AGW Skepticism and Rationale (Warning: Long)

[Bern80]

"The scientific academies of 13 countries on Tuesday urged the world to act more forcefully to limit the threat posed by human-driven global warming."

I think that sentence is pretty clear.

If you think that sentance says there is a consensus among the scientific community that man is tha main cause of current warming trend than apparently it isn't very clear at all.

 

[Bern80]

A consenus is different from a simple majority.

Yet those of you trying to make the case for AGW use them as syononmous. And despite knowing that less than half of the scientific community (the people that should no whether this is a real man made problem or not) you and other (non-scientists) here seem to believe the case is closed.

 

[Diuretic]

If you think that sentance says there is a consensus among the scientific community that man is tha main cause of current warming trend than apparently it isn't very clear at all.

No, I recognised that you rejected the point. So I merely moved to another position. That position is that the consensus among scientists involved in examining climate change is that it is probable that it is caused by human activity. That must be why governments around the world - well many governments anyway - are moving to develop policy on the issue.

 

[Diuretic]

Yet those of you trying to make the case for AGW use them as syononmous. And despite knowing that less than half of the scientific community (the people that should no whether this is a real man made problem or not) you and other (non-scientists) here seem to believe the case is closed.

Hang on I think I just pointed out the difference between consensus and majority didn't I? Anyway not to worry, let's move on.

In politics the existence of a majority is important, it's how you win.

But this isn't politics, it's science.

Now I've laboured the point about my non-scientific status sufficiently so that I think anyone reading this thread will understand I'm not at all ashamed at revealing my ignorance of the science on this issue.

I suspect scientists don't hold votes on scientific issues. So when I read that there is a consensus among scientists working in this field - note that, working in this field, not as statisticians or mathematicians - then I'm convinced and I'm happy to chuck my vote at a politician who has a similar state of mind to me.

What I think of anthropogenic climate change doesn't matter in a scientific sense because I haven't got a clue about it, scientifically speaking. But I am more than happy to listen to disinterested, objective scientific voices which are raised in warning about the fate of the planet. If they tell me we're in trouble then I believe them.,

 

[Bern80]

Hang on I think I just pointed out the difference between consensus and majority didn't I? Anyway not to worry, let's move on.

In politics the existence of a majority is important, it's how you win.

But this isn't politics, it's science.

Now I've laboured the point about my non-scientific status sufficiently so that I think anyone reading this thread will understand I'm not at all ashamed at revealing my ignorance of the science on this issue.

I suspect scientists don't hold votes on scientific issues. So when I read that there is a consensus among scientists working in this field - note that, working in this field, not as statisticians or mathematicians - then I'm convinced and I'm happy to chuck my vote at a politician who has a similar state of mind to me.

There had to be 'vote' of some type as no one would be able to say x number of people believe in this.

What I think of anthropogenic climate change doesn't matter in a scientific sense because I haven't got a clue about it, scientifically speaking. But I am more than happy to listen to disinterested, objective scientific voices which are raised in warning about the fate of the planet. If they tell me we're in trouble then I believe them.,

And what about the many scientists that say we aren't in trouble?

 

[Diuretic]

There had to be 'vote' of some type as no one would be able to say x number of people believe in this.



And what about the many scientists that say we aren't in trouble?

I don't think a vote is necessary. It's entirely probable that those working in the area have achieved consensus through a process of discussion, of reading the refereed journals, of attending conferences and perhaps giving a paper at a conference or taking part in a formal debate at a conference. They being scientists, not inclined to accept an idea without proof of some sort, have probably analysed the various arguments and eventually their opinions have coalesced into consensus.

The scientists who say we aren't in trouble? Who are they?

 

[Bern80]

I don't think a vote is necessary. It's entirely probable that those working in the area have achieved consensus through a process of discussion, of reading the refereed journals, of attending conferences and perhaps giving a paper at a conference or taking part in a formal debate at a conference. They being scientists, not inclined to accept an idea without proof of some sort, have probably analysed the various arguments and eventually their opinions have coalesced into consensus.

The scientists who say we aren't in trouble? Who are they?

So then you would have to be calling bogus on the assertion that the 'consensus' includes less than half of the scientific community, right?

Because if it's less than half then the anwer to your question would be the scientists not in said consensus whom either haven't decided or don't believe this is a man made occurance.

The numbers are there Diuretic. Either you're calling bogus on them or you choosing to believe in an opinion that constitutes less than the majority. Which is it?

 

[Diuretic]

So then you would have to be calling bogus on the assertion that the 'consensus' includes less than half of the scientific community, right?

Because if it's less than half then the anwer to your question would be the scientists not in said consensus whom either haven't decided or don't believe this is a man made occurance.

The numbers are there Diuretic. Either you're calling bogus on them or you choosing to believe in an opinion that constitutes less than the majority. Which is it?

Bugger this.

A consenus is an agreed position. It's arrived at by discussion and debate. No-one calls for a division in the parliament, there's no ballot, no "okay we have 51% we win".

The consensus - the general agreement - in the scientific community that deals with this stuff is that it's there and we need to do something about it. That's called prudence. It's what's driving the policy of many governments in the world who recognise the threat of global climate change because the scientific consensus is that it is a threat.

Sure there are a few scientists, some of whom probably don't even work in this area especially the denalist pin-up boy Bjorn Lomborg (Lomborg is a statistician - Bjorn Lomborg - SourceWatch), who pooh-pooh the idea but in the field itself the consensus view is that we need to do something about global climate change. As I said, that's all I need to know.

 

[Bern80]

Bugger this.

A consenus is an agreed position. It's arrived at by discussion and debate. No-one calls for a division in the parliament, there's no ballot, no "okay we have 51% we win".

The consensus - the general agreement - in the scientific community that deals with this stuff is that it's there and we need to do something about it. That's called prudence. It's what's driving the policy of many governments in the world who recognise the threat of global climate change because the scientific consensus is that it is a threat.

Sure there are a few scientists, some of whom probably don't even work in this area especially the denalist pin-up boy Bjorn Lomborg (Lomborg is a statistician - Bjorn Lomborg - SourceWatch), who pooh-pooh the idea but in the field itself the consensus view is that we need to do something about global climate change. As I said, that's all I need to know.

That isn't very logical Diuretic. You're being semantical to rationalize a position that isn't.
A consensus is a group of people that hold a specific position on the topic. We consider members of the scientific community most informed to give an educated opinion on the matter and less than half them agree that we have caused this. That is the group of people in your consensus. And essentially what you are saying is that the other scientists who don't hold that position are irrelevant even though it is in fact they that constitute the majority of informed individuals on the topic.

Of further interest is your statement that warming is a problem regardless of whether we are causing it or not. Well if we aren't the predominant cause of this trend, don't you find it interesting that you're advocating circumventing mother nature?

 

[Diuretic]

That isn't very logical Diuretic. You're being semantical to rationalize a position that isn't.
A consensus is a group of people that hold a specific position on the topic. We consider members of the scientific community most informed to give an educated opinion on the matter and less than half them agree that we have caused this. That is the group of people in your consensus. And essentially what you are saying is that the other scientists who don't hold that position are irrelevant even though it is in fact they that constitute the majority of informed individuals on the topic.

Of further interest is your statement that warming is a problem regardless of whether we are causing it or not. Well if we aren't the predominant cause of this trend, don't you find it interesting that you're advocating circumventing mother nature?

Oh come on, now you're being disingenuous.

IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

And if global climate change isn't anthropogenic why would that change our attitude? If it isn't then we need to find out what's causing it and we should do our best to ameliorate, if not reverse it. If it's us then we know what we need to do, if it's not us then we need to find out what we need to do to sort it out. We're humans. We're the interfering animal, we can engage with our environment in the hope of reducing the deleterious effects rather than wait around for extinction.

 

[TopGunna]

Oh come on, now you're being disingenuous.

IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

And if global climate change isn't anthropogenic why would that change our attitude? If it isn't then we need to find out what's causing it and we should do our best to ameliorate, if not reverse it. If it's us then we know what we need to do, if it's not us then we need to find out what we need to do to sort it out. We're humans. We're the interfering animal, we can engage with our environment in the hope of reducing the deleterious effects rather than wait around for extinction.

Why is there a need to reverse the change, regardless of the forcing? Are we currently at the perfect global temperature?

Satellite data shows no global trend over the past 20 years. Certainly CO2 heat trapping is not the only force at work.

Certainly CO2 heat trapping is not the only force at work.

 

[Diuretic]

That isn't very logical Diuretic. You're being semantical to rationalize a position that isn't.
A consensus is a group of people that hold a specific position on the topic. We consider members of the scientific community most informed to give an educated opinion on the matter and less than half them agree that we have caused this. That is the group of people in your consensus. And essentially what you are saying is that the other scientists who don't hold that position are irrelevant even though it is in fact they that constitute the majority of informed individuals on the topic.

Of further interest is your statement that warming is a problem regardless of whether we are causing it or not. Well if we aren't the predominant cause of this trend, don't you find it interesting that you're advocating circumventing mother nature?

Why is there a need to reverse the change, regardless of the forcing? Are we currently at the perfect global temperature?

Satellite data shows no global trend over the past 20 years. Certainly CO2 heat trapping is not the only force at work.

Certainly CO2 heat trapping is not the only force at work.

Buggered if I know. Ask a scientist, I'm not a scientist so I can't debate the point.

 

[Bern80]

Buggered if I know. Ask a scientist, I'm not a scientist so I can't debate the point.

Then debate it from the point of a non-scientist. Look at what you know and where the information is comeing from. Again your consensus constitutes a small part of the scientific community. You also don't need much scientific background to observe that historically climate has moved in cycles. You don't need a scientific background to see how insignificant this relative pin prick in the historical time line of climate is. And yet you choose to believe, despite the insignificance in terms of time and despite that fewer than half of the qualified profesionals think we are causing this. Even being a non-scientist, does that make a lot of sense to you?

 

[Chris]

 

[Chris]

The estimated uncertainty in the annual mean is the standard deviation
# of the differences of annual mean values determined independently by
# NOAA/ESRL and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
#
# Atmospheric CO2 numbers from NOAA
#
# year mean unc
1959 315.98 0.12
1960 316.91 0.12
1961 317.65 0.12
1962 318.45 0.12
1963 318.99 0.12
1964 319.61 0.12
1965 320.03 0.12
1966 321.37 0.12
1967 322.18 0.12
1968 323.05 0.12
1969 324.62 0.12
1970 325.68 0.12
1971 326.32 0.12
1972 327.46 0.12
1973 329.68 0.12
1974 330.17 0.12
1975 331.09 0.12
1976 332.06 0.12
1977 333.78 0.12
1978 335.40 0.12
1979 336.78 0.12
1980 338.70 0.12
1981 340.11 0.12
1982 341.21 0.12
1983 342.84 0.12
1984 344.40 0.12
1985 345.87 0.12
1986 347.19 0.12
1987 348.98 0.12
1988 351.45 0.12
1989 352.89 0.12
1990 354.16 0.12
1991 355.49 0.12
1992 356.27 0.12
1993 356.96 0.12
1994 358.63 0.12
1995 360.62 0.12
1996 362.37 0.12
1997 363.47 0.12
1998 366.50 0.12
1999 368.14 0.12
2000 369.41 0.12
2001 371.07 0.12
2002 373.16 0.12
2003 375.80 0.12
2004 377.55 0.12
2005 379.75 0.12
2006 381.85 0.12
2007 383.72 0.12

 

[Bern80]

The estimated uncertainty in the annual mean is the standard deviation
# of the differences of annual mean values determined independently by
# NOAA/ESRL and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
#
# Atmospheric CO2 numbers from NOAA
#
# year mean unc
1959 315.98 0.12
1960 316.91 0.12
1961 317.65 0.12
1962 318.45 0.12
1963 318.99 0.12
1964 319.61 0.12
1965 320.03 0.12
1966 321.37 0.12
1967 322.18 0.12
1968 323.05 0.12
1969 324.62 0.12
1970 325.68 0.12
1971 326.32 0.12
1972 327.46 0.12
1973 329.68 0.12
1974 330.17 0.12
1975 331.09 0.12
1976 332.06 0.12
1977 333.78 0.12
1978 335.40 0.12
1979 336.78 0.12
1980 338.70 0.12
1981 340.11 0.12
1982 341.21 0.12
1983 342.84 0.12
1984 344.40 0.12
1985 345.87 0.12
1986 347.19 0.12
1987 348.98 0.12
1988 351.45 0.12
1989 352.89 0.12
1990 354.16 0.12
1991 355.49 0.12
1992 356.27 0.12
1993 356.96 0.12
1994 358.63 0.12
1995 360.62 0.12
1996 362.37 0.12
1997 363.47 0.12
1998 366.50 0.12
1999 368.14 0.12
2000 369.41 0.12
2001 371.07 0.12
2002 373.16 0.12
2003 375.80 0.12
2004 377.55 0.12
2005 379.75 0.12
2006 381.85 0.12
2007 383.72 0.12

Looks good to me and perfectly logical. As we industrialize, have put more cars on the road etc. we are adding more CO2 into the air then what there would be if we weren't here. So that point has been made and most reasonable people would accept it.

The question is since CO2 is such a minute component of the atmosphere does it make a difference? I think of it terms of ingredients in cooking. I make my own home made spaghettis sauce. It's mostly tomatoes. But I put some seasoning and garlic and what not into it. I use on avg 12 quarts of tomatoes. That's 3 gallons. One ingredient I put in is oregano about a tablespoon. Do you think anyone would notice the difference in doubling it to two tablespoons when the whole batch is 3 gallons? NOTE: there are 256 tablespoons in a gallon.

yes I understand they are to totally different things but in terms of parts of the whole CO2 and the oregano in my sauce or analogous. So again where does this exponentially powerful force, from a minute part of the whole, come from?

 

[Bern80]

Oh come on, now you're being disingenuous.

IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

And if global climate change isn't anthropogenic why would that change our attitude? If it isn't then we need to find out what's causing it and we should do our best to ameliorate, if not reverse it. If it's us then we know what we need to do, if it's not us then we need to find out what we need to do to sort it out. We're humans. We're the interfering animal, we can engage with our environment in the hope of reducing the deleterious effects rather than wait around for extinction.

If you want to maintain any credibility in this debate, citing the IPCC isn't gonna help you much. There are many theories out there that have far more scientifc evidence than AGW for why things are getting warmer like we're in a warming cycle and it has and will continue to get warmer no matter what we do. If we aren't causing it all of the sudden the people that are trying so hard to reduce our 'unnatural' impact on the environment are doing exactley the opposite. It would now be the AGW alarmists that are trying bend nature to their will if this really is a natural cycle.

the air of your tone speaks to exactley what I've been talking about with regards to the psychology of an alarmist. You make man out to be so much more significant than we really are. Every organism on this planet interacts with and interferes with it's environment. Yet we're the bad guys. We use the environment by building homes in it just like other animals we consume plants and animals for food, just like other animals (Amazingly I have yet to see a PETA campaign against the North American Timberwolf for the number of deer they kill.

And if you want to not wait around for extinction of the human race then I suggest you get your priorities straight. Because mass extinction isn't going to come from, at worst estimate a few degrees warmer than now. It's going to come with the next ice age. That is when you will see the death of millions if not billions of humans. What is your plan for mother nature then?

 

[Chris]

Looks good to me and perfectly logical. As we industrialize, have put more cars on the road etc. we are adding more CO2 into the air then what there would be if we weren't here. So that point has been made and most reasonable people would accept it.

The question is since CO2 is such a minute component of the atmosphere does it make a difference? I think of it terms of ingredients in cooking. I make my own home made spaghettis sauce. It's mostly tomatoes. But I put some seasoning and garlic and what not into it. I use on avg 12 quarts of tomatoes. That's 3 gallons. One ingredient I put in is oregano about a tablespoon. Do you think anyone would notice the difference in doubling it to two tablespoons when the whole batch is 3 gallons? NOTE: there are 256 tablespoons in a gallon.

yes I understand they are to totally different things but in terms of parts of the whole CO2 and the oregano in my sauce or analogous. So again where does this exponentially powerful force, from a minute part of the whole, come from?

Here is a good outline of the science behind global warming. I warn you...the Western Fuels Association did not fund any of this research.


The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

 

[Chris]

If you want to maintain any credibility in this debate, citing the IPCC isn't gonna help you much.

What would they know? They are just a few thousand of the world's top scientists. They don't know as much as Rush and Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

 

[Bern80]

What would they know? They are just a few thousand of the world's top scientists. They don't know as much as Rush and Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

It is on the record at this point that the IPCC was quite courrpted with several revisions made without consent.

Reading your link (which was indeed quite convincing, however:

Global Warming: More Hot Air

perhaps the reason so much back door tinkering was done is because some felt the urgency to be so great that corrupting the data for the sake of getting a message across was worth it.