Hackers & Global Warming

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CO2 is mentioned so much because it is commonly known. You cannot convince a layman with technical terms and using chemical names.

 

Not to go too off topic, but since you asked:
CO2, by itself, is a greenhouse gas, but it takes quantities on the scale of Venus to have any significant impact. A few hundred PPM (parts per million) won't do anything. Given those numbers, the water vapor in our air is vastly more effective than the CO2 (and I'm talking by actual ammounts, not per unit). The arguement is one called "CO2 forcing" and it claims that CO2 acts as a catalyst to substantially increase the effect of water vapor.

Thus, the arguement is that the effective impact of CO2 is substantially more than the strict impact of CO2. To date, I have seen no scientific work to verify this theory (and I've looked), but all the climate modelsn seem to take it as a given.

 

Couple quick points since I dropped by.

Water vapor, I'm guessing with little scientific knowledge, will not change much beyond warmer air-more vapor.

The more likely issues of concern is methane being released from permafrost (if it melts) in the N. Hemisphere (think Alaska, Canada, and Russia).

Not being sure how the models & theories work my understanding is that CO2 will help heat things enough that CH4 (methane) will be released from permafrost. More of a domino effect than catalyst.

Since someone mentioned the rich/wealthy, I just wanted to point out something. An environmentalist lady I was listening to over the radio made the point that the richest 1% of people in the world (these are people that make average US citizens seem modest) are responsible for 50% of global warming emissions.

So if global warming is real I will hold the actions of the rich for or against them. My points may have added to the part of the discussion where others took it but don't do much to answer the question of if Global Warming is real.

 

That is, of course, a fallacy -- she was misrepresenting to facts to suit her own agenda. Certainly, these people may own the companies that contribute to the greenhouse gasses, but the other 99% purchase the products and create the demand. The responsibility lies with all of us, not just the top 1%.

 

Boycotts can be effective and some companies fear them. But most of them just choose to misrepresent themselves and their records on the environment. There is no longer any truth in advertising. Also, much of the media is under corporate control, so there is no longer a lot of scrutiny or consumer awareness. Companies have huge ad campaigns to promote themselves in the best possible light to customers. It's all done under, "It's free enterprise, so it's good," promotion.

The Rule of Law, the courts and common sense regulation is the best way to keep companies honest. If they want to do business in a society, they also have to have a stake and have a degree of concern for their impact on that society.

 

Chandos, the major greenhouse gas producing companies are not privately owned. I would say the percentage of privately owned is much less than public offerings. Since most are publically owned -- to tie those emissions to the majority stockholders (which is pretty much the top 1% of the population) is quite a stretch. And that is exactly what a person would need to do to support such a claim.

I do not dispute the companies are circumventing some rules -- generally through legal loopholes (for example acetone is a exempted solvent for emission calculations). However, the main greenhouse gas producing corporations are not owned by the media moguls, nor do they typically own media companies. So I think the idea that the corporations are keeping this hushed up because they control the media is not entirely accurate (however, silence can come at a price and payoffs are certainly possible).

When it comes down to cutting emissions it's really all about money. We have already found that corporations will simply shift production from highly regulated regions to less regulated regions. Safety and air emissions are two examples -- it costs much less to build a part in Mexico or China because the safety (OSHA) and pollution (EPA) requirements are much more lax in those countries (and the actual cost of labor, but that's a small part of overhead in general).

Enforcing additional standards on manufacturers in one region will simply increase the exodus of the manufacturing to the less regulated regions. We're already at 10% unemployment -- how many more jobs can be lost to shifting manufacturing operations?

Until the government figures out a way to even the playing field here, there is always going to be resistance to these changes.

 

I didn't make such a claim, that was someone else. My claim is that large corporations cause a great deal of pollution. Those decisions are made by corporate managers who are interested in the bottom line and not in the public good. As far as the media is concerned, next time you watch, say, MTP, see how many commercials the energy companies have as sponsors. Also, watch the content of how their ads represent them as being concerned with "green" techologies and the environment. Not all companies are terrible in this regard, but some are, even according to energy insiders here in H-Town.

As far as companies holding society "hostage" with their threats, let them make good on them. In fact, kick them out and bar them from doing business in the country at all. Turn off a market of 300 million people, and bar them from the US and see if they don't change their tunes. There is a saying in business, "If you don't take care of your customers, someone else will."

 

Stop with the symantics games. Fine I "corrected" the sentence.

The "corporation managers" are doing exactly what the stockholders want them to do. Those stockholders include every person with a 401K or IRA which holds mutual funds. We all (in general, I'm not specifically including you) want the increase in investment and dividends -- but let the profitability drop due to the cost of instigating the controls and we all (again, not you specifically) want the "corporate manager"'s head.

Media is also a corporation. Again stockholders are wanting return on investment -- if the media company cannot come up with alternative advertising clients then they deserve to be handcuffed as you (and this time I really mean you) say they are.

It's not the corporations holding society hostage -- it's the US government making regulations so costly that corporations are moving away to be profitable (so the 401K's and IRA's can actually grow and people can retire on time).

 

I don't know what you are getting so angry about, since I thought that was directed at me. I haven't even taken offense that you felt the need to explain to me the difference between a private company and a public one. But, hey, there's nothing here to get upset about.

I have no desire to turn this into a debate about the success or failure of the business models of some public companies and how they represent the shareholders. I know that many shareholders are unhappy with the way in which some CEOs have managed their companies. Nevertheless, there are some companies in which another company or an investment group hold a majority of shares. For instance, look at the buy out of NBC by Comcast. The company will own 51 percent, so the individuals with their 401ks and whatnot will not make the final decision on much of anything.

In fact, as a customer, I will probably have more say, than as a tiny shareholder. As I said, some boycotts have been effective. The one against the Coors family comes to mind.

Hence the term, "corporate media." But it seems we agree about the media.

This is off topic but needs to be commented on:

When I talk to some people in the corporate world these days there is a complaint from them about the short-term strategy of the Wall Street investors. On the one hand, corporate managers want to make decisions based on the long-term objectives that will build a much stronger company down the road, even if it means taking short-term hits in some areas. Yet, because of the pressure of short-term stock prices and large institutional investors, long term capital investments, hiring and market planning must have almost instant results to please some large Wall Street investors and fund managers.

On a basic level, much of the problem is fueled by out-and-out greed on all sides of the triangle: CEOs want to grab as much money as they can before they have to move on to a new company; investors want spectacular returns, almost overnight; and customers want the lowest, rock-bottom prices and are often unrealistic in their expectations.

But we are also a nation, and customers, CEOs, and investors are also citizens. We all have the right to our government as citizens. But I agree with Nader:

If I'm hearing you right, T2, you are saying that market forces will correct these problems. I'm not sure I agree, and that could be our main point of disagreement. I believe that it will take the courts, laws and regulations to fix the problem, particularly those that impact the environment on a large scale.

 

Ok, now I think we've gotten way off-topic. Especially since this thread, in my view, throws the entire field of "climate science" into question. I think it's a safe assumption that some of you here will disagree with that view, so I think it's safe to go ahead and ask this question:
To those who disagree with the above view, how do you respond to the fact that it is accepted practice in the "climate science" field to withold source information and prevent repetition of a researcher's studies?

 

No, not at all. The market actually moves us away from correcting any environmental issues (and safety for that matter). Which is why I believe the government needs to move in and level the playing field -- primarily by making it just as costly to bring products into the country as make them here. Until that is done, there is really no incentive to do much on the part of corporations (they'll just move to foreign manufacturing).

I wasn't angry -- I just thought you were being a smart ass.

 

Talk about you're loaded questions, NOG -- what do you expect people to answer??!! Something like this?"

"I have no problem when people doing climate research withhold data! I think it's wonderful!"

Come on! I'm a firm denier of many of their radical conclusions, but I don't think they are all as venal as this. Some of them are, but not all. I see them as misguided souls who see the world differently than I do.

 

Well, specifically, I want to know how the members of this board who have been defenders of AGW in the past react to it. In the face of evidence (and here I'm not talking about the emails, the emails just seem to give a more detailed description of it) that the entire field has thrown scientific method out the window, I want to know if they deny the claim, if they think it's somehow acceptable/defendable, or if they will change their position. I generally think these people are rational, reasonable people, but sometimes a heated debate can back you into a corner you don't really intend to support.

To make it clear, if they agree that the "climate science" community has had it's collective head up it's collective tail pipe for years, it doesn't mean AGW is a fraud, just that the evidence that it is real is, well, substantially less evidentiary. I don't expect it to end the debate for a second, but would be a serious blow.

 

I think we agree.

 

Citation needed?

Okay, I see the article from The Times up there where the University of East Anglia dumps their data ... but they're not the field of climate science. While I don't think it's a good thing that their data is gone, I'm fairly sure others are going to have collected data.

Besides this case - who is throwing away their data or withholding it?

 

Aik, I made that claim because the scientists at East Anglia:
1.) did not have/refused to give the base data when it was asked for and
2.) they still managed to use that research to become central players in the field.

The first just means they're bad scientists. The second means everyone else in the field (or at least the controlling players) accepted and supported them, which means those people are bad scientists, too.

To go back to my cancer example, if the oncologist did that, he would be a bad scientist. If his field accepted his claims without the data, that then reflects on the field as a whole.

 

So....from the fact that some scientists were manipulating data you jump to the conclusion that the entire field of research must be worthless? The only way that would make any sense is that the data they messed with actually was the base for all climate research, which I doubt it was. The University of East Anglia, while important, is not the sole authority in climate research nor the only place where such data is collected and researched. Global warming is researched and temperatures measured in every country around the world and everywhere the data and overwhelming consensus seems to be the same, global warming is happening and is greatly stimulated by human activity.

 

However, I would think that the rich produce more greenhouse gases than the average person - I do not think that 1% of people produce 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions, but consider this: The wealthy tend to own bigger homes and drive bigger vehicles - that alone would tend to increase their carbon footprint. And the mega rich - like those who own private jets, would have to produce many times as much greenhouse emissions as the average person.

It is obviously not defensible to withhold source information, disregard data collected, or some of the other unacceptable methods that have been detailed here. However, I do no think that one instance makes this "accepted practice" within the field of climate science, nor do I think that it calls the entire field of climate science into question.

If a few dozen chemists collaborated on a study and it proved fraudulent, would you assume the enitre field of chemistry would be called into question? There are thousands of climatologists in the world, of which only a few were directly involved in the shenanagins detailed here.

 

Morgy, re-read what I posted. It's not that they messed with their data that I have a problem with. It's that the entire field accepted them without them providing original data. Again, it's not their actions that reflect on the entire field, it's the field's reaction to them. They did something that should have raised massive red flags in every scientist's mind, yet they were readily accepted and managed to become quite influential in the field, to the point of being one of the primary advisors to the IPCC, as I understand it.

It would be the equivalent of a Secret Service agent not only being employed, but being assigned to the President's personal staff, without ever having a background check of any kind, and with known associations to Hamas and other criminal enterprises. The assiciations reflect on the individual. The fact that the Secret Service gave them so much trust without asking questions reflects on the Secret Service.

Aldeth, again, my problem is with the reaction to their actions. If a few dozen chemists faked their research, my reaction to the field of chemistry in general would all depend on that field's reaction to those chemists. If they're decried as frauds and basically blacklisted, then all's well that ends well. If they're not even given a slap on the wrist, but rather hailed as brilliant researchers and given prestigious positions, then there's a problem. A big problem.

 

The "entire field" accepted their work because it was published. Like we've already noted, once a paper is peer reviewed, no one bothers to look up the original data. Sure they'll look at charts the compile the data, but they won't double check the original sources. This issue reagards a few scientists in the original study, and whomever peer reviewed the article. We're talking about a couple of dozen people out of a field of thousands. The onus is on you to show that such practices are wide spread, not on the thousands of climatologists who have no reason to have their scientific credibility called into question.

EDIT: (you posted while I did) If these scientists go on to publish more studies that are taken at face value, then you would have a better arguement. Indeed, I expect that those directly involved here WILL be looked at a lot more closely on future research.