Environmentalism speech by Michael Crichton and second hand smoking

[Edufer]

And taking this discussion further ahead, I will contribute some testimonials as the way climatic science was conducted by some official intitutions, proving my claims that there is no need for a conspiracy -just some ambitious person making himself a name or carving his niche in the scientific community.

An Australian climatologist just sent me this excellent and self-explanatory oped in today's Financial Review by Garth Paltridge, former senior CSIRO climate scientist and ex-Director of Australia's Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research Centre in Hobart.

As follows.

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Graeme Pearman (in his ABC Four Corners interview last Monday) maintained that CSIRO is not backward in stifling comment from scientists on matters that bear on its political aspirations. It was ever thus. In the early nineties I was involved in setting up the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre, which was, and still is, a sizeable research institution specifically designed to examine the role of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in global climate.

I made the error of mentioning in a media interview that there were (as there still are) lots of doubts about the science of global warming. Suffice it to say that within a couple of days it was made very clear to me from the highest levels of CSIRO that, should I make such public comments again, then it would pull out of the process of forming the new Centre. Since CSIRO was a major partner in the venture and its withdrawal would have killed the whole thing dead, I guess it is not surprising that I found the message to be both cogent and effective.

It turned out that the ferocity of the response was related to efforts by CSIRO at the time to abstract many tens of millions of climate research money from the newly formed bureaucracy of the Australian Greenhouse Office. Graeme Pearman I believe was heavily involved in that effort, and certainly over the years he did very well out of it for his Division of Atmospheric Research. He managed to extract enormous semi-political mileage for the greenhouse global-warming cause during the time he was Chief of the Division, and it is mildly amusing that in his retirement he is now biting the hand that fed him. One wonders a little about the motive. He surely cannot be worried that the global warming issue is losing ground in the
collective consciousness of the public. Political correctness ensures that, even within the scientific community which supposedly is paid to defy accepted wisdom, it is far too dangerous to go against accepted wisdom that the impact of global warming will be disastrous. It is no accident that much of the limited amount of publicly expressed scepticism on the matter comes from scientific retirees.

As for instance from one Dr. Brian Tucker, the previous Chief of CSIRO's Division of Atmospheric Research, who was a specialist in numerical climate modeling and therefore knew better than most where the bodies are buried in the climate change game. He kept remarkably quiet about his worries on the matter. Then he retired, and for two or three years was the bane of the global warming establishment because of his very public stance against many of its scientific sacred cows. Eventually the system managed to limit the damage by labeling him as one of the usual suspects who was now out-of-date and in any event was probably on the pay-roll of industry. It should be noted that `usual suspect' is not nowadays just a term of slightly exasperated endearment. In the context of climate change, it is a label carefully chosen to sideline those so lacking in virtue as to question the influence of the politically correct over the scientifically naïve.

The lesson to be learned from all this is that politicians have something of a problem in their search for unbiased scientific advice on matters to do with climate change. If the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology combine to present a united front on global warming, there is no one to turn to for a second opinion other than a few scattered retirees of no great account. Because the government is not entirely made up of idiots, it must know perfectly well that its departments and agencies can be as subject to bias as any of the relevant industry associations. As always, livelihoods are at stake.

So the lesson from the Four Corners program is perhaps somewhat different to that intended by its producers. On the one hand there are lots of existing mechanisms working to ensure that industry lobbies cannot get too powerful. (One might count the ABC as one of them!) On the other, there is no obvious mechanism to prevent governments becoming hostage to a scientific cabal which, by virtue of its monopoly on scientific expression, can effectively use political correctness to stifle debate.

*****************************************

Is there a volunteer who dares to refute an emerit professor and Senior scientist statement on the issue? No one? (I know, he gets Exxon money)

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Environm...c/2005/04/08/1112815726833.html?oneclick=true

And the above link will take you to a fairly objective article on the issue of "sceptics and warmers" and the present state of the science. All those sceptics mentioned there are my friends and members of our discussion forum at Timo Hmeranta's discussion site.

I told you to try your hand at getting admitted into this forum. Warmers are welcomed. We eat them for breakfast.

 

[jj]

JJ and the rest of you. My father died back in 1963 and since then I have not acknowledged anyone any kind of authority to tell what I should or shouldn’t do, much less what I can or cannot do –it they didn’t prove they had earned that authority. And by all means you are not among those people that have earned my respect or even the right to be treated with respect. So if you want to have some explanations go and ask for them to your grandmother.

Sorry, chap, but you've made claims. You owe us the evidence.

 

[jj]

1) I owe you nothing. Keep that in your narrow mind.
2) You must prove oceans have been acidic at one time.
3) I never said acetic acid was not corrosive (you are nuts -why inventing such an absurd lie?)
4) It is up to you to prove that carbonic acid, in seawater, can corrode calcium carbonate structures faster than organisms can lay down the carbonate.
5) And you must provide proof that the change in phosphate ionization and buffering in the range of 7.8 to 7.0 pH is relevant to the acidification of oceans and what consequences will it have to marine life.

And it is up to you to prove all things you want me to disprove. Go ahead first, and I will follow obediently.

You still owe us evidence, full, convincing evidence, for every one of your claims from "ozone hole" to the relevance of pH 7.0 in this discussion. Yes, we all know that 7.0 is neutral. Neutral has little to do with the rate of accretion or solution of carbonate shells. It is up to you to show, conclusively, that all of the research on this, which tends to agree rather clearly, is wrong. You are making the extraordinary claim, you must, absolutely MUST provide full and extraordinary evidence, including evidence as to why often-run experiments are in fact wrong. Until you do, you are simply failing to perform on your assertions.

You owe US evidence that the oceans have never ever been acidic. It's your claim, not mine.

You said that acetic acid was not corrosive. Don't you even remember what you said?

I quote you:

Many acids are not corrosive, as acetic acid, carbonic acid, among many others.

You sir, are a liar when you say

3) I never said acetic acid was not corrosive (you are nuts -why inventing such an absurd lie?)

That is your own words, no more, no less. Is there some reason you are attempting to deny what you said, clearly and plainly, a few articles above? You are rapidly moving into outright rhetorical fraud here.

You made the claim that ocean pH is irrelevant, despite the large amount of evidence to the contrary, and

YOU owe us the evidence around the phosphate buffer system. No, I'm not explaining why, it's you who claimed expertise, you should reflexively know the answer to that one if you have the actual chops to make the expert statements you've made.


If you have any idea what you're talking about or what you're spouting in terms of water chemistry, you'll know instantly what the phosphate buffer system has to do with all of this.

But you appear not to.

You owe us all the evidence for all of your assertions. Until you do so, your claims amount to no more than a bunch of uniformed, seemingly ignorant ranting.

 

[a_unique_person]

from that article

McKitrick and colleagues claim the hockey stick is plain wrong. Mann published a minor correction in Nature magazine, where the stick first appeared, but has refused to reveal some of the complex computational and statistical bases for the stick. So the debate is stalled, but some prominent scientists are deeply worried. Recently, said McKitrick, Hendrik Tennekes, the retired director of the Royal Meteorological Institute of the Netherlands, declared: "The IPCC review process is fatally flawed. The behaviour of Michael Mann is a disgrace to the profession. The scientific basis for the Kyoto Protocol is grossly inadequate."

A falsehood, pure and simple.

 

[Orwell]

I won't. I don't want either. Bye, sucker!

Toodeloo, quack!

 

[Edufer]

Sorry, chap, but you've made claims. You owe us the evidence.

Sorry, fellers, GW debate is a two way road. You've also made claims, and showed no evidence. I made questions about very basic ozone facts, and you heve dogded the answer in a very, very sloppy way.

You owe me (and other readers here) an answer to those questions. Until then, no way you can demand nothing form no one.

That it the way things work: as much as you give, as much you will get.

Now I have more important things to do, perhaps later I will answer the rest of your rant.

 

[Orwell]

Sorry, fellers, GW debate is a two way road. You've also made claims, and showed no evidence. I made questions about very basic ozone facts, and you heve dogded the answer in a very, very sloppy way.

You owe me (and other readers here) an answer to those questions. Until then, no way you can demand nothing form no one.

That it the way things work: as much as you give, as much you will get.

Now I have more important things to do, perhaps later I will answer the rest of your rant.

Yeah, we really need to demonstrate that climate scientists who think anthropogenic global warming is a reality aren't, I quote, "clever and dishonest people trying to keep their paychecks coming."

You don't understand how this works, I'll explain it to you: you make the claims, you prove the claims.

 

[Edufer]

You don't understand how this works, I'll explain it to you: you make the claims, you prove the claims.

OK, then I will rewind everything and start from the beginning again. And we'll see how much is YOUR degree of understanding.

I will try to explain some things related to the work by Dr. Ken Caldeira, that brought us to this point:

http://carnegieinstitution.org/news_releases/news_0506_30.html

To quote one paragraph:

"When CO2 gas dissolves into the ocean it produces carbonic acid, which is corrosive to shells of marine organisms and can interfere with the oxygen supply. If current trends continue, the scientists believe the acidic water could interrupt the process of shell and coral formation and adversely affect other organisms dependent upon corals and shellfish. The acidity could also negatively impact other calcifying organisms, such as phytoplankton and zooplankton, some of the most important players at the base of the planet’s food chain."​

An analysis of Caldeira’s study show that 'estimation' of drop in pH in the last 200 years is 0.1, with a prediction of 0.5 drop by 2100. It is not clear as to whether this (0.1) is fact, speculation, or calculation and how valid is the prediction.

Press releases said: "As carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, the water becomes more acidic, leading to a reduction in the level of carbonate ions used by tiny swimming snails to make their calcium carbonate shells."

How do we know if this is correct? Wouldn’t more CO2 dissolved INCREASE carbonate ions? And phytoplankton would have more carbonate to feed on? Or does not the ocean work that way? I am not an oceanographer but do have what I think is a good text – “Oceanography: An Introduction to The Planet Oceanus” , (1992). Paul R. Pinet, of Colgate University.

The text has a good description of the 'Carbonate Compensation Depth' or CCD, the depth in the ocean below which material composed of calcium carbonate is dissolved and does not accumulate on the sea bottom. Essentially, silica is prone to dissolve in surface water and carbonate dissolves in deep water.

The level of the CCD in the water column is controlled by the supply and dissolution rates of carbonate and varies from locality to locality. Generally the CCD deepens basinwards. Thus carbonate rich layers are only formed in the sea at relatively shallow depths (less than 3 km) unless there is superabundant supply of carbonate materials.

My interpretation is that changing atmospheric CO2 concentration and the partial pressure of CO2 in the surface layer will raise or lower the CCD but will not cause mass extinctions. Corals and shellfish that live and die in the coastal margins will continue to do so and build future limestone. Phytoplankton and zooplankton that live in the surface layer of the oceans should be unaffected.

One would have to wonder why, if current limestone beds were laid down tens of millions of years ago when CO2 concentrations were many times more than now, a relatively small increase in CO2 concentration should have any significant effect.

If this is not enough explanation for a scientific fact presently under discussion among scientists, then let’s try another angle:

Since the pH of ocean water is about 8.2, it is anyhow not getting acidic but somewhat more neutral. The guesstimate of a 0.5 pH change up to 2100 is probably based on the completely unrealistic projections about future emissions made by IPCC. According to reconstructions from stomata, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was about the same as now in the 5th century.

Again: If this level is dangerous for shells of marine organisms, how did they survive up to now?

Ref: Fig 5-4 in Lenny Liesbeth Ria Kouwenberg's thesis APPLICATION OF CONIFER NEEDLES IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HOLOCENE CO2 LEVELS. The thesis can be downloaded from her home site at http://www.bio.uu.nl/~palaeo/Personeel/Lenny/Lennyk.htm

Please see also the following studies and comments:

Jacobson, Mark Z., 2005. Studying ocean acidification with conservative, stable numerical schemes for nonequilibrium air-ocean exchange and ocean equilibrium chemistry. J. Geophys. Res. – Atm., 110, D07302, doi:10.1029/2004JD005220, April 2, 2005

Abstract
“A noniterative, implicit, mass-conserving, unconditionally stable, positive-definite numerical scheme that solves nonequilibrium air-ocean transfer equations for any atmospheric constituent and time step is derived. The method, referred to as the Ocean Predictor of Dissolution (OPD) scheme, is coupled with EQUISOLV O, a new ocean chemical equilibrium module based on the EQUISOLV II atmospheric aerosol solver. EQUISOLV O converges iteratively, but is unique because it is positive-definite and mass and charge conserving, regardless of the number of iterations taken or equations solved. Two advancements of EQUISOLV O were the development of a new method to initialize charge and a noniterative solution to the water dissociation equation.

Here OPD-EQUISOLV O is used to calculate air and ocean composition and ocean pH among dozens of species in the Na-Cl-Mg-Ca-K-H-O-Li-Sr-C-S-N-Br-F-B-Si-P system. The modules are first used in a one-dimensional ocean/two-compartment atmospheric model driven by emission to examine the historic change in atmospheric CO2 and ocean composition from 1751 to 2004 and the possible future change in CO2 and ocean composition from 2004 to 2104.

CO2 estimates from the historic simulation compare well with the measured CO2 record. Whereas surface ocean pH is estimated to have dropped from near 8.25 to near 8.14 between 1751 and 2004, it is forecasted to decrease to near 7.85 in 2100 under the SRES A1B emission scenario, for a factor of 2.5 increase in H+ in 2100 relative to 1751.

This “ocean acidification” is calculated to cause a nontrivial transfer of ammonia from the atmosphere to the ocean and a smaller transfer of hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, and sulfurous acids from the ocean to the atmosphere. The existence and direction of these feedbacks are almost certain, suggesting that CO2 buildup may have an additional impact on ecosystems. Computer time of the module in the GATOR-GCMOM global model with a 10-layer-ocean was less than two hours per simulation year on a modern single processor.”​

…………………………
Also try to read:

The Royal Society, 2005. Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Policy document 12/05, June 2005, online http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/displaypagedoc.asp?id=13314

I will leave you digesting this first part of a somewhat lenght report on the issue. You asked for it gentlemen. Don’t complaint now.

 

[jj]

Sorry, fellers, GW debate is a two way road.

Nice try at shifting the burden.

You've also made claims, and showed no evidence. I made questions about very basic ozone facts, and you heve dogded the answer in a very, very sloppy way.

Sorry, but no, I simply asked you about the ozone issue. You responded with a straw man suggesting that I'd made a claim (which is an implicit lie), you refuted your straw man (which is meaningless since I didn't make the claim you refuted) and you attacked the idea of an ozone hole without addressing the measured, tested, verified results that actually appear in the atmosphere, rather you attempted to avoid the real-life data by spouting arguments that are at best tangentially related to the real measurements.

No, I didn't make a claim there, but you made a bunch.

You owe me (and other readers here) an answer to those questions. Until then, no way you can demand nothing form no one.

It really doesn't help your argument to lie outright.

That it the way things work: as much as you give, as much you will get.

You're the one taking a position, not me. You owe us all full, detailed, and comprehensive evidence for your extraordinary position. As I have not, despite your falsehoods, actually taken a position on many of the issues, and I note that you have utterly failed to respond to the few positions I did take, by the way, I owe you nothing at all.

You, on the other hand, have taken on an ethical, moral, professional and scientific obligation to provide evidence for your assertions.

You, furthermore, by assuming the mantle of expert, owe us all a full, detailed explaination of what makes you an expert, and how your ex-cathedra pronouncements have the right to be stated with authority.

Now I have more important things to do, perhaps later I will answer the rest of your rant.

Furthermore, you claimed that acetic acid was not corrosive, and 5 or 6 (give or take) articles later lied entirely about what you said, and then had the gall and effrontry to accuse me of lying for responding directly to your in-context, clearly stated claim that acetic acid was not corrosive.

Furthermore, you have failed utterly to explain the effect that dissolved CO2, pH, and the status of the phosphate buffering system have on carbonate shell (or test) deposition and erosion.

You have failed completely to justify your pH argument, and have falsely attacked the idea that the oceans becoming "acid" means that they go under 7.opH, when in fact any change in a downward direction is in the direction of acid, and is what is clearly meant by the research.

In short, you have lied, you have cheated, and you have dishonestly attempted to shift the burden of proof from you, who have made extraordinary claims, to others who have not even made claims.

Furthermore, you have copied others' email, and you have yet to provide any evidence that either the people are real, the email is real, or that you had the necessary permissions to copy their email.

In short, you are found wanting scientifically and you are found wanting ethically. You have proven nothing, your errors and mistatements have been exposed to you, and you have resorted to ad hominem attacks rather than address your misstatements.

I conclude that you have nothing to offer but empty, angry, meaningless words.

You should retire in shame, now, before you get yourself in any more trouble.

 

[jj]

"When CO2 gas dissolves into the ocean it produces carbonic acid, which is corrosive to shells of marine organisms and can interfere with the oxygen supply. If current trends continue, the scientists believe the acidic water could interrupt the process of shell and coral formation and adversely affect other organisms dependent upon corals and shellfish. The acidity could also negatively impact other calcifying organisms, such as phytoplankton and zooplankton, some of the most important players at the base of the planet’s food chain."​

An analysis of Caldeira’s study show that 'estimation' of drop in pH in the last 200 years is 0.1, with a prediction of 0.5 drop by 2100. It is not clear as to whether this (0.1) is fact, speculation, or calculation and how valid is the prediction.

Press releases said: "As carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, the water becomes more acidic, leading to a reduction in the level of carbonate ions used by tiny swimming snails to make their calcium carbonate shells."

How do we know if this is correct? Wouldn’t more CO2 dissolved INCREASE carbonate ions?

Do you understand what a carbonate ion is? Please enlighten all of us with the various states of oxidation and the names used for the various ions at the various states of oxidation. When you're done with that, present us with the evidence that shows which organisms use what mechanisms with what particular ions, thank you.

Then perhaps you'll have fewer questions. Your attack of "how do we know this is correct" suggests to me that you are quite unaware of the chemistry in question. Please correct this situation.

Now, as to the second quote of potentially stolen copyrighted material, do you understand what it says? I think not, because it fails completely to support your contention that there's no problem.

Oh, and do you understand what ammonia uptake in the ocean means? Can you explain to me why all good aquarium test kits include a test for ammonia at very low concentrations?

 

[Edufer]

Do you understand what a carbonate ion is? Please enlighten all of us with the various states of oxidation and the names used for the various ions at the various states of oxidation. When you're done with that, present us with the evidence that shows which organisms use what mechanisms with what particular ions, thank you.

Really, you are much more stupid than you seem to be. How many times must I tell you that I owe you NOTHING. And that if I am posting here is becasue it makes my happy to show that your answers are purely "explain this, explain that", while you give not a single piece of evidence that you even understand what I am talking about.

Now, as to the second quote of potentially stolen copyrighted material, do you understand what it says? I think not, because it fails completely to support your contention that there's no problem.

Stolen copyrighted material? Which one? All is public domain. Moron

Oh, and do you understand what ammonia uptake in the ocean means? Can you explain to me why all good aquarium test kits include a test for ammonia at very low concentrations?

I haven't finished with my report yet. But I can see you cannot explain what you want me to explain.

BTW, you haven't provided the answers to the questions I asked about ozone facts and theory, Molina's dimer formula, concentrations of CFCs in the stratosphere, energy needed to disscociate a CFC molecule, UV energy levels at different altitudes, etc, etc. You ignore all that kind of stuff. It will take you lots of google and wikipedia to get ree from your own trap. Or another elegant dodging of the issue --as you have shown you are a Black Belt 10th Dan master in the art of Dodging Answers.

So it is you, my dear dishonest moron, who's not answering questions --but insist in having your ignorance answered and filled with information. In which kind of a world are you living? A deep Green one, perhaps?

You make me laugh -deep problems? What? Are you related to Al Qaeda? Oh,yes, I won't be able to sleep tonight... can you see how I am trembling?

 

[Mark]

So it is you, my dear dishonest moron, who's not answering questions --but insist in having your ignorance answered and filled with information. In which kind of a world are you living? A deep Green one, perhaps?

You make me laugh -deep problems? What? Are you related to Al Qaeda? Oh,yes, I won't be able to sleep tonight... can you see how I am trembling?

Is there anything else you all need to know about this poster than what is revealed in these comments?

 

[jj]

Really, you are much more stupid than you seem to be.

Translation: Edufer can't find facts to back up his claims, so he resorts to professional insult.

How many times must I tell you that I owe you NOTHING.

It doesn't matter how many times you try to evade your responsiblity, you're still responsible.

And that if I am posting here is becasue it makes my happy to show that your answers are purely "explain this, explain that", while you give not a single piece of evidence that you even understand what I am talking about.

Ironic, from somebody who can't answer a simple question about phosphate buffering, who instead quotes a rather unrelated abstract that he or she may not even have permission to copy.

Do you have permission to copy those abstracts, those emails, etc?

Please do show us that evidence, too.

 

[Edufer]

Ironic, from somebody who can't answer a simple question about phosphate buffering, who instead quotes a rather unrelated abstract that he or she may not even have permission to copy.

Do you have permission to copy those abstracts, those emails, etc?

Please do show us that evidence, too.

Ironic from somebody that cannot answer simple questions about the ozone layer scam.

And yes, I have permission (and encouragement), and I will show it if a competent judge ask me to do it, based on a demand presented by the affected party. Something that will never occur. But you are nobody to demand anything from me.

Go and complain to Osama, you, fundamentalist.

(Gee, I am having such a good time, teasing you all pompous old f---s!)

 

[Orwell]

There are religious trolls, there are racist trolls, Edufer is just another kind of troll: the anti-Anthropogenic Greenhouse Warming troll.

 

[Orwell]

Ironic from somebody that cannot answer simple questions about the ozone layer scam.

And yes, I have permission (and encouragement), and I will show it if a competent judge ask me to do it, based on a demand presented by the affected party. Something that will never occur. But you are nobody to demand anything from me.

Go and complain to Osama, you, fundamentalist.

(Gee, I am having such a good time, teasing you all pompous old f---s!)

"The ozone layer scam"?!

Are you this ignorant, or are you just pulling our legs? Your rhetoric is on the same level as those that call natural selection a scam.

You're not an anti-AGW troll. You're an anti-science troll, period.

You have no credibility, I suggest you stop embarrassing yourself.

 

[varwoche]

Today, the environmental movement is about global power, about World Governance, as proposed many years ago by G. Bush father and his friends as Kissinger, Soros, etc. Lots of fish to cut there.
...
It is quite related to the ozone wars and the resulting scam.

Do you care to post evidence about this Bush-Kissinger-Soros environmental cabal?

 

[jj]

Ironic from somebody that cannot answer simple questions about the ozone layer scam.

Again you try to shift the burden. Please show convincingly and unquestionably that the ozone layer issue is a "scam". I am not taking an extraordinary position, nor have I asserted anything at all, ergo I owe you no answers at all.

You, on the other hand, have repeatedly dismissed my repeated requests for extraordinary evidence to support your extraordinary claim.

It is both unethical and highly unprofessional of you to attempt to shift the burden of proof from you, who is making a claim, to me, who has not made a claim.

And yes, I have permission (and encouragement), and I will show it if a competent judge ask me to do it, based on a demand presented by the affected party. Something that will never occur. But you are nobody to demand anything from me.

Really, now. You claim permission of the various copyright owners (i.e. the people writing the emails, if in fact they really exist, and aren't fabrications of yours, by the way)?

Just post the written permission to quote the whole abstract that you quoted a few articles above. You can put up a .jpg of the scan of the copyright permission, now, that's easy enough, if you have it.

Do you have it? Can you prove it?

Go and complain to Osama, you, fundamentalist.

You, sir, act insanely.

(Gee, I am having such a good time, teasing you all pompous old f---s!)

But you haven't proven a thing about your ridiculous allegations about the environment.

You dodged the phosphate buffer question, as well as the carbonate buffer issue, again, I see. We won't even get into the sulphate issue.

It's clear that you have nothing to offer. You should stop embarrassing yourself now, troll.

 

[jj]

Do you care to post evidence about this Bush-Kissinger-Soros environmental cabal?

They all exist, and if they walk in, hum a few bars, and walk back out

 

[Rolfe]

(you owe us a complete c.v. at the very least, since your claims, including your claim to the negative, carry the imprimatur of expertice. You now owe us clear, convincing evidence of your expertise, and of your standing in this profession, and postehaste.),....

Wot, jj, you mean qualifications are not meaningless??

Rolfe.