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Simple Question About AGW

Pixel42 said:
I for one cannot see how C follows from A and B. Even if I assume the truth of A and B, the only C I get is "Hansen made a prediction with which the IPCC consensus view does not agree". That tells me nothing about Hansen's political views. Maybe he underestimated the importance of certain forcings when creating his model, or made a mistake in his calcuations. These things happen in cutting edge science :shrug:
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which is why I posted a dozen or so direct Hansen quotes one page back in this thread. Such as:

If human beings follow a business-as-usual course, continuing to exploit fossil fuel resources without reducing carbon emissions or capturing and sequestering them before they warm the atmosphere, the eventual effects on climate and life may be comparable to those at the time of mass extinctions
 
mhaze said:
which is why I posted a dozen or so direct Hansen quotes one page back in this thread. Such as:

If human beings follow a business-as-usual course, continuing to exploit fossil fuel resources without reducing carbon emissions or capturing and sequestering them before they warm the atmosphere, the eventual effects on climate and life may be comparable to those at the time of mass extinctions
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"May Be", is what he said. This is a question of risk management. The US and the "Coalition of the Willing" were prepared to bet a trillion dollars on WMD that weren't even there.
 
a_unique_person said:
"May Be", is what he said. This is a question of risk management. The US and the "Coalition of the Willing" were prepared to bet a trillion dollars on WMD that weren't even there.
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I simply point out that Hansen's beliefs are not mainstream but are far radical views.

The phrase "radical far left environmentalist" is intended as descriptive, not perjorative.
 
mhaze said:
I simply point out that Hansen's beliefs are not mainstream but are far radical views.
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Hardly. Science magazine publications would be the mainstream. Opposition without theoretical or empirical basis would be the radical view.
 
mhaze said:
I simply point out that Hansen's beliefs are not mainstream but are far radical views.

The phrase "radical far left environmentalist" is intended as descriptive, not perjorative.
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I haven't seen any quotes about Hansen's beliefs, only about the predictions of his climate models, which seem to be based on reasonable estimates of climate forcings. Those predictions may or may not be correct, but they don't tell me anything about his political views.
 
Do you think the quotes I provided from Hansen are predictions of his climate models?
 
mhaze said:
Do you think the quotes I provided from Hansen are predictions of his climate models?
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You mean in post #969 and in the article linked in it? Predictions from climate models, and statements of the observations on which those climate models are based, yes. There's also some criticism of Bush's actions (or rather lack of them) in response to those predictions in the linked article, but even that isn't a reliable indication of his political views. It's perfectly possible to criticise specific actions of a politician with whose policies you otherwise broadly agree.

I'm not saying Hansen's political views aren't left of centre, for all I know they may be. I'm just saying that "does scientific research whose results support the existence of AGW" does not automatically equal "is a radical far left environmentalist".
 
Pixel42 said:
You mean in post #969 and in the article linked in it? Predictions from climate models, and statements of the observations on which those climate models are based, yes. There's also some criticism of Bush's actions (or rather lack of them) in response to those predictions in the linked article, but even that isn't a reliable indication of his political views. It's perfectly possible to criticise specific actions of a politician with whose policies you otherwise broadly agree.

I'm not saying Hansen's political views aren't left of centre, for all I know they may be. I'm just saying that "does scientific research whose results support the existence of AGW" does not automatically equal "is a radical far left environmentalist".
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With over 1000 media interviews, perhaps he is actually more politician than scientist.
 
mhaze said:
Round Robin said:
mhaze said:
No one said that they did not agree with my statement:

Care to provide an impartial source?

Okay, since you insist, I'll repeat it a 3rd time. Scenario A was cited by Hansen as "business as usual". Source, Hansen. Oh wait, I already said that, twice. Hmm, same source as RR.
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This is tiresome to the extreme.

No one claims that Hansen did not describe A as BAU, despite your endless repetitions.

The issue is whether he said in 1988, not 1998, that he saw B as most likely, IOW that it was more likely than A.

How hard can this be?
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Round Robin said:
Stop moving the goalposts, please.

My point was that "business as usual" CO2 emissions was only one component to a prediction that included many worst-case conditions to create an upper bound. To be sure, not all of these conditions turned out to be worst-case (as expected), so despite CO2 emissions being higher than predicted for Scenario B, observations didn't track Scenario A because the other components were not also worst-case (e.g., there was a major volcano, but this was not predicted in scenario A, but was in B and C). These were just three sets of predictions ranging from "high side of reality" (A) to "draconian" (C), with "most plausible" (B) in between. (Hansen's descriptions) It is unreasonable to assume that all components of scenario B (or A or C) would have played out as predicted.

This got started because of a comment about Michaels using Hansen's A/B/C graph for testimony, but having erased B and C to "prove" Hansen was wrong by 300%. I considered that to be misleading and dishonest and I still do, for all the reasons I've detailed above. If you want to argue about isolating the effects of various forcings in each scenario versus observations over the last 20 years, I'm not your man--that's outside my knowledge and must claim ignorance:). I am, however, perfectly capable of reading his papers and understanding his proposed boundary conditions.
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Excellent summary (again) RR. :D

Of course the contrarians stop at nothing in their attempts to discredit Hansen (or Mann).
 
mhaze said:
Accordingly, when you argue pro Hansen, you are arguing in favor of confusion, poor or non existent scientific method, bad concepts of forecasting and poor modeling. It would seem to me that this does not get you anywhere meaningful. Well, of course, unless you believe and would like to support the nutty things he says.
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Mhaze,

You clearly have a thing about Hansen and his dodgy models. Care to show us any better ones being made at the time, late 80s?
 
Round Robin said:
I allow that my opinion may change as I learn more about him and the history of this issue. But I must be honest and say that I find your, DR's and LR's vitriolic attacks highly unpersuasive.
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I wonder: as they watch TV or listen to the radio and some item about warming, ice loss, etc., comes up, do they swear at the "box":-
Lies! It's all far left green propaganda!
 
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zooterkin said:
You do realise that link doesn't back your assertion, don't you? In fact, quite the opposite; fsol makes no claims about the literary merits of the book.
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What's funny about this is that it was Mhaze who told us this
I don't recall the graph being in the novel, although there were perhaps 30 some graphs, but there was something like a reference to Hansen or a prominent scientist talking to a Senate committee along the lines of "This scientist was wrong by 300% in his prediction", which (Again, if I recall correctly) in one of the 400 some footnotes was attributed to Michaels.
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What a slime thing he is.
 
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