The ugliness of the Climate Change debate.

[Matt Tottle]

My problem with 'climate change' is how I am getting punished in the form of higher costs of.. Well, everything thanks to draconian regulations put in place under the guise of curbing climate change. We have the EPA trying to impose cow fart taxes on ranchers, and they want farmers to waste billions of gallons of water (which we can't even spare) to implement dust control measures. Meanwhile manufacturing and power plants in China are pumping more crap into the air each day than this country does in an entire year. This country is on an electric vehicle kick because they are 'better for the environment', yet the environmental impact from the Chinese battery manufacturers is worse than any gas guzzler. Not to mention that electric vehicle still needs to be plugged into the coal/gas power grid to recharge those green-death batteries. You don't put a trillion dollar bandaid on your finger when you have a busted leg (and put it on MY credit card and make ME pay it off with interest). Fix the problem.

 

[rdale]

All valid points, but unrelated to science.

 

[Matt Tottle]

Yeah well I am on the side of "climate change" being nothing more than a politically motivated farce. Why are WE the ones getting punished and told we're not doing enough, while everyone else in the world doesn't give a crap?

Where I used to live, recycling is mandatory. It has been ever since I can remember. If the garbage men hear recyclables when they dump your trash, you get a $300 ticket (and it was not unheard of for it to be left strewn on your lawn). Here? They don't give a crap. Forget curbside pickup, they don't even have a place in town you can take recyclables (besides paper). I used to make a conscious effort to bring all my cans/bottles/plastic over to Hays (an hour round trip) to the recycling center, because it was painful for me to throw the stuff out.. And then one day one of the bags ripped open and spilled nasty garbage juice all over my leather seats. So now my attitude has changed. If they don't give a crap, then I don't give a crap. I'm not going to go out of my way to recycle - ruining my car in the process - when nobody else cares. When they start caring and making the effort to change, then I will. It's exactly the same thing with us versus the rest of the world. Until they start doing something, why should we have to continually tighten OUR regulations to make up the difference?

Oh yeah. And there's plenty of bad/biased "science" out there - most of which the mainstream media gobbles up like Sally Struthers at an all day buffet. Just look at Al Gore's crack team of 'climate change scientists' who were caught manufacturing data. Everybody is so quick to blame manmade factors - which I don't deny are most likely contributing to a point.. But nobody ever considers that this planet is still coming out of the last ice age - and the trend of the current cycle is toward warming.

 

[rdale]

But nobody ever considers that this planet is still coming out of the last ice age - and the trend of the current cycle is toward warming.

Actually many scientists have considered that... But it's been proven to not account for all warming so therefore not a factor here.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Everybody is so quick to blame manmade factors - which I don't deny are most likely contributing to a point.. But nobody ever considers that this planet is still coming out of the last ice age - and the trend of the current cycle is toward warming.

Who is "nobody"? The IPCC WG1 reports, and many climate scientists, consider natural mechanisms a lot. There are huge sections of text (with nice figures, etc.) that examine the degree to which the natural forcing mechanisms are likely affecting current climate change (and their roles in past climate change events). For example, Chapter 8 has a lot of nice material on atmospheric chemistry's role in radiative forcing. I also find Chapter 5 ("Information from Paleoclimate Archives") intellectually fascinating in terms of the history of the earth's climate.

Here's a bit from the short Executive Summary of WG1 Chapter 8 (Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing):

Natural ForcingSatellite observations of total solar irradiance (TSI) changes from 1978 to 2011 show that the most recent solar cycle minimum was lower than the prior two. This very likely led to a small negative RF of –0.04 (–0.08 to 0.00) W m–2 between 1986 and 2008. The best estimate of RF due to TSI changes representative for the 1750 to 2011 period is 0.05 (to 0.10) W m–2. This is substantially smaller than the AR4 estimate due to the addition of the latest solar cycle and inconsistencies in how solar RF has been estimated in earlier IPCC assessments. There is very low confidence concerning future solar forcing estimates, but there is high confidence that the TSI RF variations will be much smaller than the projected increased forcing due to GHG during the forthcoming decades. {8.4.1, Figures 8.10, 8.11}

The RF of volcanic aerosols is well understood and is greatest for a short period (~2 years) following volcanic eruptions. There have been no major volcanic eruptions since Mt Pinatubo in 1991, but several smaller eruptions have caused a RF for the years 2008–2011 of –0.11 (–0.15 to –0.08) W m–2 as compared to 1750 and –0.06 (–0.08 to –0.04) W m–2 as compared to 1999–2002. Emissions of CO2 from volcanic eruptions since 1750 have been at least 100 times smaller than anthropogenic emissions. {8.4.2, 8.5.2, Figures 8.12, 8.13, 8.18}


There is very high confidence that industrial-era natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing except for brief periods following large volcanic eruptions. In particular, robust evidence from satellite observations of the solar irradiance and volcanic aerosols demonstrates a near-zero (–0.1 to +0.1 W m–2) change in the natural forcing compared to the anthropogenic ERF increase of 1.0 (0.7 to 1.3) W m–2 from 1980 to 2011. The natural forcing over the last 15 years has likely offset a substantial fraction (at least 30%) of the anthropogenic forcing. {8.5.2; Figures 8.18, 8.19, 8.20}

Below is one of the most relevant "overview" figures, IMO, from WG1:

Figure caption:

Radiative forcing (RF) and Effective radiative forcing (ERF) of climate change during the Industrial Era. (Top) Forcing by concentration change between 1750 and 2011 with associated uncertainty range (solid bars are ERF, hatched bars are RF, green diamonds and associated uncertainties are for RF assessed in AR4). (Bottom) Probability density functions (PDFs) for the ERF, for the aerosol, greenhouse gas (GHG) and total. The green lines show the AR4 RF 90% confidence intervals and can be compared with the red, blue and black lines which show the AR5 ERF 90% confidence intervals (although RF and ERF differ, especially for aerosols). The ERF from surface albedo changes and combined contrails and contrail-induced cirrus is included in the total anthropogenic forcing, but not shown as a separate PDF. For some forcing mechanisms (ozone, land use, solar) the RF is assumed to be representative of the ERF but an additional uncertainty of 17% is added in quadrature to the RF uncertainty. {Figures 8.15, 8.16}

 

[Logan Karsten]

Again... We are taking about SCIENCE not POLICY. Scientists are not policy makers, so stop confusing the two. If you have issues with local regulations, take it up with your local policy makers. As I stated before, the science community more or less agrees on several of the key components of climate change.

 

[Boris Konon]

The biggest problem with this entire debate is that it has become *so* polarized, rational, logical thinking
has been lost among hubris and "being right". Why is it that is has to be so binary?...either you are FOR
climate change or AGAINST it. There seems to be nothing in the middle, with more moderate views.
For instance, I've seem some say this, "I believe climate change is a problem, minor to moderate in some
cases, but nothing that should evoke so much fear and hysteria, like the world is going to end." We
know putting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere will affect things, that is something we all can
agree on, but it comes down to how much of an impact will it be. Here lies the problem...how do you
objectively separate normal climatic variation, which contains weather extremes by default, from those
effects that are caused or enhanced by increasing CO2? The atmosphere is huge and an extremely
complex "laboratory". In order to test things in an experiment and come up with proper solid conclusions, you
need a control. Well, we don't have that. So when people talk in absolutes, such as "the science is
settled", no matter which side you are on, that does nothing to really help the overall discussion/debate.
Instead it just creates more anger/animosity on each side.

Another thing, climate change seems to be almost universally promoted as bad. Is that really the
physical case, or is it a human physiological thing about fearing what might happen or the unknown?
The social science connected with climate change IMHO is a huge issue within itself. Human nature
with its pre-conceived notions, biases, and perceptions/experiences I think is clouding the physical
science and thus objectivity of the climate change issue.

Things are not all "worse". Look at the dip in overall tornado activity in the U.S for the past
two years. There hasn't been a major hurricane make landfall in the CONUS since Oct 2005,
the longest such period on record. Net tropical cyclone activity has been way down overall
globally in the past several years. How come you never hear much about that? There is
a distinct bias in reporting I see, to the point that the ordinary is being portrayed as
extraordinary, and it is all negative. We can't get a typical winter storm or a severe weather event
without the word "EXTREME" plastered left and right all over it. Like we never had storms in the past?
Point here is that I don't think the general public gets a balanced view of what is what
concerning storms as it pertains to climate change. Instead, they are being conditioned
to fear *all* weather, as if something is seriously wrong in the atmosphere. Is this really a good
thing for society?

I recommend everyone read or listen to these two podcasts. They really outline things well, and
makes you think about the issue from a different perspective and as to how it is handled/perceived.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4039
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4309

 

[Matt Tottle]

Scientists are not policy makers, so stop confusing the two.

Interesting wording. Lots of policy is written based on flawed data, which is manipulated and "creatively interpreted" by "scientists" and "experts" to fit the agendae of the policy writers. There are plenty of scientists who agree that the impact of man-made climate change - especially its role in recent events such as Sandy, the midwest drought, recent tornado outbreaks, and the continuous implication that we are in for storms of epic scale and floods of biblical proportions within the next few years - is blown way out of proportion.

 

[rdale]

"plenty of scientists" <> consensus. You'll notice the IPCC doesn't call for EF6 tornadoes and Cat6 hurricanes.

 

[Mike Johnston]

"plenty of scientists" <> consensus. You'll notice the IPCC doesn't call for EF6 tornadoes and Cat6 hurricanes.

True, at least to my knowledge. It's interesting, though. On tropical cyclones and global warming, here is an excerpt from an AMS bulletin entitled Tropical Cyclones and Global Climate Change: A Post-IPCC Assessment:

"Since the production of the 1996 IPCC reports, our knowledge has advanced to permit the following summary: there are no discernible global trends in tropical cyclone number, intensity or location from historical data analyses.
Regional variability, which is very large, is being quantified slowly by a variety of methods.
Empirical methods do not have skill when applied to tropical cyclones in greenhouse conditions.
Global and mesoscale model-based predictions for tropical cyclones in greenhouse conditions have not yet demonstrated prediction skill.
The IPCC "Science of Climate Change" report stated that "it is not possible to say whether the frequency, area of occurrence, time of occurrence, mean intensity or maximum intensity of tropical cyclones will change" (Houghton et al. 1996, p334). We believe that it is now possible to improve on this statement. In particular: there is no evidence to suggest any major changes in the area or global location of tropical cyclone genesis in greenhouse conditions;
thermodynamic "upscaling" models seem to have some skill in predicting maximum potential intensity (MPI); and
these thermodynamic schemes predict an increase in MPI of 10-20% for a doubled CO[SUB]2[/SUB] climate but the known omissions (ocean spray, momentum restriction and possibly also surface to 300 hPa lapse rate changes) all act to reduce these increases."

Now, this was written in 1998, so I'm sure doesn't represent the latest current knowledge on the topic. But the point is, do you ever hear in the mainstream media about studies like this that point to the uncertainty involved in global warming impacts? No, it's always hyperbole about more storms, more droughts, more floods. Scientific studies don't sell advertising...except maybe if they predict Armageddon.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Again... We are taking about SCIENCE not POLICY. Scientists are not policy makers, so stop confusing the two. If you have issues with local regulations, take it up with your local policy makers. As I stated before, the science community more or less agrees on several of the key components of climate change.

Talking with a climate scientist once, he very much described it like this... he and his colleagues are just describing what the think will occur off the best science they have and providing the confidence bounds they can best infer. If you would like your policy makers to play russian roulette with the world, then by all means let them. Sure they may get it wrong, but we are turning knobs that control the heating of our atmosphere that have never been turned like this before. If you wait for the predictions for what may happen to turn out right (or worse), guess what, too late. The climate HAS already by that point changed...

BTW not saying there is an easy answer about what to do. However, the science is solid. As I alluded to in a previous post, how radiative transfer/heating occurs from greenhouse gases is understood quite well, and applied to other planets. If scientists got it wrong with Earth, then the science for understanding other planetary atmospheres is wrong as well. I'll put my money on a scientific concept that can be applied to not only one planet, but many others.

 

[Jeff Duda]

But the point is, do you ever hear in the mainstream media about studies like this that point to the uncertainty involved in global warming impacts? No, it's always hyperbole about more storms, more droughts, more floods. Scientific studies don't sell advertising...except maybe if they predict Armageddon.

Exactly. If the only place you get your climate change information is from mainstream media, you are being misinformed, misled, and misguided. There has already been research showing significant correlation between where certain people (namely, politically conservative or right-wing) sit on the issue and what media organizations they watch the most (FoxNews).

 

[MClarkson]

Great post, Boris. I agree completely. There is so much bad information and logical fallacies being spewed by both extremes... the sanity of the middle ground (that is likely closer to reality) is being ignored. Especially in the media. "All scientists are liars" and "This global warming fueled mega-hurricane will EAT YOU and your entire country!" attract a lot more visitors than "The planet is warming a bit from human emissions and maybe we should be cautious a bit and reduce emissions some".

 

[Matt Tottle]

Exactly. If the only place you get your climate change information is from mainstream media, you are being misinformed, misled, and misguided. There has already been research showing significant correlation between where certain people (namely, politically conservative or right-wing) sit on the issue and what media organizations they watch the most (FoxNews).

Excuse me but that knife cuts both ways. There's a proven correlation between airheaded liberals and the bull excrement that pours out of CNN/NBC too. And before you make the typical assumption, I am a registered Independent. I don't vote party. In fact the only thing I hate worse than republicans are democrats - because (to quote South Park) it's always a choice between a douche and a turd. I have not trusted the MSM for years, so I read a lot from different sources. I do WATCH news programs from both sides, and anyone with more than five brain cells should be able to tell that while both news outlets have their agendae and slant, you get more truth out of Fox in 10 minutes than you get out of CNN/NBC in a year.

Great post, Boris. I agree completely. There is so much bad information and logical fallacies being spewed by both extremes... the sanity of the middle ground (that is likely closer to reality) is being ignored. Especially in the media. "All scientists are liars" and "This global warming fueled mega-hurricane will EAT YOU and your entire country!" attract a lot more visitors than "The planet is warming a bit from human emissions and maybe we should be cautious a bit and reduce emissions some".

^^This.

 

[Mark Blue]

This thread is under administrative review and has been closed until further notice.

Thanks,
Mark