Global Warming Concensus Broken

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MSimon
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Global Warming Concensus Broken

Post by MSimon »

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm? ... 4616db87e6
POZNAN, Poland - The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices and views of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See Full report Here: & See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' ]
There are links at the site.
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Mike Holmes
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Post by Mike Holmes »

I thought you'd been saying that the consensus was broken a long time ago.

Or is it that they've just now gotten a voice? At least now I won't have to listen to people saying that the anti side is being censored.

Right?

The greatest disservice done by the AGW advocates seems to me to have been to alienate the anti-AGW side to the extent that their reactions (found at the link above) are - if we are to compare AGW to a religion - possesed of a reformation-like quality of a counter-religion. A lot of indignation; and perhaps understandably so. Those scientists need to tone down the rhetoric, and make their cases calmly and clearly. Not fall into the trap which the side they're trying to discredit had fallen into. If they see it as a credibility problem, the only way out is to act credibly for their own part.

Mike

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Mike Holmes wrote:I thought you'd been saying that the consensus was broken a long time ago.

Or is it that they've just now gotten a voice? At least now I won't have to listen to people saying that the anti side is being censored.

Right?

The greatest disservice done by the AGW advocates seems to me to have been to alienate the anti-AGW side to the extent that their reactions (found at the link above) are - if we are to compare AGW to a religion - possesed of a reformation-like quality of a counter-religion. A lot of indignation; and perhaps understandably so. Those scientists need to tone down the rhetoric, and make their cases calmly and clearly. Not fall into the trap which the side they're trying to discredit had fallen into. If they see it as a credibility problem, the only way out is to act credibly for their own part.

Mike
The AGW folks have been censoring the sceptics since the beginning. Hansen says they should be treated like Holocaust Deniers. Hardly a scientific attitude.

At Real Climate they delete comments they can't counter.

The IPCC does not include counter factual papers.

AGW is a religion. Heretics must be punished.
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ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

Mike Holmes wrote:I thought you'd been saying that the consensus was broken a long time ago.

Or is it that they've just now gotten a voice? At least now I won't have to listen to people saying that the anti side is being censored.

Right?

The greatest disservice done by the AGW advocates seems to me to have been to alienate the anti-AGW side to the extent that their reactions (found at the link above) are - if we are to compare AGW to a religion - possesed of a reformation-like quality of a counter-religion. A lot of indignation; and perhaps understandably so. Those scientists need to tone down the rhetoric, and make their cases calmly and clearly. Not fall into the trap which the side they're trying to discredit had fallen into. If they see it as a credibility problem, the only way out is to act credibly for their own part.

Mike
I once discussed global warming with someone at Scientific American who was critical of my Senator Jim Inhofe, accusing him of being willfully stupid by not accepting the "consensus". I pointed out at that time that the proponents of Global Warming would have us believe that a group of people (liberals) who have never been correct about anything in the entire history of mankind (in our opinion) happened to be correct about this. I said Senator Inhofe was just being cautious because if the liberals were right about this it would cause a HUGE economic upheaval. At that time I thought there was something to global warming, but a few weeks later I realized that "Progressives" weren't even right about this.

For a long time we were told that there is a CONSENSUS. Now we find... not so much.


David

Josh Cryer
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Post by Josh Cryer »

MSimon, you should substantiate your claim that Real Climate "censors comments they can't counter."

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Post by MSimon »

Josh Cryer wrote:MSimon, you should substantiate your claim that Real Climate "censors comments they can't counter."
You will have to read the comments at Climate Audit. The instances are too numerous to mention but, I have not maintained a record so some digging will be required.

Other so called sceptic sites have noted the same thing and not just at Real Climate.

The AGW folks have something to sell (consensus) so no serious competition is allowed. It is not science though.

Here at TP we encourage sceptics to weigh in. Art Carlson among others has done an excellent job. If there is a flaw I want to know it so it can be fixed or so I can go on to something else which would be a more profitable use of my time. Art came in an extreme sceptic and now says maybe - more research is required. That is real science. The way it should be done. Had he said no way - I would have given it a significant weight. Two or three more and I would have resigned my position here - sadly. Art did what any honest scientist should do. Dig into the actual material and evidence and see if a conclusion can be reached.

All the bleating about climate consensus is a smoke screen. The consensus may be wrong about AGW. It also may be wrong about the path to fusion power. It also may be right. The only way to be sure is to allow opposing views and see where the arguments and evidence lead.
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Maui
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Re: Global Warming Concensus Broken

Post by Maui »

IMHO anyone that claims Global Warming is "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" should not be accepted as a trusted source of dispassionate information. This year he's fished 237 more "scientists" out that are willing to call themselves skeptics. But this list builds off of last years 413 that included:

84 that are connected to fossile fuel industries
49 that are retired
44 that are television weathermen
20 that are economists
70 have no apparent expertise in climate science
Inhofe's 413

As that site points out, if you're going to have standards that loose, its certainly acceptable to contrast that to the American Geophysical Union, and its 50,000 earth, ocean and atmospheric scientists which states that "Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate".

Look, I'm all for skepticism. It's a critical piece of the scientific method. But it's only one piece. And the skeptics have not produced any work that creates any major problem for the theory. As with any science, it is evloving and I'm sure many of the things that are thought now will not stand up to future research.

The IPCC report discusses research into the many possible natural causes of the warming, its not ignored. It simply concludes that based on the research so far, none of the other explanation are likely to explain the warming without considering human contributions.

It really boils down to this:
It is pretty clear that humans are injecting a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere.
It is pretty clear that the more CO2 is in the atmosphere, the longer it takes heat to escape back into space.

When you look at data like this, it's not to say that obvious conclusion is necessarily correct-- but I would argue we have a responsibility to all future generations to be sure we completely understand what is going on with this data and put all reasonable possiblity that humans are behind it to rest before deciding not to address it. And given that at the bare miminum a majority of scientist accept that humans are causing GW, in my mind we would have to see an enourmous shift in the science before it is responsible to avoid action. (Particularily if action is economically beneficial in the long run anyway)

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Are you telling me that TV weathemen haven't studied climate? That is a stretch.

BTW I'm retired and fusion is rather far afield for me. And yet there are folks who are intimately connected with the field who think I have made a valuable contribution or two.

In addition I have studied AGW extensively and was at one time convinced CO2 was a problem. Now I think the weight of evidence is against it and that weight is getting stronger as time goes on.

Biggest hoax going. Well other than "socialism is a good way to run an economy". Over 100 years of evidence against it and yet the ranks of the believers are hardly thinned.
It is pretty clear that the more CO2 is in the atmosphere, the longer it takes heat to escape back into space.
I don't dispute that. Much. Except for the "heat pipe effect". What I dispute is the water vapor multiplier. That is where the Climate "Science" magic is done. Now the IPCC admits they don't even know the sign let alone the magnitude of the water vapor effect. It is assumed.

And the sun is awful quiet these days and the sun's magnetic field is declining. There have been a number of papers that show from different points of view how the solar magnetic field affects climate. I posted one above and Svensmark has done interesting work in that area from a physics point of view.

Let me add that human additions to the CO2 level are about 1/5 of the natural sources adding to the level.

A wallet extraction scheme.
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Josh Cryer
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Post by Josh Cryer »

MSimon, thanks for the heads up, from what I can see there are claims of censorship but no real meat to them, I'll keep digging but I was hoping you had a specific example. I have been a long time reader of RealClimate and they have been extremely patient with certain "deniers" over utter trivialities. It seems to me unlikely that they would delete certain specific criticisms that they haven't either convered before or that they are "unable" to answer.

I am with the Mars Society, and there was a time about 7-8 years ago where almost half of the posts at NewMars.com were written by Hoagland apologists (from EnterpriseMission). Rather than ban these idiots outright we allowed them to post their non-sense, to the detriment of the forums. Then I took it upon myself to, civilly, debunk their garbage, one point after counterpoint at a time. I even went so far as to go to EnterpriseMission, to the source itself. I can say I am proud to be single handedly responsible for their forums shutting down and moving over to a different format. Many of my posts were deleted, all, again, not trolls, but civil criticisms of their conspiracies.

I like the latest essay that has been posted to RealClimate.org, it's quite apt: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... /#more-616

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Josh Cryer wrote:MSimon, thanks for the heads up, from what I can see there are claims of censorship but no real meat to them, I'll keep digging but I was hoping you had a specific example. I have been a long time reader of RealClimate and they have been extremely patient with certain "deniers" over utter trivialities. It seems to me unlikely that they would delete certain specific criticisms that they haven't either convered before or that they are "unable" to answer.

I am with the Mars Society, and there was a time about 7-8 years ago where almost half of the posts at NewMars.com were written by Hoagland apologists (from EnterpriseMission). Rather than ban these idiots outright we allowed them to post their non-sense, to the detriment of the forums. Then I took it upon myself to, civilly, debunk their garbage, one point after counterpoint at a time. I even went so far as to go to EnterpriseMission, to the source itself. I can say I am proud to be single handedly responsible for their forums shutting down and moving over to a different format. Many of my posts were deleted, all, again, not trolls, but civil criticisms of their conspiracies.

I like the latest essay that has been posted to RealClimate.org, it's quite apt: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... /#more-616
If you follow Climate Audit many of the deletions were of reputable climate scientists and engineers making civil comments and presenting counterfactuals.

When the Real Climate folks have no good answer they delete.

However, you are right. When they have an easily debunked idiot they often let the comment stand. Makes 'em look good and gives an aura of fairness.

I was at one time on the AGW bandwagon. After doing a LOT of research I'm no longer convinced. However, if the AGW folks get their models to include solar variability (they could start with the known 300 year cycle which seems to have peaked) and stop leaving out known factors like the PDO (that has been known for decades and yet - until recently was left out of the models) and start getting qualified mathematicians on their teams I might change my mind. Plus the water vapor thing and Svensmark's work on cosmic rays. I have already changed it once with new information. I'm not adverse to doing it again.

But I got to tell you - we don't have enough computer power to simulate a Polywell. And Climate is a 10,000 times harder (minimum) problem. It is unbounded. And the initial conditions are very poorly known.
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

BTW Josh,

New research shows some acquired characteristics can be inherited. The Real Climate guys need to keep up. They ruin their own arguments by being ill informed. Things are much more complicated than the consensus would have you believe.

And let me note that Svensmark has been corroborated by the independent study in Australia I posted.
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Nanos
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Post by Nanos »

It can be hard to tell when someone is being censored if all evidence of them trying to say something is deleted!

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Nanos wrote:It can be hard to tell when someone is being censored if all evidence of them trying to say something is deleted!
Which is why you have to read Climate Audit and other sceptic blogs to find it.
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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

I have not paid enough attention to the AGW debate. I thought the science was pretty clear.

In fact, I still think the science is pretty clear but I would be happier if I worked through all the arguments and counter-arguments myself. The trouble is that climate prediction is really complex - I agree with Simon in that there are many unknowns - climate models can easily be over-fitted to data in which case they have little predictive validity - etc.

I don't expect to come to a serious technical view myself without say a first year PhD's level of LS - which would take a long time. So like most people I rely on my judgement of the quality of experts, and the integrity of their debate and counter-debate.

(1) polemic web-sites are fine as a source of fact but totally unreliable as a source of judgement - since they generally have an agenda and pick facts to fit it.

(2) Normally if I look at two such sites, where one is authoritative and the other crank, I can detect the difference from the way that one site produces more convincing rebuttals of the other's debate.

(3) Received wisdom amongst scientific community can be wrong, but I certainly don't think that scientists divide politically in this debate in such a way that nearly all have biasses in favour of AGW. Simon, as an anti-AGW advocate - why do you believe that 90% of serious climate scientists are biassed? I would have thought that, especially in US, there was fame and money to be got just as easily debunking AGW as supporting it?

(4) Can anyone else help resolve this - I imagine there are people here (Josh?) who have reviewed the evidence with an open mind?

I know I am lazy here - I won't be clear in my own mind till I have have done more careful analysis myself. I have one advantage over some of the people in this debate (including clearly Simon) - my political views are not simply left or right wing, and they do not lead me to any fixed view in this matter.

Perhaps I disagree with Simon in this. Economists discount future risks (say at 5%/year) because they consider the matter financially. That is not in my view appropriate for massive future environmental deterioration. It is entirely possible for the free market to act in a long-term deleterious way because the interests of actors can't be rational beyond a timescale of a few years. Some would say not even on this timescale!

My analogy is with evolution, which differs from free markets only in that the "agents" are not sentient and do not calculate. But over long-term issues I don't think free market agents (fund managers, corporations, etc) can calculate well either.

In evolution the results are astonishing and clever. But they are also massively inefficient. Arms races between species cripple many creatures. There is no sense in which more than a potentially unstable local optimum has been acheived.

Best wishes, Tom

Nanos
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Post by Nanos »

I try and make choices even when I don't know the best facts, based on what would be the sensible choice.

Take for example an easier problem, crime.

Do you:

A) Say its all hyped and there isn't really a problem, after all, you've lived in your house for 20 years and you've never been burglured..

B) Believe its terrible and build yourself a concrete bunker to live in..


Now to me, the sensible solution is not A), but C)

C) Think there might be an issue, so spend a little and improve security, thus reduce the risk of the problem effecting you.


Now for me, I go for option D:

D) Have no real idea on the truth (But based on my own experiences and those of others I know..), go for building a concrete bunker to live in just in case...

Now as long as I build a bunker that is almost like a real house to live in, I'm not really depriving myself of that much, I could even find a place to live where there is no reported crime at all. (I found such a place! Fetlar UK.)

So my thought is, dunno if Global Warming is an issue or not to worry about, but lets build a sustainable lifestyle anyhow, which just happens to include all those things that would make Global Warming people happy too.. Then if they are right, I'm ok, and if they are wrong, I'm ok too.

I think its quite possible we can have a win win situation, rather than a win-lose one.

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