How is it realist to imagine permanent ‘economic growth’ in a finite world?
It is fantasy that all can continue with their first level desires without restraint forever. If you were a realist you would realise that there is growth and death, and the impossibility of one without the other. Permanent growth in a finite world is just as much a fantasy as believing in cryogenic life after death, or the religious kind of ego permanence, it just ain’t gonna happen.

We’ve just experienced the evidence that growth in house prices wasn’t sustainable, something I’ve been arguing for years as it seemed self evident, and gambling instead of banking is now seen as a bubble that had to burst, but still the sacred cow of economic growth is the only way the truly blinkered can think.

There’s a paradigm shift happening and there are too many people who’ve closed their minds off to it and are going to be left high and dry, or maybe low and wet. Would that word be flood, charles the mod?

It astounds me that plants know that warming is happening; they’re regrowing and flowering earlier than ever, animals know it’s warming; they are starting nesting earlier, winter hibernators are failing to hibernate, birds are hatching and rearing three clutches of eggs in a season, native UK plants are becoming scarce in the south as they prosper further north, malaria is into Spain and heading for northern Europe, African bees are invading the US from South and Central America and will eventually reach Canada even one day, monsoons are becoming unreliable and over heavy. Does any of this suggest cooling?

Trouble is, reading enough of the posts here to form an opinion, I can see this is where all those who claim carbon is good for us gather to bolster each other’s views, and denigrate those who say otherwise. Interesting reading, some of the posters clearly have science in their background, even if it’s the ‘wrong’ science to make them experts in anything to do with the climate, while others are the yah boo sucks mob who chortle chortle over imagined ‘valid points’ they ‘score’ with, all terribly juvenile, and I must say very American, [snip]

Any ideas [anyone] how many [snip] websites are funded by big oil [who have all their obscene profits to lose if low carbon catches on]? Is this one? Any idea how many so-called statistics are actually invented by the oil industry along with charts and graphs which are utterly meaningless to anyone without the specialist knowledge, but dead impressive to the ignorant with their shiny coloured bars which we are told ‘prove’ whatever factoids are being pushed?

But the question I’d like to ask is how many of you live in cities? And how many actually have experience of the environment, you know, the countryside where plants grow and other species live. I do, and I’ve noticed over forty years [anyone under thirty has no idea what the climate was like before warming really started] that winters have grown warmer and with far less snow [I'm in the UK] than previously [sometimes barely any]. In fact this year’s ‘unprecedented snow storms’ are very small compared to what I remember in the seventies and eighties – every year. Summers are much wetter with so-called records being broken constantly such as most rain in 24 hours etc. The phrase ‘a month’s rain in 24 hours’ has become commonplace. The month in question harks back to previous years when it literally took a month for us to get that much rain, now it comes in one big wallop just like monsoon countries. Think about it.

There are plenty of extreme events occurring round the planet with Australian and Californian forests burning, while other countries are under several metres of flood water. Think about it.

The science of greenhouse warming is well proved and accepted. CO2 is only one greenhouse gas, they all reflect long wave radiation back at Earth while allowing short wave radiation [sunlight] through. Does anyone here seriously challenge that? Much is made by some of the fact that Earth has been hotter and had more CO2 in the atmosphere; yes, that was before complex animals evolved, it took millions of years of tree growth to sequester CO2 away in the Earth’s crust before animals started on the long road to evolving an upright ape without body hair who had a bigger than needed brain and a psychopathic bent, the rest, as they say, is history. Do you really think we could have existed then with little oxygen and a lot of carbon dioxide? Do you think we could continue to survive if it reverted to anything like it? Well, most of the fossil fuel has been dug out and burned and most of the still living forests are gone – the Amazon is decreasing by vast areas every year [an area the size of France has already gone], has already suffered one catastrophic drying when drought came to a rainforest which started to burn, Indonesia regularly experiences massive forest fires which shroud the whole area in smoke for months [anyone remember that?].

Given that all websites are archived and are being stored for future people to mine for information, when the effects really start to kick in and people start to really suffer the effects of not doing anything for far too long, they will know who to blame. Those arguing we can’t give up our advanced standards of living, try telling that to people up to their necks in floods.

Reply:We don’t allow that word here ~ charles the moderator

You’re not going to get 100 percent agreement on the science. There will always be people who do not accept the predominant scientific view.

“…CO2-forced global warming has been co-opted by ideologues and politicians…”

There will always be people with agendas. You don’t stop doing science because you’re worried about the results falling into the wrong hands. That said, I doubt that many politicians welcome AGW since it requires them to take action that may be unpopular with the electorate.

I think that over the next few years politicians will have a hard row to hoe, both nationally and internationally, in creating policies to deal with climate change. There is no obvious electoral upside to the sorts of actions they may have to take.

“…a readiness to consider alternative hypotheses and new data that might contravene one’s previous assumptions.”

Or at least have a system that enables others to consider different explanations. One hopes that the existing system allows that. However, science cannot proceed in a vacuum. The work of scientists is framed by hypotheses and theories, and once a theory gains hold it can become difficult to shift.

If over the next 5-10 years the climate acts contrary to AGW, I would expect that climate scientists would begin to have second thoughts about the theory. But to date they appear to be convinced that AGW is happening, and some are saying it is happening faster than previously predicted.

Mr Lynn: “…the AGW theocracy has turned what should have been a scientific debate into an ideological one…”

I don’t see that. If the science points to a rapid warming of the atmosphere and resulting undesirable changes, the obvious next step is to consider how to respond.

I don’t see what is “ideological” about that, although AGW proponents are probably more comfortable with government-led action than are sceptics. That’s simply a matter of different approaches to a perceived problem.

Well, that’s an innocuous enough position, which sounds perfectly reasonable on its face. The problem is with the phrase, “If the science points to a rapid warming of the atmosphere and resulting undesirable changes . . .” The whole thrust of this blog is that the science doesn’tpoint to any such thing. If there is no agreement on the central issue, then it is scarcely legitimate to claim that “The science points to. . .” it. Some scientists do, but some don’t.

What has happened is that the not-unreasonable-on-its-face hypothesis of CO2-forced global warming has been co-opted by ideologues and politicians as an excuse to push the agendas of the extreme ‘environmental’ and collectivist movements, accumulating along the way a confluence of political, academic, and bureaucratic elites who see the ‘climate crisis’ as a perfect opportunity to expand their power and influence. In the process the science has gotten kicked to the curb.

Where is the reasoned debate among scientists in the peer-reviewed journals? Where are the conferences presenting both—or rather, all—sides of the complex question of what forces drive Earth’s climate? What will happen next month when ‘skeptics’ hold the second annual Non-Governmental Panel on Climate (or whatever it’s called) in NYC? Will it be ignored or disparaged by the politicians, the media, and even by the scientists who have succumbed to the ideological fervor (and vast sums of grant money) attendant upon the ‘climate change’ bandwagon?

One can never expect scientists to be entirely dispassionate about the a controversial issue, but one should expect a constant reevaluation of one’s own position, and a readiness to consider alternative hypotheses and new data that might contravene one’s previous assumptions. And do not scientists have an obligation to back away from popular movements and political agendas—and even a flood of politically-tainted grant money—that can only distort objective inquiry?

Do James Hansen and Al Gore represent ‘the science’?

/Mr Lynn

I’m not talking about year to year variability, I’m talking about SIX YEARS, of static and lowering temperatures.

SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS, SIX YEARS,

SIX YEARS.

Hello?

SIX YEARS.

By the same token, of course, six years of global warming could indicate global cooling.

To paraphrase George Orwell, down is up, black is white, evil is good, and years of global cooling = global warming. Amazingly, some folks really believe that nonsense.

And did someone actually suggest going to RC for advice?? Heh… click

And yet the models get reality wrong time after time. Because the fudge factors introduced to massage the empirical data are up the spout perhaps.

What do they get wrong? And, what fudge factors are you talking about? Most of the empirical data that I am talking about constraining climate sensitivity is paleoclimate data or the Mt Pinatubo eruption. The 20th century temperature record can also be used but it is probably the least constraining piece of data mainly because we don’t know the aerosol forcing well enough.

I shouldn’t have risked the irony.

Okay, my bad.

It may have escaped your attention, but the temperature stopped rising some six years ago and has been falling for the last four…

If the enhanced greenhouse effect you believe in is so easily overcome by natural climatic variation as we have seen in the last four years, what are the major parameters the modelers have missed or underestimated?

They haven’t necessarily missed anything. It is well known that the rate of rise of ~0.015-0.02 C per year that is expected at the moment from the rise in GHGs is small compared to the sort of year-to-year climate variability that can occur due to natural climate variation like ENSO. This is much like the fact that the seasonal cycle, though very important to our climate in locations such as here in Rochester NY, is still not a very good predictor of what the temperature trend will be over, say, a few days or even a week or two period of time.

And, the models run with a constantly increasing greenhouse gas forcing show the same sort of variability in trends over the time periods that you are talking about as we see.

And yet the models get reality wrong time after time. Because the fudge factors introduced to massage the empirical data are up the spout perhaps.

I don’t think he is using “transient response” in the sense that you seem to think he is.

I shouldn’t have risked the irony.

Hence, even if we stabilized greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere tomorrow, the temperature would continue to rise.

It may have escaped your attention, but the temperature stopped rising some six years ago and has been falling for the last four. The past trend, which was well within the bounds of historical natural variation anyway, does not guarantee a future resumption of warming, because atmospheric co2 levels have remarkably little to do with global temperature variation. Unless you think you can show otherwise?

If the enhanced greenhouse effect you believe in is so easily overcome by natural climatic variation as we have seen in the last four years, what are the major parameters the modelers have missed or underestimated? How much longer does the temperature have to keep falling before you stop believing co2 ‘forcing’ (lol) is outstripping the climate’s ability to keep up, and have a rethink about the relative importance given to modelers parameters?

It’s the qualified engineer in me preferring empirical data to models which have proved themselves wrong time and again.

The 2-4.5 C likely range for ECS is based on empirical data. The relevant section to read in the IPCC AR4 WG-I report [ http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm ] is Section 9.6.

I am encouraged to see that you think the modern warm period was a ‘transient response’ though.

I don’t think he is using “transient response” in the sense that you seem to think he is. What the term “transient response” means in this context is that the change in radiative forcing is occurring fast enough that the earth is not able to stay in equilibrium with the current forcing. Hence, even if we stabilized greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere tomorrow, the temperature would continue to rise. Hence, the transient climate response is expected to be lower than the equilibrium climate sensitivity

However in the real world a “skeptic” would not embrace analyses that are knowingly fallacious.

Flowery words like “embrace” are no use here foinavon. I was quite precise about why I thought Bill’s estimate of co2 sensitivity at 1.62C is nearer the mark than GISS model E’s 3C. It’s the qualified engineer in me preferring empirical data to models which have proved themselves wrong time and again. I am encouraged to see that you think the modern warm period was a ‘transient response’ though. Maybe we are getting through to you after all.

With your emphasis on point scoring you come across like you are playing to an audience rather than engaging with the science in a collaborative way here. We can see through it, and it will only get you ignored once everyone has had their fill of replying to your sneering at the attempts of others to actually do the science, rather than regurgitating paper abstracts in support of fallacious arguments about cause and effect.

Wind your neck in a bit and treat others with more respect. I’ve put my cards on the table and told you what my qualifications are. Now you tell me yours so we can understand a bit better where each other is coming from.

I don’t see that. If the science points to a rapid warming of the atmosphere and resulting undesirable changes, the obvious next step is to consider how to respond.

I don’t see what is “ideological” about that, although AGW proponents are probably more comfortable with government-led action than are sceptics. That’s simply a matter of different approaches to a perceived problem.

Nope. Only a little. The amount required by having been a professional in the field of computer security for a decade or two. It comes with the turf and is a necessary skill (as I stated above). Hang out with cops, it’s the same thing; (yes, I hung out with cops… Law Enforcement Eagle Scout… I started young ;-) After 9-11 applied to the NSA & CIA but they were swamped and didn’t need any more volunteers. Now I’m too old. Oh well.)

“My conclusion? Either we have AGW trolls, or they are just not willing to use their real names. (Why? Don’t ask why…)”

There are a million reasons why folks don’t use their real names.

I never said it was a bad thing to post under a private identity. (In fact, I specifically said “don’t ask why”…) I just find it informative to look for patterns in things and in human behaviours. I’ve seen at least one set of poster id’s that seem to be a single person doing their own ‘set ups’. Doesn’t mean they are invalid. Are they evil? No. It’s an interesting (if somewhat pointless) technique. It tells me something about the person.

We have “DJ”. I’m fine with that. By that usage clearly stating “I’m not going public with my name.” That is more honest than a complete pseudo identity. You’re approach (and mine, BTW, “smith” is already ‘anon’…) is similarly straight forward. Yeah, it rattles the tripwire (and you’ve demonstrated some personality in response – nice to meet you! I have taught computer stuff at the C.C. level. Rather liked it.) but so what. The tripwire gets ignored most of the time anyway.

I suppose I could start posting with the moniker “Emmet Martin Smith” would that make my posts more valid in your eyes?

It’s not about ‘validity’ it is just about knowing with whom you are speaking. Are they a real person? Do they have particular expertise? Are they deliberately posing, as what they are not, when they are really some other person, but laying traps (via softball ‘set ups’ for themselves) or ??? That’s a different kind of critter and you want to watch them more closely for deception.

Frankly, it’s mostly just a way to ‘tidy up loose ends’… I like to ‘keep a tidy mind’ and the discontinuities when someone is posing mean that I have loose ends to clean up somehow. It’s easier to just identify and catalog them than to ignore them. (Again, that Aspe thing… geeks have more of the trait than many others…)

It’s sort of like the comment about the French in My Fair Lady (“The French don’t care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it correctly”): I don’t care what you do as long as I can catalog it accurately ;-)

Again: It isn’t about validity, it is about knowing how the other person operates so that it informs your understanding of them. (and tying up lose ends… 8-)

Somebody hit a nerve with Joel Shore (14:22:39).

Joel was responding to a comment a couple of posts above his that explained a skeptic’s position, which Joel seems to have a great deal of trouble accepting.

Yes, Smokey, you definitely have hit a nerve with me. I have to admit that I frankly have trouble dealing with someone who takes no responsibility for himself and his own actions but prefers to throw the responsibility on someone else. “You have to convince me,” you say, which is frankly is an impossible task. How am I to convince someone whose mind is already made up, who posts up deceitful graphs again and again after I take the time to explain what is wrong with them and takes no responsibility for actually looking critically at anything that supports his point-of-view? I have no illusions whatsoever of ever convincing you. You are unconvinceable…You have made it abundantly clear that your whole conspiratorial worldview makes it impossible for you to ever accept that AGW might be true. I only hope to point out to some of the more rational posters here that most of what you link to is nonsense and the arguments that you make are the usual stuff that has been refuted time and time again.

Sorry, Joel. Look up the “Appeal to Authority” argument.

That is sort of rich coming from someone who loves to post up links to garbage all the time. You appeal to authorities too. The only difference is your authorities are all stuff on blatantly partisan websites, while my authorities are actual scientific authorities like the National Academy of Sciences. [You might want to read the whole discussion of appeals to authority on Wikipedia, by the way, including the part that notes that "arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have detailed knowledge of a great many topics, we must often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true, in contrast to claiming that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism..." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority )] And, in fact I spend a lot of time pointing out the problems with the garbage that you link to but it just comes back anyway. So, at some point, it is just easier to let you wallow in it.