A new paradigm on HubPages - A hub to hub challenge on Climate Change
Recently, Doc Snow and I decided to each create a hub on the topic of "How accurate are climate change predictions."
Here are our opposing hubs -
http://hubpages.com/education/Climate-C … e-Are-They
http://hubpages.com/politics/Climate-Ch … hey-Really
We are asking people to help out and keep an open mind.
Please read both hubs and take the poll at the end.
You are welcome to make comments, however, our focus here is to present our ideas and let the readers decide.
I believe this is a new paradigm on HubPages. As far as I know, this is the first time where two hubbers have jointly created hubs independently on the same topic. Their express purpose in presenting opposing view points is an attempt to sway public opinion. We have no preconceived notions as to the outcome. We are both passionate about our views and sincerely wants to help.
On behave on Doc Snow and I, we want to thank you in advance. We have put a lot of effort into this over a period of one month.
We will report back in some future time (perhaps one month time) on the results.
Thanks to all for your support.By the way, the Final Poll is located in the first hub (jackclee's) at the very bottom. Please vote only after reading both hubs. Thanks for your participation.
jackclee writes "Dr. Philip Lloyd recently admitted that global warming is within natural variability."
This is not true. Dr. Lloyd was discussing surface temperatures, not the entire global system which includes upper atmosphere temperatures and more importantly ocean temperatures.
jackclee rests his case about storm severity by providing a Wikipedia page that focuses only on storms in New England. Evidently the rest of the globe is irrelevant
jackclee chastises sea level rise and as evidence provides a 1988 prediction (which is kind of like talking about the medical value of leaches in medicine) and by providing a graph which looks convincing but fails to provide sources. Who are these mysterious "experts"? What are the current sea-level rise predictions? How accurate or valuable are satellite measurements of sea-level rise?
If this were an honest scientific debate, all of those questions would be answered. But this isn't an honest scientific debate. It is part of the very large skepticism industry specifically designed to mislead and misinform and to cause confusion and doubt in people. In short it is a LIE. I appreciate at least saying that you want an honest debate, but that isn't what is happening here and I see no reason to be civil about it. This is junk science. Looks good, but smells like turds.How is this junk science? You can't find anything questionable about my observations. I don't work for big oil. I am not paid by any one with an agenda. I am not even a denier just a skeptic. You can't handle the fact that the climate scientist have been exaggerating the effects and now they are like the boy cried wolf.
I pointed out a couple of specific problems with your observations. This sort of thing is always the same: looks decent on the surface, but scientifically doesn't hold up even under minimal review.
Scientists don't exaggerate. People talking about science do, generally because they lack understanding of the topic and lack fundamental understanding of scientific research. If you would like to complain about that, then please do so. It bothers me as well, but then, that was kind of the point I was trying to make in the first place.The people I don't trust are the very scientists that make predictions that don't hold up and instead of backtrack, they try to hide it or manipulate the data. There is no reason the NOAA would refuse to give the raw data to Congress who is trying to get at the truth.
I don't see any problem with my observations. A prediction by definition is a forecast of future events. The debate of this hub addresses the accuracy of predictions made in the past (1988) about current years (2015).
My references to storms in the US is one part of the global warming debate. I'm citing one example. If you think globally that storms are more extreme, prove it.
I know how some climate models work and they are full of assumptions and "tweak factors" which can affect the outcome by a large degree with small changes. That is why they are so un-reliable and so wrong in the long term. If the models were true, I would expect a normal distribution where some predictions were low and some were high. That is not what we see. The projections have all failed on the high side. That should be a red flag for anyone serious about analyzing data.There are all sorts of accusations of fraud, manipulation of data, hiding data, etc. but as far as I know, there isn't a single proven documented case of it, and certainly there isn't any grand conspiracy to do so. The NOAA issue isn't an issue at all, as Doc Snow noted, all of the data is available. NOAA just isn't giving in to their witchhunt to which I do not blame them.
I'm just going to ignore your comment about Congress trying to get to the truth.
"My references to storms in the US is one part of the global warming debate. I'm citing one example. If you think globally that storms are more extreme, prove it."
That is like going to a fishing hole, seeing a fish in the lake and concluding that nobody caught anything. Such selective cherry-picking just isn't a good faith argument.
As for me proving it. I don't have to. I have made no such claim.
To the topic, if you think it is an easy proof, you are wrong. It is an extremely complex aspect of climate change that is not firmly understood. Expand your single paragraph to about 10,000 and you might be part way there. From the evidence I have seen, there seems to be decent evidence that storm power has increased but not frequency, which of course varies by region of the world.
Regarding predictions and modeling and accuracy, I'd recommend this read: http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/le … CMIP5.html
Well, 5 years later, it seems the "do-nothing" side got their way and did nothing because they say climate change isn't real or climate change isn't caused by humans.
Now the earth has run out of time and the path to destruction is basically cast.
""Bottom line is that we have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change, because it's here," Michael E. Mann, a lead author of the IPCC's 2001 report, told CNN."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/09/world/gl … index.htmlbottom line is your side politicized it to the point young kids have been scared out of their wits like Greta Thunberg...
The earth is not ending in 10 years or 50 years.
The ocean is rising at 3mm per year on average for the last 100 years...
Major storms have not increased dramatically as predicted.
Michael Mann's hockey stick graph stopped at the year 2000. The global temperature are not rising through the roof...Interesting that this discussion is still going on.
The climate is changing more dramatically than anticipated a decade ago. It is useless to discuss if it was manmade of natural.
Climate is a very complex dynamic system. Influencing factors are not always visible, so any simulation model will fall short.
An example of what happens if you only link CO2 greenhouse gases to climate change may be Germany.
While global warming had a temperature increase of some 1,2 C over the past 100 years, Germany had an increase of 1,5 C, with most coming from the past 2 decades.
Explanation: Germany started its getting clean iniative in the 80ties. By now the air is so clean, dust particles are missing and are somehow allowing more intensiv sunlight on our territory, leading to higher temperatures.
This kind of aligns to global temperature drops in the early 90ties, after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens had brought red sunsets to the world. The eruption brought more dust into the atmosphere and lowered mean temperature.
I am harvesting solar energy for more than a decade on a professional level. I should see a degradation of solar panel output over time, but i don´t. In some years i even had a rise in output. Also aligns to the theory that being too clean adds to more sun energy and warming problems.
I wonder if "clean air" was/is included in the simulation models, not only greenhouse gases and burping cows.
Being an engineer with a lot of background on complex dynamic systems, i have my doubts about far reaching prognosis. Long time intervals make even low complexity dynamic systems vulnerable to undetected all pass effects. What does happen to much more complex systems like our climate?"Clean Air" causing climate change. I must admit that is a new one.
Not much to add to what jack said--he has summed up the project pretty well.
We're hoping for a good discussion, especially in light of the Conference of the Parties talks, which will attempt to reach a new climate agreement in Paris beginning November 30. I think it's vital that a good agreement be reached, as we are far behind the curve in our response to climate change. Jack, obviously, feels differently.
I'd only add that you can vote in the polls on *both* Hubs, as they ask different questions.I have started to promote our hubs on some news sites by posting the link in news stories on the up coming Paris COP21 climate change meetings. I am hoping top get more traffic to our hubs. I usually don't do this with most of my hubs but I am hoping the recent events align with the climate summit will bring this debate front and center.
I agree. This up coming Conference in Paris is perfect timing for this discussion.
Yes, by all means vote in all polls. The final poll I added this morning to to gauge how many people are swayed if any."There is no reason the NOAA would refuse to give the raw data to Congress who is trying to get at the truth."
Correct. Which is why they pointed out to Mr. Smith that the *data is already publicly available*. And said that they stood ready to walk committee members through it.
But no, he wants years and years of emails, too.NOAA have lost the confidence of some of us just like the IRS and the VA where bad things happen and no one is held accountable. It is Congress's job to over sight and get to the bottom of these issues. Don't you think someting is fishy here, when there is a global pause in rising termperatures as noted by
the lack of major storms in past 10 years and NOAA publish a paper claiming the opposite?Here is link to story about manipulation of scientific data -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/e … -ever.html"Don't you think someting is fishy here, when there is a global pause in rising temperatures …"
Does this look like a 'pause' to you?
Very interesting data plot from NOAA.
How do explain during these last 10 years the lack of major storms if the warming is as plotted. Can NOAA explain their own discrepancy?Doc, it really comes down to who are you going to trust with data? Who has an agenda? who profits? and who gets funded with research?
And what you see with your own eyes...Why would you expect a straightforward link with 'major storms' and temperature, especially over a limited space (I presume you are thinking of the 'US landfalling hurricane' criterion you used earlier, though the term is ambiguous) and limited time?
And if you don't trust NOAA, compare their results to those of GISTEMP and HADCRUT, not to mention the Japanese Met Office. You'll find that these sources tell the same story.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:1 … 1979/trend
Lastly, I'd note that your logic rather flies in the face of the story you began with: if NOAA's strategy was to basely kowtow to a government that holds their pursestrings, sacrificing every shred of scientific integrity, then when would they find themselves in a fight with the Chair of the S & T committee? Congress is the ultimate funding authority in the US system--and NASA has already suffered funding cuts because Congressional denialists don't like the fact that NASA data clearly shows that warming is a present reality.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/cap … w-protest/It is not I who made the prediction and link between rising temperature and increase storm intensity and frequency. It is the very agencies that use that scare tactics on the people that climate change is real. When they don't seems to correlate, I and others have a duty to question their predictions and their competance.
You can show plots all day long but understand where they come up with the data is key. They are created from raw data with some adjustments which are suspect. That was the whole basis of the debunked hockey stick plot of Mann.Fair enough, but you have to be careful with what the prediction was, and what the metric you use to evaluate it is.
Here's what AR5 has to say about tropical cyclones to mid-century:
Not exactly a ringing statement about future hurricane risk, is it? And even at that, you'll notice that the timescale is to mid-century. So you don't expect to see much of a trend over 10 years in any case.
By the way, it isn't true that the Mann 'hockey stick' graph has been 'debunked.' It was the criticisms of it that mostly got debunked:
That's from here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
I know a lot of folks are uncomfortable with Wikipedia, but it's a convenient summary, and the presence of footnotes lets you check the underlying citations to be sure they are not misrepresented.
Doc, Did you catch Obama's speech today at the Paris COP21 meeting? I was struck by the claim that even if we did everything they propose, it will only keep the rise of temperature to 2.7 degrees. This is with huge spending year after year... I have to wonder if the solution fits the problem?
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/30/obama … f-warming/Doc, I've been promoting our hubs on various news sites covering the Paris COP21 meetings. It has generated some traffic but very few polls results. Just wondering what's your experience so far. It seems less than 10% of people who visits actually votes. Very disappointing.
Jack, 2.7 is very definitely worth it, compared with 5 or so under business as usual. See my Hub series "Six Degrees" for lots of detail on that.
http://hubpages.com/literature/Mark-Lyn … ary-Review
Of course, 2 C would be safer, and 1.5 C safer still.
Quite a few analyses have been done of the cost-benefit ratio to mitigate or not to mitigate. Basically, it comes down mostly to the 'discount factor' chosen. That's a standard bit of economic modeling prestidigitation, meant to account for the fact that people value present goods (or harms) more highly than future ones. If you choose a high discount factor, that can make it seem that it's not worth mitigating; low ones end up with the opposite conclusion. (Cf., Britain's "Stern Report", the best known of the lot.) It's unclear to me, though, how the possibility of irreversible harms squares with that whole discount factor business at all. And if you don't trust climate models, where the underlying physics at least is well understood, then you probably would be less justified in trusting economic models.
For myself, looking at the magnitude of the possible harms, it seems the expenditures--large thug they are--are minor by comparison.
Here is NOAA prediction for sunspots -
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/solar- … d-may-2009
They were off by a lot.What is the impact on global warming? When predicted sunspots are higher than reality by 20%.
Comparing with the observations graph--I posted that--it doesn't look to me that the predicted sunspots *were* 20%. It's hard to compare real data, which is noisy, to the idealized curve of the prediction. But the actual peak number was at 100, with some sort of smoothed curve (running mean, maybe?) peaking at 80. For 80, that's more like 11% lower.
But it doesn't make all that much difference to global warming anyway, because the total peak-to-trough change in insolation over a complete solar cycle is only about 1% anyway. So it doesn't have a huge effect when solar cycle 24 only makes it to 99.8%, as opposed to 100%, not when the minimum presumably stays close to 99%.
See:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20120130b/
Really? If I compare the current observations, it looks to me as if the graph you provide is a pretty decent fit.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar … rogression
Just as an update on the Lamar Smith witch hunt at NOAA, here's a response from several of the nation's foremost scientific societies:
Here is Lamar Smith's Op Ed - http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 … e-fiction/
I don't see any witch hunt going on.
He is asking for explanations from NOAA.
In light of past deceptions by Climate Scientists - Climategate...
I would want to see the internal emails of how the scientist use the data and any discussions internally to see what if any there were doubts and debates...
We are asked to trust them blindly and as I said in the past, our government agencies have not been the most truthful or reliable. Why would we take a chance on an important topic such as climate change. Why is the down side of more information? why is NOAA so defensive?No, we aren't asked to 'trust them blindly.' The data that the Committee asked for is publicly available, and that fact was noted in the initial responses to Mr. Smith. (I say "Mr. Smith" because this is not an action of the whole Committee--so far, minority members on that Committee have not been included at all in the process.) The researchers also stated that they would be willing to meet with the Committee and discuss the findings and process, and did in fact conduct not just one, but two such briefings (June 16, 2015, and October 15, 2015)
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents … poena.html
As the official letter linked goes on to demonstrate in very concrete particular detail, the briefing was thorough, and addressed the questions on the table.
Basically, Mr. Smith didn't like the political implications of the paper, hence his repetitive demands for things he has already received and the subsequent expansion of his demands to anything else that might conceivably serve his political agenda.
- ahorsebackposted 8 years ago
0I believe in Climate change , Spring , summer , autumn and winter !
- ahorsebackposted 8 years ago0
There was a time when scientist's basic tool was the Dis- proving of fact and declarations , Now there are too many with an agenda in their studies .. "I believe in Climate warming so I'm going to prove it " instead of actual working from a dis-proving educational stance . Listened to a talk on a radio program about the gravitational pull of other planets affecting our climate , rather than the man made blame game .
Good point. I came across a book on scientific research of earth sciences published in the 1970's recently and just glancing through it, I noticed how different they were and their focus was on the actual science and deciphering the secrets of nature. That is how science should be conducted.
There really seems to be a hysteria on the left right now , from the administration on down , I mean I.S.I.L. and global warming , directly related , hmmmm....?
Yes, I was just about to pose the same question to Doc Snow. Do you think Climate Change is a cause of the rise of ISIS? and do you agree with Bernie Sanders that Climate Change is a bigger threat than ISIS?
No ! and No , I live in the state where Bernie Sanders has been a political entity for decades . He is a fool. The shift in the outlook that terror and climate change are related in a ruse ! For Obama , why not focus on ANYTHING but the mess his country is really in ? I do not believe that Obama actually has a clue to just how fragile the reality of todays America IS in . Crime , the economy , the deficit , immigration , riots , race relations , eco-terrorism , geo- terror , colonialism of nations on the rise .
And he's saying the weather is the cause of terrorism . I mean think about this .There is good reason to think that the Middle Eastern drought in the years preceding the Syrian conflict did contribute to the unrest.
And it is a matter of record that climate modeling had for years been showing that under warming regimes, we could expect more frequent drought in that region. Just as one example, see Sheffield et al, 2008:
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley … rought.pdf
Earlier this year, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science did formally link the drought and the conflict. It's been criticized, and may well not be the last word on the subject, but their estimate was droughts such as the one that was observed are about 3x more likely under the observed warming than in an 'unwarmed' world.
So, yes, I do think that there is a reasonable case to be made that climate change had a significant role in the current Syrian mess.
That's not to say that climate change is the sole cause of the rise of IS as a quasi-state in Iraq and Syria. Obviously, political events can't be uniquely determined by environmental factors; human choices will always be in the picture.
But I've noticed that there is a tendency for a lot of folks to think that every historical event must be the result of one, and only one, unique cause. But Tolstoy knew better:
Put simply: I think that climate change was one of many causes contributing to the rise of IS in Iraq and Syria, and that if we permit climate change to continue unchecked we will see more such instances in the future.doc, I see your point of view and I concede there are multiple causes of many events. However, bring climate change into this argument is a diversion. The middle east have been in turmoil for over 2000 years. It is ludacrous to believe climate has any influence on radical terrorism based on religious extremism. The question one must ask is why do these politicians bring them up in the first place? Can't they argue the merit of climate change on face value?
A long answer, and I didn't get to the second question, which was "...do you agree with Bernie Sanders that Climate Change is a bigger threat than ISIS?"
Yes, I do. IS is horrific, and should be fought with much greater vigor, IMHO.
However, it is a political phenomenon, and like all such, its scope is necessarily limited in time and space. I don't think that there is the slightest possibility that IS can overthrow any Western government, or indeed that of any reasonably developed nation. I suspect that it has already reached its peak territorial extent in Syria and Iraq, and that it will continue to lose a slow, back-and-forth struggle until it is reduced to just another vicious terror group. In twenty or thirty years, there is a good chance it will be dead, and even to a considerable degree forgotten. Hundreds of thousands will have died due to the war (not just IS), and millions of lives will have been redirected, n many cases for the worse--and I don't mean 'redirected' as a euphemism to cover up the numerous cases in which lives are more or less wrecked, only an inclusive term recognizing that many refugees will also eventually make satisfactory new lives for themselves in their new homelands.
On the other hand, climate change will keep on killing for centuries. Guesstimating the cost so far is really difficult and uncertain because you can't know whether a particular disaster should 'count'--maybe it would have happened anyway? So there is a lot of uncertainty. My own guesstimate starts with events that have either been formally attributed (in a probabilistic way) to climate change--an example is the 2003 European heatwave--or which have a demonstrable link to physical processes consistent with a climate influence--examples include Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, both of which were observed to rapidly intensify over unusually warm waters. Add up the leading half dozen or so such incidents, and you get over 100,000 premature deaths and over $100 billion US in damages. Well over, actually.
So that's a rough measure of what you get with 0.7 C warming or so. With 2 C warming, it will be a lot worse, and with 5 C, we can expect it to be catastrophic. And it will keep on being catastrophic for millennia. So, as I see it, the human cost for climate change is vastly greater than the cost for IS.
And there's another aspect as well. War is bad for the environment, without question, and in multiple ways. But the impacts are much less systematic than is the case for climate change: large scale mechanized war may affect hundreds of square miles, and that's impressive. But climate change affects the whole planet. Consider, for instance, coral: the Great Barrier Reef has seen coral cover decline by half in 27 years. About 10% of that loss is attributed to climate change--again, that's with just 0.7 C warming. If warming continues, efforts to address the starfish plague by cutting agricultural runoff which over-fertilizes algae will be rather beside the point. (The crown-of-thorns starfish has done about 42% of the damage observed, with the rest attributed to tropical cyclones.)
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19800253
It sounds fanciful, but we could lose essentially all of the world's coral. According to Elizabeht Kolbert, in her Pulitzer-winning book "The Sixth Extinction", in three of the previous 'Big Five' extinctions, reef-building organisms were pretty much wiped out, and 'reef extinctions' lasting many millions of years ensued, until new reef-building organisms could evolve.
If the coral were to go, then so would reef-living specialist species--just as we may lose species uniquely adapted to the Arctic sea ice. But such risks wouldn't be limited to just the polar or just the tropical regions; species would be lost all around the world, as rapid adaptation to warming reshuffled ecosystems everywhere.
Surviving humans would have to live in a world that was biologically impoverished--and in human terms, that would essentially be 'forever impoverished', as the time for biodiversity to recover would be much greater than the lifetime of the human species to date. Chances are that by the time biodiversity could recover, we ourselves will be either extinct or very significantly changed.
I don't think IS can remotely approach that kind of impact.I disagree with your conclusion. The deaths due to climate and natural events are plentiful in recent years and down through history. At least in recent years, we have technologies that can warn of impending disasters such as Katrina so that less people would be affected. All you need is to go back to Galveston Tx and see the devastation a natural event can do - without human cause.
ISIS however is our own doing. We as the world super power can stop it anytime but Obama chose not to. He has allow ISIS to grow and cause more harm around the world and it will grow like a cancer if not stopped. The beheadings and Christians and Moslems refugees are Manmade and are a bigger threat than climate change. Even if you convince me that climate change is real, we have the time and means to mitigate it's damage. In 2015, we need to wipe out ISIS, we can look at ways to mitigate climate change...But Jack, although you say that 'weather disasters have always happened'--certainly true, and no more than I said myself--you haven't actually said one thing to support the contention that ISIS is a worse danger. No comparative estimates of danger. Nothing addressing the point about time scales.
I've provided some very specific reasons why I think that climate change is a much, much greater danger than IS. Or Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao.
I wish you would address the question seriously, as I would like to know why some folks argue, as you do, that IS is a greater threat than climate change. There are two main factors, I think, at play: 1) magnitude of the threat, if realized, and 2) likelihood of the threat to materialize.
So, in the spirit of dialogue we're trying to maintain here, let me ask some questions:
1) On a 100-point scale upon which total extinction of the biosphere (say, by supermassive asteroid strike) is 100, what point value would you assign to worst case harm caused by IS? (Note that this is purely *magnitude*--keep the probability of the risk separate for now.)
2) On the same scale, what value do you think *I* would place on that case, based on everything I've written here?
3) On the same scale, what value would you place worst-case climate change threat?
4) On the same scale, what value do you think *I* would place on that case, based on everything I've written here?
5) Referring to your answer to question 3, what probability would you assign to your worst-case climate threat being realized?
6) Referring similarly to the question 4 answer, what probability would you assign?Doc, I don't put both problems on the same plain but I will play your hypothetical assessment -
1. 5%
2. 3%
3. 40%
4. 90%
5. 25%
6. 95%
The difference is ISIS can be dealt with now by wiped out where as climate change if there is a fix will take decades...
The other thing to consider is we humans are ingenious when it come to dealing with problems. If and when climate change becomes a known problem that we can affect, I have confidence we will come up with some mitigating solutions.
I am a skeptic and some problems we have no control over and climate change is one of them (at this moment).Thanks, fascinating.
I was wondering if the biggest difference would be probability of harm. And that is significantly different in #5 & #6, with your estimate that the worst-case scenario might be realized only 1 time in 4, and 'my' estimate plumping for 1 in 20. (Although, given the magnitude of the risk, even 1 chance in 4 seems like a gamble a lot of us would refuse, given the option.)
I will also admit that I'm surprised that your estimate of worst-case climate change is as high as 40% of the 'wipe-out' scenario I posited. I myself would probably not go as high as 90%, because I think that there is virtually no chance that human-caused climate change will wipe out the biosphere. (There's little more chance, IMO, that it will wipe out mammals, and (I think) a pretty small chance that it could wipe out humans as a species. There's a much higher chance that it could wipe out what we know as a technologically-advanced society.)
My best guess at a worst case is that we would see, as has been the case with past extinction events, serious biological impoverishment over several million years, coupled with the more parochial harm of human losses on a large scale (material, lives, potential, and culture.) The number I put on that in my head seems most sensitive to the time scale I imagine it playing out: if I only think of human time scales, then a number like 90% doesn't seem so out of line. But if I think of geological time scales, then your 40% seems pretty reasonable. I suppose it basically comes down to how you value human civilization and life, with respect to how you value biological life in general.
Considering your ratings and your comments together, it seems that you feel that climate change could be worse than IS if the relative worst cases were realized, but that perhaps we have time to deal with climate change. Is that right, or am I missing something? Or maybe there is more you wanted to add about that?
(As you already know, I don't agree about the 'time to deal with it' point, but let's lay that disagreement aside for the moment.)In general, your assessment of my position is correct. I am a skeptic at the moment but can be convinced if the evidence becomes irrefutable. However, I don't appreciate "experts" who use scare tactics and their "good intentions" to influence public policy and opinion. If they are honest, and mistakes are made, and they try to address them, that is an acceptable position. It seems to me, some of the climate change band wagon are overly promoting the effects in effort to gain attention. The earth is huge. Any changes will take years and decades to make a difference. We have time to deal with it. ISIS on the other hand can be dealt with now. I hope this answer your question. I am glad we are having this discussion. Even if you are not swayed by my arguments, I hope you will start to ask the right questions when confronted with extreme claims.
I think that all of us should question--true skepticism is a good thing. I certainly try to live by that, which is why I looked at all of those predictions in such detail. It wasn't easy or quick, but I think was worth doing.
I know that a lot of folks could (and actually, many *have*) say with you that "I don't appreciate "experts" who use scare tactics." I'd agree that some folks have done that, some probably intentionally. Others simply find their findings pretty alarming. Still others--and, contrary to a common impression among some, this includes the IPCC*--have cultivated a very intentional conservatism in order to make sure that what they say is well-supported.
*"Himalayagate" is an exception, but an accidental one, apparently. The attitude of conservativism was strongly inculcated in the scientific volunteer corps by Bert Bolin, a scientific great who was the first chairman of the IPCC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Bolin
So, I would advocate to anyone interested in the topic not to judge an entire field by the real or perceived 'over-reach' of some 'alarmists,' and not to assume up front that just because a particular claim is large or alarming or unexpected that it 'must be' over-hyped. It may be, but a true skeptic looks into such claims before drawing a conclusion.
You also say:
That's true, but don't forget that we have been releasing CO2 into the atmosphere in quantity for nearly two centuries now, and even the post-WW II period of accelerating industrial activity is now 70 years old. So we have clearly had the 'years and decades' to make a difference already!
And that's not mere rhetoric. Atmospheric CO2 has been measured for a long time now, and we know to a near-certainty that it is our emissions that have raised those levels over 40%.
http://hubpages.com/politics/How-Do-We- … Rising-CO2Doc, yes I know rise in co2 is our doing but the overall effects are not so simple. Case in point, some natural occurance such as volcanic erruptions also put tremendous gases into atmosphere and have affected world weather patterns. Also, the sun is amajor factor. How can it not be? It is the source of all life and energy in our solar system. Climate scientist don't have a good understanding of that in my humble opinion. Hence, when their predictive model which don't account for these other factors, don't match reality, they need to go back and see what is going on. Co2 and global warming cannot be a religion. Blindly followed regardless of evidence.
Jack, solar influences have been considered all along in looking at the puzzle of climate. As you ask, how could it not be? So it's just not accurate to think that it hasn't. For example, if you look at the Summary from the latest assessment report, you will find a figure showing known climate forcings, and you will find a value given for solar radiation changes.
And it's just not accurate to claim that the mainstream science is a 'religion.' One look at the very extensive scholarship shows that. (For example, google up the latest Assessment Report and take a look at the chapter bibliography--there will typically be several hundred citations, each of a full peer-reviewed study. That ain't 'religion.')
Just as a hypothetical example: If climate scientist will tell me that recent pause in global warming is due to the effect of an inactive sun (which is the reality as reported by following)
http://www.spaceweather.com
and that they will go back and improve their models to account for this, then I would be more inclined to believe their other claims...
Instead the IPCC doubles down on their predictions and claim the future effects will be worst than they originally thought? We better do something fast or else...and come up with all kinds of excuses that the heat is hiding in the ocean...or some other nonsense...
I hope you see my point on this. I can be swayed if given a logical explanation.List of 52 reasons given for the pause from WUWT -
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/11/l … -up-to-52/Doc, I just thought of an analogy of where I view the current climate change issue. It's not a perfect fit but may help you understand.
Suppose the Titanic hits an iceberg and the ship is in distress.
There are 4 scenarios,
1. It is real bad and all hands on deck and abandon ship is ordered.
2. It is leaking but Captain is assessing the damage to see what to do next.
3. It is a small leak and can wait till ship return to port for repair.
4. No time to do anything, everyone for himself, it's in God's hand.
Where do you see we are? (Titanic being mother earth)
I am in stage 2. I want to see what the assessment is before acting. From where I sit, we have been talking about global warming since the late 1980's. The ship have not sunk in 30 years. I want to make sure our response is appropriate.Doc, another thing I thought of as a parallel. Do you remember Y2K? Many experts was warning about pending disaster...
It turned out to be a bust.
The difference between Y2K and climate change is that Y2K had an end date. The year 2000 happened and all is well.Jack, I'm working for the climate crisis to be a good parallel to the Y2K thing--though on a much longer time scale.
Here's what britannica has to say about it:
So there wasn't a disaster because people looked at what evidence said about a pending risk and made rational (albeit expensive) choices to remediate the issue.
That's what I'm advocating for in the climate field. I fear that your stance on climate would be analogous to someone saying, "Well, let's wait and see if anything fails on New Year's Day. It would be expensive to fix and maybe there's not a real problem. There's a risk that we could waste some money for nothing."I hope you will be honest in your comparison of Y2K to Climate Change. We all lived thru 2000, and the facts are well documented.
I hope you're not suggesting that Britannica is dishonest about Y2K!
I worked in the computer industry for 28 years. I lived thru Y2K as many others. I don't need Britannica to tell me what happened.
By the way, I came across this article you might find interesting.
http://fabiusmaximus.com/2015/12/04/5-s … ign-91571/Doc, here is another article that explains chaos and how it leads to inaccuracies in models. It contains some math equations but don't let that scare you. The concept is sound.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/05/a … er-models/So what was your experience around Y2K? Inquiring minds want to know!
As to Fabius Maximus, he seems to think he has 'won.' I think he's delusional about that, frankly. Public awareness and concern around climate change continues to grow, national (and sub-national) policies to address it continue to proliferate around the world, and the question in Paris isn't so much whether there will be an agreement, as how much of an 'ambition gap' will be left.
We'll be arguing over climate policy for a long time to come--but more and more, in my opinion, it will be about policy, and not about the existence of the problem. And that's as it should be.
When Fabius notices, perhaps he'll be angry…
;-)Doc - I wasn't going to address it in detail but since you asked.
Some Parallels between Y2K and Climate Change:
1. Both have extreme predictions of disaster that failed to materialize.
2. Both have funding as a primary driver. Y2K was used by some “experts” to make money. Climate change studies was created by funding grants that was funneling resources to study climate change. (conflict of interest)
3. Government involvements. Both had special government commissions created to address these issues which led to conferences, meetings, policies statements and bureaucracy…
4. Both allow other issues to embellish their causes –
Y2K was heightened by the “end time” predictions of a world crisis.
Climate Change was co opted by the environmentalist to tie it to green policies.
5. Sold as insurance policy – Both use the argument that it is better safe than sorry regardless of the “facts” regarding the extend of possible damage. That is - do the cost/benefit analysis justify the proposed actions?
Differences:
1. Time scale – Y2K is <5 years in the making (1994-2000), Climate change is on-going with >50 years horizon (1990-2040 and beyond...)
2. Y2K wasted some money by companies and government and generated some temporary jobs… Climate Change requires a huge transfer of wealth from some nations to 3rd world countries run by dictators and pushed re-newable energy ahead of prime time and created very few jobs.
Results;
Hindsight is 20/20.
We have experienced the Y2K hype and lived to tell about it.
Climate change is still a work in progress…
My own experience with Y2K –
I was working at IBM Research in the 1990’s till 2002.
Y2K was identified as a problem with many companies especially the financial industries because the problem with keeping good time stamps relates to how files were organized and databases that track time related items such as mortgages and loans…
It was never taken more seriously than that. The hype that it would crash large computer networks was never a possibility.
However, as a computer company, as with many other computer consultants at the time, it was seen as a good money maker. Convincing all companies to upgrade their IT system will mean income to consulting companies and hardware manufactures.
Who in their right mind would be against it?
It was a good insurance policy and a safe bet.
It was seen as a push to refurbish old computer systems and softwares which the industry was doing anyway – just speeding up the timeline by a few years.
Link to related article in Computerworld –
http://www.computerworld.com/article/25 … crazy.htmlTwo points:
1) An update on the Lamar Smith affair (which I continue to regard as a politically motivated witchhunt):
"About 600 scientists and engineers, including former employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have signed on to letters urging the head of that agency, Kathryn Sullivan, to push back against political interference in science.
For months, Sullivan has been tangling with U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas and chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, as he investigates a climate change study done by NOAA scientists."
http://www.npr.org/2015/12/07/458476435 … te-science
So there is reaction from the research community; and the story is starting to creep into mainstream media, which has mostly ignored it so far, at least outside of Texas.
2) You had written "...pushed re-newable energy ahead of prime time and created very few jobs. "
I just have to rebut that last bit: the job creation has been significant:
"5.7 million people employed in the renewable industry worldwide in 2012"
http://irena.org/REJobs.pdf
But by 2 years later, that number had reached 7.2 million:
http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we- … na-report/Here is article on actual green jobs created by industry -
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/art … mbers.html
You need to account for the lost jobs in coal industry that have been impacted.
You also need to account for jobs that were due to government subsidies that will be going away in 2016...Thanks for that link. It seems broadly consistent with the IRENA information I posted. I think you'd agree that over 7 million jobs is not 'very few.'
I'd quibble with you about lost coal jobs; that isn't so much due to the rise of renewables as to the regulation of coal in general; and I suspect that in fact, more coal jobs have been lost to natural gas than to renewables. So I don't think that you necessarily have to net out renewable jobs versus lost coal jobs. (Especially when the statement you are responding to didn't say anything about any category other than renewables.)
And I'll go out on a limb and predict flatly that the global figure of 7 plus million renewable jobs will not fall in 2017, absent another quasi-global recession. I base that on several considerations:
1) ITC expiration only basically affects residential solar in the US. Therefore, international jobs won't be affected, wind jobs won't be affected, and utility-scale solar won't be affected. The proportion of renewable energy jobs in the US that *are* affected will amount to something under 30% of the total, and most of them will not be lost.
2) By then we'll have 2 more years of expansion in the books, so the baseline will be much higher than 7 million anyway. You'll note the expansion from 2012 to 2014, mentioned above, was something like 1.5 million jobs. So it would not be surprising to go into 2017 with close to 9 million jobs, globally, or even higher. Given that, I doubt that even US employment in renewable energy will fall in absolute terms in 2017, compared with the 2014 number--though you'd have to think that if the ITC does sunset as scheduled that it would restrain jobs growth in renewables generally, and particularly so in residential solar.
3) It's quite conceivable that the ITC could be renewed, or other policy initiatives undertaken that could affect US renewables jobs in 2017. The lobbyists are working hard on that… on both sides. Who knows how the politics will look a year hence?Doc, what you are missing is that renewable energy has only a segment of the energy power industry and it will never fully replace fossil fuel. It is not a total one forone replacement. That is why Germany and Autealia and others have begun to realize. Having fully bought into the green energy initiative, they are finding the rewnewable energy are more expensive and less reliable. They still need traditional power plants to handle the cases when sun is cloudy and wind is too low or too high... That defeats the whole argument for replacing these old reliable cheap energy sources.
I'm not missing that, we just hadn't got to that part of the discussion yet!
This isn't a black/white area. Yes, intermittency poses issues which must be addressed. But nobody--or hardly anybody, anyway--initially was proposing complete replacement of all traditional fuel sources with renewables. The idea was a much broader mix of low-carbon energy sources, including nuclear.
In fact, it seemed to be a pretty common view that it would not be possible to have more than 10% penetration of the grid by renewables, because grid stability would be adversely affected by the intermittency. But that restriction has been rapidly exceeded, for instance in Texas. That's an interesting case because the ERCOT grid is pretty much one big energy island; there's little interconnection with other US grids. Yet Texas did 10.6% wind in 2014, and is still adding wind capacity:
http://ercot.com/news/press_releases/show/51654
Denmark, of course is hitting much higher percentages, but does a lot of trading with Norway and Germany, so that's a bit different. Still, Denmark has in fact used its wind capacity to decrease coal use and carbon emissions. Germany will, too, once they've gotten past the issues arising from simultaneously going to renewables AND retiring all their nuclear power. (That was a bit foolhardy if you ask me, but their grid reliability has actually gone up, so on the technical front they are managing, it seems.)
So far, I've only been talking about electricity. It's the biggest emitter, so it's the obvious target to tackle first. But other sectors have decarbonizing solutions in the wings, too. It's pretty clear that battery electric cars, with or without range extender small engines, are going to be a growth area, especially once gas prices go up again, which they will at some point. (The Saudis can't move petroleum as 'loss leader' forever, and American drilling capacity is finally starting to drop.) Industrial machinery--lifts and short-haul trucks--are selling in battery and even hydrogen versions now, and can scale up. There are even heavy trucks in battery versions, though range is going to be a big problem for quite some time. We may need to go to bio- or sun-fuels for that application, and also for most flight. (Aerobus has a battery electric light plane, but it's only good for short range applications.)
So--bottom line, challenges galore, but also promising solutions. Enough to say that we can definitely drive petroleum demand way, way down.
I don't think we're in any of those states. The analogy IMO would be that the Captain has reports of very serious underwater damage and is attempting to rally work parties to address the damage and save the ship, but is encountering problems with discipline among the crew. Some are obeying orders, some are rushing for lifeboats, but all too many are insisting that it's just a drill and they don't have to get out of their nice warm bunks!
Doc,
What do you think we put an end to this debate after the COP21 meeting?
I propose a summary of results taking into account all the discussions and the result of the 3 polls. As much as I enjoy this debate with you, I think we have pretty much touched on most subject matter.
How about 12/21 as the end date? It is the start of Winter.
Let me know if you agree. Take care and enjoy the Holidays. Season's Greetings and Merry Christmas.Yes, we can't go on forever.
Well, maybe we could, but that wouldn't necessarily make it a good idea. ;-)
Sure, 12/21 sounds fine to me. And best Christmas and holiday wishes to you, too.Sounds good. I'll work on a summary hub and I'm sure we will revisit this topic over the next few years. It will get resolved. I'm an optimist.
Me, too. Whatever agreement comes out of Paris will give us a bit to talk about, and it won't be the end of the road, either, since there's no chance that the agreement will be adequate to the need. (Unless of course the whole thing is a big mistake, but I think the chance of that is vanishingly small--though it'd be a relief forgetting all about it and just concentrating on my music.)
So there will be twists and turns.
I don't know if I'll do a summary Hub or not--maybe just an update to the one I wrote.Doc, did you catch what John Kerry said lately?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government … pointless/Well, duh! Of course no single country or group of countries can 'fix' this. Anybody who can do basic arithmetic could have figured that out for themselves: the biggest emitter is China--less than 30% of the global total--the second-biggest is the US--under 20%--and no other single nation accounts for even 10%. So to get emissions to close to zero, which is what is eventually necessary, you have to have basically everyone on board.
That's the point. And that's why 196 nations are in Paris, negotiating their guts out for 3 mostly sleepless days.
And we now have a draft agreement! I 'live-Hubbed' it, here:
http://hubpages.com/politics/Flame-In-D … ris-Accord
BBC coverage:
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/science-en … t-34922775Doc, now that cop21 have an agreement, are you satisfied with the outcome? Do you have confidence that they will follow thru with their commitments?
I haven't seen the text yet, and based on past experiences, I'm frankly dubious of my ability fully to grasp the implications of the formal legal language. So I'll be looking at the analysis closely.
Some first impressions:
*I like the formulation that the official target remains 2 C, but there is ambition to try to hold warming to 1.5 C. It's not fully logical: hitting a 2 C target will be very tough, and 1.5 much more so. Yet 1.5 would be much safer, and a lack of ambition has been a serious problem for the process all along. It's been generally agreed that the INDCs--the national contributions countries have put forward--are enough to limit warming to perhaps 3 C or so.
*I like that the agreement is, in some sense at least, considered to be legally binding. That's a big issue, due to the importance of the US to the deal, and the hostility of Congress (as presently constituted.) It'll be interesting to see how that works in the agreement. But this Accord shouldn't just be a "Pirate's Code"--that is, to quote from the movie, "More of a guideline, really."
*I like the fact that there is a five-year evaluation cycle. It makes sense to review and renew the agreement as facts 'in the air' change and technology develops. And given the 'ambition gap,' we will need to do more than has been agreed at the outset.
*I hope that the 'differentiation' between developing and developed nations doesn't render the document effectively toothless, or (even worse) scupper adoption. The historic inequity among nations certainly calls for some differentiation as a matter of basic fairness, on the one hand, but on the other, the atmosphere doesn't care whether carbon is American or Chinese.
*I hope that nations will follow through on their commitments. As a Canadian, I have to say that we signally failed to follow through on ours under the Kyoto Accord, and so there is a huge precedent for failing to follow through. But most nations did better, and many did meet their Kyoto obligations (though Russia only did so through the inelegant process of economic collapse, when the Soviet Union went under.) And I think the sense of urgency is much stronger now: many more countries are seeing impacts than twenty years ago.
But of course, there are many other urgent problems--we've talked about terrorism, of course, as one example--and other priorities that will have to be addressed. So it would be unrealistic to expect perfect compliance. My biggest fear is the US: our legislature--I say 'ours' despite my Canadian roots, since I have lived in the US for 26 years now--is controlled by folks who are not just skeptical, but who are wedded to outright denial. They could make a lot of mischief for the entire world.I will withhold my judgement of the accord until I had a chance to read it. I do like the 5 year review just to see if things are progressing as they claim.
I am working on a results hub of our debate and will be publishing it after 12/21. Cheers.An interesting development in the light of the discussion above--Congress may be on the verge of extending renewable energy credits for several more years:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/ … investment
Very interesting. Extending the tax credit to 2020 is ok by me. I just hope people will realize the long term implication of some of these alternative energy. Ultimately, they will succeed or fail on its own merit. Subsidies can only carry them so far.
Doc, have you noticed the drop in gas and oil prices? In the NY area, we are seeing gas at $2 a gallon. This is great for consumers. Not so good for electric cars or hybrids.
Of course. I paid $1.80.9 last night when I filled up.
It's a global phenomenon, mostly due to the Saudis trying to drive frackers and other providers of unconventional oil out of the market. And yes, it does suppress concern about mileage somewhat. But it's not going to last forever, and electrics and hybrids are dinged, not demolished, thereby, as you can see from the sales figures listed here:
http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
By the way, there's a good chance that the next car we buy will be some sort of plug-in. Could be fall 2017, possibly, or a bit later. Though you never know with vehicles, and our current 2 are pretty darn long in the tooth--there's nothing sexier in a car, if you ask me, than being completely paid for and largely depreciated already.My only experience is via my neice in LA and she has a tesla and they are disappointed in it after 2 years. They are afraid to go on long distance trips and the 90k price tag they will never recoup in gas savings.
Sorry they didn't like their choice. As you may have gathered, I wouldn't be buying a $90K car even if I had the $90K on hand in cash. ;-)
What other electric cars are economically feasible and does the job of getting from point A to point B?
Doc, this article does not bode well for electric cars-
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookecroth … ojections/I don't agree. The *headline* may not 'bode well,' but the story really doesn't give much reason to think that electrics are in trouble. You and I already talked about the impact of very low gas prices. And the fact that there are more competitors than GM expected surely isn't a bad thing for the industry or the consumer.
I think the link I posted has a pretty complete list of models, so you could check that out if you are interested in completeness.
The venerable Prius now has a plug-in version, and continues to be at the head of the pack. We know a number of folks who are very happy with theirs (including one couple with his 'n hers Prii).
Of pure electrics, the Nissan Leaf is probably at the head of the pack. Its range is limited, but it's favored by (relatively) a lot of commuters here in the Atlanta area. Not only is it very, very cheap to operate, Leaf drivers get to use the pay-to-play lanes for free.
Chev's Bolt and Volt have their fans and sell in considerable numbers, and BMW's offering (i3, is it?) seems to be well-regarded albeit pricey. (Hey, it's a Bimmer.)
We're going to need something with more range than most pure electrics, as we'll be living in the country, and as noted above, price is a big consideration for us. But the electrics are getting there.Doc, Yes, all that may be true but they are in no way close to their original projected goals - remember Obama wanted 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015. http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesand … es_rpt.pdf
It is comparable to the failed climate projections...in my mind. I am working on the status hub will publish shortly.How is an aspiration blocked by an uncooperative Congress in any way comparable to a 'failed climate projection'?
And remember, I've shown pretty well that a great many projections are not 'failed.'Failed in the since that they over project in whatever they are trying to achieve instead of dealing with reality. In the electric car case, just because the President of the US declare he wants 1 million EV on the road does not make it happen...as powerful as he is. The reality and economics prevents it.
In the case of climate change, just because some scientists and environmentalist believe in their hearts and hearts that we humans are destroying our habitat, (exaggerate the effects) does not make it so. Science has its own reality.We seem to be back at the start here. My Hub demonstrated that while not all projections have materialized, many have, or are visibly in the process of doing so. The 'belief' that we are destroying our habitat is founded on evidence of many specific harms.
Here's a quick example, a graphic summarizing some of the observations from the Working Group II report within AR5:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/graphics/ind … &f=SPM
Naturally, you would refer back to the report for more specifics if desired.
By coincidence, this landed in my mailbox at the same time as the notification of your comment:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/haitian … lture.html
Doc, I just published my results hub -
http://hubpages.com/politics/Climate-Ch … ge-Results
Let me know if you have any additional input.
Sadly, it looks like Doc Snow won.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/05/us/calif … index.htmlStill believe Climate Change is Not Real?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15/world/uk … index.htmlAlthough your link provides almost nothing in the way of proof of climate change, there is precious little doubt that it is happening.
The only question is what the long term effects will be. I seem to recall, years ago, hearing that our coastal cities would be under water by now - the terrible predictions have all, one by one, failed and had to be severely cut back to match reality.Back in the 90s I remember reading how Florida would be underwater by the year 2000.
Exactly. The predictions of "climatologists" have proven to be mostly nonsense and cannot be taken seriously.
You're right.
A hypothetical weather forecast for 2050 is coming true next week
The climate crisis is pushing weather to the extreme all over the world, and temperatures in the northern latitudes have been particularly sensitive to these changes. So meteorologists at the UK Met Office -- the official weather forecast agency for the UK -- dove in to the super long-range climate models in the summer of 2020 to see what kind of temperatures they'd be forecasting in about three decades.
"Not actual weather forecast," the Met Office's graphics said. "Examples of plausible weather based on climate projections."
Well, on Monday and Tuesday, the "plausible" becomes reality -- 28 years early.
LINKTypical CNN fake news "shockingly similar" except that it is 19 in norhtern Scotland, when they were predicting 30, and 34 in southern England, where they were predicting 43.
I see we have another believer in Fake Fox-Trump News.
No, that does not even exist down here. You can sit back in your chair, watch your fake CNN and ignore that which you can see.
There are too many variables.
The Sun: The rate at which energy from the Sun reaches the Earth’s atmosphere is called “total solar irradiance” (or TSI). TSI fluctuates slightly from day to day and week to week.
In addition to these rapid, short-term fluctuations, there is an 11-year cycle in TSI measurements related to “sunspots”.
Then there are Solar Flares, should one ever shoot out in our direction it could impact our civlization like an Electo Magnetic Pulse (EMP) or could fry the surface of the Earth that happens to be facing it as it pushes back, even if only for a moment, the magnetic field that protects our planet.
Then we have deforestation, while we bicker about CO emissions they are cutting down the Amazon Rain Forest at record breaking pace, I believe they are trying to wipe out the entire forest before we reach 2030.
Climatologists have no way of taking in all the variables, we will wipe ourselves out with plastics polluting our food chains and bloodstreams long before climate change takes us out.
Back in the year 1632, Christians said the Earth was at the center of the universe. (Some actually believe it today) Turns out more science proved them wrong.
"Although your link provides almost nothing in the way of proof of climate change, " - It doesn't need to anymore, it is established fact and doesn't need to be reproven each time it is mentioned.
"The only question is what the long term effects will be. I seem to recall, years ago, " - That is also well known and proven. The ONLY question is the timing - 10 years or 50 years. We have passed the point of no return where "no damage" was a possibility. Now, it is guaranteed some pretty bad things WILL happen. Just how bad and how soon aren't pinned down.
In 1975, we were encouraged to panic over the coming "ice age".
"Debunked." You offered it so confidently that it caused me to pause because I also remember that in the 70s "we were encouraged to panic over the coming "ice age"", (although "panic" is a bit strong).
You must be saying that the theory has been debunked, not AB's statement about the public's belief in it. Right?
Here are a couple of links that brought a smile. They aren't science stuff, they are public information perspectives.
Government and Media Headlines Through The 70s:(ya gotta see these)
Global Cooling Alarmism In The 70s
"Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."
"In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."
:
This one speaks to the publicly-presented scientific consensus:
Forbes - The Fiction Of Climate Science
*you even got me to include quoted blurbs and links ;-)
GA"You must be saying that the theory has been debunked, not AB's statement about the public's belief in it. " - I would say both. Certainly such a theory wasn't seriously considered. While there may have been an outlier or two predicting such a thing, I don't remember being told by the gov't or news media to buy warm clothes to be prepared.
Here is just one source on the subject which states:
An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journ … 20warming.As to the The FIction of Climate Science. It seems Forbes did some creative editing to get to that "quote" you copied.
Here is the truth about that.
https://fair.org/home/forbes-publishes- … ge-debate/
In today's parlance, the Forbes article would be called disinformation otherwise known as a lie.
BTW - I am very disappointed in Forbes for participating in that sort of deceit. That is more like what Fake Fox-Trump News would do.I was not talking about whether the scientific claims of the 70s were true, nor the 'truth' of today's climate change science, I addressed AB's claim about the public's 1970s knowledge and perception.
The argument about climate change is still an argument, but I don't see how you can deny the proof, both anecdotal and sourced, of her claim. There were a lot of reputable media sources in that list of headlines.
Seems like unsupported stubbornness to me.
GAThen let's go back to AB's original claim - "In 1975, we were encouraged to panic over the coming "ice age"." - to which I replied "debunked".
Who was doing the encouraging? The gov't? - No. The scientists? - NO.
The fact that the media occasionally reported on a story doesn't amount to "encouraging" anybody, especially to "panic", at least the way I understand it. I don't remember being encouraged? Do you?
What AB said was baloney being spouted by a climate denier.Now you're being silly. "Panic" was noted as being "a bit strong," but otherwise, my memory and the provided links are proof enough for me that AB's statement is true.
GA.
As far as I am concerned it’s an open and shut case. If you live in Britain you’d have no doubt that Climate Change is real; and the evidence that it’s Anthropogenic is overwhelming.
Just to take the three main issued raids in your articles: Increase Temperature; Rising Oceans and Increase Hurricanes in Frequency and Intensity.
Increase Temperature
UK’s 10 Hottest Days on Record:-
• 7th August 2020 = 36.4C
• 31st July 2020 = 37.8C
• 25th July 2019 = 38.7C
• 1st July 2015 = 36.7C
• 19th July 2006 = 36.5C
• 10th August 2003 = 38.5C
• 6th August 2003 = 36.4C
• 3 Aug 1990 = 37.1C
• 2nd August 1990 = 36.6C
• 9th August 1911 = 36.7C
Records began in Britain in 1659; and since then then 7 of the 10 hottest days have all been in the last 20 years; 4 of the 10 within the last 7 years; and all 10 in just over the last century.
And next week is predicted to be the hottest on record when it is expected temperatures in England are likely to reach 40C (over 100f) for the first time.
Red extreme heat warning issued across England: https://youtu.be/H4BSbVXbokU
Rising Oceans
Returned to the sea: the village in Wales that could be lost to climate change: https://youtu.be/3E-xSXb9s0k
Increase Hurricanes in Frequency and Intensity
The UK’s 16 Worse Storms on Record:-
• Bristol Channel Floods = 1607
• The Storm of 1703
• Eyemouth Disaster = 1881
• The Great Blizzard of 1891
• North Sea Flood of 1953
• The Big Freeze of 1962
• The Great Storm of 1987
• Burns’ Day Storm = 1990
• The Floods of 2000
• Storms of 2013
• The Beast from the East Feb to March 2018
• Storm Ciara, Feb 2020
• Storm Bella, Dec 2020
• Storm Darcy, Feb 2021
• Storm Arwen, Nov 2021
• Storm Eunice, Feb 2022
Half of Britain’s worst storms have all happened in the last 20 years, and 12 of the 16 worst storms have all happened within the last 70 years.But, what if 1658 was a banner year for hot days and storms, in Britain?
There's no 'ifs' or 'buts'; the fact remains that in the last 363 years (since when records began) 7 of the 10 hottest days have been in the last 20 years, and within a few days, with temperatures expecting to near or exceed 40c (103f) that will then be 8 of the 10 hottest days in Britian over the last 363 will have been within the last 20 years: A clear message that the climate in the UK is now a lot hotter than it was when I was born.
The science is clear. The debate is over. It is just a question of whether the world will do enough to reduce the massive suffering that WILL happen if nothing more is done.
20th Century sea level rise: 4 to 8 inches, depending on where you were.
21st Century sea level rise: 12 to 39 inches, depending on where you are and if nothing is done.
We are already seeing more intense hurricanes - it WILL get worse if nothing is done
We are already seeing more intense draughts in many areas - it WILL get worse if nothing is done
We are already seeing more intense flooding in other areas - it WILL get worse if nothing is done.
The Arctic is already disappearing. That is now set in stone.
Virtually every year, a larger and larger number of people are dying from heat. That WILL get worse because that is set in stone as well. It will get MUCH WORSE if nothing more is done.
Tremendous economic cost caused by climate change is NOW a reality and WILL only get get worse, that is set in stone. It will get MUCH WORSE if nothing more is done (which gets more expensive each year nothing is done.)Absolutely, spot on Scott.
At least the UK is doing its bit; the UK is the only country in the world where reaching zero net carbon emissions by 2050 is a legal requirement (set in law) rather than just a target: https://youtu.be/9uzqgdOZv_E
The UK Government has already achieved a lot and plans to achieve a lot more in our transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy::-
• Coal used for generating electricity in the UK is now down to less than 1% from 30% 10 years ago; and will be phased out by 2025.
• The sale of new fossil fuel cars in the UK will be banned by 2030.
• 100% of electricity will be zero-carbon generation by 2035.
• Natural gas for heating domestic homes will be banned by 2035.
Some ‘Stats’ on UK Progress towards transition to Renewable Energy:-
• In 1991 just 2% of our electricity in the UK came from renewables.
• In 2019, zero-carbon electricity production overtook fossil fuels in the UK for the first time.
• 17th August 2019 Renewables in the UK hit the highest share to date with 85.1% of our electricity coming from Renewable Energy on that day: 39% from wind, 25% from solar, 20% from nuclear and 1% from hydro.
• 2020 marked the first time in the UK’s history that electricity came predominantly from renewable energy, with 43% of our power coming from a mix of wind, solar, bioenergy and hydroelectric sources.
• In 2021 42.7% of our energy came from Renewables: Wind = 26.1%; Bioenergy = 12.7%; Solar = 1.8%; Hydropower = 2.1%
Breaking Records in the UK:-
• Zero-carbon electricity has increased from less than 20% in 2010 (12 years ago) to nearly 50% in 2021.
• Fossil fuel for electricity in the UK has dropped from over 75% in 2010 to around 35% in 2021 (in just 11 years).
• In 2020 no coal was used to generate power for a total of 68 days (from 10th April to 16th June); the longest coal-free period since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
• On 5th April 2021 the UK achieve its lowest ever carbon emissions to date from power generation, at just 39 grams of CO2 per kWh.
The UK Government has also currently banned all fracking in Britain, and likewise, the Scottish Government has banned fracking in Scotland!
So if more countries committed to determination seen by the British Government to reduce carbon emissions then perhaps we can see some ‘damage limitation’ to the environment?No, the debate is not over. You will always find someone to debate something, whether it be some Brit socialist that fails to accept that socialisim is a failure that goes against human nature, or some right winger that is against the minimum wage.
Taking the bait; the NHS and the Social & Welfare system in Britain, created in 1948 by a Socialist Government, which are now an integral part of British Society, and the minimum wage in Britain, introduced by a Socialist Government in 1998, are testimony to what Socialism can achieve.
Not to mention the SNP (Scottish National Party), a Socialist Government who have ruled Scotland continuously since 2007.
So Socialism is far from dead in the UK.Is socialism dead? No, I guess not. There will always be enough people on the dole who have nothing to do but go out and vote socialist.
Those with jobs, or waiting in an NHS line, do not always have that option.It shows how little you know about Socialism in Britain.
In the last General Election in Britain in 2019:
* 42% of the Middle Class voted Conservative (right-wing/capitalist party)
* 42% of the Working Class voted Conservative
* 28% of the Middle Class voted Labour (Socialist)
* 33% of the Working Class voted Labour.
* 19% of the Middle Class voted Liberal Democrat (in the middle, between Labour and Conservative e.g. a centralist/moderate party)
* 10% of the Working Class voted Liberal Democrats.
In Scotland in the 2019 General Election:-
* 45% of Scottish voters voted SNP (Socialist Party)
* 25.1 of Scottish voters voted Conservative (right-wing capitalists)
* 18.6% of Scottish voters voted Labour (Socialist Party)
* 9.5% of Scottish voters voted Liberal Democrats (politically in the middle).It shows how little you understand human nature. Not all people in the "working class" are drunks on the dole and many do know how to vote, nor or many of those in the "middle class" intelligent enough to vote for a party that will help them.
I live in a country that has been dominated by a socialist government most of the last 20 years. The socialist welfare problem has encouraged many drunks to not even bother to go out and get a job. I mean why should they? The government is going to take care of them.
And dont you think the support of Brexit is a sign that the people of your country are trying to escape from the socialism of the EU?Well sorry to hear that the socialist welfare is a problem in Brazil (in your view), encouraging many drunks to not even bother to go out and get a job:-
I can't comment on your view of Brazil because I don't live there.
However, the picture you paint is a different picture to what we see in Britain e.g. under the welfare system in Britain, although the unemployed get benefits (to live); so do the low paid, and NOT all benefits are means tested e.g. disability benefits, parental paid leave, and child benefit are not means tested in Britian, so all are entitled to them; just as everyone (regardless to wealth) are entitled to universal free healthcare.
In Britain the unemployed who can prove that they are seeking employment are entitled to 'jobs seekers' allowance, so that they are better off than those unemployed and not seeking work.
Also, people on low income can claim 'working credits' benefits paid to the low paid by the Government so that they are better off than being unemployed.
In fact the system is so successful that currently unemployment in the UK is only 3.7%.
Also, taking paid parental leave as another example of social welfare:-
In Britian both expectant mother and father are each entitled to two weeks paid leave; plus they get an additional 37 weeks paid leave to share between them e.g. the mother can choose to take 39 weeks paid maternity/parental leave, during her pregnancy and after the birth, (with the husband having just the two weeks paid leave) and be guaranteed (by law) that her job will be kept safe for if/when she decides to return to work. Or alternatively the couple may decide that the husband takes the 39 weeks parental paid leave (with his job secured) to look after the baby, while the mother goes back to work after the birth.
Also, disability allowance is NOT means tested in the UK e.g. everyone, regardless to wealth can claim disability allowance (aka PIP/Motability Allowance) if they have mobility difficulties e.g. although we are middle class, my wife gets £374 ($450) per month from the Government because she has a bad back, and I get a similar amount each month to look after her (Carers Allowance). For people on the higher rates of disability (Motability) allowance e.g. those most disabled, then (regardless to their personal wealth) they are entitled to a free new car (replaced every three years), and all running costs paid for them by the Government, except the cost of petrol - as explained in this short video:- https://youtu.be/TUf7SFIICx4
Socialism is a lot more dynamic in Britain than you think, and does benefit all, including the middle classes; which is why the NHS is so popular e.g. the latest opinion polls show that 89% of the British population supports the NHS.
So what if it was? It does nothing to trend.
What if the decade which preceded 1658, was a banner decade for hot days and storms?
The same applies, as in my previous answer; the fact is that over the 363 years (since records began) storms are far more frequent and severe now than they used to be; something which is very noticeably real if you live hear e.g. storms are more frequent and intensive now than they were when I was first married.
Storm Eunice: Which hit Britain in February this year, with 122mph record winds batter UK; the highest storm wind speeds ever recorded on record in Britain: https://youtu.be/ufSkO7Z_lIk
As I was reading all of this Nathanville, I was shaking my head and couldn't help but think of a couple of Pledges, which I've recently shared on my FB page.
This is 'the stuff', that I was brought up on, that my husband was brought up on, that we've carried on, via the raising of our children.
I can't imagine being perfectly content with Government intrusion into every aspect of my life; telling me how to think, what to think, when to think it...dictating my life!
Socialism has been making its way quickly to the U.S., the thought of it makes me ill and I will never stop speaking against it.
It seems appropriate to share these pledges and this thread is already off subject anyhow, so why not!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/aa/be/3c … 2b5584.jpg
Mike Rowe
2d ·
The Texas Future Farmers of America held their annual event this week in Fort Worth and invited me to speak to 15,000 people at The Convention Center. I said sure, and I’m glad I did.
Whatever problems we face as a country, I can assure you the FFA is part of the solution. As I said back in 2009, when I spoke at their national convention in Indianapolis, these are the teenagers you wish you had. Smart, curious, enthusiastic, hardworking, and unfailingly polite. These are the kids who will lead modern agriculture into the next phase. These are the kids who will figure out how to feed a hungry planet.
Before and after my talk, I shook hands with hundreds of these young men and women, and I was struck by the way they all looked me in the eye, smiled, and sincerely thanked me for being there. Obviously, good manners are not unique to the FFA. I noticed the same thing at Skills USA and large Boy Scout events. It’s a common trait among kids who agree to take some kind of a pledge, or oath, or creed.
Well, the FFA has a creed, and their members take it seriously. It was written nearly a hundred years ago by a farmer named E.M. Tiffany. It’s not an academic statement, or a political one. It’s a personal expression of belief. A philosophical statement, that’s been memorized by a lot of people who believe it in their bones.
One of the kids I met today, compared it to my SWEAT Pledge, which I took as a great compliment. He then recited it for me. It’s the first time I’d heard it, and I thought it was worth a share."
The FFA Creed
"I believe in the future of agriculture, with a faith born not of words but of deeds – achievements won by the present and past generations of agriculturists; in the promise of better days through better ways, even as the better things we now enjoy have come to us from the struggles of former years.
I believe that to live and work on a good farm, or to be engaged in other agricultural pursuits, is pleasant as well as challenging; for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement, I cannot deny.
I believe in leadership from ourselves and respect from others. I believe in my own ability to work efficiently and think clearly, with such knowledge and skill as I can secure, and in the ability of progressive agriculturists to serve our own and the public interest in producing and marketing the product of our toil.
I believe in less dependence on begging and more power in bargaining; in the life abundant and enough honest wealth to help make it so–for others as well as myself; in less need for charity and more of it when needed; in being happy myself and playing square with those whose happiness depends upon me.
I believe that American agriculture can and will hold true to the best traditions of our national life and that I can exert an influence in my home and community which will stand solid for my part in that inspiring task."
I wish E.M. Tiffany had been backstage with me today, watching as an earnest kid in a blue corduroy jacket recited the words he wrote a hundred years ago, and thanked me for being there.Really? What makes you think British Governments have intrusion into every aspect of our lives in Britain; they don’t tell me how to think, what to think nor when to think – they don’ dictate my life. Besides, you do realise that in England we currently have a Conservative (right-wing) Government in power, not a Socialist Government; so what does your comments have to do with Socialism anyway?
Yeah, your 12 pledges are fine, very admirable, and they would work just as well in Europe and Britain; in fact I know many people in Britain, of all social classes, who up holds the principle you laid out.
Your visit to the FFA as a guest speaker is an honour and their enthusiasm and dedication is admirable; but you don’t have a monopoly on it – people are just as passionate about things in the rest of the free world, including Europe and Britain.
One aspect that is strong in British culture, which I don’t see so much of in American culture is “Community Spirit” e.g. people helping each other out in times of need rather than an attitude that it’s everyone’s personal responsibility to stand or fall.
Western France is facing a "heat apocalypse", experts have warned, as extreme temperatures continue to hit much of Europe.
Temperatures could reach record levels in 15 regions of the southwest, with firefighters battling wildfires and thousands forced to evacuate.
Blazes in Spain, Portugal and Greece have forced thousands more to flee.
In Western France, thousands have fled their homes as firefighters tackle spreading blazes. In Spain, at least 20 fires are burning out of control. Meanwhile, thousands of hectares of land have also been burned in Greece and Portugal in recent days.
Record temperatures are also expected in parts of the UK, which has its first ever red extreme heat warning in place.Yep, yesterday was the 2nd hottest day on record in England; reaching 38C (100f) in the shade; and the lowest temperature overnight was 27C (80f).
Today is expected to be even hotter; with a high probability that temperatures in England will exceed 40C (105f) in the shade; which will small other other records, making today the hottest temperature in the UK since records began in 1659.
UK Heatwave: Fire breaks out in Worcestershire countryside yesterday (small scale compared to mainland Europe, but it shows how extensive the damage from Global Warming can be): https://youtu.be/s_CSn3uYehsUK will be ‘hotter than 99% of Earth’ this week:- https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/lifes … -1-329701/
UK heatwave: Britain bakes....and it's gonna get hotter! https://youtu.be/8amr39Z0N34
This is the real effects of Global Warming:
On the hottest day ever recorded in Britain since records began in 1659, when temperatures reached 40.3c (105f) in the shade:-
* London's burning: Firefighters tackle 'absolute hell' https://youtu.be/H2bxvd2URQ0
* London in Flames: Massive Wildfire Destroys Homes, Forces Evacuations In Dartford https://youtu.be/qhdvEJLWDlsOur Yellowstone Park had what was termed a thousand year flood this year.
But I do find it a little comical when any unusual weather even is put down to Global Warming...except the extreme cold times. Those, it seems, are natural and expected but never a heat wave.It's not comical, and it is Global Warming; the extreme heatwave, which is due Global Warming - Since 1659, 8 of the 10 hottest days in Britian have all been within the last 20 years; and yesterday was the hottest day on record.
Heatwaves across Europe (and in Britain) are becoming more frequent, and hotter, because of Global Warming. Until the 1980s to get a heatwave in a lifetime in Britain was the norm, now we're getting heatwaves once every two or three years; and the frequency and intensity is steadily increasing, due to Global Warming.
The heatwave, due to Global Warming, has made everything tinder dry, including grass; so it only takes a spark to cause a wildfire; and that's in a country that is traditional damp and wet all year round.Besides it wasn’t just one isolated incident yesterday; there were 10 heatwave related wildfires across London, heatwave related wildfires in several other cities in England, and several heatwave related wildfires in the countryside across England and Wales. Everything is just so tinder dry!
7 of the 16 worst storms in Britain, since records began in 1659 (almost half) have all occurred within the last 20 years; and 12 of the 16 (75%) have all occurred within the last 70 years. The storms in Britain are getting more frequent and stronger e.g. Storm Eunice, which hit Britain on 18 February 2022 with 133mph winds, was the worst on record.
Also, not only are our summers getting hotter, but our winters are getting milder. Prior to the 1990s we used to get up to 6 inches of snow almost every year in Bristol, typically lasting up to two weeks. Since 1990 we almost never get any snow in Bristol, and if on the rare occasion it does snow it’s usually just a sprinkling of less than an inch (typically less than half an inch) that’s gone within 48 hours.
So if that’s not Global Warming, then I don’t know what is?
Heatwave dries North Yorkshire's Aysgarth Falls and riverbed. Images below of Aysgarth Falls in Yorkshire, England show the dramatic difference between the river in full flow and the current dried up stretch.
Now it’s America’s turn according to the news today?
So it seems laughable that there are still Americans who think Global Warming is a myth?
Europe has been plagued with a heatwave since 12th June, England reached its highest temperature on record of 40.3c (105f) on 19th July, with devastating results; but the highest temperature in Europe was 47c (117f) in Portugal on 14th July.This report "The last eight years have been the hottest on record" was published in January; before this years heatwave:-
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/202 … to%20NASA.
It's not just humans affected by Global Warming; it's also having an impact on wildlife in the UK and around the world:-
* https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/ca … -wildlife/
* https://www.theguardian.com/environment … s-wildlife
* https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/9-uk-spe … ate-changeCorrect, and it's not just UK, or Europe--how often do segments of the Po River dry up?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/weather/ … index.html
(Here in South Carolina, we're seeing temps that are seasonal for us--low to mid-90s F. Unfortunately, we're also seeing really oppressive humidity as well; the heat indices for the next few days are predicted to be well above 100F, similar to the UK's recent actual temps.)
Of course, Japan has just been through it, too:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/ … ave-highs/
And all of this in a third consecutive La Nina year, which should be--or, more concerningly, may still actually be--suppressing the warmth a bit.Yes, Po River in Italy drying is another example of the devastation, and that’s just one example; Aysgarth Falls in North Yorkshire, England, which I filmed about 10 years ago (video below) dried up this week.
https://youtu.be/w5_H5Og2ytc?t=92
I note that you reference the oppressive humidity in the USA, a friend from New York told be yesterday how oppressive the humidity is over there. Fortunately in Europe and Britain the heatwave is low humidity e.g. Mediterranean weather – of course, the downside of the low humidity in a heatwave is that everything becomes tinder dry (fire hazard).
Tell me again how man-made climate change isn't real?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/20/world/ri … index.htmlYep, and this is Europe, including England:-
Europe's rivers are running dry as the climate crisis worsens: https://youtu.be/wYUWBwzIfXY
Source of River Thames dries out 'for first time' as drought continues in England: https://youtu.be/ZjM7MKsaZAk
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