Climategate

[Pastiche]

Originally Posted by Pinner

Well I guess we will just have to depopulate Earth then, the only solution.

If an animal alters the earth/climate do we eliminate the species? Where do we draw the line? This is so ridiculous...

It's actually not the only solution. I get so sick and tired of the fatalist and nihilistic arguments now sprouting up in the support of doing nothing.

"Well there's nothing we can do so we may as well burn the house down."

There are tonnes of things we can do to help address this.

As per human induced climate change 8000 years ago, yes that happened and yes we will always have some type of effect on our environment. But the rate at which we are affecting the climate now as opposed to back then is just on different orders of magnitude. Stop clinging to threads.

[GGG]

One of the latest theories I have read suggests that the SO2 that was being pumped in the atmosphere caused the cooling from the 50's to the 80's. As we cut back on S02 emissions to prevent acid rain the cooling effect was lost.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

It's actually not the only solution. I get so sick and tired of the fatalist and nihilistic arguments now sprouting up in the support of doing nothing.

"Well there's nothing we can do so we may as well burn the house down."

There are tonnes of things we can do to help address this.

As per human induced climate change 8000 years ago, yes that happened and yes we will always have some type of effect on our environment. But the rate at which we are affecting the climate now as opposed to back then is just on different orders of magnitude. Stop clinging to threads.

The political will isn't there to make a 95% cut in C02 emissions by 2050 that is required by the models to prevent the 2 degree warning. So the current plans being proposed are guaranteed to fail. Instead they are just expensive political window dressing designed to further enrich polluters and tax consumers. Why is the biggest oilman in Texas in favour of Carbon Trading? Money of course.

So lets get work on solutions that have a chance to succeed. Start developing the geo-engineering solutions now. They appear to be cheap and effective.

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by GGG

The political will isn't there to make a 95% cut in C02 emissions by 2050 that is required by the models to prevent the 2 degree warning. So the current plans being proposed are guaranteed to fail. Instead they are just expensive political window dressing designed to further enrich polluters and tax consumers. Why is the biggest oilman in Texas in favour of Carbon Trading? Money of course.

So lets get work on solutions that have a chance to succeed. Start developing the geo-engineering solutions now. They appear to be cheap and effective.

Geo-engineering is attractive in some ways, but in others very dangerous and could have serious unintended consequences if we aren't careful.

I'm not a big fan of cap and trade either though - to me it mostly seems to be about moving money around, and props up declining industries and poorly run companies at the expense of growing industries and companies. If you're going for an economic driver, I think a carbon tax that starts relatively low but increases over time would be better, so long as it is offset by decreased income taxes (though that opinion will probably get me lynched in Alberta). I don't think we should depend completely on a single approach though - further investment in alternative energies, emission reductions technology, etc. are important, as well as helping developing economies transition directly to low-emission technologies.

[Devils'Advocate]

I agree on the carbon tax thing, but I think that was being put forth last election by the Liberals and ended up with them getting their lowest number of seats EVER. There is no political will BY THE PEOPLE to make any moves on climate change other than say "we should do more research" and leave it at that.

Politicians would be incredibly stupid to force through a policy that is not endorsed by the electorate. And so long as the conservatives can make hay off this story (concluded there was no wrong doing) and can make headlines off the story two weeks ago where a scientists misworded a paragraph on his blog (scientist corrected his wording, but no retractions made by conservative blogs), there will be no political will by the people.

Given that there resistance to change, I think the best investment that governments can make at this time is in dykes and sandbags.

[troutman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_642980.html

Last year, the hacked emails of climate scientists from the University of East Anglia spawned what has hitherto become known as "Climategate -- a mini media tempest that briefly provided climate change deniers with what they believed to be grist for their favorite mill: that climate change is some sort of worldwide conspiratorial scam. There was never a whole lot to hang a scandal on, but that didn't stop the frenzy that pushed "Climategate" onto front pages and network news shows.

Of course, since then, the grownups have stepped back to the fore, and five independent investigations have, as Steve Benen points out, "concluded that the integrity of the science is entirely sound" and that the "deniers' arguments were debunked." Where's the coverage, though?

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by troutman

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_642980.html

Last year, the hacked emails of climate scientists from the University of East Anglia spawned what has hitherto become known as "Climategate -- a mini media tempest that briefly provided climate change deniers with what they believed to be grist for their favorite mill: that climate change is some sort of worldwide conspiratorial scam. There was never a whole lot to hang a scandal on, but that didn't stop the frenzy that pushed "Climategate" onto front pages and network news shows.

Of course, since then, the grownups have stepped back to the fore, and five independent investigations have, as Steve Benen points out, "concluded that the integrity of the science is entirely sound" and that the "deniers' arguments were debunked." Where's the coverage, though?

Who wants to put their necks on the line anymore when it comes to climate "science?"

[photon]

The best that can be done is a publisher with a track record of being unreliable and an author that's a crackpot?

Does this mean they're done denying the science, and are moving on to attacking the repercussions then? That's progress!

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by photon

The best that can be done is a publisher with a track record of being unreliable and an author that's a crackpot?

Does this mean they're done denying the science, and are moving on to attacking the repercussions then? That's progress!

Climategate is what converted me from "leaning towards accepting human-caused global warming" to strongly agreeing it's true. If those emails were the best "smoking gun" evidence the skeptic/denier side could come up with, and they couldn't come up with any science-based arguments that even I (with some background in earth sciences, but not a climatologist) couldn't refute, then to me they didn't have much of a case.

[RyZ]

I think that most of the general public agree that climate change is happening. They just don't believe that it is happening at the rate and to the degree that "scientists", big business, governments and environmentalists have been telling us.

It's not that people don't believe it, they just don't want to listen to and find it difficult to put faith in what they are being told by groups of people that are generally seen by most of the public as liars and/or crackpots.

I can't see any of that changing any time soon.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by troutman

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_642980.html

Last year, the hacked emails of climate scientists from the University of East Anglia spawned what has hitherto become known as "Climategate -- a mini media tempest that briefly provided climate change deniers with what they believed to be grist for their favorite mill: that climate change is some sort of worldwide conspiratorial scam. There was never a whole lot to hang a scandal on, but that didn't stop the frenzy that pushed "Climategate" onto front pages and network news shows.

Of course, since then, the grownups have stepped back to the fore, and five independent investigations have, as Steve Benen points out, "concluded that the integrity of the science is entirely sound" and that the "deniers' arguments were debunked." Where's the coverage, though?

Made it to the Wall Street Journal

[Pastiche]

Taking a page out of HOZ's playbook, here's a blog link debunking that story.

One outlet in particular that should review its coverage is the Wall Street Journal, which trumpeted the Climategate myths early on and just today ran an opinion piece by climate skeptic and Cato Institute senior fellow Pat Michaels whining about a “whitewash.” Michaels doesn’t like the fact that the five reviews exonerating climate scientists didn’t match up to the scandalous version that he and others tried to sell. Rather than focus on educating its readers about the facts, the Wall Street Journal provided Michaels, who has admitted receiving funding from various fossil fuel industry sources over the years, more than 1,000 words to resuscitate his thoroughly-debunked Climategate conspiracy theory.

http://www.desmogblog.com/ny-times-c...limate-science

[HOZ]

Just because it is so funny!!

[HOZ]

who has admitted receiving funding from various fossil fuel industry sources over the years

The biggest Bugbear/ad hominen attack of all......

Because we all know that all people who have ever worked in a fossil fuel industry are little Mini-MEs minions KNOWINGLY helping/working to destroy the earth for Dr. Evil overlords. Truly, how juvenile an argument! Only Hollywood sells this crapola. You'd think adults would be mature enough to blow it off.

[Pastiche]

I think HOZ's logic chip is malfunctioning. Right above the post in which he deride ad hominem attacks he posts an ad hominem attack of Al Gore to support your anti-Climate Change agenda.

I guess HOZ doesn't like his playbook being used against him. I'll go dig up some other drive-by blog posts ridiculing the flat-earthers.

[zuluking]

Having read the whole dang Muir-Russel report and being underwhelmed by its scope and astonished on the leaps in logic and rational to reach its conclusions, this article summed up all of these "inquiries" the best.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by HOZ

who has admitted receiving funding from various fossil fuel industry sources over the years

The biggest Bugbear/ad hominen attack of all......

Because we all know that all people who have ever worked in a fossil fuel industry are little Mini-MEs minions KNOWINGLY helping/working to destroy the earth for Dr. Evil overlords. Truly, how juvenile an argument! Only Hollywood sells this crapola. You'd think adults would be mature enough to blow it off.

You don't seem quite as outraged when the same charge is leveled in the other direction.

You posted a WSJ article suggesting that the scientists are fudging the everything to keep the funding dollars coming in.

Are they evil? Are they KNOWINGLY helping/working go destroy the economy for Dr. Evil overlords? Seems pretty juvenile, don't it? You'd think adults...

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

You don't seem quite as outraged when the same charge is leveled in the other direction.

You posted a WSJ article suggesting that the scientists are fudging the everything to keep the funding dollars coming in.

Are they evil? Are they KNOWINGLY helping/working go destroy the economy for Dr. Evil overlords? Seems pretty juvenile, don't it? You'd think adults...

Where in the article does it do this?

Or is this another strawman-flame-by by you?

[RougeUnderoos]

Seriously?

"Readers of both earlier reports need to know that both institutions receive tens of millions in federal global warming research funding (which can be confirmed by perusing the grant histories of Messrs. Jones or Mann, compiled from public sources, that are available online at freerepublic.com). Any admission of substantial scientific misbehavior would likely result in a significant loss of funding."

[Thor]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

You don't seem quite as outraged when the same charge is leveled in the other direction.

You posted a WSJ article suggesting that the scientists are fudging the everything to keep the funding dollars coming in.

Are they evil? Are they KNOWINGLY helping/working go destroy the economy for Dr. Evil overlords? Seems pretty juvenile, don't it? You'd think adults...

Just read this article, thought it was quite interesting for discussions like this one.

How facts backfire

Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains

This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/id...ire/?page=full