The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

[c1ue]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Perhaps you have some data that falsifies this hypotheses, or have found some crucial flaws.

Since I am not the one advocating instituting worldwide changes to ward off a distant catastrophe, my view is the burden of proof is on those pushing for said changes.

Which is why I continue to wonder why such simple counterarguments have yet to be disproven.

Are you arguing that because they have happened in the past it is ok for humans to cause one.

I think extinctions occur for all sorts of reasons - if our goal is prevent them then there are a lot more issues to be addressed than fossil fuel burning.

Among them: habitat destruction. humans increasing in number and resource needs. species mutation via GMO drift and monoculture agriculture/carniculture. etc etc

If the goal was extinction prevention and agreed upon by a reasonable majority of Earth and/or nations, then I could agree to the types of restrictions imposed.

But in the AGW case everything hinges upon suspect models and equally suspect consequences.

The person who is offering them is not credible.

...

This is disingenuous. Having a background in physics and modeling complex systems is a useful skill that transfers directly.

A person who has dealt with weather prediction and modeling for 50+ years as a public source of information is somehow less credible than a person using a dimwit Presidential-wannabe to push an agenda?

Apparently so in your view.

In my view I'd think that such a person recognizes full well what the limitations of computer modeling of weather are - having been acquainted with them from the beginning.

What about scientists who spend most of their time filing grant applications, teaching, and running their lab. Occasionally they have some time left over to make sure their grad students are spending their time productively.

Someone who doesn't perform science isn't a scientist - what you are describing is a professor.

As for Hansen - again there's lots of smoke here.

http://www.soros.org/resources/artic...a_complete.pdf

Scientist Protests NASA’s
Censorship Attempts
James E. Hansen, the director of
the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies at NASA, protested
attempts to silence him after
officials at NASA ordered him
to refer press inquiries to the
public affairs office and required
the presence of a public affairs
representative at any interview.
The Government Accountability
Project, a whistleblower protection
organization and OSI grantee,
came to Hansen’s defense by
providing legal and media advice.
The campaign on Hansen’s behalf
resulted in a decision by NASA to
revisit its media policy.

U.S. Programs
U.S. Justice Fund 17,029,000
Strategic Opportunities Fund 12,824,000
Special Chairman’s Fund 29,646,000
OSI-Washington, D.C. 2,492,000
OSI-Baltimore 4,479,000
Other U.S. Initiatives 7,622,000

Total U.S. Programs $74,092,000

note: The Strategic Opportunities Fund includes grants related to Hurricane Katrina ($1,652,841); media policy ($1,060,000); and politicization of science ($720,000).
The Special Chairman’s Fund includes grants related to progressive legal infrastructure ($7,305,000); multi-issue policy infrastructure ($6,685,000); youth activism and leadership development ($3,561,000); civic engagement ($2,750,000); judicial nominations ($2,458,000); political reform ($500,000); and global warming ($455,000).

Yes, surely Hansen is just an innocent scientist such that Soros' OSI group has spent money on him and mentioned him in the annual report.

[santafe2]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Enjoyed this thread. As Ash said, the experiment is not clean. And apparently, one's opinion of AGM will tend to be fairly well predicted by one's political leaning. I found Munger's post interesting - Only 6% of scientists self-identify as Republicans. It doesn't surprise me but that may say more about me than it does about either scientists or the Republican party.

[we_are_toast]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

When they can accurately model and predict the weather on the sun, I'll start to have some "faith" in their planet earth weather models.

Today's forecast for the sun: Hot and dry with a high near 11,000 and 0% chance of precipitation.

Tonight's forecast: Nighttime forecasts will not be available for the next 7+ Billion years.

Extended forecast: Continued hot and dry, with little or no precipitation throughout the 10 Million year extended forecast period.

[radon]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Which is why I continue to wonder why such simple counterarguments have yet to be disproven.

Maybe because they betray a lack of elementary knowledge of the field, have already been discussed countless times, and lack any merit. No amount of evidence will satisfy conspiracy theorists.

A person who has dealt with weather prediction and modeling for 50+ years as a public source of information is somehow less credible than a person using a dimwit Presidential-wannabe to push an agenda?

Apparently so in your view.

I've been flying in airliners for over 30 years, I guess that makes me qualified to design one.

Someone who doesn't perform science isn't a scientist - what you are describing is a professor.

And by your argument scientists do not exist. Perhaps you seem to think they spend all their time tooling away in some remote castle like Frankenstein. Things are different than in the movies.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

This current disaster (global economic depression) due to faulty econometric modelling by the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. speaks volumes about what faulty modelling, faulty assumptions, faulty calibration, and faulty data can do in any field, including climatology.

I have discussed here above why temperature data taken at most climate stations should be suspect when used to calibrate climate models. My critical questioning should not be dismissed in the debate, nor should anyone's critical questioning be dismissed outright.

Also, the level of CO2, a natural gas in the Earth's atmosphere that plants use, is only about 400 parts or 450 parts per million, which is 40 or 45 parts per 100,000 in the atmosphere. Calibrating climate models with a gas so rare in the atmosphere as CO2 is absurd. This is stretching the data beyond what the data says.

And back to 2nd grade or 3rd grade science in school, CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a natural part of the Earth's atmosphere, and every animal breathes-out CO2. Without CO2, all plants would die. And plants make oxygen which all animals require.

In the past, the Earth has sometimes had higher levels of CO2 than now, so I am outraged that the governments in the G8 (Group of Eight) could now deem CO2 to be a major pollutant and then grandstand that the collapse of civilization is coming soon.

[mcgurme]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Back in 1492 the leading "scientists" thought the earth was flat. They also thought the sun revolved around the earth. Science has gotten a lot wrong.Climate science is a perfect example.The "truth" is people are using this fear to achieve a political goal that would not otherwise be possible and THAT is the truth.

No, in 1492 everyone knew the Earth was round because Magellan had already sailed around it.

Let's talk about another case. The case of whether the universe is centered on the Earth, or the Earth orbits the sun.

Scientists like Copernicus and Gallileo used DATA to show that the Earth rotated around the sun. The Church didn't like that, and society didn't like that. These men and their adherents were persecuted for a view that challenged the dominant paradigm of the day, even though it was based on solid DATA.

Kind of like climate scientists now are being persecuted by so many rabid warming deniers. The scientists have DATA, and the deniers have their belief systems. People don't like to change their belief systems, even if the DATA disprove them.

But that's ok. In the future, once major ice sheets have collapsed and people can see with their own eyes that ocean levels risen to cover half of Florida, it will be a lot easier for most people to understand the reality of global warming. The denier case will keep getting weaker and weaker, but deniers will continue to close their ears to the facts and cling stubbornly to outmoded belief systems.

Now, back to the economics, lots of people keep saying this is some kind of government conspiracy to foist economic regulation on all of us. Get real. You guys listen to too much Rush Limbaugh and watch too much Fox tevee. The scientists are not in the pockets of big corporations. They are seeing the facts and listening to the data to making their best interpretation of what will happen to our climate systems. Not all interpretations are correct or perfect. There is even a chance they are all seeing the data incorrectly, but it is more likely that they are seeing it correctly. Whether right or wrong, the scientists are not in a massive conspiracy.

Politicians may capitalize on the science, using it to their own ends. When it is proven that global warming is real as seas rise around us, a lot of politicians may use that to their advantage, to implement laws that benefit them and their constituents. But that process has nothing to do with the science or the scientists. Scientists' main passion in life is listening to and observing the data, and trying to make sense of it. If their goal was power and wealth, they'd be businesspeople, not scientists.

[Mashuri]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

thanks!
I suggest the ONLY way to carry on a dialog regarding this matter is to discuss the SCIENCE. The denialists (those who reject the evidence) have presented no science. If you have an alternative method to discuss the matter I would be interested in hearing it.

There are plenty of scientific studies and scientists that refute AGW -- and plenty of dubious facts pertaining to AGW and its proponents. This has been so politicized that there is no way the science can be pure. We iTulipers all know a power grab during a "crisis" when we see it, right?

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_T...showtopic=2050

[mcgurme]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

For that matter, the question I have always asked is this: if the CO2 released due to fossil fuel burning is indeed bad - what happened in the era where the fossil fuels were formed? Unless you are a believer in the abiotic oil theory, the algae which formed the basis for fossil fuels took their CO2 from the atmosphere to start with - as well as there being historical evidence of CO2 levels being much higher in the past.

C1ue, you're usually an astute observer, so the lack of analytical depth in this statement surprised me coming from you.

Most regular scientists are not saying anything about dieoff due to CO2 accumulation. What they are saying is that when ocean levels rise, it will cause massive readjustment of human civilization, 40% or more of which is located in coastal areas. It will cause drought in some areas, like the Southwestern USA (Lake mead is drying up - what will Ca do for water?). It will cause more intense hurricanes. It will cause more anomalous and extreme storms in both summer and winter. All of those things are already happening, as anyone who listens to the news knows. And in the future, these weather "anomalies" will get more intense, inflicting greater damage on human societies.

But when 40% of 6 billion people become displaced from their homes by rising oceans, that's going to be a massive adjustment for everyone. Think Katrina on a global scale.

The Earth will survive, and life will go on for at least some of the Earth's inhabitants. But that doesn't mean the adjustment period will be fun or easy.

[Diarmuid]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

http://www.media.rice.edu/media/News...nID=2075327496


Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong
Unknown processes account for much of warming in ancient hot spell

No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study this week suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect.
The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past. The study, which was published online today, contains an analysis of published records from a period of rapid climatic warming about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.
"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."
During the PETM, for reasons that are still unknown, the amount of carbon in Earth's atmosphere rose rapidly. For this reason, the PETM, which has been identified in hundreds of sediment core samples worldwide, is probably the best ancient climate analogue for present-day Earth.
In addition to rapidly rising levels of atmospheric carbon, global surface temperatures rose dramatically during the PETM. Average temperatures worldwide rose by about 7 degrees Celsius -- about 13 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the relatively short geological span of about 10,000 years.
Many of the findings come from studies of core samples drilled from the deep seafloor over the past two decades. When oceanographers study these samples, they can see changes in the carbon cycle during the PETM.
"You go along a core and everything's the same, the same, the same, and then suddenly you pass this time line and the carbon chemistry is completely different," Dickens said. "This has been documented time and again at sites all over the world."
Based on findings related to oceanic acidity levels during the PETM and on calculations about the cycling of carbon among the oceans, air, plants and soil, Dickens and co-authors Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii and James Zachos of the University of California-Santa Cruz determined that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by about 70 percent during the PETM.
That's significant because it does not represent a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Since the start of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels are believed to have risen by about one-third, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels. If present rates of fossil-fuel consumption continue, the doubling of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will occur sometime within the next century or two.
Doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide is an oft-talked-about threshold, and today's climate models include accepted values for the climate's sensitivity to doubling. Using these accepted values and the PETM carbon data, the researchers found that the models could only explain about half of the warming that Earth experienced 55 million years ago.
The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. "Some feedback loop or other processes that aren't accounted for in these models -- the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming -- caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM."

[Mashuri]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Perhaps you have some data that falsifies this hypotheses, or have found some crucial flaws. You should publish them you'd get a noble prize.

Here's some peer-reviewed data for starters:

Falsication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (International Journal of Modern Physics B, Volume 23, Issue 03, pp. 275-364, January 30, 2009)

[radon]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

http://www.media.rice.edu/media/News...nID=2075327496

Abstract here:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...s/ngeo578.html

We conclude that in addition to direct CO₂ forcing, other processes and/or feedbacks that are hitherto unknown must have caused a substantial portion of the warming during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Once these processes have been identified, their potential effect on future climate change needs to be taken into account.

[WildspitzE]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

No, in 1492 everyone knew the Earth was round because Magellan had already sailed around it.

Ferdinand Magellan sailed around the earth when he was 12 years old?

That is a rather precocious individual.

[vinoveri]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Scientists like Copernicus and Gallileo used DATA to show that the Earth rotated around the sun. The Church didn't like that, and society didn't like that. These men and their adherents were persecuted for a view that challenged the dominant paradigm of the day, even though it was based on solid DATA.

Kind of like climate scientists now are being persecuted by so many rabid warming deniers. The scientists have DATA, and the deniers have their belief systems. People don't like to change their belief systems, even if the DATA disprove them.

Finally, someone has played the "persecution of Galileo by the Catholic church" card. I'm glad that's finally out on the table. :rolleyes:

Scientists (and all of us) have access to DATA. Scientist create models that seem reasonable and which are consistent with the DATA. DATA does not a testable theory make however. No DATA exists on what will happen in the future. Multi-variate, statistical models, with a multiplicity of assumptions (and likely a multiplicity of unaccounted for physical parameters - that make the model incomplete at best) have inherent limitations IMO.

I recall a TV interview several years ago (1999 I think), when Clinton's EPA secretary, Carol Browner, was being questioned by Larry King or someone about the evidence for GW and she kept reiterating one piece of the DATA, namely that 1998 was the hottest year on record. She was so adamant about that as if that was enough to prove this 'grand' theory. Incredible.
Let's see how she has been rewarded for her efforts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Browner

Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

In office January 22, 2009 – Present

[Starving Steve]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

I couldn't download this on my computer, but from the title, it sounds like this bunch of eco-frauds pushing the global warming hypothesis are being exposed by real scientists. The so-called "scientific consensus" on CO2 and global warming is now falling apart.;)

[radon]

Re: The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'

Here's some peer-reviewed data for starters:

Falsication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (International Journal of Modern Physics B, Volume 23, Issue 03, pp. 275-364, January 30, 2009)

Mostly rubbish.

Another debate from a different thread:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2126492