The bottome line (climate change)

by Simon 47 Replies latest members politics

• 

  besty

  I'd like to know if these graphs are valid. http://www.rense.com/general88/warming.htm

  In general I would say they validly show the temperature range in one location over a long time period - however they don't address global average temperature - so they are one very important piece of the puzzle, but are not the bigger picture.

  They also show climate sensitivity relative to various natural forcings, allowing climate scientists to calculate accurately the sensitivity to heat energy imbalance and CO2 in particular.
• 

  TD

  A close family member recently lost their job when one of the big two local utility companies scrapped their solar stirling project entirely and laid off everyone involved without explanation.

  I'm told that they were very close to the point of economic viability.

  This might be a naive question, but wouldn't the problem at hand be better served if the cost of developing technologies like this could be offset by proposed (And real) carbon taxes?
• 

  JWoods

  JWoods says probably not all GW scientists are scammers, but would say a significant number are indeed perpetrating a scam.

  JWoods says there should still be research but it should not be exclusively granted to GW enthusiasts, nor should it be expanded over the usual expenditure that was being done pre-warming era.
• 

  besty

  OK thanks JWoods

  JWoods says probably not all GW scientists are scammers, but would say a significant number are indeed perpetrating a scam.

  Can you add some specific numbers around that?

  JWoods says there should still be research but it should not be exclusively granted to GW enthusiasts, nor should it be expanded over the usual expenditure that was being done pre-warming era.

  How are you defining the pre-warming period?
• 

  JWoods

  I would define "pre-warming" climate funding as being approximately per the 1970 era when the prevailing thought was that earth would slip into a mini-ice-age.

  Note that I am talking about % dollars, not actual dollars.

  I further think that if anyone is caught in one of the science fraud/coverups, they should be ousted like any other research scientist.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Plausible idea BTS - what would the price of gas and electricity be in your model?

  I don't know, but what negative externalities that do exist, are not fully priced. If carbon emissions are truly harmful (and this is debatable), and since there exists no private ownership of the atmosphere (without private ownership there exists little incentive to conserve), then pricing needs to reflect this in order to avoid the "tragedy of the commons."

  BTS
• 

  Nathan Natas

  What if we "solve" global warming only to discover that we are actually in a cycle of global cooling, and the unintended consequence of our well-meaning but poorly thought out fix is a new ice age?

  Simon, you're a skilled programmer and systems admin. When you have a tough programming or admin problem, do you call Al Gore for the solution?

  I doubt that you would.

  Yet you're on board with his totalitarian ("the time for discussion is PAST") "solution" to climate change. How do you solve a problem when you don't even know what direction its going?
• 

  besty

  I don't know

  Shouldn't be difficult to calculate - income tax revenue / gallons of gas

  so someone paying $5000 in annual income tax and using 600 gallons of gas would pay (5000/600) an extra $8.33 for gas but no income tax.

  same calculation but using national figures for the entire country.

  of course it could be revenue neutral at the national level, but there would be individual winners and losers - I'd love to be a high earner working from home, but would hate to be a low income commuter......
• 

  hamilcarr

  What if we "solve" global warming only to discover that we are actually in a cycle of global cooling, and the unintended consequence of our well-meaning but poorly thought out fix is a new ice age?

  What's the logic behind this question? If rising CO2 emissions lead to global cooling, why would lower CO2 emissions then lead to still cooler temperatures?
• 

  besty

  I would define "pre-warming" climate funding as being approximately per the 1970 era when the prevailing thought was that earth would slip into a mini-ice-age.

  I have lost count of how many times this easy to repeat meme has been factually dismissed. A true legend of a denier zombie mistruth.....

  

  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.

  So in fact, the large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2. Rather than climate science predicting cooling, the opposite is the case. Most interesting about Peterson's paper is not the debunking of an already well debunked skeptic argument but a succinct history of climate science over the 20th century, describing how scientists from different fields gradually pieced together their diverse findings into a more unified picture of how climate operates.

  Read the Connelly Petersen Fleck paper for yourself to see an analysis of the science from the 1970's. Only 13 pages. http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

  Are you willing to retract your statement JWoods, or provide evidence to support it?

  Anyways...

  If you suggest turning back the clock on climate science to the 1970's era, how do you propose deciding which areas of science deserve additional funding?

  Or are you advocating the status quo for all funding across the board?