Al Gore GW Flim-Flammery

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Really? It appears that years, on average, have been getting hotter.

And speaking of "Climategate" it seems some scientists should be more open-not that their take on the situation is wrong.

Now you claim that both that scientists were attempting to use "spin and intimidation" as well as that their predictions aren't accurate. You acknowledge that they could be right but claim it doesn't look like it. Senator Inhofe went a step further and claimed the emails "debunked" global warming understandings. I not sure "spin" is a strong enough word for what he did with that comment.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...-claims-cru-e-mails-debunk-science-behind-cl/

I read through this and noticed that a number of investigations looked at if the emails showed the scientists were conducting a fraud. The finding was no. They were criticized for not being open enough but not that their tests, experiments, and analysis were wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy

Now I have an aunt who remarked that it seems to warm up earlier in the year than it used to here in Wisconsin. Now I'm not as old as she is so I honestly would have difficulty double checking her plus I doubt she marked down anywhere how early in the year lakes thawed or coats no longer needed to be worn but the idea winters here would be shorter doesn't sound like something that contradicts the idea Global Warming is happening.

Now I grant that the she had a very ground level view and only referred to one state/area (warming one place can be countered by cooling in two others) but at that point I'll note that the PolitiFact mentions there is a lot of data out there that indicating Global Warming is happening.

 

Great, only problematic thing with that is that the "less" warming isn't "no" warming. Optimistic means less of a problem. More warming indicates more of one.

He provides an excellent example of a skeptic putting out what could be called spin and intimidation (he wanted to have the various scientists brought up on charges as well as wrongly claiming that Global Warming concerns were a "hoax").

Now you don't appear to be approaching the skeptics with nearly as much skepticism as you do the scientists. Yet at least some of them are party to the very things you accuse the scientists of doing and which you used as reason have doubts about them.

Says who. This bunch of scientists not only lacks censorship powers over the rest of the world but also used data that others could. They were highly critical of some papers put out by skeptics but at least some of them were published nonetheless and in one case against the complaints of reviewers who were less opinionated than they.

Call me crazy but at the moment I'm willing to extend an amount of trust to the National Science Foundation & National Academy of Sciences.

Now at the moment I don't know if any of their panels included "skeptic scientists" or not but if they didn't I'm more likely to suspect that this is due to many "skeptic scientists" not necessarily having the achievements and like to be on such a panel, perhaps even that the bulk of people who would qualify for such a panel have studied enough to find some of the skepticism questionable.

Oooh it snowed and did so early. A few years back in Wisconsin we had a tornado (actually 2) in January.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/?n=010708_tor

Now that is pretty rare. So my unusual event matches yours.

Now I don't know if that area is one of those that in the near term Global Warming is supposed to make more wet or dry but if it is the former then more snow or rain isn't a shock. That the event (snow) came early could be but then again Global Warming, in the near term, is supposed to make unusual weather more usual. So an earlier snowfall (or even snow storm) in one region hardly disproves Global Warming.



Now I already admitted my aunt doesn't count as hard evidence. Yet the core of evidence is observation and she is someone who I suspect did just that over the years. And if there is a source that kept track of thaw times it may just back her up.

 

You keep saying that, but you have yet to offer a shred of evidence that supports such a conclusion. Had Gore stated that a heat lamp or spot lights needed to be used, the experiment would have worked exactly as described -- so no, he didn't misunderstand the science. He did, however, fail to pre-check to see if your average, run of the mill light bulb would generate sufficient heat for any appreciable differences in the containers to show up. A spot light definitely generates sufficient heat to see the proper results, as would a heat lamp. A run of the mill lamp, even with a high watt bulb, will not. Failure to recognize that is at most a failure on Gore's part to understand the way modern light bulbs work or good old American laziness, not a failure to understand carbon's influence on the retention of heat. Feel free to accuse Gore of misunderstanding or misrepresenting the science in other areas, but there is no evidence that he did either one here. The experiment, done properly, works as described, and that science is not contested.

 

Blackthorne TA- There is general agreement that global temperatures have been flat? It seems to me like there are competing claims to that. NASA's surface temperature analysis shows that it has been warming, and I haven't seen anyone debunk their method. They publish their method for all to see and have a page for any new changes to it, and allowed their method to be compared to competing ones in scientific journals. Granted i'm not a scientist and can't speak to the validity of any theories, but all in all they seem to be practicing good science, so it's not you can dismiss global warming because some of them push their agenda illegitimately. Where is the competing evidence against it and why is it more valid than the science behind global warming?

 

It should also be noted that a light shining on a glass jar only simulates a greenhouse. It is only a theory that the atmosphere works the same way -- althought that seem incredibly simplistic to me.

 

I am well aware how the science works, BTA. Are you aware that many heat lamps work by shining a really, really bright light? No, I haven't vetted the experiment personally with a heat lamp, but I wouldn't be stupid enough to put an unvetted experiment in a documentary, either.

 

I don't know why you'd want a heat lamp rust generates a very bright visible light, but the lamps used at most fast food restaurants do. I've been burned by a spotlight on more than one occasion, but never once burned myself on the heat lamp working at Arby's as a kid. Working with stage lighting has burned me more than once. My guess? Heat lamps generate bright light because bright lights are hot. Why reinvent the wheel?

Regarding Gore, the same exact experiment, performed with the right equipment, works as advertised. Even a little kid from Cleveland was able to make it work. Therefore, it is pushing it to say that Gore misrepresented the science. The science is valid, even if Gore clucked up the experiment.

 

General agreement temps have been flat for 13 years????????!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg

I had given you the benefit of the doubt before when you claimed that things weren't as bad as projections had claimed.

I tried to point out that from the POV of someone concerned about Global Warming that if temps rise but less than expected that is still a bad thing just not as bad as expected (less warming is less of a problem).

Now temps were not flat over the past decade (close to your 13 yrs), they went up and down (as often happens year to year) and (from the graph I put a link to) on average seem to have risen.

Yes and no-there may be another variable that speeds things up or slows them down but the general trend-that is as a whole-seems to support the theme of their concerns.

If someone's house is on fire and the person is worried it may burn down it would be illogical of you to claim it won't burn down if simply because the fire hasn't burned its way through the front door yet.

Depends on what people make it into. For some people it is not believing a claim at first glance until it is researched.

This can be logical as it means looking for evidence and the greatest likelihood of truth before choosing to support a claim. People can and have claimed things that are wrong so, like I said, there logic to it.


For other people it is continuing not to believe a claim even if photographic evidence, eyewitness accounts, piles research, and other evidence supporting a claim are provided.

At that point it because illogical because supposed "skepticism" has gone from seeing what evidence indicates before making a decision to making an assumption that a claim is wrong and sticking with that assumption no matter what evidence there is.

Define "catastrophe", at this point you seem to be dressing up claims with a bit of emotion to make them appear exaggerated rather than address the prospect they may well be made in a serious and sound manner and that while the human race will survive into the future we are creating a future that will be harder for our children and grandchildren because of our actions (economic loss, some lost lives, lost capacities-all bad things which won't doom the human race but are generally bad are preferably avoided).

Incorrect.

I already pointed out that the scientists may have felt some articles were flat out wrong but were not able to prevent their publication even if it was harmful to the view the scientists held. Some articles these scientists were critical of when they reviewed them-even hypercritical-but that doesn't mean they were able to stop all publication of articles they disagreed with even if they wanted that.

Yes there is some indication that some scientists wanted to do that which reflects on them as people but the fact remains that some articles were published despite that.




Also you seem to pick and choose your standards here rather than be consistent.

You complain that you feel scientists are trustworthy yet "believe" (your word) skeptics who it turns out may have lied about life or death matter. Yes smoking relates to cancer and cancer is often a life or death matter.

Thus you fail to hold both sides to an consistent level of honesty. Scientists shouldn't try to distort (let alone blatantly lie) but it is perfectly acceptable if skeptics do.

If you were critical of distortions by each side or willing to accept acknowledge the validity criticism of figures on each side when they act ina poor manner you would be consistent, but I don't see you doing that.

I acknowledged Gore earned criticism his way but you have yet to acknowledge that skeptics such as Seitz or the Heartland Institute have.



"I look at their predictions and see none of them are accurate; I see that they rely almost exclusively on computer simulations for their doomsday predictions with nothing to validate the accuracy of their models. So I am skeptical that they have a handle on the situation and even more so that their predictions are in any way accurate."


Computer models are quite capable of being wrong. Yet I suspect the models many of these scientists use are updated to decrease that likelihood.

Moreover the general claim of these models is that things will get warmer and, for the last couple of decades, things have gotten warmer. This indicates the models were correct in at least the trend things are headed to.


Also at this point I haven't seen you point to or link to whatever projections you are referring to so I don't know if they are right or wrong let alone outdated (by newer and more accurate projections).

They may not like it. However that doesn't mean that a journal is right or wrong in whatever decision it makes.

If it chooses not to pubic proper articles then it is in the wrong, but if it publishes improper or even outright fraudulent articles then it would also be in the wrong.

I haven't said that the climate doesn't change. As a matter of fact my current understanding is that there is a cycle the climate seems to go by so, over time, the climate is continually changing back and forth (hotter and colder).

However the climate may be being pushed out of cycle right now rather than following it. So simply saying that change happens doesn't mean that some of that change cannot relate to how we run our economies.

You referred to extraordinary claims before. Does it strike you at all odd that we-if we follow some of the skeptics-are to assume a global economy cannot affect the globe?

 

It's kind of interesting when you consider the history of glacial activity in the northern hemisphere actually predicts the warming we've been experiencing over the past thousand years or so. "Ice ages" occur every 150 million years and last for about a million years -- the next one is due in 25-50 thousand years -- typically an increase in global warming is seen over the last hundred thousand or so years. Likewise glacial cycles are fairly accurately predicted by Milankovitch cycles (orbital forcing) and impact ice ages as well. I've yet to see any substantial climate control piece which also accounts for these cycles -- but then I really don't look closely at the topic.

I guess we'll find out for certain if human influence in global warming is really significant in about 50,000 years. Hopefully, we'll have a more accurate picture long before then. In 50,000 years they may want global warming.

 

But on that same website, he says to be careful because with careful plotting of points for the trend lines you can "prove" that the temperature has risen, fallen, or is static. In fact, here's a graph from that website that "proves" it is rising: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/trend

 

I am aware of periodic cooling trends throughout Earth's history (with the whole "snowball Earth" being probably the most cited example). However, when most people talk about ice ages, I assume they mean the recent periods of glaciation and interglacial periods that have been happening for the last 2-3 million years or so. These run on much shorter time scales of around 100,000 years, in which there is 80,000 - 90,000 years of glaciation, followed by a much shorter 10,000 - 20,000 interglacial period. We are in an interglacial period right now, and IIRC, it's been around 10,000 years since the last glaciation ended.

 

Not quite. And now I see why 13 years were used rather than a decade. In a 10 year period from 2000 the line is less flat. But there was a big temp spike in the late 1990s so going back 13 years rather than 10 uses that spike to make it look like there has been less warming.

Now even with the spike there is some warming, it is barely there but there. But the point is that looks like less of a stall than portrayed. All you have to do is extend the line 20 or 30 years and the line looks much different because you aren't using a high spike as your initial starting point. Now if you do it by decade with that graph then it appears there is warming each decade with rapid warming in the 1990s-more so than in the 1980s or 2000s. But warming in each decade. Different rates of warming in each decade but still warming in each one.

Actually the skeptics may be in the business of providing cover for companies that may be party to billions of dollars in damages and don't want to pay for the costs they may have already inflicted on other people-and still be in the process of inflicting.

Don't forget that some of these same skeptics were involved in attempts to provide cover to tobacco companies-likely as a way to help those companies avoid damages related to harm their products caused other people. Plus they may have been trying ward off government actions which reduce the domestic (US) market for tobacco products which would hamper future sales for said corporations with the benefit of helping save lives.


Oh, its only millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars (rather than billions) but my less than esteemed Governor here in Wisconsin threw up new regulations that hampered wind power projects already in the works for my state. Now this in only one state and not the total US but it still sets an example of a supposedly free market person actually using government power to hamper competition in the energy industry in favor of the established methods and companies (coal) rather than new (wind).

EDIT:
Just because you don't see people referring to direct costs of established & current industries/practices such as subsidies and government sponsored projects that often does not mean there are no indirect costs related to established & current industries/practices.

End of EDIT

Actually both matter. If things get warming (regardless of if humans are responsible) then there is problems such as worse hurricanes, increased flooding in some places, and increased droughts in others. There are probably more problems I didn't think of but those are a few I could name right off the bat.

Now if it is human caused that means both that we can do something about it and we may even have an idea of who is responsible.

I think they test the models against what has happened on this planet. As time passes measurements have stopped (at least not yet). Plus one test they did run on the models was to see if they would predict a sea that covered much of N. Africa drying up or not as it once did if they plugged in according geographical and atmospheric data from the time period and then let the computer model guess what would happen next (which we already have an idea of as the Sahara covers much of N. Africa now).

 

Aldeth, I've found references to two or three different cycles. I remember hearing in my archeology class about a northern hemisphere "mini" glacier cycle that comes every 20,000 or so years. I think if you read fifteen different articles you get fifteeen different interpretations of thermal cycles.

I've usually heard the term "the ice age" to be the cooling period after the dinosaurs -- which lasted nearly a million years. For the lesser cycles I've heard the terms you used of glacial and interglacial periods (at least in most science articles), but the timing of those varies from article to article.

With us being in an interglacial period (in both the 150 million and 100 thousand year cycles) I find it difficult to believe industry is the only cause of global warming, I'm not even sure how significant we are in comparison to other effects identified with the various cooling periods of the earth. Although there has been speculation in one paper I found that creation of greenhouse gasses could delay the next ice age/glaciation period by 500,000 years -- I really didn't understand how they came up with that number and haven't seen it verified anywhere else.