A question about climate change/global warming.

Morons are underrated.

It's alright, the sunspots have gone and saved us all!
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/06/the-sunspot-mys.html

Uhm I think we should avoid liberal guilt here, or the kind of fear mongering thats been placed on us. People don't want to hear it because they live in a society where market incentives and likewise bullshit as well as 'TURNING OFF A FUCKING LIGHTBULB' etc are used in place of actual long term solutions so they choose to ignore it and submit to an agentic state but I don't think that people are ignorant or apathetic more overwhelmed.
The kind of excesses brought about by capitalism and the state's support of that system are the real culprits. We can't just be promoting lifestylism and individualist action while the real root and cause carries on, anarchism...WOAH-too far?
Anyway my point is; its not really our fault but we should get together, organise etc and tackle the real problem.

major lulz at the sourcewatch link. The first thing I did when they showed me the global warming debunking "report" was go to the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine homepage, where the authors of the paper work. I said, "Why is there a link to an article on how to survive a nuclear war on this page?", a question they ignored before redirecting me to a cool graph showing that the world had, astonishingly, seen above-average temperatures in the past.

www.350.org

I should post this here, too:

http://globalmicrowave.orgfree.com/satellites.htm

Grist posted the entire "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" series in a point-by-point response to the denial talking points
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

Doesn't cover the "political" argument my last boss had - of course the science will point towards global warming! That's where all the money is! They get paid to say this shit! - I guess trying to draw parallels between the global warming "industry" and big pharma.

Of course he never said who was providing all this money, or why it was in their best interests to prove global warming if combating it is going to be so disasterous for the global economy.

(other that that it is a great resource)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7472532.stm

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update69.htm
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4081
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/389/2008/acp-8-389-2008.pdf
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e780d216-5fd5-11dc-b0fe-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2043724,00.html
http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ditcted20067_en.pdf
http://www1.umn.edu/umnnews/Feature_Stories/Ethanol_fuel_presents_a_cornundrum.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/business/worldbusiness/19palmoil.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14293/oecd.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?hp
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/05/biofuels.food

My grandfather, long retired from Exxon, where he worked his whole career as a research chemist (figuring out ways to make the industry more environmentally friendly, btw), also trots out the "natural long-term cycles of warming & cooling" defense when climate change comes up, though he also hedges his bets by saying that in his opinion, petroleum should never have been used as a fuel anyway, but rather reserved for its useful chemical properties.

first the salmon, now the oysters

Overheard this afternoon from a bagger to a cashier at, of all places to hear this, Whole Foods. This is verbatim as near as I can remember:

"There was a program on the other night that looked at all the temperatures, at least as far back as they can, and the whole carbon footprint and global warming thing, if you look at it scientifically, it's really kind of a hoax."

I so wanted to turn to him and say, "Yeah, I think I saw that program. Was it called 'Things James Inhofe Pulled Out Of His Lying Ass?'" Bagger was at least 60, too.

what is the age at which because it's on the teevee, it's true? or is age not the operative factor?

Grim

Fuck.

pee-drinking manfish, it's your time to shine

http://images.digitalmedianet.com/2006/Week_33/61rboolg/story/waterworld-1.jpg

What is really up for grabs at the moment though is the exact extent of climate change. Some scary-ass scenarios to ponder here.

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/slugoftime-podcast/2008/04/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-2/

Humanity reduced to a few survivors eking out a living in polar refuges. Most of life on Earth has been snuffed out, as temperatures rise higher than for hundreds of millions of years.

Mark Lynas

Interesting? Click here to explore further

Terry Rapson: We found something extraordinary... extraordinary and disturbing, that is. You remember saying in New Delhi about how melting of the polar ice can disrupt the North Atlantic current?

Jack Hall: Yes.

Terry Rapson: Well... I think it's happening.

Comments section to a WashPo article that refutes George Will

The range of stupidity displayed in these comments is nothing new:

ThisIsReality wrote:
What weasels these warmists are. This character is seriously trying to maintain that global cooling wasn't being loudly predicted in the 1970's? And the warmists have no, none, zip, doodah explanation for why the climate has cooled recently. Hah! The warmists are to the climate what Geithner is to the treasury.

devesh_f10 wrote:
Dear kenonwenu: You are right, increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere does make it absorb more heat. But did you know that despite all the hoopla, human activity accounts for less than 15% of the green house gases released into the atmosphere?
The rest is actually released naturally, as has been going on for millions of years.
Now one might argue that we are tipping the marginal balance of green-house gases, but really, it appears unlikely given the small share we add.

GaryEMasters wrote:
As a retired science librarian with an earned PhD, I take an expanded view and wonder if warming will be good or bad. Yes, we can make the Earth warmer. But few will ask if there is an ice age in our immediate future. If so, we may well want it warmer. If not, we may want to cool the Earth. But few debate that position and if it is brought up, one is called a "denier."

I do not deny we can make the climate warmer. I ask if it is good or bad.

LOL at GaryEMasters, if the whole thing wasn't so fucking frightening.

After reading Matt Taibbi's article about the global financial debacle, in which he makes the point that the vast VAST majority of the public is completely unable to even begin to understand the mechanisms that led to the crisis, I wonder if the same point can't be made about climate change. Math and science comprehension has declined in the U.S. over the last several decades, and as a result we're looking forward to a century where the "debate" often begins with addressing basic educational deficiencies.

• Unfamiliarity with statistical concepts

• No grasp on systems thinking

• No grasp on feedback loops

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpghttp://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpghttp://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

If you're into scary scenarios, there was a great CBC radio documentary series by Gwynne Dyer about military scenario planning for climate change outcomes. Hint, don't worry about rising seas, worry about starving due to rainfall shifts:

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/climate-wars/index.html

If you're into REALLY scary scenarios, consider one of the positive feedback mechanisms (seabed methane hydrate releases):

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/dorritie/

If you're into scary scenarios, there was a great CBC radio documentary series by Gwynne Dyer about military scenario planning for climate change outcomes. Hint, don't worry about rising seas, worry about starving due to rainfall shifts

Not to mention the fossil fuel reserves in the Arctic that are becoming available due to melting. The U.S., Russia, Canada and others are already sparring with each other for exploration/drilling rights. Can't WAIT to see how that works out.

the ukcp09 is out today
http://ukcp09.defra.gov.uk/

article on the beeb
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8107014.stm

for anyone interested

local Burger King franchise tells us what's what

http://www.memphisflyer.com/SingAllKinds/archives/2009/05/27/burger-king-calls-global-warming-baloney

Burge king calls globval warming baloney, immediately places said baloney between two buns and sells for $6

OMG the comments in that link.

WOW! That's great! I am going to stop by BK on my way home from work and buy me a big fat juicy burger to show my support!

About time some people recognize AGW for what it REALLY is!

Good for BK! The truth is slowly coming out. We need more of this

I have not eaten at a Burger King in almost 10 years (been on a health kick) - but I WILL CERTAINLY BUY ONE WHOPPER A DAY FOR THE NEXT MONTH just to show my support. Why is it that liberals can make some assanine statement and get praised for their stand but every time a conservative makes a statement he has to get crucified? Thanks for being bold and being AMERICAN, Burger King. By American, I mean you use your freedom of speech. Thanks! I almost thought they had succeeded in taking that one away from us! OK - gotta run now - going out to buy my Whopper!

yeah. this place is real fucked up. also, there are a number of trolls/ pale-conservatives that tend to hang out on the MemFlyer (primary alt-weekly) comments section making asses of themselves on the daily

paleo-conservatives.

but i bet they're pretty pale, too

About a year ago I did a proposal for these people; we wound up not doing the website but it will be pretty cool when it completely launches: http://www.climatecentral.org; they are a non-profit, scientific organization who will be posting non-politically biased, scientific information regarding climate change and global warming.

(and i didn't really mean "paleo-conservatives"; just your typical ignorant asses making a racket)

Is Monbiot getting a bit carried away?
It's no use pretending this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

i couldn't tell whether or not he was just taking the absolute piss there.

hilariously over-done email though

Taking the piss surely?!?!?

i dunno, seems legit

Monbiot always gets carried away. The thrust of his argument is dead right though - a handful of highly dubious emails does not disprove the basic science.

This (selecting data consistent with preconceptions, misleading/obfuscatory conclusions, etc., etc.) goes on in science a lot more than we'd like to admit, and climate science is no better than any other are of science. In fact, it's probably worse because of the political dimension.

what the spluttering fuck...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/nick-griffin-bnp-copenhagen-summit

nice one, maybe they plan to humiliate him in front of the WORLD

"The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology…"

This is exactly the narrative that Martin Durkin was pushing in The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Critics say Griffin addresses environmental issues when he believes he can use them to advance anti-immigration policies. His party claims that it would improve Britain's transport infrastructure and reduce carbon dioxide levels by reducing the number of immigrants in Britain using roads, cars, trains and buses.

You couldn't make this shit up.

i love that they use the egg-pelt photo of griffin in this story

lol @ the "leaked e-mail exchange".

responding to the op, i think the refusal to consider scientific evidence reflects the growing belief (on every side of whatever political divide you have in mind) that information is inherently political. it's not so much that these people are ignorant or apathetic, but rather that they see the validity of any supposedly factual claim - especially when it comes to complex gray areas like this - as a product not of available evidence, but of political implication.

not only leftist argument but "leftist information" is therefore automatically invalid. and i don't think this sort of politicized information analysis is solely an affliction of the right-minded. leftists and progressives can be equally hostile to information and ideas that seem to challenge their core beliefs, and just as likely to dismiss them as meaningless spin.

well, or at least nearly as likely. or somewhat likely... i admit that there is a deeply entrenched anti-intellectual/anti-academic/anti-scientific streak in american right-wing politics that doesn't find an easy analog on the left - maybe the oft-mentioned liberal hostility towards religion?

N!ck Gr!ff!n calls other people bullying, fraudulent cranks, film at 11

xp Yeah, it's Olver Wendell Holmes' "hydrostatic paradox of controversy":

"You know that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way. And the fools know it."

Just been to a great seminar on this topic and some interesting things came up.

1) The climate change science community has been worried about the paleoclimatelogical work has been suspect for some time. Even without the emails Mann and other have been doing some very dodgy work; misusing datasets, not publising their own data or deliberately obfuscating it.
2) CO2 data is beyond doubt as is the radiative forcing effect.
3) There is still considerable uncertainty about the effect of atmostpheric aerosols but not enough to change the need for a policy of massive CO2 reductions.
4) Mann and the CRU guys have done a massive disservice to the climate science community and just as theygave undue weight to any hockey sticks in their proxy data, this controversy is unfairly weighting the policy debate when there is still a real need for action.
5) Minesotans for climate change have a really amusing video but haven't realised the explosion in the mosquito population that they are rooting for.
6) 20 years of paleoclimatet data needs to be re-evaluated from the ground up.
7) People need to stop using the temperature hockey stick graph, right now.

The climate people and resource limits people are just beginning to talk.

The IPCC base case assumes unlimited fossil fuels through this century, whereas we're past peak conventional crude (2005), near peak liquids (2011 or so), and peak coal occurs in the first half of the century. The real unknown is the available natural gas resource, if gas bearing shales are exploited as they've just begun to be exploited in the U.S., there's a hell of a lot of methane to be produced.

As far as I know, the most credible C02 ultimate projections using resource constraints so far are those by David Rutledge of Caltech. He places peak atmospheric carbon in 2059-63 at 442-7 ppm, with simple radiative forcing temperature increase of 1.7 C by the early 22nd century. That is lower than any of the IPCC scenarios, but doesn't include positive runaway feedback (melting arctic ocean, lower albedo, permafrost outgassing). Also Rutledge (being a scientist rather than a E&P investor, doesn't seem to know about the gas shales.

One interesting fact made clear in the video lecture is that since the C02 will have a atmospheric residence time in hundreds of years, it doesn't matter for most of the milennium if we release it now or more slowly through 2200. The ultimate atmospheric C02 is about the same. So rather than make an allowance for additional CO2 emissions, it makes far more sense to simply place some fossil carbon entirely off-limits indefinitely. No cap-and-trade to enrich Goldman Sachs: instead halt new leases of Federal owned coal in Wyoming and Montana.