Skeptical Environmentalist

[shawn3k]

This is the title of a great book by Bjorn Lomborg. I also think it would make for a great podcast. The magazine "Skeptic" had an article by Lomborg in issue Vol.9, No. 2 titled "The Real State Of The World." I would be glad to scan it and emial it to you, Mr. Dunning, if you do not already have the article yourself. I really enjoy your candle in the world of podcasting, keep up the good work!

[CFLarsen]

Calling yourself "skeptic" does not mean you are one.

Why do you think Lomborg is a skeptic?

[shawn3k]

I hope I got the jist of your question right, I'm not always the brightest bulb in the box ;-) But here it goes:

His book discusses the state of the environment, detailing misinformation that has been taken for fact and showing where we have made improvements. He is not saying that the current state of the environment is perfect, but neither are we on the precipce of global disaster. He is a skeptic, because he doesn't ask you to accept any one side at face value, based on ancedotal or faulty evidence. He lays out his reasons for looking at the global warming/environment issue with a skeptical eye and asks you to make your own conclusions after reading this book. He is a skeptic, because while he is not denying that there are measures we need to take to ensure the health of the environment in the future - he does raise questions about some of the routes we take as a society to do so (and how effective some of those routes are).

Forgive me for the hasty sounding writing - its hard to when you have an almost three year old at your elbow. :-)

[Puppycow]

Calling yourself "skeptic" does not mean you are one.

Why do you think Lomborg is a skeptic?

Here is a lecture by Bjorn Lomborg. He doesn't seem to be completely off his rocker.


I can't seem to get the Google video embed tag to work right, so here is a plain old-fashioned link:
Bjorn Lomberg Lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs)

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Here is a lecture by Bjorn Lomborg. He doesn't seem to be completely off his rocker.


I can't seem to get the Google video embed tag to work right, so here is a plain old-fashioned link:
Bjorn Lomberg Lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs)

And conversely:

http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/error_catalogue.htm

Your mileage may vary! :D

[Puppycow]

And conversely:

http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/error_catalogue.htm

Your mileage may vary! :D

My God! Too many words and no pictures!

What's the bumper-sticker version of all that then?

[quixotecoyote]

I just read through the lomberg-errors site. Apparently he misrepresents sources pretty badly. In part, the site takes the claims he makes about enviromental research studies and compares it to the actual studies. Apparently he has a tendency to quote the prefaces as the data, selectively quote avoiding given evidence and then claim no evidence was provided, interpret statistics in odd ways such as claiming trends from figures with differences less than the stated margin of error, quote models authors were using as 'wrong' examples as if they were the authors position, etc.

[quixotecoyote]

That was a horribly written post. I acknowledge that and realize its time for bed.

[Puppycow]

That was a horribly written post. I acknowledge that and realize its time for bed.

It was good enough for me! Thanks.

[oztexan]

Brian, well done taking on Blood for Oil...

Please will you now take on Anthropogenic Climate Change?

There's an awful lot of compelling science & opinion out there that is being sidelined/ignored that appeals to my engineering credentials, sense of ethics & common sense.

BBC did a program called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".. I can't post the link (haven't done 15 posts yet) but it's available on Google. If you've watched Gore's movie, do yourself a favour and watch it...

Professor Frederick Seitz, letter to WSJ... "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer review process than the events that led to this IPCC report."

Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder (former editor of New Scientist) : Very interesting & compelling theory about Sun's impact

Cheerio

[Diamond]

Brian, well done taking on Blood for Oil...

Please will you now take on Anthropogenic Climate Change?

There's an awful lot of compelling science & opinion out there that is being sidelined/ignored that appeals to my engineering credentials, sense of ethics & common sense.

BBC did a program called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".. I can't post the link (haven't done 15 posts yet) but it's available on Google. If you've watched Gore's movie, do yourself a favour and watch it...



Actually it was the UK's Channel 4. The BBC does not allow non-alarmist viewpoints any time on any of the media it controls without reassertion of the "consensus" line.

[a_unique_person]

That was a horribly written post. I acknowledge that and realize its time for bed.

Isn't that in violation of rule 14? Or Rule 15 if you've been drinking too.

[a_unique_person]

Brian, well done taking on Blood for Oil...

Please will you now take on Anthropogenic Climate Change?

There's an awful lot of compelling science & opinion out there that is being sidelined/ignored that appeals to my engineering credentials, sense of ethics & common sense.

BBC did a program called "The Great Global Warming Swindle".. I can't post the link (haven't done 15 posts yet) but it's available on Google. If you've watched Gore's movie, do yourself a favour and watch it...

Professor Frederick Seitz, letter to WSJ... "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer review process than the events that led to this IPCC report."

Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder (former editor of New Scientist) : Very interesting & compelling theory about Sun's impact

Cheerio

Debunked comprehensively here. TGGWS is in fact a swindle itself, manipulating data to make the Solar theory fit it's version of the facts, providing a supposed expert who is nothing of the sort, and manipulating the words of one innocent participant into appearing to say the opposite of what he thinks.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=76595

[a_unique_person]

As for Lomborg, his shallow 'statistical' analysis is worthless. The example of water in Australia puts us, supposedly, in the top countries with plenty of water per capita. Nothing could be further from the truth. His analysis of taking the total rainfall, and allocating over the relatively small population, ignores the reality of the situation. Australia is a large country, with a small population. Rainfall is frequently unreliable, and much of it is monsoonal, on the opposite side of the continent away from the population centres.

[Diamond]

Debunked comprehensively here. TGGWS is in fact a swindle itself, manipulating data to make the Solar theory fit it's version of the facts, providing a supposed expert who is nothing of the sort, and manipulating the words of one innocent participant into appearing to say the opposite of what he thinks.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=76595

Was that the one where the "debunking" consisted of the imposition of the Mann Hockey Stick again?

Yes it was.

So much for "debunking"

[a_unique_person]

No, you must be thinking of another thread. It was the one where one of the scientific experts asserts his credentials by referring to an unverified betting record.

[Diamond]

No, you must be thinking of another thread. It was the one where one of the scientific experts asserts his credentials by referring to an unverified betting record.

No that was the one where Corbyn demonstrates his solar theory by making bets against the Met Office's computer modelled predictions and keeps winning time after time.

The one where AUP decides that Corbyn must be being "vague" about his predictions and can't understand why bookmakers would pay him money unless it was for specific predictions. And repeats his lack of clue by not comprehending what is going on.

Still attached to the Hockey Stick - it must be a religious symbol for AUP. Nothing to do with science. Everything to do with a deep romantic attachment to scientific fraud.

Repetition of the scientific fraud doesn't make it any more true. Neither does burying it under spaghetti.

[a_unique_person]

If you are so up in arms about 'fraud', I haven't heard a word about Christy and his claims of 'no warming in the troposphere'. When all it along it was his data that was wrong.

[Diamond]

If you are so up in arms about 'fraud', I haven't heard a word about Christy and his claims of 'no warming in the troposphere'. When all it along it was his data that was wrong.

The adjustments made no difference. There is a slight warming in the top of the troposphere as there is at the surface - but that doesn't save the Greenhouse theory which says that there should be much more warming at the top compared to the surface.

Unlike Mann, Bradley or Hughes, Christy makes sure all the data is out there to be checked.

Quite unlike the fraudsters you're so desperate to believe in, no matter what.

[a_unique_person]

They are not frauds. The proxies can only ever be a rough approximation of the temperature record. The NRC investigation took the submission from McKitrick, said thanks, noted that the further back in time you project via proxy, the less certain you can be of the accuracy, and moved on. Where are all the similar attacks on the other proxy papers?

That's all there is to the matter. A storm in a teacup. Many other papers have been published that back up the initial Mann paper.

Considering the storm that has been created over the matter, Mann doesn't owe those vultures a thing. It hasn't been about science, it's like the current frenzy about Gore, it's about attacking the person, to attack their message.

And you still ignore the basic science behind the whole current warming. The hockey stick is still not the basis for the case. Can't you get your head around that yet?

And Christy sat on his erroneous data for years, without even checking if it was correct or not, all the while saying it could not be wrong.

[Diamond]

They are not frauds. The proxies can only ever be a rough approximation of the temperature record. The NRC investigation took the submission from McKitrick, said thanks, noted that the further back in time you project via proxy, the less certain you can be of the accuracy, and moved on. Where are all the similar attacks on the other proxy papers?

That's all there is to the matter. A storm in a teacup. Many other papers have been published that back up the initial Mann paper.

That matter was examined by Professor Wegman. In his submission to Congress he noted that those "many other papers" were not independent, using mostly the same proxies (tree-rings) and being authored by Mann's co-authors.

Steve McIntyre has also noted that all of them (bar none) fail statistical tests for significance. That's all of them. None are excluded.

The NAS Panel noted that other than the Little Ice Age, claims about the climate beyond that from multiproxy studies can only be described as "plausible"

Considering the storm that has been created over the matter, Mann doesn't owe those vultures a thing. It hasn't been about science, it's like the current frenzy about Gore, it's about attacking the person, to attack their message.

Oh the poor dear. Al Gore is making scientific statements that are misleading and that scientists in the field know to be wrong. He's acting like a politician and so gets criticized for it.

Besides you're about to attack John Christy aren't you?

And you still ignore the basic science behind the whole current warming. The hockey stick is still not the basis for the case. Can't you get your head around that yet?

Ah yes, back to "Real Climate Change Denial"(c). This is where the Hockey Stick wasn't the centre of attention from the last IPCC TAR, wasn't quoted and requoted hundreds of times as evidence of past climatic change over the last thousand years, didn't delete the "Medieval Warm Period" and the "Little Ice Age" as global climatic events.

So what are the evidences for Greenhouse Warming?

Climate models that can't predict the next El Nino?
Amplified warming at the poles ? (Not happening in the Arctic, cooling in the Antarctic, natch)
Ice core records showing temperature rise following carbon dioxide rise? (never happened)
Increased warming near the top of the troposphere (Not happened)
Hyperventilating by greens anxious to create a false consensus in the public mind? Check.

And Christy sat on his erroneous data for years, without even checking if it was correct or not, all the while saying it could not be wrong.

Actually Christy continually checks. Here is the massive adjustment made to his "erroneous" data:

http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/UAH5152.gif

As you can see, it makes a vast difference. Not.

ETA: Here is Christy amending his results in the light of new evidence. Can anyone imagine Mann, Hansen or Schmidt doing the same?

Update 7 Aug 2005 ****************************
An artifact of the diurnal correction applied to LT has been discovered by Carl Mears and Frank Wentz (Remote Sensing Systems). This artifact contributed an error term in certain types of diurnal cycles, most noteably in the tropics.

We have applied a new diurnal correction based on 3 AMSU instruments and call the dataset v5.2. This artifact does not appear in MT or LS. The new global trend from Dec 1978 to July 2005 is +0.123 C/decade, or +0.035 C/decade warmer than v5.1. This particular error is within the published margin of error for LT of +/- 0.05 C/decade (Christy et al. 2003).

We thank Carl and Frank for digging into our procedure and discovering this error. All radiosonde comparisons have been rerun and the agreement is still exceptionally good. There was virtually no impact of this error outside of the tropics.

So where is the evidence for your beliefs, AUP? I'm still waiting for something tangible that doesn't require prior belief in the conclusions.

[Steveenfield]

If you go to his website, Mr Lomborg puts up a very spirited defence of his ideas and answers his critics in detail. His correspondence with Tom Burke in Prospect Magazine is particularly interesting, as is his exhaustive riposte to the criticism in Scientific American.

[delphi_ote]

If you go to his website, Mr Lomborg Avery puts up a very spirited defence of his ideas and answers his critics in detail. His correspondence with Tom Burke everyone in Prospect Skeptic Magazine is particularly interesting, as is his exhaustive riposte to the criticism in [strike]Scientific American[/strike Popular Mechanics.
Another non-expert repeating discredited ideas and flawed research who is willing to go round after round with members of the conspiracy. Forgive me if I don't take this post as a ringing endorsement of Lomborg's ideas.

[Steveenfield]

Another non-expert repeating discredited ideas and flawed research who is willing to go round after round with members of the conspiracy. Forgive me if I don't take this post as a ringing endorsement of Lomborg's ideas.

Who said I wasn't an expert? And who said I endorsed Lomborg's views? What I said was that Lomborg responds to his critics on his website (lomborg.com) and does so in a very convincing way. You can go there, read what he says, then agree or disagree. But you do have to read it first. You really do have to put that tiny bit of effort into it.

[delphi_ote]

Who said I wasn't an expert? And who said I endorsed Lomborg's views? What I said was that Lomborg responds to his critics on his website (lomborg.com) and does so in a very convincing way. You can go there, read what he says, then agree or disagree. But you do have to read it first. You really do have to put that tiny bit of effort into it.
Lomborg is the non-expert to whom I was referring.

Hint: What field did he earn his PhD in?

[briandunning]

Sorry for being so absent through much of this thread....

I hope my latest "Heating Up to Global Warming" episode goes a good way toward addressing this thread. I don't see much point in the Lomborg v. Gore et. al. debates. We should remove the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for any number of good, undisputed reasons.

The real problem is figuring out what we can actually do. If we spend a billion dollars to do x, what's that actually going to buy us in terms of temperature reduction? We simply can't determine this, for all practical purposes; the climate science is just too complicated. We have to take a leap of faith and throw the money where it can do our best guess at the most good - i.e., slash & burn emissions in the third world.

[Steveenfield]

Hint: What field did he earn his PhD in?

As I undertstand it, Lomborg has a doctorate it Political Science. This suggests he's an intelligent man - it does not automatically follow that his opinions about environmental science are worthless. We have to listen to people's arguments and judge them on their merits, not dismiss them out of hand because they're not coming from the 'right' people.

[briandunning]

Being a political scientist certainly puts him squarely in the ranks of where climate change is mainly being discussed... :)

[Steveenfield]

Being a political scientist certainly puts him squarely in the ranks of where climate change is mainly being discussed...

Well...yes.

[Steveenfield]

Well, perhaps not 'mainly', but a lot.

[Ginarley]

We should remove the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for any number of good, undisputed reasons.

Perhaps being pedantic but i'm genuinely curious... what are the other reasons aside from the greenhouse effect to remove CO2 from the atmosphere? I can think of many good reasons for not burning fossil fuels (hence reducing GHG emissions) but do GHGs actually in the atmosphere matter for any other reason than the greenhouse effect?

[Steveenfield]

Apart from the warming effect, an increase in CO2 would seems to be generaly positive. There's evidence it boosts crops yields and commercial growers have been known to pump CO2 into their greenhouses to increase plant growth.

[a_unique_person]

This is the title of a great book by Bjorn Lomborg. I also think it would make for a great podcast. The magazine "Skeptic" had an article by Lomborg in issue Vol.9, No. 2 titled "The Real State Of The World." I would be glad to scan it and emial it to you, Mr. Dunning, if you do not already have the article yourself. I really enjoy your candle in the world of podcasting, keep up the good work!

His problem is that he uses a very shallow statistical analysis to justify his claims. According to him, Australians have plenty of water. He uses a simple average rainfall/person to draw this conclusion. However, he fails to notice that where people live is getting drier, where they don't live is getting wetter. It's like saying Italy is fine despite being in drought, because it's raining in Poland.

[a_unique_person]

Perhaps being pedantic but i'm genuinely curious... what are the other reasons aside from the greenhouse effect to remove CO2 from the atmosphere? I can think of many good reasons for not burning fossil fuels (hence reducing GHG emissions) but do GHGs actually in the atmosphere matter for any other reason than the greenhouse effect?

We need some GHGs, without them we would be in an ice age again. CO2 is also useful so plants can grow.

[Steveenfield]

However, he fails to notice that where people live is getting drier, where they don't live is getting wetter. This is quite an odd statement. Care to elaborate?

[a_unique_person]

Australia has a very low population density, since much of it is uninhabitable desert. The coastal areas where most people live are drying out, parts of the desert areas are experiencing increased rainfall. It's like the old adage, "If my heads in the oven, and my feet are in the freezer, on average I'm quite comfortable".

Look at this map for 1970 to present.

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/trendmaps.cgi

[Steveenfield]

Thanks for that. I had a look at the charts, but while the 'trend' is down actual rainfall is still highest in the highly populated coastal zones. It's not like there's been a sudden switch to damp interiors and bone dry coasts. Anyway, let's not argue - time will tell.

[shawn3k]

Being a political scientist certainly puts him squarely in the ranks of where climate change is mainly being discussed... :)

Zing!