The environment thread

[StrangeSox]

The WSJ editorial pages aren't doing any science.

[Y2HH]

That was more a shot at their terribly hacking article from January that we discussed here which had a companion piece in the Daily Mail that denied that the planet is even warming (there's more links to people taking apart that editorial in follow-up comments):

 

 

 

But as Balta explained back then and then recently, the facts are speaking for themselves, and they're overwhelming clear that CO2 is a driver and that anthropological sources of CO2 are the main driver of current warming. As more data is collected, vetted, and mined, we find more and more support for AGW. Yet we do not see any evidence of this reflected in mainstream discussions of the topics. As was noted back in January, the WSJ was eager to publish an editorial full of oft-refuted arguments by denialists but rejected an article signed by hundreds of scientists at NAS. I was specifically condescending towards the WSJ's editorial pages because they're replete with terrible arguments on all sorts of subjects, not just AGW.

 

As you said, it's important to be open-minded and to accept what the evidence shows you. That was the the point of Balta's post! The BEST study group started out as a bunch of skeptics but in the end have been overwhelmingly convinced that AGW is very real and very much a threat. But we don't see that acknowledged by the WSJ or guys like Anthony Watts (Watts Up With That, leading denialist blog); hell, Watts was all gung-ho about BEST until their results came up, and then he backpedaled like crazy. I honestly see little difference between the denialist movement and creationism, which is why I'm skeptical(!) that letting the facts speak for themselves will ever convince those who simply refuse to accept reality.

 

First, we do see this being discussed in mainstream sources or we wouldn't be discussing it right now.

 

It's clear that CO2 is *a* driver...but it's not the only driver. There is a lot more to know about this before people like you continue sounding the alarm bell. Science based on politicized fear is a poor approach to discussion and it's the main driver of the denial you seem to hate. You propagate this attitude in your posts, as do others who continue chanting, "The British are coming!", in regard to AGW, when, in fact...they only *might* be coming, we're pretty sure they're coming...but we aren't positive...yet...and IF they are coming, they'll get here in 75 years when none of us will be alive. This is a piss poor way to convince people of something.

Edited July 30, 2012 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

We need those that deny it's existence, because they'll fund science to disprove it...they can uncover holes in the evidence which will help correct the path those that are trying to prove it. Both sides are necessary because this has become politicized science. True science goes from the middle...they don't look to prove something without trying to disprove it at the same time (or visa versa)...they simply look for the facts on the subject at hand.

 

Take with a grain of salt any "science" that's looking to do just one or the other...not both at the same time.

There is one other key element here that makes things particularly messy.

 

Yes, people are always making efforts to challenge the consensus and to improve data.

 

But what do you do when the data is screaming "You're driving straight for a brick wall"? When there's a minimal cost associated with performing an experiment, great, perform the experiment. When you're doing a trial for a drug and you find that there's an enormous benefit, you cut the trial and put everyone on the drug before you kill someone.

 

Everything right now is screaming "this is going to be incredibly bad for all of humanity". If people want to be skeptical about where Mars is in its orbit, that doesn't hurt anyone. When people are skeptical here, that skepticism is used as a reason not to take any actions to deal with the problem...and that makes things worse.

 

This isn't just science in this case. This is science saying that an accident of what we've done to the world is going to make things incredibly bad for us. Continuing the experiment unchecked because science would find those results fascinating isn't a good move for people.

[Y2HH]

tl;dr WSJ editorial pages are terrible on many subjects and I reserve the right to mock them

 

The WSJ editorial pages aren't doing any science.

 

Perhaps that's because they're editorials in a financial newspaper, not published peer review studies in scientific magazines/newspapers or journals?

Edited July 30, 2012 by Y2HH

[Balta1701]

First, we do see this being discussed in mainstream sources or we wouldn't be discussing it right now.

 

It's clear that CO2 is *a* driver...but it's not the only driver. There is a lot more to know about this before people like you continue sounding the alarm bell. Science based on politicized fear is a poor approach to discussion and it's the main driver of the denial you seem to hate. You propagate this attitude in your posts, as do others who continue chanting, "The British are coming!", in regard to AGW, when, in fact...they only *might* be coming, we're pretty sure they're coming...but we aren't positive...yet...and IF they are coming, they'll get here in 75 years when none of us will be alive. This is a piss poor way to convince people of something.

By virtually any standard of evidence that we adopt, the impacts are already here. We're already paying for them.

[StrangeSox]

Perhaps that's because they're editorials in a financial newspaper, not published peer review studies in scientific magazines/newspapers or journals?

 

Which is why I reserve the right to mock them for being the hacks that they are!

[Balta1701]

Perhaps that's because they're editorials in a financial newspaper, not published peer review studies in scientific magazines/newspapers or journals?

If you went by the evidence published in peer-reviewed journals, you really wouldn't write things like "It's not clear that CO2 is the only driver"...because we have good evidence that it's the strongest driver throughout geologic history, we have good evidence what the other factors are, we have good evidence what the magnitude of those factors are, and we can put together a very coherent picture here.

[StrangeSox]

If you went by the evidence published in peer-reviewed journals, you really wouldn't write things like "It's not clear that CO2 is the only driver"...because we have good evidence that it's the strongest driver throughout geologic history, we have good evidence what the other factors are, we have good evidence what the magnitude of those factors are, and we can put together a very coherent picture here.

 

Right, it's not like it's just Maddow vs. WSJ editorials screaming "AGW!" "NO IT'S NOT!"

 

The results of the science itself are what's sounding the alarm bells. It's the global scientific community, virtually every scientific body in the world, that's saying warming is coming, it's coming quick, it's our fault and we need to do everything we can to mitigate the damage. Opposition science is funded, but then people like Muller and BEST come away with the conclusion that things really are every bit as bad as the IPCC says, if not worse.

[Y2HH]

By virtually any standard of evidence that we adopt, the impacts are already here. We're already paying for them.

 

And when this science can set the doomsday date, with definitive evidence, perhaps those in denial will begin to listen, mostly because this is what sounding doomsday alarms does to people. But right now, sounding alarm bells and screaming the world is going to end...only we aren't sure when...or if it will actually end...is equal to crying wolf over and over again. Eventually, people will start ignoring you or looking for ways to tell you to take a one way train to shuttie-town.

 

It's all in the approach, and from the get go in regard to this subject, the AGW crowd took a poor approach in getting peoples attention by crying wolf too soon...and too often.

 

If you launch a rocket up into the stratosphere, an exact calculation can be done telling you exactly when it will hit the ground. Back before we understood gravity, etc...all we could do is say...hey, that rocket might come back down! I bet back then, there were people that denied it just the same.

[StrangeSox]

Well I think you've highlighted two important and correct aspects there: messaging is important, and people will be motivated to ignore or deny a problem that is too large to actually do something about; and denialists (not the same as skeptics) require an unreasonably high level of evidence before they'll be convinced, and those goalposts will keep moving every time we get close.

[iamshack]

Hey Balta...do you feel like we have a pretty good handle on what realistic actions we could begin taking that would make the most sense, both economically and scientifically, in terms of taking the biggest bite out of this while simultaneously getting the biggest bang for our buck?

 

It seems like for years we heard about how much our vehicles and driving behaviors had to do with this, and yet I seem to remember reading a few times that CO2 emissions from vehicles is but a small part of the problem.

 

Have we reached the stage where we feel confident in what we've learned to actually start dedicating ourselves to solutions that will not waste our precious resources, whether financial, time, or otherwise, instead of wasting those precious resources on foolish solutions that make little impact if any? It seems like any time there is a big problem, there are some immediate measures that can be taken that will take a pretty big chunk out of the problem, and then further study reveals additional steps to be taken until it is eventually whittled down to much smaller levels.

[Balta1701]

And when this science can set the doomsday date, with definitive evidence, perhaps those in denial will begin to listen, mostly because this is what sounding doomsday alarms does to people. But right now, sounding alarm bells and screaming the world is going to end...only we aren't sure when...or if it will actually end...is equal to crying wolf over and over again. Eventually, people will start ignoring you or looking for ways to tell you to take a one way train to shuttie-town.

 

It's all in the approach, and from the get go in regard to this subject, the AGW crowd took a poor approach in getting peoples attention by crying wolf too soon...and too often.

 

If you launch a rocket up into the stratosphere, an exact calculation can be done telling you exactly when it will hit the ground. Back before we understood gravity, etc...all we could do is say...hey, that rocket might come back down! I bet back then, there were people that denied it just the same.

The remarkable thing about what you just said though is...this is a story we could tell you 25 years ago. We have more data since then yes, but Hansen's temperature models from the late 80's pretty well fit where we are right now. We can't give you an exact date for when any storm is going to happen, but we could say that we'd hit 1 degree at this point, you'd start seeing serious impacts at that point, and a couple more degrees would keep making things worse. And voila, huge expenditures on droughts, disaster recovery, food shortages in vulnerable parts of the world, etc.

 

What we can't do is make it all come at once.

[StrangeSox]

It seems like for years we heard about how much our vehicles and driving behaviors had to do with this, and yet I seem to remember reading a few times that CO2 emissions from vehicles is but a small part of the problem.

 

If you separate industry/business and power plants into two categories, then transportation is the single-biggest contributor to CO2 emissions.

[Balta1701]

Hey Balta...do you feel like we have a pretty good handle on what realistic actions we could begin taking that would make the most sense, both economically and scientifically, in terms of taking the biggest bite out of this while simultaneously getting the biggest bang for our buck?

 

It seems like for years we heard about how much our vehicles and driving behaviors had to do with this, and yet I seem to remember reading a few times that CO2 emissions from vehicles is but a small part of the problem.

 

Have we reached the stage where we feel confident in what we've learned to actually start dedicating ourselves to solutions that will not waste our precious resources, whether financial, time, or otherwise, instead of wasting those precious resources on foolish solutions that make little impact if any? It seems like any time there is a big problem, there are some immediate measures that can be taken that will take a pretty big chunk out of the problem, and then further study reveals additional steps to be taken until it is eventually whittled down to much smaller levels.

I totally missed this post.

 

There are, I'd say, lots of analyses of the economics and effectiveness of various measures, but since the country has literally adopted zero of them and has stepped up to make sure that very few of them are ever even tried, there aren't very good answers. It is safe to say that there is no single magic bullet, but I'm totally convinced that the technology to massively cut the carbon emissions nationwide have already been deployed, and could have been deployed sooner if the government hadn't slowed things down.

 

If we had the political will, I think we could have basically put the U.S. on a path to declaring "this country's carbon emissions reductions will beat the Kyoto goals" 10 years ago. We do not have the political will to do so and there's no sign of that changing.

 

Basically, I think there's zero sign that we're going to do anything other than "live with it".

[Balta1701]

First, we do see this being discussed in mainstream sources or we wouldn't be discussing it right now.

 

It's clear that CO2 is *a* driver...but it's not the only driver. There is a lot more to know about this before people like you continue sounding the alarm bell. Science based on politicized fear is a poor approach to discussion and it's the main driver of the denial you seem to hate. You propagate this attitude in your posts, as do others who continue chanting, "The British are coming!", in regard to AGW, when, in fact...they only *might* be coming, we're pretty sure they're coming...but we aren't positive...yet...and IF they are coming, they'll get here in 75 years when none of us will be alive. This is a piss poor way to convince people of something.

Yeah, I'm coming back to hit one more thing. Forgiveness please.

 

This entire day's discussion on this issue was motivated by a group from Berkeley who went in and tested what they thought was faulty statistics, in an effort to show that CO2 was not the only driver, which was their bias going in. They wound up coming to a stronger conclusion than the IPCC and saying that human-released CO2 was, within error, the only driver of the temperature change in the last 250 years.

 

Just wanted to highlight that discrepancy.

[Y2HH]

Yeah, I'm coming back to hit one more thing. Forgiveness please.

 

This entire day's discussion on this issue was motivated by a group from Berkeley who went in and tested what they thought was faulty statistics, in an effort to show that CO2 was not the only driver, which was their bias going in. They wound up coming to a stronger conclusion than the IPCC and saying that human-released CO2 was, within error, the only driver of the temperature change in the last 250 years.

 

Just wanted to highlight that discrepancy.

 

So this is definitive that man made CO2 is the only driver, or are you basing this on this one study/conclusion? Are there other studies that say it's not the only driver, but we're ignoring them for this specific response?

 

I'd actually like to know this...

 

Up until now, I thought it was only being considered as a driver, not "the only driver that exists", which is what you and apparantly these folks from Berkley are now claiming. This is hard to believe considering your 250 year statistic...what were humans doing prior to the industrial revolution that was causing mass quantities of CO2?

Edited July 31, 2012 by Y2HH

[Y2HH]

The guy at Berkeley who was going to prove that climate change was a fraud had an op-ed in the NYT yesterday.

It's actually kind of nice to see someone come out and say that the IPCC results are very conservative and probably underestimating what we've actually done.

 

From what I've read on Google about this "skeptic" in the last few minutes, this guy was never a global warming skeptic. Casts some serious doubt on this "study".

[StrangeSox]

He was a skeptic until he disagreed with them.

 

Nor does this cast any doubt on a scientific study or warrant the use of scare quotes around study.

[Y2HH]

He was a skeptic until he disagreed with them.

 

Nor does this cast any doubt on a scientific study or warrant the use of scare quotes around study.

 

http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/06/t...ard-muller.html

 

Or he was never a skeptic.

[Balta1701]

Deforestation for one. We've probably been doing that for about 6000 actually.

 

Let me try to clear the language up. The best way I've heard it presented is that CO2 is the biggest knob in the Earths climate history. If CO2 is going up its getting hotter, if CO2 is going down its colder. That holds together incredibly well in the geologic record.

 

Other things play a role, but they are weaker than CO2. And oftentimes, they have their effect amplified by CO2. The recent climate cycles are driven by solar changes much to small to build or destroy glaciers on their own without the CO2 swings.

 

If we focus on the recent time, CO2 is effectively the only driver. Nothing else in the system correlates with temperature, temperature correlates with CO2 incredibly well, and the changes are exactly what you'd expect if CO2 were the only thing driving this warming.

 

That's why I always ask for others who question the CO2 temperature link what mechanism they have to explain the warming. Warming doesn't happen by magic. It only happens if something changes, and the only thing that could do this is CO2.

[StrangeSox]

Rightbloggers are trying to distance themselves from his as much as possible since it turns out that, after looking at the facts and letting them speak for themselves, he has concluded that AGW is real. This is unsurprising because their denialism is based on ideology.

[Y2HH]

Rightbloggers are trying to distance themselves from his as much as possible since it turns out that, after looking at the facts and letting them speak for themselves, he has concluded that AGW is real. This is unsurprising because their denialism is based on ideology.

 

Reading through the references, I'd have to agree with that site he was never a skeptic...he was talking about CO2 causing this long before your post about him claiming to be a skeptic...sounds made up.

 

I'm not saying his science is wrong...but somewhere along the lines, people called him a skeptic, but I see nothing skeptical about what he's been saying over time.

 

According to this new study, which he concluded last year...he's no longer a skeptic.

 

But published on MIT's website, by Muller himself...he says, "Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. I would love to believe that the results of Mann et al. are correct, and that the last few years have been the warmest in a millennium."

 

That doesn't sound skeptical to me...at all. And since that was written by him in 2003...he's been a skeptic longer than the single year since his study.

 

It's stuff like this why you have a hard time getting people to listen to your arguments, guys...you are going along with the media, or him in this case, in making up converted skeptics in an attempt to make a point. Why do this? Why make up converted skeptics? I just don't get it...this added nothing to the conversation and did less than nothing in getting me to listen. This is the garbage I hate about this entire conversation. If you wouldn't go along with crap like this, and keep the argument on point, rather than doing this...maybe you'd get peoples attention and keep it.

 

Instead, what you'll do now, is try to make the story of him ever being skeptical real...when it's clearly not.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Y2HH

[StrangeSox]

Reading through the references, I'd have to agree with that site he was never a skeptic...he was talking about CO2 causing this long before your post about him claiming to be a skeptic...sounds made up.

 

I'm not saying his science is wrong...but somewhere along the lines, people called him a skeptic, but I see nothing skeptical about what he's been saying over time.

 

Denialists called him a skeptic. That's what my link demonstrates: in 2008, he was being hailed as a great iconoclast against the religion of global warming. As recently as last year, Anthony Watts was very confident that the BEST group would affirm his beliefs. It was only after their initial results came out that they started distancing themselves from him in a No True Skeptic manner.

 

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what some bloggers on the internet think he is or isn't. As you've said, the science should speak for itself, and it keeps saying the same thing: the globe is warming, the only known causal factor at this scale is CO2, and human emissions are what have thrown it so off-balance.

Edited July 31, 2012 by StrangeSox

[Y2HH]

Denialists called him a skeptic. That's what my link demonstrates: in 2008, he was being hailed as a great iconoclast against the religion of global warming. As recently as last year, Anthony Watts was very confident that the BEST group would affirm his beliefs. It was only after their initial results came out that they started distancing themselves from him in a No True Skeptic manner.

 

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what some bloggers on the internet think he is or isn't. As you've said, the science should speak for itself, and it keeps saying the same thing: the globe is warming, the only known causal factor at this scale is CO2, and human emissions are what have thrown it so off-balance.

 

...and again, he was never a skeptic.

[StrangeSox]

Reading through the references, I'd have to agree with that site he was never a skeptic...he was talking about CO2 causing this long before your post about him claiming to be a skeptic...sounds made up.

 

I'm not saying his science is wrong...but somewhere along the lines, people called him a skeptic, but I see nothing skeptical about what he's been saying over time.

 

According to this new study, which he concluded last year...he's no longer a skeptic.

 

But published on MIT's website, by Muller himself...he says, "Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. I would love to believe that the results of Mann et al. are correct, and that the last few years have been the warmest in a millennium."

 

That doesn't sound skeptical to me...at all. And since that was written by him in 2003...he's been a skeptic longer than the single year since his study.

 

It's stuff like this why you have a hard time getting people to listen to your arguments, guys...you are going along with the media, or him in this case, in making up converted skeptics in an attempt to make a point. Why do this? Why make up converted skeptics? I just don't get it...this added nothing to the conversation and did less than nothing in getting me to listen. This is the garbage I hate about this entire conversation. If you wouldn't go along with crap like this, and keep the argument on point, rather than doing this...maybe you'd get peoples attention and keep it.

 

Instead, what you'll do now, is try to make the story of him ever being skeptical real...when it's clearly not.

 

He was touted as a skeptic by skeptics prior to the release of the BEST results, then he became another apostate. It's not "the media" that pushed that angle, it was blogs like Powerline and WUWT that promoted him and the BEST study until it came out with conclusions they didn't like.