So IF man-made global warming is real...

[David Wong]

...can it be stopped without returning to the stone age?

I read to dramatically opposing articles on this today. In the WSJ, this guy says the 50-year carbon reduction goals that are being thrown around would reduce us to a level of living that's basically pre-Civil war. He says they're talking about reducing carbon to below a level when hunter-gatherers were burning wood:

HERE (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120934459094348617.html?mod=opinion_main_comment aries).

Meanwhile, TIME magazine says the whole operation would only knock a couple of percentage points off our GDP, and in the long run could even add some:

HERE (http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1730759_1731383_1731363-1,00.html).

So... both of those are backed up with numbers. What's the deal? Is either of them right?

[a_unique_person]

The thing I find interesting is, according to the first link, the free market hasn't got a snowballs chance in hell of reducing fossil fuel usage. However, I am continuall assured the free market is the only instrument suitable for helping us cope with the effects of AGW. One minute, it's MIA, the next it's our hero.

The Time article refers to WWII. If we want to, we can change from current habits to new ones, and in many cases, they won't cost us anything. The cheapest energy is the energy you don't use. At present, energy is very cheap. You can tell it is because we waste so much of it without a seconds thought.

[Bikewer]

I recall a large-scale analysis by some British group last year that found a net gain for industrial societies in large-scale conversion to cleaner technologies.

However, while we are dithering on all this, I see that the Chinese are planning to build one new coal-fired power plant a week for some years into the future....

[athon]

I think the statement 'made-made global warming' is something of a strawman. I know 'AGW' is a convenient shortening, however from what I understand it's more like anthropogenically influenced warming, rather than being the sole responsibility of human action. There's little evidence I've seen that says we'd be completely stable or dipping into an ice age right now.

That said, I feel there is a good argument for human behaviour being responsible for an increase in the rate of climate change. So...the question now becomes 'can we slow it down by an appreciable amount?'.

Naturally, this requires us to define 'appreciable'. And since we're not 100% clear yet on the exact rate of change, it becomes even more vague. There's no doubt that if we somehow reduced CO2 output to zero and somehow managed to start removing it from the ocean and the atmosphere there would be some impact on the rate of climate change. Just how much, though, I think is debatable.

This is what makes me think we should be more concerned with investigating ways of coping with the inevitable than just with how to reduce the impact. When oceans do rise by a foot or so, how will we lesson the impact on the more impoverished nations living in low-lying areas? When the droughts in Australia become more common and more intense, how might we deal with having dams in single-digit percentages?

These are significant questions which at this point seem to be less in the public consciousness than how we hold back the tide. By all means, we need alternatives to fossil fuels. I can't imagine a future relying on old-tech depletable resources. It makes no sense. But when we have a population who thinks they are saving the world from apocolypse through turning off their bedroom light yet don't want to consider drinking recycled water because 'it's a yucky idea'...we have problems.

Athon

[drkitten]

...can it be stopped without returning to the stone age?

I read to dramatically opposing articles on this today. In the WSJ, this guy says the 50-year carbon reduction goals that are being thrown around would reduce us to a level of living that's basically pre-Civil war. He says they're talking about reducing carbon to below a level when hunter-gatherers were burning wood:

That's a particularly poorly chosen example; most US cities have laws restricting use of wood-burning fireplaces and such precisely because it's so bad for the environment. One of the advantages of living in a modern technological society is that we have a lot of advantages that let us get a lot more bang for the carbon buck, as it were.

Similarly, he spends a lot of time arguing about the carbon burden that current energy consumption creates "in our current electricity infrastructure." But that's precisely the point. Our current electricity infrastructure depends largely on coal and oil and is horrid; simply by shifting to nuclear power, we could cut out most of that.

Similarly, running the transportation infrastructure off of the electrical grid (instead of off of hydrocarbon-based fuels) would more or less eliminate that part of the carbon footprint.

The WSJ article is a deliberate lie, full of deliberate deceptions, half-truths, and an occaisional outright fabrication. But you probably could have told that from the author's affiliation -- the American Enterprise Institute is a notorious shill, and about as reliable a source as the IHR or the Tobacco Institute.

[mhaze]

That's a particularly poorly chosen example; most US cities have laws restricting use of wood-burning fireplaces and such precisely because it's so bad for the environment. One of the advantages of living in a modern technological society is that we have a lot of advantages that let us get a lot more bang for the carbon buck, as it were.

Similarly, he spends a lot of time arguing about the carbon burden that current energy consumption creates "in our current electricity infrastructure." But that's precisely the point. Our current electricity infrastructure depends largely on coal and oil and is horrid; simply by shifting to nuclear power, we could cut out most of that.

Similarly, running the transportation infrastructure off of the electrical grid (instead of off of hydrocarbon-based fuels) would more or less eliminate that part of the carbon footprint.

The WSJ article is a deliberate lie, full of deliberate deceptions, half-truths, and an occaisional outright fabrication. But you probably could have told that from the author's affiliation -- the American Enterprise Institute is a notorious shill, and about as reliable a source as the IHR or the Tobacco Institute.

The WSJ article is a deliberate lie, full of deliberate deceptions, half-truths, and an occaisional outright fabrication.

Bold claims there, partner. Got any evidence?
a deliberate lie
full of deliberate deceptions
half-truths
an occaisional outright fabrication.It's you with these qualities, or the WSJ.

[drkitten]

The WSJ article is a deliberate lie, full of deliberate deceptions, half-truths, and an occaisional outright fabrication.

Bold claims there, partner. Got any evidence?



Absolutely. Exhibit A is the article itself, and the prosecution then rests.

[David Wong]

The thing I find interesting is, according to the first link, the free market hasn't got a snowballs chance in hell of reducing fossil fuel usage.

OK, somebody said this to me in an online debate like this one:

"Communism fails because the cost of goods does not reflect the cost of production. Capitalism will fail because the cost of goods does not reflect the environmental cost."

What he meant was that you can have some hypothetical plant cranking out cheap tires for decades, dumping their waste into the river the whole time. The cost of the tires reflects the cost of raw materials, manufacturing and all of that, but does not include the cost of cleaning up that river later. Which someone will have to do.

Does he have a point? That you've now got this monstrous bill that will have to be paid for global warming, but that this was never being factored into the price of cars and electricity all the other goods that were creating the problem. And thus the free market doesn't have that built-in ability to correct the problem.

You're talking to someone who has never voted democrat in his life; I understand that the free market has pretty much single-handedly raised the standard of living for most of humanity higher than our ancestors could have ever imagined. But is he right in that the inability for the market to adjust to environmental issues will be its one great failing?

[David Wong]

mhaze, tell me about the American Enterprise Institute. Do you find them to be a credible source of information?

[mhaze]

Absolutely. Exhibit A is the article itself, and the prosecution then rests.

And you've just been laughed almost out of court.

I'm simply asking you to vindicate your obvious strong feelings with specific examples from the article of-
a deliberate lie
full of deliberate deceptions
half-truths
an occaisional outright fabrication.Otherwise, you are the one who has such traits, by making such accusations without evidence or merit.

Thanks.

David Wong:
mhaze, tell me about the American Enterprise Institute. Do you find them to be a credible source of information?

A valid question, but we have at the moment a longical fallacy I'd like to not see sidetracked:

Mr. A writes for AEI
--> AEI is bad
--> WSJ is bad
--> Mr. A is bad
--> Mr. A's work and arguments can be disregardedYeah, right...

[JEROME DA GNOME]

...can it be stopped without returning to the stone age?

Sure, just remove 70% of the human population.

How would you proposes we do this?

[athon]

OK, somebody said this to me in an online debate like this one:

"Communism fails because the cost of goods does not reflect the cost of production. Capitalism will fail because the cost of goods does not reflect the environmental cost."

What he meant was that you can have some hypothetical plant cranking out cheap tires for decades, dumping their waste into the river the whole time. The cost of the tires reflects the cost of raw materials, manufacturing and all of that, but does not include the cost of cleaning up that river later. Which someone will have to do.

Does he have a point? That you've now got this monstrous bill that will have to be paid for global warming, but that this was never being factored into the price of cars and electricity all the other goods that were creating the problem. And thus the free market doesn't have that built-in ability to correct the problem.

You're talking to someone who has never voted democrat in his life; I understand that the free market has pretty much single-handedly raised the standard of living for most of humanity higher than our ancestors could have ever imagined. But is he right in that the inability for the market to adjust to environmental issues will be its one great failing?

I read an interesting article recently on economic models and their relationship to historical physics models. The physics they were based on went through a revolution, therefore showing that they were inadequate to explain phenomena. The economics models didn't, and suffer from the same inadequacies.

Since I've got no background in the history of economics, my opinion is limited on the matter. But it still seemed to be an interesting take. The core of the article implied that present capitalistic models act as if they are in a market vacuum, sealed off from the environment. In other words, you might pay for people and equipment to extract raw resources, but essentially the environment itself doesn't form part of the equation. This means it is difficult to model the impact of environment on economy (I'm paraphrasing, and probably poorly).

From what I understand, in order for us to make a significant impact in today's economic climate on the way our global environment functions, we need to observe it as an integral part of those models.

Athon

[bobdroege7]

... In the WSJ, this guy says the 50-year carbon reduction goals that are being thrown around would reduce us to a level of living that's basically pre-Civil war. He says they're talking about reducing carbon to below a level when hunter-gatherers were burning wood:




Just because he says the CO2 emmissions would have to be less than in 1910 or even during the cival war does not mean we would return to that level of living.

What about technology solving our problems?

We need to replace most if not all of our coal plants by 2050, just because they are old and worn out anyway, why not be sure we replace them with nuclear.

Natural gas the best choice, man that guy is smokin crak.

It can be done without wrecking the economy.

[a_unique_person]

OK, somebody said this to me in an online debate like this one:

"Communism fails because the cost of goods does not reflect the cost of production. Capitalism will fail because the cost of goods does not reflect the environmental cost."

What he meant was that you can have some hypothetical plant cranking out cheap tires for decades, dumping their waste into the river the whole time. The cost of the tires reflects the cost of raw materials, manufacturing and all of that, but does not include the cost of cleaning up that river later. Which someone will have to do.

Does he have a point? That you've now got this monstrous bill that will have to be paid for global warming, but that this was never being factored into the price of cars and electricity all the other goods that were creating the problem. And thus the free market doesn't have that built-in ability to correct the problem.

You're talking to someone who has never voted democrat in his life; I understand that the free market has pretty much single-handedly raised the standard of living for most of humanity higher than our ancestors could have ever imagined. But is he right in that the inability for the market to adjust to environmental issues will be its one great failing?

He appears to be. The current line of thinking, as I have already noted, is that because the free market cannot anticipate AGW and it's side effects, we cannot do anything about AGW, since that would require collective action outside the market, or (as the IPCC proposed), the creation of a market in CO2 credits. The Time article correctly points out that there are times when collective action is warrented.

Americans had their civil liberties infringed in a major way, there was massive disruption in the market, with rationing and the government controlling markets, there was censorship and conscription. No one has ever suggested the free market should have been left to run the war. At the end of it all, the US emerged stronger, freer and wealthier.

[CoolSceptic]

The original question here is ill-posed, in that there is sufficient freedom to make as many assumptions as you want which will completely change the answer you arrive at.

Questioning the assumptions of either article (or in polemic AGW rhetoric, "discrediting") would probably be trivial to do with a bit of digging, and would almost certainly be an exercise in futility from a scientific perspective. Both of these articles have more to say about the politics of the debate than the solutions to a hypothetical question.

Also note, you suggest these analyses are supported by numbers, but most of those numbers are cherry-picked based on which assumptions that have been made, and supported by hand-waving arguments. Thought for the day: perhaps newspaper op-eds don't have all the answers.

[CapelDodger]

Sure, just remove 70% of the human population.

How would you proposes we do this?

There's no need for action. Just secure your own position, then sit back and let them die (or kill each other off).

[Cuddles]

"Communism fails because the cost of goods does not reflect the cost of production. Capitalism will fail because the cost of goods does not reflect the environmental cost."

What he meant was that you can have some hypothetical plant cranking out cheap tires for decades, dumping their waste into the river the whole time. The cost of the tires reflects the cost of raw materials, manufacturing and all of that, but does not include the cost of cleaning up that river later. Which someone will have to do.

Does he have a point? That you've now got this monstrous bill that will have to be paid for global warming, but that this was never being factored into the price of cars and electricity all the other goods that were creating the problem. And thus the free market doesn't have that built-in ability to correct the problem.

I don't think he has a point. He seems to be assuming that because something wasn't accounted for in the past, it never will be. This seems a pretty silly assumption, especially given the history we have of pollution. When industry first started, no thought was given to it at all. When people realised that maybe it wasn't such a great thing, industry was forced to clean up. Obviously the cost of being cleaner had never been factored into prices, but that doesn't seem to have been much of a problem, and many pollution problems have been solved, or at least improved. Why should global warming be any different?

In addition, what does "cost" actually mean? It's not like the money will just be flushed down the toilet. Every time something costs someone money, that money goes to someone else. Far from the free market not having the ability to correct the problem, the free market pretty much guarantees that anywhere there is a cost, someone will turn up to get paid. If industry is going to have to clean itself up even more, people will come along to clean it up, and get paid in the process. The only problem is ensuring that there is actually the incentive to clean up. Whether this comes from government, public opinion or not at all is certainly up for debate, but to suggest it is not possible at all just doesn't make sense.

[Travis]

It used to be when you went to buy a new refrigerator you had to consider how you would get rid of the old one, which might have made you hang on to the older one a bit longer.

Now when Lowes, or Home Depot, drops the new one off they just take the old one, no charge. This doesn't seem to have bankrupted those companies so I'm thinking that evolving economic models to include the disposal of a consumable good as well as its production, distribution and purchase doesn't need to be the downfall of capitalism.

[drkitten]

In addition, what does "cost" actually mean? It's not like the money will just be flushed down the toilet. Every time something costs someone money, that money goes to someone else.

That's another obvious fallacy of the free-market theologians. It's even got a name : the "broken window" fallacy.

You have a warehouse full of goods.

It burns down.

You have been "cost" the value of the goods, and the money doesn't go to anyone.

Now, you can (if you like) buy a new warehousefull, and spend money to replace your goods, but that's different than the money that the goods cost you in the first place.

Similarly, what you were "cost" was the value of the goods, which includes your labor costs and such as well as materials costs. Even if the "goods" were crops that you grew on your own farmland, from your own seed, by the sweat of your own brow. What you're out is not just the "cost" of the land, but the sunk costs of everything, mostly time, that went into producing a crop on that land.



Far from the free market not having the ability to correct the problem, the free market pretty much guarantees that anywhere there is a cost, someone will turn up to get paid.

"... And therefore, breaking windows is a social good, because it generates jobs repairing them."

Yep, this is classic (discredited) broken window fallacy.

[drkitten]

I'm simply asking you to vindicate your obvious strong feelings with specific examples from the article of-
a deliberate lie
full of deliberate deceptions
half-truths
an occaisional outright fabrication.

And I am laughing in your face, since I've already done so. You have no way to justify reliance on any statement in that article, and I've already analyzed it in this thread enough to show that is has no credibility.

You, sir, are a plumber, standing in eight inches of rising water, telling me that you've fixed the shower. The most amusing part is that you're standing in the kitchen as you say that.

[JEROME DA GNOME]

You, sir, are a plumber, standing in eight inches of rising water, telling me that you've fixed the shower. The most amusing part is that you're standing in the kitchen as you say that.


He did fix the shower. The water is from rising sea levels! :D

[CapelDodger]

IFar from the free market not having the ability to correct the problem, the free market pretty much guarantees that anywhere there is a cost, someone will turn up to get paid.

And will promptly be told to piss off.

If industry is going to have to clean itself up even more, people will come along to clean it up, and get paid in the process. The only problem is ensuring that there is actually the incentive to clean up.

If the costs are being borne by someone else, there's no incentive,

Whether this comes from government, public opinion or not at all is certainly up for debate, but to suggest it is not possible at all just doesn't make sense.

If the incentive comes from government it's not a free market incentive, and public opinion only operates via government. Or mobs, of course.

[mhaze]

And I am laughing in your face, since I've already done so. You have no way to justify reliance on any statement in that article, and I've already analyzed it in this thread enough to show that is has no credibility.

You, sir, are a plumber, standing in eight inches of rising water, telling me that you've fixed the shower. The most amusing part is that you're standing in the kitchen as you say that.

No evidence, just as I expected. No support for your wild accusations. Accusations made by you, yet not substantiated in the slightest, referencing the Wall Street Journal and it's content -
a deliberate lie
full of deliberate deceptions
half-truths
an occaisional outright fabrication.I conclude that you just made up some nice insulting words, with zero substance behind them.

Your accusations are lies, aren't they?

I've already analyzed it in this thread enough to show that is has no credibility.

You've done no analysis. But you are welcome to show me where you are right, and where I am wrong. When you do so to any reasonable level, I'll be happy to retract my assertion that you are a liar.

[drkitten]

No evidence, just as I expected.

None that your reading comprehension supports, I suppose.


But you are welcome to show me where you are right, and where I am wrong. When you do so to any reasonable level, I'll be happy to retract my assertion that you are a liar.

I see no need to support anything any further. When your best recourse to my arguments is to make wild accusations -- especially when the accusations come from someone with no credibility in the first place --- I consider my point amply proven.

So, please. Continue to dig yourself even deeper into a hole. The longer you twist, the fewer readers of this thread will give the AEI shill any credibility whatsoever. It's to my advantage to keep you dangling for as long as possible.

[mhaze]

and public opinion only operates via government. Or mobs, of course.

Really?

[mhaze]

I see no need to support anything any further.

I accept your gracious abandonment of the argument made by you, challenged, and conceded.

[varwoche]

mhaze, tell me about the American Enterprise Institute. Do you find them to be a credible source of information? FYI our colleague Mhaze is unambiguously on record stating that s/he considers virtually any anti-agw site as legitimate -- no matter the lack of expertise and no matter the bias -- and has a posting record (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3484522#post3484522) to prove it.

[drkitten]

FYI our colleague Mhaze is unambiguously on record stating that s/he considers virtually any anti-agw site as legitimate -- no matter the lack of expertise and no matter the bias -- and has a posting record (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3484522#post3484522) to prove it.


And also demonstrably feels no need to respond to criticisms, instead simply calling people liars. The imperial mhaze has no clothes, and less credibility.

Which is part of why I'm so delighted that s/he's still responding to my barbs and digging the hole even deeper. Hey, mhaze! I've conceded nothing! Go ahead and call me a liar again, and make sure everyone (re)reads post #4 where I demonstrate the lies and half-truths from another AEI shill!

[mhaze]

And also demonstrably feels no need to respond to criticisms, instead simply calling people liars. The imperial mhaze has no clothes, and less credibility.

Which is part of why I'm so delighted that s/he's still responding to my barbs and digging the hole even deeper. Hey, mhaze! I've conceded nothing! Go ahead and call me a liar again, and make sure everyone (re)reads post #4 where I demonstrate the lies and half-truths from another AEI shill!

#4 has no direct reference to anything related to either link in the OP.

[drkitten]

#4 has no direct reference to anything related to either link in the OP.

Keep digging. There may be someone on the Internet left who still thinks you have credibility. Leave no stone unturned in your quest for complete and utter irrelevance!

I stand by #4 and the assessment contained therein, and will gladly discuss it further with anyone who has reading comprehension.

[Ocelot]

Oooh Gooody lets fisk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking)


The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change
By STEVEN F. HAYWARD
April 28, 2008; Page A19



http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_F._Hayward
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Enterprise_Institute

OK so fair warning these opinions are the bought and paid for opinions of a fake think tank. Lets just admit its Exxon Mobile saying this. Acknowledge the bias and predjudice up front. I'm not saying that they're wrong because of who they are. That would be ad hominen. I'm just exposing the deciet of using the same front that the tobacco industry did in their denialism.

However that doens't mean the opinions are necesarily wrong. Let look at them.



The usual chorus of environmentalists and editorial writers has chimed in to attack President Bush's recent speech on climate change. In his address of April 23, he put forth a goal of stopping the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2025.
"Way too little and way too late," runs the refrain, followed by the claim that nothing less than an 80% reduction in emissions by the year 2050 will suffice – what I call the "80 by 50" target. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have endorsed it. John McCain is not far behind, calling for a 65% reduction.



OK here we have some thinly veiled sneering at open sandaled hippy environmentalists, pen pushing beurocrats and vote hungry politicians. It's not a lie but it does little to advance the argument.

We all ought to reflect on what an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050 really means. When we do, it becomes clear that the president's target has one overwhelming virtue: Assuming emissions curbs are even necessary, his goal is at least realistic.
The same cannot be said for the carbon emissions targets espoused by the three presidential candidates and environmentalists.

Aha the old regulation wont work gambit. It may be necessary but it won't work so lets just give up now.

Indeed, these targets would send us back to emissions levels last witnessed when the cotton gin was in daily use.
Begin with the current inventory of carbon dioxide emissions – CO2 being the principal greenhouse gas generated almost entirely by energy use. According to the Department of Energy's most recent data on greenhouse gas emissions, in 2006 the U.S. emitted 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or just under 20 tons per capita. An 80% reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means that the U.S. cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons of CO2 in 2050.
Were man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country ever that low? The answer is probably yes – from historical energy data it is possible to estimate that the U.S. last emitted one billion metric tons around 1910. But in 1910, the U.S. had 92 million people, and per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.
By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction.
It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low – even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood. The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan, Haiti and Somalia.

Aha another veiled inferrence. If we restirct CO2 emission to that degree we would have a proportionate reduction in energy usage.

Forget that we now have zero emission energy that weren't available in 1910. Forget that carbon sequestation should also help.

If that comparison seems unfair, consider that even the least-CO2 emitting industrialized nations do not come close to the 2050 target. France and Switzerland, compact nations that generate almost all of their electricity from nonfossil fuel sources (nuclear for France, hydro for Switzerland) emit about 6.5 metric tons of CO2 per capita.

Yup, both coutries emit CO2 through transport and use of agricultural chemicals. Alternatives can be found to reduce their emission further by 2050 (that's 42 years)


The daunting task of reaching one billion metric tons of CO2 emissions by 2050 comes into even greater relief when we look at the American economy, sector-by-sector. The Energy Department breaks down emissions into residential, commercial (office buildings, etc.), industrial, and transportation (planes, trains and automobiles); electricity consumption is apportioned to each.

Consider the residential sector. At the present time, American households emit 1.2 billion tons of CO2 – 20% higher than the entire nation's emissions must be in 2050. If households are to emit no more than their present share of CO2, emissions will have to be reduced to 204 million tons by 2050. But in 2050, there will be another 40 million residential households in the U.S.
Today, the average residence in the U.S. uses about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity and emits 11.4 tons of CO2 per year (much more if you are Al Gore or John Edwards and live in a mansion). To stay within the magic number, average household emissions will have to fall to no more than 1.5 tons per year. In our current electricity infrastructure, this would mean using no more than about 2,500 KwH per year. This is not enough juice to run the average hot water heater.

Well that's a lie for a kick off, to reduce household emission all you have to do is switch away from Exxon Mobile's nasty polution product, to zero or low emission power sources. Reduction in usage is not necessary at all but it will help. It will also help save money. Exxon Mobile would prefer to not even acknowledge the option. They're happy to leave you thinking that the requiremtnts of claimte change are at worst using less fossil fuels. The idea of using none is just.... Urh! How could you even think such a thing. Don't you love Exxon Mobile?

And lets leave the snarky red herrings about Al Gore in the playground. He could be a baby raping half goat undead mutant aswell as a hypocrite but that wouldn't make the facts of global warming wrong.

You can forget refrigerators, microwaves, clothes dryers and flat screen TVs. Even a house tricked out with all the latest high-efficiency EnergyStar appliances and compact fluorescent lights won't come close.

It's still bollocks even if it's repeated. reducing power usage is part of the solution, not the whole solution. If Exxon Mobile are arguing that you won't be able to reduce emissions to the target level though this alone they're right. If they're arguing that you won't be able to reduce emission to the target levels at all then they're making unwarrented assumptions that we're all going to stay adicted to they oil for ever and ever amen.

The same daunting energy math applies to the industrial, commercial and transportation sectors as well. The clear implication is that we shall have to replace virtually the entire fossil fuel electricity infrastructure over the next four decades with CO2-free sources – a multitrillion dollar proposition, if it can be done at all.
Natural gas – the preferred coal substitute of the moment – won't come close. If we replaced every single existing coal plant with a natural gas plant, CO2 emissions from electric power generation alone would still be more than twice the 2050 target.

Not if the CO2 were sequstered at source or if you used nuclear, or if you used renewables.

Most environmentalists remain opposed to nuclear power, of course.

I don't, but I guess I'm not a true environmentalist then. I'm just the one pointing out the lies and fallacies here.

So here's another thing I disagree with Exxon mobile about. Exxon Mobile would like you to think that nuclear isn't a viable option. That thorium reactors of fission won't help or are too dangerous.

There are indeed dangers and the lesser of two evils is still evil but hey lets not just sweep the option under the carpet because Exxon mobile is suddenly pretending to be sympathetic the lentil eating, back to nature mob.

It is unlikely that renewables – wind, solar, and biomass – can ever make up more than about 20% of our electricity supply.

It's unlikley because Exxon Mobile say it is huh? Frankly I'd like to hear it from someone else before I just take their word for it.

Suppose, however, that a breakthrough in carbon sequestration, a revival of nuclear power, and a significant improvement in the cost and effectiveness of renewables were to enable us to reduce the carbon footprint of electricity production.

Hey I'd hardly call a process taking 42 years a breakthough. I'd call it gradual progress over the course of a generation and a half.

That would still leave transportation.
Right now our cars and trucks consume about 180 billion gallons of motor fuel.

And are horribly inefficient.

To meet the 2050 target, we shall have to limit consumption of gasoline to about 31 billion gallons, unless a genuine carbon-neutral liquid fuel can be produced. (Ethanol isn't it.)

Don't need a power source. We've already got plans for that. We just need a way to carry it around, Fully electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells recharged through electricity. Use a flow battery and top up with precharged electrolyte. The options are endless.

To show how unrealistic this is, if the entire nation drove nothing but Toyota Priuses in 2050, we'd still overshoot the transportation emissions target by 40%.

Think about that for a moment. He's describing us doing everything we possibly could to improve transport emissions and still falling short by 40%. And what's his suggestion for the pinicle of 2050's technology? Every driving around in 45 year old cars. Prius is a baby step in the right direction.

The enthusiasm for an 80% reduction target is often justified on grounds that national policy should set an ambitious goal. However, claims on behalf of alternative energy sources – biofuels, hydrogen, windpower and so forth – either do not match up to the scale of the energy required, or are not cost-competitive in current form.

Oh we've allways done it this way, so that's what our infrastructure is geared towards, change is too hard too expensive we can't do it. Bollocks.

How on God's green earth will we make up the difference? Someone should put this question to the candidates. And not let them slide past it with glittering generalities.

Finally a good question. One to which Hayward is happy to pretend there's no answer. However Haywards ignorance is nto eveidence that there are no such answers.

Mr. Hayward is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the annual "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators," from which this article is adapted

Yes I recognise the same sort of denialsit tactics at play here as when the AEI couterated social cost arguments against the tobacco industry. something they did not because they were stiving for the truth but because the tobacco industry paided them to do so.

Yes very convincing rhetoric, use numbers you can checkup on. (I have no arhument with the numbers) but slips ina few invalid or irrelevent assumptions and reaches daft conclusions as a result.

[drkitten]

Yes very convincing rhetoric, use numbers you can checkup on. (I have no arhument with the numbers) but slips ina few invalid or irrelevent assumptions and reaches daft conclusions as a result.

Yes, but aside from that, do you have any actual evidence that the article uses invalid and irrelevant assumptions in a misleading way in order to establish the industry POV via misleading rhetoric?

Can you prove, for example, that 2050 is 42 years away?

[mhaze]

....Lets just admit its Exxon Mobile....... Exxon Mobile's..... Exxon Mobile ....Don't you love Exxon Mobile?..... Exxon Mobile ..... Exxon mobile.... Exxon Mobile would like you to think .... Exxon mobile is suddenly pretending .... Exxon Mobile.....

Yes very convincing rhetoric, use numbers you can checkup on. (I have no arhument with the numbers) but slips ina few invalid or irrelevent assumptions and reaches daft conclusions as a result.

Thanks, this is really all I was objecting to, was the outright dismissal of someone based on affiliations with AEI (Sheessh, we are not even seeing this done by the right wing with respect to Obama and his little closet of affiliations!).

On some of your details, I likely disagree. But what's all this chatter about Exxon? Looked to me like contributions for 2005 to AEI from Exxon were a quarter million, while revenues of AEI were some $33M.

If this is the basis for an argument about AEI being "Exxon shills", it seems quite weak. 0.8% of income from Exxon makes a shill? Yeah right.

Got anything better?

PS: Exxon anti nuclear? Says who? Where? I've never seen evidence of that.

Exxon is not the evil monster you've made it out to be. Although that's a popular view in Britian, I hear.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446c355b0c7b07.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7754)

American Enterprise Institute. Let's get real, shall we? Here are the papers produced by them for 2007 and 2008. Is there a conservative slant to this work? Probably. So what?



Papers and Studies
2008
3/24 - Iraq: The Way Ahead (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27686/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan
2/22 - Strengthening Freedom in Asia: A Twenty-First-Century Agenda for the U.S.-Taiwan Partnership (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27559/pub_detail.asp), by Dan Blumenthal and Randall Schrive
2/19 - Iranian Influence in the Levant, Iraq, and Afghanistan (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27526/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, and Danielle Pletka
1/28 - The Americas and the 2008 Elections: Ideas for Renewed Engagement (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27563/pub_detail.asp), by Roger F. Noriega
1/3 - The Decline of Job Loss and Why It Matters (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27356/pub_detail.asp), by Steven J. Davis
1/1 - Energy & Air Quality: A Texas Primer (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27649/pub_detail.asp), by Joel M. Schwartz
2007

11/1 - Over Invested and Over Priced (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27214/pub_detail.asp), by Richard Vedder
10/17 - The Chinese People's Liberation Army and Space Warfare: Emerging United States-China Military Competition (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26977/pub_detail.asp), by Larry M. Wortzel
10/5 - Not (Yet) a 'Minsky Moment,' (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26944/pub_detail.asp) by Charles W. Calomiris
9/10 - A World without the U.S.-ROK Alliance: Thinking about 'Alternative Futures,' (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27018/pub_detail.asp) by Nicholas Eberstadt, Richard J. Ellings, Aaron L. Friedberg, Christopher Griffin, Roy D. Kamphausen, and Travis Tanner
9/6 - No Middle Way: The Challenge of Exit Strategies from Iraq (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26760/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan
9/1 - Tyranny and Disease: The Destruction of Health Care in Zimbabwe (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26878/pub_detail.asp), by Roger Bate, Archbishop Pius Ncube, Richard Tren, and Jasson Urbach
9/1 - A Field Report of Uganda's Efforts to Build a Comprehensive Malaria Control Program (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26757/pub_detail.asp), by Richard Tren, Roger Bate, and Philip Coticelli
8/31 - Do We Really Want to Place the U.S. Navy under International Judicial Supervision? Security Concerns in the Law of the Sea Treaty (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26837/pub_detail.asp), by Jeremy A. Rabkin
8/31 - Costs Per Child for Early Childhood Education and Care (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26766/pub_detail.asp) by Douglas J. Besharov, Justus A. Myers, and Jeffrey S. Morrow
7/13 - AFRICOM and African Security: The Globalization of Security or the Militarization of Globalization? (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26551/pub_detail.asp) by Mauro De Lorenzo, Terence McNamee, Greg Mills, and Matthew Uttley
7/11 - Too Many People? (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26487/pub_detail.asp) by Nicholas Eberstadt
7/5 - Measuring the Dynamics of Young and Small Businesses (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26449/pub_detail.asp), by Steven J. Davis, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, C. J. Krizan, Javier Miranda, Alfred Nucci, and Kristin Sandusky
6/23 - Operation Phantom Thunder Factsheet (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26399/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan
6/20 - Michigan Higher Education: Facts and Fiction (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26486/pub_detail.asp), by Richard Vedder and Matthew Denhart
4/9 - Will India Be a Better Strategic Partner Than China? (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25924/pub_detail.asp) by Dan Blumenthal
4/1 - How to Pay the Piper: It's Time to Call Different Tunes for Congressional and Judicial Salaries (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26190/pub_detail.asp), by Russell R. Wheeler and Michael S. Greve
2/28 - Activity-Based Valuation of Bank Holding Companies (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25698/pub_detail.asp), by Charles W. Calomiris and Doron Nissim
2/27 - Improving Access to Life-Saving Medicines through Modernization of the Regulatory Review Process (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25710/pub_detail.asp), by Scott Gottlieb, M.D.
1/1 - USAID’s Health Challenge: Improving US Foreign Assistance (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25274/pub_detail.asp), by Roger Bate

[CapelDodger]

Exxon is not the evil monster you've made it out to be. Although that's a popular view in Britian, I hear.

The focus is on BP and Shell over here. Record profits, and record prices. That ain't gonna win a popularity contest anywhere.

[CapelDodger]

Yes very convincing rhetoric, use numbers you can checkup on. (I have no arhument with the numbers) but slips ina few invalid or irrelevent assumptions and reaches daft conclusions as a result.

Pre-determined conclusions, which is why the rhetoric rather than sound analysis. The minority's rejection of AGW as a whole was pre-determined, because it threatens the status quo. That's why we've seen the progression from "It won't happen" to "It's not happening" to "Global warming's happening but for some other reason" to "it's a good thing and anyway there's nothing to be done about it that isn't worse".

Some of us saw that coming long ago.

[CapelDodger]

FYI our colleague Mhaze is unambiguously on record stating that s/he considers virtually any anti-agw site as legitimate -- no matter the lack of expertise and no matter the bias -- and has a posting record (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3484522#post3484522) to prove it.

mhaze even thinks Durkin's a mensch, and Durkin's a frickin' neo-Marxist. Strange bedfellows, eh?

[CapelDodger]

It used to be when you went to buy a new refrigerator you had to consider how you would get rid of the old one, which might have made you hang on to the older one a bit longer.

Now when Lowes, or Home Depot, drops the new one off they just take the old one, no charge. This doesn't seem to have bankrupted those companies so I'm thinking that evolving economic models to include the disposal of a consumable good as well as its production, distribution and purchase doesn't need to be the downfall of capitalism.

But it's pounds to a pinch of s*** that some people said it would be, and they'll likely have had the backing of the 'Murrican Enterprise Institute. Pesticide control, SO2 scrubbing at power stations, CFC sequestration - we'd be back to the Stone Age every time.

"Wolf! :eek:"

[casebro]

To steer us back towards the pint of the OP:

I see three things that can be done at small cost to our economy, that would make a big improvement in fossil fuel use:

1) Change zoning laws. Require that jobs be within walking distance of housing. We wouldn't need to require employees to life next door, but do require the potential for all employees to walk to work. Every office building should be 50% condos. Building a factory? Build apartment buildings too.

2) Require that auto insurance cover paid riders. This would encourage folks to 'hitch hike', thereby cutting down on the one-person, one-car commute. The driver could make a dollar or two each way. Let capitalism work, without the specter of getting your bumper sued off. Maybe tort caps to protect the insurance companies, in the name of environmentalism.

3) Outlaw planned obsolescence. Been to a junkyard lately? See how most of the cars are in pretty good shape, but are 'not economically repairable'? An 'environmental impact fee' (eif) on new cars would make the old ones comparatively cheaper to repair. Base the EIF on the amount of energy that could be saved by repairing an old car. Oh, the '50's cars were smog monsters, but a '98 is darn near as clean as a '08. The UAW would hate me, but think of the jobs we would create for mechanics instead of assemblers. (Hmmm, not saying the UAW can't enlist auto mechanics...) Probably an economic wash, but an environmental boon. And I doubt if it would take long before manufacturers started competing on the quality of the little components- door handles, window operators, instead who has the latest re-style of the same plastic crap. Personally, I take pride in driving my restored automobile. Which has 50 year old door handles. my '95 is on it's 5th one- plastic, made from oil, that ended up in the landfill.

[Wangler]

That ain't gonna win a popularity contest anywhere.

Except for in the boardrooms or shareholder meetings.

[mhaze]

To steer us back towards the pint of the OP:

I see three things that can be done at small cost to our economy, that would make a big improvement in fossil fuel use:

1) Change zoning laws. Require that jobs be within walking distance of housing. We wouldn't need to require employees to life next door, but do require the potential for all employees to walk to work. Every office building should be 50% condos. Building a factory? Build apartment buildings too.

2) Require that auto insurance cover paid riders. This would encourage folks to 'hitch hike', thereby cutting down on the one-person, one-car commute. The driver could make a dollar or two each way. Let capitalism work, without the specter of getting your bumper sued off. Maybe tort caps to protect the insurance companies, in the name of environmentalism.

3) Outlaw planned obsolescence. Been to a junkyard lately? See how most of the cars are in pretty good shape, but are 'not economically repairable'? An 'environmental impact fee' (eif) on new cars would make the old ones comparatively cheaper to repair. Base the EIF on the amount of energy that could be saved by repairing an old car. Oh, the '50's cars were smog monsters, but a '98 is darn near as clean as a '08. The UAW would hate me, but think of the jobs we would create for mechanics instead of assemblers. (Hmmm, not saying the UAW can't enlist auto mechanics...) Probably an economic wash, but an environmental boon. And I doubt if it would take long before manufacturers started competing on the quality of the little components- door handles, window operators, instead who has the latest re-style of the same plastic crap. Personally, I take pride in driving my restored automobile. Which has 50 year old door handles. my '95 is on it's 5th one- plastic, made from oil, that ended up in the landfill.

1. Ah, the return of the famed "factory town"! Just get rid of zoning altogether, there are numerous cities where this is the case and they get by just fine.

2. I like this one. Lawyers, taxi cab drivers, insurance companies will not like it.

3. Consider our modern 5 mph impact bumpers and internal airbags. Just a nick or scrape on that bumper is $1000-1800, and we just taking prime, paint and clearcoat. Airbags? How much to replace those?

[Hindmost]

We just need a few ZPMs.

glenn

[David Wong]

Casebro, you're right that the solutions you offer wouldn't have a huge economic impact, but they would have a HUGE behavioral and lifestyle impact. You're taking away people's ability to choose where they live with #1. That's the kind of changes people will resist the most.

And there's one you skipped. I personally have reduced my gasoline consumption over 90% the last 6 months. Did I buy a hybrid? Start riding a bicycle to work?

No, I wound up with a work-at-home job. Telecommuting burns no fuel at all. The thing is, I could have done my last job this way, had it been available (it was processing electronic insurance claims). It wasn't, and instead they had a huge building that had to be heated and cooled, and 300 employees who burned gasoline to get there and back every day.

So forget forcing people to live at the office; often the job can be moved to the home.

[Bikewer]

I read Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave many years ago when it came out. (I984, actually)
Toffler talked about the post-industrial or "Third Wave" economy of the US, and how moving to an information-based economy would eliminate commuting for reasons as given by David Wong.

He maintained you could tell the advanced state of a city by it's lack of "rush hours".

Unfortunately, this has only partially occurred, and all of our politicians have been bemoaning the lack of manufacturing jobs and promising to do something about that.
Despite the increase of "information" jobs, there has been little in the way of sponsored re-training of older workers, and the educational system (save for the rich) is in the tubes.

I'm in a line of work that requires my presence, unless we get to the point where I can control a police robot from the comfort of my home....

It seems to me that our fearless leaders are all busy promoting old solutions to new problems...
Bush was just talking about drilling for more oil when we should be talking about generating clean electricity...

[casebro]

Casebro, you're right that the solutions you offer wouldn't have a huge economic impact, but they would have a HUGE behavioral and lifestyle impact. You're taking away people's ability to choose where they live with #1. That's the kind of changes people will resist the most.



No, I said not to require folks to live at the job. But if the homes are available, and vacant, the price will make them more attractive- to somebody. Maybe a worker from the next site, with a short commute. Capitalism.

Personally, I did live in my workshop for 6 years. In a commercial/industrial district. I loved it. Cheap rent since the shop was a tax deduction. But the registrar wouldn't let me vote from there, it's illegal. Their assumption is that you are voting at your place of business, NOT your residence. So I had to exercise my constitutional right to commit voter fraud, and lie about my residence. And I used to ask for two of the "I Voted" stickers, just my way of bragging a little.

[David Wong]

It seems to me that our fearless leaders are all busy promoting old solutions to new problems...
Bush was just talking about drilling for more oil when we should be talking about generating clean electricity...


Well to be fair to Bush and the many other politicians who will suggest the same, the high fuel prices issue is much, much more immediate than global warming. So they won't necessarily look for a solution that solves both at the same time because there may not be such a thing. They want to get the prices on existing sources down NOW.

So Bush and others think that threatening to expand our domestic drilling will fire a shot across the bow of OPEC, who will agree to up production in response and then that announcement will cool the frenzy of speculators that keeps driving up the price of crude.

[CapelDodger]

No, I wound up with a work-at-home job. Telecommuting burns no fuel at all. The thing is, I could have done my last job this way, had it been available (it was processing electronic insurance claims). It wasn't, and instead they had a huge building that had to be heated and cooled, and 300 employees who burned gasoline to get there and back every day.

So forget forcing people to live at the office; often the job can be moved to the home.

There's been huge unused potential for this for decades now, and I think the inertia has finally been overcome. The inertia is concentrated in management, not in workers, IMO. The clock-in, clock-out, under-their-eyes management model has been hard to shift. Management needs to concentrate on output, not hours worked, as the critical measure of performance. And they need to stop worrying about whether you're inappropriately dressed (or dressed at all) while you're on the job. So to speak :).

I think we'll see an explosion in tele-working in the coming years. More bad news for the commercial property market, but that's life.

[Ocelot]

Thanks, this is really all I was objecting to, was the outright dismissal of someone based on affiliations with AEI (Sheessh, we are not even seeing this done by the right wing with respect to Obama and his little closet of affiliations!).

On some of your details, I likely disagree. But what's all this chatter about Exxon? Looked to me like contributions for 2005 to AEI from Exxon were a quarter million, while revenues of AEI were some $33M.

If this is the basis for an argument about AEI being "Exxon shills", it seems quite weak. 0.8% of income from Exxon makes a shill? Yeah right.

Got anything better?

PS: Exxon anti nuclear? Says who? Where? I've never seen evidence of that.

Exxon is not the evil monster you've made it out to be. Although that's a popular view in Britian, I hear.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446c355b0c7b07.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7754)

American Enterprise Institute. Let's get real, shall we? Here are the papers produced by them for 2007 and 2008. Is there a conservative slant to this work? Probably. So what?



Papers and Studies
2008
3/24 - Iraq: The Way Ahead (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27686/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan
2/22 - Strengthening Freedom in Asia: A Twenty-First-Century Agenda for the U.S.-Taiwan Partnership (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27559/pub_detail.asp), by Dan Blumenthal and Randall Schrive
2/19 - Iranian Influence in the Levant, Iraq, and Afghanistan (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27526/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, and Danielle Pletka
1/28 - The Americas and the 2008 Elections: Ideas for Renewed Engagement (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27563/pub_detail.asp), by Roger F. Noriega
1/3 - The Decline of Job Loss and Why It Matters (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27356/pub_detail.asp), by Steven J. Davis
1/1 - Energy & Air Quality: A Texas Primer (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27649/pub_detail.asp), by Joel M. Schwartz
2007

11/1 - Over Invested and Over Priced (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27214/pub_detail.asp), by Richard Vedder
10/17 - The Chinese People's Liberation Army and Space Warfare: Emerging United States-China Military Competition (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26977/pub_detail.asp), by Larry M. Wortzel
10/5 - Not (Yet) a 'Minsky Moment,' (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26944/pub_detail.asp) by Charles W. Calomiris
9/10 - A World without the U.S.-ROK Alliance: Thinking about 'Alternative Futures,' (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27018/pub_detail.asp) by Nicholas Eberstadt, Richard J. Ellings, Aaron L. Friedberg, Christopher Griffin, Roy D. Kamphausen, and Travis Tanner
9/6 - No Middle Way: The Challenge of Exit Strategies from Iraq (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26760/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan
9/1 - Tyranny and Disease: The Destruction of Health Care in Zimbabwe (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26878/pub_detail.asp), by Roger Bate, Archbishop Pius Ncube, Richard Tren, and Jasson Urbach
9/1 - A Field Report of Uganda's Efforts to Build a Comprehensive Malaria Control Program (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26757/pub_detail.asp), by Richard Tren, Roger Bate, and Philip Coticelli
8/31 - Do We Really Want to Place the U.S. Navy under International Judicial Supervision? Security Concerns in the Law of the Sea Treaty (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26837/pub_detail.asp), by Jeremy A. Rabkin
8/31 - Costs Per Child for Early Childhood Education and Care (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26766/pub_detail.asp) by Douglas J. Besharov, Justus A. Myers, and Jeffrey S. Morrow
7/13 - AFRICOM and African Security: The Globalization of Security or the Militarization of Globalization? (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26551/pub_detail.asp) by Mauro De Lorenzo, Terence McNamee, Greg Mills, and Matthew Uttley
7/11 - Too Many People? (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26487/pub_detail.asp) by Nicholas Eberstadt
7/5 - Measuring the Dynamics of Young and Small Businesses (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26449/pub_detail.asp), by Steven J. Davis, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, C. J. Krizan, Javier Miranda, Alfred Nucci, and Kristin Sandusky
6/23 - Operation Phantom Thunder Factsheet (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26399/pub_detail.asp), by Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan
6/20 - Michigan Higher Education: Facts and Fiction (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26486/pub_detail.asp), by Richard Vedder and Matthew Denhart
4/9 - Will India Be a Better Strategic Partner Than China? (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25924/pub_detail.asp) by Dan Blumenthal
4/1 - How to Pay the Piper: It's Time to Call Different Tunes for Congressional and Judicial Salaries (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26190/pub_detail.asp), by Russell R. Wheeler and Michael S. Greve
2/28 - Activity-Based Valuation of Bank Holding Companies (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25698/pub_detail.asp), by Charles W. Calomiris and Doron Nissim
2/27 - Improving Access to Life-Saving Medicines through Modernization of the Regulatory Review Process (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25710/pub_detail.asp), by Scott Gottlieb, M.D.
1/1 - USAID’s Health Challenge: Improving US Foreign Assistance (http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25274/pub_detail.asp), by Roger Bate

I wasn't dismissing it outright because it was exxon mobile speaking. I specifically made that point. I was dismissing points that were wrong because they were wrongs as I clearly stated. Points you faield to address in focussing on my apparent lack of evidence that it was Exxon Mobile speaking. As you rightly point out AEI do a lot of work for a lot of different people. That's why Exxon Mobile don't pay all their bills. Just for the bits they do get in return, like this article. The deliberate fallacies make sense if seen as a part of a paid for campaign of disinformation and denialism orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry. We can recognise aspects of the campaign from similar campaigns such as the one mounted by the tobacco industry.

I'm not censoring Exxon Mobile, they're entitled to have and promote their opinion, I'm just being honest about where these opinions appear to come from and what motivates them.

If you don't think that this output was influenced by the people who pay AEI to act on their behalf then fair enough. It won't be the first time that willfull ignorance will be an asset to your argument.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/

[mhaze]

I wasn't dismissing it outright because it was exxon mobile speaking. I specifically made that point. I was dismissing points that were wrong because they were wrongs as I clearly stated. Points you faield to address in focussing on my apparent lack of evidence that it was Exxon Mobile speaking. As you rightly point out AEI do a lot of work for a lot of different people. That's why Exxon Mobile don't pay all their bills. Just for the bits they do get in return, like this article. The deliberate fallacies make sense if seen as a part of a paid for campaign of disinformation and denialism orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry. We can recognise aspects of the campaign from similar campaigns such as the one mounted by the tobacco industry.

I'm not censoring Exxon Mobile, they're entitled to have and promote their opinion, I'm just being honest about where these opinions appear to come from and what motivates them.

If you don't think that this output was influenced by the people who pay AEI to act on their behalf then fair enough. It won't be the first time that willfull ignorance will be an asset to your argument.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/

And now you have to support a conspiracy theory, namely -


that you have certain and correct knowledge of the aims and goals of Exxon
Exxon got quid pro quo in a transaction of $250,000 with AEI
that the actions of the writer of the WSJ, along with other (unspecified) actions of AEI, constitute the base of that conspiracy.
While simultaneously acknowledging the legal right of Exxon-Mobil to lobby and promote their business interests as they see fit. By the way, here is an excerpt from one of the key documents in this (long, long debunked) conspiracy theory. In Exxon’s brochure, "Global Climate Change: Everyone’s Debate," CEO Lee Raymond writes,
"Our analysis indicates that the current state of climate science is too uncertain to provide clear answers to many key questions about global climate change. Even if global warming were a proven threat – which it is not – targets agreed upon in Kyoto, Japan, fail to provide a fair, practical or cost-effective solution."
Is there anything unreasonable about this statement? (I'm not certain of the date of the brochure, let's say 1998 or so).

By the way, please note that the $250,000 contributed to AEI by Exxon (for which I applaud them, overall it looks AEI looks like a fine organization, as noted by the published work previously cited) is dwarfed by Exxon's contributions to environmental funds and causes. Let us explore that a bit to put the matter in perspective?

(Hint: Those who propagated the Exxon conspiracy theory had no interest in a rational or reasonable perspective).

Following these last two lines to inquiry, it'll become clear in two posts who the liars were and why.

[drkitten]

Following these last two lines to inquiry, it'll become clear in two posts who the liars were and why.

It's been clear since post #4 to everyone except you.

But I do look forward to reading your vain attempt at apologetics, along with your patently transparent attempts to avoid grappling with the actual meat of the criticisms of the AEI shill article.

[Ocelot]

And now you have to support a conspiracy theory, namely -


that you have certain and correct knowledge of the aims and goals of Exxon
Exxon got quid pro quo in a transaction of $250,000 with AEI
that the actions of the writer of the WSJ, along with other (unspecified) actions of AEI, constitute the base of that conspiracy.No I don't. I have detailed how come I have the reasonable belief that this is the work of Exxon Mobile. Moving the goalposts from "reasonable belief" to "certain and correct" is pointless. As you and I have both agreed the point at hand is not the source but the content.

As I've said before you want to deny the likely source, go right ahead. I don't give a monkeys chuff.



While simultaneously acknowledging the legal right of Exxon-Mobil to lobby and promote their business interests as they see fit. By the way, here is an excerpt from one of the key documents in this (long, long debunked) conspiracy theory. In Exxon’s brochure, "Global Climate Change: Everyone’s Debate," CEO Lee Raymond writes,
"Our analysis indicates that the current state of climate science is too uncertain to provide clear answers to many key questions about global climate change. Even if global warming were a proven threat – which it is not – targets agreed upon in Kyoto, Japan, fail to provide a fair, practical or cost-effective solution."
Is there anything unreasonable about this statement? (I'm not certain of the date of the brochure, let's say 1998 or so).

Yes there's something unreasonable about it.

It's classic denialist tactics. You don't even need to know more than the basics about global warming and the greenhouse effect to recognise it as such.

Firstly there's an unreasonable expectation of absolute certainty before action is taken. A well known denialist stalling tactic (http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/05/denialists_deck_of_cards_the_3.php)

If you're standing in a road and a car is approaching do you wait unitl you've measured it's velocity and momentum in seven different inertial frames and been able to calculate it's projected trajectory to twelve decimal places before you take action or do you get out of the way as soon as your best guess is that it's likely to hit you if you don't.

There will allways be some degree of uncertainty in any projection. Overemphasising that uncertainty is no valid reason for inaction. The concensus of climate science is that there is indeed uncertainty about their projections. This uncertainty has been calculated - the best guess is that the car is going to hit us and we know exactly how good a guess that is. Good enough to demand immediate action.

So when they say that Global Warming is not a proven threat they're lying. It's a lie. It's not true. They're being decietful. They're using dishonest tactics to apply more doubt than is reasonable. They're using the same tactics as the tobacco industry did to deny the addiction and harm caused by their product and they're diong it for the same reasons. They want to carry on selling their product.

Global warming is a real measured phenomenon. I have the graphs to prove it. The average temparatures show an upwards trend. There's no denying it. There's twisting figures to try to demonstrate a plateu since 1998 but to anybody familar with denialist tactics. Anybody who takes the time to download and analyse global average temperatures for themselves this is just cherry picking. Global Warming is a fact. Rock Solid Gold Plated deny it and you a liar fact!

In fact what they're trying to deny is AGW and conflating the two.

There some room for manouvre in trying to deny the causes of Global Warming. On this there far more uncertainty. However the causes of this warming are well established. We know the greenhouse effect is real. We know the effect has increased. We know that this has contributed to roughly 50% of this warming and that is only going to increase. We know that other factors are cyclical. They add noise to the equations such as the recent apparent slowing of total warming.

Denialists focus on the uncertainties in the hope that the certainties of an increasing greenhouse effect contributing to increasing global temperatures will be buried.

Moving on to the critisms of the Kyoto protocols. Are they fair? If they're necessary then fairness doesn't really enter into it. Is it fair that if I must move out of the way of a speeding drunk driver. No it's not but I'd still do it.

Are they practical. Well the article in the WSJ seems to sugegst not but I ripped that apart. If there was anything wrong with my arguments you'd have pounced on them rather than trying to debate instead the source and bias of the article. Your inability to address those points suggest to me that you know that difficult does not equate to impractical.

Finally cost effectiveness. Have you read the Stern Report. This considers the cost implications of climate change.

The equation is simple. Multiply the probability of climate change happening by the cost of it happening. If that amount more than the cost of stopping it then stopping climate change is cost effective.

Stern's estimates are that stopping AGW will reduce global GDP by 1%. That's a heck of a lot of money. Is it worth that much money just to save a few hundred million lives? But lets forget about humanitarian issues most of those lives will be foreigners anyway so who cares. We're just looking at the economy here. Stern estimates that allowing AGW to proceed will reduce the world economy by 20%. That's an almost unimaginable amount of money.

So forget about AGW not being proven to ever increasing levels of satisfaction. From an economic standpoint alone action is demanded unless you're more than 95% certain that the AGW hypothesis is bunk.

Well are you?

[mhaze]

[/list]If there was anything wrong with my arguments you'd have pounced on them rather than trying to debate instead the source and bias of the article. Your inability to address those points suggest to me that you know that difficult does not equate to impractical.
Of course I would actually prefer to be just debating the scientific article (this one for the popular audience) rather that this tripe, but some here on this forum smear the scientist or writer and believe that that's good enough. That's why we are discussing this at this level. David Wong's OP, you will note, simply brought 2 forth - with different viewpoints.


Finally cost effectiveness. Have you read the Stern Report. This considers the cost implications of climate change.

The equation is simple. Multiply the probability of climate change happening by the cost of it happening. If that amount more than the cost of stopping it then stopping climate change is cost effective.

Stern's estimates are that stopping AGW will reduce global GDP by 1%. That's a heck of a lot of money. Is it worth that much money just to save a few hundred million lives? But lets forget about humanitarian issues most of those lives will be foreigners anyway so who cares. We're just looking at the economy here. Stern estimates that allowing AGW to proceed will reduce the world economy by 20%. That's an almost unimaginable amount of money.

So forget about AGW not being proven to ever increasing levels of satisfaction. From an economic standpoint alone action is demanded unless you're more than 95% certain that the AGW hypothesis is bunk.

Well are you?

Yes, and numerous rebuttals to the Stern report. The report is one of the worst examples of muddled thinking on the planet, leaving aside the 30-40 pages of legal disclaimers at the start. Wow!!!

There are fundamental logical flaws in this style of thinking that bear consideration, as relating to the OP.

[Ocelot]

Of course I would actually prefer to be just debating the scientific article (this one for the popular audience) rather that this tripe, but some here on this forum smear the scientist or writer and believe that that's good enough. That's why we are discussing this at this level. David Wong's OP, you will note, simply brought 2 forth - with different viewpoints.

Ok you're saying you'd rather discuss the scientific article. So why arn't you doing so?

Yes, and numerous rebuttals to the Stern report. The report is one of the worst examples of muddled thinking on the planet, leaving aside the 30-40 pages of legal disclaimers at the start. Wow!!!

There are fundamental logical flaws in this style of thinking that bear consideration, as relating to the OP.

Details? What is your objection to the Stern report. Where is it at fault?

Are you trying to stifle debate by not actually making any points?

;)

[TrueSceptic]

Ok you're saying you'd rather discuss the scientific article. So why arn't you doing so?



Details? What is your objection to the Stern report. Where is it at fault?

Are you trying to stifle debate by not actually making any points?

;)
You won't get straight answers from this one. When asked for specifics, he resorts to vague accusations and insults, claims victory, and moves on his next bout of empty verbiage.

[Ocelot]

http://io9.com/385906/the-fake-list-of-500-scientists-who-doubt-global-warming


An infamous list from the Heartland Institute of 500 scientists with doubts about global warming — often waved around among policy-makers as "proof" that there are still doubters within the scientific community — turns out to be at least 10 percent fake. When the DeSmog Blog posted the actual list yesterday, 45 scientists whose names appeared on it stepped up to protest. All are requesting that their names be removed from the list. We can only assume more will step forward as time goes on and the public list circulates further.


http://www.desmogblog.com/500-scientists-with-documented-doubts-about-the-heartland-institute

I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite."
Dr. David Sugden. Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh

I have NO doubts ..the recent changes in global climate ARE man-induced. I insist that you immediately remove my name from this list since I did not give you permission to put it there."
Dr. Gregory Cutter, Professor, Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University

I don't believe any of my work can be used to support any of the statements listed in the article."
Dr. Robert Whittaker, Professor of Biogeography, University of Oxford

Please remove my name. What you have done is totally unethical!!"
Dr. Svante Bjorck, Geo Biosphere Science Centre, Lund University

I'm outraged that they've included me as an "author" of this report. I do not share the views expressed in the summary."
Dr. John Clague, Shrum Research Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University

http://www.desmogblog.com/outrage-in-the-climate-science-community-continues-over-the-500-scientist-list
I am very shocked to see my name in the list of "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares". Because none of my research publications has ever indicated that the global warming is not as a consequence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, I view that the inclusion of my name in such list without my permission or consensus has damaged my professional reputation as an atmospheric scientist."
Dr. Ming Cai, Associate Professor, Department of Meteorology, Florida State University.

Just because you document natural climate variability doesn't mean anthropogenic global warming is not a threat. In fact I would venture that most on that list believe a natural cycle and anthropogenic change combined represent a greater threat."
Peter F. Almasi, PhD Candidate in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Columbia University

Why can't people spend their time trying to identify and evaluate the facts concerning climate change rather than trying to obscure them?"
Dr. James P. Berry, Senior Scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

They have taken our ice core research in Wyoming and twisted it to meet their own agenda. This is not science."
Dr. Paul F. Schuster, Hydrologist, US Geological Survey

Please remove my name IMMEDIATELY from the following article and from the list which misrepresents my research."
Dr. Mary Alice Coffroth, Department of Geology, State University of New York at Buffalo


So to answer the OP as to why the discrepancy, I might venture to suggest one plausible answer. That denialists make stuff up.

[Megalodon]

It's interesting to note that Mann (yes, that Mann) is in the list, also...

Lie, loudly and proudly, and some of the people will believe you...

[mhaze]

Basically, it seems like your strawman argument is something like this - "Deniers are Exxon shills so they are liars and can't be trusted and you can disregard the first article because they are Exxon shills and that makes them deniers".
And when I suggest extensive evidence exists refuting this smear of Exxon and AEI, an alternate strawman emerges - "Deniers make stuff up and the first article is written by a denier so it can be disregarded because it's probably all lies because deniers do stuff like that". And in response to my comment - Of course I would actually prefer to be just debating the scientific article (this one for the popular audience) rather that this tripe, but some here on this forum smear the scientist or writer and believe that that's good enough. That's why we are discussing this at this level. David Wong's OP, you will note, simply brought 2 forth - with different viewpoints.
You said -
Ok you're saying you'd rather discuss the scientific article. So why arn't you doing so?
Who is it that's not discussing the science?

Please clue me in as to where desmogblog and sourcewatch or your other links (exception: Stern) that you've presented are anything other than left wing political shills.

Include funding sources please.

Are we through with the Exxon-Denier Conspiracy theory now or do we need to further discredit those who propagated that group of lies? Most Warmers by now know this story is false.

I'll give you credit, though, for linking to the Stern report, (paid for by the British government, biased and full of obvious errors) but nonetheless, a credible published work that can be discussed with all it's warts and pimples. The Stern report, and of course other economic studies of possible effects of AGW, can be used to support action or inaction on climate change, as you've noted.

On the subject of the Stern Report I noted...
Yes, and numerous rebuttals to the Stern report. The report is one of the worst examples of muddled thinking on the planet, leaving aside the 30-40 pages of legal disclaimers at the start. Wow!!!...

And you responded-

Details? What is your objection to the Stern report. Where is it at fault?
Are you trying to stifle debate by not actually making any points?

Objections? You don't want to refute my saying 30-40 pages of legal disclaimers? You don't think that's a bit peculiar and downright funny?

Hey, maybe I got it wrong....maybe it was only 18 pages....A question: What were the presumptions on which Stern did his analysis, and are they reasonable?

Other economists to consider. Bjorn Lomborg, Nordhaus, Scott Armstrong. Or are they deniers and Exxon Mobile shills?:clap:

[Megalodon]

Are we through with the Exxon-Denier Conspiracy theory now or do we need to further discredit those who propagated that group of lies? Most Warmers by now know this story is false.

Ocelot deconstructed the OP's article in hir first post. You focused on the Exxon issue... It's your strawman.

And btw, the story isn't false, and no amount of denial will make it false.

[mhaze]

Ocelot deconstructed the OP's article in hir first post. You focused on the Exxon issue... It's your strawman.

And btw, the story isn't false, and no amount of denial will make it false.

Oh, my no, I've not focused on Exxon, but some strange litany of damned despicable deniers or enables of damned despicable deniers being promulgated here...I'm actually having trouble keeping it all straight, to be honest.

Let's see.....so far it's been....
The Wall Street Journal
Hayward, the writer of the article
American Enterprise Institute
Exxon-Mobile
Deniers
Mark Morano
....:bricks:Unlike you, (although we have our differences), I'm not convinced these guys in this thread can discuss anything sciency.

And btw, the Exxon Conspiracy theory not false? You mean the one the editor of Newsweek apologized for printing because it was false is not false?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA@@@!!!!

Even more laughable is the Stern Report being brought in evidence against Hayward's "Climate Realist" article. Hayward argues against the need or benefit of 80% emissions reductions, and argued in favor of Bush's concept of stabilizing emissions by 2025.

Somebody didn't think to check if the Stern Report agreed at all, anywhere, with that ridiculous 80% reduction. An 80% reduction is wild, fanatical left wing environmentalist tripe.:redface1

[mhaze]

It's interesting to note that Mann (yes, that Mann) is in the list, also...

Lie, loudly and proudly, and some of the people will believe you...

I wonder if it's because of the work of his grad student, Abaghah (speeling?) whose dissertation would up, unfortunately for her, being against Mann's primary objectives...if so, that's pretty ironic.

Now, what were you saying about lies?:)

OOoops....sorry. Am I stifling debate again?

[Megalodon]

I wonder if it's because of the work of his grad student, Abaghah (speeling?) whose dissertation would up, unfortunately for her, being against Mann's primary objectives...if so, that's pretty ironic.

Now, what were you saying about lies?:)

OOoops....sorry. Am I stifling debate again?

No, what you're doing again is failing to make any sense.

The names in that list are under the title "co-authors". They were not informed of this, and their permission was not asked. If you fail to see the lack of ethics in that behavior, and how it is a lie, then I can understand why you didn't make it in academia...

[mhaze]

Oh, I'm making as much sense as a person might, who isn't willing to go read your trash blog "desmogblog" and sort out their lies a bit. Not worth the time, you see.

Wait a minute.....wasn't it I that was just noting that this thread was (or had drifted to) all low level politics and not science? Sure was. Desmogblog, eh? Wow, that's really sciency, ain't it?

Yep, bring Desmogblog in as a ref in your oral defense of your dissertation:)

Why not? Oh, I know. They're a bit harder to derail than threads...

[Megalodon]

Oh, I'm making as much sense as a person might, who isn't willing to go read your trash blog "desmogblog" and sort out their lies a bit. Not worth the time, you see.

I'm refering to the list that is in the original site, under here

http://www.heartland.org/pdf/21978.pdf

It is quite clear that the list is a fraud, for anyone without blinders...

Wait a minute.....wasn't it I that was just noting that this thread was (or had drifted to) all low level politics and not science? Sure was.

Only in your own mind.

Yep, bring Desmogblog in as a ref in your oral defense of your dissertation:)

Why not? Oh, I know. They're a bit harder to derail than threads...

Well, this is the part where I let you know that I didn't bring up any blog... But what the hell, you've been wrong so many times before.

[mhaze]

I'm refering to the list that is in the original site, under here
http://www.heartland.org/pdf/21978.pdf
It is quite clear that the list is a fraud, for anyone without blinders...

Well, this is the part where I let you know that I didn't bring up any blog... But what the hell, you've been wrong so many times before.

You right, my error. The list was linked through from desmogblog, but not by you. The original list is worth looking at. It's up to 700 now (http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23085&CFID=3006372&CFTOKEN=85312762), they say, but I've copied the below from the page on the 500.

Let us see what the criteria for inclusion in the list were, just to be sure we have it right. I'm sure they did not specify that to be included, one had to strip naked and run down the street shouting "I'm a Denier".

Are you implying something like one of these issues?
the criteria used for the list were invalid
there are scientists on the list whose work does not fulfill one or more of these criteria
the scientists should have been asked before included their name even though they did fulfill one or more of the criteriaAbstract: (http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21978) The following list includes more than 500 qualified researchers whose research in professional journals provides historic and/or physical proxy evidence that:
1) Most of the recent global warming has been caused by a long, moderate, natural cycle rather than by the burning of fossil fuels;

2) The sun’s varying radiance impacts the Earth’s climate as more or fewer cosmic rays create more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that act as the Earth’s thermostats, deflecting more or less solar heat out into space.

3) Sea levels are not rising rapidly nor are they likely to;

4) Wild species are not being driven to extinction but rather are increasing the biodiversity of our wildlands;

5) Fewer human deaths are likely rather than more as the current warming continues, since cold is far more dangerous and the Earth is always warming or cooling;

6) Food production is likely to thrive during the decades ahead, rather than collapsing due to climate overheating; or

7) Our storms are likely to be fewer and milder as the declining temperature differential between the equator and the poles reduces their power.
Next, to be fair, I should go to Desmogblog and document how they have misrepresented the list and what it's contents asserted per the above criteria for inclusion. But ain't gonna bother.

[Megalodon]

Are you implying something like one of these issues?


I imply nothing. I assert that naming someone as a co-author, without the persons knowledge, and specially knowing, with a great level of certainty, that what you're writing goes against what that person thinks, is tremendously dishonest.

That makes the list a fraud, independently of what "criteria" you may think these people fulfilled or not. It's garbage, and in academia it would cost you your career.

We could go into the science of the matter, mainly the fact that many of the papers cited do not say or imply the conclusions that are drawn from them. But before even thinking about going that way, I want you to admit and unambiguously condemn this dishonesty.

If not, than you're not worth my time...

[TrueSceptic]

I imply nothing. I assert that naming someone as a co-author, without the persons knowledge, and specially knowing, with a great level of certainty, that what you're writing goes against what that person thinks, is tremendously dishonest.

That makes the list a fraud, independently of what "criteria" you may think these people fulfilled or not. It's garbage, and in academia it would cost you your career.

We could go into the science of the matter, mainly the fact that many of the papers cited do not say or imply the conclusions that are drawn from them. But before even thinking about going that way, I want you to admit and unambiguously condemn this dishonesty.

If not, than you're not worth my time...
We already know that Avery's list is not only the sort of stunt that mhaze pulls off himself but he has also explicitly argued for its validity.

Why can't the "sceptics" be honest, just for once?

[a_unique_person]

I imply nothing. I assert that naming someone as a co-author, without the persons knowledge, and specially knowing, with a great level of certainty, that what you're writing goes against what that person thinks, is tremendously dishonest.

That makes the list a fraud, independently of what "criteria" you may think these people fulfilled or not. It's garbage, and in academia it would cost you your career.


It never fails to surprise me what stunts they do pull. If their science and facts were correct, that would be all they need provide for their argument. That they have to resort to such tactics this only further convinces me they really have nothing.

[mhaze]

I imply nothing. I assert that naming someone as a co-author, without the persons knowledge, and specially knowing, with a great level of certainty, that what you're writing goes against what that person thinks, is tremendously dishonest.

That makes the list a fraud...

Huh? CO-Authors???

Were they not just compiling a bibliography on the seven noted subject areas?

[Megalodon]

Huh? CO-Authors???

Were they not just compiling a bibliography on the seven noted subject areas?

Since I linked to the pdf in question, I take your answer as another attempt at obfuscation.

You're dismissed...

[Ocelot]

mhaze, you still haven't stated what your scientific objections to the stern report is. All you've done is waste a lot of time demonstrating that you have no idea what a straw man argument it.

In my analysis of the WSJ piece I pointed out factual inaccuracies and a parsimoneuous explanation of why the innacuracies should be presented in that manner.

You haven't addressed my scientific criticisms of the the WSJ piece. You've merely tried to establish doubt over my explanation that the Oil Industry is lobbying against the reality of AGW and the role of reduced CO2 emmissions as part of the solution.

Not very convincingly I might add. Tempting though it is to pick the obvious holes in you denial of the exitence of denialism and establish the obvious similarities between this campaign and the tobacco industry's denialism it does distract from the core issue. I shall decline your kind invitation to persist on that line of argument.

Your empty rhetoric is tiresome. If that's all I can respond to then it's hardly suprising if I've simply left my valid scientific criticsms to stand unchallenged.

You say the stern report is wrong, but you don't say how it's wrong. You don't mention any science or economics. You just say that there exist rebuttals. Well of course there are. Just as there were rebuttals of the evidence that smoking was addictive, caused cancer and heart disease. The question is whether any of those rebuttals are valid or whether they are more empty rhetoric.

Since you haven't brought any science into the discussion I'll introduce some.

First the science.

The greenhouse effect is real, without it global temperature would be on average somewhere in the region of 30 degree Celsius cooler. Do we agree?

Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Do we agree?

We are releasing Carbon Dioxide. Do we agree?

Carbon dioxide levels are increasing to levels with no precident in the history of Mankind. Do we agree?

It is extraordinarily likley that this rise in CO2 levels is mostly due to our emissions. Do we agree?

Increased levels of greenhouse gasses should impose a warming effect on the myriad of other factors effecting the climate. Do we agree?

A warming effect has been observed. Do we agree?

The observed temperature changes will have a number of contributing factors. Do we agree?

The greenhouse effect is a significant contributing factor to the observed warming. It is perhaps the most significant factor not least for the size of it's contribution but also notably from the fact that it is increasing and if barring a change in our behaviour will continue to increase whereas other factors go down as well as up. Do we agree?

Increased warming would lead to sea level changes and increased extreme climate events leading to human death and suffering. Do we agree?

That's all the science for now. If there's anything here you don't agree with I can point you to the evidence. You're free to still disagree but to do so rationally requires that you provide a better explanation of the evidence. You're also free to disagree irrationally, but I warn you, I will take the mickey out of you if you do.

[TrueSceptic]

It never fails to surprise me what stunts they do pull. If their science and facts were correct, that would be all they need provide for their argument. That they have to resort to such tactics this only further convinces me they really have nothing.
They have less than nothing. Lies this obvious are accepted only by the committed skeptard. For any reasonable person it exposes them as delusional at best and egregious liars at worst.

Perhaps this will result in some legal action.

[TrueSceptic]

Huh? CO-Authors???

Were they not just compiling a bibliography on the seven noted subject areas?
Go here (http://www.heartland.org/pdf/21978.pdf). What is the title?

[mhaze]

mhaze, you still haven't stated what your scientific objections to the stern report is. All you've done is waste a lot of time demonstrating that you have no idea what a straw man argument it.

.....

all the science for now. If there's anything here you don't agree with I can point you to the evidence. You're free to still disagree but to do so rationally requires that you provide a better explanation of the evidence. You're also free to disagree irrationally, but I warn you, I will take the mickey out of you if you do.

Actually I asked two very relevant questions on the Stern report which remain unanswered.

1. Do you understand what the presumptions were in Stern's analysis? They will be found in his introduction.

2. Do you understand that Stern's report does not imply that an 80% emissions reduction is warranted or a good thing?

To which I can add a third.

3. Do you understand that the vast majority of scientists, engineers and others who have sufficient understanding of climate science, feedbacks and related matters, do not advocate an 80% CO2 reduction by 2050?
Has the IPCC advocated an 80% reduction? No. What tiny fraction of scientists do advocate this? Can you even name them? Can you show their published work where this is advocated? Or do the politicians now know better than the scientists?:D

Your wild speculation that Hayward was an Exxon shill, that the article was worthless, etc, is inaccurate and misleading. I assert that the attitude expressed by Hayward is a realistic, mainstream view. This implies -

The argument that an 80% co2 reduction is "good" or "required" is a radical far left view held by a tiny minority of the scientific community, if that.

Now, do you want to discuss the Stern report and it's rebuttals, which will not support your fundamental premise, if I understand it correctly (80% co2 reduction is good and or required).

Do you want links to rebuttals and discussion about Stern? Checking, they come up easily on Google.... The ones that come up do tend to be the ones I have read and are familiar with. But why would you want to use as supporting anti-Hayward evidence Stern, which destroys your case?

I don't get it, frankly.

[varwoche]

Huh? CO-Authors???

Were they not just compiling a bibliography on the seven noted subject areas? Gee whiz mhaze, you're frequently misinformed, frequently confused, and frequently unable to follow a thread. But here, throughout, you're outdoing yourself. Focus. Or use some Mennen Skin Bracer. Or something.

[mhaze]

Go here (http://www.heartland.org/pdf/21978.pdf). What is the title?
Duh...My bad.

Good point.

Ok, I've asked Avery about it.

I believe, but am not certain, that "Co Author" is used when in the primary list (likely the bibliography to their book) , articles are described with the writers in abbreviated fashion:

Chylek, et. al., 2007....

The list of "Co Authors" expands this. You take "CoAuthor" to imply that Avery has attached their names as coauthors to his work?

We shall see what he says. Or if he changes the title.

[Ocelot]

Actually I asked two very relevant questions on the Stern report which remain unanswered.

Ok fair enough. I'll try to answer you questions. Just to explain I didn't notice you asked these question and I've just read this thread back from where I made my first post and I still can't see that you've actually asked these question before. Not that I'm calling you a liar you understand but one of us is mistaken.

1. Do you understand what the presumptions were in Stern's analysis? They will be found in his introduction.

Introduction to which part?
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm

I see a number of well referenced assertions. Which of these are you demoting the that status of presumption.

2. Do you understand that Stern's report does not imply that an 80% emissions reduction is warranted or a good thing?

I beg to differ.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/8/1/Part_III_Introduction.pdf


Stabilisation of concentrations will require deep emissions cuts of at least 25% by 2050, and ultimately to less than one-fifth of today’s levels.


The bone of contention is not whether 80% reductions are advocated by the Stern report he clearly says that ultimately this will be necessary given the target of stabilisation of CO2 levels. His bare minimum for 2050 is 25% reduction. Personally I'm not wedded to 80% by 2050. I think it's an admirable target but any progress towards that point will be welcomed.

The question being asked is whether such a target is acheivable and what it would cost. Haywards rationalistion suggesting that it isn't acheivable is obviously flawed in the many ways I detailed above.

To which I can add a third.
3. Do you understand that the vast majority of scientists, engineers and others who have sufficient understanding of climate science, feedbacks and related matters, do not advocate an 80% CO2 reduction by 2050?
Has the IPCC advocated an 80% reduction? No. What tiny fraction of scientists do advocate this? Can you even name them? Can you show their published work where this is advocated? Or do the politicians now know better than the scientists?:D

Yes I do understand that, and I understand why. Targets are not something science can supply. What science can do is model the effects of future emmissions of future CO2 levels and from there the effects this will most likley have on global temperatures.

They can model a number of scenarios for when CO2 emmissions peak and when the are reduced to certain levels. It's then up to policy makers with support from their economic advisers to assess how such reductions might be acheived and to balance the cost of making such reductions against the likely outcomes.

You'll note that scientist keeping silent on 80% by 2050 is not the same as scientist opposing such a target.

Do you want links to rebuttals and discussion about Stern? Checking, they come up easily on Google.... The ones that come up do tend to be the ones I have read and are familiar with. But why would you want to use as supporting anti-Hayward evidence Stern, which destroys your case?

I don't get it, frankly.

Stern destroys my case? What have I said that is contradicted by Stern.

OK then I've done the Google search as requested. I'm getting Jennifer Marohasy referencing Bob Carter, C. R. de Freitas, Indur M. Goklany, David Holland & Richard S. Lindzen.

Is that what you want me to analyse.

[Pixel42]

The greenhouse effect is real, without it global temperature would be on average somewhere in the region of 30 degree Celsius cooler. Do we agree?

Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Do we agree?

We are releasing Carbon Dioxide. Do we agree?

Carbon dioxide levels are increasing to levels with no precident in the history of Mankind. Do we agree?

It is extraordinarily likley that this rise in CO2 levels is mostly due to our emissions. Do we agree?

Increased levels of greenhouse gasses should impose a warming effect on the myriad of other factors effecting the climate. Do we agree?

A warming effect has been observed. Do we agree?

The observed temperature changes will have a number of contributing factors. Do we agree?

The greenhouse effect is a significant contributing factor to the observed warming. It is perhaps the most significant factor not least for the size of it's contribution but also notably from the fact that it is increasing and if barring a change in our behaviour will continue to increase whereas other factors go down as well as up. Do we agree?

Increased warming would lead to sea level changes and increased extreme climate events leading to human death and suffering. Do we agree?
Just quoting this bit of your post for the benefit of mhaze, who seems to have forgotten to clarify which of these statements he disagrees with when replying to it.

[Bluefire]

It was addressed to mhaze, but I'm answering as well:


The greenhouse effect is real, without it global temperature would be on average somewhere in the region of 30 degree Celsius cooler. Do we agree?

Agreed


Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Do we agree?

Agreed


We are releasing Carbon Dioxide. Do we agree?

Agreed


Carbon dioxide levels are increasing to levels with no precident in the history of Mankind. Do we agree?

Well, maybe, with one caveat. The Co2 levels during "history of mankind" are historically very low when one compares to some longer timescales.


It is extraordinarily likley that this rise in CO2 levels is mostly due to our emissions. Do we agree?

I would agree that alot of it is. I could argue that alot of it is natural from the known effect of increasing temperature leading to higher CO2 levels after.


Increased levels of greenhouse gasses should impose a warming effect on the myriad of other factors effecting the climate. Do we agree?

If this is a roundabout way of saying the feedbacks are necessarily positive then I do not agree. But sure, by itself, more Co2 could mean warming. The question is how much.


A warming effect has been observed. Do we agree?

Since the end of the "little ice age", sure.


The observed temperature changes will have a number of contributing factors. Do we agree?

Certainly, actually that's what AGW-skeptics have to keep reminding people about.


The greenhouse effect is a significant contributing factor to the observed warming.

Maybe, maybe not, (depending on the cutoff for significant, and what that value actually turns out to be in relation to other factors, eg land-use change and others)


It is perhaps the most significant factor not least for the size of it's contribution but also notably from the fact that it is increasing and if barring a change in our behaviour will continue to increase whereas other factors go down as well as up. Do we agree?

Not necessarily agreed it is the most significant one.


Increased warming would lead to sea level changes and increased extreme climate events leading to human death and suffering. Do we agree?

I guess our warming would lead to _some_ sea level change. Not catastrophic. Also do not agree current warming is a cause of concern for human death and suffering.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Indeed BlueFire. BTW your comments are supported by the latest peer reviewed research.

[mhaze]

Indeed BlueFire. BTW your comments are supported by the latest peer reviewed research.
I agree.

[CapelDodger]

Well, maybe, with one caveat. The Co2 levels during "history of mankind" are historically very low when one compares to some longer timescales.

That's not a caveat, it's a digression. The statement was
"Carbon dioxide levels are increasing to levels with no precident in the history of Mankind. "

With which you agree.

I would agree that alot of it is. I could argue that alot of it is natural from the known effect of increasing temperature leading to higher CO2 levels after.

What's happening now is increasing CO2 load for reasons that have nothing to do with climate change. That's increasing CO2-load in both atmosphere and ocean, and the reason for it is the burning of fossil-fuels on a massive scale. Not something that's ever happened before.

If this is a roundabout way of saying the feedbacks are necessarily positive then I do not agree. But sure, by itself, more Co2 could mean warming. The question is how much.

This much so far, and more to come. Negative feedbacks have been hypothesised for decades now but have yet to show. They're always just around the corner.

Since the end of the "little ice age", sure.

Over the last thirty years. As was predicted.

Certainly, actually that's what AGW-skeptics have to keep reminding people about.

What GWSceptics keep harking on about is that there might be negative feedbacks, of a currently mysterious nature, that might kick in sometime soon. Just around the corner. That tune has been playing for decades. What hasn't been observed is actual negative feedback.

Positive feedbacks have been observed, and in the case of planetary albedo were predicted.


Maybe, maybe not, (depending on the cutoff for significant, and what that value actually turns out to be in relation to other factors, eg land-use change and others)

Waffle. Significant is as significant does. It may not seem inevitably significant to you personally, but on a global scale the powers-that-be are quite exercised about it.


Not necessarily agreed it is the most significant one.

Would you agree that it's increasing? That has a significance in itself.

I guess our warming would lead to _some_ sea level change. Not catastrophic.

Catastrophe happens on a very personal scale. Would I be right in suspecting you don't live in a river delta? Lots of people do, and for them sea-level rise is potentially catastrophic. They stand to lose everything they've got.

Also do not agree current warming is a cause of concern for human death and suffering.

That must be very comforting for you.

[CapelDodger]

Just quoting this bit of your post for the benefit of mhaze, who seems to have forgotten to clarify which of these statements he disagrees with when replying to it.

They're talking amongst themselves, as they so often do when they venture beyond the ClimateAudit comfort zone.

Bluefire : my advice is not to let mhaze and Lucy push you forward as cannon-fodder. If they can't justify themselves, why should you?

[Bluefire]

That's not a caveat, it's a digression. The statement was


With which you agree.

It is a caveat. Because the statement as stated implied more than is really supported by excluding some context. A very common debate tactic. I noted this, and I think it is important context.


What's happening now is increasing CO2 load for reasons that have nothing to do with climate change. That's increasing CO2-load in both atmosphere and ocean, and the reason for it is the burning of fossil-fuels on a massive scale. Not something that's ever happened before.

Sure, we're releasing CO2 which has been absent from nature for many millions of years. Agreed.


This much so far, and more to come. Negative feedbacks have been hypothesised for decades now but have yet to show. They're always just around the corner.

Both negative and positive feedbacks have been proposed.


Over the last thirty years. As was predicted.

As was POSTdicted, once warming started.


What GWSceptics keep harking on about is that there might be negative feedbacks, of a currently mysterious nature, that might kick in sometime soon. Just around the corner. That tune has been playing for decades. What hasn't been observed is actual negative feedback.

If you search outside of RC you might actually find some scientists that talk about actual negative feedback loops.


Positive feedbacks have been observed, and in the case of planetary albedo were predicted.

I have no doubt there are various factors and feedbacks involved. Both positive and negative.


Waffle. Significant is as significant does. It may not seem inevitably significant to you personally, but on a global scale the powers-that-be are quite exercised about it.

Whatever. The politics of the "powers that be" are not scientific. AGW-scare is predicated on the sliding ten years of doom that will start "real soon now(tm)" (and has been in that mode for many years).



Would you agree that it's increasing? That has a significance in itself.

Sure it's increasing, That itself does not make it significant.


Catastrophe happens on a very personal scale. Would I be right in suspecting you don't live in a river delta? Lots of people do, and for them sea-level rise is potentially catastrophic. They stand to lose everything they've got.

You are correct I don't live in a river delta. I do however not agree that our sea level change (is it 2mm per year?) is any catastrophe even for the river-people. For these kinds of slow changes man will have to adapt. Nature is not static, never has been, and the standard we should measure against is not "everything stays like this forever".

I have no doubt that during the next hundreds of years sea level will be both higher and lower than now in different periods of time. I also have no doubt there will still be fear mongers making a catastrophy out of any of those movements, no matter whether they go up/down or even if the rate of change were to be 1/4 of todays.


That must be very comforting for you.

Sure is.

[Bluefire]

They're talking amongst themselves, as they so often do when they venture beyond the ClimateAudit comfort zone.

pots and kettles ...


Bluefire : my advice is not to let mhaze and Lucy push you forward as cannon-fodder. If they can't justify themselves, why should you?

I can take care of myself very well thank you.

I've been following the GW debates on these forums for the last half a year+. The reason I don't post more is that mhaze & co. makes most of the points I would have wanted to make.

Also, it isn't they who have problems justifying themselves...

[Ocelot]

So in a nutshell is it fair (within the limitations of brevity) to say that we agree upon the existence of AGW but differ with regards to the scale of the phenomenon?

[varwoche]

Both negative and positive feedbacks have been proposed. I wonder if I don't understand your point. Because there are positive feedbacks that are more than just proposed; they are fact. For instance, reduced albedo and release of methane that's trapped in ice.

[mhaze]

So in a nutshell is it fair (within the limitations of brevity) to say that we agree upon the existence of AGW but differ with regards to the scale of the phenomenon?
“Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz. (LINK (http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf))

Motl comments on Swartz-
“Recall that most of the 1.1 degree - about 0.7 degrees - has already occurred since the beginning of the industrial era. This fact itself is an indication that the climate sensitivity is unlikely to be much greater than 1 Celsius degree: the effect of most of the doubling has already been made and it led to 0.7 K of warming,” (LINK (http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/08/stephen-schwartz-brookhaven-climate.html))

Note that this presumes 100% of 20th century warming is due to co2 but a more plausible approach is to allow a fraction, say 1/2, to co2 and the remainder to other natural or AGW factors.

Applying this, the remaining temperature increase in from increasing co2 from 280 ppm to 560 should be (1.1-0.7)/2 or 0.2C.

More precisely, using Schwartz's error bounds of + - 0.5 we have-

(1.6-0.7)/2 or 0.45C
(0.6-0.7)/2 or -0.05C

[Bluefire]

So in a nutshell is it fair (within the limitations of brevity) to say that we agree upon the existence of AGW but differ with regards to the scale of the phenomenon?

Yes.

[CapelDodger]

It is a caveat. Because the statement as stated implied more than is really supported by excluding some context. A very common debate tactic. I noted this, and I think it is important context.

That's a digression. Ocelot's statement spefically referred to "the history of Mankind". Whether CO2 has been higher in the distant past (for instance, when when the fossil-fuels we're buring were being laid down) is a different matter.

Ocelot's post was an attempt to establish common ground so we can discuss the uncommon ground.

Sure, we're releasing CO2 which has been absent from nature for many millions of years. Agreed.

To revisit your original point :

"I would agree that alot of it is. I could argue that alot of it is natural from the known effect of increasing temperature leading to higher CO2 levels after."

In the current case the CO2 is increasing before the temperature, not after it, so what happens when temperature increases first has little relevance.

One natural source of atmospheric CO2 in a warming world (at a glaciation/interglacial interface, for instance) is CO2 evaporation from the oceans. However in the current situation the oceans are absorbing CO2, not releasing it. In fact we're emitting more CO2 than is ending up in the atmosphere and oceans combined, so what natural sources would you argue for?

Melting permafrost is an obvious one, but that's only kicked in fairly recently, and while there's a lot of permafrost around there was a lot more during the last glaciation. So the idea that CO2 is coming from some other source strikes me as a tricky argument to make.

Both negative and positive feedbacks have been proposed.

The important point is that warming has continued, so the proposed negative feedbacks have yet to show up to any significant extent.

Proposed positive feedbacks (reduced albedo and melting permafrost, for instance) definitely have shown up. Furthermore, the proposed negative feedbacks that are supposed to stabilise the situation have the unfortunate implication that interglacials (such as the current one) would never happen.

As was POSTdicted, once warming started.

As was predicted by Arrhenius in the late 19thCE. See also Callendar in the 1950's, and the expressed concerns of climate scientists in the 70's, before any significant warming had been observed. The original GWSceptic position was that AGW wouldn't happen, remember, not that global warming was caused by some other forcing.

If you search outside of RC you might actually find some scientists that talk about actual negative feedback loops.

I'm well aware of Lindzen's Iris and people praying for clouds to save us. I was on the case long before RealClimate, and ClimateAudit, and even before the internet. I've always been interested in science, and as a Brit I'm naturally interested in the weather.

I have no doubt there are various factors and feedbacks involved. Both positive and negative.

Continued warming demonstrates that any negative feedbacks are being overwhelmed.

Whatever. The politics of the "powers that be" are not scientific. AGW-scare is predicated on the sliding ten years of doom that will start "real soon now(tm)" (and has been in that mode for many years).

That's a favoured fancy of GWSceptics - that we're still not seeing any impact. We are. What we're not seeing is the sliding ten years of salvation by negative feedbacks that will stabilise the situation any time now.

Sure it's increasing, That itself does not make it significant.


Yes, it does. When one influence is increasing and others aren't, that's significant, whatever the subject.

You are correct I don't live in a river delta. I do however not agree that our sea level change (is it 2mm per year?) is any catastrophe even for the river-people. For these kinds of slow changes man will have to adapt. Nature is not static, never has been, and the standard we should measure against is not "everything stays like this forever".

The standard we should measure against is how things have been during the history of Mankind, and particularly during this interglacial. There were a few million people on the planet twelve thousand years ago, there are over six billion now, and we've done that on the back of a stable climate and stable sea-levels. That's why so many people live in river deltas - the Nile, Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Bramaputra, Rhine, Amazon, Yangtze, Missisipee. Amongst others. 2mm per annum may not sound much, but that's 20cm per century and people have been congregating there for thousands of years. River deltas are very fertile. Lose them and lots of people are screwed (and not just those in the deltas).

I have no doubt that during the next hundreds of years sea level will be both higher and lower than now in different periods of time. I also have no doubt there will still be fear mongers making a catastrophy out of any of those movements, no matter whether they go up/down or even if the rate of change were to be 1/4 of todays.

Nobody's going to worry about falling sea-levels. What's the problem with that? More fertile land is exposed, and the fish can move easily enough. History provides no examples that I know of to support your claim that fear-mongers have always been going on about sea-level change. There have been local problems (such as the South-East of England) but not a global one.

Sure is.

I'm rarely wrong.

[David Rodale]

That's not a caveat, it's a digression. The statement was


With which you agree.



What's happening now is increasing CO2 load for reasons that have nothing to do with climate change. That's increasing CO2-load in both atmosphere and ocean, and the reason for it is the burning of fossil-fuels on a massive scale. Not something that's ever happened before.



This much so far, and more to come. Negative feedbacks have been hypothesised for decades now but have yet to show. They're always just around the corner.



Over the last thirty years. As was predicted.



What GWSceptics keep harking on about is that there might be negative feedbacks, of a currently mysterious nature, that might kick in sometime soon. Just around the corner. That tune has been playing for decades. What hasn't been observed is actual negative feedback.

Positive feedbacks have been observed, and in the case of planetary albedo were predicted.




Waffle. Significant is as significant does. It may not seem inevitably significant to you personally, but on a global scale the powers-that-be are quite exercised about it.




Would you agree that it's increasing? That has a significance in itself.



Catastrophe happens on a very personal scale. Would I be right in suspecting you don't live in a river delta? Lots of people do, and for them sea-level rise is potentially catastrophic. They stand to lose everything they've got.



That must be very comforting for you.

What GWSceptics keep harking on about is that there might be negative feedbacks, of a currently mysterious nature, that might kick in sometime soon. Just around the corner. That tune has been playing for decades. What hasn't been observed is actual negative feedback.

Positive feedbacks have been observed, and in the case of planetary albedo were predicted.
What is the feedback of volcanoes? That is an observable negative feedback, and is evidence of a low climate sensitivity.

Positive feedbacks can be assumed (by climate models) to be observed where they are actually negative feedbacks. This is based on actual observations of atmospheric behavior which does not agree with climate models.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-pdf&doi=10.1175%2F2008JCLI2253.1

What are we experiencing now, positive feedbacks masked by negative feedbacks? :D

Show us where IPCC predicts any cooling whatsoever in AR4 with respect to their "projections" in SPM.

Last January was supposed to be the beginning of the BIG warming according to Met O. When that didn't work out, the peddlers of doom said AGW will be masked for 2008, but would return beginning in 2009. Now it's 2015? What happens in 2015 if that doesn't work out, another "new and improved" GCM?

As for your delusions about GISS, March anomalies are definitely diverged from the three other major data sets. For you to say otherwise is unsupportable. Of course for true believers guessing a temperature is as good as empirical measurement as long as it is always biased toward warming. Comparisons of baseline differences can be discussed further and humiliation is available upon request, but maybe Megalodon can assist in providing more faulty graphs showing GISS is in agreement for March :)

Also, GISS temperatures derived at the poles are not measured, they are estimates based on extrapolations of what Hansen "believes". Personally, I think guessing a temperature to within +/-.05C error without actually measuring is not very scientific. However if you really "believe" different locations are correlated at distances of up to 1200km without actually taking physical measurements, don't let common sense stand in the way of your faith.

You have also failed to mention the missing data for land outside the poles, which Hansen apparently can also telepathically measure.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2008&month_last=3&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=03&year1=2008&year2=2008&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Note the base period ;)
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_10323481d1bbe80b13.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=12018)
Compared to satellite:
http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/TLT/medium/global/ch_TLT_2008_03_anom_v03_1.png
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_10323481d18e9e3aed.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=12016)

http://climate.uah.edu/maps/0308big.jpg
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_10323481d19d660d47.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=12017)
Why isn't the LT warming more than the surface?

We could look at missing ocean data as well, but why add insult to injury?

You could also explain why GISS is constantly "adjusting" past temperatures downward while raising current temperatures upward, but that is probably too much to ask.

Since you have resided yourself to wearing blinders concerning UHI and land use change despite the strong direct evidence, there's no sense in arguing with a rock, so believe what you will.

[Pixel42]

Last January was supposed to be the beginning of the BIG warming according to Met O.
You keep bringing this up, so let us look yet again at what was actually predicted and what actually happened.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6228765.stm

2007 to be 'warmest on record'

The world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007, the UK's Met Office says.

An extended warming period, resulting from an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, will probably push up global temperatures, experts forecast.

They say there is a 60% chance that the average surface temperature will match or exceed the current record from 1998.

But the El Nino petered out, and was succeeded by a La Nina. Even so:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7169690.stm

2007 'second warmest year' in UK

Last year was the second warmest on record in the UK, according to figures released by the Met Office. [...]

Since UK-wide records began in 1914, nine of the 10 warmest years have happened since 1989.

2007 was no exception despite a natural weather event known as La Nina, which usually reduces global temperatures.

It was one degree above what you would normally expect for the 30-year period from 1971 to 2000. [,,,]

Global trend

The UK's top 10 warmest years on record (in order) are 2006, 2007, 2003, 2004, 2002, 2005, 1990, 1997, 1949 and 1999.

Globally, there is a similar trend - the top 10 being 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2001, 1997 and 1995.

"Nine of the 10 warmest years have happened since 1989," said Dr Huddleston. [...]

The Met Office originally predicted that 2007 could be the warmest on record globally. The year began with a weak El Nino, a Pacific Ocean phenomenon that normally raises temperatures.

But since the end of April 2007, its cooler relation, the La Nina, has prevailed, taking some of the heat out of what could have been an even warmer year.

[Megalodon]

Show us where IPCC predicts any cooling whatsoever in AR4 with respect to their "projections" in SPM.

I've showed you how badly the projections reported by the IPCC fared, you stupid little person, but I'll do it again, for those who didn't catch your stupidity in the other thread:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_2814819f0c75c420.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=11990)

Last January was supposed to be the beginning of the BIG warming according to Met O. When that didn't work out, the peddlers of doom said AGW will be masked for 2008, but would return beginning in 2009. Now it's 2015? What happens in 2015 if that doesn't work out, another "new and improved" GCM?

I see... still grasping at Keenlyside et al (2008), although now you're afraid to mention it... Let's see what their model says:



http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/images/nature06921-f4.2.jpg

FIGURE 4. Hindcast/forecast decadal variations in global mean temperature, as compared with observations and standard climate model projections.
Model projections are twentieth century-RF followed by A1B scenario simulations ('20C-RF/A1B'); 'Stabilization' forecasts assume greenhouse gas concentrations fixed at year 2000 levels. Each point represents a ten-year centred mean; vertical bars indicate ensemble spread; verification and forecast periods are indicated (dark shading begins 2008, indicating the start of the true forecast period). Three additional decadal means (joined by a dotted line) show the evolution of the initialized and un-initialized 2005 predictions extended till 2030. Correlation of both hindcasts and climate model projections with observations are given in brackets. Correlation of the twentieth century-RF simulation with observations is greater than that of the hindcasts, but only marginally at the 5% significance level. Observed global mean temperature anomalies are from HadCRU3[/QUOTE]



As for your delusions about GISS, March anomalies are definitely diverged from the three other major data sets.

March!? We are talking about datasets with thousands of data points, and all you can come up is "March anomalies are definitely diverged"?

Of course all of this is an obfuscation to the fact that all datasets show that it is warming...

Comparisons of baseline differences can be discussed further and humiliation is available upon request, but maybe Megalodon can assist in providing more faulty graphs showing GISS is in agreement for March :)

The main point being, my little nematod friend, you never showed any of my graphs being faulty... You just got laughed at, cowered till the threads advanced a bit, and returned to spout the same garbage...

Also, GISS temperatures derived at the poles are not measured, they are estimates based on extrapolations of what Hansen "believes".

Those are "interpolations", nematod. And interpolations are not "beliefs", they are scientific tools used millions of times a day. The bloggers you plagiarize might not agree with their use in this situation, but then they have other datasets to choose from... although they all say basically the same.

Personally, I think...

All evidence contradicts this, nematod... You don't think, you regurgitate.

[CapelDodger]

What is the feedback of volcanoes? That is an observable negative feedback, and is evidence of a low climate sensitivity.

Volcanoes have a direct effect on climate, by blocking sunlight. That's not a feedback. Feedback would involve such matters as incresed albedo due to the resulting cooling.

As to low climate sensitivity, volcanoes have led to "years without a summer" in the past, which suggests high climate sensitivity, does it not?

Positive feedbacks can be assumed (by climate models) to be observed where they are actually negative feedbacks. This is based on actual observations of atmospheric behavior which does not agree with climate models.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-pdf&doi=10.1175%2F2008JCLI2253.1

To quote from the abstract

"Here we use a simple model to demonstrate that any non-feedback source of top-of-atmosphere radiative flux variations can cause temperature variability which then results in a positive bias in diagnosed feedbacks."

(My emphasis)

A simple model, not actual observations.

To quote further

"These results suggest that current observational diagnoses of cloud feedback – and possibly other feedbacks -- could be significantly biased in the positive direction."

(My emphasis again)

Not exactly the death-knell of climate modelling, is it?


What are we experiencing now, positive feedbacks masked by negative feedbacks? :D

We're experiencing AGW. I know you believe we're not experiencing warming, but in reality we are.

Show us where IPCC predicts any cooling whatsoever in AR4 with respect to their "projections" in SPM.

Show us the cooling. There's year-to-year noise, of course, but on decadal time-scales the warming continues. IPCC predictions are about the medium-to-long-term, because that's what policy makers are interested in.

Last January was supposed to be the beginning of the BIG warming according to Met O.

That old canard again. Once you take them on you never let them go, do you? 2007 started with mild El Nino conditions, and the Met Office (which, by the way, is not subject to Hansen's diktat) prediction was that if El Nino conditions persisted 2007 would be the warmest year on record. No mention of "the BIG warming", in fact no capitalisation at all outside normal punctuation, just a prediction about a year with a persistent El Nino. As we know the El Nina conditions did not persist, and were replaced by a La Nino (which has now faded to an Es Nada).

When that didn't work out, the peddlers of doom said AGW will be masked for 2008, but would return beginning in 2009.

Again, there was no mention of doom in the Met Office prediction for 2007. Long-established British institutions just don't go in for such terminology. They leave that kind of thing for Congressional committees. Hysterical Colonials :rolleyes:. Waddya gonna do?

The model predictions released in the summer were from a long-standing project and have yet to be proved wrong.

Now it's 2015? What happens in 2015 if that doesn't work out, another "new and improved" GCM?

I assume you're referring to the German work reported in Nature. That's nothing to do with the Met Office (which is a British institution; we may have beaten Germany in two wars but we never actually annexed it. More's the pity).

As for your delusions about GISS, March anomalies are definitely diverged from the three other major data sets.

Given that March is when the Sun comes up in the Arctic, and the Arctic is the major difference between GISS and the other measures, that's hardly surprising, is it? As I've said, the differences boil down to treatment of Arctic temperatures.

For you to say otherwise is unsupportable. Of course for true believers guessing a temperature is as good as empirical measurement as long as it is always biased toward warming.

You really are paranoid.

Arctic temperatures aren't guessed at, they're interpolated. You may prefer that they're ignored, but chacun a son gout, as we say over here.

Comparisons of baseline differences can be discussed further and humiliation is available upon request ...

Go ahead. Watts has humiliated himself already, feel free to do the same yourself. mhaze did it long ago when he claimed that changing the baseline changes the shape of a graph. Perhaps you can come up with something even more novel.

... but maybe Megalodon can assist in providing more faulty graphs showing GISS is in agreement for March :)

Megalodon's graphs aren't faulty.

Also, GISS temperatures derived at the poles are not measured, they are estimates based on extrapolations of what Hansen "believes".

You've really got the hots for Hansen, haven't you? Do you picture him at the centre of the GISS web, stroking his white cat and intoning "So, Mr McIntyre, we meet again ..." in a middle-European accent?

Personally, I think guessing a temperature to within +/-.05C error without actually measuring is not very scientific. However if you really "believe" different locations are correlated at distances of up to 1200km without actually taking physical measurements, don't let common sense stand in the way of your faith.

It's preferable to ignoring central Arctic temperatures completely, don't you think?

You have also failed to mention the missing data for land outside the poles, which Hansen apparently can also telepathically measure.

Hansen again. That guy must be seriously busy in your imagination.


http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2008&month_last=3&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=03&year1=2008&year2=2008&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Note the base period ;)

What does the base period have to do with anything? And the "missing data" areas are marked in gray, so where are Blofeld's "guesses"?

[David Rodale]

I've showed you how badly the projections reported by the IPCC fared, you stupid little person, but I'll do it again, for those who didn't catch your stupidity in the other thread:





I see... still grasping at Keenlyside et al (2008), although now you're afraid to mention it... Let's see what their model says:







March!? We are talking about datasets with thousands of data points, and all you can come up is "March anomalies are definitely diverged"?

Of course all of this is an obfuscation to the fact that all datasets show that it is warming...



The main point being, my little nematod friend, you never showed any of my graphs being faulty... You just got laughed at, cowered till the threads advanced a bit, and returned to spout the same garbage...



Those are "interpolations", nematod. And interpolations are not "beliefs", they are scientific tools used millions of times a day. The bloggers you plagiarize might not agree with their use in this situation, but then they have other datasets to choose from... although they all say basically the same.



All evidence contradicts this, nematod... You don't think, you regurgitate.


The village idiot speaks again.

Those are "interpolations", nematod. And interpolations are not "beliefs", they are scientific tools used millions of times a day. The bloggers you plagiarize might not agree with their use in this situation, but then they have other datasets to choose from... although they all say basically the same.HadCRU does not extrapolate data to the poles.

You obviously don't know the difference between interpolation and extrapolation. In this case, the values (not data) given for the poles are extrapolations, and as there are no data points at the poles, there is nothing to interpolate. The pole values are estimated results from measured values (data) at one location and projected to another.....the poles (up to 1200km away). These are assumptions, not data. When you locate the regression analysis derived from the pole "data", let us all know.

It may have been assumed the Arctic ice melt in 2007 was due to increased temperature, however last year it was reported unusual wind patterns and oceanic current was the culprit. Maybe 2007 Arctic ice melt was partly how Hansen determined the poles are warming anomalously, but it is not based on empirical data.

What is lower than a nematode?

You see, I am not a "climatologist" either, but now you are treading into my territory, metrology (the science of measurement). I could give relevant scenarios for using extrapolation (and interpolation), but it is highly questionable you'd understand based on your rash response. Using extrapolation to guess temperatures at such large distances and assigning low uncertainty is pure garbage and would never pass any industrial standard for data quality acceptance, but this is climate "science". It is laughable.

We can discuss interpolation maybe at some point once you understand what it is :)

Also, I was hoping Capeldodger would respond with something constructive concerning GISS anomalies, but all hopes were dashed with his last post. He can't seem to understand why although GISS uses a different base period, the March anomaly jump is still an outlier.

The rest of your post is not worth responding to.

P.S. Interpolation can also be a form of fraud :)

[mhaze]

The village idiot speaks again.

HadCRU does not extrapolate data to the poles.

You obviously don't know the difference between interpolation and extrapolation. ........

I could give relevant scenarios for using extrapolation (and interpolation), but it is highly questionable you'd understand based on your rash response. Using extrapolation to guess temperatures at such large distances and assigning low uncertainty is pure garbage and would never pass any industrial standard for data quality acceptance, but this is climate "science". It is laughable.

P.S. Interpolation can also be a form of fraud :)

Note the extrapolations are folded back into the real data so that the

Global Climate Anomaly

may be calculated.

How is uncertainty handled?

[David Rodale]

Note the extrapolations are folded back into the real data so that the

Global Climate Anomaly

may be calculated.

How is uncertainty handled?

"There's no place like poles, there's no place like poles, there's no place like poles."

[mhaze]

"There's no place like poles, there's no place like poles, there's no place like poles."
Is the handling of the lack of polar temperature measurements by the other reporting agencies superior to Hansen-influenced NASA GISS "global temperature"? If so, why?