Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

C1ue -

<< scientists are incentivized by 2 things: critical acclaim and money. >>

We've been through this in great detail, and I think it was debunked, and covered much of your other points as well, on another thread. You can check a detailed list of my own observations of the merits of these obections there. To my mind all your observations are either near term or of the nitpicking variety.

Why do I say "nitpicking"? Because A) the 400,000 year charts discussed there were not "computer models" they were data collected from ice cores all the way back ( so maybe you did not read the thread fully? ) and B) because even if those data sets are vastly inaccurate, when you dial out to a half million years, you can catch the "general drift" of the shifts without too much nitpicking being required.

This is a very, very, very long data set, and it is not a computer model, it implies no particularly sophisticated interpolations whatsoever - it merely notes the present CO2 is one full standard deviation outside half million year trends. You are an engineer of some sort by training, right? If so you've employed highly pragmatic methods for sorting and assigning weight to data as a methodology, and may recognize what I'm referring to here?

Will you therefore distinguish here, that there is "junior data" or "subordinated data" and there is "senior data". A clearly discernible, that's an understatment - a very emphatically discernible anomaly in CO2 relative to half million year hard data trumps every one of your objections by a country mile, as far as opening a serious inquiry whether the CO2 today is in an aberrant range which is overwhelmingly sufficient cause for serious investigation.

You are whiling away your time on the objections, making notes about events in the past century or two. You might try a little pragmatic weeding out of essential criteria here C1ue - any anomaly that stands out massively on a half million year chart is gargantuan on smaller time scales. Your scientific training should bring you to acknowledge this is an issue you would best not simply summarily dismiss, for the sake of your own children, if nothing else.

[c1ue]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

What are the statistical odds of an exceedingly high CO2 anomaly being precisely overlaid onto this global industrialisation in time frame - when either of these two events could have otherwise occurred spaced even just a single thousand years apart (or also tens or even hundreds of thousands of years apart!)?

Lukester,

You're pointing out the exact source of my cynicism: unlike the '10,000 year' events of a quant, "real" statistical analysis requires a comprehensive understanding and relative weighting of all possible factors over a statistically relevant time frame. Lack of or distortion of any of these renders results irrelevant.

CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas, nor are greenhouse gases the only method by which global warming/cooling can occur.

I've mentioned methane, also solar energy output. Other possible causes: earth's axis of tilt relative to the sun, the moon's distance from earth, earth's magnetic pole (has changes several times), Krakatoa type volcanoes, 'dinosaur killer' asteroid impacts, and the list goes on.

The whole list is tremendous - which is why I like to see how computer models work on proven outlying events from the past.

If the models don't show something like the Middle Ages ice age, then I have great difficulty placing faith in them.

Similarly Krakatoa in 1883 and Tambora in 1815 seem to coincide with global cooling - but there is a lack of data correlating the SO2 release from these past events with something like Pinatubo in 1991 (22M tons).

In contrast CO2 release in 2005 was around 7.8B tons - but of course CO2 and SO2 have different effects on planetary albedo.

The short of it is that I want to see better explanation of past behavior from the models before I can believe in future predictions.

As for the incentive - scientists are incentivized by 2 things: critical acclaim and money.

Global warming is very much in the forefront in both areas.

In fact, having Gore as the global warming spokeperson is itself a negative sign to me - any politician involved in what should be a fact discovery is bad.

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

GRG55 -

All kidding aside.

I'm really agnostic as to rising sea levels. I only know that CO2 levels are at a very striking, thought provokingly high anomaly point of 370 PPM, and it must be noted that anyone could spot that anomaly on those very long charts, because even 300 PPM is already far outside the topmost readings of four glacial and interglacial ages spanning a half million years. That anomalous data is jumping right off the chart.

So if the CO2 data is showing a very large anomaly right smack at the tail end of our exceedingly brief human history (5000 years), precisely overlaying our industrialisation, which itself has only occupied a tiny fragment of the past mere 1000 years, it begs the question "what are the statistical odds of that coincidence?

What are the statistical odds of an exceedingly high CO2 anomaly being precisely overlaid onto this global industrialisation in time frame - when either of these two events could have otherwise occurred spaced even just a single thousand years apart (or also tens or even hundreds of thousands of years apart!)? These two events have found each other wth pin-point overlap out of a 400,000 year span of time, and it's mere coincidence?

A rational inquiring, agnostic mind would adopt at least a provisional hypothesis, that the present ultra-high CO2 readings, and the present globalising industrialisation (complete with smog plumes seen by satellites up in the jetstream quite visibly traveling from Asia over to the Americas) are two events that are quite likely related.

That they might be unrelated, in such precise overlay of time period out of such a vast history is probably statistically at the outer range of probabilities. At very least, it begs the observation that "chance is not the factor at work". Therefore all I know, based upon that statistical improbability, is that all this talk about global warming bears much closer examination. That's all I know.

As for the government of Dubai, I think the term is, "if you got the money, who's to tell you where you must spend it"? Personally I would be really distressed to see Venice (Italy) vanish under the waves. A billion dollar glam hotel / condo project in the Arabian Gulf, built a mere decade prior, I can't promise I'd sorely miss. Of course, it's not my money went into building it.

[ Zoog - looks like our posts crossed each other in the "internet ether", and both reference Venice. You aptly mention the mammoth budget project to set up two "tidal gates" at the entrance to Venice harbor to protect it from both rising seas, and the fact that Venices is sinking. Anyone curious to see Venice should plan to go in the next five to ten years max, because I really think we will lose this city. One of the most truly stunning, dreamlike places in the world to see. ]

[zoog]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

A short while back someone posted an item about the real estate developments out here in the Arabian Gulf (zoog?) and the dredging operations used to create new land, like The Palm in Dubai.

Last night I had dinner with an engineering friend who's involved in one of these mega-projects. When I asked him about how much "free-board" they allow above tide-water for these reclaimation projects, got the following tid-bits about his project:
Highest tide from sea level datum is 2.6 metres;
Height of reclaimed land above sea level datum is 3.8 metres;
Allowance for future global warming sea level rise is 30 centimetres (included in the 3.80);
Outer rip-rap (rock) protective walls are 5.2 metres above sea level datum.

Can you spell "New Orleans"?

If sea levels are indeed set to rise due to global warming, my theory is the Govt of Dubai will just initiate yet another world-record mega-project...a Thames-like barrier across the Strait of Hormuz, to keep the waters of the Indian Ocean from flooding the Burj Dubai?

Wasn't me. I think that was you, man. Your barrier idea also reminds me of the proposed operable barriers for Venice. There was a Nova program about the sinking city back in 2002. Last I heard, the project was unlikely to move forward due to lack of financing.

[GRG55]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

There you go GRG55 - Nothing a really stout pair of English Wellies couldn't fix. You can take on the world with a pair of those. Although come to think of it some people may gawp a bit down in Riyadh to see you walking around in a pair of Wellies. But "in principle" it's the right move.

A short while back someone posted an item about the real estate developments out here in the Arabian Gulf (zoog?) and the dredging operations used to create new land, like The Palm in Dubai.

Last night I had dinner with an engineering friend who's involved in one of these mega-projects. When I asked him about how much "free-board" they allow above tide-water for these reclaimation projects, got the following tid-bits about his project:
Highest tide from sea level datum is 2.6 metres;
Height of reclaimed land above sea level datum is 3.8 metres;
Allowance for future global warming sea level rise is 30 centimetres (included in the 3.80);
Outer rip-rap (rock) protective walls are 5.2 metres above sea level datum.

Can you spell "New Orleans"?

If sea levels are indeed set to rise due to global warming, my theory is the Govt of Dubai will just initiate yet another world-record mega-project...a Thames-like barrier across the Strait of Hormuz, to keep the waters of the Indian Ocean from flooding the Burj Dubai?

[c1ue]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

As someone that lived in San Francisco once told me; the Chinese are the best landlord... they do not gouge you

I'd be careful to compare the ex-Kuomintang landlords of SF with the "new China" capitalists. The latter are the ones stuffing dumplings with cardboard to reduce costs.

In my opinion, the straw that will break the camels back is not economic, but the weather.

If you believe that, you should have run me over on the way to move money into Russia.

Sibera is the one place that will clearly benefit from global warming: millions (billions?) of acres of new farmland but with decent fertility.

Canada is just an inch of soil over rock.

Chavez has been properly and fairly elected by the majority of the people on a platform to bring some relief to the poor who elected him.

True, but his real platform should have stated that it would be bread and circuses.

Now that the grain shipments from Egypt (i.e. Petroleos) are slowing down, can the Visigoths be far behind?

[jk]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

i don't think it's worth arguing about theoretical rules or optimal social or political norms. lukester, you've complained that all anyone wants to do is turn a discussion of global warming into an investment theory. [i would respond that an investment theory is something i can act on.] this reminds me of a joke i heard in the late 60's [dates me] about a guy who said he made all the big decisions in his marriage: he decided the family policy on vietnam, civil rights, and so on. his wife decided the little stuff like where they lived and whether to buy a new car.

[WDCRob]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

I believe Tet has been saying that would happen for some time now.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

I just listened to Mr. Medvedev say live on Bloomberg, Russia will sell oil in rubles within a year. What a wild card indeed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...k4A&refer=home

That is a very interesting concept. But the question springs to mind, where do you get the rubles to pay for the oil and gas? Somewhere down the line, someone else has to buy ? to pay for them. And, when the supply dries up, the price will go through the roof..... Nasty!

Definitely not good for the UK energy scene long term. Did someone say Russia was possibly going to return to Eastern Europe? More like the UK will be at their mercy during a hard winter. (Assuming we will get at least one more before the ice melts).

[bill]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Russia remains the wild card in the European union's future in the next period of economic and political stress.

Then, too, the Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe hardly guarantees a permanent exit. Indeed, the Russian presence in Eastern Europe has surged and ebbed repeatedly over the past few centuries. In a grave warning, a member of President Mikhail Gorbachev's negotiating team at the recent Washington summit said, "You have the same explosive mixture you had in Germany in the 1930s. The humiliation of a great power. Economic troubles. The rise of nationalism. You should not underestimate the danger."

Were a global recession to cause oil demand to fall dramatically, the impact on the Russian economy will be more profound than on China's. In the context of rising nationalism in Putin's Russia, President Mikhail Gorbachev's negotiating team member's warning may prove prophetic.

I just listened to Mr. Medvedev say live on Bloomberg, Russia will sell oil in rubles within a year. What a wild card indeed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...k4A&refer=home

Gazprom May Switch Sales to Rubles as Dollar Weakens (Update3)
By Dan Lonkevich and Jim Kennett
Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom, the world's largest natural-gas exporter, may start selling its crude and gas production in rubles rather than dollars and euros after the U.S. currency weakened.
``We are seriously thinking about selling our resources in rubles,'' Alexander Medvedev, Gazprom's deputy chief executive officer, told reporters today in New York. He didn't give a specific timeline for the decision

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

So if I were you I would go out and buy some wellies for Christmas.

There you go GRG55 - Nothing a really stout pair of English Wellies couldn't fix. You can take on the world with a pair of those. Although come to think of it some people may gawp a bit down in Riyadh to see you walking around in a pair of Wellies. But "in principle" it's the right move.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

You two are just full of sunshine today, aren't you...

Lukester: So which is it really going to be? Climate change induced floods and drought, or Matt Simmons view that an energy crisis is soon going to trump global warming for all the space on Page 1?

Or maybe both? Which probably means we "fry (instead of freeze) in the dark"?

I think I'm going to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head after reading all this stuff... ;)

Well, this is the main news story this lunchtime here in the UK. So if I were you I would go out and buy some wellies for Christmas.

Business call for plan on climate

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7120324.stm

[Chris Coles]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Spartacus -

Sounds like you are tied up in knots over my posts, channeling your anger into derisory 'humor'? Do you feel your personal civil liberties are in dire peril up there in Canada? Looks pretty good over where you are, from my perch.

I'll chip in my two cents from down here in the purportedly Proto-Neo-Quasi-Fascist USA - things aren't great, but I hardly feel I'm living in a police state yet old chap. Been around a good few countries in my life so far, so I have some useful 'benchmarks'. We are definitely not speaking out here in fear of our lives at this time, so the 'courage' Ms. Wolf congratulates her audience for in attending her speaking engagement may be a trifle over-rated.

That these are not the 'good old days' should be self-evident. That they are not yet the days governed by Ms. Wolf's "Blackwater-Brownshirts" may be an insight still intelligible only to those who don't go into cardiac palpitations over breathless blog articles (US has wargamed nuclear scenarios vs. Iran, therefore "Iran is about to be nuked". :confused: :p

I have to start with publicly eating a small portion of humble pie. Not long ago, Lukester, (among others), and me had a spat about one certain guy called Chavez down there in Venezuela and I was keen to rise to the bait and defend the poor guy. In truth, my quest was to debate that it was not supportable to allow ANY attempt to undermine the democratically elected leader of ANY nation. I want to make it perfectly clear, I remain completely committed to that ideal. But recently we had a BBC TV program showing how corrupt the Chavez, (now not a single "guy" but the whole family), have become. So, in part, (careful Lukester, wait for it), Lukester was correct to imply that Chavez was not the person he seemed to be from the outset. Indeed, it became clear from watching the program, that Chavez is more inclined to line his own, and his brothers and other relatives, pockets than do more than pay lip service to the needs of the poor. So, in part, Lukester, you were right about Chavez and I was mistaken.

But in contemplating eating some humble pie it became clear that neither side has all the answers. Chavez has been properly and fairly elected by the majority of the people on a platform to bring some relief to the poor who elected him. What has become very clear, Chavez does not know how to do that. He has fallen back onto old fashioned left wing ideas that do not work. It is worth suggesting that it would be improbable to believe he would take exactly the same economic values and rules, (that did not work for the majority of the poor), as had the previous national leaders. That in turn seems to have quite naturally led Chavez to believe that he can move forward in any manner he can think of. We can now see what happened next, as the BBC have now illustrated, he lines his and his families pockets. In fact the program showed, he does not have a clue as to what to do for the best for his people.

Why do I bring this up while highlighting the "domestic" between Spartacus and Lukester?

None of us has all the answers.

The truth is democratic capitalism had left the majority of the people of Venezuela with no hope and dirt poor. Equally true is that the alternative, left wing pseudo-communist tribalism does not work either. The point I am trying to make is that it is no good continuing to argue about ideas and rules for society that do not bring results. We have to sit down and work out what is wrong and create a better set of rules than we have today.

That it is a worthless road that leaves us throwing pebbles of bile at each other, rather than sitting down and admitting our differences, each eating a little of the humble pie and then getting on with it.

We came to this forum because we all of us believe that the rules we all believed were good and would work for the rest of our working lives; are instead a load of crap and do not work. The world economy is teetering on the edge of oblivion and yes, there are some complete idiots in charge at the moment. That is the truth of it.

We sit around the virtual table and have the potential to open up a clean sheet of paper and re-write the rules.

Let us do so.

So please, put down the mop or rolling pin and clear the debris off the kitchen table and let us make a clean start. Put the past mistakes behind us and let us take the lead for everyone else. We have the means to do so here with iTulip and we have the individuals with wide experience from all walks of life to set the stage for a really useful debate.

The proposal is; we none of us has all the answers; so what basic economic and social rules do we need that will work to bring true economic prosperity allied with really true freedom to the majority of the people of any nation?

Let the Debate begin -

[GRG55]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Lukester,

You got it in one. Everybody looks for the obvious. It will be something totally unexpected that tips the balance into true chaos. From that point onwards, all bets are off and we are back to the dark ages.

You two are just full of sunshine today, aren't you...

Lukester: So which is it really going to be? Climate change induced floods and drought, or Matt Simmons view that an energy crisis is soon going to trump global warming for all the space on Page 1?

Or maybe both? Which probably means we "fry (instead of freeze) in the dark"?

I think I'm going to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head after reading all this stuff... ;)

[Chris Coles]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Lukester,

You got it in one. Everybody looks for the obvious. It will be something totally unexpected that tips the balance into true chaos. From that point onwards, all bets are off and we are back to the dark ages.