Does anyone still believe in Global Warming? Have we all finally concluded that it was a hoax?

So let me tackle this one:

hmmmm? wrote:3. Do you agree climate change is influenced by anthropogenic activity?

The short easy answer is an unequivocal "yes," it's plain to any thinking person that all human activities have consequences (action = reaction, and all that...). This includes climate. The longer, more nuanced answer starts with "it depends" and "frankly I don't know."

I don't frankly believe it's possible to "know" the degree of human influence due to the extremely complex range of potentially interrelated factors influencing climate. My own position over the past few years has been that of a persistent fence-sitter, looking for a preponderance of evidence to support one position or the other.

So far I have not been swayed firmly into either camp, but I find myself pulled slightly more strongly toward the AGW camp. This is largely due to the clear scientific majority opinion on the topic. While there is no way 97%, 98% or (!) 100% of "climate scientists" agree with AGW, it is certainly a strong majority (75-80% by my guestimate). In the world of Bayesian probability, which is to my mind the only valid one, this translates to a 75-80% probability that AGW is true.

Which of course also implies a 20-25% probability that AGW is false. In my view, anyway...

Wrong. 90% is overblown according to the American Chemical Society.

http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html

Temperature will determine how much water vapor diffuses into the atmosphere and not the other way around.

Athletics Illustrated wrote:

Nope. Seek and you will find. Calling everything lies is not providing anything to the debate.

Pointing out your lies does indeed add to the debate. It discredits your point of view. Try making claims that are actually true.

Athletics Illustrated wrote:

Now some scientists are calling for cooling.

Really? Name them. Or are you just spreading more lies?

Also keep in mind that the percentage of the general public that do/do not believe in AGW is irrelevant because the level of understanding that the public has of scientific principles is inadequate. It'd be like asking a cashier at the local dollar store for his/her opinion on the knowledge gained by sending rovers to Mars.

Athletics Illustrated wrote:

Lying is an intended deception. I am simply repeating what I am reading elsewhere. Very different.

So you are only spreading lies without meaning to do so. I forgive you.

I trust that you will now stop spreading those lies.

And now:

hmmmm? wrote:4. Do you expect climate change will result in catastrophic consequences to the world and/or humanity?

This one's a little easier for me to answer.

One thing I can predict with great confidence is that 99.99% of all predictions about the future will be wrong. Including this one...

We read a lot of doom and gloom predictions about the near certain catastrophic consequences of further warming. Will some of them happen? Hell, maybe... but if we can't even get the climate predictions right (or even particularly close), we certainly can't get the consequences predicted correctly. The 16 year "pause" we've been debating unfortunately throws cold water on the "climate scientist's" ability to make predictions.

One thing I am sure of, is that humanity is robust and ingenious and adaptable. Come what may, we will work to find ways to adapt. If sea levels rise, we will find a way to adapt. We even have a cool little case study of adaptation to (relative) sea level rise (actually, land subsidence) in a tourist town called Venice. The one in Italy of course...

Will there be other catastrophic consequences? I don't know... I hope not.

Not the greatest source, but one of many, ice-free arctic by 2013...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/17207-al-gore-forecasted-ice-free-arctic-by-2013-ice-cover-expands-50

Scroll down to Harvard. Correct he did not fail, but he was near the bottom and avoided math:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore

Revelle did not changed his general view, but is noted as saying that much of what he has said was misquoted and overstated.

It does come down to politics. The warm believers call anyone who doesn't accept warming, "Republicans" in the US and "Conservatives" in the rest of the world.

The those who don't accept the theory call those who do, left-leaning...now when (watch the YouTube vids) congress had Gore on the hot seat, he couldn't even answer some of the questions. It was sad.

Finally:

hmmmm? wrote:5. What should we do to limit the negative effects of climate change?

This question doesn't really grab me. Come back to me after we've solved:

- religious / ethnic hatred

- ethnic cleansing / genocide

- child soldiers

- mental illness

- poverty / hunger

- communicable disease

- exposure to natural disaster (volcanoes, tsunami, flooding, landslides, etc)

Climate change may have some (as yet to be determined) negative consequences in future, but these things are more pressing, real, immediate concerns. Given the choice, I would focus far more mental energy (and physical effort) trying to solve these things.

All that said, given a reasonable probability that human activity (and in particular carbon emissions) may lead to eventual negative consequences, then sure, let's work toward reducing emissions. This feels like a game that's lost at the outset, however.

Who has an interest in Goldman Sachs, and what is the greater meaning of that having that interest?

$200 million question.

I see you don't like lying. Nor do I. So you will agree with me that Mann and his team of scientists, when caught manipulating the data because there was no warming, were lying.

Thank you. You cannot deny the lie.

Athletics Illustrated wrote:

Scroll down to Harvard. Correct he did not fail, but he was near the bottom and avoided math:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore

He was in the bottom 1/5 of the class in his first 2 years. He graduated cm laude.

I think Gore is a douche, but the link you provide does not back up what you claim.

On a separate note, I love scanning these GW thread and reading mindless crap from Sally V.

I can't agree more with solving actual existing issues as you have listed. Well said.

Haha

Brilliant Brojo filter does not allow one to write the proper term.

OK Brojos, "come laude" is that better?

genuine random a hole wrote:

[quote]Athletics Illustrated wrote:

Scroll down to Harvard. Correct he did not fail, but he was near the bottom and avoided math:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore

On a separate note, I love scanning these GW thread and reading mindless crap from Sally V.

I take issue with that. Not really, but please point out anything I have said in this thread which is mindless, untrue or unsubstantiated. Thanks in advance.

So you don't like lying but are okay with lying about Gore's academic history. Cool bro.

Sally V wrote:

On a separate note, I love scanning these GW thread and reading mindless crap from Sally V.

I take issue with that. Not really, but please point out anything I have said in this thread which is mindless, untrue or unsubstantiated. Thanks in advance.[/quote]

Others have already done so. No need to duplicate their efforts. You are welcome.

hmmmm? wrote:

Here, let me frame some questions for you:

1. Do you believe climate is changing?

2. Do you believe the world is warming?

3. Do you agree climate change is influenced by anthropogenic activity?

4. Do you expect climate change will result in catastrophic consequences to the world and/or humanity?

5. What should we do to limit the negative effects of climate change?

This is actually a pretty good set of questions, so I'll play.

1. Yes. Long-term (200yr) trend is still up.

2. Yes. See #1.

3. Influenced? Yes. Major factor... no.

4. No

5. The biggest negative effects are wasting huge amounts of manpower, money, and international attention on a problem that might exist in the distant future. To remedy this, we should...

Cut funding to everything related to climate change, EXCEPT projects have a strong potential benefit to mankind regardless of future climate change. This would include cutting subsidies to all operational forms of alternative energy... solar, wind, and ethanol... especially ethanol, which is an outrageous waste of resources and only continues to exist because Iowa has the first presidential primary.

Redirect those climate change funds to alternative energy research only to find something a lot better than the current generation of wind and solar power. Spending money on alternative energy research is good business. Subsidizing inefficient businesses is just political pork and graft.

Direct any remaining funding to programs that can save lives today... fighting malaria, dysentery, hunger, dirty water, and so on.

Maybe I'm missing your point, but this argument is a false dichotomy. Addressing climate change vs other issues isn't necessarily a one or the other but not both issue. Further, at least the last three items in your list are plausibly correlated with climate change.

Citizen Runner wrote:Maybe I'm missing your point, but this argument is a false dichotomy. Addressing climate change vs other issues isn't necessarily a one or the other but not both issue.

You are missing my point and this is hardly a false dichotomy. In the imaginary world of unlimited resources, I suppose it is indeed a false dichotomy. Given the availability of limited resources (people, time, money, etc) in the real world, one needs to make decisions on prioritizing the allocation of those resources.

There are many different ways to decide how to allocate resources. I'm in favour of expending limited resources to obtain some "optimal" result with maximum benefit and maximum reduction in risk (or expected loss) for minimum expense. The road to finding the "optimum" balance can be a very interesting one. Interesting in the nerdy scientific sense anyway...

Also at play is the reality that people value immediate gain/loss much higher than future gain/loss (a bird in hand...), and regardless of the amount of rhetoric / propaganda on either side of the argument, and regardless of the actual truth of the AGW debate, you will never convince society (or more importantly industry) to value future climate health over current economic health. Hence my earlier statement that the game is lost at the outset...

fisky wrote:5. The biggest negative effects are wasting huge amounts of manpower, money, and international attention on a problem that might exist in the distant future.

I don't think this is true. Any industry is, well, industry. Whether the pursuit for cleaner energy is ultimately real or fruitless, the human energy expended looking for it is a pursuit in itself that generates real value in jobs, wealth and new science.