Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Leafsnail]

Look, you can make appeals based on global warming all you want, but it is an appeal to the consequences of a belief, which is a fallacy. And since stopping anthropogenic CO₂ to prevent global warming is pretty much what all of this boils down to, we'll be at an impasse until man-made global warming is proven or disproven to be the crisis you believe it to be.

It's not a fallacy based on belief (unless you're making some kind of philosophical point).  It's an "appeal" to a well researched scientific theory with a lot of evidence backing it.

I guess there could theoretically be some kind of illuminati manipulating all the figures to make it look like global warming is happening when it isn't, but the problem is it won't be "proven" until it's too late to do anything about it.

Oh I know that. I also know by the IPCC's estimates in order to prevent the predicted amount of global warming the world would have to shut down all carbon dioxide emissions for eighty years out of the next century. I also know that they knew that. It's in the released e-mails at www.climate-gate.org. I also know they've practically been committing fraud, as they have been deceiving the public at large to keep their research grants coming in, so no, I don't trust the IPCC.

Speaking of which, here's a TL;DR version of those emails.

Uh, you realise they took like 2 emails taken over about 20 years worth of email records out of context?

Not to mention that the top rated email looks pretty innocent, to the extent that you'd have to accuse them of lying to themselves and each other about this massive conspiracy.

The website is also so horribly designed it's basically impossible to browse.  Do they really need ALL the tags down the side?  Most of which are gibberish or advertising?  Do they really have to rate what's "most important" purely on average rating with no weighting given to how many people rated it?

[Urist is dead tome]

and that God will come down from heaven and magically transmute the ocean to be less acidic.

Uh... Why was this part deemed necessary?

[PTTG??]

and that God will come down from heaven and magically transmute the ocean to be less acidic.

Uh... Why was this part deemed necessary?

There is a significant fraction of Americans- I do not know the actual percentage- that literally believe that God will not allow anything permanently bad to happen to earth, or that since it is "created by God", it is perfect and thus can't go wrong, and if it does go wrong, it is His will, and thus should not be prevented.

This sort of argument is the same as seeing a baby drowning in a puddle and saying "It's supposed to die."

They say that Athiests are less moral that the religious, by the way.

[Nadaka]

There is a significant fraction of Americans- I do not know the actual percentage- that literally believe that God will not allow anything permanently bad to happen to earth, or that since it is "created by God", it is perfect and thus can't go wrong, and if it does go wrong, it is His will, and thus should not be prevented.

This sort of argument is the same as seeing a baby drowning in a puddle and saying "It's supposed to die."

They say that Athiests are less moral that the religious, by the way.

There is also a significant fraction that actively prays for god to destroy the earth, and any harm they can do will only bring about the rapture more quickly. I've got relatives like this.

[Nikov]

Yes, the fact of the matter is, in the realm of climate change, there are two groups: the first is the totality of relevant scientists, whom agree that it exists and is caused by humans.

The "totality" of relevant scientists being correct by virtue of being unanimous is an appeal to popularity, while believing they are correct by virtue of being scientists is an appeal to authority. However, you are correct none the less. Climate change exists and is caused by humans. However it begs the question; how is it changing? And how much is anthropogenic and how much is purely natural? There, scientists heatedly disagree.

On the other side, a group of industrialists and demagogues, and a few "scientists" of irrelevant studies (i.e., economics and psychology, a few theologists, and other liberal arts studies that traditionally don't focus heavily on things relevant to the biology, chemistry, physics, climatology, geology, or history of climate change), whom state without evidence that it does not exist, that the climate has always been like this, and the north pole is supposed to be an ocean, and that God will come down from heaven and magically transmute the ocean to be less acidic.

Your strawman is poisoning the well with his ad hominem appeal to ridicule. Also please don't bring religion into this. It has absolutely no bearing to anything I have said, at all, ever.

And if you're going to argue that the entire educated world is in on some kind of vast moneymaking conspiracy, you're going to have to explain how working for Greenpeace is going to earn them more money than working for, for instance, the Saudis.

Well I'm not arguing that at all, and a millionaire saying the sky is blue while a homeless man says it is red doesn't prove it is red, but as the Climategate emails indicate Shell wanted to get in on the action if the results were steered towards carbon trading schemes or the UN mandating pollution control technologies which they could profit from, you'd be surprised how "green" the so-called "industrialists and demogogues" really are.

All in all I am disappointed by the decline in quality of this discussion, and urge everyone to avoid inflammatory rhetoric.

Leafsnail; 1000 e-mails, 2000 documents 15 years. But the whole point is I won't take the IPCC, or anyone else for that matter, at their word. The information I am finding, which I am discussing here, indicates there is no need to shut down the coal industry out of fears of a global catastrophe.

[Urist is dead tome]

Well, this conversation has been destroyed by straw men come to life.

[GlyphGryph]

Leafsnail, I hate to say this, but Nikov has a point. The "the totality of relevant scientists" has been very truly and thoroughly wrong before, and recently. See: Plate Tectonics, Asteroid Impacts being responsible for Extinctions. Do I think they're wrong this time? No, but that fact they agree alone isn't enough. That said, I still think the evidence itself lies with them at this point, and the "climategate" emails don't really cast much doubt on that.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Question:  How do you deal with the fact that the leader of those guys in the emails, Phil Jones, said, publicly, afterwards, that:

1.  There is NO statistical evidence of global warming for the last 15 years (you know, those years that are supposed to prove anthropomorphic global warming).

2.  The warming seen before 1940 and then through the 70's was a result of natural forces and completely unrelated to man.

The guy saying this is considered the main man on this subject.  Quite curious.

Also, Phmcw, you derided Nikov about a belief earlier, then went on to say:  .... but enough to consider it as the most likely scenario.  In otherwords, what YOU believe.  Not trying to pick a fight here, but that just stood out to me.


For the sake of honesty, here is my own belief:  Its the SUN.

[Taricus]

Eh, I just wonder why we aren't making diamonds from the coal instead of just burning it.

[Nadaka]

Eh, I just wonder why we aren't making diamonds from the coal instead of just burning it.

We are. For industrial purposes its cheaper to compress some diamond dust than it is to deal with the diamond cartel who want to keep the perception that diamonds are rare and expensive.

[Criptfeind]

You never answered my question.

How can you say that because a global change happened 120 million years ago that it is fine and will not hurt us?

We were still in trees that long ago. Or even farther back I don't know. There were certainly not 7 billion of us.

Any flooding at all would be a catastrophe.

There are many nations that will be devastated in 20 years. Even with only 1mm per year.

Eh, I just wonder why we aren't making diamonds from the coal instead of just burning it.

We are. For industrial purposes its cheaper to compress some diamond dust than it is to deal with the diamond cartel who want to keep the perception that diamonds are rare and expensive.

But those diamonds tend to be ugly! I want my diamond saw to have shinny teeth. Not ugly brown rocks.

[Taricus]

Eh, I just wonder why we aren't making diamonds from the coal instead of just burning it.

We are. For industrial purposes its cheaper to compress some diamond dust than it is to deal with the diamond cartel who want to keep the perception that diamonds are rare and expensive.

Could use the cheap industrial diamonds a bit more though.

[Leafsnail]

Leafsnail; 1000 e-mails, 2000 documents 15 years. But the whole point is I won't take the IPCC, or anyone else for that matter, at their word. The information I am finding, which I am discussing here, indicates there is no need to shut down the coal industry out of fears of a global catastrophe.

Yes, that's what they leaked.  The ones that actually look bad are basically 2 misquoted emails.

Leafsnail, I hate to say this, but Nikov has a point. The "the totality of relevant scientists" has been very truly and thoroughly wrong before, and recently. See: Plate Tectonics, Asteroid Impacts being responsible for Extinctions. Do I think they're wrong this time? No, but that fact they agree alone isn't enough. That said, I still think the evidence itself lies with them at this point, and the "climategate" emails don't really cast much doubt on that.

I didn't say that or express any such sentiment.  I'm talking about the evidence, not the scientists.

Question:  How do you deal with the fact that the leader of those guys in the emails, Phil Jones, said, publicly, afterwards, that:

1.  There is NO statistical evidence of global warming for the last 15 years (you know, those years that are supposed to prove anthropomorphic global warming).

By actually putting that statement into context.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

In other words, because it was over a shorter timescale, technically, there was no statistical significance.  If you take it over a longer timescale, there is.

2.  The warming seen before 1940 and then through the 70's was a result of natural forces and completely unrelated to man.

I'll need you to cite this.  All I can find in this (which doesn't really deny global warming in any way - he's just saying there might be other factors).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

D - Do you agree that natural influences could have contributed significantly to the global warming observed from 1975-1998, and, if so, please could you specify each natural influence and express its radiative forcing over the period in Watts per square metre.

This area is slightly outside my area of expertise. When considering changes over this period we need to consider all possible factors (so human and natural influences as well as natural internal variability of the climate system). Natural influences (from volcanoes and the Sun) over this period could have contributed to the change over this period. Volcanic influences from the two large eruptions (El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991) would exert a negative influence. Solar influence was about flat over this period. Combining only these two natural influences, therefore, we might have expected some cooling over this period.

[Nikov]

Cript, you will need to demonstrate how two centimeters will "devastate many nations". Are you aware the IPCC has reduced its predictions of sea level rises three times now, from 0.9m in a century to 0.8m in a century to 0.4m in a century? Al Gore's predicted global flooding catastrophe would take 3,500 years of the current measured rate of sea level rise. Again, this is an appeal to the consequences of a belief. Please refer to the chart on sea levels I posted earlier.

[Shinziril]

I still want to see the study that showed you could increase plant growth fifty times using high concentrations of carbon dioxide.  That sounds kind of interesting, like "wow you could feed a lot of people with this" kind of interesting. 

Also, completely and utterly disregarding global warming, we *are* eventually going to run out of coal/oil/uranium.  It's probably going to take a while, especially since once all the easy deposits are gone it starts being worthwhile to go after the trickier ones, but it's still going to happen eventually.  It would be nice if we had something to replace them with before we actually run out- massive infrastructure changes take a long time and are just an enormous pain in the ass in general. 

Ideally we could end up with, say, some sort of bioengineered photosynthetic organism that secretes biodiesel or some other acceptable chemical fuel for the transport and electricity generation industries.  That would let us keep using the same infrastructure for as long as we like.  Chemical fuel just has lovely energy density; it's hard to give that up.