durban

+1

I don't think the activists were really beaten up. Sure Malthus and his protegees like Ehrlich have been criticized, they also get praised. We continuously get the neo-Malthus and often like the original they are tainted with racism and/or classism. I am only old enough to learn the history of these things, but they were talking about letting India and Egypt starve because we could not possibly feed 4 billion people. Mathus and Ehrlich were right if not stopped population would rise, but they were and are quite wrong that simply the numbers would lead to misery, and its important to understand why, instead of just saying they were early.

This is the apologist idea. The ends of action are justified by the means of exaggeration with the idea of scientific authority. I don't think duck and cover really helped solve stepping away from the nuclear brink, nor do I think saying the green revolution is impossible and setting up anti immigrant organizations really helped get the green revolution to happen. Saying we are doomed sells books and movies, gathers political power, and raises huge amounts of money, but it doesn't really help us solve the problem. IMHO without the lightning rod of these exaggerations we may actually have passed some legislation. When the predictions turn out to be wrong, and we are always doomed in 10 more years, it is difficult to act.

I wold say not far enough. But one of these wolf criers was in a position to pass an agenda and totally punted. Yours, hansen, has hurt his scientific standing somewhat by purposely getting himself arrested multiple times and talking about a citizens arrest of Obama and Clinton for crimes against the environment. His rightful criticism of some problems with cap and trade, have recently acording to the new yorker he is the catastophist, which can not help his science to be believed.

But is the best way to do this to exaggerate and talk about how doomed we all are? Are you not in the same world as I am where al gore negotiated an agreement that was too hard on the us, and ignored the senate in kyoto, and then blamed bush? Now 13 years later the US has moved much slower than some reasonable policies without all the appeal to environmental Armageddon.

They currently are, at least in their own minds. This is a problem with people that predict disaster, there followers will always claim when it doesn't happen that it was because of their warnings, or that it will happen soon the date was just a little too soon.

 

No disagreement here.

Since, I was specifically called out, I felt I need to respond and clarify. I certainly was not calling you apologist. But I find there is a great deal of exaggeration, mainly by the politicians, and so say this is justified because it will get the action. IMHO this exaggeration has not gotten those ends, and is unlikely in the future. Now you may disagree that these are exaggerations, as some claim. There are those that cling to the exaggeration after the facts show otherwise, and say the predictions of doom were just premature. I was not putting you in that group.

I'm sure this has something to do with my criticism of Hansen of nasa's goddard (GISS). This was not an ad-hominem attack, on his scientific papers, it was an attack on some of his more dire predictions that you brought up. I see hansen getting arrested on purpose, and his prediction of "game over" if the keystone pipeline goes through quite related, and not part of any scientific paper he has published. He is 70, and this was his third political arrest, and I find he is probably quite a different person than the one that testified before congresses over 20 years ago on the science. On the science side though, his sensitivity estimation of 6 degrees C per doubling of CO2, quite high and his justification much weaker than say alley's estimation of 2.8 degrees C. This may have led to the more dire predictions in his mind.

 

sure here's one
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf

The key to this Venus catastroph*ck is an angry earth with run away positive feedback. Remember the ice cores do show some situations with large anomalies with possitive feedbacks, but we don't know the conditions that create them or those that create the negative feedback. Hanson has stated that current levels are not safe to avoid a tipping point, and wants us to get back down to 350ppm,we are at 390ppm today.

cars are the technology that increases the burn of oil. If you don't build the pipeline, the oil is either shipped from canada or refined in canada. If the us decides not to burn the oil, then it simply shifts oil demand in the US to opec, and moves refining to china.

 

As long as you separate the science from the theatrics, I don't think you can go wrong. I was criticizing the exaggerations and stories of doom. I do think that if Mr. Hansen continues to get himself arrested on purpose and criticize policy in such a political way, he should not be on the NASA payroll. He certainly has my support for free speech as a Columbia Professor and as a private citizen.

Well Romm seems to love him as long as he predicts doom and supports their policies. Romm decided talk against him when he opposed the democratic cap and trade plan. Hansen had some pretty good points about the bill doing nothing but shuffle dollars between winners and losers that the congress picked. The climate blogs on the other side also do an awful job of explaining the climate science too. Earth science gets done mainly through university research and not in these blogs, even when the researchers are the contributors.
+1

The purposes of these conferences are to get a global agreement. Reducing ghg emissions are expensive, and if some countries spend a lot of money, but other countries simply increase their pollution, that money spent does no good. As far as progress though, the conferences have IMHO failed, so skype may have been better. In kyoto, some people got false hope so the conferences may have done more harm than good.

The us is one of the largest ghg emitters in both per capita and absolute terms, and its policy should be to reduce dependance on oil and reduce ghg regardless of what goes on in these world conferences.