Not to mention that the survey dates from 1997. The scientific case for anthropogenic climate change has grown significantly stronger in the decade since then.
A) “Representative Democracy” and “Democracy” are not interchangeable terms for the purpose of this particular discussion. I’m talking about representative democracy.
B) You are correct. Representative democracies are set up to at worst represent the view of the majority or at best to represent a more accurate and superior viewpoint. This is their “reason for being” and I personally do believe that they achieve this goal in regards to the major issues. If you think that they fail at this, then that’s fine, but again general surveys of climate scientists agree strongly that the evidence is strong and that global climate change is in majority anthropogenic, so whether scientific bodies do or don’t represent the democratic view of their members is irrelevant. I beleve that scientific bodies do represent it or are in fact superior, and so to me this is very good evidence.
Cite??? and not a wiki or a Nation article please.
Since you have such sage, transparent knowledge I’m sure you’re perfectly well placed financially?? Wanna share some of your advice??:rolleyes::rolleyes:
I’ve just been looking through von Storch’s survey again, and I’d also like to recommend figures 70 through 72.
I don’t know that the term “CAGW” is a useful one. As I’ve pointed out before, the definition of catastrophe is rather vague, ranging from “extreme misfortune” to “utter overthrow” – neither of which is a particularly useful metric. At some point, I’m sure one could add another letter – perhaps ECAGW – and so on ad infinitum. It really doesn’t help to have an idiosyncratic term that only one person or a small group of people uses.
Far more practical is to ask – what are some of the likely negative and positive effects of global warming/climate change*?
(Lists below are summarized from The Hot Topic by Walker & King, pgs. 82-85.)
For warming of about 2°C:
- Higher crop yields in mid- to high-latitude agricultural regions.
- Lower crop yields in low-latitude agricultural regions.**
- Increased impacts of heat waves, droughts, and northerly spread of infectious diseases.
- Lower availability of fresh & potable water in the tropics.
- Environmentally driven migration and refugees.
- An increase in intense rainfall events and flooding.
For warming of 2-3°C:
- Less water stored as snow and ice increases the risk of flooding, threatening up to 3 million more people.
- Large-scale bleaching events of reef corals.
- Increase in the frequency of severe heat waves, wildland fires, and crop failures threatening up to 10 million people.
- Extreme droughts occur over more time and area.
- Reduction of monsoon rains due to weakening ocean conveyor.
- Increased risk of extinction for 20-30% of all species.
For warming of 3-5°C:
- Widespread death of coral reefs, perhaps driving reef-building corals to extinction.
- Declining food yield even at high-latitude favorable agricultural areas, affecting as many as 120 million people.
- Increased scarcity of fresh and potable water for up to 3 billion people.
- Switch to positive feedback from carbon-absorbing terrestrial biomes becoming net carbon producers and thawing permafrost.
- Loss of major sections of Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, potentially causing sea levels to rise up to 40 feet over the next few centuries.
- Up to 20% of the world’s population affected by increased flooding.
For warming beyond 5°C:
- The consequences are unpredictable, but likely Gozer the Gozarian level bad. If I’m not mistaken, the IPCC doesn’t even have any studies mentioning the effects of warming past 5°C.
- Hi Opal!
- Oh, crap, #2 was supposed to be #3.
Anyway, I’m sure there are some posters here who think these lists are hype without basis. Let me know which ones you think are unsupported and I’ll be happy to talk about it in detail.
Pick whichever one you think is a catastrophe and there’s your CAGW.
*Climate Change is the more technically accurate term, yet Global Warming correctly conveys the fact that global average temperatures have been rising for the last 100 years or so. I don’t feel bad at all about using Global Warming, because it is still correct, even if it is less accurate.
**Sucks that the rich countries that emit most of the carbon benefit agriculturally from a mild warming, while the poor tropical countries that emit little carbon see reductions in crop yield right up front. In addition, the poor countries are politically at the mercy of the rich countries anyway.
I assume this comment is directed at my use of “CAGW” since, a few posts ago, I asked jshore what he meant by “AGW” and whether it was the same thing I meant by “CAGW”
But anyway, my definition of CAGW, the “C” means only that there will be significant negative effects.
Moreover, the distinction is absolutely crucial.
Why? Because if the CAGW hypothesis is correct, a strong case can be made that CO2 emissions should be curtailed. On the other hand, if the CAGW hypothesis is incorrect, no such case can be made.
Moreover, it’s important to distinguish between the positions of people like Richard Lindzen and people like James Hansen. Although Richard Lindzen is widely known as a “skeptic” or a “denier,” if you look at his work, he does seem to agree that mankind’s CO2 emissions are likely to result in an increase in average global temperatures.
So here’s a question for you: How would you refer to the hypothesis adhered to by people like James Hansen, i.e. that CO2 emissions will result in a temperature increase which will increase water vapor levels, which will result in further temperature increases, and so on, until average global surface temperatures reach a point which causes significant negative consequences?
And how would you refer to the position of people like me, which is that mankind’s CO2 emissions are likely result in warming, but such warming will be small compared to normal variations in temperature and in any event will not cause significant negative consequences?
Lol. So much for the wisdom of representative democracy.
i.e. the survey which you believe bests support your views.
Lol again. Try Figure #17, which states “Climate models can accurately predict climatic conditions of the future” On a scale of 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree), the average response was 4.69.
So even if one accepts the study you apparently cherry-picked as representative and accurate, the majority of scientists do not accept the primary “evidence” for CAGW.
But let’s put models aside, ok? Try figure 20, which states “To what degree do you think the current state of scientific knowledge is able to provide reasonable predictions of climatic variability of time scales of 100 years?”
The average response to that question is 4.78.
The survey is ambiguous. People keep forgetting that CAGW is a narrow claim.
It would have been easy to ask the following question:
Do you agree with the following statement? “Mankind’s CO2 emissions are very likely to cause an increase in average global temperatures, which will be amplified by water vapor feedback, which will result in temperature increases which will have significant negative effects for mankind”
And yet, as far as I can tell the question was not asked. Perhaps the study authors were afraid of the answer they might get if they asked the money question.
That’s nonsense. If I were completing the survey, I would have chosen 6 or 7 too for that question. Your conclusion relies upon self-serving speculation and guesswork.
So narrow most scientists don’t even know they’re claiming it, it seems, by the derth of references to it.
And to put that in perspective Exxon made 40 billion in profit (not revenue) last year. If you want to suggest that the AGW conversation is tainted by personal self-interest, I would certainly agree, but the sums at stake if we made a concerted global shift away from fossil fuels (which of course we won’t) are a hell of lot bigger than anything publicly funded climate scientists and carbon offest companies could ever dream of.
Self-serving, eh? Given that you’ve not given any explanation for your position and have even gone into insult throwing at the same time as not explaining your position, I have to wonder at your analysis of this.
But you must remember that I’m a guy who does not see white and think pink. I’m a guy who understands that when two words would be shown together in the same listing in a thesaurus that they likely mean the same thing. And I’m a guy who can realize that attaching a C to a word doesn’t make it an entirely different word from all the words used by everyone else on the planet. They’re still talking about the same thing.
Whether you view these as limitations or superpowers I couldn’t say. But regardless, they prevent me from being able to look at a survey which says white, white, white, white, and white and understand how you can come back and say that because I claim to see white where you see pink, that I am self-serving.
Either way, obviously the issue is that one of us is color blind.
So how about we determine which of us this is?
The CPepsi Challenge
CPepsi = Principally human induced climate change via greenhouse gasses (principally CO2), of a level that will probably be strong enough to have distinct negative impact on large regions of the planet, and also featuring a rising global average temperature.
You choose your surveys and figures that you think support your belief that there’s no evidence that a majority of climate scientists don’t have any faith what-so-ever that CPepsi has strong evidence to support it and are in fact conflicted enough that there is no consensus on the subject among the climate science world.
I will, similarly, choose mine.
I will start a thread in IMHO with a title “Poll for people having no opinion on Global Warming”
Each of us will be allowed two posts. One to present our surveys and figures, and another to comment on the other’s posting of data. Respondents will be asked to decide which of us appears to have a better eye for good data, and the meaning of that data. That will be the only question we are asking from them.
If you trust the strength of the data upon which you base your view on the CPepsi subject and your interpretation of that data, then your presentation will make any reasonable and uncommitted person support you. If my data and my interpretation of it seems better, then they will side with me.
What are you talking about? I laid my position out in detail on my blog
Characterizing a person’s claim as “nonsense” is not an insult. Here, your claim was clearly ridiculous.
I’m a little confused. Do you believe that “global warming” means the same thing as “climate change”? Do you believe that “CO2” means the same thing as “greenhouse gases”?
Again, I’m confused. Do you think that Richard Lindzen’s position is roughly the same as Jim Hansen’s position? Both of them seem to agree that increased CO2 levels will lead to higher average global surface temperatures.
I have not been shown such evidence. The burden is not on me to come forward with evidence disproving your claim. And I’m not interested in doing a poll of SDMB readership as to whether your evidence is satisfactory. The fact is that you have not yet presented satisfactory evidence. You’ve basically retracted your argument regarding organization statements. Which leaves you with the results of an ambiguous question on a survey.
However, I AM willing to do a poll to see what the readership thinks of your theories of representative democracy. Apparently the Kyoto Treaty was defeated 95 to 0 in the U.S. Senate. So by your reasoning, the wisest and sanest policy is for the United States to reject the Kyoto protocol. I would be very curious to see if the SDMB readership agrees with you.
You posted a response in your blog as to why you think the von Storch survey doesn’t say what I claim it says?
You said that I was reading the von Storch survey in a nonsensical and self-serving fashion. I.e. I was making stuff up. That’s rather insulting to say if you’re not going to explain how you reached that conclusion.
Yes.
In almost all papers on the subject of “principally human induced climate change via greenhouse gasses, of a level that will probably be strong enough to have distinct negative impact on large regions of the planet, and also featuring a rising global average temperature”, they will call it something shorter. Sometimes they call it global warming, sometimes climate change, sometimes anthropogenic climate change, sometimes anthropogenic global warming. All of these are significantly shorter and easier to write than “principally human induced climate change via greenhouse gasses, of a level that will probably be strong enough to have distinct negative impact on large regions of the planet, and also featuring a rising global average temperature.”
If it was a paper about the “climate of fear in Afghanistan”, obviously I wouldn’t presume an occurrence of the phrase “climate change” to mean principally human induced climate change via greenhouse gasses, of a level that will probably be strong enough to have distinct negative impact on large regions of the planet, and also featuring a rising global average temperature, but it’s unlikely that in a thread in GD about principally human induced climate change via greenhouse gasses, of a level that will probably be strong enough to have distinct negative impact on large regions of the planet, and also featuring a rising global average temperature that someone is going to link to a survey of climate scientists opining on the state of Afghanistan security. So any occurrences of “climate change”, “global warming”, etc. are going to mean the same exact thing.
And since CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas and the one which is generally held up as the one which is in the greatest need of being regulated, quite often they do mean the same thing. If someone says that greenhouse gasses are causing global warming, I’m not going to assume that he means everything except CO2, and if I see someone saying that CO2 should be regulated to prevent climate change, I’m not going to assume that he believes that CO2 is the only thing in the world that could be regulated to have an effect.
I can’t profess to knowing either of these men, nor do I see what relevance this statement has to do with the quote you placed it under.
My point was that any reasonable person will realize that “cprincipally chuman cinduced cclimate cchange cvia cgreenhouse cgasses, cof ca clevel cthat cwill cprobably cbe cstrong cenough cto chave cdistinct cnegative cimpact con clarge cregions cof cthe cplanet, cand calso cfeaturing ca crising cglobal caverage ctemperature” means the same thing as “principally human induced climate change via greenhouse gasses, of a level that will probably be strong enough to have distinct negative impact on large regions of the planet, and also featuring a rising global average temperature.” Because other people don’t use your spelling doesn’t mean they’re talking about an unrelated subject. What Lindzen has to do with that point, I couldn’t say.
Pronouncing data as “unsatisfactory” does not make it so.
If you want me to explain in more depth why I believe that a survey of 48 appointed climatologists holds less weight than a random survey of 500+ random climate scientists, I would gladly do so. All I’m asking is for you to do the same. If you think the von Storch survey isn’t valid and wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny, then challenge it. Don’t just say that it’s irrelevant and nonsense. Tell me why you believe it to be so.
Sure, if the OP reads like the following:
brazil84 believes that a representative government (like the United States government) most often acts without any sort of relationship to sane methodology or the will of the people. Most of their actions are mere pork barrels and self-serving legislation.
Sage Rat believes that a representative government will most commonly represent either the majority opinion on major issues, or will lean further towards the wiser position than the general populace.
Would the decision to not enter the Kyoto Protocol serve better as an example of pork barrels, as an example of the massive lack of support for the Kyoto Protocol among the American people, or as an example of the US government voting that the protocol was not a wise choice for us to enter into/overall not a useful thing in and of itself? Would you say that Sage Rat or that brazil84 holds a view that is closer to reality?
No I did not. I thought you were talking about my position in general. Now I see you are requesting that I be more explicit about why your claim about chart.
If you disagree with the statement “There is enough uncertainty about the phenomenon of global warming that there is no need for immediate policy decisions” it does not necessarily follow that you believe the evidence for CAGW is strong. For example, you might believe that the evidence for CAGW is weak, but non-frivolous enough that certain immediate policy decisions would be appropriate. It’s also possible you believe that the evidence for CAGW is weak, but the earth is on a warming trend for some unknown reason and governments should take steps to investigate and/or prepare for future warming.
Again, it would have been easy enough for the survey authors to explicitly ask the money question. And yet they failed to do so, opening up the door for self-serving speculation and guesswork.
If you deem criticism of your arguments to be insulting, then I admit to insulting you.
Do you agree that if the Earth enters an ice age, it would qualify as “climate change” but not “global warming”?
In which case the responsible thing to do is to define one’s terms.
You were questioning the importance of the letter “C.”
So what? They might be referring to a different phenomenon.
Of course. Your evidence is unsatisfactory because is it’s unsatisfactory. Not because I say it is so.
I have my own rules of debate. Rule 1 is that you cannot misrepresent my position. I never claimed that most actions of the US government (or any representative government) are "mere pork barrels and self-serving legislation. Nor did I claim that representative governments “most often act without any sort of relationship to sane methodology or the will of the people.”
Please either show me where I said these things; or retract your statement. Your choice.
Further, Rule 2 forbids weaseling, i.e. misrepresenting one’s own position. Earlier, your position was that representative government either reflects the will of the people or is saner and wiser, as long is the issue involved is “major.” You had no qualifier like “most commonly” to allow for the possibility that representative governments regularly fail to accomplish this.
Please acknowledge that you have changed your position or show me where you said it earlier. Again, your choice.
A) I’m fine for you to take whatever position you wish to, if you care to state what it actually is at any point.
B) By your rules of debate, a person may not challenge another person unless it is on a point that they “are seriously skeptical about.” So, given that these are your rules of debate and you challenged the idea that a representative government generally reflects the majority opinion of its members, that seems to lead to the idea that you are seriously skeptical about assuming a link between popular opinion and the opinion of elected officials.
So which is it? Are you honestly skeptical that there would be a link between the majority position and the position of elected officials? Or do you think that they are generally sufficiently linked that it’s dishonest and wasting time to pretend skepticism over it?
Actually, that’s incorrect. The “seriously skeptical” rule applies only when you demand a cite.
But in any event, what I was challenging is your claim that representative government ALWAYS represents the views of the people or something wiser/saner (with respect to issues which are not “minor”).
I realize you are trying to qualify your claim now by sneaking in phrases like “most commonly” and “generally,” but that’s NOT what you said earlier. In fact, I specifically asked you about your position using the word “always,” (Post #120) and you acknowledged that I had you correctly (Post #122), with the caveat that you were talking about representative democracies.
In short, you are weaseling.
Not only that, but you are pretending that I was challenging your new (qualified) position, as opposed to your old position. i.e. you are strawmanning too.
You have misrepresented both our positions, and you have failed to acknowledge the same.
Thus, I am banning you. I will no longer respond to your posts except to explain why.
Bye.
Are you honestly skeptical that the average person would not be able to recognize either term as referring to the well-known and commonly encountered theory of principally human induced climate change via greenhouse gasses, of a level that will probably be strong enough to have distinct negative impact on large regions of the planet, and also featuring a rising global average temperature?
Evidence is cumulative.
Like I said in post #97, “In almost all cases, no single item of evidence proves or disproves anything in science. Changed names in Anne Frank’s diary does not prove that her diary was made from whole cloth. There’s always going to be minute things that conflict that open the pathway to other possibilities. Their existence isn’t a proof against anything though.”
Certainly it’s a possibility that the majority position of a governing body is unrelated to the popular opinion of it’s members. The question is how likely this is. If 85% of the time the two groups believe the same thing, then this 85% evidence that the popular opinion is supportive of AGW. If there’s a statistical probability of 98% that a survey of 500 random climate scientists would match the popular opinion of all climate scientists, then that’s another 98% on top of the 85%.
Evidence is cumulative. No one item proves or disproves anything. They each have a likelihood that they do or don’t support the central theory, and only by adding them together do you come to something like a proof. So unless you can discredit that 85%, it adds to the bunch. Unless you can discredit that 98% it adds to the bunch. Because it’s not 100% doesn’t make them irrelevant. Almost never are you going to come across something that’s 100%.
You may have whatever rules of debate you choose to employ. However, you have now begun listing SDMB posters with whom you will not debate on the same page of your site to which you continue to link in these discussions. That is functionally equivalent to posting the names of posters on one’s Ignore List, an action which is in violation of SDMB rules.
You need to remove those names from the page to which you link from posts on this board.
[ /Moderating ]
Done.
If the distinction is so crucial, then why not make the distinction clear? “Significant negative effects” is just as vague as “extreme misfortune.”
Not so. I think this is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning. If you accept that greenhouse gas emissions increase the planet’s average temperature, then greenhouse gas emissions need to be curtailed at some point, regardless of the “CAGW hypothesis.” The eventual extent of warming is not predetermined. The more greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere, the warmer it will get. Just pick which level of warming you think is a catastrophe, and figure out what level greenhouse gases would have to be at to give you that temperature increase.
Richard Lindzen is in a different situation than you describe. He does not, as far as I know, advance a “CAGW” hypothesis. Instead, he proposed that there is a negative feedback after a certain level of warming is reached (I’m thinking of his iris hypothesis.) In this case, I would describe Lindzen’s position as accepting AGW and belief in an iris hypothesis (I’m not certain that he still does – I haven’t read anything by him recently.) If you accept AGW, there’s no reason to talk about CAGW, just tell us which negative feedback hypothesis you believe in rather than inventing a new term.
Even if you believe in some negative feedback hypothesis, negative feedback is not some magical infinite power in the climate system. You will still need to consider curtailing greenhouse gases lest the warming from a high enough concentration of greenhouse gases overpowers the negative feedback. You need to know the relative strengths of forcings under whatever hypothesis you subscribe to before you can make policy recommendations.
I would refer to your position by the name of whichever negative feedback hypothesis you believe in. I would want to know what hypothesis you believe that prevents warming from having negative consequences.
I think the boat has already sailed on recent warming being small compared to natural variations in temperature. We’ve known for decades that the warming of the last century or so is not small compared to natural variations on the same timescale.