Originally Posted by Bad Dog

MAR'ed? TLA comes up as the ticker for Marriott or the Missouri Association of Realtors.

MAR'ed = mutually assured resentment. Resentment is an ugly state of mind that tends to unleash all manner of inner demons that have plagued mankind for eons.

Lots of people owe me past due rent. Unfortunately, they seem to be of the kind that do not go away when I follow your genuinely good advice. Your advice works well on internet boards, but not so well when they control your employment...

I'm not sure who "they" refers to. But yeah, I have no idea on how to deal with deadbeat renters in St. Louis. Real estate law is something I know nothing about.

Originally Posted by Bill66

Ironically, the subject of this thread is literally about a globally increasing heat to light ratio

Seems pretty clear to me despite all the heated rhetoric, that:

Eric understands AGW pretty well for an educated non-climatologist, but doesn't perhaps express his understanding perfectly well in the language of probability theory because he's more of an artist/humanist person than a scientist

PBrower isn't a fascist

Copperfield seems to enjoy engaging in heated arguments in this forum

My thoughts on AGW: I think there's a pretty good chance (flip a coin?) that we'll see some globally uncomfortable effects of AGW well before the next 2T would be expected to arrive. Things like an ice-free arctic ocean that could "phase shift" northern hemisphere climate to a different regime, ocean acidification leading to dramatically decreased ocean bio-productivity, possibly some dramatic ice-melting breakup of significant parts of the Greenland ice sheet. There is evidence in the geological record of dramatic climate "phase shifts" before over a span of 1 or 2 decades, and we're certainly creating a hockey stick graph of CO2 levels in the atmosphere that is unprecedented for at least the last few million years. I'm pretty sure the system we're discussing is nonlinear also. Interesting times...

So what happens if AGW causes an unavoidable crisis in the middle of a 1T? How does the culture respond if Miami & NY city suddenly go underwater? Or, if the breadbasket midwest turns into a semi-desert? Combined with a collapse of fisheries (both wild and domesticated)? Combine that with real energy and resource limits that would prevent any energy-intensive response/big projects like giant seawalls. What would a 1T and 2T look like in a such a scenario?

All good points. Let's hope that we avoid the state-toggle issue. Once that happens, the rules of engagement get much more drastic.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Bob, Bob, Bob. You appear to be trying to mediate some sort of friendly resolution to our quarrel, but let me save you some electrons here. I think he is a repulsive human being and I believe it is safe to say that the feeling is mutual. I am quite satisfied with this arrangement if he is.

There are repulsive people. The quality of repulsiveness might be akin to values or ideology. Convincing a person who is at core repulsive to not be repulsive is thus a difficult to impossible task.

But I have delusions of discouraging particularly stupid, repetitive and childish forms of repulsive. If people are going to deliberately treat other people poorly, might they at least do so in an intelligent and original manner?

"Fascist?" Really?

Originally Posted by Bill66

Ironically, the subject of this thread is literally about a globally increasing heat to light ratio

Seems pretty clear to me despite all the heated rhetoric, that:

Eric understands AGW pretty well for an educated non-climatologist, but doesn't perhaps express his understanding perfectly well in the language of probability theory because he's more of an artist/humanist person than a scientist

Scientific language just does not translate well into human consciousness. To make a scientific conclusion have an impact on non-scientists one must translate it into something more literary, and that is what Eric (and I) try to do.

PBrower isn't a fascist

Copperfield just does not like me. He could have as easily called me a drug trafficker.

Copperfield seems to enjoy engaging in heated arguments in this forum

Obvious enough. He also fails to understand how incendiary some of his rhetoric is. It would be just as incendiary for me to say something like

"Your Sunday drive killed some innocent people in the Philippines".

My thoughts on AGW: I think there's a pretty good chance (flip a coin?) that we'll see some globally uncomfortable effects of AGW well before the next 2T would be expected to arrive. Things like an ice-free arctic ocean that could "phase shift" northern hemisphere climate to a different regime, ocean acidification leading to dramatically decreased ocean bio-productivity, possibly some dramatic ice-melting breakup of significant parts of the Greenland ice sheet. There is evidence in the geological record of dramatic climate "phase shifts" before over a span of 1 or 2 decades, and we're certainly creating a hockey stick graph of CO2 levels in the atmosphere that is unprecedented for at least the last few million years. I'm pretty sure the system we're discussing is nonlinear also. Interesting times...

The problem is that we just don't fully know the consequences. We can't simply say "Increase motor-fuel consumption by 10% and temperatures will rise 5C" or give a precise timetable on the rising of the seas. Our attempted predictions, even if based on quantitative data, can give only qualitative results. We have models with sickening results -- the Saharan zone of climate shifting northward from from having its northern border in the Atlas into Spain, Greece, and Turkey. We can't say when cities and some prime cropland get inundated.

Science can't predict human behavior, especially long-term politics and wars. As a rule people do not go gently into death that they deem undeserved. Starving people -- and people in fear of starvation -- do not go peacefully. They revolt against ineffective or overwhelmed leaders and they fall for demagogues. They turn against anyone who seems or is alleged to not share the burden. We need rely upon the Humanities to understand human nature -- which even Sigmund Freud found necessary.

So what happens if AGW causes an unavoidable crisis in the middle of a 1T? How does the culture respond if Miami & NY city suddenly go underwater? Or, if the breadbasket midwest turns into a semi-desert? Combined with a collapse of fisheries (both wild and domesticated)? Combine that with real energy and resource limits that would prevent any energy-intensive response/big projects like giant seawalls. What would a 1T and 2T look like in a such a scenario?

The "culture" of some of the big cities goes uphill or to places not so affected -- like Paris, Madrid, Munich, Vienna, Warsaw, Moscow, Chicago, Xian, New Delhi... the contents of the Rijksmuseum end up in places like Lyon and Mainz, the contents of the Hermitage end up in places like Minsk and Kiev, and the contents of New York City and Boston museums end up in Rochester, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto. The capital of the United States moves from inundated Washington to perhaps St. Louis (which goes from being a dump to a prosperous metropolis).

But know well: what may be even worse than the inundation of a showcase city of great prosperity (by regional standards) as Shanghai is the inundation of croplands that now feed people in Shanghai. The country with the most people who would be forced to flee inundation by rising seas is China. Where do those Chinese go? They will be competing with such people as the Dutch, the Danes, and... Bangladeshis whose countries will be largely inundated for a smaller land surface with no guarantee of increased crop production in what are now subarctic areas.

Global warming may be inevitable, but rapid global warming that disrupts economics and legal institutions is not -- and the latter is an unmitigated disaster. Humanity may have responded well to the last big global warming event by moving into places rendered newly congenial (like the Mediterranean Basin and central Europe) for small bands of hunter-gatherers. But unlike us, hunter-gatherers did not have atom bombs and media that can become as venomous as those of Rwanda during its genocide. The Noble Savage was always a myth.

Originally Posted by Bill66

Eric understands AGW pretty well for an educated non-climatologist, but doesn't perhaps express his understanding perfectly well in the language of probability theory because he's more of an artist/humanist person than a scientist

Yes, I think the dice rolling metaphor was adequately expressed without my help, or any need for me to discuss it.

What language I use is less relevant, than I don't readily accept peoples' attempt to evade or obfuscate the evident fact about the issue.

Wikipedia may not be perfect, but it is easily accessible and neutral. If someone wants to call someone a fascist, then let that person know what fascism is.

Pay attention, Copperfield!

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Influenced by national syndicalism, the first fascist movements emerged in Italy around World War I, combining more typically right-wing positions with elements of left-wing politics, in opposition to communism, socialism, liberal democracy and, in some cases, traditional right-wing conservatism. Although fascism is usually placed on the far right on the traditional left–right spectrum, fascists themselves and some commentators have argued that the description is inadequate.

Fascists sought to unify their nation through a totalitarian state that promoted the mass mobilization of the national community, and were characterized by having a vanguard party that initiated a revolutionary political movement aiming to reorganize the nation along principles according to fascist ideology. Hostile to liberal democracy, socialism, and communism, fascist movements shared certain common features, including the veneration of the state, a devotion to a strong leader, and an emphasis on ultranationalism and militarism. Fascism views political violence, war, and imperialism as a means to achieve national rejuvenation and asserts that stronger nations have the right to expand their territory by displacing weaker nations.

Fascist ideology consistently invokes the primacy of the state. Leaders such as Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany embodied the state and claimed indisputable power. Fascism borrowed theories and terminology from socialism but applied them to what it saw as the more significant conflict between nations and races rather than to class conflict, and focused on ending the divisions between classes within the nation. It advocates a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky to secure national self-sufficiency and independence through protectionist and interventionist economic policies. Fascism supports what is sometimes called a Third Position between capitalism and Marxist socialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Wikipedia may not be perfect, but it is easily accessible and neutral. If someone wants to call someone a fascist, then let that person know what fascism is.

Pay attention, Copperfield!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

FWIW, the Khmer Rouge made the Fascists look like Kindergarden teachers. Even the Nazis don't measure down to their standards.

Killing half a country is hard work.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

FWIW, the Khmer Rouge made the Fascists look like Kindergarden teachers. Even the Nazis don't measure down to their standards.

Killing half a country is hard work.

Nobody could match the Khmer Rouge for brutality -- not even the Nazis.

Originally Posted by B Butler

The loaded dice metaphor is a decent one. I thought I'd add a bit to it. I think I said what Eric should have been trying to say.

Eric tends to work best at an intuitive mystical level.

Is that New Age speak for "makes stuff up or repeats what others have just made up"? If so, I agree. He's a master.

He isn't as good with scientific language as he thinks he is.

It's not that he's weak with just the language, his understanding of the concepts is nearly nonexistent. The language mistakes are only a symptom of his deeper lack of knowledge.

It is a fairly easy and uninteresting to convince those who are familiar with science that Eric didn't word his argument well. Getting him to admit it? Good day and good luck. Watch your heat to light ratio.

I'm not working under the illusion that I'll ever convince Eric. But, if I can at least get him to hold back some quantity of the inanities he chooses to "bless" us with, then I consider it worth my time.

Originally Posted by Bill66

Eric understands AGW pretty well for an educated non-climatologist, but doesn't perhaps express his understanding perfectly well in the language of probability theory because he's more of an artist/humanist person than a scientist

No, he doesn't understand it "pretty well". If you actually check what he writes versus the actual science, he barely has a surface level of understanding. But, he will pretend to understand it at a deeper level. And it's not just climate change. With every science topic he discusses here, he tries to pretend that he understands what he's talking about. He is a walking embodiment of pseudoscience and science envy.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yes, I think the dice rolling metaphor was adequately expressed without my help, or any need for me to discuss it.

Except, your statement clearly showed that you don't understand what the dice roll metaphor teaches us about climate and weather. There is no way you could have "helped" with the metaphor because you only think you get it.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Scientific language just does not translate well into human consciousness. To make a scientific conclusion have an impact on non-scientists one must translate it into something more literary, and that is what Eric (and I) try to do.

Translation: you express your personal wishes by using science sounding terminology in order to intimate that your wishes are supported by scientific evidence.

The problem is that we just don't fully know the consequences. We can't simply say "Increase motor-fuel consumption by 10% and temperatures will rise 5C" or give a precise timetable on the rising of the seas. Our attempted predictions, even if based on quantitative data, can give only qualitative results.

Not true at all. Mathematical models give mathematical predictions. No climate model kicks out "gets drier" as a prediction.

We have models with sickening results -- the Saharan zone of climate shifting northward from from having its northern border in the Atlas into Spain, Greece, and Turkey. We can't say when cities and some prime cropland get inundated.

Science can't predict human behavior, especially long-term politics and wars.

You'd be surprised just how much of human behavior can in fact be modeled scientifically.

What science struggles with is extremely complex systems that are susceptible to contingencies of history.

As a rule people do not go gently into death that they deem undeserved. Starving people -- and people in fear of starvation -- do not go peacefully. They revolt against ineffective or overwhelmed leaders and they fall for demagogues. They turn against anyone who seems or is alleged to not share the burden. We need rely upon the Humanities to understand human nature -- which even Sigmund Freud found necessary.

Except when they don't. Got any humanities models that can successfully predict when these events don't happen?

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Is that New Age speak for "makes stuff up or repeats what others have just made up"? If so, I agree. He's a master.

It's not that he's weak with just the language, his understanding of the concepts is nearly nonexistent. The language mistakes are only a symptom of his deeper lack of knowledge.

I'm not working under the illusion that I'll ever convince Eric. But, if I can at least get him to hold back some quantity of the inanities he chooses to "bless" us with, then I consider it worth my time.

The discussion on this thread isn't exactly deep. "If you burn a lot of stuff, this adds more CO2 to the atmosphere, and things get warmer and stormier" might summarize.

Once in a while we'll get into other climate change mechanisms. Milankovitch cycles have been making ice ages come and go. The 11 year solar cycles add a bit of noise that lets some skeptics cherry pick and hand wave to support their claims. Volcanoes and the ENSO cycles produce less predictable variations. Soot produces 'global dimming,' a cooling effect and health concern that can be fought with stack scrubbers. It is anticipated that when India, China and similar developing countries start fighting smog with stack scrubbers, global dimming will be significantly reduced resulting in increased warming. There is an alleged link between cosmic rays and cloud formation. Allegedly, the more cosmic rays, the more clouds, the more energy reflected back out to space, but there is little to no conformation that the cosmic ray connection is real. On a very long time scale, the drift of continents determines whether the poles can freeze. With a continent on the south pole and the north surrounded by them, we're in a very unusual configuration. On a similarly long time scale, plants put oxygen in the atmosphere and subtract CO2. The burning of fossil fuels is undoing in centuries a very long term shift in the atmosphere.

That's off the top of my head. I'm likely missing a few. All of the above can confuse the issue. Of late, skeptics are fond of measuring recent trends from the hot year when ENSO and the solar cycles peaked warm together around 1998. If one really wants to believe it, one can pretend that the warming has slowed since then. RealClimate has a recent article on the history of climate forcing charts. If one wishes to catch up on the weight of various forcing elements, it isn't a bad place to start.

But the core is that burning stuff generates CO2, the major greenhouse gas that is driving the bulk of the recent warming. The rest of it is noise and distraction. Someone who intuitively understands that basic element gets my respect more than those who can use scientific sounding language to say that the other climate forcing elements somehow invalidate the CO2 greenhouse aspect.

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

... It's not that he's weak with just the language, his understanding of the concepts is nearly nonexistent. The language mistakes are only a symptom of his deeper lack of knowledge.

I'm not working under the illusion that I'll ever convince Eric. But, if I can at least get him to hold back some quantity of the inanities he chooses to "bless" us with, then I consider it worth my time.

This is your huge blind spot. Not all knowledge is objective, observable and repeatable. Eric doesn't operate inside that domain. You live there. Any possibility that you might be able to see a point he makes, no matter how tiny, is zero. At least Eric tries.

It’s the old issue of measure. You can’t measure length in kilograms or degrees Kelvin, even though they still have merit within their own domains.

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Except, your statement clearly showed that you don't understand what the dice roll metaphor teaches us about climate and weather. There is no way you could have "helped" with the metaphor because you only think you get it.

I’m not sure you’re solidly on board your own concept. Consider this. You have a pair of loaded dice, and each die is loaded such that the 4s, 5s and 6s are 50% more likely to come-up than the 1s, 2s, and 3s on their opposite faces. On average, 15 rolls will produce 2 1s, 2 2s, 2 3s, 3 4s, 3 5s, and 3 6s. You roll both the dice hundreds of times, and record the total value. What’s the average, and is this not the model of increase storm activity as an aggregate?

The root of the problem and the possible solution

Subsidizing Big Energy

The institutions of our ruling worldhave a powerful stake in the mad momentum of climate change -- the energy system that’s producing it and the political stasis that sustains and guarantees it -- so powerful as to seem unbreakable. Don’t count on them to avert the coming crisis. They can’t. In some sense, they are the crisis.


Corporations and governments promote the burning of fossil fuels, which means the dumping of its waste product, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere where, inrecord amounts, it heats the planet. This is not an oversight; it is a business model.
Governments collude with global warming, in part by bankrolling the giant fossil fuel companies (FFCs). As a recent report written by Shelagh Whitley for the Overseas Development Institute puts it,
"Producers of oil, gas, and coal received more than $500 billion in government subsidies around the world in 2011... If their aim is to avoid dangerous climate change, governments are shooting themselves in both feet. They are subsidizing the very activities that are pushing the world towards dangerous climate change, and creating barriers to investment in low-carbon development and subsidy incentives that encourage investment in carbon-intensive energy.”


Of course a half-trillion dollars in subsidies doesn’t just happen. It cannot be said too often: the FFCs thrive by conniving with governments. They finance politicians to do their bidding. Seven of the ten largest companies in the world are FFCs, as are four of the ten most profitable (just outnumbering three Chinese banks, which presumably have their own major FFC connections). These behemoths have phenomenal clout when they lobby for fossil-fuel-friendly development and against remedial policies like a carbon tax. And if this were not enough, they flood the world with fraudulent claims that climate change is not happening, or is not dangerous, or that its dimensions and human causes are controversial among scientists whose profession it is to study the climate.

Hinges Open Doors

Transforming the world is something like winning a war. If the objective is to eliminate a condition like hunger, mass violence, or racial domination, then the institutions and systems of power that produce, defend, and sustain this condition have to be dislodged and defeated. For that, most people have to stop experiencing the condition -- and the enemy that makes it possible -- as abstractions “out there.”


A movement isn’t called that for nothing. It has to move people. It needs lovers, and friends, and allies. It has to generate a cascade of feeling -- moral feeling. The movement’s passion has to become a general passion. And that passion must be focused: the concern that people feel about some large condition “out there” has to find traction closer to home.


Vis-à-vis the slow-motion apocalypse of climate change, there’s plenty of bad news daily and it’s hitting ever closer home, even if you live in the parching Southwest or the burning West, not the Philippines or the Maldive Islands. Until recently, however, it sometimes felt as if the climate movement was spinning its wheels, gaining no traction. But the extraordinary work of Bill McKibbenand his collaborators at 350.org, and the movements against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and its Canadian equivalent, the Northern Gateway pipeline, have changed the climate-change climate.


Now, the divestment movement, too, becomes a junction point where action in the here-and-now, on local ground, gains momentum toward a grander transformation. These movements are the hinges on which the door to a livable future swings.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1757...ss_model/#more

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Translation: you express your personal wishes by using science sounding terminology in order to intimate that your wishes are supported by scientific evidence.

Good grief! I wish that we could get away with unconstrained use of fossil fuels. We can't.

Not true at all. Mathematical models give mathematical predictions. No climate model kicks out "gets drier" as a prediction.

The models say that there will be more water vapor in the air (in general) for the simple reason that almost all locations will be warmer. Such does not indicate that there will be more rainfall. Prime example: San Francisco has much fog during the summer, and the humidity during a foggy spell is effectively 100%. But such fog does not bring rain. The condition in which fog undercuts warm, dry air aloft is an inversion -- which prevents any rainstorm.

The models show that there will be much more rainfall in some non-Arctic places (the Philippines is one such area) and much less in some others (the Mediterranean Basin). Basically the Saharan and Arabian zones of hot desert shift northward as their southern fringes becomes rainier but areas bordering the desert zone become hot, dry desert. In essence, southern Italy begins to look like southern Arizona; northern Italy begins to resemble the San Joaquin Valley of California; southern Germany begins to resemble the Sacramento valley of California; southern Sweden begins to resemble Oregon.

You'd be surprised just how much of human behavior can in fact be modeled scientifically.

The name for that is econometrics. That's what the smartest folks in the social sciences do.

What science struggles with is extremely complex systems that are susceptible to contingencies of history.

If science could not predict the Holocaust or Stalin's Great Purge (neither of which had any connection to climate change), then how can it predict what humanity would do when the world changes and not for the better -- when agricultural potential shrinks drastically?

I look at agrarian productivity as one of the best proxies for economic success. Areas that can't feed people succeed economically only if they have highly-profitable exports of minerals and fuels but small populations (Saudi Arabia is a prime example).

(to)

Originally Posted by I

As a rule people do not go gently into death that they deem undeserved. Starving people -- and people in fear of starvation -- do not go peacefully. They revolt against ineffective or overwhelmed leaders and they fall for demagogues. They turn against anyone who seems or is alleged to not share the burden. We need rely upon the Humanities to understand human nature -- which even Sigmund Freud found necessary.

Except when they don't. Got any humanities models that can successfully predict when these events don't happen?

Do you?

Can you imagine telling millions of Bangladeshis that they must stay put as their land is inundated because nobody wants them?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

This is your huge blind spot. Not all knowledge is objective, observable and repeatable. Eric doesn't operate inside that domain.

When Eric claims to use one set of made up rules to 'reveal' some meaning within another set of made up rules and thus arrives at some "deepity" concerning how we should behave, I could not be more bored nor more disinclined to comment.

Except, he repeatedly tries to pretend that the real science supports one of the made up rule sets. He claims that quantum mechanics supports his claim about all matter having consciousness. He claims that an individual storm can be blamed on global warming. He claims that the evolutionary history of life on this planet is evidence that life has an underlying purpose.

He tries to use objectively measurable knowledge as justification for claiming that his personal opinions and wishes are also objectively true.

You live there. Any possibility that you might be able to see a point he makes, no matter how tiny, is zero.

I don't criticize his opinions about politics when he clearly expresses them as opinions. But, lying about the science in order to make "a point" is just stupid. "The point" can still be made without all the dishonesty. Why exactly are you trying to justify his dishonesty even if it is in support of "a point"?

At least Eric tries.

Lying is not the sort of "trying" that I respect.

It’s the old issue of measure. You can’t measure length in kilograms or degrees Kelvin, even though they still have merit within their own domains.

What a horrendously inappropriate analogy. There is no measuring involved in the subjective woo that New Agers peddle. Measurement requires that the topics have regularity and objectivity. New Age woo has neither and using an analogy of measurement to refer to it is just ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I’m not sure you’re solidly on board your own concept. Consider this. You have a pair of loaded dice, and each die is loaded such that the 4s, 5s and 6s are 50% more likely to come-up than the 1s, 2s, and 3s on their opposite faces. On average, 15 rolls will produce 2 1s, 2 2s, 2 3s, 3 4s, 3 5s, and 3 6s. You roll both the dice hundreds of times, and record the total value. What’s the average, and is this not the model of increase storm activity as an aggregate?

Of course it is. But, if you roll the dice one single time, one time, a single storm. Can you tell if that single result was because of the loading or the result of normal probability? Eric claims that he can tell a loaded 12 from a normal probability 12. He can't and neither can you.

Big storms were going to happen on this planet even if humans had never discovered the usefulness of fossil fuels or the Toba eruption had wiped us out. Eric claims that he can identify which storms are global warming storms and which ones are normal "stormy Earth" storms. He can't and neither can you.

Every time someone on "my side" politically claims they can tell the storms apart, they hand the deniers a get-out-of-responsibility-free card. They can correctly point out that "my side" is just making stuff up and "we" lose credibility in "our" attempts to convince the fence sitters that we need to make some tough choices right now.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Good grief! I wish that we could get away with unconstrained use of fossil fuels. We can't.

The models say that there will be more water vapor in the air (in general) for the simple reason that almost all locations will be warmer. Such does not indicate that there will be more rainfall. Prime example: San Francisco has much fog during the summer, and the humidity during a foggy spell is effectively 100%. But such fog does not bring rain. The condition in which fog undercuts warm, dry air aloft is an inversion -- which prevents any rainstorm.

The models show that there will be much more rainfall in some non-Arctic places (the Philippines is one such area) and much less in some others (the Mediterranean Basin).

This "much more" prediction was numbers and probabilities right? It wasn't a print out of text saying it will "rain more" right? You do know the difference between quantitative predictions and qualitative predictions right? You did claim that the models made qualitative predictions right?

Basically the Saharan and Arabian zones of hot desert shift northward as their southern fringes becomes rainier but areas bordering the desert zone become hot, dry desert.

Those "shifts" are numerical values generated by the model right? Not text descriptions right? You do know the difference between a quantitative prediction and a qualitative description of the prediction right?

In essence, southern Italy begins to look like southern Arizona; northern Italy begins to resemble the San Joaquin Valley of California; southern Germany begins to resemble the Sacramento valley of California; southern Sweden begins to resemble Oregon.

You keep repeating these descriptions of the models' predictions. Are you going to ever acknowledge that you don't seem to know the difference between the terms "quantitative" and "qualitative"? Or are we just supposed to forget that you claimed that mathematical climate models make "qualitative" predictions?

The name for that is econometrics. That's what the smartest folks in the social sciences do.

Is it quantitative or qualitative?

If science could not predict the Holocaust or Stalin's Great Purge (neither of which had any connection to climate change), then how can it predict what humanity would do when the world changes and not for the better -- when agricultural potential shrinks drastically?

Did I say that science could predict the entirety of humanity and human history? I don't remember making such a claim. Perhaps you could point out where I made such claim?

Or, we can just ignore your strawman rejoinder.

I look at agrarian productivity as one of the best proxies for economic success. Areas that can't feed people succeed economically only if they have highly-profitable exports of minerals and fuels but small populations (Saudi Arabia is a prime example).

(to)
Do you?

No. And neither do you. Post hoc reasoning is not a predictive model.

Can you imagine telling millions of Bangladeshis that they must stay put as their land is inundated because nobody wants them?

Can you stay on topic or is it just going to be "red herrings" all the way down?

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

MAR'ed = mutually assured resentment. Resentment is an ugly state of mind that tends to unleash all manner of inner demons that have plagued mankind for eons.



I'm not sure who "they" refers to. But yeah, I have no idea on how to deal with deadbeat renters in St. Louis. Real estate law is something I know nothing about.

The Pan-Reality Union of "They", Local 578.

Or, the felgercarb that does not go away when you ignore it. Real Life. Getting burned. And nothing can be done to fix the damage, and there is no sympathy, particularly on the Internet.

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

This "much more" prediction was numbers and probabilities right? It wasn't a print out of text saying it will "rain more" right? You do know the difference between quantitative predictions and qualitative predictions right? You did claim that the models made qualitative predictions right?

Rainfall will be capricious. Most projections show more rainfall in places that already get it in excess and less where there is just barely enough for crop production. Precision is hard to achieve, but as a rule if some place in the subtropical zone with a summer maximum gets 18" of rain in a year (which is marginal but useful -- as in parts of Spain and Greece), then a 75% reduction of rainfall leaves only 4.5" a year. Such reduced rainfall would make a desert.

Those "shifts" are numerical values generated by the model right? Not text descriptions right? You do know the difference between a quantitative prediction and a qualitative description of the prediction right?

I saw a model of 'moving' estimates of climatic realities (both temperature and precipitation). Winters would become far less severe in subarctic locations and those areas would become decidedly more rainy. Those areas generally get little precipitation, especially in winter, because the intensely-cold air holds practically no water vapor. I saw huge percentage increases in precipitation in the southern parts of the Sahara and southern Arabia, indicating an expansion of the equatorial zone. I saw increases of rainfall in some tropical areas including the Philippines that would likely get the increase in the form of typhoons. But I also saw winter rainfall practically disappear in most areas of Mediterranean climate (rainy winters, dry summers). The Mediterranean Basin lost most winter rainfall (which is about all that it gets) and becomes hotter. Likely analogue: the area around the Persian-Arabian Gulf.

I had to turn quantitative descriptions into qualitative descriptions. It would be far easier if one could translate the model into the standard Köppen climate classification, then one might expect most of Greece to go from Csa (hot-summer Mediterranean climate) to BWh (hot desert as in Egypt), Bulgaria and Serbia to go from Cfa (warm subtropical mid-latitude climate with fairly-even distribution of rainfall) to BSh (hot semi-desert as in the fringes of the Arabian Desert) as rains fail, and a band of Europe from southern Ireland to Ukraine get hot-summer Mediterranean climates.

Or maybe this: northern Indiana goes from the corn belt to the cotton belt. Georgia becomes known for oranges instead of peaches.

You keep repeating these descriptions of the models' predictions. Are you going to ever acknowledge that you don't seem to know the difference between the terms "quantitative" and "qualitative"? Or are we just supposed to forget that you claimed that mathematical climate models make "qualitative" predictions?

My descriptions are qualitative. If I made a verbal error -- the models of climatic change are quantitative estimates.

Did I say that science could predict the entirety of humanity and human history? I don't remember making such a claim. Perhaps you could point out where I made such claim?

Nobody made such a claim. But there are some norms of human behavior. Unless someone has come to so despair of the world as to hate life, everyone resists death. Such is normal everywhere.

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Of course it is. But, if you roll the dice one single time, one time, a single storm. Can you tell if that single result was because of the loading or the result of normal probability? Eric claims that he can tell a loaded 12 from a normal probability 12. He can't and neither can you.

Big storms were going to happen on this planet even if humans had never discovered the usefulness of fossil fuels or the Toba eruption had wiped us out. Eric claims that he can identify which storms are global warming storms and which ones are normal "stormy Earth" storms. He can't and neither can you.

Every time someone on "my side" politically claims they can tell the storms apart, they hand the deniers a get-out-of-responsibility-free card. They can correctly point out that "my side" is just making stuff up and "we" lose credibility in "our" attempts to convince the fence sitters that we need to make some tough choices right now.

Well, Eric relies on methods I don't see as valid, but they are to him. Of course he'll identify a storm as belonging to a group if his "evidence" leads him there.

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Of course it is. But, if you roll the dice one single time, one time, a single storm. Can you tell if that single result was because of the loading or the result of normal probability? Eric claims that he can tell a loaded 12 from a normal probability 12. He can't and neither can you.

No, but one can tell if someone is getting freakish results that suggest cheating. Someone who gets three consecutive elevens (one chance in 18 to the third power, or one in 5832) in a craps game could just be lucky. If you are in casino security you find such an event you just might want to confiscate the dice and find some trick to get the person who just threw those three 11's to stick around until you find that they are loaded or otherwise fraudulent. Honest players would gladly trade the dice for a steak dinner on the house unless they are vegetarians, in which something else might suffice.

So the dice are from your casino... it's probably luck. Someone has to win big. If they are from elsewhere and are loaded then you might have to make a call to the Las Vegas Police Department.

Big storms were going to happen on this planet even if humans had never discovered the usefulness of fossil fuels or the Toba eruption had wiped us out. Eric claims that he can identify which storms are global warming storms and which ones are normal "stormy Earth" storms. He can't and neither can you.

1000-year events happen by pure chance. A 1000-year event is going to happen somewhere. But Typhoon Yolanda is (1) unusually severe, and (2) unusually late for so severe a typhoon.

Every time someone on "my side" politically claims they can tell the storms apart, they hand the deniers a get-out-of-responsibility-free card. They can correctly point out that "my side" is just making stuff up and "we" lose credibility in "our" attempts to convince the fence sitters that we need to make some tough choices right now.

We are playing with loaded dice now.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

No, but one can tell if someone is getting freakish results that suggest cheating. Someone who gets three consecutive elevens (one chance in 18 to the sixth power, or one in 5832) in a craps game could just be lucky. If you are in casino security you find such an event you just might want to confiscate the dice and find some trick to get the person who just threw those three 11's to stick around until you find that they are loaded or otherwise fraudulent. Honest players would gladly trade the dice for a steak dinner on the house unless they are vegetarians, in which something else might suffice.

Do you honestly think I don't understand the difference between stochastic patterns and single events?

So the dice are from your casino... it's probably luck. Someone has to win big. If they are from elsewhere and are loaded then you might have to make a call to the Las Vegas Police Department.

1000-year events happen by pure chance. A 1000-year event is going to happen somewhere. But Typhoon Yolanda is (1) unusually severe, and (2) unusually late for so severe a typhoon.

And your evidence that this storm would not have happened or would not have been as large without global warming is?

We are playing with loaded dice now.

So it's OK to lie about what we can actually demonstrate?