Mod+ 234. GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE AND OUR ILLUSION OF CONTROL

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Say Michael,

Did you not notice the new "quote" feature? It's pretty cool because it rolls up long articles so they don't eat up all the scroll space. Exercise of that function would be a courtesy to the readers -- especially those who may be using mobile devices.
 
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Concerning the 60 Minutes piece on "The Cleantech Crash":

60 Minutes Hit Job On Clean Energy Ignores the Facts
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/05/3120311/60-minutes-cleantech-hit-job/

Anatomy Of A Hit Job: Expert Featured on 60 Minutes Exposes How Show Knowingly Ignored Facts on Clean Energy
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/06/3125561/60-minutes-cleantech/

Govt Clean Energy Programs Are a Success Story: How 60 Minutes Missed the Mark
http://insideclimatenews.org/conten...-are-success-story-how-60-minutes-missed-mark

There are many more criticisms of this program.
 
I also remember 2000 (Y2K) and looming computer apocalypse which failed to happen.
That is incorrect. It didn't 'fail to happen'. What actually occurred was that companies around the world spent a huge amount on employing an army of analysts and programmers to modify the existing programs, files and databases in order to prevent any problems. What the world witnessed was a success, not a lack of failure.
 
That is incorrect. It didn't 'fail to happen'. What actually occurred was that companies around the world spent a huge amount on employing an army of analysts and programmers to modify the existing programs, files and databases in order to prevent any problems. What the world witnessed was a success, not a lack of failure.

Back then I was working in computer industry as programmer/analyst and was involved in a number of remediation projects. My opinion is that the computer dangers were overstated and there was a tie-in to millenial angst. But I am interested in how other perceive/experienced it.
 
Yes, these post is not the best of mine... Sounds too authoritative for a non-psychic like me. Sorry if I offended some actual psychics here - I didn't want to.

And, of course, ESP is not a "tool" in general sense. When I called it so, I meant precisely using ESP for some practical purpose - searching for missing people, for example. E.g., I meant exactly its verifiable, pragmatical aspect. Of course, there are much more to ESP beyond simple data-gathering - its personal and social aspects, its spiritual meaning - exactly what you call "a way of being".

But, I think, I still have a point - which was made not only by me, but by many mystics and magicians like Israel Regardie: spiritual and psychic experiences are mediated through one's personality and changed by it, so one should be careful not to confuse genuine transpersonal revelation with hidden egoic drives and wishes.

Michael Prescott had a good post about a similar topic recently:

Those gnarly Gnostics
Apology accepted.

There is something in what you say. You have to be careful who you're talking to and you also have to be careful what you're using it for. I believe if I used it for dishonest purposes I would lose the connection. My belief system incorporates the idea that everyone has a purpose. When I am asking questions which relate to my purpose I feel different and my access is clearer. When I'm asking questions not related to my purpose its a different matter. There is much more noise on the line. So when a researcher asks people to perform ''tricks" there's more noise on the line and more room for confusion.

As to our ontology, our conscious thoughts impact upon the nature of reality. I think the future is about the human race harnessing the power of intent through community. Its about responsibility and unity. Its about US not ME. Its not about our personal spiritual journey, is about our collective spiritual journey as a species. The core of this is understanding that we and the planet and all the life which lives here are connected. So I come here as I have said to build bridges.

I know your concerns. All my life I've heard the "God is on my siders." So what makes me any different? All I can say is that I don't knowingly tell lies and I don't believe I'm better than anyone else. And I believe being here is part of my purpose.
 
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Yada, yada, yada. We can all post articles supporting or refuting what we believe to be true. It gets us nowhere: the already convinced aren't going to change their views.

That’s a classic example of the anti-science mentality…if I choose not to believe it then it’s not objectively true. The fact that you assume that everyone operates at that level is a reflection of your own intransigence. The fact of the matter is, it does get us somewhere. All scientific advancement is predicated on hypothesis and argument; it’s endemic to the scientific process. Without it we would be “nowhere”. Similar to Alex throwing in the towel regarding preventing AGW, you also project a limited belief system. Fortunately for us, not everyone is conscripted with that same impotent mindset…which is a cause for optimism. Like the man said in the excellent video that Liberty posted: everyone needs to get involved.

You know what my views are and which I would pick, but don't listen to me.
I listen to you, Michael.

Do your own research and come to your own conclusions.
I’ve evaluated your arguments and found them all to be without scientific merit as previously dissected throughout this forum.

And remember that parachutists drop in here on the sceptical side of psi issues, too.
I think I see what you’re trying to say.
 
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Back then I was working in computer industry as programmer/analyst and was involved in a number of remediation projects. My opinion is that the computer dangers were overstated and there was a tie-in to millenial angst. But I am interested in how other perceive/experienced it.

Wikipedia has an entry about the Y2K problem that offers both opposing as well as supporting views on the possibility of whether or not the dangers were overstated. Among the items in the opposing view list, this one caught my eye:

Opposing view
The absence of Y2K-related problems occurring before 1 January 2000, even though the 2000 financial year commenced in 1999 in many jurisdictions, and a wide range of forward-looking calculations involved dates in 2000 and later years. Estimates undertaken in the leadup to 2000 suggested that around 25% of all problems should have occurred before 2000.[50] Critics of large-scale remediation argued, during 1999, that the absence of significant problems, even in systems that had not been rendered compliant, suggested that the scale of the problem had been severely overestimated.


(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Opposing_view)

Doug
 
Wikipedia has an entry about the Y2K problem that offers both opposing as well as supporting views on the possibility of whether or not the dangers were overstated. Among the items in the opposing view list, this one caught my eye:

Opposing view
The absence of Y2K-related problems occurring before 1 January 2000, even though the 2000 financial year commenced in 1999 in many jurisdictions, and a wide range of forward-looking calculations involved dates in 2000 and later years. Estimates undertaken in the leadup to 2000 suggested that around 25% of all problems should have occurred before 2000.[50] Critics of large-scale remediation argued, during 1999, that the absence of significant problems, even in systems that had not been rendered compliant, suggested that the scale of the problem had been severely overestimated.


(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Opposing_view)

Doug
Some of the examples in the Wikipedia article refer to such things as small businesses and schools, which were unlikely to have been running software designed or written in the 1960s which was certainly the case for some larger establishments.

It's a complex topic. If an issue had the potential to arise before the year 2000, it might have been quietly noted and fixed either as it occurred, or as part of some other project, which would be normal practice for any error, whether Y2K related or not. Some business requirements certainly require looking ahead to future dates, others involve looking back to dates in the past, not every system would necessarily fail precisely at the moment the year changed, some problems might not show up until months or years into the new millennium.

Also the term "rendered compliant" can be taken to mean different things. In some cases it merely meant providing documentary evidence that the system was compliant, in others it could involve extensive changes. It's certainly true that some computer systems would have continued without problem even if no changes were made. And it's equally true that many would have failed. But in a high-profile business even a minor failure could mean systems being unavailable, with potentially devastating consequences. Certainly no large company would want to make news headlines for even the smallest failure, as it could be interpreted as the tip of the iceberg, and it would make business sense to avoid such publicity.
 
But UNLIKE potential global warming, we didn't have these acrid and unnatural divisions. Nowadays, before we can even propose a talk about a possible non-alarmist solution, one side of the debate attempts to literally de-humanize the other side, accusing us of totalitarianism, Malthusianism and God knows what else. Doug -- I'm a real human being, with a past, and a real conscience, and a couple daughters to leave behind. I don't want to see anybody die - ever. Not Americans, not Chulos, not Muslims - not even elderly Brits. And we don't want control - we want cohesion, against a common enemy of ignorance and exclusion.

When I wrote "supporters" in my third post of quotations, I was referring to academic, government and media supporters of leading environmentalists, not you or any other Skeptiko forum proponents of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. I thought I made that clear in my previous two posts, where I did specify the groups I had in mind.

And for what it's worth, almost all my friends are leftists to one degree or another, who support the CAGW viewpoint. I don't know how I was blessed with so many leftist friends, since there are few points of agreement in our occasional political/economic/climate discussions. Even so, I love them and they love me. We voice our opinions, argue over them often, and move on to other topics in which we share a common interest and viewpoint. I thought that's what I was doing here.

Doug
 
I don't know how I was blessed with so many leftist friends, since there are few points of agreement in our occasional political/economic/climate discussions.
It's because you're such a likeable guy, Doug - even though you're completely wrong about this*! :D (*joke) Here's another "leftist" (OK, more like center-leftist) guy who considers you a friend!
 
Some of the examples in the Wikipedia article refer to such things as small businesses and schools, which were unlikely to have been running software designed or written in the 1960s which was certainly the case for some larger establishments...

Yeah. I was in IT until 1993 when many commercial applications were in COBOL (some still are even now), and historically, to save space for dates on files, years were stored as 2 rather than 4 digits. Hence for 1964, 64 was stored; and for 1983, 83, etc. The problem would come when the year was 2000 or above. The year stored would be 00, then 01, 02, and so forth, which would be treated as 1900, 1901, 1902, etc.

As has been mentioned, not all programs relying on years (some didn't) would have stored the years on file as two digits: some would already have used the full four digits, particularly where forward calculations were required. For instance, someone might have taken out a 25-year mortgage in 1990, with a pay-off date of 2015. Programs like that would probably have already expected 4 digits for the year.

That said, it would certainly be important that the issue was dealt with in anticipation of the year 2000 and beyond, especially for sizeable commercial organisations. It would require changing file descriptions so that 4 digits could be stored, and changing all the programs that accessed relevant files so that they would process 4 rather than 2 digits.

Typically, sizeable organisations would have so-called "suites" of programs. For instance, in local government, there might be a suite or set of programs to calculate and bill monthly rents or utility rates or whatever. My guess is that before 2000, altered test files and program suites would be constructed and thoroughly tested. I can imagine that taking up to one man-month per suite for at least one programmer. Since programmers worked in teams lead by project leaders, there would be 4-6 programmers per team and maybe a number of suites per team. As a rough guess, allow up to maybe 12 man-months per team: they'd be working in parallel, so the elapsed time wouldn't necessarily be cumulative: could be as short as a few months. The teams would be doing this on top of ongoing maintenance of the running of the old suites, so that probably involved extra payments for overtime, or some organisations might have hired contract programmers to supplement in-house staff.

Some suites or systems would likely be bought-in, and many organisations would use them: so it would be up to the developer to amend their systems in preparation for Y2K, so there wouldn't be duplication of effort across many organisations for those.

No doubt, it was extra expense for organisations, but I always thought it was over-hyped. We were certainly talking about the Y2K issue back in the early 80's, but it wasn't seen as the end of the world: maintenance and development teams often have to implement new systems or amendments to existing ones, sometimes involving considerably more complexity. It would be a bit of a pain, but nothing that they hadn't seen before.

The problem came when the MSM got hold of the idea and blew it out of all proportion. Certainly, had no one done anything, there would have been a lot of issues, but that was never going to happen: no sizeable organisation would have countenanced it. They wouldn't have left it to the last minute, either: I'm sure that there would have been target dates for testing of amended suites that came appreciably before the turn of the millennium, so that it was just a matter of implementing the tested suites and files at the turn.

The main commonality with the CO2 issue is that the MSM always focusses on disaster scenarios: that's what sells papers. What's different is that, in practice, the climate system isn't at all like commercial computer systems, which latter are known in complete detail. No one actually knows all the factors that operate in the climate system, and even where factors are known, it isn't understood how they interact, or how to model them properly. The models, as even the IPCC has had to admit recently (albeit sotto voce), have consistently been overestimating the climate feedback effects of anthropogenic CO2: the projected rises in average global temperatures for a doubling of CO2 (the climate sensitivity to CO2) are too large.

An important issue is that the models don't deal with clouds properly, assuming that they constitute a positive rather than negative feedback. It's important because a change in cloud cover of only a couple of percent can have appreciable effects on the earth's albedo, i.e. the amount of solar radiation getting reflected back into space before it ever hits the ground to be re-radiated.

It's entirely possible that a proportion of the observed rise in average global temperatures since 1860 is due to a small percentage change in cloud cover, and that could in part be related to variations in the amount of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere: there's increasing evidence that cosmic rays can have a part to play in cloud formation. This is the idea of Henrik Svensmark, whose hypothesis has been tested at CERN, which has verified that cosmic rays can have some effect on cloud formation. El ninos (natural phenomena) may also have an effect on cloud formation. There is much debate in this area at the moment, but the key point is, clouds are poorly understood and the models make assumptions about their effects that don't jibe with the empirical observations.

It's impossible to have rational discussions about these sorts of things because it's been pre-decided that we already KNOW that CO2 is a bad thing. it MUST be so, and anyone begging to differ must be a swivel-eyed holocaust denier who eats children for breakfast, cashes monthly paychecks from big oil, is a right-wing nutjob, and so on.
 
It's because you're such a likeable guy, Doug - even though you're completely wrong about this*! :D (*joke) Here's another "leftist" (OK, more like center-leftist) guy who considers you a friend!

Thanks Ian. You know, I was tempted to put [blessed] in quotes. ;)

BTW, if you'd like a quick and dirty way to find out where you stand politically, you can take this quiz:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/
(Scroll to the bottom of the page to start.)

My results:
Economic Left/Right: 9.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.64

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=9.75&soc=-7.64

I'll bet that with one or two exceptions, I'm all alone in the bottom right corner.

Doug
 
This is me:

Economic Left/Right: -2.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.46


pcgraphpng.php


For comparison:
axeswithnames.gif


And yet we seem to get on so well, Doug! :)
 
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When I wrote "supporters" in my third post of quotations, I was referring to academic, government and media supporters of leading environmentalists, not you or any other Skeptiko forum proponents of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. I thought I made that clear in my previous two posts, where I did specify the groups I had in mind.
Misunderstandings are to be expected because we are on opposite sides. We stereotype our opponents - then get pissed off when our opponents stereotype us. Our fight is surrounded by incomplete info and wrong assumptions and (often) deliberate misinformation. Do you remember that quote from Lovelock, the one on your list ? Here:
“I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”
-- James Lovelock, scientist, environmentalist and creator of the "Gaia hypothesis"
That quote would rightly allow you to stereotype Lovelock, and any of his supporters (and i am a moral supporter of him) as fundamentalist lunatics. But listen to some other of his quotes:
If we had some really good scientists it wouldn't be a problem, but we've got so many dumbos who just can't say anything, or who are afraid to say anything. They're not free agents.
If wind turbines really worked, I wouldn't object to them.
A common energy policy across Europe is not a good idea.
I don't know enough about carbon trading, but I suspect that it is basically a scam. The whole thing is not very sensible.
He had this to say about climate modeling:
I remember when the Americans sent up a satellite to measure ozone and it started saying that a hole was developing over the South Pole. But the damn fool scientists were so mad on the models that they said the satellite must have a fault.

If you make a model, after a while you get suckered into it. You begin to forget that it's a model and think of it as the real world. You really start to believe it.
On the stolen/hacked e-mails:
I was utterly disgusted.
Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards.
I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked,or incompetently done.

You can see the whole transcript here:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
 
Thanks Ian. You know, I was tempted to put [blessed] in quotes. ;)

BTW, if you'd like a quick and dirty way to find out where you stand politically, you can take this quiz:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/
(Scroll to the bottom of the page to start.)

My results:
Economic Left/Right: 9.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.64

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=9.75&soc=-7.64

I'll bet that with one or two exceptions, I'm all alone in the bottom right corner.

Doug
I have done the compass Doug and posted on the new thread. We have at least one dimension in common. So you see, we have found a bridge. You know I home schooled my children for 12 years because I wouldn't trust them to the State. My daughter went from home-schooled directly to uni. My son went in to a state school at age 13 (his choice). That was a disaster so we shifted him to a private school. Apparently that may reflect my libertarian streak. But its a leftish libertarian streak...:)
 
…where factors[climate] are known, it isn't understood how they interact, or how to model them properly.

That's a false statement and is climate myth #6 in terms of popularity at the Skeptical Science website. Below are comparative plots for modeled and actual temperature variation:

IPCC_model_vs_obs.gif


There're other models vs. prediction graphs shown on that page which also show close agreement. In fact, the model for sea ice extent underestimated the amount of ice that's vanished as can be seen in the graph towards the bottom on the page.

The models, as even the IPCC has had to admit recently (albeit sotto voce), have consistently been overestimating the climate feedback effects of anthropogenic CO2: the projected rises in average global temperatures for a doubling of CO2 (the climate sensitivity to CO2) are too large.

A new study published in Nature indicates just the opposite. From Eurekalert:

Global average temperatures will rise at least 4°C by 2100 and potentially more than 8°C by 2200 if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced according to new research published in Nature. Scientists found global climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide than most previous estimates....

“...the level of climate sensitivity is far higher. Previously, estimates of the sensitivity of global temperature to a doubling of carbon dioxide ranged from 1.5°C to 5°C. This new research takes away the lower end of climate sensitivity estimates, meaning that global average temperatures will increase by 3°C to 5°C with a doubling of carbon dioxide."

“Climate sceptics like to criticize climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit they are not perfect, but what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by those models which predict less warming, not those that predict more,” said Prof. Sherwood.

“Rises in global average temperatures of this magnitude will have profound impacts on the world and the economies of many countries if we don’t urgently start to curb our emissions."

Climate Sensitivity to CO2 shown to be Higher than Previous Estimates

Climate change models underestimate likely temperature rise, report shows
 
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Ian, you might be very surprized that I rated this little humble post of yours as "best"... ;) But, in a few words, you summarized the very essence of the problem which is described in my long promomtions of scientific method and anti-censorship discourse in the area of controversial topics. Because, being very short, my idea is this: if we want to do real science, we should analyse the evidence - not the political links and affilations, sources of funding, cultural consensus and social policy-making.

This thread - as well as other CAGW-related threads before - sadly demonstrate how easily people move from discussing the data to inquiring who funded whom, and then condemning the ones who (possibly) had funding from Bad Sources (the degree of "badness" is determined according to the political sympathies and antipathies of particular poster).

This is what is really scary - the modern mainstream science is quite ready to put politics, economics and dominant culture before evidence, logic and mathematics.

The Journal of Scientific Exploration had good articles about this state of events. This one, by Daniel Deming, analyses it in relation with climate change debates; another one, by Henry Bauer, in relation with science in general.

As for me, politics is a tragicomical enterprise that can be studied only with a good dose of humor and irony; otherwise you'll soon become deeply depressed and with a strongly shaken faith in humanity. Timothy Leary summarized the problem neatly: “The only intelligent way to discuss politics is on all fours, since it all comes down to territorial brawling in the end”.

Debates on the politics of climate change research may be used as a perfect illustration for this Leary's quote. :mad:

Agreed... thx for this great post. This show was about the illusion of control (interesting that hardly anyone commented on this topic... and it was the main point of the show) and the intersection of science and policy (very few posts on this as well). I steered clear of charts, and ice melting stats and all the rest of that (although my guests didn't). I just stuck to the part the we all agree on -- no global warming in the last 16 years. and I linked that to the obvious conclusion -- the climate models that predicted otherwise failed. This is very basic logic... even my guests had to agree with this conclusion.

Also, the whole Climategate thing just amazes me (then again not... I've done Skeptiko for 7 years). How anyone can read emails where scientists (not politicians, or environmental advocates, but scientists) advise each other on how to cook the books and avoid FOI requests... how anyone can read that and not see wrongdoing is beyond my comprehension. Oh, but wait, Mayor Quimby convened a blue-ribbon panel to investigate and they said it was ok.
 
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