On 10 Dec 2014, at 05:58, meekerdb 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.
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/
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
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
(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? And the
simple calculations of Arrhenius in 1890 no longer apply?
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.
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.
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).
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?
6. Reducing CO2 emissions is the best course of action to prevent
the negative occurrence
Not necessarily. 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.
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?
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 than the associated
economic costs of rationing cheap energy.
You don't know any of 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.
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.
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.
That is the root of the problems (be it Israel, cannabis, climate
change, etc.).
But that points to a solution: no more donors, except our taxes.
Lobbying? OK. Financial lobbying: that should be forbidden. And fake
lobbying (like it is obvious in the petrol/cannabis file) should be
punished.
Bruno
Brent
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