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Al Pacino and Robert De Nero were truly convincing in HEAT, the movie
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 22, 2007 at 8:13 AM
“George Monbiot has a challenge for those concerned about global warming: Stop flying.”
How funny! One has to hearken back to those horrible days of September 12-14 2001 to know the real irony of this “challenge”. We gained fascinating data due to all US flights being grounded on those sad days. And we learned something of great interest. Condensation trails in the upper atmosphere actually cause an effect called “global dimming’. They reflect a very significant amount of sunlight, causing temperatures to cool on a worldwide basis.
Furthermore one has to wonder what the sun’s role is on global warming. For those who care about such things, the solar wind influences the amount of cosmic rays that enter the atmosphere. We are in a period of high solar activity and this causes the cosmic rays to be deflected away from the earth. This is important since cosmic rays facilitate cloud formation, which help cool the earth.
Of course, all that being said, we should still try to tread lightly on this earth for a variety of reasons. And anything we can do to stop giving money (and hence weapons) to the crazies in the Mideast can only be beneficial to us and them. I use compact flourcecents in my house and dream of the day i can install photovoltaics (solar cells) on my house.
Posted by wolf on Jun 22, 2007 at 8:19 AM
Sorry to derail, and I’m not commenting on climate change, but I read this:
“This is the same bunch who was so sure Y2K was going to be an international disaster” and get a little ticked. It frustrates me when people point to Y2K as the paragon of public and media Chicken Littleism. It’s easy to say that Y2K was little more than hype as nobody died and elevators didn’t drop, etc, but this conveniently ignores millions of programmers and IT professionals working billions of hours in the years leading up to the year 2000 on preventative measures, testing and of course the recoding/debugging innumerable critical applications. Obviously there is no way to know what would have happened on Jan 1st, 2000 without the massive technical effort put forth across the globe, but to declare Y2K a bust because no planes crashed and banks still worked is unfair and lazy at best and dishonest at worst.
Posted by the_seanald on Jun 22, 2007 at 11:47 AM
the_seanald
So you are confident that all the computers were upgraded to compensate for the date
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 22, 2007 at 12:32 PM
What the fuck, WTF. It was a “nonexistent problem” because it was prevented from becoming a problem, before all those greedy, liberal lawyers could march up the courthouse steps and sue the crap out of all those innocent, conservative corporations for ignoring it. Nobody gets elected for preventing a problem. People get elected for creating the problem and then reacting to it, like priests who create the guilt and then absolve the sinners for feeling guilty about committing their crimes. It’s usually more dramatic to convict the criminal than prevent the crime. Cheaper, too, unless we regard the value of life to be greater than the value of property.
Posted by Major Major on Jun 23, 2007 at 5:58 AM
Major, Seanald,
Do either of you personally know anyone, anywhere whose computer crashed due to Y2K? I do not.
Did you have anything done to yours? I never did anything to compensate for the “problem” and had 23 programs in my computer at the time. NO trouble at all. Neither did any of my cilents.
I’ll concede there is a lot of CYA due to possible lawsuits and companies often do a lot more than needed to avoid the one time of getting nailed.
Maybe I had no trouble because I am on a Mac rather than a Bill Gates piece of garbage. My troubles were mostly from needing to upgrade immediately and Microsoft was one of the worst to deal with.
BTW major, if you get so bent out of shape over such a minor difference of opinion
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 23, 2007 at 9:21 AM
This issue is getting emergency attention for two major reasons:
1. There is money to be made dealing with it
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 23, 2007 at 9:31 AM
A defense mechanism is a psychological device that alleviates stress without solving the problem that causes the stress. There are many recognized defense mechanisms, and they fall into three broad categories: denial of the problem, substitution of a non-stressful lesser problem for a real problem , and substitution of a non-solution for a workable solution to a problem. Examples of defense mechanisms include withdrawal, deceit, rationalization, ritual, projection, displacement, and daydreaming.
Our real problem is that there are people out there who would like to kill us, if they are not able to convert us to their way of thinking, or maybe even if they are able. This was true of the socialists, and it is true of the Jihadists.
The socialists were too corrupt and inefficent to take us on in a fair fight, but there were prodigious numbers of Westerners who were quite willing to sell out our ideals and principles to appease the socialists. The appeasers used silly old Marxism as a rationalization to alleviate their real fears.
The Jihadists are too weak and disorganized to take us on in a fair fight, but right on time, here come the fearful appeasers, with a two-pronged attack on Western values: the Jihadists aren’t so bad, and climate is the real threat.
Like the leftist political posturing of the Cold War years, the political posturing on climate is equally absurd. The climate is always changing, and there is absolutely nothing that indicates that the current state of the climate is historically abnormal. We are comfortably well within the extremes of climate conditions that preceeded the current kerfuffle. Manufacturing a fake problem with climate relieves the need to address the ideologically driven terrorists who are trying to kill us.
There is no shortage of energy. We will solve the energy equation by economically converting low-grade energy to high-grade energy. Halliburton and other American innovators will create the means to do this. It will take a large amount of investment. Fortunately, the American economy is creating prodigious amounts of investment capital since the Reagan and Bush tax cuts.
The Dimocrats are talking about raising taxes, which will (a) reduce tax receipts and (b) reduce the investment capital available to solve our nation’s problems. But why wait for a bunch of foolish politicians to ruin our economy, when Monbiot has a sure fire method to create instant world-wide poverty? Everybody just stop flying!
All the aircraft manufacturers, ground crews, flight crews, tower operators, taxi drivers, car rental companies, hotel and restaurant workers, millions of people wordwide, everybody connected with flying just walk away from their jobs. And do what? Aye, there’s the rub.
So let’s try to contain the people that are trying to kill us. We can safely ignore Monbiot, Gore and their ilk, who are trying to convince us that the weather is a greater threat than, say, a nuclear-armed Iran.
Posted by scorp on Jun 24, 2007 at 2:43 PM
As a rule, individuals who make blatantly inaccurate assertions generally cause harm to the case they are advocating. Unfortunately, I believe that Mr. Monbiot’s exaggerated claims only provide ammunition for those who wish to discredit the movement to limit greenhouse emissions.
He sets himself up to be an easy target for those in search of wacky, environmental extremists to ridicule. In effect, he serves as a counter-weight to global-warming deniers such as John Stossel who distort facts to further an agenda.
The preeminent claim in Mr. Monbiot’s article is: “Flying from, say, New York to London emits more than one ton of carbon dioxide per passenger.”
The Boeing 767-400ER (a typical trans-Atlantic aircraft that entered production 10 years ago) carries 304 passengers. One ton of carbon dioxide for every passenger would mean that 608,000 pounds of carbon dioxide was emitted by the aircraft during a New York to London flight.
A Boeing 767-400ER holds 23,980 gallons of fuel, and jet fuel weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon. That means there are 199,993 pounds of fuel in a full fuel tank, or 658 pounds of fuel per passenger. Even if every ounce of fuel was converted to carbon dioxide during the flight, which cannot occur, the emissions would only be a fraction of the “more than one ton” per passenger, or 608,000 pounds of carbon dioxide that Mr. Monbiot claims are emitted in flight.
Boeing states that: “It takes about 60 gallons of fuel per passenger (which weighs 500 pounds) to get from New York to London on board a 767-400ER.” While 60 gallons of fuel produces a significant amount of noxious emissions, it does not produce anything near the amount of carbon dioxide that Mr. Monbiot claims.
The cause to limit greenhouse emissions does not benefit from Mr. Monbiot’s outlandish exaggerations.
Posted by mhouston on Jun 24, 2007 at 8:41 PM
scorp, where is exactly “out there”? I had a look at my grandchildren’s globe and we all seem to live in one same and only planet and nothing on it seems to indicate that the place where you live is a sancto sanctorum and the rest of the world is any different, so I think you should look up the same place where you searched the definition of “defense mechanism” and try to see what you find about “paranoia”.
The definition of “defense mechanism” can also be applied to those who deny any problems in climate change, pollution, and gas emissions.
Posted by Maria on Jun 24, 2007 at 10:31 PM
mhouston -
Nice try.
Jet-A is the standard commercial jet fuel in the USA and is primarily a mixture of hydrocarbons in the kerosene range, plus additives to give anti-icing, anti-static, and anti-corrosive properties. Kero is comprised of hydrogen and carbon, and it combusts incompletely to give CO2 and water vapor. The molecular weight of carbon is 12 and the molecular weight of oxygen is 16. The oxygen comes from the atmosphere, not from the fuel. Therefore, the total weight of CO2 from fuel combustion in a jet aircraft is 12/44 from the fuel and 32/44 from the air.
So Monbiot’s calculations are not far off, but no one is going to destroy the world economy for the dubious assumptions of the environmentalists.
Posted by scorp on Jun 25, 2007 at 6:02 AM
Scorp,
I listened to thethis author on C-SPAN Book Channnel this weekend. People who think this stuff is more urgent than the war should read
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 25, 2007 at 6:26 AM
Maria -
Twice in your lifetime we came uncomfortably close to living in a murderous, totalitarian world. If the Jihadists have their way, we may yet achieve that unhappy fate. Fortunately, they do not have the wherewithal to capture our world and destroy our democracy, but they could do some serious damage, much more serious than 09/11. It is worth our time and effort to avoid the fate the Jihadists plan for us.
No one, certainly not me, is denying a problem. But problems are for solving, not for retreating from as leftists traditionally do.
There is no shortage of energy. We will solve the energy equation by economically converting low-grade energy to high-grade energy. Halliburton and other American innovators will create the means to do this. It will take a large amount of investment. Fortunately, the American economy is creating prodigious amounts of investment capital since the Reagan and Bush tax cuts.
Posted by scorp on Jun 25, 2007 at 6:32 AM
WTH -
We are eye-ball to eye-ball on this one. Immediate members of my family experienced the terror, and horror, of communist oppression, and I have a good understanding of the destruction of the individual in pursuit of collectivist goals.
I know that leftists ignored the genocidal atrocities of the socialist empires for ideological reasons. I can well understand that leftists not only ignore the Jihadists atrocities, but support the Jihadists against American ideals, again for ideological reasons. They can easily ignore the moral realities of 09/11, in pursuit of their asinine ideological agenda.
Our task is terminate progressivism, as they currently term themselves.
Posted by scorp on Jun 25, 2007 at 2:55 PM
Scorp,
Americans have short memories, or perhaps it is our western style of thought
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 25, 2007 at 5:03 PM
Some of the rednecks’ favorite atrocities were the result of global warming, or have we all already forgotten that the desertification of the northern, mainly Arab, regions of Sudan forced the migration of those rendered homeless into a genocidal competition with their southern African countrymen? The rednecks love to condemn the liberals for their pc lack of sensitivity to the Darfur genocide, but continue to conveniently ignore its ultimate cause.
Posted by Major Major on Jun 28, 2007 at 9:25 PM
WTH,
” What do we not know?
— We do not know if it is primarily due to human activity.
— We do not know if this is a new phenomenon or a repeat of a log term cycle.
— We do not know if there are other unknowns.”
We do know it is primarily due to human activity.
We do know this is an anomalous phenomenon outside of natural variation.
While there is much that is not completely understood, there are no significant unknown forces in the universe likely to overturn the laws of physics.
Like scorpy, you find it so much easier to ignore real problems and project your unresolved sub-conscious self-loathing on some manufactured enemy that only exists within the frame of your misanthropically determined perceptions, thereby only creating unnecessary problems whose origin is in your primitive mental and moral development.
Dividing the world into eternally warring camps is a useful tool of those in power to manipulate populations away from the realization that we are all in the same boat. You think you are an independent thinker, but you are merely a parrot of that which you have been unconsciously programmed to believe.
You are the disease eating away at the heart of the world; unexamined ignorance that perceives itself as wisdom.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 3, 2007 at 9:31 AM
luminous,
Hey, don’t hold back. Anger management can only do so much.
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 4, 2007 at 10:47 AM
L.Beauty, I coudn’t agree more with you as I have in the past over other topics but I have a feeling of “deja vu” as, no matter what the subject is, we always have to read over and over again that everyting which is wrong is caused by one enemy of the politically perfect country or other. . In the last few years it was BinLaden (a convenient image which has recently vanished), next it was Saddam, followed by Jihad, with Iran of course in between, not to mention socialists, commies, leftists and anyone who dare think different. This time, however, I am afraid the whole planet will suffer the consequences of human activity and your “homeland security first”, Whattheheck will be of little importance.
Posted by Maria on Jul 4, 2007 at 9:39 PM
OK, WTH,
I’m not angry. I’m not sad. I’m not even disappointed. I’ve come to expect you to comment with your head firmly up your ass in the belief that gives you some advantageous insight. Eventually, it ceases to be amusing and becomes tiresome. One must sometimes speak bluntly, rather than sweeten one’s words with false flattery, but, for your sake, I’ll make an effort.
You’re a real good sport, old man.
Maria,
I sure do appreciate the tender and rational humanity that emanates from your posts. The fact we are so much in agreement doesn’t hurt, tambien.
I don’t know if it is our great good luck or grave misfortune to have some small ability to see through the normative bull that passes for informed opinion in this world. One way or the other, though, the consequences of our cherished illusions will force us to either awaken from our media induced dream-state and start taking care of those things that really matter, or perish in a self-induced nightmare of violence, ignorance and confusion. All I suppose we can do is garner what smidgeon of prescience of which we are capable, and encourage the former course and eschew the latter. It is unfortunately all too human to wait until the horse has fled before closing the barn door.
I suspect that his powerlessness is the principle reason WTH returns here again and again to shower us with his contrarian snark. As the saying goes, ‘underneath the shell of every cynic is a frustrated idealist’.
C’mon WTH, break through your shell and start living and giving again. It’s not too late! The water’s fine!
If you can’t, can we at least discuss the issue of global warming and allow the occasional insult to be just the bogarting banter of two old friends?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 5, 2007 at 2:01 PM
LB - you clearly freely judge wth and find him lacking. Perhaps you should try understanding his pov (even if you disagree with it)? Of course, given that you are so very powerful and the rest of the populace (e.g., wth, me) which holds only normative/informed opinions are so very impotent, perhaps you should be more gentle? And you are so very polite, in sharp contast to other posters snarkiness. What a blessing you are to read! I bet you are just as kind in person, a truly noble citizen who sees all, knows all - not fooled by the media as the rest of us obviously are. What a pity that we cannot all learn at your feet. . .
So are you familiar with the effects of cosmic rays on global warming? What contributions do you make to reduce carbon emissions?
WTH - I enjoy your posts, even those i do not agree with. I think one of the problems with anonymous sites like this is that when someone cannot argue an issue, they attack the messenger. With anonymity, they are very brave and fearless, and, unfortunately rude and all too often off topic.
Posted by wolf on Jul 6, 2007 at 6:33 AM
wolfgang,
Thank you for the kind words.
We are all anonymous here. Pots and kettles, alike.
Yes, I do know something about cosmic rays and their predicted and as yet unevidenced effect on cloud formation. I also know that whatever effect they may have is entirely swamped by the signal from anthropogenic causes. I’ve read Svensmark, et al. and Shaviv, Veizer and much of the literature surrounding the controversy, as well as a lot of less formal and less informed debate and hyperbole in the press and on blogs and online fora. If one examines the issue and follows the math with care, it becomes quite clear that the ‘Svensmark Effect’, in it’s most extreme possible manifestation, is trivial at most.
Now, as far as I can tell, Svensmark is appropriately modest about making claims about the extrapolated real world consequences of his laboratory findings. Shaviv, however, is extravagant about claiming that correlations he has created, in large part out of theoretical fluff, and in spite of multiple unanswered or poorly answered criticisms of his methods and conclusions, are some kind of probative falsification of the greenhouse effect. They are decidedly not. Not even close.
In fact, Shaviv makes all kinds of bogus and incorrect arguments. One, just as an example, is his assumption that CO2 is considered by climatologists as a forcing in natural climate change. A favored bugaboo of the denialist crowd. CO2 is not in the natural state a forcing; an initiating cause of climate change. It is a feedback. It only comes into play after some triggering event, such as the Milankovich cycles or possibly solar variation or cosmic rays (or their lack) begins to warm the earth. It functions in conjunction with other feedbacks like water vapor, clouds, albedo and biotic differentials to effect climactic changes that are orders of magnitude greater than what can be attributed to the minor changes in energy inputs from external cosmic forcings. It is only the burning of fossil fuels by human-kind that has made CO2 a forcing in the Industrial Age.
I could go on… and on… and on… Astrophysicists, in general, seem to make lousy earth scientists.
What do you know about cosmic rays?
Rather than give you a list of all the little details of my life and how they are or are not consciously and prayerfully directed at the goal of producing the least deleterious consequences, in seeking to maximize and strengthen harmonious and beneficial actions and relations within the world, for myself and others and for the sake of this sacred little blue planet, whose delicately shifting balance of physical forces almost miraculously affords our very existence; and, additionally, a complete accounting of all the successes and failures in a lifetime of effort, I offer a simple philosophic position:
“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
——-Mohandas Gandhi
It works for me. What do you do to reduce your own carbon footprint?
I preach at WTH because he professes to dislike being preached at. I think he looooves it. I think it scratches his itch. If not, he wouldn’t hang around. What’s your excuse?
Forgive me for being blunt. I’m not interested in coddling anyone’s illusions. It is, in reality, neither a kind nor compassionate thing to do.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 6, 2007 at 10:57 AM
Thanks Wolf,
I don
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 6, 2007 at 11:07 AM
LB - you are welcome. I am happy to hear you have some knowledge of the cosmic ray effects on cloud formation. I suppose we disagree on the net effects, but that’s ok. I also do forgive you, although not in regards to your bluntness (no harm, no foul there). Best of luck to you.
WTH - One amusing aspect of the man made CO2 global warming crowd that is not overly discussed is that, even if we cut emissions by half tomorrow, the damage is already done. If you can get through the horrible movie Gore made (horrible because about half of it is off the topic of global warming and on how he should be president, his fathers farm, etc etc) it is clear that we have already passed the point of no return. The movie is a political movie and should be viewed in that vein, but does profess to have some technical underpinnings.
In any case, i would love to see us go to photovoltaics as Germany is. This has two significant benefits: most importantly, we need to stop giving money (which translates to weapons) to the crazies in the middle east. It also has the benefit that it would reduce greenhouse emissions. It should be noted that China recently passed the US and is now the “biggest greenhouse polluter” in the world, so anything we do needs to be exportable to the world in general (for both reasons above).
Photovoltaics also have the benefit of being very amenable to the free market. Anyone can play, big or small. My dream is to one day have a completely energy self sufficient house (but i plan to remain on the grid, for a variety of reasons). . .
Posted by wolf on Jul 6, 2007 at 12:20 PM
wolfie,
I’m glad you are thinking about photo-voltaics. I may be working in that industry soon.
If we cut emissions by 50% tomorrow, the damage done may not be catastrophic. We are only approaching the cusp of the ‘point of no return’, which would be that point at which natural feedbacks become inevitably strong enough to take over from the anthropogenic signal. The sequestration of CO2 is a technological possibility being pursued that can, indeed, reverse the trend and avoid the worst effects down the line. Al Gore and Richard Branson have offered a big PRIZE!
You are entitled to your opinions about the net effects of cosmic rays, but can you back those opinions with facts?
WTH,
You do need to learn the distinction between weather and climate. It is fundamental for the simplest grasp of the science involved. Contrary to what you may have gleaned from your readings in the popular press, anthropogenic global warming is a subject that has been investigated and debated in the scientific community for 150 years. It is not some out-of-the-blue new-fangled pseudo-scientific speculation. It is true that sufficient research to reach accurate conclusions, make corroborating empirical observations and create reasonably accurate models for the purpose of future extrapolations have only come to a head in the last 20-30 years. But, come to a head, they have. It is undeniably true.
Your example of population extrapolations from the 60’s is problematic in that awareness has produced some partial alleviation. Birth control, family planning and women’s education/empowerment, were scarcely even academic social concepts at the time. It is like being told ‘if you don’t watch out crossing the street, you might get run over by a bus’. Then one watchfully crosses the street, and says, ‘you’re wrong. I crossed the street and didn’t get run over by a bus’. Even at a reduced growth rate, increasing population is still a sizeable real and potential problem.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 6, 2007 at 1:53 PM
LB says…
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 7, 2007 at 6:56 AM
WTH,
Let me explain with a simple analogy.
Weather behaves very chaotically. It is of very limited predictability because of not only a limiting resolution in our ability to measure initial conditions, but because weather events are often characterized by a high degree of turbulence.
Consider this to be like the flipping of a fair coin. One cannot reliably predict whether the coin will land either heads or tails.
However, If one throws the coin many times, then one will find that the ratio of the total number of heads and tails will inevitably and predictably converge on the value of 1:1. If the coin is not fair, the ratio will converge on some value greater or less than one.
Likewise, over extended regions of time and space, the limited predictability of individuated weather events, in the aggregate, resolves itself into robustly predictable climactic trends.
If you are comparing the predictability of weather to that of climate, you are making a categorical error.
Understood?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 7, 2007 at 8:47 AM
LB,
You may change your mind on the predictability of climate if you read,
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 7, 2007 at 11:09 AM
LB,
If you don’t want to buy the book, at least read the amazon.com reviews. For an example which relates to your views on climate prdictability
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 7, 2007 at 11:13 AM
WTH,
Taleb’s book is very interesting, but it does not really apply to climactic predictability. It is amusing that you offer a book about using statistical methods against one’s intuitive perceptions, after I give an example of statistical method to counter your intuitive perception relating weather to climate. I hope the irony isn’t lost on you.
First off, climatologists, through debate and the peer review process, have been very careful to dot all their i’s cross all their t’s. They are not naive nor oblivious to statistical methods. Material science, unlike economics, is not a vagarious collection of fanciful abstract and theoretical speculation, but a careful mathematical analysis of real world observed conditions. Errors and uncertainties are scupulously ascertained, quantified and accounted for.
Second, unlike economic statistics (the dismal science or the happy religion, depending on how one looks at it), where the data are dependent on the psychological unpredictableness of human actors and arbitrary and mutable assignations of value), climate data is based on physical data of real-world observable and reproducible phenomena that follow physical laws. The models are, at their heart, physical models, not statistical models. As in my example, we are dealing with stochastic determinations, not the randomness of singular unrelated events.
Third, the predictive models that climatologists have developed are not proof nor evidence of AGW, but justified extrapolations from demonstrated facts. They are accurate to the degree that they are based on those facts, but imprecise due to the limits of certainty implied from those very stochastic variables. There is room for debate about those uncertainties, but not of the underlying physical facts. The certainty of the existence of AGW is in the here-and-now collection and analysis of data from direct observation over the last 50-400 years from a variety of cross-correlated lines of research, plus proxy reconstructions from the geological record reaching with, of course, diminishing but not disappearing certainties, deep into the pre-historic past, based, not merely on statistical correlation, but demonstrated and corroborated physical properties.
Here is a simple collection of some of those facts that have withstood rigorous falsification and verified by direct observation:
1.) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
2.) The burning of fossil fuels since the onset of the industrial revolution has raised the concentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.
3.) The aggregate temperature of the earth’s troposphere has risen as a consequence.
Sometimes one must be careful of not confusing one’s apples with one’s orange t-shirt.
P.S. The ‘Black Swan’ is a classic example from the teaching of second order predicate logic. Here is a little mathematician’s joke that relates to it:
An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician were traveling together on a train through Scotland, when they passed a black sheep grazing in a field.
“Amazing,” said the astronomer. “There are black sheep in Scotland.”
“Not so fast,” said the physicist. “All we know is that there is, at least, one black sheep in Scotland.”
“You guys are full of it,” said the mathematician. “All we really know is that in one field in Scotland there is one sheep that is black on one side.”
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 8, 2007 at 9:46 AM
WTH,
You are confusing the reality of scientific opinion by giving undue credence to anti-scientific projection of scientific opinion. It isn’t a debate, it’s a pathological denial of reality.
The relative influence of whatever unknown black swans that may be out there are quantifiably constrained by the white swans that we do know exist. Just because there might be black swans does not falsify the existence of white swans. The fact that black swans are noticeably rare means that black swans have little measurable importance in the overall population of all swans. Get it?
You fundamentally miscomprehend the meaning of scientific consensus. It is not merely the collective opinion of a group, but general agreement with a body of evidence in accordance with established universal physical principles. You are projecting your philosophical dismay over committee politics onto something that operates quite differently.
That we have only 150 years of reliable direct temperature records is an oblivious statement, ignoring that we also have hundreds of thousands and hundreds of millions of years of measurably reliable proxy data in the geological records. The precision of the former, collated, corrolated and corroborated with the latter, from multiple lines of research, increases the certainty of our ability to make future extrapolations. You seem to think simple first order qualitative statements are sufficient to overturn higher-order quantitive assessments. Bass ackward logic, and exactly the malinformed oversimplification of which you accuse.
I don’t know how an otherwise reasonable person gets the notion that seeking to understand the applicability of the universal empirically derived principles that govern physical phenomena is somehow identical with religious superstition. It is a very weak strawman and ad hominem argument, but it is a pathological meme that has been quite successfully promulgated, particularly by many that do have, or have been willing to exploit, genuine Old Testament superstitious beliefs. In particular, James Inhofe, Joe Barton and Rush Limbaugh. You choose some strange bed-fellows. It is an argument that stinks of desperation and intellectual dishonesty.
It seems you are doing exactly what Taleb abjures and clinging to a narrative discourse that flies in the face of mathematical scientific analysis. What’s up with that? Why do conservatives think they can invert arguments in such a disengenous manner, and still believe they are seekers of truth, when in fact they are clinging at straws, trying defend by any means their long discredited views? Arguments that are intended to confuse, not clarify, the issues. Phah! This idea of thinking moderation is accomplished by splitting the difference between competing views is a grotesquery of reason. What you don’t seem to understand is that one side is attempting to understand what is really happening and one side is seeking to obscure reality. By giving credence to obscurantists you are giving them undeserved legitimacy.
An example of this kind of non-evidence derived red herring assumption is your conjecture, “What apparently set you off was my alluding to the big panic over Y2K — which, for whatever reason was NOT a big global calamity.” This is quite absurd.
First, whatever ‘big panic’ may have been construed from this quite minor software problem, it was obviated by foresight and the efforts of thousands of programmers creating fixes, and banking and business managers seeing that those fixes were implemented. This is precisely what we need to be doing in respect to global warming; using our prescience, however incomplete and imperfect, to confront and diminish credible future consequences, consequences that are already beginning to be seen in present time, rather than waiting to respond post hoc to predictable eventualities. It is only by doing nothing that the consequences promise to be catastrophic. I just don’t understand why you seem to believe arguing against foresight is somehow a wise course of action, when it is really a course of sticking-one’s-head-in-the-sand inaction. Can you explain?
Second, It is an obvious red herring, in that what actually ‘set me off’ was your analogy of weather prediction and climate prediction. This is the issue I actually directly addressed, which you cannot refute, so tactically avoid by presenting this red herring. Weak!
Third, what could possibly give you the impression that I have, or have ever had, a rat-fuck of concern about Y2K? I was living off the land, without a computer, and mostly oblivious to that issue when it was going down.
You are absolutely wrong in saying that climate predictions exclude the possibility of positive consequences of global warming. It is just that these small positive regional effects are swamped by negative parameters governing the net regional effects, and small possible regional improvements in climate where very few people actually live being overwhelmed by negative effects in the regions where the vast majority of humanity is already established.
For example, it is often said by denialists that the growing season in the far north will be extended. This does not take into account that those regions have virtually no topsoils, nor the limits of seasonal insolation and low solar incidence at high latitudes on food crops, nor balanced against the gross loss of productivity from established agricultural regions, nor any consideration of the political turmoil such dislocations will inevitably entail, and so on.
Once again, you are giving undue credence to critics of global warming without determining whether those criticisms are actually based on real facts. I suggest you spend some time at RealClimate where actual climatologists and researchers in related fields explain the science in some technical detail, provide links and references to thoroughly rigorous detailed research, present, debate and rebut, in scientific detail, criticisms from both within the scientific community and by other less well-informed sources. It would afford you a reliable understanding for comparison, rather than whatever spurious sources upon which you are obviously depending.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 9, 2007 at 8:51 AM
A small suggestion. It may be the shady side of your family’s ‘black sheep’ is an unconscious manifestation of the repressed and unexamined shady side of your family. The nature of human psychology is that it is never a ‘one-sided phenomenon’, but the inter-penetrating, inter-related and inter-active consequence of the conscious and unconscious thoughts, expressions and actions of all involved. Our psychological make-up is a swamp that only persevering compassionate feeling and self-critical rational examination can aid us to rise above. Externalizing blame, guilt and responsibility only embeds us deeper into the mire. This is as true of our relationship with our physical environment as well as our social one.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 9, 2007 at 8:52 AM
“Think of the generations of scientific consensus which were later replaced by newer views based on additional evidence.”
Scientific paradigms are very rarely overturned by new evidence, but are characteristically refined and their descriptive and predictive resolution sharpened. A fair reading of the history of climate science would reveal that this process is exactly how we have gotten to the present consensus. I do not deny that scientists possess human frailties, but i do discount opinions that almost the entire population of climate scientists are engaged in some hoax or fraud. They are doing the best they can, with the information they have. The information and it’s ineluctable conclusions are what is incontrovertible. Ad hominem about scientists just clouds the issue. Just saying they might be in error does not mean that they are. Without making some informed judgement that there are specific and particular errors that overturn the consensus is just specious hand-waving and of no significance.
” Well, what makes you think my original inclusion of that was addressed to you?”
I did not attach any significance to your original statement other than it was an ignorable non-sequitor red herring. I specifically responded to the analogy of weather to climate, which is categorically spurious, which I demonstrated. However, when you wrote, “What apparently set you off was my alluding to the big panic over Y2K — which, for whatever reason was NOT a big global calamity”, you were directly addressing me, so I responded. You have a problem with that? You are desperately grasping at straws over what is an obvious red herring here. Can you be any more obscure and dissembling? You’ve really jumped the shark on this one, WTH.
What do you mean by ‘one-dimensional scientific prism’? Through what other prisms or in what other dimensions do you believe a subject that is of primarily scientific concern should be simultaneously considered? Shouldn’t the scientific understanding of the subject be thoroughly assessed before going on to other considerations? Or do you really believe throwing a bunch of dissembling junk into the mix leads to clarity and comprehension? I think you are using Taleb’s premise in a context entirely contrary to that in which it is intended. Something like looking at the moon through the wrong end of a telescope. It is mind-bogglingly arrogant and stupid, a deadly mix, to think that would give one an expansive view of the moon. However, to offer you some red meat upon which to gnaw; because Taleb is an economist and not a physical scientist, I do discount to a high degree, the applicability of his premise as it applies to purely correlative statistical modeling compared to stochastically corrected, causally corroborated physical modeling.
An example and analogy is the fact that the inductive belief that the sun will rise tomorrow morning because it has risen every previous morning for billions of years is not proven, is not sufficient cause for discounting our understanding of celestial mechanics. That turkey just can’t fly. Comprende, amigo? Is the sense of it getting through your thick skull?
I used the edit function to expand considerably my above comments, apparently after you had responded to my original post. It would be appreciated if you would be so kind as to review.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 9, 2007 at 12:03 PM
WTH -
<blockquote>A small suggestion. It may be the shady side of your family
Posted by scorp on Jul 9, 2007 at 1:45 PM
scorpy,
Psychology is not psychiatry. No medical degree necessary. I am not prescribing drugs, just offering some friendly advice. You are sounding more and more like blondemike.
You are confusing post-modern deconstructionism and post-post-modern integralism. The former of which you have the most insubstantial grasp and that only in the misguided, over-simplistic and exaggerated terms of it’s least cogent detractors, and the latter not the whiff of a clue.
You are wrong because you percieve the world through the immutable bias of your intransigent hatred, gross rationalization of greed and well-cultivated ignorance. It doesn’t mean I am always right, but it does mean you are inherently incapable of telling when I am wrong.
What meaning of the word ‘base’ have I failed to comprehend? Please elucidate. This from someone who denies the role of the amygdala and the limbic system in the emotional expressions of fear and aggression.
Spare me!
Archie Bunker wasn’t a dingbat. It was Edith who was called a dingbat by Archie. Archie was the bigot, according to Michael, who Archie called Meathead. You really are a meathead and a bigot, and an ignorant fool to boot.
To be called a dingbat by such as yourself is a compliment.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 9, 2007 at 4:06 PM
Scorp,
A bit of background:
All I did was make an off-hand comment about the global ballyhoo over the
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 10, 2007 at 5:44 AM
WTH,
Did I say you are smug? Scorpy is an ignorant fool. Can you doubt it?
As a matter of fact, I posted a reply to wolf that was about a scientist who is pushing his own agenda at the expense of good science with particulars. You make vague generalizations of thousands of unnamed and unknown scientists maybe hyping global warming without any specific reasons. You cite a writer and completely misappropriate what he says. You really think that is a sufficient reason for dismissing global warming? That is justified skepticism in WTHville? Or are you just fucking off? Maybe? Could be? I just don’t know.
And again with the Y2K crap. Do you even know what a red herring is? Not denying general pollution is another. It doesn’t give you any credibility for doubting global warming. Can you understand that your arguments turn logic and reason on their head? Can you honestly address the difference between weather predictability and climate predictability, or shall I just infer your slide into dissembling snark as an admission you can’t?
You think my ‘advice’ is a diagnosis of your personality? Re-read. I don’t single you out in the slightest. It’s not about you. Get over yourself.
If you just think by ignoring global warming it will just go away, you are welcome to your opinion. After all, you and I will both be long gone before the consequences become catastrophic. Obviously you care nothing about the world except how it affects your own level of comfort.
You are afraid terraist bogeymen are gonna blow you up in your bed. Murdering a million or so innocents must make you feel so much more secure.
That’s sad.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 10, 2007 at 7:06 AM
LB.
Your reading/comprehension is faulty. And… you are beginnning to ramble.
Take a deep breath and go sit by the shore.
Over and Out!
Posted by whattheheck on Jul 10, 2007 at 8:35 AM
WTH,
My ‘reading/comprehension’ [sic] is faulty? Ha! You’re rich. If I am rambling, it is only because I am responding to your red herrings, demonstrating how, in themselves, they are examples of faulty reasoning. There is just no refuge for your dissembling, WTH.
You lose an argument so you change the subject with vague hand-waving assertions. Vague assertions are your justification for your precious skepticism. You think your vagueness is probative of something?
It is! On the subject of global warming, you are an ignorant old crank.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 10, 2007 at 8:47 AM
Perhaps with your superior comprehension skills you might consider this splendid example of climate denial/skeptic/doofus reasoning:
The paleoclimatic record shows that in natural climate changes on the scale of glacial/interglacial change, CO2 follows initial temperature rise. In the historical record the opposite is occurring, temperature follows CO2. Therefore present warming must be natural and not anthropogenic.
Can you find the flaw in this syllogism?
C’mon! Let us see your superior comprehension skills.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 10, 2007 at 9:09 AM
Loony Booty -
<blockquote>Archie Bunker wasn
Posted by scorp on Jul 10, 2007 at 7:20 PM
scorp,
You are irony deficient. Because Archie called Edith a dingbat doesn’t mean that Archie himself was a dingbat. That is not the joke. The humor in ‘All In The Family’ was Lear’s ability to hold up a mirror to existing social conflict in a way that deflated it’s intractability in the mind of the audience, allowing us the freedom to laugh at our own foibles. The irony was that it didn’t change anyone’s beliefs, though for a while it did serve to soften the intractability that surrounds much of political debate. ‘The Simpsons’ serves much the same function today, though somewhat more ambiguously, but, then again, it is a much more ambiguous age. The old ‘Cold War’ verities have crumbled to be replaced by the much more vague ’ War on Terra’ and the difficult to define but discernable disintegration of the old social order. Archie was a bigot because he saw the world through the narrow lens of his preconceived beliefs. He was an ignorant fool because he believed his preconceived beliefs were the perfected frame for understanding the way the world functions and beyond question. Preconceived beliefs invariably based on narrow and unthinkingly presumed stereotypes. Just like you, my friend.
Just as you believe anyone who says anything that raises the notion of economic democracy or egalitarian justice must, must, must be brainwashed by a frozen and antiquated presumptive construct of Marxist ideology and wedded to monolithically uniform collectivism because it is opposed to, and the only allowable explanation within, your own narrow and immutable set of preconceived beliefs. Beliefs that are founded on invariable and presumed true first causes that are, in your mind, metaphysically beyond questioning. Like Hardesty is so insistent on frothing about, and mindlessly clinging to, his Objectivist beliefs, that they are axiomatic, that they are the foundation of reason beyond which one cannot reason, you, likewise, insist that your beliefs are the perfect template for a true understanding of the world and any doubts raised are threats that must, must, must be violently opposed.
The fact you preclude, that because I argue for the scientific evidence that has proven anthropogenic global warming is a real phenomenon, I am just parroting Al Gore, is direct evidence that it is you, my friend, who has never learned how to think, but only what to think. You are an unquestioning sycophant of the political ideology to which binary one-sided bias you cling with unquestioning loyalty, and to which you have wedded your unquestioning belief in the superior importance of your own selfish interests.
The fact that you cannot argue rationally against the scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming, but only scream ad hominem absurdities, is direct evidence that it is you, my friend, who is educated beyond your intelligence. Your brain has been mis-managed with such great skill that you are deprived of the means of self analysis with which the very traces of that cruel mis-management may be discerned and overcome.
All facts that are direct evidence you are engaging in projection.
See a therapist, my friend.
P.S. Einstein was a socialist, too. Does that mean he was an useful idiot? Get a CLUE .
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 11, 2007 at 7:13 AM
Loony -
Hey. Loony, you made the national news! Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article on you, Blissfully Uneducated. You really, really, really, really ought to read what Dr. Hanson has to say. Dr. Hanson is a real scholar, unlike the left-wind ideologue hacks you studied under.
Just as you believe anyone who says anything that raises the notion of economic democracy or egalitarian justice must, must, must be brainwashed by a frozen and antiquated presumptive construct of Marxist ideology and wedded to monolithically uniform collectivism because it is opposed to, and the only allowable explanation within, your own narrow and immutable set of preconceived beliefs. Beliefs that are founded on invariable and presumed true first causes that are, in your mind, metaphysically beyond questioning. Like Hardesty is so insistent on frothing about, and mindlessly clinging to, his Objectivist beliefs, that they are axiomatic, that they are the foundation of reason beyond which one cannot reason, you, likewise, insist that your beliefs are the perfect template for a true understanding of the world and any doubts raised are threats that must, must, must be violently opposed.
In all that turgid prose, is there a coherent thought anywhere?
Naaaah.
Posted by scorp on Jul 11, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Victor Hanson, real scholar? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I know Dr. Hanson. He owns a grape ranch not too many miles south of here. He’s a gentleman farmer who waxes eloquently about the rugged capabilities of those who live the life of the soil from his lectern at Fresno State. He’s a real phony. I actually do work in the peaches, apricots, grapes, walnuts, pistachios, figs and almonds, and actually have all those working skills of which Hansom speaks so heroically. I actually work hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder with those very Mexican emigrants Hanson pretends to know so well.
Watch the noble neo-cons, marching off to oblivion.
That’s your best shot? Your answer to the problems of anthropogenic climate change is to change the subject? That’s impressive. Not!
P.S. Sorry I strained your poor little brain by writing a compound complex sentence.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 11, 2007 at 5:59 PM
Loony -
I am sure that you did not strain my poor little brain. Statistically, it would be extremely improbable that your verbal skills and comprehension come anywhere close to mine, and your big words in service of small thoughts do not recommend either your verbal abilities or your reasoning capabilities at all.
You sound as if you are somehow ennobled by working in agriculture. I am sure you are, just as I am ennobled by working in engineering. If there is any discipline that is more ennobling than others, it is scholarship, and Dr. Hanson is a prime example.
Activities that are not ennobling are child molestation, highway robbery, and propagating fraudulent ideologies, such as Karl Marx did and Al Gore is doing now.
Global warming is a joke, and people are starting to realize this. Spending a kajillion dollars on a rock show in support of global warming is farcical and fraudulent. You do not get the global warming joke, just as you did not get the joke in All In The Family. So sad.
Posted by scorp on Jul 12, 2007 at 1:17 PM
Global warming is a joke? This is a rational argument? You’re lost, buddy. You have nothing but spew. No reason at all.
An high opinion of yourself inversely proportional to your actual capabilities though.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 12, 2007 at 5:02 PM
Loony -
<blockquote>Global warming is a joke? This is a rational argument? You
Posted by scorp on Jul 14, 2007 at 1:01 PM
scorpy,
CO2 was not ‘massively reduced’ during the depression. Fossil fuels continued to be burned at increasing levels, though the rate of increase was marginally slowed. This is reflected in the flattening of global temperatures from the late 40’s to the mid 70’s (response times are slowed by the action of the world’s oceans as a heat sink). Besides, there are multiple factors at work in the climate. It is not a simple linear system, but a dance of interacting feedbacks. Your critique is without factual basis or logical correlation.
You believe what you want to believe because it suits your preconceived beliefs. That is the joke.
The IPPC report was written by leading climate scientists from all over the world, including skeptics like Richard Lindzen and Chris Freitas. It is a compilation of all the scientific literature from all the pertinent scientific journals. If doing good science is an ideology, I suppose you are correct, but that beggars the meaning of ‘ideology’, doesn’t it?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jul 14, 2007 at 2:58 PM
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Al Pacino and Robert De Nero were truly convincing in HEAT, the movie
“George Monbiot has a challenge for those concerned about global warming: Stop flying.”
How funny! One has to hearken back to those horrible days of September 12-14 2001 to know the real irony of this “challenge”. We gained fascinating data due to all US flights being grounded on those sad days. And we learned something of great interest. Condensation trails in the upper atmosphere actually cause an effect called “global dimming’. They reflect a very significant amount of sunlight, causing temperatures to cool on a worldwide basis.
Furthermore one has to wonder what the sun’s role is on global warming. For those who care about such things, the solar wind influences the amount of cosmic rays that enter the atmosphere. We are in a period of high solar activity and this causes the cosmic rays to be deflected away from the earth. This is important since cosmic rays facilitate cloud formation, which help cool the earth.
Of course, all that being said, we should still try to tread lightly on this earth for a variety of reasons. And anything we can do to stop giving money (and hence weapons) to the crazies in the Mideast can only be beneficial to us and them. I use compact flourcecents in my house and dream of the day i can install photovoltaics (solar cells) on my house.
Sorry to derail, and I’m not commenting on climate change, but I read this:
“This is the same bunch who was so sure Y2K was going to be an international disaster” and get a little ticked. It frustrates me when people point to Y2K as the paragon of public and media Chicken Littleism. It’s easy to say that Y2K was little more than hype as nobody died and elevators didn’t drop, etc, but this conveniently ignores millions of programmers and IT professionals working billions of hours in the years leading up to the year 2000 on preventative measures, testing and of course the recoding/debugging innumerable critical applications. Obviously there is no way to know what would have happened on Jan 1st, 2000 without the massive technical effort put forth across the globe, but to declare Y2K a bust because no planes crashed and banks still worked is unfair and lazy at best and dishonest at worst.
the_seanald
So you are confident that all the computers were upgraded to compensate for the date
What the fuck, WTF. It was a “nonexistent problem” because it was prevented from becoming a problem, before all those greedy, liberal lawyers could march up the courthouse steps and sue the crap out of all those innocent, conservative corporations for ignoring it. Nobody gets elected for preventing a problem. People get elected for creating the problem and then reacting to it, like priests who create the guilt and then absolve the sinners for feeling guilty about committing their crimes. It’s usually more dramatic to convict the criminal than prevent the crime. Cheaper, too, unless we regard the value of life to be greater than the value of property.
Major, Seanald,
Do either of you personally know anyone, anywhere whose computer crashed due to Y2K? I do not.
Did you have anything done to yours? I never did anything to compensate for the “problem” and had 23 programs in my computer at the time. NO trouble at all. Neither did any of my cilents.
I’ll concede there is a lot of CYA due to possible lawsuits and companies often do a lot more than needed to avoid the one time of getting nailed.
Maybe I had no trouble because I am on a Mac rather than a Bill Gates piece of garbage. My troubles were mostly from needing to upgrade immediately and Microsoft was one of the worst to deal with.
BTW major, if you get so bent out of shape over such a minor difference of opinion
This issue is getting emergency attention for two major reasons:
1. There is money to be made dealing with it
A defense mechanism is a psychological device that alleviates stress without solving the problem that causes the stress. There are many recognized defense mechanisms, and they fall into three broad categories: denial of the problem, substitution of a non-stressful lesser problem for a real problem , and substitution of a non-solution for a workable solution to a problem. Examples of defense mechanisms include withdrawal, deceit, rationalization, ritual, projection, displacement, and daydreaming.
Our real problem is that there are people out there who would like to kill us, if they are not able to convert us to their way of thinking, or maybe even if they are able. This was true of the socialists, and it is true of the Jihadists.
The socialists were too corrupt and inefficent to take us on in a fair fight, but there were prodigious numbers of Westerners who were quite willing to sell out our ideals and principles to appease the socialists. The appeasers used silly old Marxism as a rationalization to alleviate their real fears.
The Jihadists are too weak and disorganized to take us on in a fair fight, but right on time, here come the fearful appeasers, with a two-pronged attack on Western values: the Jihadists aren’t so bad, and climate is the real threat.
Like the leftist political posturing of the Cold War years, the political posturing on climate is equally absurd. The climate is always changing, and there is absolutely nothing that indicates that the current state of the climate is historically abnormal. We are comfortably well within the extremes of climate conditions that preceeded the current kerfuffle. Manufacturing a fake problem with climate relieves the need to address the ideologically driven terrorists who are trying to kill us.
There is no shortage of energy. We will solve the energy equation by economically converting low-grade energy to high-grade energy. Halliburton and other American innovators will create the means to do this. It will take a large amount of investment. Fortunately, the American economy is creating prodigious amounts of investment capital since the Reagan and Bush tax cuts.
The Dimocrats are talking about raising taxes, which will (a) reduce tax receipts and (b) reduce the investment capital available to solve our nation’s problems. But why wait for a bunch of foolish politicians to ruin our economy, when Monbiot has a sure fire method to create instant world-wide poverty? Everybody just stop flying!
All the aircraft manufacturers, ground crews, flight crews, tower operators, taxi drivers, car rental companies, hotel and restaurant workers, millions of people wordwide, everybody connected with flying just walk away from their jobs. And do what? Aye, there’s the rub.
So let’s try to contain the people that are trying to kill us. We can safely ignore Monbiot, Gore and their ilk, who are trying to convince us that the weather is a greater threat than, say, a nuclear-armed Iran.
As a rule, individuals who make blatantly inaccurate assertions generally cause harm to the case they are advocating. Unfortunately, I believe that Mr. Monbiot’s exaggerated claims only provide ammunition for those who wish to discredit the movement to limit greenhouse emissions.
He sets himself up to be an easy target for those in search of wacky, environmental extremists to ridicule. In effect, he serves as a counter-weight to global-warming deniers such as John Stossel who distort facts to further an agenda.
The preeminent claim in Mr. Monbiot’s article is: “Flying from, say, New York to London emits more than one ton of carbon dioxide per passenger.”
The Boeing 767-400ER (a typical trans-Atlantic aircraft that entered production 10 years ago) carries 304 passengers. One ton of carbon dioxide for every passenger would mean that 608,000 pounds of carbon dioxide was emitted by the aircraft during a New York to London flight.
A Boeing 767-400ER holds 23,980 gallons of fuel, and jet fuel weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon. That means there are 199,993 pounds of fuel in a full fuel tank, or 658 pounds of fuel per passenger. Even if every ounce of fuel was converted to carbon dioxide during the flight, which cannot occur, the emissions would only be a fraction of the “more than one ton” per passenger, or 608,000 pounds of carbon dioxide that Mr. Monbiot claims are emitted in flight.
Boeing states that: “It takes about 60 gallons of fuel per passenger (which weighs 500 pounds) to get from New York to London on board a 767-400ER.” While 60 gallons of fuel produces a significant amount of noxious emissions, it does not produce anything near the amount of carbon dioxide that Mr. Monbiot claims.
The cause to limit greenhouse emissions does not benefit from Mr. Monbiot’s outlandish exaggerations.
scorp, where is exactly “out there”? I had a look at my grandchildren’s globe and we all seem to live in one same and only planet and nothing on it seems to indicate that the place where you live is a sancto sanctorum and the rest of the world is any different, so I think you should look up the same place where you searched the definition of “defense mechanism” and try to see what you find about “paranoia”.
The definition of “defense mechanism” can also be applied to those who deny any problems in climate change, pollution, and gas emissions.
mhouston -
Nice try.
Jet-A is the standard commercial jet fuel in the USA and is primarily a mixture of hydrocarbons in the kerosene range, plus additives to give anti-icing, anti-static, and anti-corrosive properties. Kero is comprised of hydrogen and carbon, and it combusts incompletely to give CO2 and water vapor. The molecular weight of carbon is 12 and the molecular weight of oxygen is 16. The oxygen comes from the atmosphere, not from the fuel. Therefore, the total weight of CO2 from fuel combustion in a jet aircraft is 12/44 from the fuel and 32/44 from the air.
So Monbiot’s calculations are not far off, but no one is going to destroy the world economy for the dubious assumptions of the environmentalists.
Scorp,
I listened to thethis author on C-SPAN Book Channnel this weekend. People who think this stuff is more urgent than the war should read
Maria -
Twice in your lifetime we came uncomfortably close to living in a murderous, totalitarian world. If the Jihadists have their way, we may yet achieve that unhappy fate. Fortunately, they do not have the wherewithal to capture our world and destroy our democracy, but they could do some serious damage, much more serious than 09/11. It is worth our time and effort to avoid the fate the Jihadists plan for us.
No one, certainly not me, is denying a problem. But problems are for solving, not for retreating from as leftists traditionally do.
WTH -
We are eye-ball to eye-ball on this one. Immediate members of my family experienced the terror, and horror, of communist oppression, and I have a good understanding of the destruction of the individual in pursuit of collectivist goals.
I know that leftists ignored the genocidal atrocities of the socialist empires for ideological reasons. I can well understand that leftists not only ignore the Jihadists atrocities, but support the Jihadists against American ideals, again for ideological reasons. They can easily ignore the moral realities of 09/11, in pursuit of their asinine ideological agenda.
Our task is terminate progressivism, as they currently term themselves.
Scorp,
Americans have short memories, or perhaps it is our western style of thought
Some of the rednecks’ favorite atrocities were the result of global warming, or have we all already forgotten that the desertification of the northern, mainly Arab, regions of Sudan forced the migration of those rendered homeless into a genocidal competition with their southern African countrymen? The rednecks love to condemn the liberals for their pc lack of sensitivity to the Darfur genocide, but continue to conveniently ignore its ultimate cause.
WTH,
” What do we not know?
— We do not know if it is primarily due to human activity.
— We do not know if this is a new phenomenon or a repeat of a log term cycle.
— We do not know if there are other unknowns.”
We do know it is primarily due to human activity.
We do know this is an anomalous phenomenon outside of natural variation.
While there is much that is not completely understood, there are no significant unknown forces in the universe likely to overturn the laws of physics.
Like scorpy, you find it so much easier to ignore real problems and project your unresolved sub-conscious self-loathing on some manufactured enemy that only exists within the frame of your misanthropically determined perceptions, thereby only creating unnecessary problems whose origin is in your primitive mental and moral development.
Dividing the world into eternally warring camps is a useful tool of those in power to manipulate populations away from the realization that we are all in the same boat. You think you are an independent thinker, but you are merely a parrot of that which you have been unconsciously programmed to believe.
You are the disease eating away at the heart of the world; unexamined ignorance that perceives itself as wisdom.
luminous,
Hey, don’t hold back. Anger management can only do so much.
L.Beauty, I coudn’t agree more with you as I have in the past over other topics but I have a feeling of “deja vu” as, no matter what the subject is, we always have to read over and over again that everyting which is wrong is caused by one enemy of the politically perfect country or other. . In the last few years it was BinLaden (a convenient image which has recently vanished), next it was Saddam, followed by Jihad, with Iran of course in between, not to mention socialists, commies, leftists and anyone who dare think different. This time, however, I am afraid the whole planet will suffer the consequences of human activity and your “homeland security first”, Whattheheck will be of little importance.
OK, WTH,
I’m not angry. I’m not sad. I’m not even disappointed. I’ve come to expect you to comment with your head firmly up your ass in the belief that gives you some advantageous insight. Eventually, it ceases to be amusing and becomes tiresome. One must sometimes speak bluntly, rather than sweeten one’s words with false flattery, but, for your sake, I’ll make an effort.
You’re a real good sport, old man.
Maria,
I sure do appreciate the tender and rational humanity that emanates from your posts. The fact we are so much in agreement doesn’t hurt, tambien.
I don’t know if it is our great good luck or grave misfortune to have some small ability to see through the normative bull that passes for informed opinion in this world. One way or the other, though, the consequences of our cherished illusions will force us to either awaken from our media induced dream-state and start taking care of those things that really matter, or perish in a self-induced nightmare of violence, ignorance and confusion. All I suppose we can do is garner what smidgeon of prescience of which we are capable, and encourage the former course and eschew the latter. It is unfortunately all too human to wait until the horse has fled before closing the barn door.
I suspect that his powerlessness is the principle reason WTH returns here again and again to shower us with his contrarian snark. As the saying goes, ‘underneath the shell of every cynic is a frustrated idealist’.
C’mon WTH, break through your shell and start living and giving again. It’s not too late! The water’s fine!
If you can’t, can we at least discuss the issue of global warming and allow the occasional insult to be just the bogarting banter of two old friends?
LB - you clearly freely judge wth and find him lacking. Perhaps you should try understanding his pov (even if you disagree with it)? Of course, given that you are so very powerful and the rest of the populace (e.g., wth, me) which holds only normative/informed opinions are so very impotent, perhaps you should be more gentle? And you are so very polite, in sharp contast to other posters snarkiness. What a blessing you are to read! I bet you are just as kind in person, a truly noble citizen who sees all, knows all - not fooled by the media as the rest of us obviously are. What a pity that we cannot all learn at your feet. . .
So are you familiar with the effects of cosmic rays on global warming? What contributions do you make to reduce carbon emissions?
WTH - I enjoy your posts, even those i do not agree with. I think one of the problems with anonymous sites like this is that when someone cannot argue an issue, they attack the messenger. With anonymity, they are very brave and fearless, and, unfortunately rude and all too often off topic.
wolfgang,
Thank you for the kind words.
We are all anonymous here. Pots and kettles, alike.
Yes, I do know something about cosmic rays and their predicted and as yet unevidenced effect on cloud formation. I also know that whatever effect they may have is entirely swamped by the signal from anthropogenic causes. I’ve read Svensmark, et al. and Shaviv, Veizer and much of the literature surrounding the controversy, as well as a lot of less formal and less informed debate and hyperbole in the press and on blogs and online fora. If one examines the issue and follows the math with care, it becomes quite clear that the ‘Svensmark Effect’, in it’s most extreme possible manifestation, is trivial at most.
Now, as far as I can tell, Svensmark is appropriately modest about making claims about the extrapolated real world consequences of his laboratory findings. Shaviv, however, is extravagant about claiming that correlations he has created, in large part out of theoretical fluff, and in spite of multiple unanswered or poorly answered criticisms of his methods and conclusions, are some kind of probative falsification of the greenhouse effect. They are decidedly not. Not even close.
In fact, Shaviv makes all kinds of bogus and incorrect arguments. One, just as an example, is his assumption that CO2 is considered by climatologists as a forcing in natural climate change. A favored bugaboo of the denialist crowd. CO2 is not in the natural state a forcing; an initiating cause of climate change. It is a feedback. It only comes into play after some triggering event, such as the Milankovich cycles or possibly solar variation or cosmic rays (or their lack) begins to warm the earth. It functions in conjunction with other feedbacks like water vapor, clouds, albedo and biotic differentials to effect climactic changes that are orders of magnitude greater than what can be attributed to the minor changes in energy inputs from external cosmic forcings. It is only the burning of fossil fuels by human-kind that has made CO2 a forcing in the Industrial Age.
I could go on… and on… and on… Astrophysicists, in general, seem to make lousy earth scientists.
What do you know about cosmic rays?
Rather than give you a list of all the little details of my life and how they are or are not consciously and prayerfully directed at the goal of producing the least deleterious consequences, in seeking to maximize and strengthen harmonious and beneficial actions and relations within the world, for myself and others and for the sake of this sacred little blue planet, whose delicately shifting balance of physical forces almost miraculously affords our very existence; and, additionally, a complete accounting of all the successes and failures in a lifetime of effort, I offer a simple philosophic position:
“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
——-Mohandas Gandhi
It works for me. What do you do to reduce your own carbon footprint?
I preach at WTH because he professes to dislike being preached at. I think he looooves it. I think it scratches his itch. If not, he wouldn’t hang around. What’s your excuse?
Forgive me for being blunt. I’m not interested in coddling anyone’s illusions. It is, in reality, neither a kind nor compassionate thing to do.
Thanks Wolf,
I don
LB - you are welcome. I am happy to hear you have some knowledge of the cosmic ray effects on cloud formation. I suppose we disagree on the net effects, but that’s ok. I also do forgive you, although not in regards to your bluntness (no harm, no foul there). Best of luck to you.
WTH - One amusing aspect of the man made CO2 global warming crowd that is not overly discussed is that, even if we cut emissions by half tomorrow, the damage is already done. If you can get through the horrible movie Gore made (horrible because about half of it is off the topic of global warming and on how he should be president, his fathers farm, etc etc) it is clear that we have already passed the point of no return. The movie is a political movie and should be viewed in that vein, but does profess to have some technical underpinnings.
In any case, i would love to see us go to photovoltaics as Germany is. This has two significant benefits: most importantly, we need to stop giving money (which translates to weapons) to the crazies in the middle east. It also has the benefit that it would reduce greenhouse emissions. It should be noted that China recently passed the US and is now the “biggest greenhouse polluter” in the world, so anything we do needs to be exportable to the world in general (for both reasons above).
Photovoltaics also have the benefit of being very amenable to the free market. Anyone can play, big or small. My dream is to one day have a completely energy self sufficient house (but i plan to remain on the grid, for a variety of reasons). . .
wolfie,
I’m glad you are thinking about photo-voltaics. I may be working in that industry soon.
If we cut emissions by 50% tomorrow, the damage done may not be catastrophic. We are only approaching the cusp of the ‘point of no return’, which would be that point at which natural feedbacks become inevitably strong enough to take over from the anthropogenic signal. The sequestration of CO2 is a technological possibility being pursued that can, indeed, reverse the trend and avoid the worst effects down the line. Al Gore and Richard Branson have offered a big PRIZE!
You are entitled to your opinions about the net effects of cosmic rays, but can you back those opinions with facts?
WTH,
You do need to learn the distinction between weather and climate. It is fundamental for the simplest grasp of the science involved. Contrary to what you may have gleaned from your readings in the popular press, anthropogenic global warming is a subject that has been investigated and debated in the scientific community for 150 years. It is not some out-of-the-blue new-fangled pseudo-scientific speculation. It is true that sufficient research to reach accurate conclusions, make corroborating empirical observations and create reasonably accurate models for the purpose of future extrapolations have only come to a head in the last 20-30 years. But, come to a head, they have. It is undeniably true.
Your example of population extrapolations from the 60’s is problematic in that awareness has produced some partial alleviation. Birth control, family planning and women’s education/empowerment, were scarcely even academic social concepts at the time. It is like being told ‘if you don’t watch out crossing the street, you might get run over by a bus’. Then one watchfully crosses the street, and says, ‘you’re wrong. I crossed the street and didn’t get run over by a bus’. Even at a reduced growth rate, increasing population is still a sizeable real and potential problem.
LB says…
WTH,
Let me explain with a simple analogy.
Weather behaves very chaotically. It is of very limited predictability because of not only a limiting resolution in our ability to measure initial conditions, but because weather events are often characterized by a high degree of turbulence.
Consider this to be like the flipping of a fair coin. One cannot reliably predict whether the coin will land either heads or tails.
However, If one throws the coin many times, then one will find that the ratio of the total number of heads and tails will inevitably and predictably converge on the value of 1:1. If the coin is not fair, the ratio will converge on some value greater or less than one.
Likewise, over extended regions of time and space, the limited predictability of individuated weather events, in the aggregate, resolves itself into robustly predictable climactic trends.
If you are comparing the predictability of weather to that of climate, you are making a categorical error.
Understood?
LB,
You may change your mind on the predictability of climate if you read,
LB,
If you don’t want to buy the book, at least read the amazon.com reviews. For an example which relates to your views on climate prdictability
WTH,
Taleb’s book is very interesting, but it does not really apply to climactic predictability. It is amusing that you offer a book about using statistical methods against one’s intuitive perceptions, after I give an example of statistical method to counter your intuitive perception relating weather to climate. I hope the irony isn’t lost on you.
First off, climatologists, through debate and the peer review process, have been very careful to dot all their i’s cross all their t’s. They are not naive nor oblivious to statistical methods. Material science, unlike economics, is not a vagarious collection of fanciful abstract and theoretical speculation, but a careful mathematical analysis of real world observed conditions. Errors and uncertainties are scupulously ascertained, quantified and accounted for.
Second, unlike economic statistics (the dismal science or the happy religion, depending on how one looks at it), where the data are dependent on the psychological unpredictableness of human actors and arbitrary and mutable assignations of value), climate data is based on physical data of real-world observable and reproducible phenomena that follow physical laws. The models are, at their heart, physical models, not statistical models. As in my example, we are dealing with stochastic determinations, not the randomness of singular unrelated events.
Third, the predictive models that climatologists have developed are not proof nor evidence of AGW, but justified extrapolations from demonstrated facts. They are accurate to the degree that they are based on those facts, but imprecise due to the limits of certainty implied from those very stochastic variables. There is room for debate about those uncertainties, but not of the underlying physical facts. The certainty of the existence of AGW is in the here-and-now collection and analysis of data from direct observation over the last 50-400 years from a variety of cross-correlated lines of research, plus proxy reconstructions from the geological record reaching with, of course, diminishing but not disappearing certainties, deep into the pre-historic past, based, not merely on statistical correlation, but demonstrated and corroborated physical properties.
Here is a simple collection of some of those facts that have withstood rigorous falsification and verified by direct observation:
1.) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
2.) The burning of fossil fuels since the onset of the industrial revolution has raised the concentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.
3.) The aggregate temperature of the earth’s troposphere has risen as a consequence.
Sometimes one must be careful of not confusing one’s apples with one’s orange t-shirt.
P.S. The ‘Black Swan’ is a classic example from the teaching of second order predicate logic. Here is a little mathematician’s joke that relates to it:
An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician were traveling together on a train through Scotland, when they passed a black sheep grazing in a field.
“Amazing,” said the astronomer. “There are black sheep in Scotland.”
“Not so fast,” said the physicist. “All we know is that there is, at least, one black sheep in Scotland.”
“You guys are full of it,” said the mathematician. “All we really know is that in one field in Scotland there is one sheep that is black on one side.”
LB,
WTH,
You are confusing the reality of scientific opinion by giving undue credence to anti-scientific projection of scientific opinion. It isn’t a debate, it’s a pathological denial of reality.
The relative influence of whatever unknown black swans that may be out there are quantifiably constrained by the white swans that we do know exist. Just because there might be black swans does not falsify the existence of white swans. The fact that black swans are noticeably rare means that black swans have little measurable importance in the overall population of all swans. Get it?
You fundamentally miscomprehend the meaning of scientific consensus. It is not merely the collective opinion of a group, but general agreement with a body of evidence in accordance with established universal physical principles. You are projecting your philosophical dismay over committee politics onto something that operates quite differently.
That we have only 150 years of reliable direct temperature records is an oblivious statement, ignoring that we also have hundreds of thousands and hundreds of millions of years of measurably reliable proxy data in the geological records. The precision of the former, collated, corrolated and corroborated with the latter, from multiple lines of research, increases the certainty of our ability to make future extrapolations. You seem to think simple first order qualitative statements are sufficient to overturn higher-order quantitive assessments. Bass ackward logic, and exactly the malinformed oversimplification of which you accuse.
I don’t know how an otherwise reasonable person gets the notion that seeking to understand the applicability of the universal empirically derived principles that govern physical phenomena is somehow identical with religious superstition. It is a very weak strawman and ad hominem argument, but it is a pathological meme that has been quite successfully promulgated, particularly by many that do have, or have been willing to exploit, genuine Old Testament superstitious beliefs. In particular, James Inhofe, Joe Barton and Rush Limbaugh. You choose some strange bed-fellows. It is an argument that stinks of desperation and intellectual dishonesty.
It seems you are doing exactly what Taleb abjures and clinging to a narrative discourse that flies in the face of mathematical scientific analysis. What’s up with that? Why do conservatives think they can invert arguments in such a disengenous manner, and still believe they are seekers of truth, when in fact they are clinging at straws, trying defend by any means their long discredited views? Arguments that are intended to confuse, not clarify, the issues. Phah! This idea of thinking moderation is accomplished by splitting the difference between competing views is a grotesquery of reason. What you don’t seem to understand is that one side is attempting to understand what is really happening and one side is seeking to obscure reality. By giving credence to obscurantists you are giving them undeserved legitimacy.
An example of this kind of non-evidence derived red herring assumption is your conjecture, “What apparently set you off was my alluding to the big panic over Y2K — which, for whatever reason was NOT a big global calamity.” This is quite absurd.
First, whatever ‘big panic’ may have been construed from this quite minor software problem, it was obviated by foresight and the efforts of thousands of programmers creating fixes, and banking and business managers seeing that those fixes were implemented. This is precisely what we need to be doing in respect to global warming; using our prescience, however incomplete and imperfect, to confront and diminish credible future consequences, consequences that are already beginning to be seen in present time, rather than waiting to respond post hoc to predictable eventualities. It is only by doing nothing that the consequences promise to be catastrophic. I just don’t understand why you seem to believe arguing against foresight is somehow a wise course of action, when it is really a course of sticking-one’s-head-in-the-sand inaction. Can you explain?
Second, It is an obvious red herring, in that what actually ‘set me off’ was your analogy of weather prediction and climate prediction. This is the issue I actually directly addressed, which you cannot refute, so tactically avoid by presenting this red herring. Weak!
Third, what could possibly give you the impression that I have, or have ever had, a rat-fuck of concern about Y2K? I was living off the land, without a computer, and mostly oblivious to that issue when it was going down.
You are absolutely wrong in saying that climate predictions exclude the possibility of positive consequences of global warming. It is just that these small positive regional effects are swamped by negative parameters governing the net regional effects, and small possible regional improvements in climate where very few people actually live being overwhelmed by negative effects in the regions where the vast majority of humanity is already established.
For example, it is often said by denialists that the growing season in the far north will be extended. This does not take into account that those regions have virtually no topsoils, nor the limits of seasonal insolation and low solar incidence at high latitudes on food crops, nor balanced against the gross loss of productivity from established agricultural regions, nor any consideration of the political turmoil such dislocations will inevitably entail, and so on.
Once again, you are giving undue credence to critics of global warming without determining whether those criticisms are actually based on real facts. I suggest you spend some time at RealClimate where actual climatologists and researchers in related fields explain the science in some technical detail, provide links and references to thoroughly rigorous detailed research, present, debate and rebut, in scientific detail, criticisms from both within the scientific community and by other less well-informed sources. It would afford you a reliable understanding for comparison, rather than whatever spurious sources upon which you are obviously depending.
A small suggestion. It may be the shady side of your family’s ‘black sheep’ is an unconscious manifestation of the repressed and unexamined shady side of your family. The nature of human psychology is that it is never a ‘one-sided phenomenon’, but the inter-penetrating, inter-related and inter-active consequence of the conscious and unconscious thoughts, expressions and actions of all involved. Our psychological make-up is a swamp that only persevering compassionate feeling and self-critical rational examination can aid us to rise above. Externalizing blame, guilt and responsibility only embeds us deeper into the mire. This is as true of our relationship with our physical environment as well as our social one.
LB,
“Think of the generations of scientific consensus which were later replaced by newer views based on additional evidence.”
Scientific paradigms are very rarely overturned by new evidence, but are characteristically refined and their descriptive and predictive resolution sharpened. A fair reading of the history of climate science would reveal that this process is exactly how we have gotten to the present consensus. I do not deny that scientists possess human frailties, but i do discount opinions that almost the entire population of climate scientists are engaged in some hoax or fraud. They are doing the best they can, with the information they have. The information and it’s ineluctable conclusions are what is incontrovertible. Ad hominem about scientists just clouds the issue. Just saying they might be in error does not mean that they are. Without making some informed judgement that there are specific and particular errors that overturn the consensus is just specious hand-waving and of no significance.
” Well, what makes you think my original inclusion of that was addressed to you?”
I did not attach any significance to your original statement other than it was an ignorable non-sequitor red herring. I specifically responded to the analogy of weather to climate, which is categorically spurious, which I demonstrated. However, when you wrote, “What apparently set you off was my alluding to the big panic over Y2K — which, for whatever reason was NOT a big global calamity”, you were directly addressing me, so I responded. You have a problem with that? You are desperately grasping at straws over what is an obvious red herring here. Can you be any more obscure and dissembling? You’ve really jumped the shark on this one, WTH.
What do you mean by ‘one-dimensional scientific prism’? Through what other prisms or in what other dimensions do you believe a subject that is of primarily scientific concern should be simultaneously considered? Shouldn’t the scientific understanding of the subject be thoroughly assessed before going on to other considerations? Or do you really believe throwing a bunch of dissembling junk into the mix leads to clarity and comprehension? I think you are using Taleb’s premise in a context entirely contrary to that in which it is intended. Something like looking at the moon through the wrong end of a telescope. It is mind-bogglingly arrogant and stupid, a deadly mix, to think that would give one an expansive view of the moon. However, to offer you some red meat upon which to gnaw; because Taleb is an economist and not a physical scientist, I do discount to a high degree, the applicability of his premise as it applies to purely correlative statistical modeling compared to stochastically corrected, causally corroborated physical modeling.
An example and analogy is the fact that the inductive belief that the sun will rise tomorrow morning because it has risen every previous morning for billions of years is not proven, is not sufficient cause for discounting our understanding of celestial mechanics. That turkey just can’t fly. Comprende, amigo? Is the sense of it getting through your thick skull?
I used the edit function to expand considerably my above comments, apparently after you had responded to my original post. It would be appreciated if you would be so kind as to review.
WTH -
<blockquote>A small suggestion. It may be the shady side of your family
scorpy,
Psychology is not psychiatry. No medical degree necessary. I am not prescribing drugs, just offering some friendly advice. You are sounding more and more like blondemike.
You are confusing post-modern deconstructionism and post-post-modern integralism. The former of which you have the most insubstantial grasp and that only in the misguided, over-simplistic and exaggerated terms of it’s least cogent detractors, and the latter not the whiff of a clue.
You are wrong because you percieve the world through the immutable bias of your intransigent hatred, gross rationalization of greed and well-cultivated ignorance. It doesn’t mean I am always right, but it does mean you are inherently incapable of telling when I am wrong.
What meaning of the word ‘base’ have I failed to comprehend? Please elucidate. This from someone who denies the role of the amygdala and the limbic system in the emotional expressions of fear and aggression.
Spare me!
Archie Bunker wasn’t a dingbat. It was Edith who was called a dingbat by Archie. Archie was the bigot, according to Michael, who Archie called Meathead. You really are a meathead and a bigot, and an ignorant fool to boot.
To be called a dingbat by such as yourself is a compliment.
Scorp,
A bit of background:
All I did was make an off-hand comment about the global ballyhoo over the
WTH,
Did I say you are smug? Scorpy is an ignorant fool. Can you doubt it?
As a matter of fact, I posted a reply to wolf that was about a scientist who is pushing his own agenda at the expense of good science with particulars. You make vague generalizations of thousands of unnamed and unknown scientists maybe hyping global warming without any specific reasons. You cite a writer and completely misappropriate what he says. You really think that is a sufficient reason for dismissing global warming? That is justified skepticism in WTHville? Or are you just fucking off? Maybe? Could be? I just don’t know.
And again with the Y2K crap. Do you even know what a red herring is? Not denying general pollution is another. It doesn’t give you any credibility for doubting global warming. Can you understand that your arguments turn logic and reason on their head? Can you honestly address the difference between weather predictability and climate predictability, or shall I just infer your slide into dissembling snark as an admission you can’t?
You think my ‘advice’ is a diagnosis of your personality? Re-read. I don’t single you out in the slightest. It’s not about you. Get over yourself.
If you just think by ignoring global warming it will just go away, you are welcome to your opinion. After all, you and I will both be long gone before the consequences become catastrophic. Obviously you care nothing about the world except how it affects your own level of comfort.
You are afraid terraist bogeymen are gonna blow you up in your bed. Murdering a million or so innocents must make you feel so much more secure.
That’s sad.
LB.
Your reading/comprehension is faulty. And… you are beginnning to ramble.
Take a deep breath and go sit by the shore.
Over and Out!
WTH,
My ‘reading/comprehension’ [sic] is faulty? Ha! You’re rich. If I am rambling, it is only because I am responding to your red herrings, demonstrating how, in themselves, they are examples of faulty reasoning. There is just no refuge for your dissembling, WTH.
You lose an argument so you change the subject with vague hand-waving assertions. Vague assertions are your justification for your precious skepticism. You think your vagueness is probative of something?
It is! On the subject of global warming, you are an ignorant old crank.
Perhaps with your superior comprehension skills you might consider this splendid example of climate denial/skeptic/doofus reasoning:
The paleoclimatic record shows that in natural climate changes on the scale of glacial/interglacial change, CO2 follows initial temperature rise. In the historical record the opposite is occurring, temperature follows CO2. Therefore present warming must be natural and not anthropogenic.
Can you find the flaw in this syllogism?
C’mon! Let us see your superior comprehension skills.
Loony Booty -
<blockquote>Archie Bunker wasn
scorp,
You are irony deficient. Because Archie called Edith a dingbat doesn’t mean that Archie himself was a dingbat. That is not the joke. The humor in ‘All In The Family’ was Lear’s ability to hold up a mirror to existing social conflict in a way that deflated it’s intractability in the mind of the audience, allowing us the freedom to laugh at our own foibles. The irony was that it didn’t change anyone’s beliefs, though for a while it did serve to soften the intractability that surrounds much of political debate. ‘The Simpsons’ serves much the same function today, though somewhat more ambiguously, but, then again, it is a much more ambiguous age. The old ‘Cold War’ verities have crumbled to be replaced by the much more vague ’ War on Terra’ and the difficult to define but discernable disintegration of the old social order. Archie was a bigot because he saw the world through the narrow lens of his preconceived beliefs. He was an ignorant fool because he believed his preconceived beliefs were the perfected frame for understanding the way the world functions and beyond question. Preconceived beliefs invariably based on narrow and unthinkingly presumed stereotypes. Just like you, my friend.
Just as you believe anyone who says anything that raises the notion of economic democracy or egalitarian justice must, must, must be brainwashed by a frozen and antiquated presumptive construct of Marxist ideology and wedded to monolithically uniform collectivism because it is opposed to, and the only allowable explanation within, your own narrow and immutable set of preconceived beliefs. Beliefs that are founded on invariable and presumed true first causes that are, in your mind, metaphysically beyond questioning. Like Hardesty is so insistent on frothing about, and mindlessly clinging to, his Objectivist beliefs, that they are axiomatic, that they are the foundation of reason beyond which one cannot reason, you, likewise, insist that your beliefs are the perfect template for a true understanding of the world and any doubts raised are threats that must, must, must be violently opposed.
The fact you preclude, that because I argue for the scientific evidence that has proven anthropogenic global warming is a real phenomenon, I am just parroting Al Gore, is direct evidence that it is you, my friend, who has never learned how to think, but only what to think. You are an unquestioning sycophant of the political ideology to which binary one-sided bias you cling with unquestioning loyalty, and to which you have wedded your unquestioning belief in the superior importance of your own selfish interests.
The fact that you cannot argue rationally against the scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming, but only scream ad hominem absurdities, is direct evidence that it is you, my friend, who is educated beyond your intelligence. Your brain has been mis-managed with such great skill that you are deprived of the means of self analysis with which the very traces of that cruel mis-management may be discerned and overcome.
All facts that are direct evidence you are engaging in projection.
See a therapist, my friend.
P.S. Einstein was a socialist, too. Does that mean he was an useful idiot? Get a CLUE .
Loony -
Hey. Loony, you made the national news! Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article on you, Blissfully Uneducated. You really, really, really, really ought to read what Dr. Hanson has to say. Dr. Hanson is a real scholar, unlike the left-wind ideologue hacks you studied under.
In all that turgid prose, is there a coherent thought anywhere?
Naaaah.
Victor Hanson, real scholar? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I know Dr. Hanson. He owns a grape ranch not too many miles south of here. He’s a gentleman farmer who waxes eloquently about the rugged capabilities of those who live the life of the soil from his lectern at Fresno State. He’s a real phony. I actually do work in the peaches, apricots, grapes, walnuts, pistachios, figs and almonds, and actually have all those working skills of which Hansom speaks so heroically. I actually work hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder with those very Mexican emigrants Hanson pretends to know so well.
Watch the noble neo-cons, marching off to oblivion.
That’s your best shot? Your answer to the problems of anthropogenic climate change is to change the subject? That’s impressive. Not!
P.S. Sorry I strained your poor little brain by writing a compound complex sentence.
Loony -
I am sure that you did not strain my poor little brain. Statistically, it would be extremely improbable that your verbal skills and comprehension come anywhere close to mine, and your big words in service of small thoughts do not recommend either your verbal abilities or your reasoning capabilities at all.
You sound as if you are somehow ennobled by working in agriculture. I am sure you are, just as I am ennobled by working in engineering. If there is any discipline that is more ennobling than others, it is scholarship, and Dr. Hanson is a prime example.
Activities that are not ennobling are child molestation, highway robbery, and propagating fraudulent ideologies, such as Karl Marx did and Al Gore is doing now.
Global warming is a joke, and people are starting to realize this. Spending a kajillion dollars on a rock show in support of global warming is farcical and fraudulent. You do not get the global warming joke, just as you did not get the joke in All In The Family. So sad.
Global warming is a joke? This is a rational argument? You’re lost, buddy. You have nothing but spew. No reason at all.
An high opinion of yourself inversely proportional to your actual capabilities though.
Loony -
<blockquote>Global warming is a joke? This is a rational argument? You
scorpy,
CO2 was not ‘massively reduced’ during the depression. Fossil fuels continued to be burned at increasing levels, though the rate of increase was marginally slowed. This is reflected in the flattening of global temperatures from the late 40’s to the mid 70’s (response times are slowed by the action of the world’s oceans as a heat sink). Besides, there are multiple factors at work in the climate. It is not a simple linear system, but a dance of interacting feedbacks. Your critique is without factual basis or logical correlation.
You believe what you want to believe because it suits your preconceived beliefs. That is the joke.
The IPPC report was written by leading climate scientists from all over the world, including skeptics like Richard Lindzen and Chris Freitas. It is a compilation of all the scientific literature from all the pertinent scientific journals. If doing good science is an ideology, I suppose you are correct, but that beggars the meaning of ‘ideology’, doesn’t it?
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