On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 10:58 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 12/9/2014 7:42 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > > ... > > As I said, I haven't developed a strong opinion in regards to > anthropogenic global warming, so I certainly wouldn't label myself a > "climate change denier" though perhaps some would take the fact that my > mind is not settled as sufficient reason to put me in that bucket. However, > there are some reasons that I remain unconvinced. Among them: > > 1. The fact that the question is so heavily politicized and that there > is so much money involved naturally arouses my suspicion (must take every > news article and report with a grain of salt unlike say, a paper on pure > number theory) > > > The money is essentially all on the side of the fossil fuel industry. > Nobody gets rich being a serious climatologist. > That may be, but it isn't clear to me what outcome the oil companies would benefit the most from. The naive view is that all oil companies must be against this because it limits how much money they can make each year, but a more nuanced view might take into consideration the finite supply all fossil fuel companies possess, and see that they might actually maximize their valuation if the resources they control are rationed. Also, though climatologists don't get rich, many of them are employed by or receive grants to work on this very problem. If they declared "there's nothing to see here looks like we were wrong" how many of them would still be employed in this field? Genuine science is concerned with trying to disprove prevailing theories. Climate science is in the unenviable position that our survival might depend on trying to instead convince everyone of the veracity of the prevailing theory. Under such circumstances, real science can't be done. You can tell a scientific field is especially sick when you see research institutions / governments making it a policy to refuse to give research money to those advocating hypotheses counter to the accepted consensus. > > 2. Lack of consensus on what the effects will be: in the 1970s the fear > was global cooling, > > > There was never such "fear". It was a popular book based on the cyclic > ice ages that "predicted" a new ice-age (eventually). It has been picked > up as by AGW deniers as proof that climatologists don't know anything. > http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf > > http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2008/11/10/203320/killing-the-myth-of-the-1970s-global-cooling-scientific-consensus/ > > Interesting, thanks for this information. > in the 1990s it was global warming, and when neither long-term trend > established itself it has since become climate change and extreme whether, > but statistical studies have found no statistically abnormal increase in > extreme weather events. > > > Why cherry pick extreme weather as the indicator? There's plenty of > empirical evidence for global warming, based on the most cutting edge > statistical analysis and data and conducted by a former AGW skeptic. > http://berkeleyearth.org/summary-of-findings > > If the temperature increase was 1 C in the last 50 years, what are the latest best projections (in your opinion) for the next century? If its on the order of a 2-3 C, I think we have far bigger problems in the immediate time frame to worry about. Actually running out of oil would have far more immediately disastrous consequences in my opinion. Personally I believe 100 years from now our civilization as we know it will no longer exist: either because we had an apocalypse (mass die off / total extinction / second dark age), or because we will have transcended our biology and merged with machines. Either way, Earth will be able to heal herself again soon. The present exponential rate of growth in the consumption of the finite resources on our planet will necessarily come to an end within a short time from now. The question is whether or not we'll reach that point of technological transcendence before the otherwise inevitable apocalypse. The next couple of decades will be critical. 3. Failure of models: Early climate models projected an increase in > global temperatures over the last 10 years, but those increases never > materialized. > > > Ten years is very short in climate terms. And global warming doesn't > necessarily imply global temperature increase. A lot of ice can melt > without the temperature increasing. > http://static.berkeleyearth.org/memos/has-global-warming-stopped.pdf > These graphs make the pause a little more clear (which appears unprecedented going back to 1880): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_hiatus#mediaviewer/File:Warming_since_1880_yearly.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_hiatus#mediaviewer/File:Warming_since_1970.jpg I don't think such a pause disproves the theory, there have been many such pauses and temporary reverals in the past, but that no climatologist's model (to my knowledge) predicted this suggests to me that our existing models and understanding of all the factors that determine global temperature are incomplete. > > (As a side-note, I used to find the existence of models which could > accurately follow past temperature changes used to be extremely convincing > with regards to the dangers of global warming, but years later I found > after experimenting with developing currency trading algorithms that > through training, genetic algorithms, etc. that it was relatively easy to > create models that were exceptionally good at reproducing past trends, yet > they utterly failed to have any predictive power. After this experience, I > came to realize that generating models that match a given trend is easy, > but that is no indication of the model's legitimacy) > > > So you're accusing climate scientists of using adaptive curve fitting > algorithms, rather than physics based models? > Even if no climatologist used best-fit finding models, there would naturally be this selection effect: those that succeed in creating good models publish, and those that don't either keep working on their models until they get one that seems to work or they give up and never publish anything. > And the simple calculations of Arrhenius in 1890 no longer apply? > I wasn't familiar with Arrhenius's formula, but I looked it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5–6 °C.[12] In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapor feedback: 2.1 °C). Recent (2014) estimates from IPCC say this value (the Climate sensitivity) is likely to be between 1.5 and 4.5 °C. While his formula may be simple, it appears determining the correct constants to plug in is anything but (we still haven't determined where it falls between 1.5 C and 4.5 C) and with that kind of range, projected warming over the next 100 years could be anything from barely noticed to very serious. > > 4. Recent exposes on the corner cutting and general bad practices of > climatologists involved in developing reports for policy makers. > > > What are these "bad practices"? The "exposes" I've read have been cheap > nit-picking by fossil fuel industry flacks. > > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html?_r=1 This what I was referring to in particular. But also differences in language between the more detailed sections of the IPCC report and the summary for policy makers (which carried over none of the doubts or uncertainties expressed in the more detailed sections). I think one gets to the point where they assume everyone who disagrees with them is a "fossil fuel industry flack" then you're no longer practicing science, but dogma. And eventually you get to a point where everyone who cares about their reputation has to worry about straying too far from that accepted dogma or face being ostracized. This breeds a field where there is no dissenting opinion, and no scientific progress (like what happened to nutrition science when it became politicized, and again for the same reason: we have to come to an immediate conclusion now, people are dying of heart disease! -- the message had to have the air of authority and certitude, or else it wouldn't be accepted, yet it was based on what was nothing but an untested hypothesis. I think climate scientists today are in the same position of having to feign more certainty than is actually justified by their models and data, to provide a united front against dissenting opinions -- (albeit with the best of intentions in their mind) -- to save lives) > > > If human CO2 emissions are changing the climate, does that mean we > should adopt a Kyoto (or similar) proposal? This is even less clear. This > would require all of the following to be true: > > > Why not add: > 1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. > 2. Burning fossil fuel puts CO2 into the air. > 3. Human burning of fossil fuel has almost doubled atmospheric CO2 - even > though about half of that produced has been absorbed in the oceans. > I argee with those > > 1. Climate change exists > 2. Human CO2 emissions are a significant factor in that climate change > 3. Counteractive effects (clouds, biosphere) are understood and won't be > enough to compensate for the excess CO2 > > > Or they will be in the direction of amplifying the effect (e.g. Clouds > retain heat at night. Bacteria will turn tundra in methane when it thaws). > > Right, I find such run-away self-feedback type of disturbances to be much more alarming than the predicted slow increases. I think climatologists could get much more attention if they could identify a tipping point that we are close to exceeding, then talking about a couple of degree average change 100 years from now. That said, I tend to doubt we're near any tipping points now, since random fluctuations from year to year swing rather widely already. > 4. We understand the general direction of what that climate change will > be > 5. The general direction of that change is more negative than positive > and should be avoided > > > The general direction is warmer, as shown already by Arrhenius. The > question is how much warmer and how bad will it be? > Given the data you showed above I agree the change will likely be positive temperature increase. > > 6. Reducing CO2 emissions is the best course of action to prevent the > negative occurrence > > > Not necessarily. > I was not advocating position 6, but I included it in the list of assumptions that one must make to think that the Kyoto Protocol is a good idea. I agree wholeheartedly that Geo-engineering, like injecting sulfur into the atmosphere or other similar approaches, would be vastly more effective measures. Not only would we have finer grain control over something that takes 100 years to go in or go out, but it would be much cheaper, and we can adapt it to the actual effects (rather than trying to control it according to imprecise models with a control stick we can only push forwards or backwards by 5% at a time, and which has a time delay of a century). > We could artificially reflect more sunlight by putting sulfur particles > into the upper atmosphere. But someone who is suspicious of climate > modeling might be suspicious that there can be unforseen consequences in > such enormous climate engineering. > > >From the Simpsons: Suddenly, the lizards glide to the ground, where they start to eradicate pigeons in Springfield. Since the town considered the pigeons to be a nuisance, they are delighted with the fact that the lizards have eaten all the pigeons. As a result, Bart is thanked and honored by Mayor Quimby with a loganberry scented candle. Lisa worries that the town will now become infested by lizards rather than the pigeons, but Skinner assures her that they will send in Chinese Needle Snakes, then snake-eating gorillas, and then "when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death." > 7. Reductions that are possible will lead to a greater good for > humanity and the world than the costs associated with those reductions > > > Cost to whom? > The world economy, and probably with the highest relative cost paid by those in developing countries. In an extreme and unrealistic model that demonstrates the cost/benefit situation: Should a poor person in India be denied affordable gas so that a rich person in Miami in 2100's beach-front house isn't washed away? Of course that can be turned around: Should a jet setting business man be allowed to fly his private plane knowing it will flood the farmland in India in 2100? The problem is we don't know if there will be any substantial flooding in 2100 or not, but we know there are economic costs associated with either preventing the poor person from affording fuel, or the rich person from flying his jet. I think if humanity survives to 2100, the technology to address/reverse any environmental damage will be trivially accomplished with self-replicating nano-bots or reflective von-neuman probes in orbit, or anything similar. > > > Items 6 and 7 are the ones I am most apt to disagree with. > Geo-engineering technologies are not only far more promising in being able > to able to provide humanity with the tools to stabilize the environment, > but they're also much much cheaper > <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/5987229/Cloud-ship-scheme-to-deflect-the-suns-rays-is-favourite-to-cut-global-warming.html> > than the associated economic costs of rationing cheap energy. > > > You don't know any of that. > The estimated cost of the reduced emissions is estimated to be in the billions. The estimated cost of a few thousand cloud ships will be pennies on the dollar compared to that. > And drastically reducing CO2 emission is not the same as rationing cheap > energy. Energy can be produced by nuclear, solar, and wind as cheaply as > by fossil fuel - IF the fossil fuel industry had to pay to clean up its > pollution. > If this new energy technology can take over in 20 years (nano-engineered cheap and efficient solar cells everywhere, for example) then is there any reason to worry about CO2 emissions 100 years from now? How can climate models ever hope to predict what technological advancements will be made in that intervening time? (Solar energy use has been roughly doubling each year, and so we're only a couple more doubling away from it solving all the CO2 problems anyway). > > All of these global warming projections over the next 50 - 100 years > fail to take into account the exponential rate of growth in the power of > technology and what the implications will be for opening new avenues for > solving/controlling the problem, should it turn out to be one. > > > The IPCC reports include different scenarios assuming different > technological and cultural repsonses. > > In any of them, were cultural responses, rather than technological advances, important to the outcome? > > Are humans having a profound and negative impact on the ecology of the > rest of the planet? Almost certainly. We consume/control 40% of the > planet's terrestrial photosynthesis capability, thus making life very > difficult for the millions of other species who have to fight over the > rest. Should we make every effort to conserve the limited resources we > have? Nothing good comes from waste or excess. Would the advent of safe and > cheap nuclear (or other) power bring enormous benefits to humanity and > improve air quality? Again, I also think the answer is yes. But will > political efforts or social movements that have the goal of slightly > cutting back the rates of fossil fuel consumption save life on earth? I > doubt it. If we are in peril, it will be technological change, not > political change, that saves us. > > > Politicians are never for change that would inconvenience their donors. > I certainly agree with that. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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