Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[Red Baron Farms]

Field study shows why food quality will suffer with rising carbon dioxide
http://phys.org/news/2014-04-field-food-quality-carbon-dioxide.html



On the other hand

Potatoes could step up performance under climate change pressure
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-potatoes-climate-pressure.html#inlRlv

That's dry matter yield, no mention of protein. So there could be more carbohydrate (CO₂ is plant food) but less protein. Not good for a balanced diet.

So more uncertainty (which is not our friend) and a new front opened in AGW denier territory (the aforementioned plant-food slogan). It must feel like the walls are closing in on them.

It is interesting to note this later:

While heavy nitrogen fertilization could partially compensate for this decline in food quality, it would also have negative consequences including higher costs, more nitrate leaching into groundwater and increased emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, he said.

Which of course shows the inherent bias and flaw in the analysis. It is a study of conventional agricultural methods only. Haber process nitrogen as opposed to self regulating biological systems. The problem of increased yield at the expense of nutritional quality is already a well documented phenomenon of conventional agricultural systems. Except the yield gains are an illusion and temporary. Don't expect the gains will last. They can't.

The only way to get gains in productivity AND quality that last is by restoring the biology in the soil. (soil health) The advantage of that is...the excess CO2 is actually turned to sugars and secreted into the soil to feed the symbiotic biology there, in exchange that symbiotic biology provides the plant with the proper optimized nutrient balance for BOTH yields and quality. In that case the increased atmospheric CO2 will both increase yields AND protein content. AND since the mode of action is by secreting carbon deep in the soil rhizosphere, the long term side effect of this is sequestering carbon. Beneficial to both the soil and the atmosphere. Conventional agriculture is a carbon emissions source, not a carbon sequestration sink. Change the agricultural model and the whole food production ball game changes with respect to AGW.

 

[greybeard]

I suspect, however that ignorance is not something he has ever let stop him from learning about areas of science that interest him. The fact that he is uninterested about climate science at this point in his life and is not curious enough to find out exactly what the science is and what is says, speaks to me that there are personal biases at work limiting his desire to investigate and understand these issues.

Ignorance in a lay person is fully excusable, ignorance about a science subject you are willing to take a principled stand against, from a person who has dedicated most of their life to pursuit of science and understanding speaks to biased influences,...to me.

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have devoted a lot of time studying the subject. This is what he said in 2012:-

"I am not really terribly interested in global warming. Like most physicists I don't think much about it. But in 2008 I was in a panel here about global warming and I had to learn something about it. And I spent a day or so - half a day maybe on Google, and I was horrified by what I learned. And I'm going to try to explain to you why that was the case."

That won't stop some people claiming that his intervention is more important than the thousands of peer reviewed papers that point to AGW having the potential to cause create serious problems in the not too distant future.

 

[Trakar]

Any theories on what these biases might be? Is his bias basically a skepticism?

I don't believe so, if it was pure skepticism, scientific curiosity would have led a life-long scientist to investigate the issue more thoroughly. The bias is what prevents him from devoting much effort and time into such studies.

Given what little study I've devoted to the studying of this individual, I couldn't say anything more detailed or conclusive about what those biases are. It may be as simple as what he has stated, "disinterest." since the only study he did, according to his own words, was about a half day on google, that's probably the safest assumption to run with until other evidence presents itself.

BTW - I may be using the term "disinterest" improperly here. more in the sense of an active dislike of perceived popularizations of some areas of science, rather than the more typical "without interest" or uninterested. IOW, something where there is a negative impression of the topic because you intuitively feel that it is "much ado over nothing of significance" even though you have made no serious investigation of the subject. That is actually the way I felt about AGW when I first casually looked at the issue back in the early-mid eighties. My own disinterest did not fade until I spent a lot of time researching and reading the science.

 

[CapelDodger]

Any theories on what these biases might be? Is his bias basically a skepticism?

Bias and scepticism are poles apart. Not even in the same dictionary.

You'll know the term "gone emeritus", of course; the fact that the term exists shows how common the phaenomenon is. What you have is someone used to attention but retired and consigned to History of Science courses. Gieaver's Nobel work was done in 1960 (even I was only 6 years old then) and he shared the prize in 1973 (the year I first got stoned). Since then, nothing much exciting. In retirement now, not mixing so much with active (that is, young) scientists but more with old white males like himself.

People who walked on the Moon can have the same issue.

Why are we talking about him now? Because he's taken a contrarian position on an active public issue. Were he another retired Nobel Prize winner accepting the scientific consensus on AGW we wouldn't be.

That may not be a conscious motivation, but he surely looks biased that way. The AGW denial camp is forever parading superannuated angry white guys like this, and it's pure exploitation. True friends would try to protect them, and their reputations, from themselves.

 

[CapelDodger]

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have devoted a lot of time studying the subject. This is what he said in 2012:-

"I am not really terribly interested in global warming. Like most physicists I don't think much about it. But in 2008 I was in a panel here about global warming and I had to learn something about it. And I spent a day or so - half a day maybe on Google, and I was horrified by what I learned. And I'm going to try to explain to you why that was the case."

If that quote is accurate, one wonders why Giaver was on the panel and which panel it was. He claims AGW virginity before that, which I find doubtful. We've all heard the same sort of thing many times from concern trolls, after all. If the panel concerned is the previous APS one it's definitely a lie.

If it is true, old guys and Google can be mysteries to each other. If his half a day was spent on WattsUpMyButt (which it might well have been) we can imagine the potential damage to a vulnerable mind. We've seen examples often enough on these Forums.

 

[Trakar]

...Gieaver's Nobel work was done in 1960 (even I was only 6 years old then) and he shared the prize in 1973 (the year I first got stoned)...

young whippersnapper! No more slack for you, now don't begrudge old white guys just because they are old and white and guys,...oh yeah, and get off my lawn!

 

[catsmate]

The recent decision of Frontiers to cave into pressure from climate change deniers and remove a paper that (available here) that analysed public comments, from climate change deniers and then categorised them based on attributes such as "nefarious intent" and "unreflexive counterfactual thinking", has had some fallout. Professors Ugo Bardi (University of Florence), I and Björn Brembs (University of Regensburg) have launched scathing attacks on Frontiers. Professor Colin Davis (University of Bristol), has also resigned in protest.

The academics said the journal should have stood by the authors of the research, with one saying the publishers had caved in to pressure from "delusionals". Brembs described Frontiers' retraction decision as "an outrageous act of a scientific journal caving in to pressure from delusionals" who, he said, were "demanding the science about their publicly displayed delusions be hidden from the world".

Brembs, who had been an associate editor at Frontiers, wrote on his blog: "Essentially, this puts large sections of science at risk. Clearly, every geocentrist, flat earther, anti-vaxxer, creationist, homeopath, astrologer, diviner, and any other unpersuadable can now feel encouraged to challenge scientific papers in a court".
Excellent stuff.

 

[CapelDodger]

Excellent indeed. There's no mood out there for taking this sort of crap anymore.

It's worth noting that the first statement, agreed by the authors, was arrived at with the involvement of m'learned friends (aka da lawyers). Who, as a tribe, do not take kindly to being trifled with, at least not when there's the prospect of billable hours, anyway. Just saying.

 

[a_unique_person]

All I can do is tell you that there is a lot of fury going on at those denier blogs at the moment.

 

[CapelDodger]

All I can do is tell you that there is a lot of fury going on at those denier blogs at the moment.

See also the comments at Prof Lewandowsky's blog http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/rfSpeech.html, and at the blogs of the other resigned editors from what I hear.

There's a weird subset of AGW deniers which is throwing its all into this one subject, which I think they believe will finally win the battle for them. If they can just nail Lewandowsky for stealing the strawberyy ice-cream the whole AGW conspiracy will come tumbling down. Fox TV will feature co-ordinated swoops by law-enforcement on universities across the world and climate scientists being led away in handcuffs to get their just desserts. Or something. It's just weird.

Meanwhile UWA's lawyers say "Bring it on, please", or words to that effect.

You can see these people posting long screeds just a minute or two apart, with punctuation right, no typos, syntax fair to good. The same fairly small bunch slapping cut-and-paste boilerplate over everything they can reach.

It can't be healthy to live like that. Their own bile will choke them in the end.

 

[macdoc]

I tossed a good chunk of that "delusional" paper in the local denier hold out....I'm sure the feathers are flying there...I never bother to check....just protecting the innocent who might stumble into the denier clubhouse by accident.

 

[Trakar]

The Anti-Blog

http://climatechangenationalforum.org/

Climate Change National Forum (CCNF) is a nonprofit publishing platform and national forum, founded and led by climate scientists, to educate the American public on the science of climate change and its policy implications. Our website, ClimateChangeNationalForum.org, has been featuring an open dialogue by a growing community of scientists since its debut on January 2, 2014, and we will continue to focus on the science of climate change throughout Phase I of this ambitious journalism project. The Forum is open to any scientist that can meet the CCNF science columnist criteria, as determined by the columnist-elected board. (Note: There is purposefully no criterion that requires a scientist to state or even have a particular position on climate change.) CCNF is openly soliciting all fellows and scientist-members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) (see press), American Geophysical Union (AGU) (see press), and American Institute of Physics (AIP) to join the CCNF Scientist Community and participate in this national dialogue. In Phase II of the CCNF project, likely to begin in 2015 and continue indefinitely, the focus of the Forum will expand to include not just the science of climate change but also its policy implications, and the site will serve as a neutral platform for meaningful policy discussion and debate by various subject matter experts and policy makers. The blogging on the science by the scientists (and their guests) will continue in this latter phase, and it will be incumbent on the CCNF Scientist Community to ensure that the follow-on policy discussion and debate stays moored to the science discussed and reviewed by the scientists. - See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/about-the-national-forum/#sthash.5HRfuYaE.dpuf

A few intro articles:

"Do We Understand the Atmosphere Enough to Identify Problems and Solve Them? Heck Yes, We are Two-for-Two, by Mauri Pelto. - See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/do-we-understand-the-atmosphere-enough-to-identify-problems-and-solve-them-heck-yes-we-are-two-for-two/#sthash.yb7VtWCg.dpuf"

"Global Climate Change Impact on the Upper Texas Coast, by John Anderson - See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/global-climate-change-impact-on-the-upper-texas-coast-by-john-anderson/#sthash.HGZ19f9S.dpuf"

"Cause and Effect, by Scott Denning Why are scientists so confident that a business as usual future based on fossil fuels will lead to major changes in the Earth’s climate? Because we seek to understand climate in terms of cause and effect. - See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/cause-and-effect-by-scott-denning/#sthash.lxB7R8E7.dpuf"

 

[Mikemcc]

Another new study able to reject natural effects as a cause of the recent warming at >99% confidence.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2128-2

 

[Trakar]

New Documentary series Starts Sunday April 13th

Years of Living Dangerously
Sunday, April 13th at 10PM ET/PT.

Go to the bottom of this post, watch your way to the top links

When you get up to here, go back and explore the additional links associated with each of the below links.

Subscribe to the Years of Living Dangerously channel for more clips:
http://s.sho.com/YearsYouTube

Official site: http://www.sho.com/yearsoflivingdange…
The Years Project: http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/
Follow: https://twitter.com/YEARSofLIVING
Like: https://www.facebook.com/YearsOfLiving

Watch on Showtime Anytime: http://s.sho.com/1hoirn4
Hollywood’s brightest stars and today’s most respected journalists explore the issues of climate change and bring you intimate accounts of triumph and tragedy. YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY takes you directly to the heart of the matter in this awe-inspiring and cinematic documentary series event from Executive Producers James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

First episode - freeview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brvhCnYvxQQ

Sneak Peek - http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/story/pray-for-rain/

Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn2Cd3Dwwnk

 

[Megalodon]

Had the chance to have a go at Frontiers today. Hopefully enough researchers make their annoyance known to the company, so that they realize they are pissing off the people who feeds them.

From: xxxx [[email protected]]
Sent: 15 April 2014 5:58 PM
To: [Megalodon]
Subject: (Reminder) - Snapshot of the current state of the art on your research area

Dear Dr. [Megalodon],

I am contacting you again regarding my previous correspondence in which I encouraged you to propose a Frontiers Research Topic<http://fron.tiers.in/go/BZWZcJ>. Would you be so kind as to indicate whether you might be interested in participating at Frontiers?

I would also like to invite you to register<http://fron.tiers.in/go/e7VBjH> on our Frontiers website, where you can keep up to date with current research.

Best regards,

Dear Ms xxxx

I apologize for not having responded to your email. Unfortunately I am bombarded daily with a number of similar requests and, as you might understand, I have no time to answer what tends to be mostly spam from vanity publishers.

However, I do take the time to answer you, since it has recently come to my attention the absolute lack of editorial values of your company. As you might have guessed, I am referring to the withdrawal of the paper "Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation" by Lewandowsky et al.. The fact that Frontiers would cave in to legal threats from climate change deniers tells me that it is an entity that is solely interested in money, not in Science.

I expect the editors of my work to back up the articles that they themselves have vetted for publication. I have no confidence that any work I entrust you with will not be arbitrarily withdrawn if it happens to enrage the right number of anti-scientific buffoons.

So, to answer your question, I am not interested in collaborating with Frontiers, unless you can assure a responsible editorial policy that protects the professionals that provide you with content.

Best regards

[Megalodon]

 

[CapelDodger]

Had the chance to have a go at Frontiers today. Hopefully enough researchers make their annoyance known to the company, so that they realize they are pissing off the people who feeds them.

They need to remember who's the talent on this show, and who's just back-office .

"I expect the editors of my work to back up the articles that they themselves have vetted for publication. I have no confidence that any work I entrust you with will not be arbitrarily withdrawn if it happens to enrage the right number of anti-scientific buffoons."

They put a toe in the water and lost a leg. Nice.

 

[OCaptain]

I am currently trying to get some clarification and guidelines to start a new thread dedicated to the discussion of the APS Climate Change statement. Hang on to this and remind me next week, if I haven't started the new thread by this weekend, I will go into more details here.

Much of Curry's issues were arguments from the gaps, and were largely dismissed, the real kerfluffle breaks out in the general discussion and revolves mostly around Christy and Lindzen.

The interesting part is seeing how much closer to the Mainstream Science all three position themselves in this discussion than they do on the various personal blogs and political venues where they spend most of their public time.

For an interested person, where would you direct me to find these transcriptions?

 

[Trakar]

For an interested person, where would you direct me to find these transcriptions?

Ah, thank-you for reminding me, I have been hesitant to start the thread discussing these before there is sufficient peer discussion to make for a sustainable discussion of all aspects of the transcripts. But I will try to get an initial post out soon.

the transcripts can be found at: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/climate-review.cfm

The actual transcript link is:
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf

 

[Trakar]

bomb testing

So far as being related to AGW: There was mention upthread of how atom bomb testing skewed the carbon isotopes in the atmosphere.

And thus far in the AGW debates, the thing that puts the 'A' in AGW is how the CO2 has different isotopes whether from fossil fuels or the heat itself brings CO2 release from the oceans. It's chicken or egg, except for the isotopes.

Anybody hear whether those atom bomb test isotopes would effect the 'A' from fossil fuels, vs a different 'A' from nukulars? Not to say that Nukes caused the warming, only saying did they eliminate the particular nuke isotopes before blaming fossil fuels for the same isotopes?

Nuclear tests may cause problems for future generations trying to carbon date fossils from the modern era because open air nuclear weapon tests may have boosted the ratios of C14 in the atmosphere so in carbon dating tests, modern fossils will seem younger than they should be. Part of the way we can identify fossil fuel carbon isotopes is because they represent carbon that has been sequestered out of the active carbon cycle so they have a depleted C14 ratio content.

Boosted C14 due to nuclear tests would tend to obscure and mask human emissions not exaggerate them. Arguing that nuclear weapons testing dramatically skews the carbon isotope ratios used to determine humanity's contribution to climate change, is to argue that current measurements underestimate humanity's carbon additions from isotope depleted sequestered carbon fuel sources. Are you sure that this is the argument you were wanting to make?

 

[casebro]

Nuclear tests may cause problems for future generations trying to carbon date fossils from the modern era because open air nuclear weapon tests may have boosted the ratios of C14 in the atmosphere so in carbon dating tests, modern fossils will seem younger than they should be. Part of the way we can identify fossil fuel carbon isotopes is because they represent carbon that has been sequestered out of the active carbon cycle so they have a depleted C14 ratio content.

Boosted C14 due to nuclear tests would tend to obscure and mask human emissions not exaggerate them. Arguing that nuclear weapons testing dramatically skews the carbon isotope ratios used to determine humanity's contribution to climate change, is to argue that current measurements underestimate humanity's carbon additions from isotope depleted sequestered carbon fuel sources. Are you sure that this is the argument you were wanting to make?

Your first paragraph was helpful, Thank you for answering the question I asked.

Second paragraph was unneeded, and uncalled for. I never "Argued", I only asked.