Originally Posted by The Rani

This right here is the difference between you and me. I refer to what I see as the truth as "what I believe," while you refer to what you see as the truth as "Truth."

I believe the purpose of science is to understand how the universe works. "Political Science" is among many so called sciences which remain absurdly soft. There are very few theories, such as S&Hs, that make vaguely testable hypotheses. One could argue that Marx's predictions about the inevitable progression of human government through certain phases ending in peace, harmony and anarchy has been proven False. (Capital F deliberate.) Liberal Democracy has been shown under the conditions of recent centuries, to be more competitive than other systems in a Darwinistic sense. Still, notions at the core of modern democracy such as God granting man certain unalienable rights are not provable hypothesis. They are convenient hypothesis. I will honor those who accept them as such assumptions are in my opinion a large part of why liberal democracies have proven empirically robust. Still, you can't establish through any means other than faith whether God's role in mandating rights is objectively true or not. Thus, I perceive that the nature of Newton's laws of motion are very different from the nature of laws passed by Congress. Newton's laws remain True, at least until one crawls up to relativistic speeds, or down to quantum level dimensions. Anything Congress does might well be undone the following year.

Thus, I distinguish between those who respect scientific research and those who honor it only when convenient. We have a peer reviewed process which has produced models accurate to within .1 degrees of the expected noise deviation. That accurate and peer reviewed model includes a .6 degree factor attributed to greenhouse gases. That mechanism is both measured in the real world and echoed experimentally in the laboratory.

I am open to other explanations for that .6 degree signature. I have responded to every attempt to claim another cause, no matter how inept and clumsy, no matter how ignorant or biased the skeptic. I am still open to further attempts of skeptics to hypothesize the existence of another mechanism which just happens to be an exact match for the modeled, observed and peer reviewed effects of greenhouse gas warming.

I am not going to give significant weight to those who cannot even hypothesize or propose the basic nature of a viable candidate mechanism that might duplicate the peer reviewed, modeled and measured established dominant theory. The .6 degree effect we are observing is simply 500% larger than the .1 degree divergence between peer reviewed model and measured reality.

Thus, I will continue to use my free speech right, allegedly granted by God, to capitalize the 'T' in 'Truth' on occasion. Propose a mechanism with something even vaguely resembling the right signature, and I'll drop to lower case. Until then, I am in your face.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Now which one of us is open-minded, and which one is Hitler?

Neither of us are Hitler. Hitler would have been hanged for war crimes. Unless there is something you aren't telling us, neither of us are apt to be hanged for war crimes. I might suggest that Hitler embraced scientific Truth, accepting and using science and technology freely and effectively, but lived in a political fantasy land. His political impressions of how the world worked were false, which doomed him and his country. The political theory of fascism has many false premises which do not at all reflect the way the real world works. Fascism seems not to have been cost effective in a Darwinian sense over the last few centuries.

However, I don't see that broad generalization making Hitler even vaguely similar to either you or me. Neither of us are practicing fascists. For either of us to call the other a fascist is a deliberate slander. While the 14 Points of Fascism does show elements of similarity between the classic fascist state the neo-con Rove brand of modern politics, I have never been a fan of the debate style where one faction calls the other fascist, while the other side responds with accusations of communist.

I distinguish between autocratic and democratic government. I believe the autocratic / democratic dialectic much more basic and fundamental than the communist / fascist distinction. The C/F distinction simply does not apply to us, as we are neither. I would prefer to criticize the current administration for not honoring basic human rights and attempting to bypass the checks and balances required for a healthy multi party democracy rather than compare them with various flavors of autocratic regimes. Yes, said old regimes also ignored the same rights, checks and balances, but let's put the emphasis on the importance of the rights, checks and balances rather than on the dead and gone old regimes.

To me, the distinction between fascist and communist is superficial and shallow. They are both pitiful attempts to slightly update Agricultural Age autocratic systems of government without bothering with human rights, checks and balances, or a non violent means by which the People can remove the current group in power. Thus, I tend to use the inclusive 'autocratic' rather than the more specific 'fascist' or 'communist.' I believe 'autocratic' is generally more accurate, though some kick at a crude emotional level is lost.

Which might be the real difference between us.

[irony] I can sense my channel with God opening. I am having a moment of divine enlightenment. [/irony] I proclaim this Truth to be self evident, that God has proclaimed that those who compare others to Hitler are more like Hitler than the person being compared to Hitler.

Interesting point.

GW will have costs and markets will move because of it. Or will they move under force and coercion via the State? When the state rules the economy via corporate surrogates, that is the essence of fascist economic policy.

However, perhaps it is up for the markets to decide what to do about GW, not the government. If GW is real, I think I would first blame the govt for its blatant subsidizing the oil industry for a century, a practice that continues to this day in arguably very bloody geopolitical maneuvers.

Put simply, there are an awful lot of huge SUV hummers being serviced and gassed out there in Baghdad, Tikrit, Basra, etc.

Skeptical would be my correct label as you correctly label me, but it is not "denier" as some others might.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Nobody is preventing technological experimention about GW to be run.

But as long as folks like Ricercar, the Rani, Mr. Reed and you are skeptical of the reality of the phenomenon, then the uncertainty will remain. The consensus about what to do will be built without libertarian input. And if this happens there is no possibility for the solution to create wealth instead of impose costs.

We will be forced into a more constricted future by the very people who oppose such a development.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The basic skeptic position is that since the [overall] benefit is unknown, it is impossible to give a meaningful accounting of what opportunity costs are worth incurring to attain that benefit.

Do you support any effort to assign a value? Through a carbon tax or similar method? If no value is assigned then its zero.

From an energy-balance standpoint, chemical burning is pretty silly. And that says nothing of the heat that is thrown away (how often do exhaust temperatures even approach ambient?)

OK, if its so silly then you can get around without chemically powered heat engines. The rest of us who live in the real world are still going to be using these things for the forseeable future.

The Catholic Encyclopedia
Everyone was subject to it, not excepting priests, bishops, or even the sovereign. The Spanish Inquisition is distinguished from the medieval its monarchical constitution and a greater consequent centralization, as also by the constant and legally provided-for influence of the crown on all official appointments and the progress of trials.

And, New England Divines brought such Progress to the Bay Colony. And, I am heartened that the tradition lives on.

Originally Posted by Ricercar71

GW will have costs and markets will move because of it.

GW will have costs, but those costs will not be directly related to the combustion of fuels. Thus the market cannot resolve the problem because no feedback exists.

Let me be more precise. Peak oil is an issue that could be resolved by the market because scarcity of oil relative to demand drives up the price of oil. Since oil is an obligate feedstock for gasoline production this increased oil cost directly feeds into the price of gasoline. Higher prices reduce demand, forcing demand to match the shrinking supply. The market operates in such a way as to resolve the problem of declining supply by reducing demand.

Now with GW using fossil fuels produced warmer temperatures. Warmer temperatures means rising sea level, which imposes costs on coastal residents. These costs are not involved in the production or use of fossil fuels so they do not factor into a increase cost of these fossil fuels. Warmer temperatures means more demand for air conditioning, which means more combustion of fossil fuels and more GW. Rather than a negative feedback which serves to move consumption in the direction necessary to deal with the problem of Peak Oil, GW will exert a positive feedback that will make GW worse. The market can never deal with GW by itself, it can only make it worse.

This is a common situation in which an economic activity imposes a cost on someone other than the one carrying out the activity. Economists calls these costs externalities. The only way that markets can be harness to deal with externalities is by an authority to impose a penalty on the creation of this externality. This penalty then becomes part of the cost of doing the activity, and now the normal negative feedbacks of the market can operate. For GW a carbon tax has often be proposed as the penalty for producing CO2 that would harness the market to the job of reducing GW.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

And, New England Divines brought such Progress to the Bay Colony. And, I am heartened that the tradition lives on.

Exactly, it occurred during a time of the growth of the absolute (personal) monarch. The rise of the nation state with an actual government came later.

Although a change from the feudal system, absolute monarchy was an old idea that was revived--it was hardly anything new.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The basic skeptic position is that since the [overall] benefit is unknown, it is impossible to give a meaningful accounting of what opportunity costs are worth incurring to attain that benefit.

That's a better clarification, esp. changing "denialist" to "skeptic". There are very few outright "denialists", and they don't post here. Even our resident troglodyte grudgingly admitted to being in the skeptic camp ("we don't know what's causing the warming trend -- could be human activity or maybe sunspots").

Additional clarification: the skeptic doesn't assign zero benefit to reducing emissions; he assigns a negative benefit, i.e. a cost. If CO2 is not in fact significantly harmful, then any process to reduce its emission will increase costs and reduce efficiency.

Warning! Way way off topic!

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Of course your don't, Your Eminence, you refuse to recall that The Inquisition was a sister in growth to that of the Nation State, and its program one of modernization as it enhanced and was enhanced by the growing power of a National Monarchy that was replacing a Personal Monarchy. It was an arrow of its time.

And, now that Progress has spent too many of its bolts to an incomplete victory it has had to dig deep into that quiver of weapons and has come up with: >>>Kill them all, let Gaia sort them out!>>> Oh, you'll allow some to become converso-greenlings; but there are those who will have to be handed over to Civil Authority for a Proper Progressive Toasting!

The Inquisition, from my understanding, had at least three major functions over the course of its existence. The first, and least understood, was as an anti drug agency. Drugs such Atropa (Deadly Nightshade), Yellow and Black Henbane, Mandrake, Ergot, and various other natural alkaloids were in moderate use as recreational drugs in the Middle Ages. Some such drugs were mixed in large black pots, applied to female genitals by smearing the paste on broomsticks, and produce the sensation of flying, of getting high. Some such drugs, according to one source I encountered, left a green taint in the skin from prolonged use. Thus, we have legends of the witchcraft the Inquisition was originally supposed to fight, legends with basis in truth, that persist to this day.

In the days where religious worldviews dominated scientific ones, the values applied to fighting drug use were religious rather than secular. Use of mind altering substances was equated with dealing with the devil and pure evil. While the religious values of the time did effect how the Inquisition proceeded, what they were doing was essentially similar to what we do with pushers of hard drugs today. It was viewed as a scourge to be stopped, with extreme measures being necessary. The concept of what an acceptable 'extreme measure' was has changed since the Agricultural Age. The tyrants of the old age were much more free with torture and slow death than modern morality allows. This effected the drug fighting policies of the times.

Then... the drug fighters got corrupt. Originally, the Catholic Church proposed that the visions one saw when flying on a broomstick were hallucinations, were lies sent by the devil, or otherwise had no basis in reality. In time, this doctrine was changed. It was asserted that what one saw while attending the Devil's Sabbath was real and objectively True. Thus, if one saw someone else attending a Devil's Sabbath, that person must be equally guilty of dealing with the devil. And what better method to find out who attends Devil's Sabbaths than to torture someone known to have attended? Thus, the Inquisition shifted from being a genuine agency fighting a real problem to a scam for acquiring wealth an punishing enemies. In general, those murdered by the Inquisition lost their wealth to the Inquisition, and the torturers could get most victims to say whatever the Inquisition wanted them to say.

Later, the Inquisition did have a role to play in various battles for power. The helped some kings, hurt some religious orders, and functioned on the Catholic side of the Catholic - Protestant differences. Whether one judges them as progressive or conservative might depend on whether one considers the movement towards strong kings or towards Protestant religion the more important. I tend to believe the latter. Arguably, they always played on the side of the Establishment. They would follow either Pope or King, depending on which gave them the better path to wealth, status and power. I also see the Inquisition as being a prototype adapted by such neo authoritarian secret police organizations as the Gestapo, Cheka, GPU and NKVD.

There were also a number of half forgotten end times movements before the Protestants and Enlightenment came along. With no secular theories of politics available, any move to rebel against the Establishment had to be based on religion. Basically, the Pope would be the anti christ. Fill_in_the_blank is Christ returning. When fill_in_the_blank died, the prophecies would get rewritten a bit. The New Millennia™ prophesied by the Bible was suspiciously Marxist in its interpretation during those times. There would be no class distinctions. All would be equal. Goods would be shared. The state would whither away. Those who think Marxism is a religion might want to compare his writing with the pre Protestant end of the world cults. Marx might well be accused of plagiarism. The Inquisition, of course, had a large role in quashing these 'heresies.' One of their major roles was to suppress any movement threatening the Establishment.

Over all, I see the Inquisition as tools of the typical Agricultural Age authoritarian ruler. I can understand and mostly forgive attempts to quash the use of the absurdly dangerous hard drugs available at the time. Most are remembered today for their use as deadly poisons, rather than as recreational drugs. For the rest of it, they were a typical autocratic political secret police who freely used torture and terror to achieve wealth and maintain power for the establishment. They were the prototype for similar abuses under fascist and communist neo authoritarian rule.

Al Gore has no similar organization, and has no plans to form any similar organization. To accuse him of having such an organization, or planning to form one, is simply untrue. It is Big Lie propaganda, another practice of neo authoritarian rule. Greenpeace has no such organization, nor the intent to form one. To accuse me of advocating murder, torture, suspension of the Bill of Rights, is again Big Lie propaganda. There is absolutely no basis in Truth for it. It is merely a diversion from the fact that no one can propose an even vaguely accurate .6 degree signature mechanism matching the peer reviewed, experimentally verified and real world measured greenhouse heating effect.

Heck, not even George Bush really has an organization equivalent to the Inquisition. He has to hold prisoners abroad in order to arrest people and hold them without cause, due process, or human rights under US law, UN treaty or Geneva Conventions. Even then, the amount of torture he uses is still somewhat limited. Though, I guess even one torture method that gives the impression of impending death would be enough. If you have water boarding, what other forms of torture does one need?

At any rate, I have not in fact acquired any of the titles you have attributed to me. Holding many of them is in fact contrary to my understanding of the principles of equality expressed in the constitution. This is Big Lie propaganda again, another example of your contempt for Fact and Truth.

Please cease and desist attributing titles to me that I have done nothing to deserve. No organization with the authority to grant such titles has done so. You have no such power. Under your archaic values system, attributing such titles when proper authorities had not verified the honor would be criminal. I am no more an 'Eminence,' a formally acknowledged member of a obsolete tyrannical oppressive form of government, than I am a fascist. Argument by Big Lie, and by hurling vile insults, does not balance the lack of a mechanism explaining .6 degrees of heating in a century.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Not true. We just use "reality" rather than "Reality" when talking about mental illness, because we know that people's ideas of what is real and what is not can vary, depending on their cultural and religious beliefs. Otherwise, we would have to decide within the profession whether or not evolution is "reality," and give antipsychotics to everyone who didn't fall in line with the Truth. Which is sort of what you, Bob, et al are suggesting, isn't it?

Not exactly. I was getting at that reality is a matter of consensus. For example if six people agree that the person whom Dr. Nash is talking to isn't there, it is Dr Nash who is the schizophrenic.

Originally Posted by Finch

Additional clarification: the skeptic doesn't assign zero benefit to reducing emissions; he assigns a negative benefit, i.e. a cost.

Benefits are separate from costs. A cost benefit analysis considers each separately. So a skeptic doing a C/B on GW prevention would assign zero benefit to preventing CO2 rise as opposed to a definite cost to obtaining the reduction. Based on this analysis he would recommend that no action be taken now and to reconsider when more data become available.

Someone who believes the CO2 is producing GW would assign a nonzero benefit to avoiding GW, which would be compared to the cost of reduction. If the benefit outweighed the cost then he would recommend that action be taken to reduce CO2 production.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Well if this is so, then there is no such thing as "reality" wrt to mental illness.

Not true. We just use "reality" rather than "Reality" when talking about mental illness, because we know that people's ideas of what is real and what is not can vary, depending on their cultural and religious beliefs. Otherwise, we would have to decide within the profession whether or not evolution is "reality," and give anti-psychotics to everyone who didn't fall in line with the Truth. Which is sort of what you, Bob, et al are suggesting, isn't it?

Bob, I'm sorry, but I just can't read your posts. Too many words going all over the place. But look at it this way. I'm an environmentally minded person, and you've managed to alienate even me. So if you're really trying to fight a cause here, you might think about what you're doing, and how you come across to others.

I distinguish between values conflicts and mental illness, though there may well be a soft border between the two. Values effect how one perceives the world. Strong values slant one's ability to see true correlations between data and theory. If one is evaluating scientific questions -- hypotheses which can be verified by experiment and observation -- such values can only be a handicap.

Your point is taken. I shall attempt, then, to be very brief. To the degree that you reject established peer reviewed theory without proposing an alternate theory that is plausible and at least vaguely matches some of the evidence, you are going to lose the reality based community, just as I have lost you.

To the extant that your primary response when challenged is insult, is comparison to Hitler, you are again apt to lose the reality based community. I'm not Hitler.

If your values are so strong that your brain is disengaging, that you find yourself unable to read my words, your value system has likely activated a self defense mechanism. Your value system is threatened. You are likely subconsciously aware that you have lost the argument. If you step out of the conversation at this point, there is nothing I can do about it. We can only conjecture about the border between extremely strong values and insanity.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

If this were 1970, I'd agree with you. As it is 2007, I don't. The popular consciousness is sufficiently green already. The problem lies in the fact that $20 billion in annual federal subsidies are going to the fossil fuel industry, and should instead be invested in green technology and efficiency technology. The problem lies in the fact that the government's priorities all flow towards promoting highways, automobiles, and other uses of fossil fuels. I'm not even convinced we need MORE government action to solve the problems we face (although I'm not convinced we don't, either), but I'm certainly convinced we need different ones than are being undertaken at this time.

All of that is institutional, though, not cultural. It has nothing to do with consciousness and everything to do with politics.

Highways, People living on quarter acre blocks in the suburbs aren't bad things in general. I would say they are good things, they improve the quality of our lives, our standard of living and even our environment. Low density suburbs can become attractive to wildlife.

Highways are needed to get people around in cars, which are the only way to get around our cities these days, to build a public transport system that can compete with automobiles, either we would have to pack people into densities similar to that of NYC, which the public will never accept or build a extremely expensive public transit system. America is not a special case, we can improve public transport in our cities, however unless teleportation technology is invented anytime soon, cars are here to stay.

However we should invest our money in cars do not run oil, like electric cars and have the electricity which power them come from sources which do not pour our greenhouse gases.

Tristan, here's the basic problem as I see it.

In order to stop contributing to global warming, we must stop burning fossil fuels. Other sources of energy exist, but none as rich and easy to tap as fossil fuels. Switching to another source of energy almost certainly means that the cost of energy will increase.

(Although the oil peak means we have to make the switch regardless.)

To offset this, we must improve our energy efficiency. Right now, our energy efficiency overall in the U.S. is less than 10%, which means that of every 10 units of energy we produce, we actually use only one and throw away the other 9. A transportation system based on the automobile contributes mightily to this inefficiency. Increase that efficiency to 40% and we quadruple the amount of energy we can use, which means even if we reduce the amount produced by a factor of four we're still OK.

Yes, we could design cars that are greenhouse-neutral and we should. But they'd still be grossly inefficient. We also need to improve the public transit picture.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Tristan, here's the basic problem as I see it.

In order to stop contributing to global warming, we must stop burning fossil fuels. Other sources of energy exist, but none as rich and easy to tap as fossil fuels. Switching to another source of energy almost certainly means that the cost of energy will increase.

(Although the oil peak means we have to make the switch regardless.)

To offset this, we must improve our energy efficiency. Right now, our energy efficiency overall in the U.S. is less than 10%, which means that of every 10 units of energy we produce, we actually use only one and throw away the other 9. A transportation system based on the automobile contributes mightily to this inefficiency. Increase that efficiency to 40% and we quadruple the amount of energy we can use, which means even if we reduce the amount produced by a factor of four we're still OK.

Yes, we could design cars that are greenhouse-neutral and we should. But they'd still be grossly inefficient. We also need to improve the public transit picture.

To make huge increases in public transport we would need either radically redesign our cities or build a very expensive public transport network.

This is a good article where I am coming from, admittedly it is from a libertarian, however I agree with a lot of what is being said.

http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-trchoice.htm

Originally Posted by Tristan

To make huge increases in public transport we would need either radically redesign our cities or build a very expensive public transport network.

Yes. That's what we need to do.

Originally Posted by Tristan

To make huge increases in public transport we would need either radically redesign our cities or build a very expensive public transport network.

Not all public transport has to be absurdly expensive, requiring massive new infrastructure. Boston has been reactivating old railroad right of ways, adding cars to existing subway lines, and floating coastal commuter boats. As road networks already exist, pushing busses over automobiles is also a small solution not requiring massive infrastructure change.

One might mourn the old electric street trolly lines, so common in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Still, they vanished primarily because busses were more cost effective. Busses will generally still be more cost effective than rebuilding all the old tracks.

Many of these methods are still fueled by diesel. Not ideal. Better than private automobiles, but not at all ideal. Would large mass transit vehicles -- busses, locomotives and boats -- be a plausible place to start with hydrogen? Is it plausible to scale up the sort of hybrid technology one sees in the cars these days? If battery recharge time is a problem with automobiles, could you design an electric bus that pulls through a depot at the end of its route, and swaps battery blocks?

I still see fusion as one of the long term solutions. That requires big money, will be driven from the federal and international level, and has a long lead time. It is very possible, however, for more local levels of government to become very much part of the picture. Individuals can choose to drive a more efficient car. Sure. Do that too. But local government and small business have a real place to play in the huge gap between individuals buying hybrid cars and major national governments financing fusion research.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Benefits are separate from costs. A cost benefit analysis considers each separately. So a skeptic doing a C/B on GW prevention would assign zero benefit to preventing CO2 rise as opposed to a definite cost to obtaining the reduction. Based on this analysis he would recommend that no action be taken now and to reconsider when more data become available.

Someone who believes the CO2 is producing GW would assign a nonzero benefit to avoiding GW, which would be compared to the cost of reduction. If the benefit outweighed the cost then he would recommend that action be taken to reduce CO2 production.

D'ohp! Of course. I'm so used to reading "cost-benefit" glommed together in one non-word that I forget they are separate factors. So I would revise that a "denialist" assigns a zero benefit to CO2 emissions, while a skeptic (like myself) assigns a small but larger-than-zero benefit.

And I definitely consider myself in the skeptic camp. Not a skeptic of the observed facts of global climate change, but a skeptic of the theory of anthropogenic climate change. More to the point, I'm skeptical that we can do a damn thing about it.

I understand the science and the math, I know how to compute a forcing function, and I've seen very little to convince me that even an unachievably massive reduction in global greenhouse emissions will have any appreciable effect on the positive feedback cycles apparently already in motion. As with several other posters here, to me it all smacks of Boomer self-indulgence and magical thinking, as useless and ridiculous as the Hippies in their heyday, and as dangerous in its unintended consequences as Prohibition.

But as I wrote before, the alternative is not Marc's "natural cycles". The notion that the climate will self-correct just in the nick of time (i.e. in the next decade) is even more deluded magical thinking, and it sounds suspiciously like premillennial Dispensationalism ("my benevolent, omniscient, but curiously absent Bearded Sky God will intervene at the last possible moment".)

No, the only alternative is to recognize that the tipping points have passed, and the best we can hope for is to minimize the scope of the eventual global disaster. Coastal cities will be flooded; food supplies will be disrupted; epidemics will multiply. Tens of millions will die, many violently. What are we going to do about it?

Originally Posted by Tristan

cars are here to stay.

Of course, especially the gargantuan SUVs. They'll make passable residences after the suburban infrastructure collapses as crude passes $100/barrel.

And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Have fun while we can?

I'm not being sarcastic either.

Actually, my sig line could also answer that question.

That is in fact very good advice (even if it is the recommendation of a fictional character played by a notoriously inarticulate actor), and it is the direction I am already heading.

(There have been a couple of recent developments in my personal life that have some bearing on this, but that's for The Other Thread.)

Hmm. Maybe it's time for a new sig.

Originally Posted by Finch

D'ohp! Of course. I'm so used to reading "cost-benefit" glommed together in one non-word that I forget they are separate factors. So I would revise that a "denialist" assigns a zero benefit to CO2 emissions, while a skeptic (like myself) assigns a small but larger-than-zero benefit.

And I definitely consider myself in the skeptic camp. Not a skeptic of the observed facts of global climate change, but a skeptic of the theory of anthropogenic climate change. More to the point, I'm skeptical that we can do a damn thing about it.

I understand the science and the math, I know how to compute a forcing function, and I've seen very little to convince me that even an unachievably massive reduction in global greenhouse emissions will have any appreciable effect on the positive feedback cycles apparently already in motion. As with several other posters here, to me it all smacks of Boomer self-indulgence and magical thinking, as useless and ridiculous as the Hippies in their heyday, and as dangerous in its unintended consequences as Prohibition.

But as I wrote before, the alternative is not Marc's "natural cycles". The notion that the climate will self-correct just in the nick of time (i.e. in the next decade) is even more deluded magical thinking, and it sounds suspiciously like premillennial Dispensationalism ("my benevolent, omniscient, but curiously absent Bearded Sky God will intervene at the last possible moment".)

No, the only alternative is to recognize that the tipping points have passed, and the best we can hope for is to minimize the scope of the eventual global disaster. Coastal cities will be flooded; food supplies will be disrupted; epidemics will multiply. Tens of millions will die, many violently. What are we going to do about it?

I think what you are saying here is that we are already beyond a major point of no return. We are going to loose a lot of glaciers, at least the northern polar ice, and we are going to have a massive methane greenhouse released from thawing permafrost. Once these things happen, there is no undoing them in a time frame usually associated with human civilizations. The relatively small amount of greenhouse forcing might well be dwarfed by the larger factors which are about to enter the system.

If that is what you are saying, I have a hard time arguing.

Reverting to turning theory, I don't think I am alone in perceiving Lexington Green, Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor as representing a major class of trigger events. After these events, the nation was committed to all out war. The young males were going to the recruiting offices in a sudden surge. While the conflicts might with hindsight later be viewed as inevitable at an earlier time, the first major all out action still has a profound significance.

But the Declaration of Independence and Emancipation Proclamation came later. It was well after war had been declared, well after all out effort had been initiated, that in those cases the need for fundamental social change was made manifest. In the early years, there might have been some small delusion that the British would repeal their taxes and reconciliate, or that Richmond could be easily taken, resulting in a return to the old 'normal.' It was only after people started to realize that an all out effort was not producing a satisfactory result that people embraced profound transformation.

You seem to be saying something similar.

If you wish to start exploring answers to your questions, I'm game. I understand the UN Security Council is looking at the security implications of climate change this week. Why not us too?

But not everyone will be seeing the same reality. I'm almost tempted to suggest that the denialists, doomsday planers and moderates might best each have their own threads, where conversations might be made under some common assumptions. Each of the three groups above might see the other two as wearing tin foil hats. Heck, looking at history, the losing faction often doesn't change values until cities are in ruins, if then.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Do you support any effort to assign a value? Through a carbon tax or similar method? If no value is assigned then its zero.

Why's that? The fuel is purchased, correct? And, to pick one potential fuel as an example, there are other uses for petrochemical which do not involve the conversion of the bulk of their potential energy into waste products (plastics are but the off-the-top-of-my-head example). So some differential can be observed between the value of them [to some extent] wasted and the value of them not-wasted. Your problem, it seems, is that the value is not what you would have it be. Frankly, me neither; the massive amount of distortion introduced into the relative valuation of things by the various subsidies, taxes, and more important, grants-of-reduced-liability that are apparently inherent to a liberal democracy, have things so obscured that it's hard to even tell in which direction things are out of whack -- to say nothing of how far. But the way to address the problem -- one would think -- would be to remove some distortions, not to add another level.

OK, if its so silly then you can get around without chemically powered heat engines. The rest of us who live in the real world are still going to be using these things for the forseeable future.

an, you're on a strawman roll, aren't you now...
to repeat:
Obviously, 100% (even when the fundamental delta-s is taken into account) is unattainable; but that simply means that some level of waste will always be with us -- not that that [hopefully ever-decreasing] amount is not in fact waste...

Please point to me where I said that waste is fundamentally impermissable. In fact, if you look closely at all the words, and assemble them in your mind (or out loud if that helps) into sentences, you will find that I am perfectly cognizant on the fact that all energy generation will involve waste.
But less waste is better than more waste. And combustion is definitely one of the 'more waste' scenarios.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Benefits are separate from costs. A cost benefit analysis considers each separately. So a skeptic doing a C/B on GW prevention would assign zero benefit to preventing CO2 rise as opposed to a definite cost to obtaining the reduction. Based on this analysis he would recommend that no action be taken now and to reconsider when more data become available.

Another strawman. A skeptic would be unsure of the benefit, and as such be unable to ascertain whether it is more or less than the cost. As I pointed out (abundantly) no thinking person assigns zero benefit to reduced emissions.

But you don't need zero benefit for the cost side to outbalance. Even a very big benefit could, in principle, be outweighed. Best is to have honest, clear accounting to start with.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Another strawman. A skeptic would be unsure of the benefit, and as such be unable to ascertain whether it is more or less than the cost.

And what action will then be recommended? To do nothing for now. The perferred option is to act as if Cost > Benefit for all potential costs.

Nobody knows the costs either. Shifting from the oil regime to a new energy regime, if done with a market-frieindly approach like carbon taxes rather than command and control, will create wealth. The amount of wealth created could end up outweighing the upfront cost of the initial changeover (this has been the case in previous shifts in energy paradigm).

The cost could end up being large or small or even be negative. The skeptics choice of action says Cost > Benefit. This means the benefit could vary from large to small or even negative. Skeptics aren't really saying the rising CO2 might be good. They are simply saying that we not consider CO2 in decisions at this time. If we don't consider something then we are placing no value on it. No value is zero value.

Originally Posted by Finch

I understand the science and the math, I know how to compute a forcing function, and I've seen very little to convince me that even an unachievably massive reduction in global greenhouse emissions will have any appreciable effect on the positive feedback cycles apparently already in motion.

How do you compute your forcing functions? Do you have a atmospheric radiative balance model on your PC?

To what positive feedback cycles are you referring? Retreating glaciers? Shrinking ice shelves? Temperature reconstructions suggest is was as warm if not warmer than today during the Medieval warm period. The polar ice caps were still intact at that time.

Granted, even if we act today, CO2 levels of 600-700 ppm are baked in the cake. Such an increase would produce 1.1-1.6 C of additional warming. The lower value uses GW skeptic Nir Shaviv's value for lamba.

Would that start an irreversible feedback? Perhaps, but this is not certain.

We could also get lucky and solar activity could decline in the coming decades in which the temperature rise might be held to 0.5-1 C, in which case I think a feedback effect is unlike to get underway, since it didn't happen in the past when temperature was not greatly different from these levels.

Of course if nothing is done, then 1000 ppm values get baked in the cake, with projected temperature rises of 1.9-2.7 C. Now we are well above historical temperature levels and irreversible feedback effects could certainly be active. Hence my preference for action today.

Some of the skeptics at Reilly's site believe no impact of GW over a century or two. Projected warming then is 6-9 degress C. If 6-8 degrees cooler gives an ice age with ic caps down to 45 N, the I would expect 6-8 degrees warmer would mean no ice caps. Thus the ice caps should start melting in earnest within 100-200 years, if business as usual is maintained.

Thus I feel it is certain that if coal shortages are what causes reduction of fossil fuel use and not concern over GW, then we will see disaster.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Thus I feel it is certain that if coal shortages are what causes reduction of fossil fuel use and not concern over GW, then we will see disaster.

Well, I think we can have some confidence it won't go that way. Our economy isn't just dependent on fossil fuels, it's dependent on OIL -- much more versatile than coal, packing a bigger punch, easier to transport, easier to use, less polluting, and just all-around generally better. So when declining production hits soaring demand and the price shoots through the roof, the howls will start and the switch will happen. And of course that will happen much sooner with oil than with coal, which isn't projected to reach peak for a long time to come.

This is why I have some sympathy for the "who cares" attitude on this subject, since we're going to do what needs to be done about GW anyway. Can't keep burning fossil fuels when there aren't enough of them to be burned!

Would have been nice if we'd made this switch a few decades ago. The U.S. reached our domestic oil peak in 1970. If we'd decided to switch to alternative energy/improved efficiency then, instead of sucking the rest of the world dry, we'd be in much better shape energy-wise and the world would hate us a lot less.

Oh, well, that's why we get 4Ts.