Global Warming

[obsidianavenger]

From where I'm standing, conservatives just love to make victims out of victimless crimes. Especially if the bible told them to. I have no issue with big government as long as it's serving some purpose other than taking rights away from people for no good reason.

exactly. you think its ok to take people's rights away to accomplish goals that are important to YOU. they think its ok to take people's rights away to accomplish goals that are important to THEM. i don't think its ok to take people's rights away period.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

From where I'm standing, conservatives just love to make victims out of victimless crimes. Especially if the bible told them to. I have no issue with big government as long as it's serving some purpose other than taking rights away from people for no good reason.

Plus, they're selfish, self-centered, and put ideology above human lives. That's some nasty shit there. At least progressives don't want dead people to prove a point.

 

[Spase]

The entire thing is a lot easier to understand then what people make it out to be:
The earth has natural cycles of it's climate, of which is largely powered by the Sun (One of two sources of radiant energy for earth, the other being the heat from radioactively driven magma in the crust). These cycles have stabilized over the earths ~4.6 billion year lifespan. We as humans have done terrible things to the planet, but to think we can upset this 4.6 billion year old engine more then the Sun/Magma can is just flat out ignorance and egotism.

I love how people who are skeptical of a given scientific consensus seemingly without fail will tell you, "It's all so much simpler than people are making it out to be!"

This is commonly heard talking about evolution (monkeys can't become human lulz), and was amusingly lampooned in this xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/675/

It really isn't that much simpler than the scientific literature. And if you think you've just seen through a web of lies that's too complex for you to understand the chances are you actually aren't seeing through much at all. All of the BS you're bringing up is well discussed by experts and your mischaracterization of their work makes you either willfully ignorant or a troll. Either way you should be ignored since you have all the tools at your disposal now to discern your arguments as empty. If you want to argue the science then get some journal articles that make a decent case and explain that side of the debate but don't come with this utter BS and expect to be taken seriously.

I already know your next line so let me save you the trouble: "But it's all a conspiracy, scientists all over the world are controlled by the political interests of the left, and interestingly the scientific journals all only publish the articles that agree with policy even though they'd stand to make serious profits if they had any decent science to publish that actually disagreed with the consensus!"

Yeah... It turns out that isn't how science works...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I love how people who are skeptical of a given scientific consensus seemingly without fail will tell you, "It's all so much simpler than people are making it out to be!"

This is commonly heard talking about evolution (monkeys can't become human lulz), and was amusingly lampooned in this xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/675/

It really isn't that much simpler than the scientific literature. And if you think you've just seen through a web of lies that's too complex for you to understand the chances are you actually aren't seeing through much at all. All of the BS you're bringing up is well discussed by experts and your mischaracterization of their work makes you either willfully ignorant or a troll. Either way you should be ignored since you have all the tools at your disposal now to discern your arguments as empty. If you want to argue the science then get some journal articles that make a decent case and explain that side of the debate but don't come with this utter BS and expect to be taken seriously.

I already know your next line so let me save you the trouble: "But it's all a conspiracy, scientists all over the world are controlled by the political interests of the left, and interestingly the scientific journals all only publish the articles that agree with policy even though they'd stand to make serious profits if they had any decent science to publish that actually disagreed with the consensus!"

Yeah... It turns out that isn't how science works...

Yeah, it is a special sort of arrogance born of ignorance for the deniers to claim that science is simple, and that they understand it completely. It also assumes YET ANOTHER GIANT CONSPIRACY, where schools are giving out PhD degrees for things that the deniers claim that any asshole on the Internet can understand more completely than the professionals.

The deniers are claiming that their stupidity makes them smarter than experts... if someone knows about a higher level of arrogance, let me know.

 

[TheAnMish]

The deniers are claiming that their stupidity makes them smarter than experts... if someone knows about a higher level of arrogance, let me know.

Well.. one could argue that it is more arrogant to assume that the great sky daddy has chosen to take care of you and your family, rather than the rest of the world?
Of course, it's just a suggestion.. but I thought, now the question was out there, I wanted to compete.. did I win anything?

 

[Sarge084]

Let me step in here, I'm a skeptic, but I sit somewhere in the middle, yes AGW is a reality, although the link with CO2 is tenuous at the very least, a coincidence definitely. What worries me is that world attention is centred on CO2, the other greenhouse gases seem to have faded into the background, and the cynic in me believe that their is easy money to be made in carbon offsetting and consultancies on carbon reduction, and governments can tax us to the hilt and tell us it's a green tax and is for our own good. I'm in the grey area between the Chicken Little's with their sky falling in and those who don't believe the problem exists, I do believe opportunists are taking advantage of the situation, and the media is blowing it up out of all proportion, after all, bad news sells papers. I try to see through the hype and opportunism, and I see a problem that goes beyond CO2, I see a world in dire trouble, even if we do manage to tax ourselves into reduced CO2 emissions.

Meanwhile the deforestation, pollution of the seas, dumping of toxic chemicals, over population and a myriad of other concerns are struggling for attention. The COP15 summit went over schedule because no nation was prepared to take the lead and be the first to add to it's already growing production costs. Here in Yurop we have an overzealous bureaucracy that adds costs to production so that we large corporations move jobs to countries where they have little regard for pollution. Currently Hong Kong is shrouded in smog from mainland China, the sort of smog that kills people, and which Britain eradicated in the 1950's after thousands of deaths occurred in London. The 'Clean Air Act' brought about change, and a move from coal for heating and energy, with technology to reduce sulphur emissions made available 60 years ago, so why don't the third world countries use such technology; a.) Because there is no legislation to force them. b.) It will add to the cost of production, and they can't allow that to happen otherwise the jobs will move to another country where costs are still low, and pollution high.

For the uncompetitive western nations to ad further legislation to reduce emissions would mean that the third world nations would get yet more jobs whilst ignoring pollution, this is where the stalemate arose at COP15, while the world chokes and the waters are poisoned the worlds leaders are playing a game of one-upmanship.

 

[scalyblue]

 

[Squawk]

Scalyblue, for what period is that measured? Just the month of November?

 

[scalyblue]

IIRC, it's taking a mean of all of the novembers for the date range and calculating anomolies against that value. I'll try to find out the exact parameters.

In the meantime, another interesting bit of data. Seems that co2 concentration has a strong correlation with global temperature.

 

[Squawk]

Hmm, difficult to comment on the latest graph without knowing the sampling methods, but that actually shows the CO2 lagging behind temperature rather than the other way around.

As for the Novembers, I'd be more interested to see an average of Novembers from 1999-2009 as compared to the baseline period, a one year figure is too subject to temporary factors.

 

[Niocan]

I love how people who are skeptical of a given scientific consensus seemingly without fail will tell you, "It's all so much simpler than people are making it out to be!"
It really isn't that much simpler than the scientific literature. And if you think you've just seen through a web of lies that's too complex for you to understand the chances are you actually aren't seeing through much at all.

I'm saying it's far easier to understand because it *isn't* scientific; It's political.

All of the BS you're bringing up is well discussed by experts and your mischaracterization of their work makes you either willfully ignorant or a troll.

All you're doing is setting up a strawman to attack...

Either way you should be ignored since you have all the tools at your disposal now to discern your arguments as empty.

Assuming these counter claims hold any water, and are indeed claims not soundbytes or conditioning statements.

If you want to argue the science then get some journal articles that make a decent case and explain that side of the debate but don't come with this utter BS and expect to be taken seriously.

There isn't any science to argue against; The only thing I can do is to bring into perspective just how weak the political argument is.

I already know your next line so let me save you the trouble: "But it's all a conspiracy, scientists all over the world are controlled by the political interests of the left, and interestingly the scientific journals all only publish the articles that agree with policy even though they'd stand to make serious profits if they had any decent science to publish that actually disagreed with the consensus!"

Yeah... It turns out that isn't how science works...

Sorry, but I'm not your average person (if that hasn't been shown already ). It seems everyone here claims that if this is a conspiracy then *everyone* must be paid off; But are you paid off? No, and neither are 'the masses'. It only takes a small group of people to claim something, and the media will do the rest by silencing the opposing side while uplifting the other. It's rather simple, and has been shown to be very effective in a plethora of cases in the past...
Not to mention the conditioning axioms that apply to most people:
1) Others around me say so, and the media I trust says the same.
2) Appealing to authority through the notion of "escalation leads to success"; You aren't in their position, their position is clearly more important then yours ergo they know more then you.
3) Anyone who doesn't follow these lines is an outsider; Attack them to defend yourself.

All of which are false, and can be understood better by looking at the similarities between religion and government.. It's the same methodology at play.

Yeah, it is a special sort of arrogance born of ignorance for the deniers to claim that science is simple, and that they understand it completely. It also assumes YET ANOTHER GIANT CONSPIRACY, where schools are giving out PhD degrees for things that the deniers claim that any asshole on the Internet can understand more completely than the professionals.

The deniers are claiming that their stupidity makes them smarter than experts... if someone knows about a higher level of arrogance, let me know

It's interesting to see how you internally justify this position.

IIRC, it's taking a mean of all of the novembers for the date range and calculating anomolies against that value. I'll try to find out the exact parameters.

In the meantime, another interesting bit of data. Seems that co2 concentration has a strong correlation with global temperature.

I would hope they have a correlation, because the two are both tied to life on earth. Also, if you show us a graph that's zoomed in a little more we should be able to discern which factor leads the other

 

[Aught3]

Hmm, difficult to comment on the latest graph without knowing the sampling methods, but that actually shows the CO2 lagging behind temperature rather than the other way around.

That's what you would expect isn't it? Normally, CO2 causes a positive feedback on natural increases in temperature. As the Earth heats up CO2 is released from the various sinks and traps. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere causes further warming and so on and so on until the natural cycle comes to an end. Very rarely does the rise in CO2 come before the increase in temperatures but a large volcanic eruption can sometime do it and, apparently, so can we.

What worries me is that world attention is centred on CO2, the other greenhouse gases seem to have faded into the background

I think we focus on CO2 because it is the most important greenhouse gas. It's certainly the most abundant of the greenhouse gasses that we release (>70%) and it will contribute the most to global warming. I can't find a percentage for CO2 but the next most important greenhouse gas is methane which is expected to cause about 15% of the warming that will occur over the next century.

 

[scalyblue]

Well..i'm out, if a global consensus of tens of thousands of scientists, including over 95% of all climatologists can't convince an idiot, it's a waste of effort on my end.

 

[Niocan]

Well..i'm out, if a global consensus of tens of thousands of scientists, including over 95% of all climatologists

Citation please Last I heard, there's only 52 original scientists behind the "list of thousands" that actually had something to do with the research.

 

[scalyblue]

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

not the only one either...but it's not going to stop you from being a fucking idiot

 

[RichardMNixon]

From where I'm standing, conservatives just love to make victims out of victimless crimes. Especially if the bible told them to. I have no issue with big government as long as it's serving some purpose other than taking rights away from people for no good reason.

exactly. you think its ok to take people's rights away to accomplish goals that are important to YOU. they think its ok to take people's rights away to accomplish goals that are important to THEM. i don't think its ok to take people's rights away period.

I'm not really sure where I advocated taking away rights. Is it a "right" to dump toxic waste into rivers? I'm ok with taking away that one, and the "right" to murder and things that hurt other people. Conservatives like to take away rights with no benefit save satisfying their bigotry and it's what drove me away from the Republican party to which I once belonged. The right to have low taxes and keep all your money while others can't afford healthcare is a gray issue worthy of discussion. Contrarily the opposition to gay marriage is patently absurd. I've never heard an argument against gay marriage that couldn't just as easily be applied against interracial marriage and many of them work against all marriages.

Back on topic:

"There isn't any science to argue against;" For the second time: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS348US348&sourceid=chrome&q=global%20warming&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws
go nuts.

"It's interesting to see how you internally justify this position."
How exactly did he justify it or even make it seem justifiable?

 

[obsidianavenger]

I'm not really sure where I advocated taking away rights. Is it a "right" to dump toxic waste into rivers? I'm ok with taking away that one, and the "right" to murder and things that hurt other people. Conservatives like to take away rights with no benefit save satisfying their bigotry and it's what drove me away from the Republican party to which I once belonged. The right to have low taxes and keep all your money while others can't afford healthcare is a gray issue worthy of discussion. Contrarily the opposition to gay marriage is patently absurd. I've never heard an argument against gay marriage that couldn't just as easily be applied against interracial marriage and many of them work against all marriages.

the part where you advocated big government, since that is only achieved through excessive taxation which is a violation of property rights.

and no, no one has a "right" to violate the rights of others. except the gov't. i think they should only be allowed to execute this right in a retaliatory fashion to avoid various abuses of power (like trying to ban gay marriage or taxing people for their carbon emissions without any guarantee of desirable results).

 

[Niocan]

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

not the only one either...but it's not going to stop you from being a fucking idiot

I'm confused, what does an opinion poll say of the actual main researchers and why do you think anything in science is based on a democracy? What I'd most like to know from that poll, is why the people on the extremes picked the side they picked.

Back on topic:"There isn't any science to argue against;" For the second time: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?rlz=1 ... =en&tab=wsgo nuts."It's interesting to see how you internally justify this position."How exactly did he justify it or even make it seem justifiable?

To specify, I'm looking for the supposed evidence behind *anthropogenic* climate change; It's of no surprise that the Earth is warming after the last little ice age, but why do you think human caused CO2 is the one specific factor behind the supposed acceleration in heating and why do you think the climate can't stabilize itself?

As for the other question, Joe's comments are strawman in nature and it's how he justifies the lack of critical inquiry into the matter at hand. After a side is picked, it seems, faith is at play. We all do this, and it shows us the intellectual priorities we hold at the time; He chooses to blindly defend, because it isn't worth the time to do otherwise; Which is fine, because he's not the only one here capable of responding and we all do this for different reasons

 

[Squawk]

Hmm, difficult to comment on the latest graph without knowing the sampling methods, but that actually shows the CO2 lagging behind temperature rather than the other way around.

That's what you would expect isn't it? Normally, CO2 causes a positive feedback on natural increases in temperature. As the Earth heats up CO2 is released from the various sinks and traps. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere causes further warming and so on and so on until the natural cycle comes to an end. Very rarely does the rise in CO2 come before the increase in temperatures but a large volcanic eruption can sometime do it and, apparently, so can we.

If that is indeed the case, and for this first part I'm not going to be definitive either way, it is not possible to infer that CO2 can instigate a warming of the climate. In that instance the warming must be triggered by some other factor and be significant enough to effect the levels of CO2 on the planet in order for CO2 concentration to act as a positive feedback loop.

The argument for anthropogenic climate change is that an increase in CO2 can trigger and then sustain an increase in global temperature. Surely then the only useful data when trying to make forward predictions is to look at events that rose CO2 concentrations significantly before global temperatures rose.

 

[Squawk]

And on a side note, can you guys refrain from the ad hom attacks. Attack the argument, not the person, reveal the position as untenable and nothing more needs to be said.