I am using the word “alarmist” to mean anyone who pushes the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. If you prefer, I will use the word “warmer.”
Major changes will only come about through market driven forces. Rising energy costs will cause people to buy more efficient cars, live closer to work, use less electricity, etc. This is likely already beginning. It may not happen as quickly as some people will like. It may not be sufficient to stop global climate change. I do think it’s the only thing that will have any real effect.
Research reports, however accurate and well intentioned they may be, won’t have anywhere near the effect that a 20 cent increase in electricty per kwh or a $3.00 increase in gasoline per gallon will have.
Seems like the authors of the report, as well as the OP, are conflating climate change with human caused climate change.
The linked press release goes all breathless about how sixty percent of the animal species have been affected by climate change … Was there ever a time in history when animals were not affected by the climate?
Plus, it seems like the authors didn’t get the Keenlyside memo that the ugly spectre of natural variability (in this case the PDO) is likely to cool the planet for the next ten or fifteen years … funny how, when the climate models can’t explain the warming, the cause has to be CO2, but when they can’t explain the cooling, it’s “natural variability” that’s the cause.
w.
PS - There’s a lovely irony in the press release. After waxing hyperbolic about a host of dreadful forecast future changes, they close by saying:
So, we can’t say what the future will look like, it’s unknown, “new territory” … but somehow we know it’s going to be horrible …
No, let’s stop pretending that the climate controversy is anything like the evolution controversy. There are literally dozens of degreed, tenured, well respected climate scientists who do not accept the AGW hypothesis. These are guys with decades of experience, and hundreds of scientific publications. The only similarity with the evolution debate is that the AGW side worships the Hockeystick, the IPCC, and other icons in a truly religious fashion …
The climate controversy has to do with the shabby level of climate science, which is driven by a political agenda and replete with a history of stunning “smoking gun” claims which were later found to be totally scientifically unfounded. It also has to do with the fact that the signal of AGW (a projected warming of ~0.02°/yr) is totally swamped by a combination of natural noise and poor data. This makes the detection of the signal very difficult.
w.
(1) So is the basic idea behind greenhouse gases.
(2) So does the current understanding of climate, regarding radiative forcings and their effects.
(3) Intelligent design? I’m not too sure what the serious competing hypotheses are involving AGW either.
Well, I’d love to see you start listing these folks, so we can see who they are. And, before you pooh-pooh the similarities, I strongly suggest that you see the film “Expelled”. They talk to several reputable scientists who endorse intelligent design too. And, as you probably know, one of the small handful of climate scientists on the skeptical side who really does have decent credentials is Roy Spencer who has, strangely enough, also strongly endorsed intelligent design…and, like I said, Spencer is one of the only handful of climate scientists with a good publication record who can be classified as a climate “skeptic”…i.e., he is strongly toward the “most reputable” side on the scale of climate change skeptics.
It is well-understood that natural variability plays a strong role in climate over “short” time scales, i.e., of less than a decade or so, exactly because, as you noted, the signal due to climate forcing is expected to be only about 0.02 C per year whereas natural climate variability can be on the order of a few tenths of a C between one year and another. But, also, one very speculative paper published in Nature does not reality make…and a lot of scientists don’t believe that Keenlyside et al. is going to hold up very well. (And, they are not really predicting a net cooling but just a pause in the warming…or a period of slower warming.)
By the way, it is strange to hear you complain about Keenlyside claiming natural variability is the cause of their cooling (really more of a pause in the warming, as I noted). Since their prediction is based on climate modeling (and applying climate models in a rather questionable and untested way to try to make short term predictions of variability), I am a bit confused that you on the one hand seem to want to believe their prediction but not believe the cause of their prediction. It is kind of a weird dance that you are doing there.
Please read what I said. I did not say I believe or disbelieve Keenlyside, I just was commenting about his excuse for the climate models not working (natural variability). It’s beyond me why you want to keep twisting my words, but I’d sure appreciate it if you’d quit doing so. I stopped interacting with you on another thread because of your puerile attempt to convince people that our asking you for citations was somehow wrong, and accusing me and brazil84 of not “doing the legwork” to look up your citations for you …
Don’t start it again. Like we used to say back when I was an unreformed cowboy, you can piss on our boots, but can’t convince us that it is raining. Other people here actually can read, and they can see what I wrote.
w.
PS - for you, it always seems to come down to belief. Do I “believe” Keenlyside? I neither believe nor disbelieve it, I have not analyzed it yet. Once I have had a chance to do so, I’ll have an informed opinion as to the solidity of the claims made. But my opinion will have nothing to do with “belief”.
That’s called “science”, you might google the term some time. You may be surprised to find out that science has nothing to do with belief … perhaps you are confusing it with religion.
PPS - Keenlyside says the current cooling (or “pause in warming” if you prefer) may last for another 15 years, and that it is due to “natural variability” … that would put the total length of the pause to about a quarter century, since the peak was in 1998. I was wondering why “natural variability” is an acceptable reason for a projected quarter century of “pausing”, but not an acceptable reason for the preceding quarter century of warming … but you didn’t answer that question, did you?
PPPS - Me, I find it curious that many scientists, who do very good work in their fields, even many Nobel Prize winners, believe in an invisible, omnipotent being watching everything that they do. Not only that, but they simultaneously believe that
a) if they do not do exactly what this being wants, he (it?) will put them in a secret, hidden, undiscovered, never-seen lake of everlasting fire, to be tormented eternally, and
b) this being loves them, and cares deeply about their well-being.
Me, I love my wife, and no matter what she might do or not do, I would not put her in a lake of everlasting fire. That ain’t love, that’s not caring, to me, that’s just nasty vengefulness.
I find their belief, in an invisible being who loves them dearly but would torture them forever, as ludicrous as believing in intelligent design … but it does not stop those scientists from being competent or even brilliant in the work that they do.
So … from a logical point of view, if you disbelieve Spencer on climate because of his irrational belief about evolution … then, you got some 'splaining to do about why you believe the climate science claims of other people who hold equally irrational beliefs about invisible beings and mysteriously hidden fiery lakes …
For agriculture, which relies rather a lot on forward planning, an unpredictable climate future is horrible, simply by virtue of being unpredictable.
That Wikipedia list has an awful lot of “retired”, “astrophysicist”, “geologist”, “civil engineer” and “solid state physicist” on it - I thought you said “literally dozens of degreed, tenured, well respected climate scientists”. You know, guys who’re doing (and publishing) climate science right now. Why should we care what some retire professor who’s never played with the models thinks?
I mean, there were still tenured Geology professors when I started studying who weren’t quite sold on plate tectonics. Should I cite them as proof that PT is just a hypothesis?
If the basic idea is correct, it doesn’t follow that the CAGW hypothesis is correct.
That’s just not true. Just using the “basic idea behind greenhouse gases,” it’s impossible to model important aspects of the Earth’s climate, for example average global surface temperature. Instead, one must make a whole host of other assumptions. Suddenly the model is not so simple.
Lol. Of course you aren’t sure. But here’s one for you: Most of the recent temperature increases are the result of the same natural fluctuations which have caused temperatures (and other aspects of climate) to rise and fall for millions of years.
Asserts you.
As MrDibble points out, that list doesn’t support the original claim you made in regards to their qualifications. Oh, and here and here are similar lists of scientists who support “creation science”, so this doesn’t seem to be a particularly good criterion.
OK, Mr. Dibble, I’m sorry they don’t meet with your approval. I’ll let them know they haven’t passed the Dibble test. My point was simply that it is not a few eccentrics. It’s a number of well respected scientists.
No one discipline covers the climate - not atmospheric physics, not oceanography, not geology, not biology … but all of them are each an essential part of the climate system. I look at a man’s work, not his retirement status or his field of study.
w.
This thread is about nothing of the kind.
– This report is practical, not catastrophic.
– While certainly arguing for anthropogenicity, the report does not emphasize it.
– This is about the united states.
– This is about climate change, not just warming.
– This is not about a hypothesis, it’s about practical observations.
So it’s not at all about a “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis”. Looks like you’re trying to make this a nail to hit with your standard “CAGW advocates suck” hammer.
Well, that didn’t take long.
So now you’re moving the goalposts - I thought they had to be tenured climate scientists?
But not all the people working in those fields are climate scientists. I’ve been a geologist/geochemist, and I can tell you that my opinions on climate science are just that - my opinions. Because I’ve never done actual scientific work in the climate field.
Actually, wait, that’s not true - I have done some prep work on sectioning stalagmites for carbonate work. And I’ve done varve measuring. I guess I’m a climate scientist now…
Is it your contention that all the people on that list have done published work in the field of climate science?
How can you look at his “work” if he’s never published in the field? What does one guy’s papers on taxonomic molluscan palaeontology tell you about climate change? Or a coal scientist? Or a civil engineer?
And if a guy retired 10 years ago, how would he know what the current state of the art is, especially with regards to computer models? Real physical science isn’t something you can keep up with just by reading some journals in your retirement village, IMO. You need to keep up with the debates, and attend conferences, stay current with all the literature and have access to the right tools.
IME, a decade is a long time in scientific computer modelling. I can remember working on Gondwana models then that took a SunSparc box and a week to set up, where I could do the same work on a laptop today. I wouldn’t trust one of my 1st-year profs to keep up, they were all pen-and-paper boys still. So no, retirement status definitely figures into things.
If you say you “look at a man’s work”, then it should be trivial for you to answer a simple challenge - for each of the people on that list, cite ONE peer reviewed article in the field of climate science. Just ONE, for each. Should be easy, since you’ve already looked at their work. Hell, I’ll make it even easier for you - just the first 12. See, not even “dozens” - just ONE dozen.
Unless, of course, what you’re actually looking at is whether they agree with your views, and not the work they’ve done as “respected scientists”.
I have no idea what your point is. I have no idea what it means to claim that a “report” is “catastrophic.”
So what?
So what?
So what?
What exactly is the subject of the “denial” mentioned in the OP?
Looks to me like you don’t understand what you are arguing about. But it’s fascinating that you would characterize my arguments as ad hominem.
That’s not an argument, that’s a contradiction :rolleyes:
Whatever. Most of what you have said appears to be completely irrelevant to my point.
I’ll just leave you with the question I asked before:
What exactly is the subject of the “denial” mentioned in the OP? What exactly is being denied?