House Republicans Agree: Global Warming Doesn’t Exist

(Transcript of video here.)

From The Hill:

House Republicans rejected amendments offered Tuesday by Democrats that called on Congress to accept the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, it is caused in large part by human activity and it is a threat to human health.

The amendments, offered at an Energy and Commerce Committee markup of legislation to block Environmental Protection Agency climate change rules, are part of an effort by House Democrats to get Republicans on the record on climate science.

Committee ranking Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) offered an amendment Tuesday that called on Congress to agree that climate change is occurring. The amendment failed on a party-line vote of 20-31. No Republicans voted for the amendment.

Two more amendments along the same line also failed on party line votes. The blog Skeptical Science, writing before the Republican anti-science bill passed, commented:

Fortunately, as Congressman Markey noted, even if the bill is passed by the House of Representatives, it has little chance of passing in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and if it were to pass there, President Obama would almost certainly veto this legislation.

Nevertheless, the mere existence of the bill is an ominous sign of the Republican war on climate science, in which they believe they can overturn scientific evidence based on nothing more than the ignorant opinions of a few politicians. Similarly, Republicans in the Montana state legislature recently introduced a bill which stated, among other scientific falsehoods,

“global warming is a natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it.”

It seems as though Republicans think that politics can dictate science. Unfortunately, passing legislation saying that humans are not causing global warming, or that greenhouse gas emissions do not pose a threat to public health and welfare, does not change the physical reality that these statements are simply wrong.

Unfortunately, it’s clear that Republicans and conservatives are not open to reasoned persuasion. They believe, as a matter of religious faith (or perhaps just expedience), that in any conflict between science and corporate profits, science is wrong; there is no imaginable argument or evidence that will make any important Republican change their mind about this.

Bill O’Reilly is, by a wide margin, the most-listened-to conservative on TV; he’s also an idiot who says that God must exist, because “Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.” My problem isn’t that O’Reilly is an ignoramus. My problem is that few if any of his millions of conservative admirers will think any less of him, or take him any less seriously, because he’s an ignoramus. And that’s absolutely typical of the conservative movement. There are few if any conservatives who will withhold their votes from the Republicans who voted for ignorance and against science yesterday, because conservatives, as a movement, are for ignorance and against science.

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73 Responses to House Republicans Agree: Global Warming Doesn’t Exist

  1. 1
    JutGory says:

    Unfortunately, it’s clear that Republicans and conservatives are not open to reasoned persuasion.

    I am completely open to reasoned persuasion. The supporters of global warming (sometimes referred to now as “climate change,” because they don’t know which way the temperature is moving (and becasue the climate is always changing)) are not interested in reasoned persuasion.

    They are interested in name calling. This column is a perfect example. There is no persuasive reasoning in here. It just says, in essence, “Republicans hate science and are stupid.

    I don’t blame you though. You can not make a reasoned argument because the scientists have not shown the data.

    http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/02/ipcc-and-the-east-anglia-refusal/

    This fight has been going on for a long time:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6678469/Climategate-University-of-East-Anglia-U-turn-in-climate-change-row.html

    The fact that the evidence has not been made public is a PERFECT reason to be skeptical of the conclusions offered. That is how science is done. But, that does not appear to be the way the global warming supporters play the game.

    But, I will give you a chance: my biggest question is the way sunspot activity plays into this. Recent reported increases in sunspot activity loosely correlated (I use the word “loosely” loosely) to my own experience of warmer weather; even more recent reported decreases in sunspot activity have correlated with my experiences of much colder winters, such as I have not experienced since the early 80’s (when the notion of “Global Cooling” was falling out of fashion). So, that explanation seems intuitively plausible, as it meshes with my own experiences.

    So, here is my problem with Anthropogenic Global Warming: you have not provided a mechanism. You have a theory, but where is the cause?

    How exactly can you prove that the increase in CO2 correlates directly with an increase in temperature? I will concede it is entirely possible that there is SOME effect. If only we had some data to look at….

    With my example: I have provided a mechanism. Increased sunspot activity results in increased radiation hitting the earth, causing an increase in temperature. That explanation makes perfect sense to me. This theory can be disproven with data, but, like I said, my understanding is that there is a correlation between sunspot activity and temperature.

    -Jut

  2. 2
    Ampersand says:

    Jut, there’s no need for me to defend the overwhelming consensus of the climatologists working in this; they’ve already done so, through hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles (and other places).

    The burden of proof is on those arguing we should ignore the experts. But the arguments and evidence put forward by climate skeptics, such as yourself, are impossible to respect; they can only come from either ignorance or dishonesty.

    Your first argument is that “the evidence has not been made public,” and “the scientists have not shown the data.” Both your links refer to Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), which, flooded with 60 Freedom of Information requests in a single week due to a coordinated harassment campaign (previously, CoI requests had come in at a rate of one or two per year), improperly refused requests.

    But, first of all, to refer to the CRU as “the evidence” and “the scientists,” as if the CRU is all climatology everywhere, is dishonest or ignorant. There’s mountain of evidence even without the CRU evidence.

    Second, the CRU’s results can be, and have been, fully confirmed with data available to the public. One of the investigations into the CRU examined this exact question (pdf link):

    On the allegation of withholding temperature data, we find that CRU was not in a position to withhold access to such data or tamper with it. We demonstrated that any independent researcher can download station data directly from primary sources and undertake their own temperature trend analysis. […]

    On the allegations in relation to withholding data, in particular concerning the small sample size of the tree ring data from the Yamal peninsula, CRU did not withhold the underlying raw data (having correctly directed the single request to the owners).[…]

    The overall implication of the allegations was to cast doubt on the extent to which CRU‟s work in this area could be trusted and should be relied upon and we find no evidence to support that implication.

    In short, you’re completely wrong when you say the data isn’t available to the public.

    Now, about those sunspots:

    The red line is NASA data of average global temperature. The blue line is sunspot activity. Note what’s been happening since 1980. So much for your theory that they correspond.

    Finally, regarding the evidence of correspondence between C02 and global temperature, please read these two posts (1 2) by John Cook.

    (Edited to re-add the graph, which for some reason WordPress cut out the first time. Oy.)

  3. 3
    JutGory says:

    Jut, there’s no need for me to defend the overwhelming consensus of the climatologists working in this; they’ve already done so, through hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles (and other places).

    Thus ends any attempt at reasoned persuasion. But, for good measure:

    The burden of proof is on those arguing we should ignore the experts. But the arguments and evidence put forward by climate skeptics, such as yourself, are impossible to respect; they can only come from either ignorance or dishonesty.

    I disagree. The burden is on you. You said that Republicans and conservatives are not open to reasoned persuasion and then you say it is not your burden to persuade. Make up your mind.

    By the way, even if there is a consensus among scientists, the burden is on them to convince me. Anything else is a commission of the logical fallacy of an “appeal to authority,” which fallacy you have just resorted to. I do not have to believe what they say simply because they say it; to do otherwise would be to surrender my own authority over my own reason, which I only do, when I can trust the authority (and I am the one who determines whom I deem worthy of my trust).

    -Jut

  4. 4
    nobody.really says:

    “You can wake up a sleeping man with the slightest sound but no amount of noise, no matter how loud, can wake someone pretending to sleep.”

    Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals.

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

    Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

    “Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken”
    [Who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]

    Old English Homilies (1175)

  5. 5
    L says:

    JutGory, you don’t seem to be addressing the evidence that Ampersand has posted, and instead have chosen to sidestep the meat of the entire debate in order to nitpick some “logical fallacy” that doesn’t really appear to be present. He’s not appealing to authority, he’s appealing to facts; while you seem to be appealing to a gut emotional response to having been proven wrong so easily.

    Typical behavior from someone in denial.

  6. 6
    Myca says:

    JutGory, I think you may be confusing this post with another sort of post. It’s totally acceptable to post “Here’s the evidence for Global Warming/Global Climate Change,” and it’s acceptable to post, “Republicans are anti-science loons who don’t believe in Global Warming/Global Climate Change.” Both posts have their place, both are useful, and they’re talking about different things.

    Just at the first post doesn’t need to include the second in order to be useful, neither does the second need to include the first.

    A few further points:

    The supporters of global warming (sometimes referred to now as “climate change,” because they don’t know which way the temperature is moving (and becasue the climate is always changing)

    If you want to avoid name calling and have an honest discussion, you might want to avoid writing things like this in the future. It’s been called Global Warming because the average global temperature has been rising. It’s been called Global Climate Change because the rising average global temperature will have varied effects on climate in different regions, not always including the temperature in a given region rising. Both are accurate, but they refer to slightly different things. I hope that makes sense.

    Anything else is a commission of the logical fallacy of an “appeal to authority,” which fallacy you have just resorted to.

    This is part of why more and more the fallacy is being referred to as:

    Fallacious Appeal to Authority, Misuse of Authority, Irrelevant Authority, Questionable Authority, Inappropriate Authority

    and

    An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

    1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
    2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
    3. Therefore, C is true.

    This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

    That is, appealing to an evolutionary biologist in a discussion of evolution isn’t a fallacy. Appealing to the growing consensus among climate scientists when discussing Global Climate Change isn’t a fallacy. We can’t all be experts in everything, and it’s okay to recognize that.

    Now, Ampersand posted some evidence above. I’m sure he would be happy to discuss it with you, if you’re honestly interested in talking about the issue. You can’t complain that everybody engages in name calling and won’t present evidence and then ignore the evidence when it’s posted.

    Well … I guess you can, but not intellectually honestly.

    —Myca

  7. 7
    JutGory says:

    L,

    you don’t seem to be addressing the evidence that Ampersand has posted

    Right now, we have not gotten past who has the burden of proof.

    He’s not appealing to authority

    He is:

    Ampersand: The burden of proof is on those arguing we should ignore the experts.

    Ampersand: there’s no need for me to defend the overwhelming consensus of the climatologists working in this

    On another point,

    nobody.really: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

    Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

    Exactly. There is too much money to be made on both sides for me not to be skeptical of their rationales. I can acknowledge the agenda of those skeptical of global warming. Can those who believe in global warming acknowledge the money to be made if it is true. I do not like being manipulated by either side.

    By the way, personal anectdote: I remember back in the 70’s. This may have been soon after the gas shortage. There was a commercial of a kid walking along a beach. He wondered whether there would be enough gas around when he got to be old enough to drive. That commercial struck me; the kid was probably a few years older than I was at the time; I was concerned that there may not be enough gas left for me to drive a car. Over 30 years later, I realized that I have to refill my tank this afternoon (and I am not just talking about St. Patrick’s Day).

    So, yeah, I am fine taking a wait and see approach. Let’s see if the climatologists can make any verifiable predictions. And, let’s see if any of them come true. The problem is, their method of arguing seems to boil down to: we have to make X changes right now, or by 2030, the Earth will be covered in water.

    Yeaaahhh….

    -Jut

  8. 8
    Myca says:

    Right now, we have not gotten past who has the burden of proof.

    Whoever has the burden of proof, he’s posted evidence, which you’re refusing to recognize or engage. He claims that you have the burden of proof, sure … but then he posts evidence for his position.

    —Myca

  9. 9
    JutGory says:

    A few more points and I may be out for the day:

    A few issues:

    The “Hockey Stick Graph” is either a failed predictive device or, at least, controversial:

    http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/mann's-hockey-stick-climate-graph.htm

    The prediction in the 70’s was global cooling:

    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

    Frankly, global cooling worries me much more than global warming. If we are approaching another ice age, the place where my house sits will likely be under a mile of ice. Global warming would likely have little effect on flooding around me.

    But, to be fair, I genuinely ask: has there been a prediction made by the global warming people that has come true? If so, what are they? Most predictions I have heard about are so far off into the future that most people will be dead before they are capable of verification. This is a very important test for any theory. Part of the problem is: I do not think climate science is capable of the same sort of predictions that the theory of relativity has (and successfully predicted!).

    -Jut

  10. 10
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    There’s a few things global warming tend to believe:
    1) the earth is warming
    2) because of certain changes in inputs like ____
    3) which are driven or caused by certain human behaviors ___
    4) and which is likely to cause certain effects _____

    Similarly, denialists tend to believe one of four equivalent things:
    1D) The earth’s temperature is not noticeably changing;
    2D) if it is changing, the change is caused normally, randomly, or by inputs which we do not understand;
    3D) and even if we do understand them; the human effect is too minimal to really concentrate on;
    4D) and the predicted effects are too widely spread and random to really use as a guide to current behavior.

    I generally believe all four global warming points, but to be honest it’s not clear to me that all four of those have equal backing, and it’s certainly not clear to me that all four of them as a whole group have extraordinary support. There’s a lot of prediction and multivariate analysis going on, and there’s a lot of error. When you start analyzing them as a group (and including the interplay of all four areas) then it’s much harder.

    Is there global warming? I say yes. But I understand that this is a BELIEF; I don’t actually know. I have a good science background and consider myself pretty smart. I’ve read a lot of scientific papers. But the “all four are right, individually and collectively” analysis is so complex and covers so many fields and studies, that I don’t really feel like I can get an accurate handle on it.

    I’d trust the few scientists who say that they DO understand it, but… well, like I said, I’ve read a lot of papers. Trust isn’t in my blood.

    So i’m going with my gut, which is that the scientists are right. but I can’t say that people are complete idiots for feeling otherwise.

  11. 11
    JutGory says:

    Sorry for the “hit and run” approach. i do not have time for a long response, just some links (I hope they get through).

    On the “consensus”:

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

    On the monetary benefit of studying global warming:

    http://www.goodplanet.info/eng/Contenu/Points-de-vues/Climate-of-Fear-Global-Warming-Alarmists-Intimidate-Dissenting-Scientists-into-Silence/(theme)/1392

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece

    Other “expert” views:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3624242/There-IS-a-problem-with-global-warming…-it-stopped-in-1998.html

    And, on sunspots (which Ampersand’s graph does not address because it ends around 2000):

    http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/42006-harvard-astrophysicist-sunspot-activity-correlates-to-global-climate

    Do I expect to convince you it is a hoax? No. I am sure there are enough things on the internet that we could throw links back and forth at each other for a long time. And, I do not know if it is true or not. I am with g-and-w, trust is not in my blood. I just fall on the other side of the fence from him.

    But, in the interest of reasoned dialogue, here is another question: what would prove to you that global warming is not happening?

    -Jut

  12. 12
    L says:

    Jut,

    I would be far more suspicious of people who can only benefit from maintaining the status quo. As far as this country goes, and historically speaking, they tend to be the bad guys more often than not.

  13. 13
    Kevin Moore says:

    Calling someone ignorant is not inherently name-calling. It’s pointing out that they don’t know what they are talking about. And conservatives in the case of global warming and climate change tend to be ignorant in this sense, because a) they do not know the basic facts of these phenomena (as jutgory has demonstrated in not being able to tell the difference between them); b) they are ideologically predisposed against the scientific method in general and two particular theories that, despite all evidence supporting them, pose discomforting implications to sacredly held beliefs — namely, our topic at hand and evolution; c) they have vested political and economic interests as Ampersand has discussed.

    However, you won’t get an honest discussion from conservatives like jutgory, because, as is evident from this discussion so far, such conservatives are more interested in scoring weak rhetorical points, pissing off the libruls, and playing the keyboard commando in a time-wasting crusade for their cause.

    The more serious issue is that the human race is threatening itself with extinction through irresponsible pursuit of short-term selfish interests of political and economic elites. The planet will do just fine, it will recover, it will shake us off like fleas. It is ourselves and our neighboring species to whom the greater harm will come. Democrats can play all the political games they want with conservatives, who are completely too stubborn to give a damn; but when Democrats are back in power, will they have the bravery to create the economic and environmental programs necessary? Will they be able to force the banks and financial industry to pay up for the economic crisis it has created — which has been behind the “times are tough, time to cut regulatory agency budgets” rationale that only makes things worse? These are rhetorical questions. So far we have seen political leadership throughout the “developed” and “developing” countries in a continual standstill and blame game without making much headway, whether that leadership is composed of conservatives or liberals.

  14. 14
    RonF says:

    I’m rather skeptical of the claims that what global warming there may be has been proven to have an anthropogenic cause. However:

    you won’t get an honest discussion from conservatives like jutgory

    Has jutgory made postings elsewhere on this blog that causes you to label him or her a conservative? Or is the fact that someone doubts the suite of global warming beliefs sufficient to describe someone as “conservative”?

  15. 15
    Kevin Moore says:

    Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, farts like a duck…. Duck!

  16. 16
    Stefan says:

    Kevin, I concur with RonF in the idea that you’re not treating JutGory with fairness at all.The issue of antropogenic global warming is *very complicated*, and, as gin-and-whiskey suggested, one needs to know some physics to get an idea of what’s going on.
    I see no reason why you can’t assume good faith.

  17. 17
    Ampersand says:

    Jut, that’s nothing but a list of links. It’s not an argument; it’s not a good-faith contribution to discussion. It’s link-spamming, and expecting me to respond to all those links is unfair. If it takes me 45 minutes to construct an argument responding to each link… Not fair at all.

    It’s one thing to throw in a couple of specific, targeted links in response to a request for information, or as a supplement to an argument you’ve taken the time to write; it’s quite another to just throw a seemingly random bunch of links against the wall in the hope that one of them will stick.

    As far as I’m concerned, it’s the opposite of discussion, and it’s not what the comments of this blog are intended for. Consider this a warning.

    (If you want to pick a single link, and say (in effect) “this is an link that I find especially convincing against human-caused climate change. I think the _____ argument, which I’ll quote a couple of paragraphs of that I think are especially telling and persuasive,” then that’s not as good as actually writing an argument, but it’s okay. Although I’d then expect you to respond and defend your view (or admit that you don’t feel able to) if people then rebut your link and/or quotes.)

    (Also, a list of links would have been acceptable in an open thread).

    Time is no excuse. If you don’t have time to do a response now, then wait until later. If you don’t have time this week, wait until next week, or the week after that. (That’s what the “recently commented posts” on the sidebar is for – so that people can wait to post comments without worrying that the thread will have sunk below visibility.)

    That said, you do make one semi-argument in your comment, in a single sentence:

    And, on sunspots (which Ampersand’s graph does not address because it ends around 2000):

    That doesn’t make sense. Are you saying that from 1980 to 2000, as shown by the NASA data, sunspots didn’t have any correspondence to global warming, but from 2000 to the present, they did? If so, what’s your theory to account for global warming from 1980 to 2000, and also to account for the sudden change in the effect of sunspots? If sunspots have a strong effect on global warming, as you claim, then why didn’t they have that effect from 1980 to 2000?

    Really, I should say from 1980 through 2007 or so. In 2008 a team of scientists examined 20 years of data, measured in multiple ways, and found that the facts contradict the sunspot theory.

    Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun’s activity.

    The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate “sceptics”, that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.

    The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.

    UK scientists found there has been no significant link between cosmic rays and cloudiness in the last 20 years.

    Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the University of Lancaster team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.

    I’d also recommend this article for a better background on the state of the sunspot debate. Even Eigil Friis-Christensen, the co-creator of the solar flare theory, no longer believes that sunspots can account for global warming. The data just doesn’t match up.

    Finally, you did ask what global warming scientists have successfully predicted. One answer is, they correctly predicted global warming.

    In the 1960s and 1970s, as you pointed out, a small number of scientists were predicting global cooling. A larger number of scientists were predicting that global warming would occur. Thomas Peterson published a thorough history of this debate (pdf link); he located 7 peer-reviewed articles predicting global cooling, and 42 predicting global warming, published between 1965 and 1979. Looking at the data since then, there’s no question that the folks predicting that average global temperatures would rise have been proven correct, and the folks predicting otherwise have been proven wrong.

    (And indeed, some of the scientists who predicted global cooling have been convinced by the evidence and now support the scientific consensus on global warming. Weirdly enough, I’ve seen climate change deniers cite this as proof that global warming isn’t true, when actually the opposite is the case; if global warming didn’t have so much strong evidence in support of it, we wouldn’t see scientists switching positions like that.)

  18. 18
    Jake Squid says:

    … if global warming didn’t have so much strong evidence in support of it, we wouldn’t see scientists switching positions like that.

    Ah, you’re forgetting the financial incentives (previously mentioned by Jut in comment #7) for being on the Global Warming team. Sure, it’s not as much as it once was since the advent of the salary cap, but it’s still an awful lot.

  19. 19
    Ampersand says:

    I’m rather skeptical of the claims that what global warming there may be has been proven to have an anthropogenic cause.

    Why?

    Has jutgory made postings elsewhere on this blog that causes you to label him or her a conservative? Or is the fact that someone doubts the suite of global warming beliefs sufficient to describe someone as “conservative”?

    For the record, despite my heated words in this discussion, I believe JutGory is arguing in good faith. But I think I’ve also shown that his arguments are contrary to facts. (On the issue of the alleged missing data, he didn’t even attempt to respond to my rebuttal of his claims.) But saying that someone is dead wrong is not the same as saying someone is arguing in bad faith.

    However, although I disagree with the second paragraph of Kevin’s post #13 (which I think crossed the line into being the kind of personal attack I’d prefer not to see on Alas), I do think Kevin is probably right to infer that JG is a conservative. Of JG’s 16 comments so far, nearly all have supported conservative positions, and none have supported liberal positions.

    * * *

    Please, let this be the last comment in this thread discussing JutGory’s alleged motivations. Let’s focus on arguments, not on people, please.

  20. 20
    Joe says:

    The part about this “debate” that I find so frustrating is that nobody here (I presume) is even remotely qualified to debate the science behind climate change.

    Jutgory, do you have a PhD in climatology (or a related field)? Have you made studying the climate your life’s work? Have you published peer-reviewed papers on the topic in reputable scientific journals? No? Then what makes you think that a few hours “researching” on the internet makes your opinion the equal of those who have done so?

    The experts have agreed, by an overwhelming consensus, that global climate change is occurring, and that it is caused by human activity. Should that consensus ever change, the revelation will come from a highly educated person who has invested significant time in studying the phenomenon. Not from some schmoe who spends a few hours reading pop-science articles on the internet.

    As for the OP: yeah. Republicans. By-and-large, a bunch of ignoramuses. I only wish that along with their rejection of science, they would also reject the products of science. Then at least they wouldn’t be able to use the Internet and we wouldn’t have to listen to them.

  21. 21
    JutGory says:

    Ampersand,
    I apologize for the “link-blast.” There were accusations that I was ducking your evidence, so I posted things that I thought were pertinent counter-points in the discussion.

    But, there are probably a few things we can agree on:

    1) Climate is not static. The Earth has been warmer during periods of its existence and it has been cooler at other times. So, saying there is “climate change” is like stating that the sky is blue.

    2) The sun can impact climate. If the sun put out twice as much energy as it did now, can we agree that the earth would heat up? By the same token, if the energy that the sun produced were cut in half, can we agree that the earth would cool and the glaciers would likely grow?

    3) Other factors can affect climate, whether it is a nuclear winter (which I would concede to you as an example of anthropogenic global cooling), an asteroid collision, or volcanic events (like Krakatoa or Mt. St. Helens).

    4) I would even concede to you that human activity could affect climate. The climate is a complex system and the participants in the system can affect it.

    The ultimate question is whether human activity is the cause, as opposed to (or in addition to) other causes. If climate is not static, isolating the “mechanism” of human influence becomes much more difficult.

    There are many questions about what caused changes in the climate in the last 1200 years. There were warmer periods during that timeframe that pre-date the industrial age. And, the period of warming you were talking about (the last 40 years) has taken place during a time when we were trying to reduce air pollution. Maybe we should bring back the smokestacks and the smog; that would block out the sun and cool down the planet. While that is a facetious remark, there is a point in there about unintended consequences. In a complex system, finding a “cause” can be difficult and predicting the “effect” of any action taken can be even more difficult.

    Part of my caution is connected to what appears to be a rush to judgment. We have not been studying the climate all that long, but people are content to make cataclysmic predictions about the future that require an immediate change in behavior now. Let’s face it, whether anthropogenic global warming is true, there are two great incentives to state that it is: money and power (the same sorts of incentives there are to deny it). We cannot control the sun, but we can control people. If the sun is the cause, there is nothing we can do about it. But, if it is people, we can use this as a basis to control them. And people in power love to get more power. And, if there is money to be made (and there is a LOT of money to be made off of man-made global warming), people will do it (even if man-made global warming is not true). So, in response to L, sometimes the bad guys have a great interest in changing the status quo. Some of my links related to the money, power and prestige that comes with being a supporter of global warming.

    My point about the “consensus” is that it is not clear to me that there is one. Three of my links referenced people who do not agree with (or are skeptical of) the notion of anthropogenic global warming (or parts of the science). The reference to a “consensus” is, in my view, a legitimate case of a fallacious appeal to authority. To say, as Joe does, “The experts have agreed, by an overwhelming consensus,” is to appeal to an unidentified expert to support his claim. Joe does not tell us who these experts are; it is not even clear that Joe can name a single expert. More likely, he is just repeating what he has been told. Al Gore has also said there is a consensus. But, as Joe would point out, Al Gore is not a climatologist. Why should I believe a thing he has to say? Because he is a powerful person who has made a lot of money and gained a lot of prestige by supporting this issue? No, that is the very reason why I should be skeptical of him.

    Joe, to answer your questions: no, no, no. What is your point? You can not have an opinion unless you are an expert? No, I think your point is that we should unthinkingly agree with the opinion of someone who is an expert on something. No thanks. I would rather think for myself (and be wrong), than be a useful idiot for someone else.

    -Jut

  22. 22
    Ben David says:

    OK – let’s try it this way:
    The total mass of the earth’s atmosphere is:
    5.1480×1018 kilograms
    In kilograms, that’s a 5 with EIGHTEEN zeros after it:

    5,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms
    (kilogram = just over 2 pounds)

    Even after 200 years of industrial revolution and thousands of years of human activity, carbon dioxide is measured as PARTS PER MILLION in that atmosphere. It’s roughly 1/3 of one percent of the atmosphere (0.0034 or 34 parts PER MILLION).

    So the decade-long “science” about a “layer” of man-made CO2 that “traps” heat is garbage – because there simply isn’t enough of it in the atmosphere to do that.

    Total human-caused carbon emissions for 2007 were estimated as:
    29,321,302,000 kilograms

    We can grossly overestimate the industrial world’s contribution of atmospheric carbon by multiplying the 2007 figure by 200 years:

    5,864,260,400,000 kilograms

    Let’s stack those numbers together to give a sense of relative scale:

    5,000,000,000,000,000,000 – total atmosphere
    0,003,400,000,000,000,000 – total CO2 in atmosphere
    0,000,005,864,260,400,000 – total carbon released by humans
    0,000,000,029,321,302,000 – human CO2 for 2007

    … even if humans released the same amount of carbon in EVERY YEAR since the industrial revolution that they did in 2007 – and the oceans and forests did not sequester any of that “bad” carbon – we’d still only be responsible for less than 1/5 of the CO2 in the atmosphere.

    Which itself is a tiny fraction of the total atmosphere.
    – but we know that oceans, land, and living organisms DO exchange and sequester carbon. Some more numbers:

    Carbon content of the oceans:
    36,000,000,000,000,000 kilogram – 36,000 gigatonnes

    Carbon in soil and surface mineral deposits:
    27,000,000,000,000,000 kg – 27 gigatonnes

    Carbon in living biomass:
    575,000,000,000,000 kg – 575 gigatonnes

    Again, let’s stack it up for comparison:
    5,000,000,000,000,000,000 – total atmosphere
    0,003,400,000,000,000,000 – total CO2 in atmosphere
    0,036,000,000,000,000,000 – total C in oceans
    0,027,000,000,000,000,000 – total C in soil and surface deposits
    0,000,575,000,000,000,000 – total C in biomass
    0,000,005,864,260,400,000 – total carbon released by humans
    0,000,000,029,321,302,000 – human CO2 for 2007

    Scientists are no where near being able to model the details of the carbon cycle, or the complex energy equations of global climate. But it’s clear that blaming the changes on human action is a big stretch – simply by looking at the orders of magnitude involved.

    It’s clear also that blaming the changes on human action has great financial and political impact – in particular, it allows left-leaning folks to justify control of industry “for our own good”.

    So hearing folks on a left-leaning blog strut and fluff their feathers about how “the science is proven” – but we needn’t prove it on “this sort of blog post” – is an unmistakable “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” moment.

    I applaud the people on this thread who basically admitted they had no proof one way or another, but that they “believed” in human-caused climate change. They are correct – this is a “belief” tied in with other beliefs they probably hold – such as a generally negative view of “the industrial complex”.

    Data nicely summarized at the following Wikipedia articles:

    Atmosphere_of_Earth
    Carbon_cycle
    List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

  23. 23
    Michael says:

    Ben David
    So the decade-long “science” about a “layer” of man-made CO2 that “traps” heat is garbage – because there simply isn’t enough of it in the atmosphere to do that.

    That you take the metaphorical “layer” scientists use to describe what is happening in the atmosphere as some sort of literal blanket shows a deep misunderstanding about what greenhouse gases are actually doing. Just because the numbers look relatively small to you doesn’t mean that they are actually too small to be causing the effects that climate scientists suggest that they are.

    And this is actually related to Jut’s response to Joe:
    What is your point? You can not have an opinion unless you are an expert? No, I think your point is that we should unthinkingly agree with the opinion of someone who is an expert on something.

    Clearly no one is suggesting that we should unthinkingly agree with someone who is an expert on something. But when a topic is so complex and the average citizen is so far removed from details, believing those closest to the situation to be the best ones to come up with an accurate assessment is not a stretch.

    This is not to say that we shouldn’t be critical in our thinking but if one is going to choose the minority expert opinion over the majority, one should have a good solid reason for that. And if you don’t understand the nuances of making climate models, I don’t honestly see how one chooses the minority over the majority without ascribing some other (non-science) motive to the majority. And it’s fine to be skeptical of the funding structure and how it doesn’t encourage enough variety in ideas but money is everywhere. Why climate science in particular? And are those who don’t believe the majority in this instance also as thoroughly skeptical in all other areas where they rely on experts to provide guidance? Does the power of big pharma make you more likely to believe in homeopathy?

    My advice to conservatives is this: it is better to accept the leading opinion on anthropogenic climate change and try to dictate the response to it rather than lose a battle over the science. Because when conservatives lose, the liberals who were right on the science will be ahead of the game on policy.

  24. 24
    Myca says:

    I believe in Global Warming because
    1) The experts, whose job it is to figure out the truth of the matter, believe in it.
    2) All of the objections I’ve heard to it are rooted either in ignorance or ideology, and have overwhelmingly (though not totally) had good, fairly easy to understand, responses.

    JutGory:

    So, here is my problem with Anthropogenic Global Warming: you have not provided a mechanism. You have a theory, but where is the cause?

    How does carbon dioxide cause global warming?

    Most of the light energy from the sun is emitted in wavelengths shorter than 4,000 nanometers (.000004 meters). The heat energy released from the earth, however, is released in wavelengths longer than 4,000 nanometers. Carbon dioxide doesn’t absorb the energy from the sun, but it does absorb some of the heat energy released from the earth. When a molecule of carbon dioxide absorbs heat energy, it goes into an excited unstable state. It can become stable again by releasing the energy it absorbed. Some of the released energy will go back to the earth and some will go out into space.

    So in effect, carbon dioxide lets the light energy in, but doesn’t let all of the heat energy out, similar to a greenhouse.

    Incidentally, this is also a response to Ben David’s, “layer of carbon,” argument … specifically that nobody’s talking about a layer of carbon.\


    JutGory
    :

    1) Climate is not static. The Earth has been warmer during periods of its existence and it has been cooler at other times. So, saying there is “climate change” is like stating that the sky is blue.

    Sure, but this climate change is outside the natural trend, which we are able to measure and account for. The short summary is: the natural cycle predicts cooling right now, and though the natural cycle does see occasional jumps in temperature, the jump we’re seeing now is roughly ten times faster than any in recorded history.

    Go here for evidence.

    JutGory:

    2) The sun can impact climate. If the sun put out twice as much energy as it did now, can we agree that the earth would heat up? By the same token, if the energy that the sun produced were cut in half, can we agree that the earth would cool and the glaciers would likely grow?

    Sure, but according to the World Radiation Center, there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978, and according to the reconstructions doen by the Max Planck Institute, there has been no increase in solar irradiance since around 1940.

    Go here for evidence.

    JutGory:

    My point about the “consensus” is that it is not clear to me that there is one.

    I’m just going to cut and paste for this.

    From here:

    …the “consensus” about anthropogenic climate change entails the following:

    * the climate is undergoing a pronounced warming trend beyond the range of natural variability;
    * the major cause of most of the observed warming is rising levels of the greenhouse gas CO2;
    * the rise in CO2 is the result of burning fossil fuels;
    * if CO2 continues to rise over the next century, the warming will continue; and
    * a climate change of the projected magnitude over this time frame represents potential danger to human welfare and the environment.

    While theories and viewpoints in conflict with the above do exist, their proponents constitute a very small minority. If we require unanimity before being confident, well, we can’t be sure the earth isn’t hollow either.

    This consensus is represented in the IPCC Third Assessment Report, Working Group 1 (TAR WG1), the most comprehensive compilation and summary of current climate research ever attempted, and arguably the most thoroughly peer reviewed scientific document in history. While this review was sponsored by the UN, the research it compiled and reviewed was not, and the scientists involved were independent and came from all over the world.

    The conclusions reached in this document have been explicitly endorsed by …

    * Academia Brasiliera de Ciências (Bazil)
    * Royal Society of Canada
    * Chinese Academy of Sciences
    * Academié des Sciences (France)
    * Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
    * Indian National Science Academy
    * Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
    * Science Council of Japan
    * Russian Academy of Sciences
    * Royal Society (United Kingdom)
    * National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)
    * Australian Academy of Sciences
    * Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
    * Caribbean Academy of Sciences
    * Indonesian Academy of Sciences
    * Royal Irish Academy
    * Academy of Sciences Malaysia
    * Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
    * Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

    … in either one or both of these documents: PDF, PDF.

    In addition to these national academies, the following institutions specializing in climate, atmosphere, ocean, and/or earth sciences have endorsed or published the same conclusions as presented in the TAR report:

    * NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
    * National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
    * National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
    * State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
    * Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
    * Royal Society of the United Kingdom (RS)
    * American Geophysical Union (AGU)
    * American Institute of Physics (AIP)
    * National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
    * American Meteorological Society (AMS)
    * Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)

    If this is not scientific consensus, what in the world would a consensus look like?

    JutGory, I’m addressing your concerns as legitimate requests for information, and I hope that providing it will help you to see what the overwhelming majority of climate scientists have agreed upon.

    There is one other concern you raise, about how it’s not a good idea to unthinkingly agree with experts. I agree! It’s also not a good idea, and probably a far worse one, to unthinkingly deny the experts either. Nor is it a good idea to throw your hands up, announce, “Golly, there’s no way to know anything,” and ignore what may be a serious problem.

    We all have a responsibility to examine the evidence for and against, and come to our own conclusions … but, also, I think it’s pretty clear that the evidence points one direction. I literally don’t know of any serious* unanswered objections to the theory.

    If you have more objections or questions, I’d be happy to take a look at them.

    —Myca

    * This is why I didn’t address Ben David’s, “Big numbers are scary and chemistry is hard,” objection.

  25. 25
    Ben David says:

    Siiiiiiigggghhh.

    Myca – I did not make a “big numbers are scary” argument – I cited those numbers because the liberal-arts types embracing AGM generally do shy away from – or misunderstand – those big numbers. Probably most do not even understand scientific notation – so stringing out the zeros at least allows a basic grasp of the scale involved.

    Both you and Michael are straining not to let those numbers undercut your received wisdom. Michael immediately starts moving the discussion from scientific to literary language with:

    That you take the metaphorical “layer” scientists use to describe what is happening in the atmosphere as some sort of literal blanket shows a deep misunderstanding about what greenhouse gases are actually doing. Just because the numbers look relatively small to you doesn’t mean that they are actually too small to be causing the effects that climate scientists suggest that they are.

    Sorry, folks – but yes, they are too small.

    If total atmospheric CO2 is one third of one percent – it is not intercepting enough radiation to create an significant “greenhouse” effect. You are free to pick another “metaphor” if you wish, but… climate will still be overwhelmingly determined by the vast area of the atmosphere that allows clear radiation of heat – with little statistical chance of hitting a Co2 molecule – or that offers other molecules to absorb and re-radiate light and heat.

    None of which has been accurately modeled by scientists – not accurately enough to construct a disprovable prediction.

    That’s how REAL science works – a theoretical model is proposed, and testable predictions are made based on that model.

    There is none of that here – nothing but handwaving and grandstanding about how the “science” of global warming has been “proven” – even before a cogent theoretical formula has been put forward.

  26. 26
    Clarence says:

    Ben David:

    There have been plenty of papers published in the most respected peer reviewed journals. The only one “handwaving” here, is you. Do you have a nice scientific paper you could link to that proves your simplistic use of the total amount of CO2 in a layered atmosphere is inconsistent with global warming?
    I certainly didn’t see you run any actual numbers yourself, for instance using the amount of heat trapped by carbon dioxide per molecule or anything like that, so I suspect you are merely talking out of your butt.

    There’s a reason that global warming denialists have to claim vast international conspiracies involving pretty much all the climate scientists of every country on the planet and all the the large scientific associations as well, and it’s precisely because almost everyone with a science education past high school thinks they are full of it. You’ve done nothing to despel that notion with your misuse of math and misunderstanding of atmospheric chemistry. Pathetic.

  27. 27
    Brandon Berg says:

    They believe, as a matter of religious faith (or perhaps just expedience), that in any conflict between science and corporate profits, science is wrong; there is no imaginable argument or evidence that will make any important Republican change their mind about this.

    Really? I mean, I’m all for cynicism, but don’t you think that Republicans’ unwillingness to implement controls on carbon emissions might have just a little bit to do with the fact that every single one of their constituents benefits from the use of fossil fuels on a daily basis?

    I get that it’s fun to dump on Republicans and corporations, but the real issue is that people love fossil fuels, and imposing any kind of meaningful restriction on their use is a political career killer.

  28. 28
    Ampersand says:

    Brandon, suppose there’s a killer running at us with an axe. Let us further suppose that your constituents hate Judy the cop with a passion, and will punish you in the voting booth if you call Judy the cop.

    Now, that’s arguably a reason to not call on Judy the cop for help. Perhaps there’s some alternate policy you’d prefer to argue for instead. But it’s not an ethical reason to claim that there is not a killer with an axe running towards us.

    (And by the way, Democrats’ constituents benefit from fossil fuels every day, too.)

    UPDATE: I guess part of it is, do you think that the truth has any value whatsoever?

    Politicians are not genuinely serving their constituents best interests by lying to their constituents. Politicians are not genuinely serving their constituents best interests by persuading them that scientists are virtually all corrupt liars, and that when scientists say that there’s an urgent problem the most probably reason is that they’re engaging in a conspiracy. Politicians are not genuinely serving their constituents best interests when not saying anything that constituents don’t want to hear becomes an excuse for pretending real long-term problems don’t exist.

    And by the way, if the Republicans admitted that global warming is a real problem — as the conservative parties of nearly every other country have — I don’t really believe that it would hurt them in elections. If both parties are saying global warming is a real problem, I don’t think that’s going to cause you, or Rob, or any other conservative to start voting for Democrats.

    It’s not like global warming is the only difference between the two parties, after all.

  29. 29
    Elusis says:

    Ben David – botulinium toxin has one of the lowest LD50s of any substance known to mankind, about 2-300 picograms per kilogram of body weight. I presume that’s such a ridiculously tiny amount, relatively speaking, that you’re not concerned about it either?

  30. 30
    Charles S says:

    Ben David,

    Most of what I have to say on climate modeling I’ve said before on Alas in this thread.

    As an aside, if you ever start a comment here again with a “sigh,” you will be instantly banned [I’m a mod here]. Global warming denialists are annoying enough without being intentionally asinine.

    Your CO2 numbers look completely wrong to me. Your next comment here needs to provide a better reference than wikipedia supporting those numbers. The carbon dioxide information analysis center (a branch of the Department of Energy) has atmospheric CO2 at 787 PgC, with 174 PgC of that being anthropogenic in origin, and a total anthropogenic CO2 release since 1850 being 441.5 PgC (60% of which went into the ocean rather than the atmosphere). So a factor of ~2, rather than your claimed factor of ~500. If the ratio of anthropogenic CO2 to total atmospheric CO2 were actually 1:500, it would be rather obvious that anthropogenic CO2 was not the source of the observed 30% increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1850.

    Your claims that only a negligible amount of IR radiation (in the frequency ranges that are absorbed by CO2) interacts with CO2 before it escapes to space is bizarre. Looking around on google, it doesn’t even seem to be a standard denialist argument (in fact, the opposite argument is a standard denialist argument), although a weaker form of it does look to be common. Please provide some references for this strange claim. Something stronger than wikipedia would be preferable, since you are making a fairly extraordinary claim. Certainly, most upwelled IR overall is absorbed by water, not CO2, but the amount of IR that is absorbed by CO2 is not negligible. This piece gives a rebuttal of weaker form of your bizarre argument, and finds that between 9 and 26% of warming relative to black body radiation comes from atmospheric CO2 (i.e the planet would be 3-6 degrees cooler without CO2), hardly a negligible amount. They additionally point out that the non-negligible temperature effect of an increase in CO2 leads to greater water vapor content in the atmosphere, and water vapor is a bigger IR absorber, so an increase in CO2 leads to an increase in temperature, which leads to more water vapor, which leads to a further increase in temperature. This effect is predicted based on numerical models, and is observed in real world observations.

    It’s funny you mention models and testable predictions.

    I think you mean a model of the carbon cycle in the sense of this, so I’m not sure why you say we don’t have one. Yes, some of those values have to be inferred, and we don’t know enough about some parts of that to be able to do full numerical modeling of the entire cycle in detail, but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand it enough to understand that (a) humans are adding a substantial amount of fossil CO2 to the atmosphere and (b) the atmospheric CO2 is going up by about 40% that amount (with the other 60% showing up in the oceans).

    We’ve also had numerical models for global climate for several decades. 20 years ago, climate numerical modelers were able to make predictions of global warming (see Amp’s reference above, and check out the 1990 IPCC).

    Those predictions of global warming have been confirmed by the past two decades of observations.

    This is a point worth emphasizing clearly, so I’ll quote myself from late in the thread I linked above (that thread is 3 years old, so where I say 17 years in the quote, it would now be 20 years):

    [T]he models 17 years ago were (for all their problems) correct. Their results (interpreted intelligently) were roughly accurate at predicting the climate change we have seen in the past 17 years (the strictest form of validation possible), and the much better modern models simply confirm the results that could be extracted from the older models.

    This is from the 1990 IPCC first assessment report (the full document doesn’t seem to be online, so I am quoting from here):

    Based on current models, we predict: under [BAU] increase of global mean temperature during the [21st] century of about 0.3 oC per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 to 0.5 oC per decade); this is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years; under other … scenarios which assume progressively increasing levels of controls, rates of increase in global mean temperature of about 0.2 oC [to] about 0.1 oC per decade.

    So the models were pretty bad in 1990, and their raw results were obviously wrong, but by massaging the model results in various ways (mostly, by looking at the difference between scenarios, rather than at the specific results of individual scenarios), it was possible to make predictions with them.

    Over the past 17 years, the central tendency of those predictions have been shown to have underestimated the degree of global warming, but the actual degree of global warming did fall within the uncertainty range of the predictions.

    The models 17 years ago (used intelligently) were right.

    For anyone who is interested in the subject of global climate models (GCMs), here are my two favorite papers on numerical modeling of global climate (discussed in more detail by me in the long discussion I linked to at the top of this comment):
    GCM run for a thousand years to correct of inadequate knowledge of ocean conditions.
    GCMs used to look at sensitivity of the climate system to various components of the climate system.

  31. 31
    Ben David says:

    Elusis: assuming you’re correct, the mechanism by which botulinum toxin works has been demonstrated, and its effects are measurable and repeatable. If your number is correct, it was arrived at by quantified, repeatable scientific measurement.

    (It’s also a neurotoxin, and there is no parallel in climate science for that kind of specialized pathway that can bring down an entire organism. Everything we know about the carbon cycle – and about climate in general – indicates these large systems are not easily unbalanced by point inputs.)

    None of the proposed mechanisms of AGM have been subjected to the rigorous tests of true science. And none of the AGM predictions made have played out so far: the people now trying to explain away the cold winters of the past 5 years predicted heatwaves and desertification. The glaciers have not uniformly behaved as predicted.

    NOTHING has behaved as predicted by the various overlapping theories of AGM.

    And front-and-center is the post-Climategate knowledge that there NEVER was a sharp spike in temperatures – that this was the result of monkeying with an already thin and abstruse data set.

    So: not only have the “experts” who stand to benefit from AGM not yet produced a coherent, testable theory to explain the claimed phenomena – they cannot demonstrate that it’s even happening without fudging the data.

    This is not how science works.

  32. 32
    Ben David says:

    … and since there has been repeated reliance on arguments by authority here – I have degrees in Physics and Engineering, and did statistical modeling for Wall Street.

    Anyone arguing FOR global warming able to match that profile – that is, knowledgeable about science and statistics, but not personally invested in AGM?

    My guess is it’s liberal-arts/poly-sci types all the way down.

  33. 33
    Charles says:

    Ben David,

    My comment immediately preceding your latest nonsense ended up in moderation, so you are forgiven for your understandable failure to answer my requirements for your next comment (since you never saw them). However, they still stand. I say that your numbers are wrong and that your claims about IR absorption by CO2 are wrong. Your next comment needs to either retract those claims, or it needs to provide links backing up your claims.

    After that, you can try to square this nonsense: “And none of the AGM predictions made have played out so far: the people now trying to explain away the cold winters of the past 5 years predicted heatwaves and desertification. ”
    with the fact that 2010 was one of the three hottest years on record (since 1850) and that

    Surface air temperatures over land were above normal across most parts of the world. The most extreme warm anomalies occurred in two major regions. The first extended across most of Canada and Greenland, with mean annual temperatures 3°C or more above normal in parts of west Greenland and the eastern Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic. The second covered most of the northern half of Africa and south Asia, extending as far east as the western half of China, with annual temperatures 1 to 3°C above normal over most of the region. Many parts of both regions had their warmest year on record, including large parts of northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and southwest Asia (with Turkey and Tunisia having their warmest year on record), as well as much of the Canadian Arctic and coastal Greenland. Four of the five sub-regions4 which are wholly or partly in Africa (West and Southern Africa, the Saharan/Arabian region and the Mediterranean) are on course for their warmest year on record, along with South and Central Asia, and Greenland/Arctic Canada. Temperatures averaged over Canada have also been the highest on record.

    i.e. What you claim that were incorrect predictions were in fact correct predictions. You should also respond to my point about the 1990 IPCC using numerical models to correctly estimate the global warming that would occur over the next 20 years. And when I say that you should respond I mean that you should either retract your claims or provide documentation that the IPCC did not correctly predict the global average temperature change over the following 20 years.

    I’m not sure there is any point in responding to your nonsense about climategate showing there never was a spike in temperatures other than to say that either you have been suckered horribly or are a very poor inventor of nonsense. That is a completely incorrect conclusion to draw from climategate, and has no basis in fact whatsoever. Don’t mention it again unless you can provide links to one of the numerous investigations into the CRU email scandal that supports that claim (you won’t find such support, but you are welcome to waste as many hours as you please trying to find it. Maybe actually reading the reports from the investigations will lead you to a better understanding of the actual situation, and the complete irrelevance of the email scandal to the validity of AGW).

    I have claimed that numerous statements you have made in this thread have been factually completely untrue. You have three choices: demonstrate that I am wrong by linking to statements from legitimate sources clearly demonstrating the accuracy of your claims; retract your claims; or stop posting here.

  34. 34
    Charles says:

    Ben David,

    I have degrees in Physics and Engineering, and did statistical modeling for Wall Street

    .

    Just enough knowledge to have the confidence to be proudly and wildly wrong about the subject at hand….

    Unfortunately, you clearly don’t know shit about climate science, which is what matters in this discussion.

  35. 35
    Charles S says:

    [Charles and Charles S are the same person, “Charles” is me logged in, “Charles S” is me logged out, and I had to log in to release my comment from moderation.]

  36. 36
    Jebedee says:

    To address a couple of the peripheral claims that have been floating around: Ars Technica had a rather good article pointing out the fallacy of the idea that climate scientists, even if you assume some unique level of personal corruption among then, are motivated to state that AGW is happening due to the potential for personal gain.

    As for the idea that “climate change” is some new term reflecting a shamefaced back-pedalling, note that the IPCC was established in 1988.

  37. 37
    steve says:

    I am going to jump in here on the side of global warming is too convienient support for the political ideology. Too much money and power and ability to control peoples lives in a way not seen since Church Persecutions (some beliefs are just purley evil you know, all the right thinking people agree).

    If you want pure science as a refutation you can go over to Anthony Watts blog.
    http://wattsupwiththat.com
    It was voted one of the best science blogs.
    http://2011.bloggi.es/#science
    For all those global warming supporters to reply in the form and tone many, but not all, choose to convince the public use. Explain the Roman warm period lots of automobiles and smokestacks churning out CO2.

    Give a list of greenhouse gases and there relative effect. Hint CO2 is way down on the list, No prize if you can list number one just curious if anyone knows it off the top of their heads.

    Also many serious credentialed and Peer reviewed scientists are woried with what is happening to the sun.

    We are in a deep minimum not just sunspots but also solar-wind, Solar Magnetism, EUV output, Xray output and many other parameters are unpecidentadly off scale on the lower end. Some think we can’t even call this period Solar Cyle 24 but rather a continuation of SC 23, and others want to claim it is actually SC25 ( a minority).

    The real, “Eat live and breathe heavy mathematics, live the monastic life” true scientists are not as concerned about global warming. The PR flaks throwing geek speek are just a little too sure of how things are going to turn out. A really good scientist won’t even make a flat statement about the sun coming up tommorow if that is his field. If you want a smell test remember that ” The more you know the more you realize how little you know.” If somone is too sure it is probably a religious or political belief not a scientific stance.

  38. 38
    Charles S says:

    steve,

    I don’t see much of anything in your comment worth replying to, just a lot of empty bluster and some dishonest and inaccurate appeals to authority.

    I do think your digression about solar minima deserves a response. Solar minima are associated with global cooling (e.g. <a href="http://www.eso.org/sci/libraries/lisa3/beckmanj.html&quot;the Maunder Minimum), so the current long solar minimum should have corresponded to a relatively cool period. Instead, 2010 was the hottest year on record, and the 2001-2010 decade was the hottest decade on record. Amp has already pointed this out earlier in the thread.

    Your next response on this thread needs to:
    (1) rebut the literature that Amp linked to, showing that sunspot activity is responsible for global warming in the period 1850-2010.
    (2) explain how the current long solar minimum is an argument against AGW, specifically how the current long sunspot minima is responsible for 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 all being hotter than any year between 1850 and 1998 (and probably hotter than any year in the last millenium, but that is harder to say with certainty).
    (3) explain which significant greenhouse gas is increasing due to non-anthropogenic causes. The increase in water vapor due to global warming is not an acceptable answer for this purpose. Let’s set significant as a greenhouse gas which, at its current rate of change, can be expected to produce more than a 2% increase in upwelled IR radiation capture.

    Any of those answers need to link to solid sources (you don’t need to link directly to peer reviewed literature, but your claims need to derive clearly from peer reviewed literature).

    As an alternative, your next comment can retract your implied argument and acknowledge that you didn’t actually have an argument.

    For anyone who would like more information on the sunspot cycle (not its link to global warming, but just for anyone who was curious about steve’s explicit claims about the current extreme solar minimum), here is a link to a good discussion of the solar cycle, something steve should have provided if he actually knew something about the subject and weren’t an asshole.

    A really cool plot from that site, showing The last 160 years of sunspots, mapped by latitude of occurrence on the sun (not hugely relevant, but interesting).

    The last 160 years of monthly sunspot numbers, showing that the last cycle, which peaked in the early 00’s was above average but smaller than the 50, 60, 80, and 90 cycles.

    The forecast for the next cycle. The next cycle has a predicted peak of 58 sunspots, which would make it the smallest maximum in 200 years (the 1800 and 1810 cycles were smaller, although the uncertainty on the prediction could put us more in the same range as the 1880 or 1900 cycles).

  39. 39
    Ben David says:

    … hey CharlesS:

    1) Where do you see those numbers?
    The summary page “current greenhouse gas concentrations” doesn’t give that number, and the data from the sampling stations around the world is all over the place.

    2) Besides which you are citing an organization that is obviously on one side of this still-open scientific debate – proving nothing.

    Oh, and
    3) Could you please take a break from the heavy-handed, my-way-or-the-highway “moderation” to tell us what YOUR qualifications are for parsing the science?

    [Charles, or anyone else, is free to talk about their background if they want to. But no one is obliged to, on Alas, unless they themselves bring the subject of their own background up by making a claim about their own background. –Amp]

  40. 40
    Brandon Berg says:

    Ampersand:
    If you had said that the Republican politicians were just pandering to the masses for short-term electoral advantage, I wouldn’t have objected to that, except maybe on the grounds of it being unnecessarily specific.

    My real objection is to your caricaturization of the situation as being science and human welfare and kittens on one side and corporate profits on the other, when in reality there’s a big chunk of human welfare on both sides. Barring some technological deus ex machina, significant reduction in the usage of fossil fuels will entail real human costs for all of us, not just plutocrats chomping on their cigars and holding big fat bags with dollar signs painted on them.

    (And by the way, Democrats’ constituents benefit from fossil fuels every day, too.)

    True, but on average not quite as much, or quite as directly or obviously. City-dwellers tend to lean Democratic. They tend to have better access to public transportation, and to drive less even if they do have cars, so gasoline isn’t as big a part of their lives as it is for the moral suburban and rural Republicans. They consume fossil fuels indirectly in all kinds of ways, but they probably don’t think about it very much. People aren’t nearly as likely to realize that restrictions on the use of fossil fuels mean higher prices for eggs as they are to realize that they mean higher prices at the pump.

    That said, are Democrats really doing anything more than paying lip service? What did they do about climate change during the two years they controlled the federal government? That’s not a rhetorical question; I’m not aware of anything, but I haven’t really been following the issue very closely.

  41. 41
    Ampersand says:

    1) Ben David, assuming the numbers you were asking for were “atmospheric CO2 at 787 PgC, with 174 PgC of that being anthropogenic in origin,” then the numbers are on the page Charles linked to.

    Q. What percentage of the CO2 in the atmosphere has been produced by human beings through the burning of fossil fuels?

    A. Anthropogenic CO2 comes from fossil fuel combustion, changes in land use (e.g., forest clearing), and cement manufacture. Houghton and Hackler have estimated land-use changes from 1850-2000, so it is convenient to use 1850 as our starting point for the following discussion. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations had not changed appreciably over the preceding 850 years (IPCC; The Scientific Basis) so it may be safely assumed that they would not have changed appreciably in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000 in the absence of human intervention.

    In the following calculations, we will express atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in units of parts per million by volume (ppmv). Each ppmv represents 2.13 X1015 grams, or 2.13 petagrams of carbon (PgC) in the atmosphere. According to Houghton and Hackler, land-use changes from 1850-2000 resulted in a net transfer of 154 PgC to the atmosphere. During that same period, 282 PgC were released by combustion of fossil fuels, and 5.5 additional PgC were released to the atmosphere from cement manufacture. This adds up to 154 + 282 + 5.5 = 441.5 PgC, of which 282/444.1 = 64% is due to fossil-fuel combustion.

    Atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose from 288 ppmv in 1850 to 369.5 ppmv in 2000, for an increase of 81.5 ppmv, or 174 PgC. In other words, about 40% (174/441.5) of the additional carbon has remained in the atmosphere, while the remaining 60% has been transferred to the oceans and terrestrial biosphere.

    The 369.5 ppmv of carbon in the atmosphere, in the form of CO2, translates into 787 PgC, of which 174 PgC has been added since 1850. From the second paragraph above, we see that 64% of that 174 PgC, or 111 PgC, can be attributed to fossil-fuel combustion. This represents about 14% (111/787) of the carbon in the atmosphere in the form of CO2.

    2) By the way, even the key facts that you chose to emphasize, you got wrong. You started your argument by claiming that “carbon dioxide is… roughly 1/3 of one percent of the atmosphere (0.0034 or 34 parts PER MILLION).”

    But the number given by your own source is 0.039 or 390 ppmv, over ten times higher than you claimed. (Wikipedia, in turn, cites the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

    3) You imply that the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, is not a legitimate source because they are “obviously on one side of this still-open scientific debate.” That’s an amazing claim; you’re disputing not CDIAC’s analysis, but their reporting of basic data. Are you accusing CDIAC of faking data? That’s a really important accusation, and I’d like to see some evidence.

    (And by the way, CDIAC’s numbers are pretty close to NOAA’s numbers. Are both of them faking their data?)

    4) If you maintain that the CDIAC’s numbers are wrong, please link to a legitimate source providing what you believe are the correct numbers.

    5) You referred to “the cold winters of the past 5 years,” to imply that folks predicting global warming have been proven wrong. As Charles pointed out, “2010 was one of the three hottest years on record (since 1850).” Please either withdraw or defend your claim.

    6) You wrote, ““And none of the AGM predictions made have played out so far: the people now trying to explain away the cold winters of the past 5 years predicted heatwaves and desertification. ” Charles pointed out that the largest and most important prediction has been borne out by the facts; “the 1990 IPCC [used] numerical models to correctly estimate the global warming that would occur over the next 20 years.”

    Please either withdraw your factually incorrect claim, or show — with supporting links — that Charles is mistaken.

    7) To quote Charles again, “I have claimed that numerous statements you have made in this thread have been factually completely untrue. You have three choices: demonstrate that I am wrong by linking to statements from legitimate sources clearly demonstrating the accuracy of your claims; retract your claims; or stop posting [on this thread]”.

  42. 42
    Ampersand says:

    Brandon writes:

    My real objection is to your caricaturization of the situation as being science and human welfare and kittens on one side and corporate profits on the other, when in reality there’s a big chunk of human welfare on both sides. Barring some technological deus ex machina, significant reduction in the usage of fossil fuels will entail real human costs for all of us, not just plutocrats chomping on their cigars and holding big fat bags with dollar signs painted on them.

    You’re mixing up two different questions: Does global warming exist? and What is the correct policy response to global warming?

    On the question of what the correct policy response to global warming is, I am prepared to admit that there is more than one side (although I think one side is right). You could legitimately argue in favor of command-and-control systems versus more market-based policies, or vice versa; you could legitimately disagree if our goal should be to reduce carbon usage or zero out carbon usage; you can legitimately disagree on what alternative forms of energy are viable with existing technology. Etc., etc..

    That’s the debate where you could legitimately claim that there are human welfare questions on both sides of the debate. That’s not the debate we’re having on this thread. That’s not the debate that’s gotten me so pissed off.

    What pisses me off is that not one Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee — and presumably these folks are the Republican “A” team when it comes to energy issues — admits that global warming is happening.

    And on this debate — is global warming real? — there are only two sides: The side of science, and the side of anti-science.

    The debate you want to have — what’s the best policy to deal with global warming? — is a critically important debate. It’s essential. It’s also not a debate we’ll be having in Congress this year, because you can’t have that debate if one party is saying that global warming isn’t real at all.

    Let’s say that you and I are on the train tracks on a narrow bridge, and a train is approaching. We’re handcuffed together, so whatever we do, we’ve gotta do together. “Let’s jump off!,” I say. “We’ll miss the rocks and land in the river.” You respond, “that’s suicide! Let’s walk to the end of the bridge and then get off the tracks — the train is far enough away so we have time for that.”

    That’s a legitimate debate to be having. But what if, instead of arguing for jumping into the raging river, I’m arguing that there is no train barreling on us, and the people who say the train exists and will smash us if we don’t do anything are lying?

    Because that’s the situation we’re now in.

    * * *

    Brandon, do you live in a city? Because I do, and most people here drive. (And this is Portland, which is a high-bus-using city. Ever been to LA?) Most people here depend on heat in the winter. I don’t buy the claim that city people are much more ignorant of the fact that we depend on fuel.

    * * *

    The Democrats in the house passed a Cap and Trade carbon bill. The Democrats in the Senate had over 50 votes for it, but they didn’t have 60 votes for it, so it died.

    Now the administration is attempting to address carbon through the EPA, and Republicans in Congress are trying to pass laws to prevent the EPA from doing that.

    Could the Democrats make better, more far-reaching proposals? Yes. Have they proposed doing a hell of a lot more than Republicans have proposed? Yes.

  43. 43
    Myca says:

    Heya Ben David.

    Since we’re discussing qualifications, I have a degree in philosophy.

    From the perspective of climate science, this means that you’re certainly more qualified than I am, though the people and organizations who signed on to the IPCC TAR WG1 are far more qualified than you.

    From the perspective of logical fallacies, this means that I have a degree in knowing what the ‘appeal to authority’ fallacy is, which you apparently don’t.

    —Myca

  44. 44
    Charles S says:

    Ben David,

    I’m not a professional climate scientist, nor have I published on AGW, so my credentials are not sufficient to be worth mentioning in this discussion.

    [edited to remove everything except the core point, I don’t want to provide an excuse for further irrelevant discussion.]

  45. 45
    Steve says:

    Charles S

    You Said
    “and weren’t an asshole.”

    ‘Nuff said

  46. 46
    Steve says:

    Links that are cool
    Very in depth current solar reference link (Lot of Data!)
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/solar/

    Sunspots year by year from 1755 to present. (very easy to use – Java driven)
    http://spaceweather.com/java/sunspot.html

    Very Detailed and in depth article on Greenhouse Gases and effects
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-emission-spectra/#more-35579

    Interesting Note:
    By the EPA’s numbers, a reduction in man-made warming of 0.01C in the year 2100 would cost $78 billion per year. This is over $7 trillion a year per degree of avoided warming, again using even the EPA’s overly high climate sensitivity numbers. For scale, this is almost half the entire US GDP. This is why the precautionary principle was always BS – it assumed that the cost of action was virtually free. Sure it makes sense to avoid low-likelihood but high-cost future contingencies if the cost of doing so is low. But half of GDP?

  47. 47
    Myca says:

    Steve, you’re making the same mistake Brandon makes above, confusing “does global warming exist’ with “What should we do about it.”

    Regardless of what the proper response may or may not be, I’m certain we won’t be able to figure out the right response if we’re blind to the reality of global warming.

    —Myca

  48. 48
    Ampersand says:

    1) Steve, in addition to what Myca just said, read comment #17, regarding just throwing links into the thread like you just did. Am I to assume that you posted here without bothering to read the prior comments, or that you read comment #17 and decided to ignore it?

    2) Tip for the future: To have credibility when taking an “insults are beneath me” attitude, you should refrain from saying your political opponents are like the Inquisition.

    3) The one part of your comment #46 that looked like it was an actual contribution to this thread, was actually plagiarized from another blog. There was no link to the blog the quote came from, no credit given to the real writer, and no indication that you were quoting rather than writing your own thoughts.

    4) I enjoy having conservatives and libertarians on “Alas” to keep us liberals honest, but Ron, Robert, Brandon, etc.., are already providing that service, and doing a much better job of it than you are. On the whole, I don’t think what you’re adding to the mix here on “Alas” is helping to bring the conversations here to the level I’d prefer.

    For that reason, your services on “Alas” are no longer required. We appreciate all your contributions in the past, but please don’t post any further comments here. Thanks.

  49. 49
    L says:

    Too much money and power and ability to control peoples lives in a way not seen since Church Persecutions (some beliefs are just purley evil you know, all the right thinking people agree).

    Steve- And big oil hasn’t been doing just that since before WWII? And that they don’t stand to lose the most if the States cuts back on its addiction to fossil fuels or even quits cold turkey? What do you think was responsible for Prohibition? For every war we’ve ever been involved with in the Middle East? For the dismantling of world-class public transportation systems around the country? Rockefeller was not a saint, I can assure you.

    The fossil fuel industry has more clout, power, and influence over history and current events than you–and others–seem to realize. And the fact that you think that the hocus-pocus of AGW is more threatening to the Great American Way of Life than the system that we’re currently operating under has proven to be is… astounding, to say the least.

  50. 50
    Steve says:

    I will take the polite invitation.

    Thanks

    Steve

  51. 51
    Ampersand says:

    No more responses to Steve, please.

    L, I think that big oil is way too influential in politics. But I think it’s possible to exaggerate their impact, as well. I think that the cause of war is a lot more complex than “big oil,” for instance. Oil matters, but I don’t think it’s the sole causal agent of our middle east wars. (You didn’t exactly say it was, but your comment could easily be taken that way.)

  52. 52
    Brandon Berg says:

    Ampersand:
    Currently I live in a lowish-density urban area very similar to parts of Portland. I’ve also lived in rural, suburban, and highish-density urban areas. The amount of driving I’ve done has been inversely proportional to the population density. Even if I drive everywhere, I still end up driving less because the places I go are closer together. Another factor is that Republicans tend to have more children. More children means more driving.

    Again, I wasn’t so much trying to defend the Republicans as to call you out for trying to make this into a corporations-vs-people story when it’s really a people-vs-people story, as is usually the case in politics.

    That said, my inner contrarian now compels me to make a qualified defense of Republicans. The problem with your train analogy is that a train hitting a person is guaranteed to be catastrophic. In a situation like that, it really is necessary to do something. Anything that gives you any chance at survival is better than certain death.

    With global warming, though, there’s some chance that our best bet is to do nothing, at least for the time being. Republicans probably overestimate the probability that this is the case, but I think Democrats probably underestimate it.

    It’s worth noting that the Republicans didn’t propose an amendment denying that global warming is real or anthropogenic. They just didn’t vote for an amendment acknowledging it. And if they don’t think we need to do anything about global warming right now, then why should they have voted for it? This amendment was proposed for strategic reasons, not on the general principle that Congress should pass a resolution acknowledging every scientific fact known to man. Likewise, the Republicans rejected it for strategic reasons. Now, I don’t know exactly what they were thinking, but my guess would be that it was along the lines that voting for this resolution would ultimately increase the chances of a plan they disliked being implemented. And likely some really do think the amendment is just plain wrong.

    Or maybe they just worried that it would be used against them in the primaries. Like I said, it’s a qualified defense. Mostly I just wanted to point out that voting against a resolution acknowledging something isn’t logically equivalent to denying it.

  53. 53
    Ampersand says:

    Again, I wasn’t so much trying to defend the Republicans as to call you out for trying to make this into a corporations-vs-people story when it’s really a people-vs-people story, as is usually the case in politics.

    I think that for Republicans in Congress, it’s a mix of being loyal to their corporate allies, and also simple being anti-whateverDemocratsAreFor. But the bottom line is, on the specific issue of if global warming exists, it’s Republicans versus science.

    The problem with your train analogy is that a train hitting a person is guaranteed to be catastrophic.

    No, it’s not guaranteed to be catastrophic. How do you know the train isn’t going at a speed of a hundredth of a mile per hour, for example?

    You might say that everything you know about trains suggests that it’s exceedingly unlikely that the train is moving at 1/100th of a mile per hour, and the only rational response is to assume that the far more likely scenario is occurring, which is that the train is moving much faster than that.

    But climatologists would say the exact same thing to your suggestion that maybe the best answer is doing nothing. There are a ton of partisan reasons for Republicans to argue for inaction, but there is not one scientifically grounded reason.

    It’s worth noting that the Republicans didn’t propose an amendment denying that global warming is real or anthropogenic.

    Yes, but they did propose a bill repealing 74 Fed. Reg. 66496, which is close to the same thing. By passing this bill, House Republicans are formally declaring either that they don’t believe that Global Warming is real, or that they don’t believe that Global Warming can reasonably be anticipated to be harmful to Americans’ health. In either case, Republicans are firmly opposed to scientific consensus.

    74 Fed. Reg. 66496 is the EPA rule which says that the EPA Administrator “finds that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare…. The Administrator has determined that the body of scientific evidence compellingly supports this finding. The major assessments by the U.S. Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) serve as the primary scientific basis supporting the Administrator’s endangerment finding.”

    Once the EPA has made this scientific finding — that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are a danger to public health and welfare — they have no legal choice but to address it (unless Congress passes a law to directly address greenhouse gases). Since Republicans don’t want to address greenhouse gases, but they also don’t want the EPA doing anything, they’ve passed a law repealing the EPA’s scientific findings.

    Now, I don’t know exactly what they were thinking, but my guess would be that it was along the lines that voting for this resolution would ultimately increase the chances of a plan they disliked being implemented.

    This isn’t at all plausible. Republicans have an absolute veto over legislation in both the House and the Senate, and they know it. The chance of a bill addressing climate change is the same whether or not Republicans admit global warming is happening: zero.

    And likely some really do think the amendment is just plain wrong.

    Which makes them either people who can’t be bothered to check the facts — a description that, alas, accurately describes the participation of every right-winger on this thread other than you — or just anti-science idiots. Probably they believe in conspiracy theories, too — eeevvviiiilll scientists just want to crush freedom, and they made the whole thing up!

    I’m sorry, Brandon. Normally I try hard to respect people even when disagreeing with them. But it’s impossible to respect the Republican position on global warming. Not if I want to continue respecting thought and science.

  54. 54
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    One problem I have is that the arguments regarding warming are a bit like the arguments regarding some basic “golden” tenet of any political movement:

    1) The conclusions are considered basic and obvious and therefore aren’t debatable.
    2) All people who are sufficiently rational and educated are assumed to agree with the conclusions, and therefore those who attempt to debate the conclusions are irrational or uneducated and may be ignored.
    3) Therefore there is no rational debate about the validity of the conclusions.
    4) Therefore conclusions are valid, obvious and not debatable. And so on.

    This happens on both sides of the curve. For whatever reason, people are SO invested in the concept that they are absolutely right, that they don’t get into the debate.

    I’m less concerned with the “only idiots disagree” tactic being used against people who argue with basic, easily-testable, small-variable, low-error facts like, say, the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere.

    I’m much more concerned with the tactic being used against people who argue with ultra-complex, difficult-to-test, multi-variate, compounded-error theories like, say, the predicted changes in global economy, weather, and sea state as a result of a hypothetical 2 degree rise in global average temperatures occurring over the next 50 years.

    And I’m not sure how to resolve it. I think global warming is real. But it doesn’t seem scientific to win the global warming argument via stuffing it down someone’s throat. OTOH, refraining from politicizing science only works if your scientific opponents are actually rational and can be convinced using data….

  55. 55
    Myca says:

    1) The conclusions are considered basic and obvious and therefore aren’t debatable.
    2) All people who are sufficiently rational and educated are assumed to agree with the conclusions, and therefore those who attempt to debate the conclusions are irrational or uneducated and may be ignored.
    3) Therefore there is no rational debate about the validity of the conclusions.
    4) Therefore conclusions are valid, obvious and not debatable. And so on.

    I’m not sure what you’re talking about. This very conversation seems to contradict the bolded parts. We’re having a rational debate, and not ignoring climate change denialists, we just disagree with them.

    We’re totally not saying, “Oh you poor stupid luddites, why even bother talking to you.” We’re addressing their concerns, hearing their best arguments, and debunking/arguing against them.

    I think you’re committing something that’s not quite (but is a lot like) the argumentum ad temperantiam fallacy. Maybe just false balance. Regardless, my point is that sometimes, one side has the science and is right and one doesn’t and is wrong … and there’s got to be a way to talk about that.

    My question for JutGory and other folks leaning towards not believing in GCC (but who might still be convinced) would be, “what evidence would convince you?” We have a broad consensus in the scientific community, and all of the arguments against GCC that I’ve heard have pretty good answers that I can understand after some explanation.

    For my part, what would convince me that it’s not real? Well, if the average global temperature started dropping precipitously, that would be one way. If the scientific consensus changed, and I was able to understand why and how, that would do it. If the best climate models we’ve got started to not work, that’d do it too.

    —Myca

  56. 56
    Robert says:

    I think a considerable portion of the resistance to AGW comes from the fact that it was politicized, and presented as having a ready-made solution (more government control of the economy, more regulation of behavior), from the very beginning. There was never a phase where you had right-wing technocratic conservationists (in numbers) saying “there’s AGW and we have to figure out how to reflect more heat!” and left-wing environmentalists (in numbers) saying “there’s AGW and we have to ban carbon!” – there was a vast disproportion among the sides.

    Perhaps this represents a failure on the part of right-wing conservationists. But the perception was always that AGW was a big left-wing issue and so of course there was a great deal of suspicion, sometimes unfounded, towards the proponents.

  57. 57
    Myca says:

    There was never a phase where you had right-wing technocratic conservationists (in numbers) saying “there’s AGW and we have to figure out how to reflect more heat!” and left-wing environmentalists (in numbers) saying “there’s AGW and we have to ban carbon!” – there was a vast disproportion among the sides.

    No, there was a phase where you had left-wing environmentalists saying “regulate carbon” and you had right-wing economics-types saying “cap-and-trade.” Then the left wing said, “Sure, okay, whatever. That works,” and the right wing said, “Well if you want it, then it’s SOCIALISM YOU BIG COMMIE FUCKERS! We hate cap and trade now!”

    Which, of course, is nothing at all like what happened with health care.

    Sigh.

    —Myca

  58. 58
    Robert says:

    Yes, right-wing economic types are going to prefer a market solution to the problem, and the political figures may not stick with that (for the reasons discussed upthread). But I’m talking about the “demonstrating there’s a problem” phase.

  59. 59
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    I think you’re committing something that’s not quite (but is a lot like) the argumentum ad temperantiam fallacy. Maybe just false balance.

    Could be the latter, for sure. It’s sort of my nature.

    Regardless, my point is that sometimes, one side has the science and is right and one doesn’t and is wrong … and there’s got to be a way to talk about that.

    Yes. But my point was really that there should be vast differences in the right/wrong debate for “this is what the average Earth temperature was in 2007” versus “this is what the average Earth temperature is predicted to be in 2100.”

    I see two things that make me nervous:
    1) denialists who argue with the basic realities (current measurements being an excellent example.) I love smackdowns in this area and think they’re appropriate.

    2) proponents who use “basic reality” language or arguments when talking about complex predictions. (There doesn’t seem to be a great level of caveats regarding the fact that the errors in a complex prediction–and even the ability to predict errors in a complex prediction–tend to get exponentially messier as you go up the complexity/future time scale.) Sure, the scientists in question will always be very up front about what their data mean. But the reports, arguments, summaries, and the like don’t do as good a job.

    I agree that #1 is worse. But #2 is committed by my teammates and therefore I’m much more sensitive to it. False balance? Perhaps.

  60. 60
    Myca says:

    But I’m talking about the “demonstrating there’s a problem” phase.

    Right, right. My point is that there was a time when there was agreement on the problem. I mean, the Republican presidential nominee endorsed cap & trade in the very last presidential election, and had previously introduced legislation to that effect no fewer than three times.

    So what happened?

    Well, my theory is that when the Republican party doesn’t see a way to solve a problem so that it hurts the Democrats, they deny the problem even exists. You see this when we discuss the stagnating middle-class wages, for example, or in the health care debate. I think it’s entirely likely that President McCain would have endorsed a cap & trade bill, and a health care bill that looked a lot like Obama’s … because they wouldn’t be left-wing ideas, so they’d be safe to agree with.

    They want to solve problems, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not their first priority. Their first priority is winning, and not in an ‘everybody wins a little’ kind of way, but in an “I win, you lose” kind of way.

    And you can’t get there when the left keeps accepting your solutions. They don’t want the left to agree with them. They want us to disagree and lose.

    But the problem is that we’ve run through all of their solutions at this point, so all that’s left is to pretend that there’s nothing to solve. I mean, look, they clearly can’t say, “The science is clear and settled. Global Climate Change is real, and it’s caused largely by human action. And if we don’t take action soon, we will be facing serious, probably irreversible, long term consequences. Nonetheless, I don’t see a way to turn this debate to my advantage, so I think we should ignore the problem.”

    But the fact that it can’t be said doesn’t mean it’s not true.

    —Myca

  61. 61
    Myca says:

    But #2 is committed by my teammates and therefore I’m much more sensitive to it.

    Sure. I think that the this is where most of the arguments between scientists are at this point, trying to refine the models and nail down the details. I think my larger point, though, is that probably whichever way the models go, it doesn’t change the consensus of the TAR WG1:

    * the climate is undergoing a pronounced warming trend beyond the range of natural variability;
    * the major cause of most of the observed warming is rising levels of the greenhouse gas CO2;
    * the rise in CO2 is the result of burning fossil fuels;
    * if CO2 continues to rise over the next century, the warming will continue; and
    * a climate change of the projected magnitude over this time frame represents potential danger to human welfare and the environment.

    I’m certain that there are folks who signed on to the TAR WG1 who disagree about the degree of change, or how much human activity affects it … but the consensus stands.

    False balance? Perhaps.

    I don’t think there’s anything wrong with discussing objections, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong, where the science is under debate, with acknowledging that. My problem is with shrugging and saying, “Golly, I guess Global Climate Change is real, I just wish that the proponents wouldn’t be so certain about it.”

    Well, check it out, man, in this thread, the people we’re arguing with, mostly, aren’t folks who accept the science, but need details ironed out. They’re people who think that the earth is getting warmer because the sun is shining more. Or sunspots. Or water vapor.

    And in the halls of congress, the debate isn’t even at that level. It’s over whether the earth is getting warmer at all!

    We act certain because the things people keep wanting to argue about, we’re certain about.

    If folks want to agree on the basics and move on to discussing the more complicated stuff, that would be fucking awesome.

    —Myca

  62. 62
    Clarence says:

    “They want to solve problems, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not their first priority. Their first priority is winning, and not in an ‘everybody wins a little’ kind of way, but in an “I win, you lose” kind of way. “

    That is a lot of it. I’m independent and hate both political parties. Thus, I tend to hang out both left wing and right wing sites such as Kos and TownHall. There’s no doubt concerning Obama that he is, in some conservatives eyes, the Devil Incarnate.

    Now I happen to think that Obama is a lying, sociopathic, corporatist shill, whose ideology when its not based on self-interest is based on firmly on ethnic grounds. In short, I think of him for the most part, as Steve Sailer does. Hardly a fan. Yet Obama is neither a traitor, the next coming of Marx, nor even a real Democrat if the democratic party is considered to have a progressive part to its philosophy at all. The guy has GOVERNED like a Republican. Again and again he’s backtracked , “compromised” or just plain given up when it comes to things like closing Gitmo, enacting meaningful health reform, the Bush tax cuts…well, I could go on. And yet, to some people he HAS to be Che Guevara or something and is spoken of with the same vehemence they used to reserve for FDR.

    I guess if reality doesn’t match some people’s prejudices they will create the reality in their heads.

  63. 63
    Charles S says:

    g&w,

    What Myca said.

    If someone wants to argue about how accurate the forecasts for 2100 are, particularly at the regional scale, I’m (a) happy to discuss it, I’d probably learn a lot from anyone who is able to discuss that subject in any depth (b) probably not qualified to rebut their arguments, but I’d learn a lot from looking up the counter-arguments to their arguments (c) be open to being convinced. Go look at the thread from 2007. FCH raised objections to the IPCC scenarios, so I went and read the scenarios, and went and tracked down counter-arguments to her arguments (basically, she was ignoring the substitutability of coal for oil). She never raised any counter arguments to the counter arguments I found, so I remain reasonably convinced that the IPCC scenarios are plausible.

    No one on this thread (of the denialists) has raised meaningful arguments of that sort. No one on this thread shows any sign of having meaningful knowledge of the subject or a coherent argument.

    The real arguments over this subject take place above the level of knowledge of anyone who posts on Alas (if there are any Alas commenters who are active climate, oceanographic, atmospheric, or space science researchers with a research focus related to global climate change, they don’t choose to participate in the AGW threads). I might convince someone who doesn’t know much about the subject, or Ben David might convince someone who doesn’t know much about the subject, but neither of us is actually contributing to the scientific debate, and there is an active scientific debate over what 2100 or even 2050 will look like. There isn’t much of an active debate over whether sunspots caused the late 20th century global warming, or whether CO2 is a meaningful greenhouse gas, but I’d welcome with open arms anyone who wanted to argue those points and could point to the recent literature on that debate. People who quote carbon numbers (massively incorrectly) from wikipedia as though that proved that CO2 wasn’t a meaningful greenhouse gas and people who assume that people here (and more importantly, the entire body of climate researchers) don’t know that H2o is the dominant greenhouse gas (something I’d already mentioned up thread) and declare “Look, low sunspots,” as though that were an argument against AGW, I have no interest in debating. They are just throwing nonsense at the wall in the hope that some of it doesn’t get cleaned off and it is a waste of my time to respond to them (I do respond to them, to keep their bullshit from going unanswered, but I’m unpleasant about it because I think people should pay a penalty for throwing chaff, lies, and nonsense into the discussion). Thus, the demands for serious evidence and meaningful arguments.

    Sure, calling steve an asshole was tactically unwise (actually, I implied that he was either too ignorant to make a supported argument or that he was an asshole for not making a supported argument).

    If steve or Ben David had been willing to attempt to answer the refutations of their arguments, I would have been happy to continue discussing the subject with them (and I made this very clear, I didn’t tell them to fuck off, I told them to come back with clear counter arguments to my (and Amp’s) refutations of their claims), but I won’t tolerate the “Here’s a bullshit argument,” “No, here’s why that’s wrong,” “Oh well, here’s a completely different bullshit argument,” unless there is an acknowledgment that the first bullshit argument was bullshit.

  64. 64
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    [Obama’s] ideology when its not based on self-interest is based on firmly on ethnic grounds

    I am curious, solely in a “WTF?” manner, what on earth you mean to imply by this. Are you referring to favoritism towards residents of Hawaii?

  65. 65
    Charles S says:

    I think the mention of steve sailer makes it clear what Clarence meant by that.

    I don’t think this thread is the appropriate place for Clarence to explain Steve Sailer’sracist fantasies. Perhaps he can take it to an open thread.

  66. 66
    Myca says:

    I don’t think this thread is the appropriate place for Clarence to explain Steve Sailer’s racist fantasies. Perhaps he can take it to an open thread.

    Or alternately, another blog.

    That shit has no place here.

    —Myca

  67. 67
    Charles S says:

    Yeah, that is really what I wanted to say too. I banned Steve years ago, and I don’t really have any tolerance for his acolytes either. That stuff is even more vile than denialists.

  68. 68
    Clarence says:

    Now I’m an “acolyte” because I think Steve Sailer’s book on Obama might contain some grains of truth in it. And btw, that doesn’t mean I think Obama is “anti-white”.

    Tell ya what, if Hitler said the Earth was round, am I a Nazi for believing that he would be substantially correct?

    I’m not going to argue racism or human biodiversity on this blog (I have my disagreements with Sailer and I hardly am a member of the CCC or KKK), but while it was fine for Charles S to warn me in comment number 65 about bringing in a certain subject, there was no need to go to the level of personal attacks or jump into “acolyte” territory. I’m not a fan of Obama, let’s just leave it at that.

  69. 69
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Holy shit.

    I am SO sorry I asked.

  70. 70
    L says:

    L, I think that big oil is way too influential in politics. But I think it’s possible to exaggerate their impact, as well. I think that the cause of war is a lot more complex than “big oil,” for instance. Oil matters, but I don’t think it’s the sole causal agent of our middle east wars. (You didn’t exactly say it was, but your comment could easily be taken that way.)

    @Amp: Oh of course. Israel, much?

    (I was going to say more, but I’m not a particularly skilled debater. Most of the time I prefer to sit back and listen.)

  71. 71
    Robin Ferruggia says:

    The Republicans live in a fantasy world where only what they want to be true is true. What amazes me is how they’re trying so hard to make the needs of the poor and the seniors as non-existent as global warming to protect tax cuts for the wealthy. They allege they want to leave their grandchildren without debt. No kidding? So the way to do that is to leave them with the ravages of global warming instead? That’s not leaving them the biggest debt you can possibly cripple them with?

  72. 72
    Jlow says:

    about these from jut a bit ago.-
    “And people in power love to get more power.”-
    -obviously scientists, since they’re so rich and in charge of the majority of the worlds financal and political institutions. Oh wait, thats somebody else.
    ” And, if there is money to be made (and there is a LOT of money to be made off of man-made global warming),” Then why haven’t big monied corporations been behind this from the start?
    Galileo is muttering somewhere,”450 years and nothings changed.”

  73. 73
    Stefan says:

    *deleted by Stefan*