Global Warming bullies: Does the Weather channel founder have a point?

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=Cardinal]
…

Who among us in the 35-45 age range can’t claim that they were taught that the new wave of women’s liberation would lead to things like all-women paving teams and such?

I declare emphatically that this is exactly what I was taught in public school. I actually became scared to use the word “woman” in many contexts, as it would betray my sexist agenda toward dividing the genders.

This now lives in the “Weird Things We Used to Belive” file, along with many social trends and fads.

..
[/QUOTE]
“And such” And the rest. Where exactly did all that go? I expect an apology at a minimum, but noooooooo.

62

[QUOTE=jshore]
Do we have to refute the same garbage over and over again in every single thread? The internal variability in the climate from one year to the next is roughly the same magnitude as the trend in the warming over a 10 year period (i.e., on the order of 0.2 C). Hence, over periods shorter than about 10 years or so, you can see lots of ups and downs. See here…and see here how the same features are seen in runs of the climate models so to make any claim that this goes against the theory is complete and utter crap.
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So, trends over 10 years are not to be trusted, but trends over say 100 years are to be trusted? 10 years or 100 years out of 4.5 billion still seems insignificant to me.

63

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
So, trends over 10 years are not to be trusted, but trends over say 100 years are to be trusted? 10 years or 100 years out of 4.5 billion still seems insignificant to me.
[/QUOTE]
This is like Godwinization for Global Warming threads: the chance that someone will say something like “we don’t have to save the planet: the PLANET will be here regardless of what we do!” approaches 1 the longer an environmental thread goes on.

64

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
So, trends over 10 years are not to be trusted, but trends over say 100 years are to be trusted? 10 years or 100 years out of 4.5 billion still seems insignificant to me.
[/QUOTE]

Yup…Pretty insignificant as far as the planet is concerned. But, pretty important as far as the current inhabitants are concerned.

65

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
So, trends over 10 years are not to be trusted, but trends over say 100 years are to be trusted? 10 years or 100 years out of 4.5 billion still seems insignificant to me.
[/QUOTE]

So if a one hundred year old house is only on fire for only an hour there is nothing to be worried about? :dubious:

66

The less-flippant answer is that one has to not only look at the trends you get by fitting a straight line through the data but also the error bars associated with those trends (determined accounting for autocorrelation in the data). When one does that, one finds that the trends over short time periods tend to have large error bars, so although you may be able to say that the trend over the years 2001-2007 is slightly negative (which happens to be true for the Hadcrut data although not for the NASA GISS data) it is also true that the error bars are so large that they cannot exclude a fairly substantial positive trend.

Another way of looking at things is to see how robust the trends are to changing the number of years included or by changing whether you use the HADCRUT or NASA GISS data. What one finds is that once you include about 12 years, the trends tend to become much more robust.

67

[QUOTE=Lobohan]
So if a one hundred year old house is only on fire for only an hour there is nothing to be worried about? :dubious:
[/QUOTE]

I think the analogy would be if a 100 year old house went on fire for 22 nanoseconds. No, I wouldn’t worry.

68

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
I think the analogy would be if a 100 year old house went on fire for 22 nanoseconds. No, I wouldn’t worry.
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Not even if you didn’t know for certain that the fire was going to go out after that 22 nanoseconds?

[SUB]Lightnin’s Law- analogies never work on the internet.[/SUB]

69

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
So, trends over 10 years are not to be trusted, but trends over say 100 years are to be trusted? 10 years or 100 years out of 4.5 billion still seems insignificant to me.
[/QUOTE]
A foolish attitude. People can suffer and die on far smaller time scales; economies can collapse faster than that as well. The fact that in the long run the planet will survive doesn’t matter at all; the planet would survive the death of all humanity. Is that still “insignificant” to you ?

And at any rate, we are likely looking at a change lasting an indefinite length of geologic time; many thousands, or millions of years. Once the Earth reaches a new climate there’s no reason to believe it’ll snap back, without at least as much effort if not more than it took to disrupt to old climate.

70

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
A foolish attitude. People can suffer and die on far smaller time scales; economies can collapse faster than that as well. The fact that in the long run the planet will survive doesn’t matter at all;** the planet would survive the death of all humanity. Is that still “insignificant” to you ?**

And at any rate, we are likely looking at a change lasting an indefinite length of geologic time; many thousands, or millions of years. Once the Earth reaches a new climate there’s no reason to believe it’ll snap back, without at least as much effort if not more than it took to disrupt to old climate.
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Yes. The planet will indeed survive the death of all humanity. So, what’s your point?

ETA: And to think that we humans, inhabiting something like 5% of the land masses, which cover 33% of the planet have anything to do with all of this is absurd.

71

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
Yes. The planet will indeed survive the death of all humanity. So, what’s your point?
[/QUOTE]
I’m sick of having to point out this.

It’s useless to reference the timespan and durability of the Earth, as you did, unless the main point was concern for the Earth itself.

Sure, some people do throw around the pithy slogan “save the planet.”

However, mediocre squirrel-band Say Anything found a nut in one of their song titles: “IT’S A METAPHOR, FOOL.”

The lyrics of that song go “All you are to me is dead skin.” Am I supposed to believe that the target of those lyrics really is dead skin? Or maybe, it’s a metaphor.

72

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
“Recorded history”, as the term is usually used, would be a few thousand years.

A foolish attitude. People can suffer and die on far smaller time scales; economies can collapse faster than that as well. The fact that in the long run the planet will survive doesn’t matter at all; the planet would survive the death of all humanity. Is that still “insignificant” to you ?

And at any rate, we are likely looking at a change lasting an indefinite length of geologic time; many thousands, or millions of years. Once the Earth reaches a new climate there’s no reason to believe it’ll snap back, without at least as much effort if not more than it took to disrupt to old climate.

[/QUOTE]

This is where I part ways on the argument. A thousand years ago, people didn’t understand any more about the climate than they do now. Then they sacrificed a virgin and gave up crops, today they send probes, radar, satellites and scientists, and by the end of it all, they don’t know if this is 100 years of a million year cycle or not. The earth will do what the earth wants when the earth wants. The best we can do is take care of it and try to make a good living and life while we still can.

As far as a foolish attitude, please. You want to talk about foolish, talk about trying to effect change on an entire planet by driving a smaller car. :rolleyes: So, we have $4 gas. Then $5, then $10 then $20 gas. Then, as is happening now, the largest economy in the history of the world begins to collapse, effectively taking the world’s economy with it. Thousands die, millions go hungry and thirsty, millions more suffer diseases and illnesses that could have otherwise been prevented were it not for the collapse of the original economy.

[rant]You want to think it’s all about whether dylan and tyler get to go to soccer practice in an SUV? Fine. You’d be wrong, but go ahead. It’s not of course, it IS about making a living, then making a life, then making the choices to do the right things for the right reasons. If we can help give everyone who wants it the opportunity to thrive, then they, in turn, give that same help to someone else, and so on, the success of the planet and our race is virtually guaranteed. But the harder you push to change people who a) don’t want to change because they b) can’t be convinced of anything because for every scientist touting the heat death of the planet there’s an equal number of opposite opinions, the farther from the necessary middle you’ll end up.

We can bang the desks, we can bash the consumers, we can sit here in smug, self-righeousness about the evils of SUV’s and pick-up trucks and bottled water and Starbucks and whatever else, but here’s something that both sides of this arguement always forget and God help me for saying it, things like September 11th help remind us. We’re a nation of good, honest, generous and hardworking people, with hopes, dreams and ideas, that are as different as can be but with the freedom to express them thanks to our fathers and grandfathers who did the things they did to make this country great. But Maryjo who piles the kids in the Expedition to go to the mall, who bleeds the same red you do, swears allegiance to the same flag, the same country, the same values of freedom you do. Who is free and protected and prosperous just like she’d like her children to be, just like you would, is a planet killing monster. That’s ignorance of the highest order. We can rant, rave, rail and wring our hands at what we consider to be outrageous, but what we can’t do, we CANNOT do, EVER, is forget that we are connected, inexorably, completely, wholly to one another, as humans, as bothers and sisters, as citizens of this nation and the world. You are no better than anyone else because you drive a Prius, it just makes you a Prius driver. If you think you’re a better person because you drive a Prius, you’re being a lesser human, and a lesser citizen. We are not MEANT to be at odds. The only way survive, indeed, the only way to prosper is to do so together. Today, I’ll drive my pick-up, you drive your Prius. Tomorrow, I’ll drive a smaller pick-up, and you’ll drive a bigger hybrid. There is a middle here. It’s up to us to find it.[/rant]

73

[QUOTE=Ludovic]
I’m sick of having to point out this.

It’s useless to reference the timespan and durability of the Earth, as you did, unless the main point was concern for the Earth itself.

Sure, some people do throw around the pithy slogan “save the planet.”

However, mediocre squirrel-band Say Anything found a nut in one of their song titles: “IT’S A METAPHOR, FOOL.”

The lyrics of that song go “All you are to me is dead skin.” Am I supposed to believe that the target of those lyrics really is dead skin? Or maybe, it’s a metaphor.
[/QUOTE]

Great response. Quoting a squirrel-band. I’ve never heard of a squirrel-band. I’ve never heard of the song. I don’t even get the reference to dead skin.

What I do know is that a lot of people are placing credence upon computer simulations that “tell” us that CO2 will destroy the planet without even having one shred of cause and effect: apart from said models. Now, couldn’t I create my own computer simulation that showed a correlation between say, the number of computers in the U.S. and obesity of the population? Because I’m sure I could show convincing data that the two are completely related.

74

[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
This is where I part ways on the argument. A thousand years ago, people didn’t understand any more about the climate than they do now. Then they sacrificed a virgin and gave up crops, today they send probes, radar, satellites and scientists, and by the end of it all, they don’t know if this is 100 years of a million year cycle or not. The earth will do what the earth wants when the earth wants. The best we can do is take care of it and try to make a good living and life while we still can.
[/quote]
Don’t be ridiculous; we understand far, far more than our primitive ancestors did. And ‘taking care of it’ is not a synonym for ‘despoil the Earth for profit’, no matter how much you want it to be.

[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
As far as a foolish attitude, please. You want to talk about foolish, talk about trying to effect change on an entire planet by driving a smaller car. :rolleyes: So, we have $4 gas. Then $5, then $10 then $20 gas. Then, as is happening now, the largest economy in the history of the world begins to collapse, effectively taking the world’s economy with it. Thousands die, millions go hungry and thirsty, millions more suffer diseases and illnesses that could have otherwise been prevented were it not for the collapse of the original economy.
[/quote]
And what in the world makes you think that massive ecological changes will be cheaper, less destructive ? When much of Florida and California are underwater, and places like Holland and Bangladesh as well, just how much more “compassionate” will your “just ignore the problem” attitude be ? When we have worldwide famines from crop failures, when many sources of fresh water are inundated by rising seas plenty of people will go hungry and thirsty.

[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
[rant]You want to think it’s all about whether dylan and tyler get to go to soccer practice in an SUV? Fine. You’d be wrong, but go ahead. It’s not of course, it IS about making a living, then making a life, then making the choices to do the right things for the right reasons. If we can help give everyone who wants it the opportunity to thrive, then they, in turn, give that same help to someone else, and so on, the success of the planet and our race is virtually guaranteed. But the harder you push to change people who a) don’t want to change because they b) can’t be convinced of anything because for every scientist touting the heat death of the planet there’s an equal number of opposite opinions, the farther from the necessary middle you’ll end up.
[/quote]
First, it’s about rather more than SUVs. Second, sacrificing the future for the short term will do anything but guarantee a good future; I expect our descendents will despise us for how we have betrayed them. Third, the scientific consensus is hugely towards global warming existing, and we being at fault; people claim otherwise because they are self indulgent and stupid. And fourth, the ‘necessary middle’ is no such thing; sometimes one side is in the right, not the middle.

[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
We can rant, rave, rail and wring our hands at what we consider to be outrageous, but what we can’t do, we CANNOT do, EVER, is forget that we are connected, inexorably, completely, wholly to one another, as humans, as bothers and sisters, as citizens of this nation and the world.
[/quote]
But that is exactly what you are saying we can and should do; that we can ruthlessly consume and destroy for our own profit, and ignore the consequences to others and the future.

[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
There is a middle here. It’s up to us to find it.[/rant]
[/QUOTE]
No, there isn’t. The middle is a stupid place to be when one side is right and the other wrong. You are exemplifying what I’ve heard called ‘The Fallacy of the Mindless Middle’. the idea that if two sides disagree, that the middle position must be the true one.

75

[QUOTE=Leaffan]

What I do know is that a lot of people are placing credence upon computer simulations that “tell” us that CO2 will destroy the planet without even having one shred of cause and effect: apart from said models. Now, couldn’t I create my own computer simulation that showed a correlation between say, the number of computers in the U.S. and obesity of the population? Because I’m sure I could show convincing data that the two are completely related.
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The models are not based on finding correlations. The models are based on basic physics. The radiative physics of CO2 warming the planet is straightforward stuff. The feedback effects in the climate system make things more complicated but long before there were computer models, back around 1900, Arrhenius did the first calculation of the effect of CO2 including basic feedbacks (at least water vapor) and came to similar conclusions to what we understand today. (His best estimate of the effect is actually higher than our best estimate today…although not out of the realm of possibility.)

Admittedly, the atmosphere is complex and its interactions with the oceans and biosphere and such are complex. But, there are lots of ways to check the models against both the current climate and to look at past climatic events to see how sensitive the climate is to perturbations. All of this leads to the conclusion that the perturbation that we are putting on the climatic system is not a small one…and the effects will very likely be at least moderately large. Most of the surprises that scientists can envision potentially throwing off the calculations are not good surprises: It is much easier to put lower bounds on the climate sensitivity than upper bounds on it.

And another question: If people want us to ignore the recommendations of the scientific academies like the National Academy of Sciences and the analogous bodies in all the G8+5 nations, what sort of precedent does that set? If we not going to use the best science we know to guide public policy whenever some folks don’t like the outcome, that is a prescription for a huge step backwards.

76

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Don’t be ridiculous; we understand far, far more than our primitive ancestors did.
[/quote]

And we understand far far less than we think we do. No doubt our primitive ancestors thought that they understood a lot. And our descendants will see us as primitive in our understanding.

And the game of “Risk” is based on basic geography. So what?

77

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Don’t be ridiculous; we understand far, far more than our primitive ancestors did. And ‘taking care of it’ is not a synonym for ‘despoil the Earth for profit’, no matter how much you want it to be.
[/QUOTE]

Backatcha. We THINK we understand, but I think there are things beyond human understanding and ultimately, climate is one of those things. You can THINK anything you want, but until the truth presents itself, everything, including much of science is just a highly funded educated guess at what MIGHT possibly be happening.
As trite as it is, this quote from Men in Black sums it up rather nicely: “Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow”

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And what in the world makes you think that massive ecological changes will be cheaper, less destructive ? When much of Florida and California are underwater, and places like Holland and Bangladesh as well, just how much more “compassionate” will your “just ignore the problem” attitude be ? When we have worldwide famines from crop failures, when many sources of fresh water are inundated by rising seas plenty of people will go hungry and thirsty.
[/QUOTE]

The crop failures, hunger and fresh water contamination are happening NOW, but for economic reasons. How dumb is that? Besides, I never SAID ignore the problem. If you can ‘fix’ the problem by going in two directions at once (more fuel efficient cars AND alternative energies) and save what you can of the planet at the same time, if saving is even possible, why not do it?

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
First, it’s about rather more than SUVs. Second, sacrificing the future for the short term will do anything but guarantee a good future; I expect our descendents will despise us for how we have betrayed them. Third, the scientific consensus is hugely towards global warming existing, and we being at fault; people claim otherwise because they are self indulgent and stupid. And fourth, the ‘necessary middle’ is no such thing; sometimes one side is in the right, not the middle.
[/QUOTE]

Not if you listen to this crowd it’s not, but still. Second, no one’s talking about sacrificing the future, but if don’t deal with what you have in front of you, skippy, your ‘future’ is as good as fucked. You’re taking the same stance as the right-wing fundies and applying it to the environment, if all you work for is the unseen unknown future, what kind of life do you have NOW? Today is it, my friend. No more, no less. Preparation is good, but like anything else can be taken to an extreme that makes today meaningless.
Really? People claim otherwise because they’re stupid? You want to talk self-indulgence bubba, that’s the very definition of it right there. People claim otherwise because they trust in scientists who can’t make up their minds, because THEY DON’T KNOW. They have a guess, but DON’T KNOW. The biggest problem here is that you can’t put this problem in front of people and demonstrate it. You know that if you put your hand a desk, hold a hammer about your hand and let go of the hammer, it’s gonna drop on your hand. So you don’t DO that. There’s never a scientist that would come into the room and say, ok, 8 out of 10 times, that hammer’s gonna fall on your hand, the other two times, it may miss you. That’s what’s happening. That’s why people can’t get it. They’re not stupid, they’re just not experts, and when the experts are on opposite sides, zingo, we have this.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
But that is exactly what you are saying we can and should do; that we can ruthlessly consume and destroy for our own profit, and ignore the consequences to others and the future.
[/QUOTE]

Good lord you’re dense. America seems to be only a small part of the problem. WE aren’t going to be the problem in the future, we have the resources and the motivation and the technology to have a greener nation in the next 10 years. That’s all you can ask from us. Now, what about China? What about India? A billion people each. Little to no environmental controls or concerns, they’re looking at economic growth as their lifeline to the future without concern for the environment. You think there’s no consequence there?

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
No, there isn’t. The middle is a stupid place to be when one side is right and the other wrong. You are exemplifying what I’ve heard called ‘The Fallacy of the Mindless Middle’. the idea that if two sides disagree, that the middle position must be the true one.
[/QUOTE]

How, may I ask, is win-lose or lose-win a solution? It CANNOT be. You can’t pull the rug out from under the economy. You can’t ignore national security. You can’t keep pouring oil on the planet, so what do you do? Take the road in the middle. Work on putting a little more oil in the market today, ALSO work on the best alternative energies, and in 10, maybe 15 years, we’ll be that much closer to independence from foreign oil and with any luck, oil altogether.

Sure, we can all park our cars, ride bikes, grow our own food, crap in the composter, carry hemp luggage and wear hemp clothes and never go farther than our bikes can carry us, but friend, that’s not a life I want, and I’m sure that’s not a life that most of your fellow citizens want or even deserve. The extreme end of any continuum is no place to be, no matter who you are. The middle is the hardest place to be, if for no other reason than everyone gives up more than they intended for the best possible outcome. Of course, like yours, these are merely opinions.

78

[QUOTE=Leaffan]
Now, couldn’t I create my own computer simulation that showed a correlation between say, the number of computers in the U.S. and obesity of the population? Because I’m sure I could show convincing data that the two are completely related.
[/QUOTE]
Sure you could! I say, plug away!

But creating a model and having it’s outcome published in a peer reviewed journal after careful fact checking is where you would fail.

79

[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
They’re not stupid, they’re just not experts, and when the experts are on opposite sides, zingo, we have this.
[/quote]

Except that the experts are not on opposite sides. Well sure, there is not total unanimity…but then there isn’t about just about anything. You can find PhD biologists who don’t believe in evolution. However, an overwhelming majority of scientific opinion is on one side.

Can most of the scientists be wrong? Sure, that is possible. However, the only rational way to set science-based policy is to go with the best science available. In the meantime, in the scientific community, the study of climate change will continue. However, one of the signs of poor science and manufactured scientific controversies is when most of the scientists on the minority side are not so much trying to win over their scientific peers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature but are instead taking their case directly to the public. That is often a sign that their case is weak…i.e., they have lost their case amongst those best able to judge it and hence they are taking their case directly to people not really well-qualified to judge.

So, who is it that is proposing what you outline in your first sentence? Of course, it is always likely that there will be extremes with anything and it is highly unlikely that you want to be way out in them. However, the question is where in the middle you want to be. (And even, where “the middle” is.) We can also avoid the extremes by using a little foresight. I.e., if we wait for more and more certainty before we take action, the actions that we will need to take will be more and more draconian. By starting now, we can reduce emissions gradually and make a gradual transition to a low-CO2 emission society.

80

[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
Backatcha. We THINK we understand, but I think there are things beyond human understanding and ultimately, climate is one of those things. You can THINK anything you want, but until the truth presents itself, everything, including much of science is just a highly funded educated guess at what MIGHT possibly be happening.
As trite as it is, this quote from Men in Black sums it up rather nicely: “Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow”
[/quote]

I basically agree. It seems there is a certain arrogance of attitude in peoples’ thinking; a tendency to feel that the people of the past may have been bumblers, but now we’ve got everything figured out. That we’re a lot smarter than those idiot doctors who wouldn’t wash their hands between patients.

It’s like the optimism of a computer programmer who thinks he has found the last bug in his program.