Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
I get many emails from people asking for tips on how to explain to others, including their friends and family, what is actually going on with the global warming issue. I also hear from many people about how they lost family and friends because of being a global warming skeptic. It is harsh, but it appears that the English Philosopher, Herbert Spencer’s (1820-1903) observation, is the situation today. He said,
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
Uninformed is a better word than “fools,” but the challenge remains the same. This is not a new problem but seems more virulent in today’s so-called information age. Michael Crichton was correct when he more accurately called it the age of misinformation. As Bertrand Russell said,
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
Voltaire suggested a place to start.
“If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.”
I would add if you wish to converse with me have a modicum of understanding of the facts. During a recent interview, I became exasperated with the interviewer who kept saying I was wrong and a liar, so I finally challenged him to explain the greenhouse effect for the audience. He couldn’t! He did not even know that the greenhouse theory could result in a colder world. This misconception is a result of the words used. The public associate a greenhouse, and therefore the word, with higher temperatures. The concept automatically infers warming. It is why the analogy was chosen for the political agenda and deception of anthropogenic warming. Several other analogies, most implying energy balance, such as the filling and draining of a bathtub, were suggested over the years but did not replace it. The same misdirection of using a word or catchphrase to create a mental image was used in the ozone deception. There it was the phrase “holes in the ozone.” There are no holes, only an area of thinning, but the phrase implies something is leaking or broken.
Because of this deliberate use of words to mislead, it is incredible how many people hold intractable views on global warming without even a basic understanding. It creates the unsolvable dilemma of trying to have logical discussions about illogical things.
Then, there is the added problem of technical jargon. It is estimated the average English-speaking person has a vocabulary of about 9000 words and about 100 of those words they use repeatedly. Most don’t believe these numbers, as evidenced by the fact that they think they need to learn every word in a foreign language to be conversant in that language. I understand Shakespeare used 24,000 words in his plays and sonnets and introduced 1700 new words into the language. I jokingly told my students that this was about right, 9000 to 24,000, because most people understand about one-third of Shakespeare. The Oxford English Dictionary lists 171,476 words but acknowledges this does not include many areas such as scientific and academic jargon. However, they conclude,
“This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 percent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.”
A university professor has, on average, a vocabulary of 40,000 words, but a majority of them are jargon. The first thing a student learns in a first-year course in any subject is the ‘language’ of the discipline. Some of this is done because the area of study requires unique words, but often a different meaning to a common word is used and creates confusion. The best example appeared early in the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) debate when those scientists, who correctly challenged the theory using the scientific method, were called skeptics. Michael Shermer explained.
“Scientists are skeptics. It’s unfortunate that the word ‘skeptic’ has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it’s just thoughtful inquiry.”
All this came into focus again this week because I was involved in discussions with a group who want to arrange a debate. I am totally in support of debate and free expression of ideas and opinions, but here is the problem. If you have a debate between two scientists on the subject, most of the public would not understand because they don’t know the jargon and have different meanings for some of the words. If the debate is between a scientist and an environmentalist, or even an ordinary citizen, it quickly devolves into an emotional, fact-free argument.
The shameful truth is the courts will not entertain a scientific case because they don’t understand the jargon at even the most basic level. My challenge in finding a defense lawyer was to get one who could follow the basic science. I did it by using knowledge gained from former students who went to law school. They told me most lawyers are Arts students and the biggest failure percentage was in a Taxation course, usually in the second year. I obtained a list of defamation lawyers and asked them how they did in Taxation. The one who said he was top of the class and very proud of his 84% became my lawyer. So far it is working.
The problem with illiteracy about numbers extends to the public at large. Figure 1 shows the number of 15-year-old students with science skills.
Figure 1
The highest level is Finland with approximately 18 %, which means that 82% lack science skills. The average for the countries identified is about 10%. It is reasonable to assume that this reflects the percentages in society, so, 90% are incapable of understanding the Summary for Policymakers designed explicitly for the general public, let alone the Science Reports of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Despite that inability they are imbued with the absolutism, perfection, and immutability of numbers. This evolved from a movement in the 1920s called logical positivism defined as,
…characterized by the view that scientific knowledge is the only kind of factual knowledge and that all traditional metaphysical doctrines are to be rejected as meaningless.
In response to this, mathematician and philosopher A. N. Whitehead (1861-1947), wrote,
There is no more common error than to assume that because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.
People are so imbued with logical positivism that they can’t believe there are different types of numbers and therefore data. I learned early in my career when doing a study of energy inputs into the formation of a beach for my Masters’ degree that they can be discrete or continuous. In many statistical applications, the difference is critical to the validity of your results. Most people don’t even know that there are imaginary numbers used in some parts of mathematics.
At the same time as logical positivism was emerging, statistics were being applied to society and especially humans and human behavior. I wrote about this in a previous article “Standard Deviation, The Overlooked But Essential Climate Statistic.” Climate, the average of the weather, was studied and understood by the Greeks but slipped into history until the first part of the 20th century. In response to demands from pilots in WWI for forecasts, meteorology became what everybody knew in relation to weather. It is still true today, but few people know that meteorology is restricted to the study of physics of the atmosphere. Climate only occurred in national weather offices because somebody, often a person tired of forecasting, had to compile daily, weekly, and monthly averages. This is why it was and remains the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). After 1947, the list of its duties was still dictated by the needs of aviation weather, so weather stations continued mostly at airports and the only reference of obligations directed to all the agencies under the umbrella of the WMO was “climatological statistics.”
All this began to change when Reid Bryson (1920-2008) and Hubert Lamb (1913-1997 began studying climatology seriously. Bryson set up the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s meteorology department and Center for Climatic Research in 1948. Lamb established the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in 1972 but need for reconstructing climate data and long-term records from the past germinated long before then. Lamb’s obituary in the Independent explains.
At around the same time (1950), Lamb – and climatology – experienced a huge slice of luck. He was posted to the Meteorological Office’s moribund climatology department, where he was able to indulge his fascination, with little interruption, in what was probably the most complete, and unstudied, meteorological archive in the world. He set about reconstructing monthly atmospheric circulations over the North Atlantic and Europe back to the 1750s, confirming his growing conviction of the reality of climate change on time-scales of significance to modern humankind. He also started to make the first connections between sea-surface temperatures and the atmospheric circulation.
It is ironic that there is a major effort today to understand such connections, because of the significance of links between ocean circulations and the overlying atmosphere, much of it with the computer techniques Lamb felt were used in an uncritical way right to the end of his life.
Lamb was correct about the computers and their use, but he was also correct about the problems inherent in researching a generalist subject in which there were so many sub-disciplines. This is why climatology was traditionally taught in the original integrative discipline (chorology) of Physical Geography.
“This modern field of study is regarded as a branch of the atmospheric sciences and a subfield of physical geography, which is one of the Earth sciences.”
Many try to put me down as obtaining my Ph.D., in Geography. It was one of the lines trotted out by the interviewer who called me a liar. The only climatology options outside Physical Geography at the time were Bryson or Lamb’s programs. I communicated with Wisconsin but could not afford to attend. Instead, I did my degree through Queen Mary College at the University of London, where my supervisor, Dr. Bruce Atkinson, specialized in Urban Heat Island studies. He arranged several visits for me with Professor Lamb at East Anglia. There I witnessed even then the disgraceful way those, under the control of Tom Wigley and Phil Jones, who later dominated the CRU and the IPCC, spoke about and treated him. Fortunately, their actions and behaviours were disclosed in the emails leaked in November of 2009.
A few disciplines, such as people studying systems analysis understand the fundamental problem at the centre of the AGW issue. Figure 2 is a simple systems diagram of the atmosphere produced by Kellogg and Schneider in 1974. The so-called Climate Scientists don’t understand. The more arrogant among them believe, because they have degrees in mathematics or physics, they are superior and understand, while the rest of us trying to put even the major pieces of the system in place are stupid. It is the inevitable extension of logical positivism.
Figure 2
The arrogant few who bully the rest of us don’t even realize the difference between generalization and specialization. They don’t know that for every area on the diagram there is a different specialist, each using different jargon. Just ask them if they know the meaning of the word yazoo used by experts who study the overland flow of “precipitation” on the diagram.
Now you know why there is a Glossary with every IPCC Report, including the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). Here is their definition of sequestration.
The uptake (i.e., the addition of a substance of concern to a reservoir) of carbon containing substances, in particular carbon dioxide (CO2), in terrestrial or marine reservoirs. Biological sequestration includes direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere through land-use change (LUC), afforestation, reforestation, revegetation, carbon storage in landfills and practices that enhance soil carbon in agriculture (cropland management, grazing land management). In parts of the literature, but not in this report, (carbon) sequestration is used to refer to Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS). {WGIII}
There, now you know. The trouble is that it is not the most common use among the public. The Oxford English Dictionary provides the following definition;
· The action of sequestrating or taking legal possession of assets.
‘if such court injunctions are ignored, sequestration of trade union assets will follow’
1. 1.1 The action of taking forcible possession of something; confiscation.
‘he demanded the sequestration of the incriminating correspondence’
M1.2 The action of declaring someone bankrupt.
‘in Scotland there were 1,908 sequestrations of individuals’
M2 The action of chemically sequestering a substance.
So, most of the public is no better informed and another specialization, lawyers, understand something very different.
The task is to produce a few simple points of challenge to AGW, in the most common and widely understood English available. Of course, you have to overcome a classic. the numerically and linguistically inaccurate claim that, “The consensus is that 97% of all scientists agree.” Good luck.
It’s notable how many people here accuse others of things they do themselves.
If we are going to discuss climate change rationally, we ALL need to stop using insulting language and making generalizations and assumptions about what the Other thinks and does.
The stress on debate is wrong. Debate is trying to support one’s own views and dispute others’. Debate doesn’t result in learning, it results in becoming more certain of one’s own beliefs regardless of their merit.
What would really be a good learning exercise is to have a debate in which the sides were swapped: skeptics would argue for CAGW, and alarmists for skepticism. Research and preparation for the debate would necessitate learning the merits of the other side of the argument. Then we might come closer to understanding each other, and eventually to developing policies that are a compromise. It makes no sense for policy to be radically changed with each new administration.
So… The debate is over- in your view? Anyone who disagrees with the “consensus” is projecting their personal biases through egocentricity?
Kristi, do you really think that we haven’t researched your side of the debate? Folks like myself started out as believers until we really investigated the entire story behind this politically spawned detour of legitimacy in science.
Pop,
Your interpretation of what I say is just weird.
You have insulted me enough that I’m not interested in discussing anything with you.
Kristi Silber
“You have insulted me enough…….”
But describing Pop’s interpretation of your comments as “weird” isn’t insulting?
Guess I got her goat, Scot. I was unusually cross with the good woman, I admit. I’m normally a better follower of the Optimist creed. We shouldn’t bash each other here just because we have different conceptions of reality.
I regret hurting anyone’s feelings and give myself 5 demerits.
Pop, that was a nice comment. I appreciate it.
You consider that an insult????
You have lived a sheltered life.
Kristi writes:
“Pop,
Your interpretation of what I say is just weird.
You have insulted me enough that I’m not interested
in discussing anything with you.”
How can I get on the Kristi
non-discussion list?
Can I just volunteer,
or do I have to be a bad boy?
If it will help me
to get on that highly desirable list:
I have read your comments here and
my first, second, and last thought, was:
DING DING DING
bat.
and she’s 48!
FORTY EIGHT!!!!!!
Seriously?! I thought she was fresh out of college considering her perfect regurgitation of Marxist propaganda talking points. sheesh.
no quarter for such liars (she is a self-deceiver, the worst type of liar)
Richard,
DING DING DING! Congratulations! You made it! You won the booby prize!
Honest Liberty,
You are such a fool. I’m no Marxist, I’m a capitalist. It’s absolutely absurd to think my views are Marxist. What a dumb@ss.
“What would really be a good learning exercise is to have a debate in which the sides were swapped: skeptics would argue for CAGW, and alarmists for skepticism.”
One of the best comments I have seen you make here Kristi. In my own mind, I do so all the time and the best I can come up with is 7.4 billion humans adding a lot of thermal heat (espeically in the NH) of all kinds to the climate system which made for UHI making for recording higher temps in the historical urban record although I agree the world has warmed .8 degree C in the last 150 years. Probably half of which or more was just natural variation coming out of the LIA when it was much cooler than the bulk of the Holocene. Which is why I don’t only believe the small additional warming is a bad thing, but the fact that the world now supports 7.4 billion, is why it does and is net beneficial. Except for the day it turns real cold and stays cold…and then we are really toast.
Why don’t you write up a post (you are a good writer, even if I don’t completely agree with your methods or results) and give it your best to be a skeptic? And ask everyone who is a skeptic to have a go at really trying their best to logically be a alarmist. I am sure it would get published here if you made a real good honest attempt. Maybe we will all learn something new. I will participate and do my best to honestly argue the alarmist position.
And I won’t stomp my feet, wave my arms, or call anyone a deni@r like alarmists do, or what is now called a Denialist. Definition of which is: defines as “an ideological position whereby one systematically reacts by refusing reality and truth”. I find that word just as offensive, maybe even more so, because it summarily can dismiss anyone who questions someone else’s reality and truth when just acting as a skeptic when that is the definition of a practising scientist, at least until a theory is confirmed.
With the complexities of weather and climate so vast, it is just amazing to me why a real and proper debate and discussion isn’t advocated, especially by academia and media. If we persist down the alarmist rabbit hole, then we are assured of being mislead because the first rule of science is repeatable results. We can’t have a lot of warming from CO2 alone, especially if we agree there are other forms of warming such as Land Use Change and UHI, then obviously ‘carbon’ can’t be responsible for all of man made warming or climate change. So CO2 has to be subtracted from that column, unless ‘carbon’ has just become a metaphor for everything related to human kind. Maybe the rest of 7.4 billion human actives has something to do with it, which reducing ‘carbon’ will make no tangible result to any future warming.
I tried being polite Kristi, and didn’t even get a peep out of you. Unlike the rest of some who you said were being rude to you was why you won’t even discuss anything with them. Put the shoe on the other foot, and tell us what you think, as a skeptic, what your main points would be. That would tell all of us, you included, what you really think about the skeptic position. We, (you), might learn something new. That’s why we are all here, which is hopefully just not an echo chamber to hear ourselves talk and agree with each other.
Earthling2 ,
I’m very sorry, I just didn’t get to you (sometimes I start at the top, sometimes from the bottom). And unfortunately, I don’t have time now to address your comments in detail.
I don’t think a debate here swapping sides would be very successful. It’s really quite difficult for one to debate many others at once in a thoughtful manner, with literature to back up one’s claims. From the comments I’ve gotten, others think it’s a rotten idea, anyway. And then the question is, what kind of arguments would be allowed? Would I use Climategate in an effort to show that all scientists are corrupt, since that is one argument used by some skeptics? How about policy, and the claim that trillions of dollars are being wasted? In other words, would I use the common claims of skeptics or only the scientific research that rejects the theory? Would I be arguing against AGW, or CAGW?
Despite the fact that I know most of the arguments skeptics make, it would be difficult to put together a sound argument based purely on quality science. There is reason for skepticism (primarily due to uncertainties), but not a lot of reason for rejection of the consensus, which is what most skeptics seem to argue – or at least they argue that AGW is benign.
The other problem is that I don’t have a good enough understanding of climate science to do it justice. I know arguments from years of discussing the issue with skeptics, but I don’t consider myself well-versed enough in the immense field of climate science to attempt a purely scientific debate. That would take years of study.
So, I appreciate your willingness to engage in such a debate, but I don’t think I can oblige – not in a WUWT post, anyway. I didn’t actually mean it should be done here.
…………………………………….
“We can’t have a lot of warming from CO2 alone, especially if we agree there are other forms of warming such as Land Use Change and UHI, then obviously ‘carbon’ can’t be responsible for all of man made warming or climate change.”
The effects of UHI are on measurement, not actual global temperatures – that would be negligible.
Land use is not directly a factor in global warming, but through its impact on CO2, both as a source and sink. Well, it may be through the contribution to aerosols from burning, but those are transient (although perhaps not negligible; I have long suspected that clearing and burning of forest has an impact).
……………………………….
“Probably half of which or more was just natural variation coming out of the LIA when it was much cooler than the bulk of the Holocene. ”
The problem with this idea is that natural variation, too, has to be explained. Some of it can be explained by solar variation, but it can’t explain all the patterns. For example, “There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.”
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/463/2086/2447.short
Climate is so complex that it’s very difficult to factor in all the variables in a way that we can understand without the aid of models. I can’t understand why people don’t see the value of models. They aren’t perfect, but they’ve been tested in a wide variety of ways against observational data, and have been shown to be skillful. They are not precisely accurate, but offer good estimations of at least some parameters of climate. They are meant to simulate climate over the long term, not annual variability.
Anyway, I really need to go to bed. Thanks very much for your comments! You are now on my “pay close attention to and engage with” list.
“skeptics would argue for CAGW”…..LOL “how to fake adjustments 101”
This from the woman who routinely declares that those who disagree with her are in the pay of “big oil”?
“This from the woman who routinely declares that those who disagree with her are in the pay of “big oil”?”
Another lie from MarkW.
Kristi Silber:
“The stress on debate is wrong. Debate is trying to support one’s own views and dispute others’. Debate doesn’t result in learning, it results in becoming more certain of one’s own beliefs regardless of their merit.”
You seem to think we are all discussing whether “neither” should be pronounced nee-ther or ni-ther, or whether a soft-boiled egg should be opened at the big end or the little end. In such discussions compromise and/or concession instead of bickering is indeed a worthy goal.
However, warmists propose billions of dollars should be spent to make 1st world nations’ electricity grids as unreliable as those of 3rd world nations or else the world will fry, while skeptics counter that it is OK to allow 3rd world nations to have the same level of electricity availability as 1st world nations because every warmist claim has failed to materialize.
Skeptics are trying to argue the merits, warmists are not.
SR
Steve,
Policy is an entirely different matter. It should not influence science. Science should influence policy.
“Warmists” are not trying to make electricity grids unreliable. That makes no sense. And who are warmists? Do you think that everyone who believe AGW thinks the same way about policy?
I’m so tired on generalizations and assumptions and exaggeration and blame. If all”warmists” are alike, does that mean all skeptics alike?
Why do so many skeptics judge science through the lens of policy? When I see that, it makes it very hard to give credence to someone’s ideas about the science.
I already did that exercise. I’m a PhD scientist with some graduate level training in atmospheric chemistry. I used to argue the global warming position. Now I don’t because I learned that it was BS.
“What would really be a good learning exercise is to have a debate in which the sides were swapped: skeptics would argue for CAGW, and alarmists for skepticism. ”
We don’t know how much the ocean is warming and at some point, the added CO2 might start warming the ocean a lot. Or we stupid people and never going to become spacefaring, so we will be stuck on Earth [haplessly] for thousands of years. And also people are starting to get even more stupid {see Einstein} – and in thousand of years, it’s almost certain the ocean will warm from CO2- and our a very stupid descendants will all DIE! And kill all life!
Also we need the smartest people available, who can control all the dumb people- and controlling CO2 emission is best path forward to have a smart totalitarian world government. So even if sea levels rise anyhow, the government control all stupid people from killing all life.
Of course at some point we can genetically engineer, smarter people- the world government will adequately fund such research.
gbaikie:
I hate to say it, but history shows that the smart people who aren’t on board with the totalitarian program are the first ones to be eliminated. As an example, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia took it a step further and killed villagers simply because they wore glasses. Wearing glasses suggested they could read.
You have a mistaken impression if you believe that some compromise is needed in the CAGW debate. No compromise is needed and if there is one, it will be a bad thing. Because a few extra parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere will do only absolute good, and there really is NO credible evidence that leads me to believe it causes any additional risk. The history of the biosphere shows this perfectly clearly. You need to believe that.
I don’t need to believe your silly notions that the 500 or 600 ppm CO2 is going to harm humanity and the environment in which humans are thriving. You need to disbelieve it. You need to stop thinking that output from virtual climate models equals valid evidence of impending doom. You need to stop respecting the idiots who say climate models equal truth, no matter how educated and credentialed they may be. If you can clear this very low hurdle, then maybe we can find some common ground on public policy issues that you might want to impose on me and the rest of the world.
If we are going to discuss climate change rationally, we ALL need to stop using insulting language and making generalizations and assumptions about what the Other thinks and does.
Yup. Now who came up with ‘Climate Deneier’ ? then. Wasn’t the sceptics. First take the beam from thine own eye..
The stress on debate is wrong. Debate is trying to support one’s own views and dispute others’. Debate doesn’t result in learning, it results in becoming more certain of one’s own beliefs regardless of their merit.
No, debate is not trying to support ones own views. Not for sceptics in any case. I can’t answer for AGW believers. Maybe it is that way for them.
Debate consists in pitting logical narratives against one another in order that the differences and potential flaws in either are exposed. Real intellectual debate doesn’t care about winning and losing, it cares about exposing the flaws and weaknesses in arguments. That is of course why you don’t want debate innit?
What would really be a good learning exercise is to have a debate in which the sides were swapped: skeptics would argue for CAGW, and alarmists for skepticism. Research and preparation for the debate would necessitate learning the merits of the other side of the argument. Then we might come closer to understanding each other, and eventually to developing policies that are a compromise. It makes no sense for policy to be radically changed with each new administration.
That is mere advocacy. A lawyers answer. Argue the case irrespective of its truth content, merely to win the argument, not to establish the truth. That’s ‘student debating’ stuff – not real scientific debate.
Of course you wont believe me, but I do in fact know what are claimed to be the ‘merits’ of the AGW argument very well. Unfortunately I would fail at using them in advocacy unless I were prepared to lie, or appeal emotionally to the target audience, because they are simply indefensible on logical grounds.
My problem in adopting that position is not that I don’t know enough about it, but rather that I understand it all too well, far better than its protagonists do, which is why they are its protagonists.
Argument from ignorance is always easier.
“Unfortunately I would fail at using them in advocacy unless I were prepared to lie, or appeal emotionally to the target audience, because they are simply indefensible on logical grounds.”
Hear! Hear!
“What would really be a good learning exercise is to have a debate in which the sides were swapped: skeptics would argue for CAGW, and alarmists for skepticism. Research and preparation for the debate would necessitate learning the merits of the other side of the argument.”
Don’t you presuppose that either side hasn’t learned the merits of the other? If so, why? E.g., haven’t you yourself taking the time to learn the skeptics position? If not, why not?
It would seem to make more sense that those capable of honest debate have already evaluated both sides and come to a conclusion, in which case, taking a different side would seem to be a useless exercise.
“Then we might come closer to understanding each other, and eventually to developing policies that are a compromise.”
What if there need not be a compromise because CAGW is false? Is this a possibility? If so, why is there need for compromise? If not, then haven’t you already made up your own mind, in which case, don’t you contradict yourself here?
Sycomputing,
I wasn’t suggesting it be done here. It wouldn’t work.
I don’t get the idea that most people know the arguments of the other side. For instance, I see a lot of misunderstanding of what GCMs reveal, what their purpose is, how they are tuned, and the relative confidence of their predictions. I don’t get the feeling that people know that scientists understand their limitations.
Nor are very many apparently aware of the wide range of evidence supporting AGW. Again and again I read that there is no evidence, and that is patently false.
“E.g., haven’t you yourself taking the time to learn the skeptics position?” Yes, I have, but I’ve spent years as an active contributor to WUWT, and before that, to Breitbart (from which I was banned for my views).
“What if there need not be a compromise because CAGW is false? Is this a possibility? If so, why is there need for compromise? If not, then haven’t you already made up your own mind, in which case, don’t you contradict yourself here?”
I believe AGW is true, and I have never denied that, so how am I contradicting myself? The question is, what is the rate of change, and what are the likely effects of that change. This is where compromise comes in. We don’t really know what will happen. We cannot prediction the future with certainty. But we can identify and estimate at least some of the things that are likely to happen given as certain amount and rate of change, both good and bad. This is the science part.
From science, we move to policy, which is informed by our findings. We can look for ways to slow the rate of CO2 emissions with the intent of slowing the rate of change. We find those mechanisms that have other benefits, like adding insulation to homes, increasing the fuel efficiency of cars, and phasing out coal-fired power plants, which pollute the air and water, have negative health impacts on miners and those who live near mountaintop removal mines, and are being replaced by natural gas, anyway. We also develop new technologies, such as economical ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and grid-capacity energy storage, to make renewables more practical. This requires investment, but I am thinking about the long term. Although we have fossil fuel resources, as the more easily accessible reserves are used, and as global demand increases, the cost will go up, and renewables will become relatively more economical.
I don’t advocate switching to renewables in a massive way, not now. I don’t advocate doing things that will result in undue hardship. But neither do I think it’s responsible to do nothing to try to lower CO2 emissions. The temperature will rise, but if we can slow the rate of change it will allow people (and other organisms) more time to adapt, and I think this is vital. Mitigation and adaptation should go hand-in-hand.
Global warming need not be catastrophic, but we can’t count on it if we sit back and wait to see what happens while deregulating industry to allow even greater CO2 emissions.
It’s notable how many people here accuse others of things they do themselves.
That is completely characteristic of the Left.
Who are the main protagonists for Climate Change It’s down to their one dimensional thinking and emotional insecurity Unable to see more than one version of anything except the version they themselves adhere to, they have no option but to consider anyone whose world-view differs from theirs completely WRONG, because they can’t afford emotionally to lose the security of believing themselves to be absolutely RIGHT.
Hence their entirely emotional responses (Denier! In the pay of Big Oil! Anti Science!”) which are all simply the very things they fear themselves to be. And in fact are…aren’t they Kristi…?
Kristi burbled
“eventually to developing policies that are a compromise”
So instead of either driving on the right as in America, or on the left as in Britain we should compromise and drive right down the middle of the road instead?
So instead of either getting on the ferry to France or staying on the docks at Dover I should jump into the sea mid channel?
Oh dear, the idiocy in this one, strong, is.
Sometimes and in fact very often, there is a fork in the road of Life, and we can e.g. marry one tart, or another, but half marrying both of them is a Really Bad Idea™ As well as being illegal.
I can see Kristi that the whole concept of non-linearity has entirely passed you by.
I hope you have no kids. ‘Kristi I want to go to Disneyland in Florida’ ‘No I want to go to Disneyland in Hong Kong!’
‘
‘We will compromise and go to Novosibirsk instead, which is halfway between them’
Judgement of Solomon Kristi, surely you have heard of it?
I am not even sure your thinking can be called one dimensional.
Instead of totally destroying the entire economy, we’ll only devastate half of it.
Leo,
Nice rant. I’ll put you on my “ignore” list.
Here are the ground rules.
1) Only proven facts. No multiple runs of a multitude of models. Only individual models that have accurately forecasted “global temperature” for two years in advance.
2) No studies that claim the subject (other than CO2) being studied “proves” CO2 causes global warming. No polar bear numbers, no insect population changes that are ASSUMED to forewarn us of impending doom due to CO2, etc. Only those studies where there are direct independent and dependent variables (CO2 must be one of them) that have been measured accurately are allowed with a causation proven, not just correlation. Studies that only assume that CO2 causes some effect are verboten.
3) Any quoted study must include data, statistical methods and assumptions, and a treatment of errors, both measurement and mathematical.
Let start some real science where hypothesis’ and real, measurable, experimental results are performed.
I would make it stricter, they need to have accurately forecast all regional climates 2 years in advance.
Allowing them to forecast the “global” climate allows them to get all the regions wrong, but be right “on average”.
Jim,
Those are ridiculous ground rules. Climate models are not intended to forecast 2 years in advance, that’s not their purpose – and besides, that would be a very poor indication of their overall skill.
You are eliminating much of the evidence if one can’t discuss things like changes in organism populations and range.
“Only those studies where there are direct independent and dependent variables (CO2 must be one of them) that have been measured accurately are allowed with a causation proven, not just correlation.”
You can’t “prove” causation – science doesn’t ever “prove” anything, much less causation.
You can’t experiment with climate. You can’t take 20 Earths and subject them to different CO2 levels. That doesn’t mean you can’t have “real science.” There are ways of doing science that aren’t dependent on experiments. This is such a common fallacy, I’m sure it contributes to skepticism.
Jim,
Sorry, I shouldn’t have said “ridiculous.” Maybe “impractical” is a better word.
What would really be a good learning exercise is to have a debate in which the sides were swapped: skeptics would argue for CAGW, and alarmists for skepticism. Research and preparation for the debate would necessitate learning the merits of the other side of the argument.
most skeptics of CAGW already did that exercise, that’s how they became skeptics of CAGW – they started out as CAGW believers until they researched it for themselves.
Kristi writes:
“What would really be a good learning exercise is to have a debate in which the sides were swapped: skeptics would argue for CAGW, and alarmists for skepticism. Research and preparation for the debate would necessitate learning the merits of the other side of the argument.”
—
Likely the reason most who have evaluated the evidence have joined the “skeptic” side of the debate after seeing that the so-called ‘consensus’ view is complete bullsh*t. I doubt many would join what’s viewed as the minority (skeptical) side of the debate for any other reason especially when they will be scorned by the far-left supposed majority. But then that brings up the consideration as to which is really a majority opinion, with a minority of those openly taking a stand challenging the supposed majority pushing CAGW.
So, you are suggesting that those who see thru the scam argue for it? Never gonna happen.
In the end it all depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
As my favorite radio DJ Favaz sez, “everything is everything”
Serendipity rules.
Close, but no cigar.
Most people don’t really care about politicians ; they think that’s the job of politicians.
Most people don’t really care about economics; they think that’s the job of economists.
Most people don’t really care about climate; they think that’s the job of climatologists.
___________________________________________________
First thing to tell them:
Better take some care of politics, economy, climate –
otherwise politicians, economists, climatologists will take care about you.
Most people don’t really care about politics; they think that’s the job of politicians.
Most people don’t really care about economy; they think that’s the job of economists.
Most people don’t really care about climate; they think that’s the job of climatologists.
___________________________________________________
First thing to tell them:
Better take some care of politics, economy, climate –
otherwise politicians, economists, climatologists will take care about you.
Most people don’t really care about medicine; they think that’s the job of doctors.
Most people don’t really care about law; they think that’s the job of judges.
You better worry about “health care” (drugs) before you are prescribed worthless products (worthless for you, not for Big Propaganda).
You better worry about the law protecting “intellectual property” (an absurd notion in the first place) because Big Copyright interferes with your computer.
Tim, while I agree with you the difficulty of trying to explain complicated facts about scieence to the average person, the problem as I see it is we arfe complication a matter that is really very simle.
I have saaid this before but it bears repeating.
Tim at the bottom of this whole phony “House of cards”is the root problem. That of the trace gas CO2. Prove that its a harmless and in fact a essential gas, and the whole of this nonsence of climate science should collapse .
I am hoping that Pres. Trumps EPA will finally get the red and blue teams together and disprove all of this nonsense.
MJE
Reading explanations about explaining on a website where 97% of commenters are hysterically pro vaccines, all of which have no proven benefits in a first world country, is … hysterical.
“so I finally challenged him to explain the X for the audience”
Try that on YOUR DOCTOR. Tell him to explain you which vaccine has which benefit for you and others and which ones are doubtful. Pretty sure he will be either blank or metaphorically rolling on the floor like a baby.
vaccines, all of which have no proven benefits in a first world country, is …
.. a lie.
As the rising prevalence of diseases that had been eradicated from western countries by vaccination shows. Now people no longer feel that vaccination is ‘valuable’
You argument is completely logically as false as saying ‘we should not bother to filter and chlorinate water as no one gets Cholera any more’.
I suggest you move to a country where they don’t chlorinate and do get cholera.
He should ask his local doctor if the many migrants are vaccinated at the border of that 1st world country (France?) Measles alone would pandemic if not.
See, it comes down the proper questions…
Migrants are a major health risk. I don’t care so much whether they are vaccinated. They are bringing many diseases for which there is no vaccine.
“Measles alone would pandemic if not.”
Ahah! Very funny. You were convinced by the master manipulators that measles is a terrifying disease that people in France would fear. “La rougeole” is not terrifying. It’s the kind of childhood diseases everyone used to get before doctors were reprogrammed by Big Stupid.
OK you make no sense what so ever like all Dems/Vaxxers. You work by assertion of benefits of vaccines, as all you vaxxers do, then make demented claims. (In every discussion, every single time, every single vaxxer comes out crazy in the end.)
Why don’t you tell me which diseases have been “eradicated” by vaccination (meaning fewer people got these) and how that was a good thing?
If you can’t answer, please go away.
Smallpox has been eradicated by vaccination.
1. No it wasn’t. Yet another myth.
2. If it was, now what? Are you vaccinated against smallpox? Do you want to be? What’s the relevance of smallpox in any vaccine debate that isn’t historical?
3. Was that vaccine safe? Would it be usable today? How many people who infected from the vaccine?
Smallpox has been eradicated by vaccination.
Anyone who claims it has not should be banned from posting here,
TB was almost eliminated from Europe till immigration reintroduced it.
Simple-t: Why don’t you tell me which diseases have been “eradicated” by vaccination
Remy: Why don’t you tell me which diseases have been “eradicated” by vaccination
Simple-t: What’s the relevance of smallpox in any vaccine debate that isn’t historical?
you ask for diseases that have been eradicated but then dismiss examples of diseases that have been eradicated because they are “history” (ie they’ve been eradicated and are no longer an issue). Prime example of why anti-vaxxers are the crazy people.
cut and paste error, Remy’s comment was “Smallpox has been eradicated by vaccination.” When will we get the edit button back?
Simple-t: which diseases have been “eradicated” by vaccination (meaning fewer people got these)
Remy: Smallpox has been eradicated by vaccination
Simple-t: 1. No it wasn’t. Yet another myth.
Yes it was, denying reality only shows how crazy you (and your fellow anti-vaxxers are), by your own criteria “(meaning fewer people got these)” Smallpox has been eradicated as has Polio. That you are ignornant (willfully so) of historical reality is your own problem. We can’t fix your crazy for you.
Vaxxers usually want people to be vaccinated against diseases that have been “eradicated”; other lie by omission from you.
“Smallpox has been eradicated as has Polio”
What caused the quasi eradication of polio in the US before WWII?
There was no “quasi-eradication” before WWII. What there was was periodic large outbreaks such as in 1894, 1916, 1934, and 1945
The rate of polio contamination crashed many times. Like with many diseases, the crash of contamination is often more spectacular before vaccines were available than after.
The (unreliable, dishonest) historical record itself refutes the claims of obvious benefits of many vaccines.
I like the vaccine issue because it allows the measure of gullibility of people. You can’t ask people whether Apollo missions are real because they will repeat whatever they saw in TV and TV told them it’s real. You can ask what they think re: vaccines.
@John
The context of my question was:
Which vaccination specifically is not valuable today? Smallpox vaccination?
Or is “vaccination” some universal thing?
Yet more evidence vaxxers can’t read, follow a discussion, or show intelligence.
Vaxxers should be prevented from reaching any job where there is need for analysis of any risk.
Thousands of studies showing the benefits of vaccines don’t count because they don’t come to the conclusion that you so desperately want to believe.
“Thousands of studies showing the benefits of vaccines”
They don’t count because you just made that up.
Which studies? Which vaccines? Which benefits?
One of us is desperate. It isn’t me! I’m just looking for evidence from a non crazy vaxxer, and a refutation of my hypothesis that vaxxers are all crazy people (which is why vaxxism should be officially a medical condition).
a refutation of my hypothesis that anti-vaxxers are all crazy people
Fixed that for you. and so far your posts are proving that hypothesis correct, keep up the crazy work simple-t
You still have not mentioned even one vaccine that is useful today.
“You still have not mentioned even one vaccine that is useful today.”
Simple-t, you still deny the historical facts of vaccines and their effectiveness. You are like the “what have the romans ever done” skit from Monty Python. You keep dismissing the success of vaccines and then claim no one has ever mentioned even one vaccine that is useful. simple-t think: All right, but apart from their successful use against polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, whooping cough, rubella and neonatal tetanus what have vaccines ever done for us?” Sorry simple-t but you are not just crazy, you’re a bad joke.
What success against polio?
The explosion of polio-paralysis cases following polio vaccine in India?
The contamination by polio virus by polio vaccine in the US some decades ago, in Africa right now?
The useless vaccination of millions of people in countries where there is no polio?
The amount of delusion of vaxxer is only matched by “Hillary most competent candidate ever Clinton”.
What success against polio?
the success in virtually eliminating it from the industrial western world and the great strides that have been made in eliminating it from the rest of the world. That you would use that elimination as a sign that it doesn’t work shows just how crazy you are. the most virulent anti-trumper isn’t as crazy and that’s saying a lot. I’m done trying to educate the willfully ignorant here. The funny thing is you are so delusional in your crazy that you have no clue just how crazy everyone else see you as. I leave you to your crazy anti-vaxxer rantings. There is no hope for the willfully ignorant such as yourself.
One last point re:polio before I leave you to your spout your crazy to your hearts content.
There were usually about 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic polio reported each year in the United States before the introduction of the Salk vaccine in 1955. The last naturally occurring Polio outbreak in the US was in 1979 among the amish (a community that tends to have a lower rate of vaccination that the general population) there were a small number of cases between 1980 and 2000 (less than 10 a year) as a result of the oral version of the vaccine (which uses the live virus) and a small number of cases (less than 1 a year) were the result of travel outside the US. since 2000 only the inactivated polio vaccine shot is used in the US. Compare the post-1979 rate in the US (less than 10 a year) to the pre-vaccine rate in the US (13,000 to 20,000), and you really think the 13,000 to 20,000 rate is a good thing. that alone tells me you are too crazy to bother responding to anymore.
“There were usually about 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic polio reported each year in the United States before the introduction of the Salk vaccine in 1955.”
What the hell is “paralytic polio”?
How can we know how many where caused by
1) a virus
2) one of these “polio” viruses?
What causes these cases of paralyses in India?
Also, why do you suck up to disgraced entities like the CDC and WHO?
smallpox, polio, are the two biggest known. Others that have been greatly reduced by vaccination include (but not limited to) diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella and neonatal tetanus.
simple-t, please explain how getting smallpox or polio (for example) was a good thing and/or how eliminating them was a bad thing?
“greatly reduced by vaccination include (but not limited to) …, measles, mumps, rubella”
And you believe that was a good idea?
Why do you believe it is a bad idea? Care to live life (if you are lucky) as a survivor or Polio? Do you really want to risk the complications of some of the previous listed diseases (which are more likely to occur among adults who contract the diseases)?
I see that you will even TRY to argue it’s a good idea.
For why it’s a bad idea, the risks were described before mass vaccination was implemented:
– vaccine provides unreliable temporary immunity
– people get the disease later, sometimes as adults or even expecting mother
– pediatricians don’t learn to recognize these disease, children are not properly treated
This was observed, as epidemics of vaccinated teens were seen in the US. Of course for a vaxxer, the failure of a vaccine proves that vaccination is a good idea (like a communist).
In fact all the negative social side effects occurred as predicted.
Now mostly harmless diseases are more serious because of vaccines and that statistics is used by health authorities to justify that vaccination is essential.
And that’s without even discussing the individual side effects of vaccines.
Sorry simple-t all you say is paranoid nutcase nonsense (and contradictory paranoid nutcase nonsense at that). Go research the facts and learn something (but you won’t anti-vaxxer nutcases like yourself don’t care about educating themselves they only care about the nonsense they believe to be true that demonstrably isn’t)
your first and third bullet points contradict themselves. Either they are not effective, in which case pediatricians will have no problem recognizing the symptoms or they are effective resulting in the diseases being so rare that pediatricians fail to recognize the symptoms when a rare case does crop up. you can’t have it both ways either bullet point 1 is true or bullet point 3 is true, logically they both can’t be true (but then anti-vaxxer nutcases like yourself don’t understand logic and consistency so there’s no surprise there at your failings in those regards).
Also you claim vaccines don’t work, but in your first bullet point you contradict that by saying they do work but only temporarily. Again, you can’t have it both ways. either they don’t work or they do (no matter how temporarily).
as for the middle bullet point, yes some diseases require an additional “booster” shot later in life. that isn’t a failure of the vaccine, that’s a failure of your understanding of how vaccines are applied and how they operate.
Are vaccines 100% effective 100% of the time, no there are always outliers and no one has ever claimed otherwise. but for the vast majority of people vaccines work and have been effective at curbing diseases that have, left untreated, taken a tremendous toll in peoples lives. But you’d rather that tremendous toll be taken instead of the effective mitigation that vaccines provide. says it all about just how much deep into crazy you are.
My state lists the following vaccines as required for entrance into public school:
– Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (DTaP, DTP, or Tdap)
– Hepatitis B
– Human Papillomavirus Vaccine (HPV)
– Measles
– Mumps
– Rubella (MMR)
– Pneumococcal (PCV)
– Polio
– Varicella (Chickenpox)
I’m happy that my children have not had, and likely will not get, those diseases. The tiny discomfort of a shot, and the occasional booster, and the accompanying soreness for an evening, are extraordinarily small prices to pay for the freedom from these. Likewise, the small monetary cost (often they’re free at local health clinics) means that to me personally, it’s a no brainer.
I fail to comprehend any reasonable arguments against the practice of immunization here in the U.S. I have no knowledge about, nor interest in, arguing the specifics of immunization elsewhere, as this is beyond my purview. All I can say is that for me and my house, immunizations seemed to have eliminated some very unpleasant diseases…and the costs and negatives outcomes are essentially non-existent. I suspect that the same applies for just about every other American. Hard to make an argument against that.
Can we get back to climate science now?
rip
“Either they are not effective”
Nope. You made that up. (I don’t usually use that jargon word.)
“Also you claim vaccines don’t work”
Nope. You can’t read. That’s a batsh*t crazy claim. Vaccines are not placebo. (A placebo would better, sometimes.)
Vaccines have an impact on the immune system. (That makes vaccines dangerous as the immune system is an awful beast, like a very angry god.)
Also the flu vaccine “works”:
– it really makes many people ill with the “flu” for a week
– it might make the flu infection marginally less harmful for some people
– it turns a bad week in bed with the flu into a very light flu in some people, allowing these person to contaminate other people
“that isn’t a failure of the vaccine, that’s a failure of your understanding of how vaccines are applied and how they operate.”
Nope. You lie again. It’s just that vaccines did not perform as expected, as intended, as advertised which means they are by definition defective products.
Are you going to claim that the need for these boosters was explained to people the first time? It was added afterward. And then after a second booster it’s a third one. You are like Hillary felt because of a hot day, then a pneumonia, then non contagious pneumonia.
Now go away.
Because having sex in school is the new normal with the new Republicans!
[???? .mod]
@mod
To anyone even vaguely interested in what drugs are forced into children, what diseases they allegedly protect from, etc. you would know that hep B is SEX TRANSMITTED. Or by blood.
Maybe they don’t have enough material for their heroin use at school and they share needles?
“You argument is completely logically as false as saying ‘we should not bother to filter and chlorinate water as no one gets Cholera any more’.”
Do I really have to explain you that you are making the case against vaccine by saying that collective hygiene explains absence of contamination?
Vaxxers would be funny if they were not in charge in all left-right uniparty establishment run countries. But even where allegedly populist gov came in power, they are still in charge apparently!
You know someone is batshit crazy when it’s all a conspiracy with them. All the worlds governments, regardless of political ideology, are conspiring against the pure hearted anti-vaxxer simple-t.
“All the worlds governments, regardless of political ideology”
That’s a good one. When everything failed, claim it’s “ideation”.
Are you saying that all mainstream news (incl. half of Faux News) channel everywhere do not promote garbage propaganda?
Are you saying that the fight against fake news is NOT an attempt to prevent re-information?
Are you saying that the official narrative of many events are not filled with contradictions obvious to a 12 years old?
Except “populists” (notably Donald Trump, Italy), which gov doesn’t share the same political ideology? Most gov pretend that CO2 is a pollutant, is that “regardless of political ideology”?
They are all vaxxers, too. Same reason.
They are breast cancer screeners. Same reason.
Lew, please go away.
Off topic but Australia launches a new…ice breaker!
https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/new-australian-icebreaker-hits-water/news-story/97c93d8c17a15050d314dd1eecf14a15
When I began to take an abiding interest in climate a dozen yrs ago, it was because the noise about it had become loud enough that I began to take notice of the alarm aspect. Prior to that, I thought, yeah it does seem to have been warmer in the 1990s and I had little reason to doubt an increase in CO2 might be a part of the cause.
However, in the 1950s, I had studied paleoclimate as part of undergrad geology and was well aware of the much higher CO2 in past eras and indeed, the trillions of tonnes of coal taken out of the atmosphere mainly in the Carboniferous by plants, showed the power of the biosphere to take up this gas. Moreover the 100+ metres thick White Cliffs of Dover and other chalk formations around the world, which are made up of the tiny carbonate shells (coccolithospores) of zoo-plankton, plus other shellfish throughout the world, probably make the oceans an even greater bio sink for CO2 than land plants. Neither is the temperature above even relatively recent warm temperatures.
Alarm over it all was what I was strongly sceptical about and it set me to catchup on this science (Im also an engineer). Soon, when I found out about the essentially continuous adjustment of temperatures, the poor state and coverage of the thermometers and then the political connection – and what they had planned for us all, I decided to get into the fray.
No tipping points were reached or can be reached on a planet that has had an unbroken record of over a billion years of a biosphere, at least not one caused by mankind. Measured against super volcanoes, riftng earthquakes, collisions of large bolides, plate tectonics that rips continents apart and buckles the crust up into high moontain ranges, 100,000yr continental glaciations interrupted by 10 -30,000yr warm periods, humans are pretty puny. We don’t command enough energetic might to match a neasureable fraction of that wielded by the natural disruptions described. We are capable of only temporal and localized harm to the planet that its processes easily heal up.
The Hiroshima bomb was terrible by our standards killing over 100,000 people. Yet, in one year, radiation was back to background levels and they rebuilt it. Hey, the KT extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs left us only a couple of centimeter layer of the ash fallout from the blast.
Finally know one can (will) answer the simple criticisms that basically ask themselves. They will jeer and insult and tell us about lab experiments done in the19th century on radiative physics. Fine, but the earth puts up all forms of resistance to change that you can eliminate in the lab. We don’t live on a ceteris paribus planet. In one orbit, the earth varies in distance from the sun by nearly 4%. There “should be”a clear signal of it in the temperature records…but there isnt a sign of it in the least.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167
Gary Pearse
Top comment.
In a perfect world, people would read this blog/post.
How do you get their attention ?
What I have done before, is ask them to articulate the global warming hypothesis. Often the results are crickets.
But some good advise I received once was: “Remember, man caused global warming is the religion of the left.”
You have model called the Ideal thermally conductive blackbody which in a vacuum at Earth distance from the Sunlight. And this Ideal thermally conductive blackbody absorb all sunlight and conduct the heat uniformly over sphere.
The sunlight “roughly” warms 1/4 of the sphere, receiving about 1360 watts per square meter and if divided by 4 = 340 watts. So the entire surface uniformly emits 340 watts of IR light.
And a blackbody which emits 340 watts per square is about 5 C.
Earth emits about 240 watts per square meter on average- and therefore has to absorb 240 watts per square meter on average.
If Earth was an ideal thermally conductive blackbody- and ideal thermally conductive body is impossible [it’s model of an ideal not of reality]- though Earth is sort of like it. If Earth were an ideal thermal conductive blackbody and emitted 240 watts per square meter [uniformly] a blackbody surface emitting 240 watts is about -18 C.
So the group of people who thought about it, decided the only reason earth could emit 240 watts per square meter on average and therefore should have average or uniform temperature of -18 C but instead Earth average temperature as measured in shaded white box 5 feet above the ground or ocean was global average temperature of 15 C, was due to greenhouse gases.
They could not think of any other reason which could explain the difference.
And Venus has a lot of CO2 and Venus is very hot.
And Venus has a lot of CO2 and Venus is very hot.
And Mars has a lot of CO2 and Mars is very cold.
I will add this…
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=queen+pressure&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBAU811AU811&oq=queen+pressure&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.3753j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Yes, Mars is small planet and has about 25 trillion tonnes of CO2 in it’s atmosphere and compared to Earth in terms of per square meter, Mars has about 30 times more CO2 than per square meter of Earth.
Some believers of greenhouse effect religion believe it needs more atmosphere, or if added say, 100 trillion tonnes of N2, then you would the CO2 of Mars having a warming effect.
And other claim the Co2 does having warming effect and if closer to sun it would have more of warming effect from the CO2
And Mars also has about 210 ppm of water vapor.
But Venus has “~4.8 x 10^20 kg of mostly CO2 vs Mars having ” ~2.5 x 10^16 kg”
More than 15,000 times more CO2 than Mars.
Or in general the greenhouse effect theory is very vague and lacks details of how greenhouse gases increase global temperature.
Sort of like Marxism- Marxists don’t agree about what Marxism is.
And this also the case with other religions.
The crucial point however re Mars is that at a pressure of just 6 mb (0.6% of Earth) it does not have enough to produce a GHE of any consequence,
Mark Twain observed, “The trouble with most of us is that we know too much that ain’t so.”
Adding to the “Δ33C without an atmosphere” (see other article) that completely ain’t so is the example of Venus.
Venus, we are told, has an atmosphere that is almost pure carbon dioxide and an extremely high surface temperature, 750 K, and this is allegedly due to the radiative greenhouse effect, RGHE. But the only apparent defense is, “Well, WHAT else could it BE?!”
Well, what follows is the else it could be. (Q = U * A * ΔT)
Venus is 70% of the distance to the sun so its average solar constant/irradiance is twice as intense as that of earth, 2,615 W/m^2 as opposed to 1,368 W/m^2.
But the albedo of Venus is 0.77 compared to 0.31 for the Earth – or – Venus 601.5 W/m^2 net ASR (absorbed solar radiation) compared to Earth 943.9 W/m^2 net ASR.
The Venusian atmosphere is 250 km thick as opposed to Earth’s at 100 km. Picture how hot you would get stacking 1.5 more blankets on your bed. RGHE’s got jack to do with it, it’s all Q = U * A * ΔT.
The thermal conductivity of carbon dioxide is about half that of air, 0.0146 W/m-K as opposed to 0.0240 W/m-K so it takes twice the ΔT/m to move the same kJ from surface to ToA.
Put the higher irradiance & albedo (lower Q = lower ΔT), thickness (greater thickness increases ΔT) and conductivity (lower conductivity raises ΔT) all together: 601.5/943.9 * 250/100 * 0.0240/0.0146 = 2.61.
So, Q = U * A * ΔT suggests that the Venusian ΔT would be 2.61 times greater than that of Earth. If the surface of the Earth is 15C/288K and ToA is effectively 0K then Earth ΔT = 288K. Venus ΔT would be 2.61 * 288 K = 748.8 K surface temperature.
All explained, no need for any S-B BB RGHE hocus pocus.
Simplest explanation for the observation.
Part 2
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
According to NASA’s fact sheet the density of the earth’s atmosphere is 1.22 kg/m^3, the density of the Martian atmosphere is 0.02 kg/m^3, 1.6 %.
Mars basically doesn’t have an atmosphere.
It’s the albedo and distance from the sun that governs the baseline temperature.
Venus Earth Moon & Earth w/o atmosphere Mars
ISR, W/m^2 2,615.00 1,368.00 1,368.00 586.00
S-B eq T, K 413.00 394.00 394.00 319.00
albedo 0.77 0.31 0.12 0.25
ASR, W/m^2 601.45 943.92 1,203.84 439.50
S-B eq T, K 320.93 359.20 381.72 296.72
Note that the OLR for Venus is actual lower than for Earth.
Note that w/o an atmosphere the earth would be moon like and average OLR temp would be 270 K NOT 255 K.
The atmosphere does not warm the earth, but cools it by reflecting away 30% of the ISR. What is the mechanism? Clouds, water vapor, albedo.
You are assuming that the black body mathematics is correct, it is not! The Earth is nothing like an ideal black body for all manner of reasons, so you should not invoke the idea. “Greenhouse gases” do not in any way behave in the same way as greenhouses. Venus is very hot because, amongst other things, it is much closer to the sun.
They could think of no other reason why the temperature was not as expected? Then they falsified their own hypothesis immediately. What about the certainly not trace gas called water vapour? How about the clouds which they ignored because they did not understand them? Why choose CO2 at all, not Argon (1% of atmosphere)? I know, because they knew the result they wanted before they asked the question!
Global cooling, oh no warming, oh no climate change, is a political project which has been running for at least 50 years, which changes day to day and has no science behind it. Everything they say is wrong and can be proved to be wrong with real experiments. Presentation of the experimental results goes nowhere because they simply cannot accept them.
Politics, money, peer pressure and the lying, fact-free, fake news media’s censorship have completely corrupted science. Climate change has turned science/engineering/economics into full time bullshit factories.
The Radiative Green House Effect theory contains a fatal flaw.
For RGHE to perform as advertised requires the earth’s surface to radiate upwelling LWIR as an ideal black body, i.e. 1.0 emissivity at 16 C, 289 K, 396 W/m^2. (TFK_bams09)
The contiguous presence of atmospheric molecules participating in non-radiative heat transfers through conduction, convection, latent renders impossible such BB LWIR, the effective surface emissivity being 0.16, i.e. actual 63 W/m^2 / ideal 396 W/m^2.
The LWIR upwelling 396 W/m^2 does not exist – the GHG energy loop “warming” the surface and atmosphere does not exist – and the global warming and climate changes that are attributed to carbon dioxide do not exist.
Three decades of careers, books, papers, research, seminars all go straight in the trash bin and the trillion-dollar climate change industry is instantly unemployed.
Summary (?) How do you teach a fish to talk to a bird and vice versa?
“The concept automatically infers warming.”
I thought it implied warming.
“They told me most lawyers are Arts students”
Surely they would have been Law students? Or were they Arts students who then transferred to Law?
@Dale Rainwater. Tim Ball
You have written about the correlation between co2 and t (co2 lags t) with the conlusion that we should question wether co2 raises the temperature at all.
Whats your opinion on the views expressed in articles like Shakun 2012?
I think it is a very credible question and position to consider. That is why I wrote the forward and a chapter in the book “Slaying the Dragon.”
Climate sensitivity continues to slide, I think inevitably toward zero.
As I said in one article, there is a greenhouse effect and it can all be explained by water vapour. A very small percentage change in water vapour accounts for all the claimed human CO2 effect, and just a little more explains all the claimed CO2 effect.
Dr. Ball,
I suggest you read page 21 of Ekholm’s 1901 study. It explains the water vapor idea quite well.
http://nsdl.library.cornell.edu/websites/wiki/index.php/PALE_ClassicArticles/archives/classic_articles/issue1_global_warming/n5._Ekholm__1901.pdf
I have seen in the previous article, on Arctic ice Minimum years. Some reasoned this to 60-year cycle, some to storms, jetstream — circumpolar vortex movement, etc before attributing it to global warming. In the past few decades, human actions also influencing artic ice. Similarly other events that are being attributed to global warming.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Is there a definitive study that CO2 not only has an effect but also calculates that effect exactly? Just blaming CO2 for the changes is no different than saying Alpha Centauri perturbations cause temperature changes on earth. (/sarc)
Jim,
Do you mean through theory or observation?
The physics have been known since 1900 (which is when the term “greenhouse” was first used as an analogy, in the seminal paper by Nils Ekholm). They have been verified again and again. There have also been observations done using satellites, although the precision isn’t great. The greenhouse effect has enough support that it could probably be called “definitive.” In my opinion, anyway; others would disagree.
The amount of that effect in the atmosphere is not known precisely. Interestingly, Ekholm calculated that a tripling of CO2 would raise the temperature by 7-9 C – not so far off the likely range of 1.5-4 C for a doubling of CO2 the IPCC suggests is likely.
People have measured the wavelengths of energy CO2 absorbs in the lab, but that’s not very helpful when it comes to estimates of how that affects Earth’s surface temperature.
(Sorry if I’m telling you stuff you already know.)
This is an article after my own heart.
Having established some years back first of all that renewable energy was a crock, and therefore becoming suspicious too of the motives of those who promulgated it, the dicta of my alma mater – that one should in the case of incomprehension go back to first principles and start with a tabula rasa constrained me to inquire into precisely why people are inclined to Believe, when they have no access to facts or understanding of theories hypothesised to explain Facts in terms of the algorithmic compression that is a scientific (or other) theory about ‘what is really going on’.
This journey has led me to some interesting conclusions that are, I believe, (sic!) extremely relevant to those not just wishing to understand the truth about climate change, but to understand why in many ways the lies about climate change are more palatable than the truth.
And this applies to so called climate sceptics, amongst whose number I class myself, as the alarmists. So called.
Because the views that arise that fit the observational data are as unpalatable to those of what I normally term the ‘rational materialist’ as they are to the ‘logical positivists’ mentioned in the text.
1/. The truth content of any theory about the world is indeterminate. We cannot know when we are right, only when we are wrong. Cf Karp Popper et al.
2/. What therefore matters, is that a theory is functionally effective . Science is a collection of such theories.
3/. Lies or false theories nor indeed metaphysical (in this context, undisprovable) theories about the world that are nevertheless functionally effective have persistence. C.f. God theories. We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a supernatural omnipotent Being, however belief in the existence of such has been the hallmark of the development of what we might say is Western Civilisation. Even the Marxists who deny God, seem to need to invent a morality of their own – ‘Social justice’ or ‘Gaiaism’ are rife as concepts that fill what seems to be a moral vacuum left by the rendering of God into a fairy story. People need to be told how to behave as consistent behaviour in a social sense is a requirement for social cohesion and the ability to function in groups larger than the tribal extended family. So what we have here is the Darwinian survival potential of conjectures that are clearly not scientific, in that they cannot be disproven – or ‘refuted’ – in Popper-speak. It is not necessary that wise men Believe in God, but it is socially important perhaps that they behave as if they did. As for hoi polloi, they will function better if – lacking the understanding of the fine distinction between behaving as if they believed, rather than actually believing – they are simply taught by the priest class to Believe, or risk Eternal Damnation…. This is, whatever the indeterminacy of its Truth Content, functionally effective in the sense that such a society has a better chance of survival and prosperity.
4/. Unfortunately, the above can also be applied to genuine scientists. Rational materialism itself is an article of faith whose truth content is indeterminate. Indeed the very existence of an objective world in the sense that we understand it has been challenged time and again from Plato, through Kant and Schopenhauer up to the quantum physicists of the day,. To regard one as existing is functionally effective, and allows us do do science, BUT we have no – can have no – ‘proof’ that such exists in the way we think it does.
5/. The Truth is a social construct is therefore somewhat true. The very nature of what the world is, before we even construct theories about it, as far as we can tell, is malleable to an extent that everyone would, if they accepted its implications fully, find extremely uncomfortable. Even facts are contingent upon interpretation. You kick the stone , it hurts, therefore the stone exists? Pull the other one. Take the red pill, its just an extremely good computer simulation…BUT despite the fact that so many of the Liberal/Left/Neo Marxist persuasion seem to think that ‘The Truth is a Social Construct’ means that the Truth is only a social construct, and that Reality itself may be changed by ‘thinking different’ ….resulting in what is currently recognised as a characteristic of the Left – which we call ‘magic thinking’ Just get enough people to focus on e.g. cheap storage technologies and renewable energy will work simply by willing it to be so…parts of the experienced world stubbornly refuse to conform to the consensus of the current culture…
6/. Truth, therefore matters That is, ‘magic thinking’ is demonstrably as ineffective as its products, like ‘renewable energy’. Whether we have hidden subconscious barriers to having ‘the world conform to our wishes and will’ – which is in fact the definition adopted by Aleister Crowley (“The Worlds Wickedest Man”) for ‘Magick’ – or whether there is in fact an orderly Universe Out There Somewhere that simply refuses to listen to our beliefs, entreaties and demands, and has a Will of its own, is in fact functionally equivalent. That is, you might say that. mutatis mutandis, the statements are in a sense [mathematical] transforms of each other. Whether we define the region of Natural Law outside us or inside of us, is merely semantics, what is functionally important is that there is such a region, there are things we are constrained by other than our own imaginations and desires. (And it is not surprising that children, whose parents have tried to make them aware of these things, then project this parenthood onto a an anthropic representation of these implacable and eternal Forces, and call it ‘God the Father’…but I digress).
And this brings me to the final point that is the encapsulation of all the above.
Both honest attempts to represent the Truth (as an expression of Natural Law beyond Man’s ability to change) , albeit ad hoc, temporary and always subject to refutation (Science) , and Metaphysical conjectures (in the strictest Popperian sense irrefutable not because they are true, but because they can never be shown to be false) theories about what the world is, have the quality of functional effectiveness, and I would cite Galileo as a prime example of where they came into conflict. I take the totally opposite view to most people here, and would support the Church, rather than Galileo. The Church understood, it seems, that a theory is only a theory, it is not Truth. The Geocentrism or Heliocentrism of planetary motions are both ultimately truth indeterminate, and heliocentrism is simply a way of simplifying the mathematics. A formal technique to which they had no objection.
Their main objection was that Galileo – perhaps the first Rational Materialist – claimed Absolute Truth. That was for the Church, a step to far. For socially important reasons it was absolutely essential that the authority of the Church and Papal infallibility not be challenged. And in fact the moral maze we find ourselves in today possibly absolutely justifies their position. In this context Galileo was stupid, selfish, narrow, antisocial and arrogant.
And that is a parable for today as well. What the excellent article has shown that in general less than 10% of the Western World is capable of even beginning to understand science, as it is taught by rational materialists, and I would estimate that less than one percent is capable of understanding and accepting that science itself is not ‘the truth’ either. Merely ‘functionally effective’.
Ergo the field is ripe to misrepresent and simplify it, and to use and especially misuse half baked ideas about science and about what is ultimately philosophy, to construct a narrative that is emotionally appealing to large numbers of not so unintelligent people.
Climate alarmists – and indeed the Left in general – are not stupid. But their overriding characteristic is that they seem not to be as smart as they would like to be, or would like others to see them as. This means they are absolutely 100% ripe for plucking by the Triple B – “bullshit baffles brains” – technique of those who are in the ‘hearts and minds’ power game.
What that boils down to, in my book anyway, is a huge emotional insecurity in the Left. They are second rate minds and deep down they know it. Lacking the ability or the diligence to go back to first principles and works stuff out for themselves they are reduced to operating on received wisdom from ‘experts’ … and that explains their massive emotional investment in things like climate change or eco-politics. At a deep level they realise that they haven’t thought it through, that they might in fact be wrong and far, far worse than that, might be seen to have been extremely foolish in accepting the opinions of others, no matter how much ‘consensus’ they were exposed to. Denialism, in these ones, strong, is…and that’s why they consider that better minds than they are are themselves in denial…because they refuse to accept the ‘consensus’.
And this is where and why it’s at. This class of people are, as Melanie Alta once sang, ‘trying to be the good guys, by singing the good guys in’. Society needs consensus and cohesion irrespective of whether its right or wrong. The example I often state is that it doesn’t matter on which side of the road on which one drives, but it does matter that all who use the road drive on the same side.
However, Truth matters, in the sense that consensus ideologies that are fatally damaging to society and its existential survival, have to be challenged. It seems to me that Climate Alarmism is simply another example of Post modern Neo Marxism, which has replaced Christianity in the West as the primary moral body in charge of telling people How They Ought To Behave. ( And to my mind less effectively than religion ). Up to a point Political Correctness and Cultural Marxism is tolerable and, although just as egregious as Christianity in preserving the elites by befuddling the masses, it has now reached such a degree of ubiquity that its lack of functional effectiveness is becoming apparent. In short whilst having everyone believe the same thing makes for an orderly society, having everyone believe something that is not only demonstrably wrong but dangerously so is a serious issue, if you care about the survival of the quantities of humanity that currently exist.
So ultimately the picture that I draw, for the reasons cited above, is a primal conflict between those who consider that a consensus based on what I would loosely term Cultural Marxism – that is a profound belief that the good of the people is best served by a competent world wide elite who impose a consensus view of reality upon all, for the good of all, irrespective of its arbitrary alleged truth content, because truth is after all simply a ‘cultural construct’, and those who maintain that the consensus view is so radically wrong and worst of all dysfunctional that it threatens humanities interest more than destroying the consensus does.
And that I believe is about as close to a definition of the Liberal Left and the Conservative Right today as I can get.
In a conversation with the sister of a philosophy professor friend of mine, she espoused the view that ‘surely it would be better if the world was run by a single authority that could legislate and arbitrate over all the petty human conflicts’
‘Sure’ I said ‘ but Who Will Bell The Cat? Or, more cogently, which human being do you yourself trust to place such absolute power into the hands of, and know that they will not use it for selfish reasons?
As an engineer, I also understand that system of overall command and control type feedback where a single centralised entity micromanages decisions that reflect down into the details of the system are hopelessly slow to respond to change or hopelessly unstable, due to the long delays between ‘at the coal face’ activities and responses emanating from the central authority. Imagine you, as a car driver constantly being occupied by twiddling levers that adjusted fuel mixture concentrations, spark advance and retard and fuel injection timings as you drove along. Hopelessly distracting and inefficient compared to having localised feedback from an engine management system – be it a mechanical distributor and carburettor or a computerised sensor equipped and mapped one. But neither has the management system the wherewithal to understand where you want to drive the car, how fast or why. Those decisions are at a another level, and you are now free to take.
Perhaps one day we will achieve communism, by handing authority to an incorruptible Artificial, Intelligence.
I just hope no one hacks it…and Who Will Program It?
In conclusion therefore and trying to be as balanced as possible, have tried to express a philosophical point of view that makes sense of the conflict we find ourselves in today, of which Climate Change ™ is perhaps a perfect example. A conflict between those who find themselves in an intellectual and moral vacuum and whose emotional insecurity is satisfied by the absorption and regurgitation of Received Wisdom from appointed or self appointed Experts, justified on the basis that social cohesion is more important than truth, and the few who stand somewhat askance, and whose position is fundamentally ‘the consensus is wrong, but actually that’s not the real issue, the real issue is that the consensus is, in its own terms, wrong enough and dysfunctional enough to be a real danger’.
“Climate Change, the emotional narrative”, is more dangerous to humanity than climate change, the reality of the data variation, ever could be.
And at some level, I acknowledge the functional effectiveness of both points of view. We need a global morality to function as a global society, but sadly Cultural Marxism is not actually a very good narrative. We need to achieve consensus to be able to function politically, but abusing the levers and tools of centralised media and state funded universities to achieve one based on demonstrable untruths, is not the way to proceed.
To a large extent I lay the blame for this with the USA, if blame it can be called. A CEO of a major US company said ‘we (Americans) have no culture, no history, we simply make it up as we go along’ .
This does result in rapid progress, but it also results in huge mistakes that could have been avoided if the lessons of (someone else’s) history had been studied. Conservatism means doing it the way your parents did, because that’s what got you born at all. Cultures and civilizations have died because their ideologies ossified, the world changed and they could not.
My position is of someone who sees the need to change the consensus, but lacks the power to do it except by attempting to promulgate a view – a philosophical view – of why we are where we are, and distinguishing between what is true and what is functionally effective, and what is possibly true but unhelpful, and what is unprovable but helpful, in order that we may collectively begin to define a new consensus more suited for the situations we find ourselves in. A grandiose objective, but the only one I can see is worth actively pursuing.
In short the argument about the truth or otherwise of Global Warming is too direct and in the faces of those whose emotional insecurity made them ‘climate converted’ in the first place. The egotisms, vanity and emotional insecurity of e.g. Michael Mann is not combatted by confrontation. But by ignoring him. You will never ever get him to admit he was wrong. He simply isn’t emotionally secure enough. To admit he was wrong would be to destroy himself and his fragile ego far far more than any amount of e.g. dismissal from his post, or losing any amount of court battles ever could. I was married to someone like that. Diagnosed with severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder. No matter what other people said or did, she was a lone ‘right’ person battling against other people’s ignorance. Not once in 14 years of marriage did she ever admit to being wrong about anything, and only once did the words ‘I’m sorry’ pass her lips. And that was only tactical – she didn’t actually mean it :-).
No the way out of the conundrum is to change the agenda. My position is that we are in a truth indeterminate world. At a fundamentally metaphysical level we haven’t a clue about anything, we just fumble about in a picture of the world that somehow works. That is, our narratives and notions and theories and even our understanding of what the world IS and what constitutes facts and phenomena are simply ways of looking at stuff, that has got us here alive. So we must abandon the search for Truth and concentrate on the eradication of demonstrable lies – and lies are demonstrable, within defined contexts. And, lacking any moral compass – after all what does it matter to the Universe or the Planet whether we survive as a species or not? – we can throw away all Politically Correct Cultural Marxism and Green Morality as the total utter piffle that it is. The only yardstick of moral quality is, must be, whether or not the social morality of the day aids the survival of the culture that embraces it. In short what matters – if anything matters at all, which is a seriously indeterminable question – is not the survival of the planet, but the survival of ourselves and future generations. Think of the children!” And kick a Marxist and a Green in the nuts for Baby Jesus!
Therefore the agenda is not ‘is it morally right to spew CO2 into the atmosphere?’ or ‘is it moral to go against the (manufactured) consensus of society and ‘deny climate change’ ? but “Hey chaps, where is your belief in climate change taking us: Is it a functionally effective place that will help civilisation survive, or is it in fact a self destructive meme that will vanish about as fast as the Cargo Cult”… That is we should, if we want to mitigate the effects of global cultural Marxism not challenge its moral or intellectual precepts but challenge its functional effectiveness in achieving them, wherever possible.
That is., irrespective of the truth content of Climate Change ™, we can examine the functional effectiveness of the policies it prescribes (and indeed proscribes) in terms of achieving it’s own stated objectives. The primary example being renewable energy, which can be shown to be massively expensive with very low EROEI and almost completely ineffective at reducing CO2 emissions compared with e.g. nuclear power.
I do not care really how many coal power stations close, if we have a functionally effective cheap clean and safe nuclear strategy for the future, as I believe that to be achievable whereas renewable strategies all seem redolent of the ‘magic thinking’ described hitherto.
I don’t care how many people ‘believe in climate change’ or ‘believe in Santa Claus’ or espouse political correct cultural Marxism, provided they do not effect policy changes that represent existential threats to the society that gave birth to me, and indeed them.
And that is the problem today. Untrammelled by any sense of Noblesse Obligé today’s elite, built on the robber baron philosophy of ‘grab and hold, and the Devil take the hindmost’ morality of 19th century western imperialism and the like, has perforce run its course. That it has absorbed its greatest enemy – Marxism – into itself and used it as just another tool of mass exploitation and control is a tribute to its low cunning and insatiable lust to control everything. It did the same with Christianity in past times. That’s why we had a Roman Catholic Church, rather than mere Christianity…
But as I made the case earlier, everything cannot be controlled centrally and attempts to build a monolithic communist society essentially run from behind by today’s global capitalists, is doomed to failure. It’s too unwieldy. It is in short not functionally effective at promoting its own survival.
Ergo, it behoves us to point that out. Even if Climate Change™ were True. and attempts to combat it Morally Admirable on the basis that they were functionally effective at reducing atmospheric CO2, the lesser truth remains that they are not so effective. Don’t go after Climate Change™, go after Renewable Energy™, not on basis that climate change isn’t happening or isn’t anthropocentric but that Renewable Energy™ is dysfunctional and does not in the end achieve the aims for which it allegedly exists. Irrespective of Climate Change™, Renewable Energy™ does not work.
Forget trying to convert Michael Mann. It wont happen. Like all Narcissists, being right is far far more important to him than anything else. Without his bumptious self righteousness he is, and deep down he knows he is, nothing more than a third rate intellect, whose only possession of value is a well polished self image. Take that away and you have complete mental collapse because like all narcissists, there is nothing inside, or its been lost along the way.
Talke a tip from the globalists. Don’t try and change the perceptions of the useful idiots. Just bend them to your purpose. Hire new ‘experts’ to tell them that in fact nuclear power will Save The Planet, not because it needs saving, but that a few Terawatts capacity of cheap long lasting energy is what we are going to need to combat all sorts of eventualities that may or may not happen, that we can do nothing to prevent. Don’t question at a profane level the morality of those who seek virtue in political action, merely point out the impossibility of actually achieving their stated political aims, whilst applauding their desire to do so.
“Yes dear, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, but sadly the conversion process between wish and horse is not within our current grasp, but I can get you a job mucking out the stables if you want…”
At the esoteric level of metaphysics, we need to develop a view as to what we really mean by morality, virtue, reality, truth, science and so on. Because what we have to day is a hodge podge of illiterate mumbo jumbo derived from false premises by the likes of Sartre, Marx and Hegel, but because its ‘post modern’ and ‘progressive’ and makes them feel smart, the useful idiots of the left have done the Bandar Log on it and inside the echo chambers of their urban hipster ‘Cold Lairs’ they have taken up their stick0s and are busy shouting
WE ALL SAY IT, SO IT MUST BE TRUE
To which, if you need to reply at all, there is only one philosophically sound response
BOLLOCKS
Brilliant, and unfortunately true.
The death knell of personal transport may well be the electric car, they are unsustainable from many points of view, and as for being green…. The latest advertising of Hybrids as “self charging electric vehicles” and “plug in hybrids” both try to cover up their uselessness as proper transport. The electricity grid will fail and then where will we be, back in a third world broken country with little chance of recovery.
If someone believes in global warming and renewable energy as the solution simply ask them if they are willing to have smart meter installed and volunteer to be the first in line to have their electricity turned off when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow! Carry a note card with the statement “I volunteer to be first in line to lose my electricity when brownouts or blackouts occur because renewable sources fail.” Take them to a Post Office or bank, have it notarized and tell them you will be sending a letter to the power company tomorrow volunteering them!
Jim, “smart meters” cannot shut your electricity off.
.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meters
“smart meters” cannot shut your electricity off.
yet….
from your wiki ref: “Some groups have expressed concerns regarding the cost, health, fire risk,[36] security and privacy effects of smart meters[106] and the remote controllable “kill switch” that is included with most of them.”
It would seem that (at least some) smart meters CAN shut your electricity off. If you are automating to conserve labor costs, remote service enable/disable functions should be high on your feature list.
John C,
So the meter will remote control itself???
Krispy,
if a command comes in to shut off power, and the meter does, then:
1) the meter does not “control itself” in the sense that it independently decides to cut off power and
2) it cut off the power.
Does it matter if the decision is made in the meter or by a computer in the local power company or by a person in the company’s office? Not to the customer, his power is still cut off. Besides, most smart meter designs have enough processing power that a software patch (or hack) could add an autonomous kill command supposing that the kill switch is installed.
I see smart meters as a major national security threat. One of the most urgent move for the Western countries is to forbid those.
Also, forbid any move to demand management.
Also, forbid the inherently contradicting, inexistant “renewable energy” concept. It doesn’t exist, cannot exist, unless you speak of bathing in the sun.
If there were smart consumers wouldn’t need smart meters.
Leo Smith, the best thing I have read in a very long time. It deserves a more permanent place. This would make an excellent “Ted Talk”, an eclectic forum of ideas. You are quite right, something that works is is all we can hope for and it is basically wasted effort to push for more. We proved ourselves quite viable a million years ago when truth was what worked. Something in us moved us to try to understand the world and it served us well. Smelting copper, bronze, iron gave us better, longer, productive lives even though we were superstitious, spiritual and full of wrong ideas. Things that work and things that work better than other things, pragnatism works even when paganism rules.
Elitist totalitarians today make it easy for one looking at choices because they make no bones about what plans they have for me. They havent even thought out how they are going to go about governing. Trump won because masses of relatively simple folk were already halfway along the road to hell on earth. But, yeah attack the stuff that wont work.
Interesting essay. The problem is, you are seeing science through politics, rather than science itself. You can’t judge its merit if you can’t leave your own bias behind. It doesn’t matter how you feel about liberals, renewable energy, communism, etc. All that is immaterial when it comes to physics and math and biology and chemistry.
I believe this is the single biggest mistake many skeptics make: they can’t separate policy and politics from the science. The same can be said for a lot of alarmists who don’t understand and can’t evaluate the science – they are just going along with what the media, their friends, professors, etc. tell them because it’s part of being a liberal. It’s seeing science through politics.
However, the consensus does mean something. It’s not alarmism or CAGW. It is not “manufactured.” The vast majority of scientists who publish peer-reviewed papers about climate change agree that at least half of it is anthropogenic. That is significant. It doesn’t just happen; it’s not because of politics or greed or ego or petty animosity or groupthink. Forget about Mann and Jones. Stop assuming they are representative of all scientists. There is a reason they were hacked, and not some state university lab. There are all kinds of nerdy scientists out there with plenty of integrity who are simply putting in their piece of the great puzzle, debating each other, and practicing true scientific skepticism. That’s how the scientific mind works. It thinks of alternatives and what ifs…?
There are also contrarian scientists who lack integrity, have political or economic motives, and don’t write quality climate science papers.
You can’t change the consensus. You aren’t even a scientist.
Science is the offspring of philosophy – as you know, scientists were for centuries called natural philosophers. The methodology developed and made it into a separate field, but there is still a philosophy of science, and this is what shapes the way scientists are trained to think; many of them do it by nature, which is why they entered the field in the first place. Like philosophers, they are driven to find the Truth – but in science, it’s the process that counts; “truth” is not even allowed, which is why no good scientists will ever say they’ve proved something. Science must always leave the door open for a new or more refined version of Truth.
Leo, leave the politics behind if you want to evaluate the science. Renewables, liberals, Marxists…they are all irrelevant.
And stop making foolish, insulting assumptions and generalizations about people and their ideas and motives. It’s not rational.
Renewable isn’t just a bad product. It’s inherently a con. You can’t pay for renewable. Renewable means free. By definition.
A possible definition of renewable: no acceleration of natural depletion. For example, the Sun power. That’s power from the Sun. Not power obtained by the system that crucially depends on the Sun output to function.
Fusion in the Sun is free. What you have to pay for is the part that is not renewable.
For some time I have been trying to produce a simple book to explain the Climate Change scene and have manifestly failed due to this problem of the perceived understanding of words across a dialogue. I start off with the lesser mortal in mind couching my phrases to elicit curiosity. However this quickly degenerates into often trite comments which are anathema to the factual situation requiring complexity of explanation by way of incomprehensible words to many; hence leading to an incipient glazing of the eyes.
To me this remains an intractable problem and has led to me to avoid discussion of the subject with many of my family and friends; as it can easily degenerate from discussion to argument.
Meanwhile I am on my fourth attempt with the prospect of failure again looming large.
A fascinating subject but now so politicised that it has been rendered almost unavailable for mutual consideration in purely scientific terms.
Just write about the use and abuse of language with Climate Change as the allegorical theme. No one will know the difference and it will be a winner in terms of defining the “scene”.
The entire zeitgeist can be explained in two words denotation versus connotation! 😉
I’ve read through the bulk of the comments here, and the one thing that seems to be missing overall is that the less-informed people, to whom I frequently refer as Warmians or Greenbeans, are those with no spiritual guidance of any kind at all.
I’ve been asked by two different people how to address family members who are in that left-leaning demographic, because they cannot communicate with them at all. One says he is “losing’ his son to AGW, that the teen goes around mumbling to himself, and the other tells me his sister runs out of the room and sometimes slams the door and screams at him.
What you’re not taking into account is that the less-informed people who act like this, who go into tantrums or literally block their ears so as to not have to listen to sacrilege are converts to a New Religion. All of the scurrilous and derogatory remarks toward people who disagree with the whole AGW business are the same things you’ll get from someone who “believes in” whatever deity is current. The entire schtick is based on “witnessing” in the form of charts and graphs, even if they are full of false data. And then there are those begging letters, too – give me all your worldly goods and follow me.
This Climate Scientology is the New Religion, run by leftists and Marxists, to weaken the rest of the population. I don’t see a lot of difference between this a Ron Hubbatf’d Scientology religion, or any of the other frauds that have been foisted on people for centuries in the name of controlling their minds, lives and pocketbooks.
You can argue the real facts all you want to, but you are talking to bricks whose need for some sort of belief system is being filled by Climate Scientology, and you are all Bad People because you are Deniers, you deny what the Gods of Climate Scientology have told them.
Unfortunately, trying to change the minds of these converts to this New Religion, which is bolstered by incipient Marxism at its core, is and will continue to be, next to impossible. They would be ecstatic if they saw something like an Apotheosis. Reality does not work for them, because the part of the brain that requires some sort of spiritual belief fulfillment is satisfied with the appearances of their Gods (Michael Mann, Hansen, Bill Nye, whoever spouts the lingo) and they will flock to those people before they will ever listen to anything you have to say.
Why? Because you are an Apostate!!! You are, therefore, as a Denier, as a non-Believer, anathema to them. Untouchable. Unclean. Undesirable.
If you think i’m kidding, ask one of these converts how often they go to Church, or attend any kind of group gathering other than those that are climate-related. Ask them what their spiritual beliefs are. I’m willing to bet that many would respond with some hazy response about Gaia and/or Mother Earth.
This is all simply my opinion, nothing else, but the whole thing bears all the hallmarks of religious proselytizing and conversion. It’s the reason you can’t get anywhere with them.
Whilst I agree (see my longer post) that Leftist s ideology has filled a vacuum left by the abandonment of traditional religion, do feel that traditional religion has only itself to blame. It has utterly failed to come up with a justification for its won existence which in fact I have. Although I am probably an agnostic verging on atheism, insofar as trad. religion goes.
The triumph of Marxism is to take God out of morality, which wasn’t needed, whereas morality is something nearly everyone needs.
What they don’t need is the cockamamie hodge podge of political correctness and wimpy humanism that is sold as morality by the PC brigade.
And this is the facile doublethink inherent in Marxist and post Marxist thought. A true dialectical materialist ought to argue that there is no ‘ought to’ anything,. The universe is completely unconcerned whatever you do, There is no God to judge your behaviour, so anything goes as long as you personally are prepared to accept the consequences of it. As long as you can get away with it why not become a serial murderer, rapist or paedophile if it makes you feel good?
And indeed there are those especially in the fringes of the LBGT movement who argue along similar lines.
Basically saying – and watch carefully here – that there should be no moral strictures applied except to those who seek to apply moral strictures!
Ho hum. Double think in these one, strong is!
Sara
I don’t know if I agree with you,
because I don’t understand you.
I only got me two college degrees,
and you must have more, maybe
even a PhD, to do that there
highfalutin writing?
As a lifelong atheist,
and a coming climate
catastrophe skeptic
starting about one hour
after I began reading
about climate science in 1997,
I see great similarities between
conventional religions and
the climate change secular religion:
Conventional Religion Leader:
“Do as I say, or you will go to hell”.
Climate Change “Religion” Leader:
“Do as I say, or Earth will turn into hell”.
So, to this atheist, the only difference
is whether or not going to hell
will require transportation.
It’s all BS to me, from people seeking
power over others, by scaring them
with a false boogeyman.
I suppose now I have 99%
of the people on Earth mad at me
for trashing EVERY RELIGION,
except my “own”,
which is to just attempt to follow
12 Rules of Thumb,
which I read every morning
just before my first argument
with the wife***:
My 12 Rules of Thumb
LIFE:
(1) The Golden Rule
(2) Who said life was fair?
(3) Don’t talk with a full mouth,
or an empty head.
(4) When in doubt,
tell the truth.
(5) If you wouldn’t write it,
and sign it,
then don’t say it.
(6) Character is what you do
when no one is watching.
(7) A wise man changes his mind;
a fool, never.
(8) Don’t believe predictions,
of the future.
WORK:
(9) Perfection is the enemy,
of getting a job done on time.
(10) Think twice, act once —
— measure twice, cut once.
(11) Without data,
all you have
is an opinion.
(12) If it was fun,
they wouldn’t have
to pay you
to do it.
** That was a joke.
Please buy a sense of humor
if you didn’t laugh.
.
.
My climate change blog,
with over 24,000 page views:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Sara: ‘the teen goes round mumbling to himself, and the other tells me his sister runs out of the room and sometimes slams the door and screams at him’.
Sara, this is known as ‘normal teenage behaviour’. They should grow out of it in a few years.
While the graph shows US students lack good scientific knowledge, I wonder what percentage of students across the world believe in the global warming scare. I suspect most of the European kids do.
“characterized by the view that scientific knowledge is the only kind of factual knowledge and that all traditional metaphysical doctrines are to be rejected as meaningless.”
“There is no more common error than to assume that because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.”
Dr. Ball, the two statements are not contradictory. They are contradictory if you assume:
scientific knowledge = mathematical calculation
But science is not math. Math is the language of physics. English is the language of Romeo & Juliet. But you can write a grammatically correct English story where Romeo & Juliet lived happily ever after. You can write a 10-dimensional string theory. The equations are mathematically correct but scientifically wrong if our universe is 4-dimensional.
Logical positivism – really just Aristotle airbrushed. Leibniz’s comment on this is yes, everything we experience ist filtered via unreliable senses, except Reason itself”. It is clear that evades Kan’t (can’t do it) Critique, yet is dismissed as metaphysics.
As for Lord Bertrand Russell, he dissented from Sufficient Reason ushering the in the irrationality of Niels Bohr. And Russells IASA (Institute of Systems Analysis) likes to do such analysis, yet who decided they are the components? Where is the GCR?
After all Russell in 1890’s decided the science was settled, a matter now of decimals, just before Planck turned the entire ediface inside out. Goedel did it again just to be sure to be sure. It is incredible that Russell’s shade still lurches around.
I know it sounds contemptuous, aloof, snobbish, superior, holier-than-thou etc etc etc BUT
Consider them as drunks.
Then, follow my lead if you like (maybe not) take on tee-totalism AND as the stone-cold & sober bore you’ve become, continue visiting places where you will find drunks.
You will notice and learn soooooo very much about human behaviour – especially that the drunks are simultaneously frightened yet fascinated by you. They notice. They see more than you think.
Be yourself.
DO NOT ATTEMPT *any* sort of subterfuge
They will come to you and talk.
Learn how to engage with them, all the time remembering that ‘The Human Animal Cannot Lie’
Then take that into your climate discussions.
And those with your wife’s lawyer, but by the time a lawyer is engaged, its maybe just ‘a bit too late’
yes, plummeting birth rates are involved in this mix – unreasonable/unarguable beliefs (& behaviours) in climate change is still ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ and hence, grounds for divorce.
Reminds me of my introduction to paints. The pigment is the white stuff, titanium dioxide usually. The colouring agent is the tinter. Why?
“Science” makes everything credible to the superficial. Its hard to get them to understand that its a method by which you discover what is credible and what is incredible, literally.
Good luck.
I debated in high school and college, and this is why the very first step is definition of terms. Even then it didn’t keep things 100% on track, but it would have immediately devolved into chaos without that step, no doubt.