RoR: Forum

It is a myth, created by people who wish to control your lives by telling you what you can eat, what you can buy, how you can move, and anything else they can manage. I have no problem if they want to be "green" of their own initiative, but let me make my own decisions, and me includes companies, which are made up of individuals like myself, who can make their own decisions. To do otherwise is no different from imposing religion on someone. Today's theories of sociology, of environmentalism, etc. are no different from moral theories any religion may espouse - so tell me why one must be implemented by force, and the other not? There is no difference.

Post 21

Friday, April 27, 2007 - 11:28am

Andrew:

... temperature increases caused CO2 increases, all of which are either lies, or half-truths, designed to deceive the public.

That's what I'm waiting for � some credible scientific authority from the Gore group to disprove that temperature increases precede CO2 increases. Until that time you have no business calling it a lie. Calling something a lie, with no evidence is "either a lie, or half-truth, designed to deceive the public."

Hypocrite, anyone?

Sam

Post 22

Friday, April 27, 2007 - 12:42pm

Kurt,

Living by the principles of Objectivism, as well as holding the view that human acitivies are indeed causing global warming are not mutually exclusive, are they?

Sam wrote; "some credible scientific authority from the Gore group to disprove that temperature increases precede CO2 increases."

Basic chemistry is your friend. Under special circumstances this can happen, but it's certainly not a general observation that takes place constantly. But compared to anthropogenic emissions that effect is very small. If you are talking about the tendency of warmer sea-water to emit more CO2 then the oceans currently absorb a net amount of CO2 rather than emitting it, giving us a problem of ocean acidification (CO2 turns into carboxylic acid as it is dissolved in water, decreasing its ph, causing quite a few problems to corall reefs among other things).

Most of todays CO2 is produced by emissions and deforestation... quite why you need to label me as a hypocrite for trying to "deceive the public" when its quite clear that I'm not trying to seems strange and uncalled for.

Andy.

Post 23

Friday, April 27, 2007 - 12:56pm

Humans amount to a very small % of CO2 emissions
Warming is caused primarily by sunspot activity and changes in the output of the sun's radiation, NOT by CO2
Climate is highly variable over long geologic periods
Most of the "solutions" hurt people in a very REAL, IMMEDIATE way, vs. in a theoretical, future way - that is most likely not even real. Some are even counter-productive.
The more prosperous people are, the less they hurt the environment - for example poor areas of Africa have little heating or electricity, so they burn wood - which is much worse.

In addition - I am arguing my point and not trying to use a gun to make you agree to mine. That is what people who believe in global warming are doing.

(Edited by Kurt Eichert on 4/27, 12:57pm)

Post 24

Friday, April 27, 2007 - 2:21pm

Andrew: The evidence that warmer temperatures comes before higher CO2 concentrations comes from examination of ice core samples, or haven't you watched the "Swindle" video? If the Gore group wants to make a point all they have to do is discredit the methodology used. Because they don't tells me they can't.

Your lesson in chemistry says nothing about the relative magnitudes of those chemical effects in the real world of climate change. The "Swindle" video makes no definite claim that higher CO2 concentrations result from heating of the oceans � it is given as a possible explanation. They don't have evidence of that and they don't claim to have. Their point is that because warming comes before high CO2 concentrations then it is unjustified to jump to the conclusion that CO2 created by humans is the cause of global warming.

I called you a hypocrite because you called the "Swindle" CO2/temperature effect a lie without any evidence whatsoever� as you surely understand. If you want me to look stupid just show me the evidence� and that you knew it before you called it a lie.

This is reminiscent of the hue and cry that "Bush was a liar" when all the prominent politicians on both sides of the aisle believed that Iraq had WMDs.

Sam

Post 25

Friday, April 27, 2007 - 4:21pm

In post #22 Andrew Bowman wrote:

> quite why you need to label me as a hypocrite for trying to "deceive the public"
> when its quite clear that I'm not trying to seems strange and uncalled for.

While in post #17 you wrote about me:

> you're too lazy ... would be too damn [sic] inconvienient for you.

I guess these comments were obviously called for in my case.
--
Jeff

Post 26

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 6:58am

Kurt wrote;

"Humans amount to a very small % of CO2 emissions
Warming is caused primarily by sunspot activity and changes in the output of the sun's radiation"

This is a misconception at best, a pure and utter lie at worst.

A: World Coal consumption: 5.3 * 10^12 kg
B: Molar mass of Carbon: 12
C: Molar mass of CO2: 44
D: C/B * A = 1.94 * 10^13kg

So burning coal emits about 1.94 * 10^13 kg of CO2 every year

E: Total mass of the atmosphere: 5.3 * 10^18kg

F = D/E = 3.67 * 10^-6
I.e we emit an amount of CO2 equal to about 0.000367% of the earth's atmosphere every year.

Over 50 years, this gives
E = F * 50 = 0.0184%
Which is more than 30% of the current CO2 concentration.

This was Coal alone, at pressent consumption levels. If you in addition factor in Oil, Gas, Deforestation, Methane from agriculture, CFCs ... it gets even worse.

As for the solar radiation effect...people keep throwing around the nonsense claim. Basically the compelling bit of evidence against the solar variation theory is that the rate of warming increases even while solar activity decreases.

Assumption 1: Definition of temperature. The rate of change of temperature is proportional to the rate of change of internal thermal energy.

dT/dt = A * dE/dt

Here A is a constant representing the thermal inertia of the planet. E is the net thermal energy of the planet and T is temperature.

Assumption 2: The thermal energy in the earth's atmosphere and surface is almost exclusively down to the amount of radiation received from the sun and the amount of radiation emitted into space.

dE/dt = A * F - G

F is the amount of energy received by the planet, and G is the amount of energy emitted by the planet. Taking the time derivative on both sides:

d^2T/dt^2 = A * dF/dt - dG/dt

That is, the rate of change of temperature change ( the rate of increase of the rate of warming ) is just the difference between the rate of change of incoming radiation and the rate of change of outgoing radiation. From the above it follows that

dF/dt < 0 , |dG/dt| < |dF/dt| ==> d^2T/dt^2 < 0

That is, if the amount of radiation received by the earth is decreasing, and at the same time the amount of radiation leaving the earth does not change even more rapidly then the rate of warming MUST decrease. Now the claim was that variations in solar radiation ( i.e the amount of radiation the earth receives) is much more important than the greenhouse effect. I.e the change in radiation received is at least as large as the change in how much radiation is emitted. Thus when solar radiation decreases, we have:

dF/dt < 0
|dG/dt| < |dF/dt|

So from the above

d^2T/dt^2 < 0

This is not what we observe. We observe steadily increasing rates of warming even when the solar activity decreases, which imply that at least one assumption above is incorrect. Since this occurs when solar activity decreases we know that dF/dt < 0, meaning that the only assumption left to discard is the following:

|dG/dt| < |dF/dt|

Therefore

|dG/dt| > |dF/dt|

That is:

The rate of decrease of radiation leaving the earth is greater than the rate of change of radiation received by the earth.

Or, put slightly differently

Changes in radiative forcing due to greenhouse gases contribute at least as much to global warming as observed changes in solar radiation received by the earth.

Note that the magnitude of the thermal inertia ( the constant A ) doesn't make a difference. This is why I looked at the rate of change of warming rather than warming in itself. Because the planet's thermal inertia is largely constant it doesn't significantly affect weather the planet warms or cools, only the extent to which it does so, and thus observing changes in radiation received and emitted is sufficient to reach the conclusion above. This is why the above derivation is so much simpler than the more detailed climate models, and this is also why it doesn't tell us how much larger that impact is as compared to solar variation. It also doesn't tell us how much warming to expect, nor where the main uncertainties are, nor which greenhouse gases are most important. The only thing my derivation above is able to show is that solar variation is not the sole cause of global warming.

There are more advanced models that can extract more information from the observations. In particular, highly accurate numerical simulations, which take into consideration variations in atmospheric temperature, variations in greenhouse gas concentrations, and the impact of aerosols and cloud formation, are able to derive fairly certain estimates of radiative forcing components. The results look something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:R...e-forcings.svg

Jeff wrote; "I guess these comments were obviously called for in my case."

No, they weren't. I apologise for them.

Sam -

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 - This link here deals with the theories about ice core samples, much better than I could do.

Andy

Post 27

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 9:21am

From Andrew's reference:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

This is an issue that is often misunderstood in the public sphere and media, so it is worth spending some time to explain it and clarify it. At least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO₂ starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. These terminations are pronounced warming periods that mark the ends of the ice ages that happen every 100,000 years or so.
Does this prove that CO₂ doesn't cause global warming? The answer is no.

The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO₂ did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO₂, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.

At least this citation has more than just assertions (but is rife with speculations) but it needs to be analysed. According to this human activity is off the hook for initiating global warming. Are we to believe that we should institute a drastic reconfiguring of our economy for conditions that may or may not prevail 700 or 800 years in the future? As far as I can determine, the first indications of possible global warming occurred in the 1970s, just after concern about global cooling.

While we're in the mood for speculating, if we observe technological progress made over the last 800 years from the Dark Ages to the present we might gain some understanding of what we might be capable of in the next 800 years.

The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO_{2 ...}

"could in fact"? How can something be speculative and true at the same time?

Andrew, you have gone to a great deal of trouble trying to gain credibility for your model while we all know that these kinds of models are just too simplistic. Weather forecasters can't even reliably predict the weather a few days hence. I've been in modeling for a long time with job titles such as Supervisor of Modeling, Simulation and Technical Analysis and have lived through the fiasco of the malthusian Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" of the 70's that predicted that we were all going to hell in a handbasket in exponential chaos. Fortunately, it didn't result in the hysteria and public policy changes that we're seeing with global warming although it bolstered the green movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_growth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus

The authors of Limits to Growth and Malthus failed to account adequately for technological advances. A historical review of these failed fear mongers would be instructive.

Sam

Post 28

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 9:56am

Sam wrote - "At least this citation has more than just assertions (but is rife with speculations) but it needs to be analysed. According to this human activity is off the hook for initiating global warming. Are we to believe that we should institute a drastic reconfiguring of our economy for conditions that may or may not prevail 700 or 800 years in the future? As far as I can determine, the first indications of possible global warming occurred in the 1970s, just after concern about global cooling."

No one is denying that the earth warms and cools naturally; the problem that human emissions cause is the rate at which the changes are taking place, and that humans are changing the equiberium which will have devastating long-term effects. I'm not pretending that the impact of global warming is completely clear. Different models give different predictions, but for the business as usual scenario all of the top- eight climate models predict a 2 - 5 centigrade increase during this century. This may not sound much, but since 5 centigrades is simply the average there will be occasional peaks that are far higher, about 10 centigrades or even more. Furthermore the warming is not uniform. The equator will experience the least warming while countries further north or south will experience more. Land areas will also experience more warming than the seas. The amazonas is probably the most scary example, and wille xperience an average increase of 8 centigrades. Now given that a significant amount of the earth's vegetation is located in the amazon rainforest, a 8 centigrade increase is really not something tot ake lightly. If you ruin the rainforest, leading to irreverasble deforestation, this will amplify the warming causing even more problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:G...ions_Map_2.jpg

Note that this is the impact without the doomsday predictions. If you start looking at the impact for sea-level rise, huricanes, draughts, starvation due to failing crops etc, things quickly start reaching a level of disaster that quite frankly has no historic presedence. This could easily give pandemic virus infections a hard time keeping their position as the biggest killer of all time.

"While we're in the mood for speculating, if we observe technological progress made over the last 800 years from the Dark Ages to the present we might gain some understanding of what we might be capable of in the next 800 years."

This is not a problem that will only show itself in 800 years time; more like 50. I don't know about you, but I want to live for a lot longer than 50 years. I don't want to see the effects of it if there are things that we can do now to slow down the effect.

"Andrew, you have gone to a great deal of trouble trying to gain credibility for your model while we all know that these kinds of models are just too simplistic."

I've posted my calculations, and they're fundamentally different to those used in the 1970's to measure scarcity - I've got an extremely low number of variables, I'm dealing with extraordinarily accurate predictions of emissions and other things that effect the environment. If you've got any criticism of my model that I'm using, I'm talking specific criticism, not roundabout criticism of doomsday theories, I'm quite willing to read it.

Andy.

Post 29

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 10:34am

"I've got an extremely low number of variables, I'm dealing with extraordinarily accurate predictions of emissions and other things that effect the environment. If you've got any criticism of my model that I'm using, I'm talking specific criticism,.."

Having an "extremely low number of variables" is not persuasive when you're talking about complex interactions with unknown variables. And the problem of "specific criticism" is if you make a simplistic model and use uncontroversial data the only criticism that can be made is that there may be unaccounted for variables. Then you can say "you don't know what you're talking about." Which, of course, is the point.

Post 30

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 11:25am

I remember many years ago, when Martin Gardner used to write his fantastic Mathematical Games column for Scientific American magazine, he once discussed how numbers could be manipulated to derive all sorts of interesting "correlations". As an example, he took the measurements of the sides, height, area and volume of one of the Egyptian pyramids and started adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing these numbers to get other numbers which he would compare as ratios, etc. After a while he was able to "prove" that the ancient Egyptians had an amazing knowledge of astronomical observations that were apparently lost to future generations and were able to predict all sorts of incredible things about our modern society. (I don't remember the details, but it was things like stock trends for Microsoft or other such ridiculous stuff.)

The point is that, given a sufficiently rich data set, numbers can be manipulated to produce just about any correlation you want. If you are on the lookout, you can find this technique in practice on a daily basis in the news. Now, I'm not accusing Andrew of manipulating data. I'm sure he is sincere in his beliefs about climate change and CO2's effects, but I become very suspicious of arguments like:

> No one is denying that the earth warms and cools naturally; the problem
> that human emissions cause is the rate at which the changes are taking place

You see, if the absolute change in temperature does not fit with the desired model, why we can then look at the derivative rate-of-change and see what we get. And, like Martin Gardner's example, we can keep up this game until we find something "interesting". Now, I'm not saying that rate-of-change is not something useful to be examined. But an objective observer would scratch their head over data like this and use it as a starting point to formulate additional experiments which would have predicted results which could be tested for and verified. Only when there is a sizable amount of corroborating evidence that fits a predictive model, do we begin to act from a position of real knowledge. This is the scientific method.

But that is not what we typically find in the climate debate. Here we find ourselves bombarded with various pieces of raw data (such as rate of temperature change) which have often not been experimentally tested and have not been successfully integrated into a working predictive model. Nevertheless, we are expected to accept each piece of this data on it own merits, as "proof" of the initial postulate concerning man-made climate change. To do so would be intellectual suicide, but to forestall anyone from this position, the data is presented in the context of a immediate global crisis. Our lives hang in the balance. There is no time to think. There is no time to acquire real knowledge. We must act immediately or we are doomed! Fear. A brilliant strategy that has worked well throughout the ages. It got the witches burned in Salem and, if left unchecked, it might well significantly set back human technical progress today.

I'm all for looking at the data that environmental scientists are accumulating, but I am getting really tired of the double standard being employed. When Gore and his ilk find an interesting correlation between temperature and CO2 in the ice core samples, they declare that it significantly bolsters their case while conveniently ignoring the 800-year offset which wasn't worth mentioning. Hmmm. And when this piece of information is raised by the critics, it is quickly dismissed. It really reminds me of a magician who distracts you from what is happening in one hand by waving the other hand. And fear is the distraction.

There is one point that I made in a different forum that I will repeat here. The radical environmental movement is the one putting forth a positive claim: that we are facing a run-away global warming crisis and that the crisis is a man-made phenomenon. Therefore, it is incumbent upon them to prove their case - and to do so in a scientifically valid way. The critics of this global climate crisis hypothesis are not offering a positive claim. They are not saying that global warming is not occurring nor are they saying that there is no relationship between man's activity and the climate. Instead, they are simply reviewing the data that the radical environmentalists are presenting to see if there is sufficient correlation to validate the conclusions being offered or if other explanations for the data are equally plausible. Therefore, the two methodologies are different. It is important to keep this is mind. If you are making a critical review of certain environmental claims, it is not necessary to offer an alternative working model for the data. It is sufficient to show that the data is insufficient, inaccurate or contradictory with other data in order to dismiss the conclusions as being inadequately supported by the facts. Of course this really pisses of the exponents of these views, but whacha' gonna' do?
--
Jeff

P.S.: Andrew, I acknowledge and appreciate the apology. Thanks.

Post 31

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 11:47am

I'm sure some of you have seen this, but there is a great article by Michael Crichton that has relevance to public policy around the issue of climate change. Go to this site and look at the article titled "Fear, Complexity, Environmental Management in the 21st Century". Very interesting.
--
Jeff

Post 32

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 11:58am

Mike wrote: "Having an "extremely low number of variables" is not persuasive when you're talking about complex interactions with unknown variables. And the problem of "specific criticism" is if you make a simplistic model and use uncontroversial data the only criticism that can be made is that there may be unaccounted for variables. Then you can say "you don't know what you're talking about." Which, of course, is the point."

I'll bite. It's extraordinarily easy to calculate the variables that I'm talking about in relation to global warming. Considering we know a lot of the effects of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, a lot of which I've already stated earlier, there are very few unknown variables, unless you can think of any? I'm quite sure I would've heard of them and people who made the documentary would be keen to highlight problems with methodology. One such claim I've recently heard is that the researchers of GW "orthodoxy" often freely interchange dependent and independent variables. Well, I don't think I've done that in my calculations.

These are the ones from the top of my head...

Amount of greenhouse gases we emit ( basic chemistry once you know fossil fuel consumption ).
Amount of radiation the sun is emitting, and how much of it reaches the earth (measured by satellites and observatories for decades now ).
The spectrum of solar radiation. (has been known for a century or so )
The spectrum of radiation emitted by the earth. (same as above )
Atmospheric composition. ( Easy to measure, basic chemistry).
The absorption and emission spectrum of the gases in the atmosphere (has been known to great detail for a century).
The extent to which the ocean absorb CO2 (CO2 reduces the pH of the ocean, we can measure this).
The amount of CO2 emitted by volcanic eruptions and geological activity ( it is orders of magnitude smaller than human emissions).
The effect of radiative forcing on steady state temperature (follows from thermodynamics).

When the above is considered ALL of the top 7 climate models predict that greenhouse gas emissions will cause global warming. The uncertainty is to what extent and arises primarely from:

Cloud formation.
Feedback effects. (warmer temperatures affect vegetation and algae etc..)
Aerosols that reflect sunlight.
The impact of aerosols on cloud formation.

Note that solar radiance is not a major cause of uncertainty. We know it to great accuracy, and whereas there are some uncertainties, they are very small.

I haven't sourced these claims because there is quite a lot of material, but I am able to do so if need be. If there is a particular issue you doubt, just ask me to source it and I will.

Sam wrote: "I called you a hypocrite because you called the "Swindle" CO2/temperature effect a lie without any evidence whatsoever"

How is that hypocrisy Sam? It'd be hypocrisy for me to call it something when there is no evidence to back up my claim, it's not hypocrisy for me to dispute a fact without providing any evidence. I'm sure a very short time spent on this website looking for unsourced claim would bring up a large number of hypocrites...

Andy

(Edited by Andrew Bowman on 4/28, 12:11pm)

Post 33

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 3:02pm

Andrew: From your reference:

The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO₂ did not cause the first 800 years of warming

and: "This is not a problem that will only show itself in 800 years time; more like 50.
" ...and the problem that human emissions cause is the rate at which the changes are taking place."

If you agree with the statement ( you cited it) that CO2 didn't cause the first 800 years of warming then nothing that we do in either increasing or decreasing CO2 emissions will have any effect whatsoever� for 800 years. You are contradicting yourself.

You can tweak your equations any way you choose � add more variables, whatever � they are useless. The former apocalyptic works of the Club of Rome and Malthus left out or minimized technological progress. You have nothing in your variables to account for the huge, unimaginable technology that will develop over an 800 year span � that is, if we don't exterminate ourselves in some manner or other in the meantime.

"It'd be hypocrisy for me to call it something when there is no evidence to back up my claim, it's not hypocrisy for me to dispute a fact without providing any evidence."

My mind can't handle this. How can one logically dispute a fact? You can challenge an allegation but a fact is a fact. It is true or you wouldn't call it a fact. But how can you challenge an allegation without providing evidence? Do you just say it's a lie and leave it at that? Who's going to believe you? You didn't dispute it ... you called it a lie.

You've muddied the argument. You should have said: "It'd be hypocrisy for me to call it a lie when there is no evidence to back up my claim..."
But you did call the "Swindle" CO2/warming a lie and you then (mistakenly) cited a source that confirms that time relationship. That's worse than no evidence at all.

I said in post #21:
That's what I'm waiting for � some credible scientific authority from the Gore group to disprove that temperature increases precede CO2 increases. Until that time you have no business calling it a lie. Calling something a lie, with no evidence is "either a lie, or half-truth, designed to deceive the public."

Sam

Post 34

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 10:13pm

Another good response to this............
http://www.ornery.org/cgi-bin/printer_friendly.cgi?page=/essays/warwatch/2007-03-04-1.html

from Orson Scott Card.....

Post 35

Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 2:23am

Robert:

Thanks for the reference to Card's article. It was very good.
--
Jeff

Post 36

Monday, April 30, 2007 - 6:41am

Andrew - Are you going to address the fact that you wish to implement your ideas by force, rather than argument?

If you do not wish to use force to implement your ideas, and ask that people voluntarily make changes, I am Ok with that.

Otherwise, you are no different from any other collectivist.

Post 37

Monday, April 30, 2007 - 10:23am

Sam - I will respond as soon as times permits.

Kurt - I have no desire to force you to do anything; I just ask that you approach the issue with an open mind.

Andy.

Post 38

Monday, April 30, 2007 - 1:43pm

So Andrew, are you then saying that it is Ok for me or any company I own shares in, or any other individual, to choose to burn hydrocarbons at any rate I choose to do so?

Post 39

Tuesday, May 1, 2007 - 12:37pm