Mass Plankton Die-Off

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by JiffyLube

We already know that idea of a "president based on the findings of a group of experts" doesn't work, if you look at how the U.S. health care and economy is turning out.

The first part is probably quite true. "Panels of experts" have been pushing one agenda or another on Presidents for many administrations usually with the same bad results.
- - Problems with US health care go all the way back to 1965 and even further to 1901 some say and panels of experts then. The economy has had it panels of experts screwing with it for about as long and the most recent swing, of many swings over history, traces back to about 8 to 10 years ago. This one is more like the problem in hospitals with the "super bug" where common bacteria/organisms have been screwed with by overzealous amounts of preventive cures (antibiotics) until trying to make you healthy again is close to beyond possible. Various panels of experts have been screwing with the economy for many decades thinking they have the perfect cure and now it is nearly impossible to cure the problem.
- - Representative Democracy is a very messy form of government especially when a proper cure takes more time than any party in power has available to it. The Dunning-Kruger Effect seems to fit quite nicely.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by osirissail

The Dunning-Kruger Effect seems to fit quite nicely.

Yea,
And put another way on a T-shirt my son has (more simply understandable)

"Never underestimate the power of large numbers of stupid people."

Like "Most people think they are above average drivers".

But lots of people are not dumb. They are just ignorant. Take the billions without SUVs. Many don't even know what they are. They don't need them for what they do. Those that have them need them (most of them). And when the billions are in a position to need them they will want them too. They will need them to get to market or soccer practice.

[JiffyLube]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Apparently, they are dumb + they are prone to confirmation bias + they have an inability to recognize their dumbness + they ironically think that they are the opposite of dumb, and that smart people are the dumb ones. Obviously, this wouldn't apply to anyone here, on the CF.

Obviously...Hahahaha

[JiffyLube]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Truth may never be entirely known, for no matter how much evidence we collect, our knowledge may always remain incomplete.

Not when it comes to death...dead is dead.

[hpeer]

Originally Posted by JiffyLube

Not when it comes to death...dead is dead.

Reincarnation?

[conachair]

Not sure if this will work over the pond, hope so.

BBC iPlayer - Horizon: 2010-2011: The Death of the Oceans?

[hpeer]

Yup, not working but, after a bit of poking I found this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAP1Wjn7-Y

I think this will work, am watching it now.

[osirissail]

To those who are not yet convinced that money has been the great driver in politically hot scientific research like, for instance, human caused Global Warming, here is the resignation letter of a very reputable and famous physicist who is disgusted with the political and money infiltration in science and physics.
- - - - - - - -
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.
Anthony Watts describes it thus:

This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.

It’s so utterly damning that I’m going to run it in full without further comment. (H/T GWPF, Richard Brearley).

Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?
How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:
1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate
2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.
3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.
4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.<
5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.
6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.
APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?
I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.
I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety
Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

[hpeer]

osirissail,

I fail to see your point.

Sure there is ONE dissatisfied and disgruntled person. No one ever said there was complete agreement on climate change. So showing ONE proves nothing. So what? I'll bet I could find a hundred if I tried.

What is disturbing is that you seem to feel that this ONE person, or even a hundred, who happens to represent your views, trumps the 97% of climates scientist who do not.

You could look up others of equal fame who have and continue to write write about what they feel is vitally important:
Stephen Hawking
James Lovelock
James Hansen
John Holdren
etc., etc., etc.

Sorry if this sounds a little personal. Its late and my damn gout is acting up.

I really do think that there is something else going on that impedes your normally clear headed analysis from focusing on this issue.

[osirissail]

- - No problem, the content is only offered to show that serious reputable scientists also think that the politics and money is corrupting real science. Not that, that is anything new.

- - Be careful of using the "97% of climates scientist who do not" phrase - it is grossly out of context and does not mean what you think it means.
- - See Post 257 - "- - Be careful of that 97% number being bandied about - see posts 169 & 177 to see exactly who/where that number came from. Basically it is an out of context misquote from an original by the media. It is like saying "97% of everybody thinks cruising is the answer to happiness" when the real statement was "97% of everybody on CF thinks cruising is the best answer to finding happiness." Statistics like that are instantly challenged by thoughtful folks as obviously nobody polled/asked "every" climate scientist in the whole world."

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by osirissail

Be careful of that 97% number being bandied about - see posts 169 & 177 to see exactly who/where that number came from.

Also remember that 87.72517% of all statistics are made up by the media

hpeer - Chasing the money is as old as humanity. Perhaps you have never heard the story of the king who offered a bounty of a penny per rat in order to rid his kingdom of rats. After the treasury was empty and rats still abounded in plenty he discovered the peasants' rat-breeding program.

It's an old story, but it illustrates the point. People will do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing in to their coffers.

The real worry here is the lack of debate and that's what the core of that letter was about. Let us say for a moment that the evidence for Man-made Global Warming is 100% solid. Why not have an open debate? The evidence will trump any cranks, answer any critics and be obvious to all. The problem is that when the establishment suppresses debate it can only be because they do not want the issue debated. Why would that be? It cannot be due to costs - the cost of any debate would be utterly trivial in comparison to the sums of money being spent on "warming issues".

Every few months or so we see that the "incontrovertible evidence" is based on bad science, poor science or opinion and yet when these are uncovered we are told that it makes "no difference". Did you know that a huge piece of the evidence for the IPCC report rests on tree-rings from an area of Siberia called Yaml? When the Yaml data set was released after many years of "protecting" it it turns out that only 12 tree were selected to show warming because the rest did not. Global policy is being set on the basis of 12 trees picked because they gave the "right" answer. No wonder they fought for years to stop the Yaml data from being released.

What about the glacier fiasco? That part of the IPCC report said Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035 instead of 2350, yet that was presented as "solid evidence". BBC News - Himalayan glaciers melting deadline 'a mistake' "...it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and "misread 2350 as 2035". Part of this "solid evidence" was an article in New Scientist magazine. The Head of the IPCC said "... the study as "voodoo science" and said the IPCC was a "sober body" whose work was verified by governments." The World Glacial Monitoring service said "...Under strict consideration of the IPCC rules, it should actually not have been published as it is not based on a sound scientific reference."

There are othe blunders, errors and omissions and they are numerous enough to have blogs of their own so I will not detail them here, but it is obvious that there is not one settled body of incontravertible evidence and it is equally obvious that those at the top of pile have no interest in discussing anything that might reduce the flow of cash.

Aren't you at least a little bit suspicious?

[Nauticatarcher]

Damn suspicious!!!!!

[hpeer]

osirissail,

Yes it is easy to over state the argument on either side.

My point, well at least one of my points, is to discuss what criteria we should be using for our planning.

Do we use "beyond a shadow of a doubt?" In other words we need to have 100% consensus that AGW is taking place before we decide to do something about it?

Or do we use "reasonable care?" In which case we decide to do something even if there is some doubt because the consequences of not doing something are really serious.

Obviously I would argue for the "reasonable care" standard against the "shadow of a doubt" standard.

[hpeer]

Yup, missed his second post.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by hpeer

osirissail,
Yes it is easy to over state the argument on either side.
My point, well at least one of my points, is to discuss what criteria we should be using for our planning.
Do we use "beyond a shadow of a doubt?" In other words we need to have 100% consensus that AGW is taking place before we decide to do something about it?
Or do we use "reasonable care?" In which case we decide to do something even if there is some doubt because the consequences of not doing something are really serious.
Obviously I would argue for the "reasonable care" standard against the "shadow of a doubt" standard.

With that we can agree - "over state" or hyperbolic rhetoric is the stock and trade of the world media. When you actually read the various links to the real/original papers you quickly notice the disconnect between what the scientist is reporting and the media interpretation. Which brought up my comment many posts ago about hearing electronic "journalists" bragging about not knowing about anything.
- - "Reasonable care" versus "shadow of a doubt" is akin to the "risk analysis" cruisers make when deciding to take the Red Sea route versus the long way around. The old saying "the only two absolutely certainties in this world are death and taxes" and everything else is variable.
- - My take on "reasonable care" goes to reducing pollution be it chemical or overpopulation. The first is practically possible, the latter is politically impossible. Great strides have been made in "cleaning up" parts of the planet from what it was a hundred or two hundred years ago.
- - Unfortunately, modern day politics is driven by huge amounts of money (maybe it has been always) and the Physicist's complaint, as I interpreted it, was that good science is going to heck in a hand basket as modern science chases the money. I believe he was decrying the loss of the pure white lab coat for a blood money stained one. The is the "bummer" about growing old, you remember how things used to be, especially your distaff's mammilla.