful response. I was looking at the links schlem provided. Mostly lame blog posting but it did have references to other sources I will research more.

 

LOL, son, you are a funny one I will give you that. It is no wonder why this issue is so polarized with responses like this. It is too bad too, if there really is something catastrophic in nature on the horizon, nothing will get done about it.

 

MoJo thank you for the orig post I was not aware of this "engineers" argument.
He views it as an engineer vs. scientist philosophical issue. Interesting take.
As the slide show is old news, I would like to know if this guy has any 2012 updates or this is still his take on it.

Here is how I look at it, AGW is either catasropic or not catastrophic.
If it is catastrophic, it is either too late to fix it, or not too late to fix.

 

While engineers certainly have a place,, there is,, a place.

For example, I am not real hip to the idea of the Geo-engineering "solutions" that some of these engineers are coming up with, like adding tons of iron to sea water. (to reduce AGW) Have they (and we) learned nothing from massive (engineered) Eco-destructive projects of the past? Three Rivers dam,,large scale dams in general, large scale canal projects etc, etc etc?

Just because something (might be) is technically feasible, the unforeseen consequences of some of these potential geo engineering schemes is positively terrifying.

Icarus