Political & Elections

catahoula · Guru

RE: Climate Change scientist: halt economic growth in rich countries

catahoula · Guru

Hindoo:

You know I love you but that "toxic gases" argument is giving me the "deja vu all over again" creeps and putting me in the mood to share:

"polychlorinated biphenols"... "dioxin"... "all-sorts-of-bad-crap"... all those things that, until the Gorebot and Hansen spent all those late nights together polishing their respective ambitions, have never had anything in common with CO2 and still don't.

-- Edited by catahoula on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 05:19:53 PM

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

A scientist says there was evidence of global warming in 1988, and the same scientist says there is a lot more evidence now. That is a disconfirmation of global warming how?

Hindoo · Senior Member

The thing with global warming ... with smart people arguing on opposite sides of the discussion, who knows for sure? But, really, shouldn't we be erring on the side of caution (just in case), and taking care of the wonderful home that God allegedly gave us? What's this argument about? Whether we can do as we pretty much please, devil be damned, and that a gazillion tons of toxic gases spewed into the atmosphere won't have any short- or long-term affect? (Or, is it "effect?") If there's even a nano-fragment of a question regarding this, wouldn't it be wise to be extra cautious? Inquiring minds want to know.

-- Edited by Hindoo on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 04:35:31 PM

catahoula · Guru

When you talk about ignoring 20 years of their claims, which they do you say has been making claims about global climate change for 20 years?
Hansen, for one, in his '88 congressional dog&pony. The one where they set the scene:

Sen. TIMOTHY WIRTH (D-CO), 1987-1993: We knew there was this scientist at NASA, you know, who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it. So we called him up and asked him if he would testify.
DEBORAH AMOS: On Capitol Hill, Sen. Timothy Wirth was one of the few politicians already concerned about global warming, and he was not above using a little stagecraft for Hansen’s testimony.
TIMOTHY WIRTH: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.
DEBORAH AMOS: [on camera] Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day?
TIMOTHY WIRTH: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.[Shot of witnesses at hearing]
WIRTH: Dr. Hansen, if you’d start us off, we’d appreciate it. The wonderful Jim Hansen was wiping his brow at the table at the hearing, at the witness table, and giving this remarkable testimony.[nice shot of a sweaty Hansen]

JAMES HANSEN: [June 1988 Senate hearing] Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements. Number two, the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe, with a high degree of confidence, a cause-and-effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.

-- Edited by catahoula on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 04:12:42 PM

Hindoo · Senior Member

"Young Frankenstein" is one of my favorite movies of all time, Bullet!

"Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys! I'm talking about the central nervous system!"

Bullet · Senior Member

Gosh, hindoo. Here I am quoting Young Frankenstien and you go and save your praise for the for the quotes you find energetic and erudite.

And I think you wouldn't be able to take Woody's SUV alive. In fact, I think he would just throw your Forester into the environmentally controlled (and set on freezing just to waste the extra gas in defiance of all you hippies) and exorbitantly roomy cargo area of his SUV, drive it over to the pier, and dump your Forester over the side.

And on the way home, He'd pick up a half ton load of compost and tomatoes to put in his garden. biggrin

-- Edited by Bullet on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 03:50:26 PM

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Would this be the board's mission statement: "Unfettered indulgence, while avoiding looming catastrophes for Drunkards and Fornicators"? evileye

I am pretty sure that Hindoo's Subaru is actually the leading cause of climate change in the last decade. ;)

Hindoo · Senior Member

Oh, man, I'm loving this board ... and, this thread. Where else could one have such an energetic, erudite, politically charged conversation--using terms like "unfettered indulgence," "price negative externalities," "looming catastrophe," "environmental socialism," "polar bear scientist," "deadbeat dad," "thermo-logical math, "drunkenness and fornication," "Marxist," and "ignoramus"--without getting into a cyber fist-fite? I'm impressed beyond all reason. :)

For the record, I believe that mankind is slowly but surely destroying the planet. We're greedy and wasteful, and Woody's SUV should be thrown into the slammer for violations against nature. My old '98 Subaru Forester hippy-mobile is guiltless.

nbachris2788 · Senior Member

Cuse0507 wrote:

How about we halt economic growth in China and India?

Wouldn't stunting two of the most rapidly-growing capitalist economies in the world count as extreme socialism and a gross redistribution of wealth?

Or does it only count as socialism when "our" stuff is given to "them"?

-- Edited by nbachris2788 on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 03:36:44 PM

catahoula · Guru

More people believing a falsehood doesn't make it true.
Which begs the question of why that bogus "99% of scientist 'believe' in... something" figure is carried around on a stick so often.

I'm afraid we are in "Tinkerbell" land, Cardinal. The fact we're still arguing about an issue (AGW) promoted by self-interested groups with no credible evidence other than a looong term warming trend and a rise in CO2 concentrations that won't plot with it, strikes me as a Disney movie given life.

nbachris2788 · Senior Member

pmrlcomm wrote:

They still can't tell me definitively whether it's going to rain, snow or be sunny tomorrow... Yes, I'm a skeptic and proud of it.

You're getting climate and weather mixed up. What you're talking about is our inability to predict weather. Our ability to study and record climate, which can probably be described as aggregate weather, is better.

You're not so much a skeptic as a person who is fundamentally confused.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

I'm at a loss to determine the point of your graph, Catahoula. More people believing a falsehood doesn't make it true. We're not talking about Tinkerbell here.

When you talk about ignoring 20 years of their claims, which they do you say has been making claims about global climate change for 20 years?

-- Edited by Cardinal Fang on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 03:20:46 PM

pmrlcomm · Senior Member

If you seriously think that scientific consensus is about blind faith, you might as well not trust your doctor's advice.

I just thought it was humorous that he didn't have any reasoning for the unexpected cooling. I don't doubt that there is warming and cooling happening...just that we are the major cause of it. It's been hotter in history and it's been colder. What were the reasons then? I certainly don't know and I don't think anyone else does either...

catahoula · Guru

Well, the St. Thomas guy led off with GISS so I'd say he feels extremely good about trusting James Hansen, unbiased researcher that he is. Not the most defensible stand to take, but I suppose when you're picking teams, you might as well go with the one that has all the money.

The world has gotten warmer, just like they said
No, one has to ignore the last 20 or so years of their claims to believe that.

Artic ice is melting, just like they said
Acrtic ice melts every summer. Like the temp rise claims, their various predictions as to Arctic minimums also suck.

... now we have a Northwest Passage.
One different from the previous ones?

Sea levels are rising, just like they said.
That is a truly remarkable statement, lol.

Normally when someone makes a prediction based on a theory, and that prediction comes through, we regard that as tending to confirm the theory.
Again - lol.

Yep, much has occurred over the last six year, allright but little of it seems to have been beneficial to the fortunes of the church. It almost brings a tear to my eye, seriously. I mean, how can a movement led by the self-anointed ones and generously watered by the government with billions in contributions actually lose followers?

Cuse0507 · Veteran Member

How about we halt economic growth in China and India?

Wildwood · In exile

I asked him what he thought this meant but he didn't have a theory but he was still sure the climate was warming and we were the cause. It's like a religion. Blind faith baby.

Please see long-term ocean temperature trend. A couple of years in which the measurements show a cooling, is not a refutation of global warming.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/cooling-oceans.htm

If you seriously think that scientific consensus is about blind faith, you might as well not trust your doctor's advice.

-- Edited by Wildwood on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 02:14:19 PM

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

I don't know why conservatives don't propose Pigovian taxes on carbon anymore. It used to be that the conservative, free-market position on how to price negative externalities (like using gasoline, coal and other carbon-emitting energy sources) would be to price the externality with a tax. We should tax the things we want less of (like gasoline use) instead of the things we want more of (like work).

pmrlcomm · Senior Member

Aren't there some of these scientists the ones that were screaming Ice Age back in the 70's? Really, are we arrogant enough to think we have this whole climate thing figured out? They still can't tell me definitively whether it's going to rain, snow or be sunny tomorrow... Yes, I'm a skeptic and proud of it.

As an aside, I do recall having a conversation with a NASA scientist overseeing the monitoring of buoys collecting ocean temperature data. I point blank asked him if there was global warming. Yes. I asked him if it was caused by humans. Yes. I asked him what his data was showing. He said that they were surprised that the warming wasn't happening faster and that there was an unexplained cool down in the ocean temperatures. I asked him what he thought this meant but he didn't have a theory but he was still sure the climate was warming and we were the cause. It's like a religion. Blind faith baby.

Woodwork · Senior Member

The prediction is that temperatures would get unseasonably warmer; the theory is that my SUV is causing it.

Both me and my SUV dispute this clearly unfounded accusation. We are, I insist, innocent of anything beyond an occasional slow-n-go at stop signs. I blame something else for this looming catastrophe…maybe even a few things. One of them is my mother-in-law who insists on turning up our thermostat every time she stays at our house (approximately 2 months a year…so you do the thermo logical math). I have to step out on the porch every once and awhile to cool down. You want a cause for temperatures actually rising in North Jersey and thus, I suppose, the universe, there it is. Although, I should add that she is an otherwise very good woman and cook, expert at raising daughters.

Bullet · Senior Member

Hey, the word boob-tube isn't forbotten, but ****ateel is? Who'da thunk it?

Bullet · Senior Member

I think most can agree there is a problem with climate change, and that human activity is a large contributor to the issue. What many people disagree with are the methods being proposed to deal with the situation, which usually center on sacrifice and penalties for advanced countries (well, most at least. Seems like China and India are exempt form any penalties when it comes time to discuss them) in order to support develping countries. A so called "global warmig socialism" method to counter the problem.

Two problems with this paradigm however:

1) Getting the "developed" countries to agree to collective sacrifice. Hate to burst your bubble, but most people, while talking the good talk, will balk at walking the good walk. Try telling most Americans (or most of the civilized world for that matter): "Sorry, you need to turn off your boob-tubes after 8:00PM, and turn off your lights by 8:30" or "Sorry, you aren't ALLOWED to drive your cars on the weekends" and I'm sure you'll just get lines and lines of people just waiting to sing your praises (just after they show up at your front door with pitch forks, burn you in effigy, and trash your house. Or, like that classic scene in Young Frankenstein: "A roit is an ugly thing. And it is about time we had one!").

It also goes against about 10000 years of human nature and evolution. "Hey, let's go BACK in time and live like it 1899! Yeah, great idea!" Sorry, mankind wants to keep making their situation better, and calls to make them worse for "the greater good" or usually met with scorn and ridicule.

Sacrifice: pretty words. Not so much support for actually doing it however.

2) Getting people to pay "penalties" for excessive use of carbon emmiting energy needs. May be easier to enforce, but again, you risk the riots onyour front door. Most likely a non-starter to the discussion.

May sound cruel, may sound heart-less, but how about shifting the arguement? Who says we have to let the underdevelop countries catch up to us? Why not keep them living at the standards they are now? It would keep that growing demand for carbon emmiting fossil fuels and coal down, wouldn't it? How about THEY sacrifice instead?

Of course, I'm being sarcastic and I'm joking with my above paragraph. But do you see my point? You've asked for sacrifice, and getting people to agree to it is the real battle. Short-sigthed? Perhaps. But it is the real issue here, and not an stubborn attempt to ignore what most would beleive is obvious. Labeling those who disagree with you as "Global-Warming Deniers" and "anti-science" doesn't help you win folks to your side of the arguement either.

Heck, I WANT a better world for my children and their children and theirs (and so on); do I want to also punish them for generations to come to achieve "carbon emmision" justice / equality in some method that most will view as politically correct environmental socialism?

I might. Most would not......

-- Edited by Bullet on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 01:21:39 PM

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

I can't imagine what's happened in the 6 or so years since that was penned

The world has gotten warmer, just like they said-- 2010 will be the warmest year on record. Artic ice is melting, just like they said, and now we have a Northwest Passage. Sea levels are rising, just like they said.

Normally when someone makes a prediction based on a theory, and that prediction comes through, we regard that as tending to confirm the theory.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/

Go to slide 125. It has a listing of many major scientific organizations that have come out with statements on the threat of climate change: NASA, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), National Academy of Sciences, National Center for Atmospheric Research, American Meteorolical Society, the EPA, National Academy of Engineering, National Weather Service, World Glacier Monitoring Society, Lawrence Livermore Lab. That's just a partial list.

And yet, you global warming skeptics are asking us to believe that there's some conspiracy involving 99% of the scientists in the world? Come on. Why? Why would some polar bear scientist in Canada be conspiring with a meteorologist in Australia?

-- Edited by Cardinal Fang on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 12:58:33 PM

catahoula · Guru

I can't imagine what's happened in the 6 or so years since that was penned but I can clearly see that you refuse to stoop to using IPCC "Climate Scientist" weasel words such as "most" or "likely", Wildwood.

And, that rather than put forth the proof they haven't yet managed to conjure up (which would be a neat trick, indeed), you're simply making an appeal to authority.

Unfortunately, your authority figure resembles a deadbeat dad more than anything else these days.

Wildwood · In exile

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: “Human activities … are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents … that absorb or scatter radiant energy. … [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise” [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: “The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue” [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

catahoula · Guru

The world is warming because of humans and our use of carbon-based energy sources such as gasoline, coal and wood. That is the overwhelming scientific consensus, and only scientific ignoramuses believe otherwise.
Feel free to post the voluminous links that support these claims.

Woodwork, there is nothing Marxist (or poetic) about the arguments put forth by climate scientists who warn of the physical consequences of a warming planet.
Given they glommed on early to the fact the biggest exaggerations get the most press, they more resemble ad guys, true.

Wildwood · In exile

I'm not opposed to Nuclear power. It is less desirable than other sources of energy because of the radioactive by-product but it is a preferable option for solving the more immediate (within a century) problem. But in the short run that is only one of many policies needed to change the course of global emissions. Transitioning to zero-emission cars, finding a solution to cows' methane emissions, cutting down on the energy being consumed now in our daily lives, while all those alternative power plants (including, but not limited to nuclear) are being built is essential. And some of this requires societal sacrifice, in the form of higher prices, or changing habits to consume less.

-- Edited by Wildwood on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 11:59:55 AM

FFF · Veteran Member

Cardinal Fang wrote:

Woodwork, you're changing the subject. The world is warming because of humans and our use of carbon-based energy sources such as gasoline, coal and wood. That is the overwhelming scientific consensus, and only scientific ignoramuses believe otherwise.

Wow! Its amazing how many universities and research organizations employ scientific ignoramuses.

Bullet · Senior Member

Wildwood, would you accept a Nuclear power plant in your neighborhood in order to reduce your area's reliance on fossil fuels, which seems to be the biggest contributor to the carbon emmissions causing global warming? If the issue is reducing these emissions through drastic measures, why not use technology that elimantes them altogther?

-- Edited by Bullet on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 11:34:43 AM

geeps20 · Senior Member

There is no money to be made on models that show little effect on man made global warming...always follow the money trail.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Woodwork, you're changing the subject. The world is warming because of humans and our use of carbon-based energy sources such as gasoline, coal and wood. That is the overwhelming scientific consensus, and only scientific ignoramuses believe otherwise.

What to do about it is another story. There, we can have disagreement. It's complicated. But it's folly to deny anthropogenic global warming because you don't want to face up to its consequences, whatever they may turn out to be.

Wildwood · In exile

Woodwork, there is nothing Marxist (or poetic) about the arguments put forth by climate scientists who warn of the physical consequences of a warming planet. The prescriptions for slowing or halting the process, may seem socialistic to you because they are about sacrificing (or at least changing) standards of living for the greater good. I suppose if you think that the ever-greater consumption by advanced societies is directly linked to capitalism, then it's logical that you assume that anything that suggests limiting unfettered indulgence smacks of socialism.

For most people around the world there is not such a dichotomy.

Woodwork · Senior Member

If, in the future, those that believe in anthropogenic global warming are able to avoid sermonizing on their preferred subject in religious or lecturing in Marxist terms I, for one, would be able to take their dire warnings seriously enough to listen with the parishioner’s ear, as is now di rigueur.

As it is, the arguments made continue to wax & plaster poetic with apocalyptic doom today and class retribution tomorrow.

Throughout modern times every generation has come to adamantly believes that the world will come to no good due to the scurrilous sins of their neighbors. Whereas, once upon a time fornication and drunkenness was the scourge of the earth, consumption and consumerism are now the sins du jour: and they will be the death of us, yet again!

Hot times ahead.

Abyss · Senior Member

Cardinal Fang wrote:

We wouldn't want to put on sweaters, would we? Who cares about Bangladesh being underwater?

'Course, the problem with that is climate refugees. And drought in what used to be wonderful farmland in the US.

I wonder if there is this lightly populated country directly north of us that could be annexed.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

We wouldn't want to put on sweaters, would we? Who cares about Bangladesh being underwater?

'Course, the problem with that is climate refugees. And drought in what used to be wonderful farmland in the US.

soccerguy315 · Guru

see how he nicely argues that rolling blackouts do not mean and not using your heat does not mean you will be experiencing a worse lifestyle

good luck with that

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In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars.

This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down, turn off the lights and replace old electrical goods like huge fridges with more efficient models. Food that has travelled from abroad may be limited and goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.

Prof Anderson insisted that halting growth in the rich world does not necessarily mean a recession or a worse lifestyle, it just means making adjustments in everyday life such as using public transport and wearing a sweater rather than turning on the heating.

-----------------

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/8165769/Cancun-climate-change-summit-scientists-call-for-rationing-in-developed-world.html