Shermer flips GW stance

RandFan said:
Again, this has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.
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You claimed it was difficult to pick out AGW from natural warming. I pointed out that it isn't. What were you talking about?

It has happened. See Dr. Gray's website. Where are you getting this notion that such fluctuations have never happened? That is just silly.
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davefoc has put Gray in context. Do you have any credible sources that have detected similar events in previous ice-ages?

The statements leading to the question have not been established.
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Presumably the statement that far more coal, oil and natural gas has been burned during this interglacial than in any previous is not contentious. So we're left with the unusual nature of the current climate event. The scientific consensus is that the current event is unusual. If you're not convinced, what would it take to convince you?

To answer my own question, I don't think it's a great leap to connect the two.
 
CapelDodger said:
You claimed it was difficult to pick out AGW from natural warming. I pointed out that it isn't. What were you talking about?
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"Pointed it out"? You have stated an opinion.

The earth has warmed and cooled to moderate degrees between extremes many times. That you think it is easy to peg current trends to AGW does not make it so.

davefoc has put Gray in context. Do you have any credible sources that have detected similar events in previous ice-ages?
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I'm at a complete loss as to why you keep bringing up ice-ages. Due to solar activity, fluctuations of the earths distance to the sun between Milankovitch cycles (I posted some of this information and links before) the earth has fluctuated in temperatures. Why you don't believe this to be true is beyond me. You are the only person I know that thinks that there is no mechanism or history for this. You simply state that it is so. I don't know what more I can do. If you are saying that the weight of the evidence has moved to the AGW side I can accept this. If you are saying that there is zero evidence to support the notion that the earth warms and cools in uneven amounts between glacial periods then there is little more for us to discuss.

Presumably the statement that far more coal, oil and natural gas has been burned during this interglacial than in any previous is not contentious. So we're left with the unusual nature of the current climate event. The scientific consensus is that the current event is unusual. If you're not convinced, what would it take to convince you?

To answer my own question, I don't think it's a great leap to connect the two.
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I'm not quite sure where you come to the conclusion that the warming is so unusual. What was the cause of the little ice age? Are such fluctuations really so impossible in your mind?

I don't have a problem with people saying that there is clear evidence that there is a link. I have a problem with the notion that there could be no other explanation or cause. This just does not fit with critical thinking IMO. Quite frankly it veers into the realm of woo. And hey, assuming that you are correct, it's possible to use faulty reasoning to arrive at a correct conclusion.
 
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blutoski said:
It may not have a useful function face-to-face, and I agree that it sounds punitive.

But I think we can use the term in a meta-discussion, to describe a catergory of participant. Just like we have to distinguish between Creation Science and Intelligent Design advocates, and as Nova Land showed, we distinguish between debunkers versus skeptics (in the CSICOP world, it's debunkers versus investigators), we benefit from distinguishing between critics and deniers.

It's a continuum, in this case, and my rule of thumb is that when you bring contrary information to a denier, they will reject it as false by definition.
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Perhaps we could progress to more formal rules via a points system. Obviously big - nay, overwhelming - points for "The Bible/Wealth of Nations/Kapital says so" attribute.

Points for claiming peer rejection because they're wrong, and sheep-like (use of "bandwagon" is a give-away).

Points for heroic pretensions - "I spoke truth to power!". Power being embodied in, say, secularism in the US or tree-huggers at the End of History.

Points for claiming that their peers have been bought - "Moscow Gold" was good for that back in the day. Now it's "White Gold" or "Black Gold". "White Gold" might be cocaine or heroin. Oh to have lived back in simpler days, when it was just Gold.

Points for attacking the consensus far more than justifying the odd-ball notion.

Points for all sorts of clues, even negative points. I realise the notion stinks of profiling, but I'm only suggesting a stepping-stone, not an objective.
 
RandFan said:
"Pointed it out"? You have stated an opinion.
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Indeed. But what were you talking about when you claimed that it was difficult to distinguish AGW from natural influences? If you include the question in your quote, shouldn't you address it in your response?

The earth has warmed and cooled to moderate degrees between extremes many times. That you think it is easy to peg current trends to AGW does not make it so.
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Climate varies moderately during the bulk of an inter-glacial, which includes where we're at in the cycle. The climate event we are experiencing is not moderate. That is the scientific consensus, the political consensus, increasingly the business consensus and the public consensus. This is despite great and well-funded efforts being made to maintain, let alone promote, an entirely different concensus.
 
CapelDodger said:
Indeed. But what were you talking about when you claimed that it was difficult to distinguish AGW from natural influences? If you include the question in your quote, shouldn't you address it in your response?
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I mean that it is difficult to distinguish AGW from natural influences. I'm sorry if that was not clear and I hope that clears it up. I included links that showed the mechanisms for this and explained it above.

Climate varies moderately during the bulk of an inter-glacial, which includes where we're at in the cycle. The climate event we are experiencing is not moderate. That is the scientific consensus, the political consensus, increasingly the business consensus and the public consensus. This is despite great and well-funded efforts being made to maintain, let alone promote, an entirely different concensus.
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What is "moderately"? Please define? Was the little ice age "moderate"? What caused it?
 
kevin said:
Actually there is debate if it actually occurred, same for the medieval warm period. Apparently people have taken regional measurements and blown them into a world wide phenomenon (unlike today's warming which is on a global scale) that isn't supported by other documentation.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=32
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=33
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Thanks Kevin,

If I understand correctly, according to Capel the current warming trend is unprecedented in the earth's history (considering ice-age cycles). Do you agree?

Click for chart: http://tinyurl.com/gr7by
 
RandFan said:
I don't think that they are mutually exclusive possibilities.
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Nor do I.
Yes, I do think that government funding dollars are going into climate research to study AGW.
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Of course there is some govt funding of GW research. Is there so much funding that there is a significant profit motive though? (I'm skeptical of this claim.)

In any case, there's not enough funding for NASA to pay for new climate satellites.
NASA is canceling or delaying a number of satellites designed to give scientists critical information on the earth's changing climate and environment.

The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor that was designed to measure soil moisture -- a key factor in helping scientists understand the impact of global warming and predict droughts and floods. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, intended to observe climate factors such as solar radiation, ozone, clouds, and water vapor more comprehensively than existing satellites, also has been canceled.

And in its 2007 budget, NASA proposes significant delays in a global precipitation measuring mission to help with weather predictions, as well as the launch of a satellite designed to increase the timeliness and accuracy of severe weather forecasts and improve climate models.
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article
 
varwoche said:
Nor do I.
Of course there is some govt funding of GW research. Is there so much funding that there is a significant profit motive though? (I'm skeptical of this claim.)

In any case, there's not enough funding for NASA to pay for new climate satellites. article
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Good point, thanks.
 
RandFan said:
Thanks Kevin,

If I understand correctly, according to Capel the current warming trend is unprecedented in the earth's history (considering ice-age cycles). Do you agree?

Click for chart: http://tinyurl.com/gr7by
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The chart shows CO2 amounts, rather than temp, so as long as you agree CO2 ties into temp (and yes I think this is the case too) then temp should track the CO2 chart as well.

I don't think we've yet reached unprecedented temps, but I also don't see anything that would prevent us from doing so. Additionally I think the current rate of increase is considered unprecedented, although I can't find a statement to that effect (didn't look real hard though.)
 
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Ah yes the good old "scientists are doing this to make money from research grants" argument. This certainly doesn't seem to be the case under current administration where even attempting to talk about the issue typically gets you shot down.

Further, ExxonMobil is a major donor to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). They couldn't find another $2 million to do actual research that would support their stance? Instead they have to distort the findings of other scientists instead. Even the Tobacco Institute was able to get some papers published under peer-review.
 
RandFan said:
What is "moderately"? Please define? Was the little ice age "moderate"? What caused it?
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In global terms the Little Ice Age was moderate, hardly noticeable in most of the world. It was strongest in the North Atlantic. The global effect might be atrributable to solar influences as well as the North Atlantic cooling, which naturally reduced the global average.

From historical records the likeliest candidate is an irruption of Arctic Ocean water into the North Atlantic, weakening the THC and bringing ice with it. The cause of that might be related to the free-surface effect (the Arctic Sea is a rather shallow bowl, almost entirely enclosed). There is also a rather obscure hypothesis, Russian in origin IIRC, that tidal forces create a sort of rotating standing-wave, very long and slow, which periodically sends a pulse of cold water and ice into the gap between Greenland and Norway .

"Little Ice Age" is an imprecise term. The North Atlantic cooling around 1700 was most pronounced in winter, and pack-ice was reported where normally only icebergs would be expected (strongly suggesting an unusual interaction between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic). Russia - far from Atlantic influences - actually did rather well during this period, perhaps because there was less ice in the Arctic for a decade or two.
 
kevin said:
Ah yes the good old "scientists are doing this to make money from research grants" argument. This certainly doesn't seem to be the case under current administration where even attempting to talk about the issue typically gets you shot down.

Further, ExxonMobil is a major donor to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). They couldn't find another $2 million to do actual research that would support their stance? Instead they have to distort the findings of other scientists instead. Even the Tobacco Institute was able to get some papers published under peer-review.
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I was talking to my friend at the weekend. He was saying he could earn a lot more money in private industry, instead of researching for the CSIRO.
 
RandFan said:
If I understand correctly, according to Capel the current warming trend is unprecedented in the earth's history (considering ice-age cycles).
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The only period I'm interested in, with regard to this issue, is the current ice-epoch. I haven't managed to find Dr William Gray's website (William seems to be a family name, and the Gray family quite prominent in Colorado) so I still don't know what equivalents he has to offer.

I've learnt a lot about Dr Gray. RealClimate (an invaluable resource) does the most clinical job. An increasing THC explains global warming until actual measurement reveals a weakening THS, at which point the theory changes to a weakening THC explains global warming. The fixed points are global warming and THC as the cause, the connection is infinitely elastic.

From other hits on Dr Gray it appears that he has a list of 15 reasons for the AGW conspiracy, including the need for a new enemy after the Fall of The Wall (?) and the way scientists hate us for our freedoms. Dr Gray lives in a scary world - not that it scares him, of course. He speaks truth to power, but only brave samizdat such as Capitalist Magazine publish him.

Other hits have introduced me to fantasies entirely unattributable to Dr Gray, such as that the crescendo of scientific concern about AGW is driven by the cooling that's due to kick-in five or six years down the line. Naturally, the kooks involved invoke Dr Gray's name in justifying their claims. But that's not his fault.
 
kevin said:
Ah yes the good old "scientists are doing this to make money from research grants" argument. This certainly doesn't seem to be the case under current administration where even attempting to talk about the issue typically gets you shot down.
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Black helicopters don't get shot down because the gumment uses the school-system to brainwash you. The appearance of power, in capitalism and government, is an illusion. World government has been a reality for centuries, since shortly after Bacon and Descartes launched the conspiracy of which Freemasonry is but a minor element. Just another distraction, like democracy.

Get with the real. Money and politics are like bread and circuses, they keep the plebs distracted, but the real decisions are made by scientists. They've had email since at least 1763. It's true!
 
kevin said:
Ah yes the good old "scientists are doing this to make money from research grants" argument. This certainly doesn't seem to be the case under current administration where even attempting to talk about the issue typically gets you shot down.
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I just want to be sure that I'm clear. Are you saying that there is little or no funding for AGW/GW reaserch?

Further, ExxonMobil is a major donor to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). They couldn't find another $2 million to do actual research that would support their stance? Instead they have to distort the findings of other scientists instead. Even the Tobacco Institute was able to get some papers published under peer-review.
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I appologize, I don't know enough about the circumstances to comment. I'll take your word for it at the moment.

Thanks
 
CapelDodger said:
The only period I'm interested in, with regard to this issue, is the current ice-epoch.
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This baffles me to no end. Why? I also note that you don't answer the question. Is the current temperature unprecedented even for the current cycle?

RandFan

Edited: Sorry, I want to get a bit more information before I close out this discussion with Capel.
 
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I found the passage I was looking for. It's specifically about possible conflicts between science and religion, but it's generally applicable:

Richard Feynman said:
For the student, when he learns about science, there are two sources of difficulty in trying to weld science and religion together. The first source of difficulty is this--that it is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding, we must remain modest and allow that we do not know. Nothing is certain or proved beyond all doubt. You investigate for curiousity, because it is unknown, not because you know the answer. And as you develop more information in the sciences, it is not that you are finding out the truth, but that you are finding out that this or that is more or less likely.
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