Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

H-m-m-m. I notice that the points raised in those posts are ignored, and your response focuses solely on your cleverness at getting us to respond in the first place. You are your own world: a narcissistic masterpiece. Congratulations on exceeding expectations.

H-m-m-m. You simply waved the MIT professor off with a curt, "This one works for Big Oil." The other poster simply deemed me as one who is incapable of both reading and thinking. Narcissism indeed. Congratulations on exceeding expectations.

Originally Posted by zilch

As April's temperatures plummet amid rare snow squalls, the issue of Global Warming is rising to new highs around these parts of fly-over country. People here are of the opinion that were it not for Global Warming there would ice engulfing our greening trees rather than merely snow.

There is little doubt that this spring's deep freeze is contributing to the growing consensus among scientists and political experts. Once July's heatwave begins to scorch mother Earth, this consensus will probably reach a boiling point. It remains to be seen whether America has that much time left in order to reverse the effects of Global Warming, but I guess we'll find out in the next couple of months.

Stay tuned...

If ignorance is bliss you must be one happy camper. I envy your ability to shut down the critical thinking portion of your neocortex. Must be nice.

Originally Posted by zilch

The other poster simply deemed me as one who is incapable of both reading and thinking.

I never said you were incapable of reading or thinking. I said you did not read (what I wrote before). I said you do not think (about the issue) prefering to respond emotionally.

Originally Posted by zilch

H-m-m-m. You simply waved the MIT professor off with a curt, "This one works for Big Oil." The other poster simply deemed me as one who is incapable of both reading and thinking. Narcissism indeed. Congratulations on exceeding expectations.

Scientific contrarians are not always wrong ... just usually. In this case, the contrarians are, surprise, surprise, all employed by energy producing and using companies. It doesn't make them wrong, but it argues for deep scepticism.

Now, to deal with all those credentials. Einstein was wrong about quantum theory, and he certainly had impeccable credentials. Credentials may argue for someone to be taken seriously, but it doesn't make them right. I take Lindzen seriously. Happy?

Now that that is settled, you need to deal with my argument, based as it is on an unbiased assumption of the correctness of global warming theory. You know, the argument you've ignored on every post where it's raised.

"Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies."

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Scientific contrarians are not always wrong ... just usually. In this case, the contrarians are, surprise, surprise, all employed by energy producing and using companies.

Hmm, boy, I didn't know that. Alexander sez I always react emotionally... how does one react to this kind of abject disregard for the facts? Well, I can only shake my tush and chuckle, because, as you have demonstrated here as usual, any evidence suggesting Lindzen or "all" his fellow "contrarians" do not not work for or get funding from Big Oil, will be met with...

... a mere shrug.

Originally Posted by zilch

"Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies."

Hmm, boy, I didn't know that. Alexander sez I always react emotionally... how does one react to this kind of abject disregard for the facts? Well, I can only shake my tush and chuckle, because, as you have demonstrated here as usual, any evidence suggesting Lindzen or "all" his fellow "contrarians" do not not work for or get funding from Big Oil, will be met with...

... a mere shrug.

Nice quote; no source. Here's a rebuttal. Source and discussion included. Now go away ... unless you're ready to address my comments. I've done as much with yours as I intend to.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Nice quote; no source.

I already posted it, today.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Now go away ...

I think it safe to say "diversity" is dead. The new liberal buzzword is "consensus" and it's purpose is to silence dissent.

Liberal. Schliberal. What a load of crap.

Originally Posted by zilch

I already posted it, today.


I think it safe to say "diversity" is dead. The new liberal buzzword is "consensus" and it's purpose is to silence dissent.

Liberal. Schliberal. What a load of crap.

Remember Mr. Lamb, this "consensus" might be a reaction to a "Crisis" which might lead to a "Fourth Turning." (See The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe).

Circle (or load) the consensus wagons while ye may.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

No, he is asserting that he doesn't want to do anything about it. Zilch lives in Ohio, even if both polar icecaps melt the ocean ain't going to flood Ohio. Other than that his winters will get milder and the summer somewhat hotter. People live in Alabama, so if Ohio becomes like Alabama is now so what?

So global agricultural production will collapse, that's what. Unless Mr. Lamb has a farm capable of feeding his family even under drought conditions, he is simply refusing to act on his own beliefs.

Now, if he has in fact made such preparations, then bully for him -- he's putting his money where his mouth is, and that's all I'm asking for.

Originally Posted by zilch

Judging from the last couple of posts, it looks like I called that shot pretty accurately. It was by no means a tough call, mind ya, it happens everytime anybody questions a liberal point of view.

Riiight. Because calling Marc Lamb an idiot is the moral equivalent of slaughtering millions.

"They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Copernicus. But they also laughed at Bozo The Clown."

- Carl Sagan

My question regarding global warming is this: Is it more important to declare fealty to the dogma of global warming or is it more important to believe that we should not pollute the air and water because we breathe and drink those two parts of our environment?
The rabid, angry reactions that I read and hear to those who say that they do not believe wholeheartedly in the Church Of Global Warming make me suspicious of it as a belief system.
Also, anytime that there is so much potential political power and control to be gained,let alone money (taxes and fees and regulations and licensing, and, oh, on and on and on), I get very suspicious. (Hey mister, wanna buy some carbon credits?)
For a long time now I have favored drastic reductions in pollution, energy independence (as much as is really possible), energy efficiency, oh, in general the whole nine yards. But increasingly I believe that that part of my politics would be seen as irrelevant if I dared proclaim that I think that a great deal of the current Global Warming orgy is politically manipulative crap which is being pushed by various factions who hope to gain control over society so that they can indulge their dreams of having power over other people.
So, which is it? Is the main thing pledging allegiance to the Doctrine which may not be questioned, or is it more important to actually wish to do things to cut pollution and reduce energy waste?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

What aspects of the now discredited theories of phlogiston, phrenology or lysenkoism made any of them prime motivators of change? They portended no risk ... real or imagined. In turn, they offered no rewards. They were vessels for philosophical thought of the techne sort.

I might have spent a pleasant afternoon in earnest discussion of phlogiston, while smoking my pipe and drinking a fine ale; none the wiser for the effort. I would never have recommended a large conflagration as a test of the theory, though I might have felt the bumps on my head.

How quickly has the Phlogiston Shortage of the Eighteenth Century Eurasians been forgotten. Your pipe would soon cease to smolder and all you would draw is Sot-Weed bile. Barley malting would cease and the fineness of your tankard would turn to small beer indeed as combustion became a rarity.

The Crisis Most Chemical is covered in Mr. Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions... (about a third of the way through in my un-indexed copy). The replacement with oxygen by the hand of Providence in the nick of time allowed pipes to again glow, grains to malt, teas to warm, coffees to be brewed. How could have the coal-fired Industrial Progress have even been made possible if the substitution of oxygen for phlogiston had not been accomplished! This was even more important than the replacement of cetacean oils with Pennsylvania Crude.


Then phrenology was enlisted to make the world safer for the Western Eurasians who were imperilled by various fuzzy-wuzzys and the Yellow Peril in Eastern Eurasia. This implementation of socketology and bumpotany along with its sister science of skull dimensional geometrics gave comfort and aid when the rulers met the ruled. No longer need "might make right" when Science could endorse the policy of the betters upon the less. No rewards??-- the Celestials were given the soporifics and the pipe to smoke them in, the Hottentot was disallowed from his diamonds and his gold, the First Nations were Sheridanized in Our Commercial Republic and a great deal of money flowed from their addiction, their dispossession, their funeraries. Was this the equal of an armed robbery? No! It was the allotmental reform of the resources of Our Fair Planet to those whose dents and protuberances made them more worthy of the wealth on Terra. It was on the size of their skulls (and then shape when the lower orders managed to have even larger cranial containers than their betters) that true justice and lucre was meted.

Lysenkoism, the latest and most Progressive, came to the aid of those who hungered under "Liberalism in a Hurry" in North Central Eurasia. It promised a constantly varying prescription for the lack of food from the heirs of the newly un-kulaked children of the soil. People hungered for solutions, Lysenko provided something of the like. He gave Scientific Socialist instruction rather than the wicked genetics of the Ruling Class of Capitalism. Hunger remained, but new instructs were at hand. And hunger was still with the North Central Eurasians, and more directions for its ease came from Lysenko.

He had the model just as the phrenologist and the phlogistonographer had had before him. He was rewarded as the phrenologist and the phlogistonographer had been before; and the hungry went away though hunger itself remained-- as had the Children of Men with more the unfortunate physiognomies ("That Man" sent my late father to Eurasia to confront some of the last and most steadfast believers in the phrenological dimensions of worth) were put away in the name of a Science even as the dips of virtue and the bumps of Progress were found only in the tormenters.

They offered great risk... a world without fire, a world overrun by the lower orders, a world without the staff of life. Rewards came down upon the men of science like a shower of gold (real and metaphoric) as they gave explanation and exemption to the practitioners of the Politic portion of Political Science.


_____

We are again offered a model. As the Great Central Eurasian Progressive Moral Philosopher asked: Who? Whom?

Who will be rewarded*? To whom will come little but injury (Progressive hurt {and even plausibly unintentioned pains} to be sure, but injury none the less.)?


_____

*As Providence has given me an oxygenated environment, a large hat-size, and bourgeoise genetically endowed small grains and Bovine-Americans here North of the Mesabi, I may be speaking for the Old Order and not the Progressive World in the Model.

Here it comes again, THE concert to rally, to bond, to form a consensus.
Will it work on the 3T/4T cusp? Or is this how we circle the wagons in the twenty-first century? Are Boomers going to lead from the concert venue?


7/07/07
http://www.liveearth.org/

Originally Posted by The Rani

Maybe I'm dumb or something, but I thought that climate changes happened in cycles too. Isn't that how we got the Ice Ages?

Anyway, I sure don't like to see seals and polar bears drowning, but I also don't like to see veal calves in crates. So I can't get too excited about the whole global warming thing. It's just one of many atrocities that our species imposes on the rest of the planet. Probably because I have no kids, and couldn't care less if we all go extinct after I'm dead.

There are various cycles that influence over all warming. Mike did a pretty good summary post that covers sunspot cycles.

As you mentioned, there is a longer term set of cycles related to the angle of the Earth's axis. Do you remember your toy gyroscope wobbling as it slowed down? The Earth does much the same thing, though being bigger and slower, the wobbles are much more long term. These are the Milankovitch cycles. For much of Earth's history the Milankovitch cycles weren't important, but right now the south pole has a land mass sitting on it, while the north pole is surrounded by continents. This makes polar ice possible, while better water circulation at the poles made ice caps impossible over much of Earth's history. No ice caps, no ice ages. Right now, the continents are configured in a fairly rare configuration that allows a climate that could only be described as cool from a very long term perspective.

But the Milankovitch cycles are so slow relative to human history that they do not play a major role in the current debate.

So, yes, there are any number of natural effects that cause temperature variations. At this point, the debate isn't about whether we are warming, it is about how much of the warming is man made, and how catastrophic such warming could be. You end up with curves like this one...



... which plot known natural causes of temperature change against actual measured temperatures. It is assumed that the difference between the computer model of the natural causes and the actual measured causes would be the the man made causes.

The question is how good the various models are. Global warming advocates assume that the models are pretty good. The skeptics assume that there is some flaw in the model that might account for the difference. The reason the scientific consensus favors the global warming advocates is because the warming advocates have theories and models which match the measured reality, where the skeptics at this point are just expressing doubts that there might possibly be something else causing the discrepancy. The scientists warning of warming are just publishing models that better match measured reality than the skeptics. The skeptics have not been able to produce a model which matches reality.

The current question is the cooling that occurred from the 1950s through 1970s. A skeptic might assert that because that cooling period is not well explained by the computer models, the models must be flawed, and can be safely ignored. The warming warner might be working to show increased Third World factory building in that era released more soot to increase global dimming in relationship to greenhouse gasses which increase global warming. Their new models might more carefully account for both soot and greenhouse effects, which might account for that difference between the model and the reality. Once that is done, the skeptics will find some other difference between model and reality, and insist again that the theory isn't good enough yet.

And are apt to continue to do so as long as someone is willing to pay them to do it.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Of course, maybe you don't care about any of this at all, and you're just causing trouble as usual ...

Now there is a theory that everyone might agree on. Certainly, the model matches observed reality.

Originally Posted by mandelbrot5

My question regarding global warming is this: Is it more important to declare fealty to the dogma of global warming or is it more important to believe that we should not pollute the air and water because we breathe and drink those two parts of our environment?

I think if we deal with the second question, it will be a very good thing in and of itself.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Anyway, I sure don't like to see seals and polar bears drowning, but I also don't like to see veal calves in crates. So I can't get too excited about the whole global warming thing. It's just one of many atrocities that our species imposes on the rest of the planet.

Why is it that, when humans kill animals by the millions, it's a perversion of nature, whereas when animals kill animals by the millions, it's an expression of nature?

Originally Posted by zilch

Alexander sez I always react emotionally... how does one react to this kind of abject disregard for the facts?

By not taking you seriously most of the time

Originally Posted by The Rani

But Marc, serious question, does the idea of your kids, or even great-grandkids, starving to death someday bother you at all?

Could I call myself a conservative if I did care? No, we cons, paleo, present and neo, care only for the past. You know, the earth is flat and all that crap. Now, this man-made global warming thingy has us all wrapped up, neatly in a box. Yes, it seems the MIRACLE OF SCIENCE is once again gonna leave us conservatives on the ash heap of history.

Salvation, and man's ability to overcome even the climate, is now firmly in the mighty scientific hands of the chosen ones, the Democrats. Only they can save my kids and grandkids from starvation and death.

Vote for life, vote Democrat! Save for the yet unborn fetus, of course. It has no future anyhow, so kill it.

Originally Posted by mandelbrot5

My question regarding global warming is this: Is it more important to declare fealty to the dogma of global warming or is it more important to believe that we should not pollute the air and water because we breathe and drink those two parts of our environment?
The rabid, angry reactions that I read and hear to those who say that they do not believe wholeheartedly in the Church Of Global Warming make me suspicious of it as a belief system.

Also, anytime that there is so much potential political power and control to be gained,let alone money (taxes and fees and regulations and licensing, and, oh, on and on and on), I get very suspicious. (Hey mister, wanna buy some carbon credits?)

For a long time now I have favored drastic reductions in pollution, energy independence (as much as is really possible), energy efficiency, oh, in general the whole nine yards. But increasingly I believe that that part of my politics would be seen as irrelevant if I dared proclaim that I think that a great deal of the current Global Warming orgy is politically manipulative crap which is being pushed by various factions who hope to gain control over society so that they can indulge their dreams of having power over other people.

So, which is it? Is the main thing pledging allegiance to the Doctrine which may not be questioned, or is it more important to actually wish to do things to cut pollution and reduce energy waste?

I hope you aren't looking for a single simple motivation that applies to everyone. Those associated with major industry are going to be biased towards findings that allow continued profits. Academics might be biased towards finding drastic and important stuff that will attract ongoing grants and sources for research papers. All expenses paid trips all over the world to do research can keep one fed and doing interesting stuff. Not a lot of people are clearly 'pure.'

One issue is the stakes. There have been a whole bunch of major extinctions. The last big one, that finished the dinosaurs, has been pretty well linked to a meteor strike. There is a world wide layer of dust, a major marker in the fossil record, containing an element seen primarily in space rocks.

There is another layer, deeper down in the rocks, further back in time, that is more controversial. There is a layer in the fossil record that reeks, literally, of sulfur dioxide, the 'rotten egg' stinker of a gas. There is an alleged sulfur dioxide extinction may have resulted from a global warming event. If the seas get warm enough, a whole lot of sulfur dioxide gas currently trapped at the sea bottom could release into the atmosphere and create a repeat of the sulfur dioxide great extinction.

We are already starting to melt the Canadian and Siberian tundra, which will result in a major methane release. There are some that say a combination of human industrial greenhouse gasses and tundra methane releases could get us into the same sort of climate that triggered the sulfur dioxide release.

But is the science solid? Given the size of the wager, how much do you want to stack the odds in favor of avoiding a great extinction? How big of a stink should really be created?

Me, I can look at the more ordinary S&H crises of the last several centuries and see conservatives quite able to deny the need for change. The establishment is quite capable of denying the sentience and equality of black people, or murdering millions of Jews based on myths of their own creation. If the status quo is a source of power and wealth, I fully expect conservatives to deny the importance of anything that threatens the status quo. Humans can make themselves deliberately blind if it is in their short term interests to be blind.

Anyway, I keep posting Mike's chart...



The gist is that from 1600 and 1925, the model and the measured reality stick pretty well together, and stay pretty well within a .6 degree window, excepting a few noise spikes. Since that time, in less than a century, we are entirely out of that window, and the model disagrees with the measured reality by another .6 degrees. The apparent man made signal is larger than the combined natural signals, and yet the existence of the man made component is still being denied.

How blind does one want to be?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Anyway, I keep posting Mike's chart...



How blind does one want to be?

Assuming the chart is accurate, what does this little blip in the earth's millions-plus years lifetime tell us?

Absolutely nothing.

Nay, how gullible does one have be to think it tells us anything, save a convenient plug for the next populist politician ready and willing to feed heartily upon ordinary folk's ignorance?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Do you pracice the Big Lie as an art form, or are you just oblivious? That's a serious question.

He makes political campaign commercials for a living. Does that answer your question?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Yeah, what the hell, I'm talking about ice ages and he comes up with a graph dating only back to 1600. So what.

I think Marc's point is that nobody really cares about this issue except for how it relates to politics. Or pretends to care, maybe?

Hey, welcome back!

Originally Posted by The Rani

Yeah, what the hell, I'm talking about ice ages and he comes up with a graph dating only back to 1600. So what.

If you want to dig into ice ages, you might start with the Wiki article on Milankovich Cycles. There are several such cycles, running at periods from 19,000 years to 400,000 years. As human meddling with climate only has a few hundred years of history, any human effects are very brief relative to the long term charts required to show Milankovich progressions. For all practical sakes and purposes, over the period of human industrial development, the Milankovich progressions are changing so slowly that they have no significant effect on the models.

I'll pull one of several charts out of the Wiki article, raw data extracted from ice cores. Note the red curve is the temperature. It is fairly easy to see a repeating pattern roughly every 100,000 years. The total temperature swing over the recent glacial period is ten degrees. The unaccounted for temperature difference currently attributed to human warming is about 0.6 degrees.



The Wiki article has some longer term charts. Note the time axes are often labeled in k years, thousand year increments. Did I mention that the Milankovitch cycles are slooooow?

Originally Posted by The Rani

I think Marc's point is that nobody really cares about this issue except for how it relates to politics. Or pretends to care, maybe?

Marc apparently cares little about the issue, except for how it relates to politics. While he is a self proclaimed expert at how all liberals think, some of us disagree with his claim.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Hi everyone! Whassup?

Welcome back, Your Hotness.

Originally Posted by zilch

Assuming the chart is accurate, what does this little blip in the earth's millions-plus years lifetime tell us?

It tells us that the recent warming is not due to solar factors.

I don't see the relevance of the age of the Earth wrt warming that is going on now. What may have caused warming in the past may be interesting from pure knowledge viewpoint, but climate changes that happened long in the past aren't going to affect my kids and grandkids. Climate changes going on now might well affect them.