Manipulation

Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts.

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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Self government and liberty (such as it is) brings chaos. Most people don't like chaos.

I'm an outlier with respect to chaos. I like way more than your average human.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Betruger
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Post by Betruger »

Nanos wrote: Perhaps what is needed is just a well educated dictatorship... ;-)
hehe..

seedload
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Post by seedload »

Mike Holmes wrote:Which one was censored?
An example. The IPPC has clearly censored evidence of the MWP from their reports. It used to be there. It isn't now.

This isn't even a matter of whether a paper gets published anymore. It is a matter of whether it is included by the IPPC. The IPPC report is the basis of public policy.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

)There is a noticeable historic correlation between CO2 levels and global mean temperatures
Correlation is not causation. The rise in CO2 generally seems to happen AFTER temperatures rise, and is probably due to CO2 release from the ocean.
3)Today both CO2 levels are at their highest levels in 10,000 years, and we've been getting the warmest summers in centuries.
No one really knows if the latter is true. It's quite likely, in fact, that the GISS temps (which are the only direct measurements that go back very far; the others are satellite-based and show little to no warming trend) are actually measuring localized heat from things like air conditioners that are increasingly common, not increased global temperatures. Check out surfacestations.org to see how truly awful the placement of some of these stations are.

Also, one of the biggest problems I have with the GISS data is that Hansen keeps revising the data to make older temperatures colder. At this point, the data has been so poorly collected, so compromised by rejiggering*, and so politically driven that I don't trust it at all, and I don't see how any objective scientist could.

(*Here, for example, they take a station that shows a downward trend and after the "adjustment" voila! An upward trend. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/08/h ... #more-4455 )

Addditionally, the mechanism by which CO2 traps heat requires that we observe a heating in the upper troposphere. This has not been observed. So if the amount of CO2 we've added does significantly warm the Earth, no one knows how it actually happens.

So we're left with:

1)The Earth may not actually be warming.

2) If it is warming, it may not be because of CO2.

Global warming may be a real problem, but spending billions to attack it is emphatically not a scientific proposition. Proponents have thrown skepticism right out the window in favor of a frothy-mouthed messianic environmental crusade in which nonbelievers must be silenced (Hansen has even talked, seriously, of war crimes trials for skeptics).

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

ravingdave
gblaze42

and others.

You are right to this extent. I am as guilty of simplifying the issues as are the anti-AGW (anthropic GW) advocates.

This is not simple science - CO2 causes GW, measure increase in CO2 => know increase in temperature.

There are very many feedbacks which affect what happens, heat input from the sun is variable, there are climatic changes (el nino etc) that have significant short-term effect. During industrialisation man-made aerosols decreased temperature for quite a while.

So I agree the matter is complex. Which also means I find it difficult to accept the "it is obvious because of ...." followed by description of some facts and arguments which appear to explain the matter. Nothing except a very complete treatment of most of the variables is going to lead to reliable results.

Since I am not a climatologist I can't directly evaluate this. But I can look that the current balance of scientific opinion, and the non-scientific biasses that might lead to given opinion.

Current opinion is massively on the side of: "AGW is a real danger". I can believe that non-US climatologists might have some bias in this direction. But surely US climatologists, funded for 10 years by US government and other groups wanting the opposite answer, have an equal if not much greater bias in the opposite direction? And when the peer-reviewed research is synthesised the results look distinctly worrying.

This is nothing like any of the previous (or current) other scientific scare stories. The science has been actively research and argued for many years, the risks are quantified after debate in which all strands of serious opinion are included. And the IPCC reports always get toned down a lot by governments who do not want bad news.

There is a real political argument about whether move to renewables is better of worse than dealing with (say) a 3 degree rise in temperature. But the risks of a much higher rise, if nothing is done, are very significant. Saying, OK - if that happens we plant trees does not cut it. It will then be MUCH more expensive to take the necessary corrective action. So it is an enormous gamble with all our lives against what is current best scientific opinion.

I would therefore be sympathetic with a call for massive funding of new science (say equal quantities to pro and anti AGW groups). Just as I am in favour of money spent on intelligence to quantify future terrorism risks (even though I personally believe these to be real but less significant than other problems). But so far the money put into this research is just leading to more definite pro-AGW conculsions every year. At some time we have to accept that like it or not this is the reality.

Best wishes, Tom

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Current opinion is massively on the side of: "AGW is a real danger".
Well there are a lot of people who have studied the subject who do not agree.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

In the general population the agreement reached about 50% and is now declining. Esp. since the scientist and climatologists who disagree have been getting a platform.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

The 3 deg rise is dependent on the water vapor multiplier.

That multiplier is the least understood part of climate science and the IPCC admits that they don't even know the sign let alone the magnitude.

I favor letting science and technology take its course esp. since we seem to be currently in a cooling period of unknown duration and that science and technology will have us off fossil fuels by 2065 or 2100.

There is no need to panic.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

Simon,

I think we are now restating positions. Mine is that while I would take a vote to decide what government we should have, i will not take a vote 9or a petition0 to decide what is or is not true scientifically. for that i trust my own research into scientific opinion that I vaguely trust (= peer reviewed and openly published) modified perhaps by known biasses in funding. (Thus much of the medical research is funded by drug companies with an agenda and nust be scrutinsed carefully). But as long as lots of money is spent on both sides of an issue I think we can be reasonably confident in the science.

Reasonable confidence is not 100% but then what risk do we need to suppose before we spend money on a precautionary principle? I would say >50% is enough.

Best wishes, Tom

Mike Holmes
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Post by Mike Holmes »

Heh, if a "Mass Extinction Event" sized asteroid were heading generally in the direction of Earth, and half the scientists said it might hit the planet, and half said it might miss, would you try to deflect it?

Actually I agree that the perhaps half saying that there's a potential problem aren't in agreement on the nature of what might happen - what's the cost in dollars if we lose species X? This is what makes the risk analysis difficult. Less that there is a risk, but what, exactly, that risk entails in terms of negative repercussions, should they come to occur.

I mean nobody is saying that at current rates there won't be more CO2 in the atmosphere (OK, well few). The question is what effect, if any, that will have. Then the question is, if it has an effect, what will it be? Then the question that follows that is, will that effect be more damaging than the solution costs?

I think most people in New York City should move inland now. The proximity to the port that created the city originally is no longer a physical neccessity for the vast majority of the population; they simply live there because they always have. Eventually NYC is going to be hit by a hurricane, whether or not global warming raises the sea level. If they're not willing to move, then they should absorb the risk.

Frankly I have very little to fear here in Wisconsin from global warming, other than a slightly shorter ski season. Yeah, yeah, I know, and the economic damage that is caused worldwide by whatever global warming does. But, heck, we're generally affected less here by such changes than most places. Housing market here hasn't changed nearly as much as most places, for instance.

It's these secondary effects that are predicted that I think are really the unlikely part. More hurricanes? As if we really understand what causes them to form.

As such, I think the slow pace that we're approaching the problem with is fine. One nice thing about this is that if changes do start happening, they're unlikely to happen truely overnight (action movies about sudden Ice-ages notwithstanding). As such, we may have more data later if/when there is a problem, and be able to react to it.

Basically I'm for more study of the issue on both sides. If knowledge is a "wallet extraction scheme" consider my wallet extractable. Aristotle would agree.

Note that I'm also for more study for finding cures for cancer, which I think is a worse burden (soon to be the #1 killer) on society than global warming is ever likely to be. I might even be for a Manhattan Project scale endeavor to finish off that little project. The point being that I'm not singling out investigation into global warming as the only place we should invest. Just one of many.

Mike

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Mike,

There is no asteroid headed for earth. There will be no sudden change. There for no need to panic.

The easiest way for the change to take place (and the only way to get China and India involved) is to reduce the costs of the alternatives. That requires more research and maybe some pilot production.

I see no point in crippling our economy and letting China and India do as the will. All you have to do to get me to sign on is to get China to stop building 52 coal fired plants a week. Get them down to zero a year and I'd be willing to see our energy production curtailed.

And good luck with that.

There will be no cure for cancer with a five year plan. Cancer is not one disease. It is 50. We don't even know enough yet to figure out where to start. We probably need at least 10 more years of research to even come to a starting point. Maybe 20.

More progress is made by steady plodding than with crash programs. More cheaply too.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Aero
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Post by Aero »

As a thought experiment, lets put ourselves in a "Chicken Little" universe.

Chicken Little says, "The sky is falling."

Scientist #1 says, "Yes, the sun is melting the icebergs which everyone knows hold up the sky." "The sky will fall in 7 years."

Scientist #2 says, "Yes, the clouds which everyone knows hold up the sky are getting smaller." "The sky will fall in 30 years."

Scientist #3 says, "The sky is not falling." "The sun is making the high pressure areas stronger and everyone knows that the high pressure areas hold the sky up."

Now, Foxy Fox says, "Hmm, is the sky falling or not?" "Well, it's three to one, but if I eat Chicken Little then it is only two to one." "Hmm!"

In the real world, these threads that discuss global warming seem to me to go a lot like the debate in Chicken Little's universe. The scientists have a hard time agreeing on what the mechanism of global warming is, and about a third of the time, someone is trying to "eat" someone else who's opinion differs from their own. Let's kick Foxy Fox out of our debate, OK?
Aero

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

Mike Holmes wrote:Heh, if a "Mass Extinction Event" sized asteroid were heading generally in the direction of Earth, and half the scientists said it might hit the planet, and half said it might miss, would you try to deflect it?
This is a bad analogy. The analogy should be more like: "Pal Bore" past vice dictator says that the only way to stop this "doomsday asteroid" (which may only be a tiny effervesing icebll, they aren't sure) is to spend ALL your money with his old company Boing to build a humungus nuclear rocket and smack this thing dead on and shatter it into a cazillion pieces. each too small to hurt the Earth.
It is not only a matter of "will it hit" but "what is it", "what will it do IF it hits", and how does that compare to the known cost of conducting an experiment that in itself WILL have disasterous effects in order to stave off an event that may or may NOT have disasterous effects.

Mike Holmes
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Post by Mike Holmes »

I think I understand the problem now. My posts are way too long, and y'all don't have the patience to read through them.

Because if you had, you'd see that my first paragraph was a set up for me to knock down the idea in detail in the following paragraphs. In fact one of you used almost precisely the same argument I used. Again, I'm agreeing with you guys, and you're acting like I'm not. It's a very strange feeling.

I'll try to be more brief in the future.

I think MSimon, that you must have then leapt to my last paragraph, and missed the context there, too. I tried to explain the point, but seem to have failed there, as well. The point being that I'm generally pro-research, which means that my desire to have the phenomenon studied is not some particular fixation on global warming. Cancer is (or Cancers are, if you prefer), as an example, to me a more important threat than what we can discern as potential threat from the possibility that global warming is real and has consequences. Any clearer?

Again, probably just paranioa on my part, but you (MSimon specifically) seem to just be spoiling to disagree with everything I say, no matter what it is. I'll have to try to keep my comments narrow so as not to disturb the all-knowledgable font.

Mike

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

My point on global warming is that even if it is true there is no point in crippling the USA economy if China and India do not sign on.

China and India will not sign on unless the alternatives for increasing their energy supply are equal or lower cost than what they are doing now.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Josh Cryer
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Post by Josh Cryer »

Heh, build a few hundred thousand windmills and you have something.

It's looking increasingly unlikely that Polywell is going to succeed, and it should be of no surprise, given that so many "believers" of Polywell are also likewise believers in other known absurdities.

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