Conservatives and climate change

[mhaze]

why dont you give me a link to that search? then we can take a look how many of those articles are actually scientific publications. pls provide the link to the search you are talking about.....

You may have misunderstand, I was saying that IN GENERAL, you could do this. Pick a subject that you know there was lots of activity in, say space science. Medicine, structural engineering, etc.

Thousands of articles will come up.

Your area, you are trying to argue for a consensus where you've got a dozen or so. The area of concern is best said to NOT EXIST. Or if it does exist it is a tiny subspecialty of what? Meterorology?

Beware of reading things into the past that are not there.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

You're completely missing the point. You have stated that anthropogenic global warming is some sort o liberal plot, that its entirely based on a political / ideological agenda and that it's junk science. My point is that the man referred to in the OP is both a reputable scientist and a bona fide conservative. So, did he suddenly get brainwashed? If not, then his stan contradicts and, I thing, invalidates your argument.

Peter Wehner is a reputable scientist? Are you referring to the fact that his BA is in political science?

Peter Wehner has an impressive resumé in conservative politics and public policy. He appears to be genuinely concerned about the intellectually lazy habit of demonizing opponents:

Having been involved in politics for most of my adult life, I can testify that in the heat of the moment, it's not easy to believe that one's political opponents are hardly as bad as we portray them to be, even as our political allies may be more flawed than we imagine.

That's from another recent article that has nothing to do with science. It's entirely consistent with Wehner's warnings about the long-term political consequences of denying science:

....to insist that AGW is a hoax, the product (more or less) of a massive conspiracy, is, I believe, damaging to conservatism. That is something I do care about. And more than that, it is, from what I can tell, a position at odds with where the evidence leads. Contemporary liberalism can do as it will. But for conservatism, facts–those stubborn facts–need to be our guiding star.

 

[mhaze]

The ideas and principal facts were known to and accepted by the majority of academia involved in climate study since the '30s. In the '50s and '60s, there were significant debates as to the direction climate was headed (the cooling argument had gained support due to temp readings and reassessments of milankovitch's orbital factors. It is during the early seventies that the understanding and acceptance of human induced warming became the majority consideration and in the '80s, the evidences and concensus swelled to dominate the primary related fields (climate, geology, etc.,) this concensus spilled over into all relevent general sciences (chemistry, physics, etc.,) in the '90s.

Your generalized usage of the term "academia" is somewhat troublesome, if it is meant to include all of academia (- The environment or community concerned with the pursuit of research, education, and scholarship) which could include everything from Early Childhood Education professors to Foriegn Language scholars as well as the Physical Sciences, then we might be hard pressed to find broad acceptance of the fundemental principles of many modern science understandings yet alone concensus on AGW. If you focus more narrowly on climate science and the closely related fields of that research, however, the general principles of modern AGW undserstandings have been a majority opinion consideration for going on 4 decades now.

Well, your generalized use of "climate study" and "climate science" is somewhat troublesome, since it didn't exist <1972. So what exactly are you talking about, meterologists? Guys that studied glaciers? Your generalization is sufficiently imprecise to cause any conclusion you draw to be wrong.

 

[DC]

You may have misunderstand, I was saying that IN GENERAL, you could do this. Pick a subject that you know there was lots of activity in, say space science. Medicine, structural engineering, etc.

Thousands of articles will come up.

Your area, you are trying to argue for a consensus where you've got a dozen or so. The area of concern is best said to NOT EXIST. Or if it does exist it is a tiny subspecialty of what? Meterorology?

Beware of reading things into the past that are not there.

with saying in general you mean making things up.
well all you have to do is find me those tousands of articles on climate. when you can do that so much better than the guys doing the paper i linked to, why didn't you do it already?

just provide evidence for your claims should be easy, not?

 

[citizenzen]

Not at all. Yes, there are some advanced math and computer simulation I have extensive experience with. But there are other types of math, modeling used in "climate science" that I have only a cursory understanding of (and really no interest in, either).

Why would you have no interest in them?

If there was a chance of them helping to prove or disprove Climate Change I'd think there would be reason to be interested.

 

[BenBurch]

Meanwhile, in the real world; http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7897107&postcount=500

 

[bit_pattern]

Well, your generalized use of "climate study" and "climate science" is somewhat troublesome, since it didn't exist <1972.

That's simply not true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatology#History

Not a great source, I know but it's too damned hot at the moment (40 C, third day in a row, it was still above 30 C. at midnight lasdt night ) and I can't be bothered with anything else, but the point is clear; people have been studying the climate for most of the 20th century. I'm not sure when the term 'climatology' was coined but it is dishonest to suggest that the global climate system wasn't being systematically researched long before 1972.

I mean, hell, I've already posted a Bell Lab's video from 1958 in this thread and Arrhenius was postulating about the effects of CO2 on climate back in the late 19th century.

Disingenuous argument is disingenuous.

 

[Bill Thompson]

In the long run, isn't global warming better? Isn't it better to push the likelihood of another ice age off the chart?

We are so caught up in proving climate change. But has anyone actually shown that it is bad?

 

[bit_pattern]

In the long run, isn't global warming better? Isn't it better to push the likelihood of another ice age off the chart?

Why do you care more about what happen in 15,000 years than you are what happen in the next 50 - 100 years?

We are so caught up in proving climate change. But has anyone actually shown that it is bad?

Yes.

 

[Robert Prey]

Quantifiably so.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=484&pictureid=5366[/qimg]
Figure 1: Number of papers classified as predicting future global cooling (blue) or warming (red). In no year were there more global cooling papers than global warming papers.

What is needed is another graph showing the global warming papers authored by those receiving govt. research grants.

 

[citizenzen]

What is needed is another graph showing the global warming papers authored by those receiving govt. research grants.

Exactly. What we really need to do is completely audit the honesty and integrity of any scientist or researcher who receives government grants.

You get the lie detector and I'll bring the sodium pentathol and thumb screws.

 

[bit_pattern]

What is needed is another graph showing the global warming papers authored by those receiving govt. research grants.

That would be all of them I'd reckon. I know the "sceptical" Dr. Roy Spencer receives considerable yearly grants from the DoE to run his UAH satellite programme, do you not trust his results either?

 

[lomiller]

The consensus of academia did not know that climate change was coming in 1972.

Incorrect.

At best they were not convinced about how much it would change or how much atmospheric CO2 would change, but any debate going on in 1972 was about how much change, not if.


(BTW the estimates for how much warming changes in CO2 would cause, haven't actually changed much since 1972.)


There was also some debate over just how much global cooling would be caused by anthropogenic aerosols but this doesn't materially impact the science behind CO2 induced warming.

 

[lomiller]

The strange thing is, both left and right leaning people seem to say that the science is on their side and that the other side is driven by ideological interests.

Makes for an easy test doesn't it. Just look at the science, and see which side it favors. Maybe this would be a good place to start, it's a list of national science academies and other science organizations on the where they stand on climate change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scient...change#Statements_by_concurring_organizations

As far as I know, and based on my own study, any position of certainty the like of which pervades these arguments is a big red flag. That goes for deniers and for warmers.

There is no debate going on in the literature, it's all very one sided, so what exactly what did you study?

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change” (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

 

[lomiller]

The ideas and principal facts were known to and accepted by the majority of academia involved in climate study since the '30s. In the '50s and '60s, there were significant debates as to the direction climate was headed (the cooling argument had gained support due to temp readings and reassessments of milankovitch's orbital factors.

I'd dispute that the principle facts were all accepted by the 1930's. While the warming effect of CO2 was certainly known by this point, it was believed that it wasn't possible for humans to significantly impact atmospheric CO2 because it would be absorbed by the oceans.

This assumption was conclusively disproved by a series of papers in the late 1950's, the first showing that the Oceans would not absorb the CO2, then CO2 measurements showed atmospheric CO2 was increasing and that the increase had a distinct human footprint in it's isotope ratios.

In addition to discussions over milankovitch's orbital factors there were also concerns about cooling resulting from "global dimming" due to human aerosols. While it turned out that global dimming is quite real, aerosols have a much shorter lifespan in the atmosphere so CO2 always wins out in the end.

None of this impacts our understanding of the effect of CO2, as I mentioned above, so CO2 was quite well understood by the 70's. It did take computing power not available until later to get really good quantitative estimate of how much warming, but it turned out that the earlier estimates had been pretty good.

 

[lomiller]

In the long run, isn't global warming better? Isn't it better to push the likelihood of another ice age off the chart?

Neither warming nor cooling is inherently bad, but rapid change in either direction is.

At our current rate of CO2 emissions we will see another 2-3 degrees of warming by 2100 for a total of 3-4 degrees C in only 200 years. For comparison sake warming at the end of the last glaciation was ~6 deg C over 5000 years.

 

[balrog666]

We are so caught up in proving climate change. But has anyone actually shown that it is bad?

Yes.

Nonsense, looking at the historical record, it will most likely be bad in some isolated places and very good in others like Canada and Siberia.

But, even if it would be devastatingly awful everywhere and for everyone, why aren't the AGW-devastation-frenzy-bleaters advocating a switchover to nuclear power from coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants as soon as possible? And why is paying extortion money to third-world dictators seen as a solution to first-world CO₂ emissions?

 

[bobdroege7]

I've simply argued that "climate change math ISN'T easy"

Hey, mhaze

Long time no argue.

All math is easy.

Solving multi-variable simultaneous equations, easy, thats what matrix algebra and computers are for. Computational power has been holding back the models for a while, but they are getting better these days.

The math needed for climate science is not hard, it's easy.

I'll comment.

the article...

And it’s fair to ask whether the best data suggests that Earth’s temperature has not risen in more than a decade; and if so, why that’s the case.

No right minded individual needs the paid blogger, Cook, bit-pattern, or tim callahan to tell him or comment on what's "fair to ask".

You may find the math hard if this question befuddles you. Because the best data does suggest that the earth's temperature has risen in the last decade. It has also dropped in the last decade. That is the domain of the cherry pickers. There is noise both in the natural system as well in our measurement system, so the clever ones know that you need a longer time interval to make a judgement whether the earth is currently warming or not.

 

[bit_pattern]

Nonsense, looking at the historical record, it will most likely be bad in some isolated places and very good in others like Canada and Siberia.

A common misconception. Why would it be good for species evolved to that climate to have their ecosystems destroyed? And why is is good to see areas of forest the size of Great Britain being destroyed because of bug infestations as a result of longer, warmer summers after less than a degree of warming? Why would it be good to continue melting the permafrost and unlocking stores of methane and carbon? Why would it be good to see a decline in planetary albedo as the northern sea ice declines?

There will be some regional, short term benefits, for instance food production will increase in North America up to about 3 C. then starts to drop off after that (meanwhile though, Asia and Sub Saharan Africa's food production will plummet) but the idea that just because it is warmer places like Alaska and Canada will be somehow better off is a total fallacy.

But, even if it would be devastatingly awful everywhere and for everyone, why aren't the AGW-devastation-frenzy-bleaters advocating a switchover to nuclear power from coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants as soon as possible?

Because nuclear has it's own problems and obstacles.

And why is paying extortion money to third-world dictators seen as a solution to first-world CO₂ emissions?

It's not.

 

[Trakar]

In the long run, isn't global warming better? Isn't it better to push the likelihood of another ice age off the chart?

I must confess, I was strongly tempted to create a hyperbolic analogy about dousing yourself in gasoline to avoid the potential of your great grandchildren eventually suffering and dying of alzheimers, but in reflection, have decided that it might be more fruitful to try a different tact.

Okay, even if I were to acknowledge the point that mild artificial anthropogenic climate control designed stabilize/buffer our planet's climate so as to prevent natural extremes and maintain global average temperatures within a couple degrees of the average temperature during the Holocene, what do you propose to do when you see that our actions are over-correcting and pushing us the planet beyond security from ice-ages and into the dangers of a hot house era? Its not like we are starting this experiment now, it began nearly two centuries ago (some researchers argue that it actually began nearly 8000 years ago when our species began clearing forests, draining swamps, and plowing praries on a large scale) when we began recovering carbon sequestered from the atmosphere over tens of millions of years from hundreds of millions of years ago, and then pumped it back into the atmosphere in the span of the last couple of centuries. And even this is understating the case, as more than half of all the coal that has been dug up out of the ground since 1800 has been burned and dumped its carbon into the atmosphere in the last couple of decades. Regardless of whether we do it intentionally or unintentionally, the point is that we have much more than avoided an ice age now and are in fact pushing our planet's climate into an equally dangerous (to most existent forms of life and existent biomes) hot house era. It is time to pull our foot off the accelerator

We are so caught up in proving climate change. But has anyone actually shown that it is bad?

Yes.
Bad for agriculture
Bad for health
Bad for economy
Bad for environment

These among others for reference:

Assessing dangerous climate change through an update of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “reasons for concern”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2648893/

The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review
http://books.google.com/books?id=U-...s of climate change: the Stern review&f=false

Managing the Health effects of Climate Change
http://www.thelancet.com/climate-change

On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change
http://www.nber.org/public_html/confer/2008/si2008/EEE/weitzman.pdf

Global fish production and climate change
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/50/19709.full

Again these are just meant as representative samples of some of the near term problems that have been examined ofver the last several years (note these aren't links to pseudoscience blog discussions.)