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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 12:31 PM)
Really, I don't think this is true. That is a question that has been investigated just as heavily as any of the others, because there's enormous amounts of funding for anyone who can come up with a plausible mechanism other than CO2, and CO2 is the only one that really works. Furthermore, it's also the only one that really works at all throughout geologic time, and our correlations in that area have gotten better and better, to the point where there is virtually no obvious recorded temperature anomaly in the geologic record that is not associated with a large fluctuation of CO2 and nothing else. It really is the driver, and it's driving things right now.

 

The IPCC report has once again been abundantly cautious on this issue and said that, in their words "since 1750, it is extremely

likely that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate. This RF estimate is likely to be at least five times greater than that due to solar irradiance changes." Really, what they'll say when they're not making a document for policymakers is even stronger than that, there is effectively nothing that would drive the warming since 1750, and it's highly likely that humanity has been a dominant influence on the climate for at least 7000 years.

 

You are missing the point here, by thinking this is not true. I know it has been studied, deeply and often. And as I said, I am fairly convinced. However, when you are talking about the relationship between human behaviors and climate, you cannot possibly say anything with 10o% certainty, or even 99%. There are far, far too many dynamics and variables involved.

 

That is why, as I said, the question of antrhopogenic climate change remains debateable, while the more pure question of "is it getting warmer" is not.

 

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 12:08 PM)
I of course do not agree with your premise that both sides shouldn't be aired.

 

But there aren't two co-equal "sides" here. There's one side, which is the actual science. That's it. It's the same "teach the controversy" crap that tries to get creationism into classrooms under the guise of there being anything less than an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community. Hell, they use the same "more and more scientists are rejecting [...]" language.

 

 

But the question of how much (or even if) that warming is caused by humanity, cannot be considered open and shut. There has been a ton of science showing various correlations and relationships that suggest causality is likely - but it cannot possibly be confirmed. Therefore, a rigorous discussion around THIS point is, I think, very healthy for us all.

 

If there's legitimate scientific disagreement to be had, let's have it. Papers critical of or downplaying AGW are published from time-to-time, and then they're vigorously taken apart for the bad science that they are or it's pointed out that the press releases accompanying the papers have seriously overstated the conclusions of the paper.

 

There is rigorous discussion. In scientific journals and communities and reports. Not on the pages of the WSJ, where they publish articles that merely repeat zombie arguments that have been beaten down again and again and again.

 

 

 

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 01:35 PM)
You are missing the point here, by thinking this is not true. I know it has been studied, deeply and often. And as I said, I am fairly convinced. However, when you are talking about the relationship between human behaviors and climate, you cannot possibly say anything with 10o% certainty, or even 99%. There are far, far too many dynamics and variables involved.

 

That is why, as I said, the question of antrhopogenic climate change remains debateable, while the more pure question of "is it getting warmer" is not.

Ok, in that comparison, I'm going to apply more data to prove that "whether the earth is getting warmer" has been debateable, because that has been. The best example I can give you of that is the "Berkeley Earth Surface Team", the oil-company-funded group that was made up of UC Berkeley math and physics profs who spent years saying that the earth wasn't really getting warmer, the temperature signals were just being dominated by the effects of sampling locations, underrepresentation of areas that had gotten colder, and the urban heat island effect. That study began releasing its results last october, and once again they were in line with everything else.

 

Give you another one, this one I believe is in Science this week. There's been an issue with temperature reconstructions, in that it seems like there is less energy escaping from the atmosphere than there should be given the current warming levels and the current oceanic heat content estimates. This of course would be a problem...how to say what the temperature change has been when you can't figure out where the heat is going. The study this week in Science argues pretty convincingly that the issue is just the margin of errors on the measurements, and we're simply slightly under-counting the amount of heat going into the ocean.

 

Heck, a good 3rd one is that study by Roy Spencer in Alabama featured here last year, where that one prof argued based on cherry-picked satellite data that there really was no warming signal at all, that people were just mistreating the clouds.

 

There is an enormous amount of money still being spent to establish that, no matter how warm it is outside, the Earth itself isn't warming. The 3 levels of denial are all still getting focus; the earth isn't warming, the warming isn't CO2, and the warming is CO2 but there's nothing we can do about it.

 

If you're going to call the question of whether CO2 is the dominant forcing or not still up in the air, then the question of whether or not the Earth is warming is still up in the air.

 

Really, the right answer is that the evidence that anthropogenic CO2 is the single dominant forcing over the last several hundred years is just as overwhelming as the evidence that the Earth has warmed over that time. The data quality arguing against either of those statements is incredibly poor. If you're putting so much emphasis on whether CO2 has been 85% of the warming or 120% of the warming, then you need to put the same emphasis on whether or not the current warming is 0.7°C or 1.0°C, because any answer other than those are well outside of the current margin of error.

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 12:35 PM)
You are missing the point here, by thinking this is not true. I know it has been studied, deeply and often. And as I said, I am fairly convinced. However, when you are talking about the relationship between human behaviors and climate, you cannot possibly say anything with 10o% certainty, or even 99%. There are far, far too many dynamics and variables involved.

 

Nothing in science is 100% provable. Nothing in climate science is 100% settled or established, and that's why thousands of scientists work on this issue and publish every year, digging deeper and examining more and more factors.

 

This is markedly different from the stark denialist claims to do absolutely nothing about the issue, that call it a "hoax" designed to get scientists wealthy with grant money or enact a new world order or some other nonsense. And that's the view pushed by one of the two major political parties in this country, and that's why the reaction to such terrible pieces like the WSJ editorial is so harsh.

 

That is why, as I said, the question of antrhopogenic climate change remains debateable, while the more pure question of "is it getting warmer" is not.

 

Please join me in mocking the WSJ and the Daily Mail pieces which made the claim that global warming has stopped.

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QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 12:52 PM)
Please join me in mocking the WSJ and the Daily Mail pieces which made the claim that global warming has stopped.

 

Oh I do, for the most part. The idea that, if you focus on an 8 year period, the temps seem to have leveled, while a true fact, is obviously and grossly missing the big picture. Probably on purpose. Plus, even if they are right, and temps stay level for a while - we are still far higher than we were decades or centuries ago.

 

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 02:08 PM)
Oh I do, for the most part. The idea that, if you focus on an 8 year period, the temps seem to have leveled, while a true fact, is obviously and grossly missing the big picture. Probably on purpose. Plus, even if they are right, and temps stay level for a while - we are still far higher than we were decades or centuries ago.

 

That is the biggest issue. There's no point in presenting both sides if one side is intentionally dishonest because it's really all they have.

 

9 of the 10 hottest years on record have been in the last 10 years. They know this, but they'll lie anyway.

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:08 PM)
Oh I do, for the most part. The idea that, if you focus on an 8 year period, the temps seem to have leveled, while a true fact, is obviously and grossly missing the big picture. Probably on purpose. Plus, even if they are right, and temps stay level for a while - we are still far higher than we were decades or centuries ago.

Really, that's not even true on an 8 year period. The real trick is the ungodly, ridiculous, totally unprecedented 1998 El Nino year. There's a reason why they always start any "There hasnt' been any warming in x number of years" in 1998, if you start in 99 there's a clear trend, if you start in 05 you've got like 4 years and the warmest was 2010 and that's stupid anyway because of the el nino cycle. The real trick is that 1998 el nino, where they can say that there hasn't been any warming in x number of years, because the warming during that single year was so completely unprecedented thanks to the strength of that el nino.

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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:11 PM)
Really, that's not even true on an 8 year period. The real trick is the ungodly, ridiculous, totally unprecedented 1998 El Nino year. There's a reason why they always start any "There hasnt' been any warming in x number of years" in 1998, if you start in 99 there's a clear trend, if you start in 05 you've got like 4 years and the warmest was 2010 and that's stupid anyway because of the el nino cycle. The real trick is that 1998 el nino, where they can say that there hasn't been any warming in x number of years, because the warming during that single year was so completely unprecedented thanks to the strength of that el nino.

Why do I feel like you are yelling at me while agreeing with me?

 

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 05:32 PM)
Why do I feel like you are yelling at me while agreeing with me?

I am agreeing with you, just pointing out how key the 1998 El Nino is to all of this. That's really the monster that stands out on every plot.

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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:39 PM)
I am agreeing with you, just pointing out how key the 1998 El Nino is to all of this. That's really the monster that stands out on every plot.

 

To reiterate, they know this, and yet they continue to lie. That's why there's such a disparity between what the public believes and what scientists who actually study this believe, and it's the reason why this country won't do anything about this problem.

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I'm really not sure how one can believe that there is only money or ill-gotten gains to be received from one side of this argument....there is just as much money (if not more) to be made from "proving" that immediate and drastic action is necessary than is to be made by continuing our current ways.

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QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 09:13 AM)
I'm really not sure how one can believe that there is only money or ill-gotten gains to be received from one side of this argument....there is just as much money (if not more) to be made from "proving" that immediate and drastic action is necessary than is to be made by continuing our current ways.

Now really, no there isn't. There may be some money in that effort, but fossil fuels in general are the biggest traded commodity on Earth. They dominate every energy market. This is a multi trillion dollar market every year. Dozens of other industries (plastics, various types of manufacturing) rely overwhelmingly on their existence. They receive government subsidies on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars a year globally. People keep going to war in places that have them.

 

The amount of money that can be made from somehow proving that drastic action is necessary and that a multi trillion dollar market needs to be completely dismantled pales in comparison to the money available to support inertia in that market.

 

Tuvalu just isn't worth that much.

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The financial interests are really secondary and were just brought up to point out just how biased/terrible the WSJ article's arguments were, anyway. What matters isn't that sort of ad hominem attack based on funding sources but on what the science actually says. And the science is unequivocally on the side of AGW is real, is significant and will have serious impacts around the globe in the next several decades.

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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 08:18 AM)
Now really, no there isn't. There may be some money in that effort, but fossil fuels in general are the biggest traded commodity on Earth. They dominate every energy market. This is a multi trillion dollar market every year. Dozens of other industries (plastics, various types of manufacturing) rely overwhelmingly on their existence. They receive government subsidies on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars a year globally. People keep going to war in places that have them.

 

The amount of money that can be made from somehow proving that drastic action is necessary and that a multi trillion dollar market needs to be completely dismantled pales in comparison to the money available to support inertia in that market.

 

Tuvalu just isn't worth that much.

The fact that all those commodities are of limited supply is the very reason why alternatives would be every bit as much, if not more lucrative as the current fossil fuels.

 

The fossil fuels themselves are not the valuable commodity here. The valuable commodity is the behaviors and the way of life those fossil fuels have allowed for us.

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QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 08:38 AM)
The fact that all those commodities are of limited supply is the very reason why alternatives would be every bit as much, if not more lucrative as the current fossil fuels.

 

The fossil fuels themselves are not the valuable commodity here. The valuable commodity is the behaviors and the way of life those fossil fuels have allowed for us.

 

But there's not some giant multi-trillion dollar extant market heavily funding research that happens to lead to the conclusion that AGW is real.

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QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 09:41 AM)
But there's not some giant multi-trillion dollar extant market heavily funding research that happens to lead to the conclusion that AGW is real.

The remarkable thing about science is...there are actively people testing both sides. The hypothesis that CO2 is the single biggest driver of climate in Earth's history gets tested and challenged over and over and over and over again. Constantly. The money doesn't dictate the outcome, the quality of the work winds up dictating where the money goes.

 

The idea that we're just spending research dollars solely to reinforce the current conclusion is flatly false.

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QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 09:52 AM)
Oh I know, science is the pure white light contrasted against the thick black crude oil of life.

There are plenty of people who are willing to go to great lengths to protect their own little fiefdoms, I won't disagree with that...but the processes here are robust. Science as it works right now is a worldwide effort to evaluate and process data quality. Bad papers get published, and they wind up argued against. Consensus is not reached easily. Groupthink is really, really, really tough, because everyone winds up gunning to knock down everyone else's published data. Proving someone else's data to be wrong is one of the biggest things you can do.

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I honestly don't have a problem with much of what you guys say in here...all I am saying is I don't think everything is quite as cut and dry or neat and clean as you and SS would like to think it is. I agree with what NSS posted, but of course expressed it in more of my usual rudimentary way.

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QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 09:57 AM)
I honestly don't have a problem with much of what you guys say in here...all I am saying is I don't think everything is quite as cut and dry or neat and clean as you and SS would like to think it is. I agree with what NSS posted, but of course expressed it in more of my usual rudimentary way.

IMO...you're right...things are a whole lot worse than how they generally get presented in the public.

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