Climate Change

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by jackdale

The graph shows the 2013 sea ice levels are below all averages.

Sorry that my sarcasm might not have shown through.

[Mike OReilly]

I've just been reading Jonathan Haidt's latest book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. This discussion, like so many others, seem to corroborate Haidt's principle thesis:

That you can rarely change someone else's mind using reason.

He says reason, logic, and high cognitive functions are really just slaves to our emotional intuitive mind (the elephant, in his analogy). We are driven by our baser needs and desires, and reason comes along after to justify our choices.

I've come to accept that we, human civilization, will do nothing about our contributions to rapid climate change until we are forced to. When our collective elephants start to feel uncomfortable, we'll come up with a reasoned approach to solving or mitigating the issue. Of course, by then it will likely be too late to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

All part of the reason I'm going sailing .

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

what I do find bizarre, is irrespective of your view on climate change, simply denying it , isn't a polluters charter. Pollution is still pollution , irrespective of its effect on CC. WHy do certain elements of anti-climate change simply argue against it , just to morally feel they can drive a SUV etc. Bizarre thinking.

Dave

Dave,,,Not really when you think about it. Environment often times shapes the way people think. This is to say if your parents think a certain way, live in an area of a country that has a certain singular view on a topic and since most people are followers and take the path of the status quo, then you get a pre-molded view of things. I'm not saying they are bad people but maybe ignorant if they cannot be open minded about anything. This is not just people against the idea of climate change but for those who also agree with it. Regardless...I'll go back to one of my previous posts...why not err on the side of caution. If a person does not believe in climate change but simply does "the next right thing" in order to stem off the phenomena, they have nothing to loose and everything to gain. Driving a smaller, less polluting car will in fact produce less pollution and save the individual money. Insulating one's home with save hundreds of dollars a year and leave a smaller carbon footprint.
Unfortunately people want to be right at any cost. That's the tragedy on many levels.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I've just been reading Jonathan Haidt's latest book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. This discussion, like so many others, seem to corroborate Haidt's principle thesis:

That you can rarely change someone else's mind using reason.

He says reason, logic, and high cognitive functions are really just slaves to our emotional intuitive mind (the elephant, in his analogy). We are driven by our baser needs and desires, and reason comes along after to justify our choices.

I've come to accept that we, human civilization, will do nothing about our contributions to rapid climate change until we are forced to. When our collective elephants start to feel uncomfortable, we'll come up with a reasoned approach to solving or mitigating the issue. Of course, by then it will likely be too late to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

All part of the reason I'm going sailing .

Indeed. As the most underrated figure in the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, once said:

"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason ... is like administering medicine to the dead."

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

what I do find bizarre, is irrespective of your view on climate change, simply denying it , isn't a polluters charter. Pollution is still pollution , irrespective of its effect on CC. WHy do certain elements of anti-climate change simply argue against it , just to morally feel they can drive a SUV etc. Bizarre thinking.

Dave

I think it represents ossified thinking, stuck in one world view, lacking flexibility and adaption.

Harsh though that may seem on its face it is not meant to be. We each have our limits. I'm officially tone deaf, my ex-BIL, the musician could NOT understand that. For him it was simple and I was a slacker. Yet talk to him of math and, well, no that's a different story, only weird geeks can get math!

I think it may be like that here also. Some folks can just not accept that the world is changing, they don't have the capacity. They are still nice and good folks, just limited in this regard.

Unfortunately, it seems many of that type do very well in business and politics. Yale or Harvard have a longitudinal study along these lines, called "six America's" or some such thing. Interesting stuff.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Wow, I go sailing for a couple of months and this happens,

As to "Why?" There are 9billion of us. Everywhere I go I'm tripping over " consumers." Just look at Google Earth, zoom in and you can start to see great grey dead zones on our beautiful green, blue, and white marble. That is "Civilization."
Cheers

Yeah that is the problem. But, what you don't hear from the global warming activists is a message that was being heard back in the 1970's and that was to reduce the Earth's population i.e. Diet for a Small Planet. In fact you have things going the other way because of peoples good intentions. Like Bill and Melinda Gates working on cures for disease in Africa. While noble in thought it will rapidly increase the population in that area and you will continue to see more BBC "Groundhog" day reports about famine in the region every year. Talk about a closed loop environmental disaster. Reducing births especially in some parts of the "underdeveloped" world would be a much faster (9 months) way to mitigate man's impact on the earth than all the climate control talk going on IMO. In western countries this seems to be occurring naturally especially in places like Europe and also developed countries like Japan. In other parts of the world not so much.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Yeah that is the problem. But, what you don't hear from the global warming activists is a message that was being heard back in the 1970's and that was to reduce the Earth's population i.e. Diet for a Small Planet. In fact you have things going the other way because of peoples good intentions. Like Bill and Melinda Gates working on cures for disease in Africa. While noble in thought it will rapidly increase the population in that area and you will continue to see more BBC "Groundhog" day reports about famine in the region every year. Talk about a closed loop environmental disaster. Reducing births especially in some parts of the "underdeveloped" world would be a much faster (9 months) way to mitigate man's impact on the earth than all the climate control talk going on IMO. In western countries this seems to be occurring naturally especially in places like Europe and also developed countries like Japan. In other parts of the world not so much.

In the Third World one of the motivations to have large families is the high infant morality rate. In an traditional agricultural children are an economic asset as they provide a labour and care in one's old age.

The strongest correlations to small family size are the education level of the mother and the level of economic development.

The demographic transitional is difficult because it it easier to lower death rates than birth rates.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by jackdale

In the Third World one of the motivations to have large families is the high infant morality rate. In an traditional agricultural children are an economic asset as they provide a labour and care in one's old age.

The strongest correlations to small family size are the education level of the mother and the level of economic development.

The demographic transitional is difficult because it it easier to lower death rates than birth rates.

Absolutely ... so, access to affordable, quality, primary healthcare is the surest way to reduce population. But, hey, that's socialism.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by sneuman

And don't forget the National Science Foundation's conclusion:

"The research in question was originally completed over 10 years ago. Although the Subject’s data is still available and still the focus of significant critical examination, no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results."

It's not a question of "fabricated data" what is questioned is what data was used and what data was omitted:

"Scientific critics raise another looming question. Mann’s 1,000-year-long graph was cobbled together using various proxy data derived from ice cores, tree rings and written records of growing season dates up until 1961, where it then applied surface ground station temperature data. Why change in 1961? Well, maybe it’s because that’s when other tree ring proxy data calculations by Keith Briffa at the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) began going the other way in a steady temperature decline. After presenting these unwelcome results to Mann and others, he was put under pressure to recalculate them. He did, and the decline became even greater.

As recorded in ClimateGate e-mails, this presented what Mann referred to as a “conundrum” in that the late 20th century decline indicated by Briffa would be perceived by IPCC as “diluting the message”, was a “problem”, and posed a “potential distraction/detraction”. Mann went on to say that the warming skeptics would have a “field day” if Briffa’s declining temperature reconstruction was shown, and that he would “hate to be the one” to give them “fodder”. Forbes

and also:

"But there were some problems with that graph and the research behind it. Some very big problems. One was that the Medieval Warm Period which occurred between about AD 800 and 1100 along with the Little Ice Age (not a true Ice Age) which occurred between about AD 1350-1850 somehow turned up missing. And as for those Yamal tree samples, they came from only 12 specimens of 252 in the data set… while a larger data set of 34 trees from the same vicinity that weren’t used showed no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the Middle Ages."

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Absolutely ... so, access to affordable, quality, primary healthcare is the surest way to reduce population. But, hey, that's socialism.

And free public education for all - also "socialism."

[jackdale]

Mike

Larry Bell, the Forbes writer you quoted, is one of many Heartland shills.

Forbes has a whole raft of Heartland folks like James Taylor writing vitriolic attacks on climate science.

More than two dozen reconstructions, using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, support the broad consensus shown in the original hockey stick graph, with variations in how flat the pre-20th century "shaft" appears.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by mbianka

It's not a question of "fabricated data" what is questioned is what data was used and what data was omitted:

"Scientific critics raise another looming question. Mann’s 1,000-year-long graph was cobbled together using various proxy data derived from ice cores, tree rings and written records of growing season dates up until 1961, where it then applied surface ground station temperature data. Why change in 1961? Well, maybe it’s because that’s when other tree ring proxy data calculations by Keith Briffa at the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) began going the other way in a steady temperature decline. After presenting these unwelcome results to Mann and others, he was put under pressure to recalculate them. He did, and the decline became even greater.

As recorded in ClimateGate e-mails, this presented what Mann referred to as a “conundrum” in that the late 20th century decline indicated by Briffa would be perceived by IPCC as “diluting the message”, was a “problem”, and posed a “potential distraction/detraction”. Mann went on to say that the warming skeptics would have a “field day” if Briffa’s declining temperature reconstruction was shown, and that he would “hate to be the one” to give them “fodder”. Forbes

and also:

"But there were some problems with that graph and the research behind it. Some very big problems. One was that the Medieval Warm Period which occurred between about AD 800 and 1100 along with the Little Ice Age (not a true Ice Age) which occurred between about AD 1350-1850 somehow turned up missing. And as for those Yamal tree samples, they came from only 12 specimens of 252 in the data set… while a larger data set of 34 trees from the same vicinity that weren’t used showed no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the Middle Ages."

Actually, the whole (initial) allegation was over fabricated data and scientific misconduct. Remember the famous out-of-context "hide the decline"?! That was the whole thing and it's what fueled the witch-hunt against Mann and others.

Those charges have been comprehensively and repeatedly refuted. Further, a U.K. parliamentary committee "found no basis for accusations of dishonesty and no attempt to mislead on the part of the scientists." The Penn State committee said: "Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or other scholarly activities."

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Yeah that is the problem. But, what you don't hear from the global warming activists is a message that was being heard back in the 1970's and that was to reduce the Earth's population i.e.

Yes, and as Jackdale and Sneuman say, the absolute best way to reduce population levels are to provide good quality publicly funded education and health care. But it would be a grave mistake to place the blame on population levels alone. The real problem is resource consumption, and that is driven both by numbers of people, as well as intensity of use.

No one uses more of the planet's resources than us here in the so-called first world. It's often said, but if everyone consumed like an American (or Canadian, or Brit, or Australian, etc.) we'd already need seven more planets. So yes, we need to bring global population levels way down, but we also need to stop over-consuming here in the rich parts of the world.

In both ways, we need to use less.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Like the University of Pennsylvania investigation?
"Penn State has received at least $4,166,168 in funding involving ClimateGate figure Michael Mann"
Like they were really going to burn the cash cow while the global warming research money was flowing in.

.

These cash cow allegations always confuse me, how do they get the money to whoever peer reviews the published work? If it's bad science someone needs to sign it off, then every one else in that area of science on the planet would need to either not check it at all or completely ignore bad work.

How does it work?

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Like the University of Pennsylvania investigation?
"Penn State has received at least $4,166,168 in funding involving ClimateGate figure Michael Mann"
Like they were really going to burn the cash cow while the global warming research money was flowing in.

That is not much of cash cow in comparison.

DeSmogBlog researched the co-sponsors behind Heartland's ICCC7 and found that they had collectively received over $67 million from ExxonMobil, the Koch Brothers and the conservative Scaife family foundations.

Heartland keeps a number of deniers on salary.