Peak Oil & Climate Change (merged)

[Cashmere]

According to recent news reports, a top observatory that has been measuring sun spot activity predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next 20 years as solar activity slows and the planet drastically cools down. They suggest this could potentially herald the onset of a new ice age. Following the end of the sun’s most active period in over 11,000 years, the last 10 years have displayed a clear cooling trend as temperatures post-1998 leveled out and are now decreasing.

It's a religion - mostly faith based, with "supporting" facts that can be interpreted in more than 1 way.

[kiwichick]

this may be of interest(to some)


http://www.mdbc.gov.au/_data/page/29/SE ... -May08-pdf [/web]

hope that works their july drought update has some good charts

picture worth athou....

[dorlomin]

It's a religion - mostly faith based, with "supporting" facts that can be interpreted in more than 1 way.

This is tiresome. This constitutes the logical fallicy 'argumentum ad hominem', that the argument is against the person who issues the argument not the facts. Anthropogenic climate change is science. It has been making testable predictions about the impact of human activity on the climate for several decades. It is mainstream science taught throughout the world as such.

Even if you do not agree that the conclusions are merited from the data (as I believe rockdoc123 does), to try to pretend it is not a science is to shove your head in the sand.

[rockdoc123]

Even if you do not agree that the conclusions are merited from the data (as I believe rockdoc123 does), to try to pretend it is not a science is to shove your head in the sand.

yes it most certainly is science, some exceptional, some not so exceptional. There are, however, some missing pieces of scientific theory from time to time....Hansen, Briffa Mann and others refusing to discuss their conclusions in the appropriate scientific forum in a respectful manner I find distressful and not in keeping with the scientific method which by it´s nature should encourage debate and deconstruction of theories.
The ´religion´part comes into play when you have non-scientists defending theories and concepts they have very little understanding of and can´t be bothered to do some research on their own. The defensive posture that these folks take when the theory they have embraced (without question) is questioned is not all that unlike the posture that religious zealots take when their belief system is challenged, they rant, they rave claim their critics are ´deniers´and the pawns of satan.

[dorlomin]

The ´religion´part comes into play when you have non-scientists defending theories and concepts they have very little understanding of and can´t be bothered to do some research on their own. The defensive posture that these folks take when the theory they have embraced (without question) is questioned is not all that unlike the posture that religious zealots take when their belief system is challenged, they rant, they rave claim their critics are ´deniers´and the pawns of satan.

There is a geat deal of shrill and uniformed ranting from many who support AGW as a concept, but for me the 'denialist' label comes from the endless repetition of the same talking points over and over and over again.

The nadir for me was the moment that Wattsup blog discovered there had been a volcanic eruption in the arctic in something like 1999. How many times since then I have had the fact that the arctic sea ice is loosing mass due to volcanos is beyond me. Simple mathematics proves there is by many orders of magnitude, insufficient energy in a volcanic erruption to have had any longterm impact on the temperature of the arctic ocean. But there are any number of other sound bites that float around. "The world has been cooling since 1998" is probibly the most common

I am probibly plowing a lone forrow here, but I do tend to make a distinction between scepticism and denial.

[dohboi]

dorlomin wrote in response to cashmere:

"Anthropogenic climate change is science."

Cashmere actually agrees with you, or at least he has in the past.

"Cashmere
Light Sweet Crude

Joined: Mar 27, 2008
Posts: 1060

PostPosted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:25 am Post subject: Re: Al Gore: Doubting AGW is Akin to Believing Earth is Flat

Actually, no, I happen to believe that humans are substantially causing global warming and that we should be acting aggressively now to reduce our warming impact and to figure out if there's any palliative that can be done."


Given his other posts here and elsewhere, though, I'm not sure he has a stable enough mind to know what he actually thinks.

[Cashmere]

It's a religion - mostly faith based, with "supporting" facts that can be interpreted in more than 1 way.

This is tiresome. This constitutes the logical fallicy 'argumentum ad hominem', that the argument is against the person who issues the argument not the facts. Anthropogenic climate change is science. It has been making testable predictions about the impact of human activity on the climate for several decades. It is mainstream science taught throughout the world as such.

Even if you do not agree that the conclusions are merited from the data (as I believe rockdoc123 does), to try to pretend it is not a science is to shove your head in the sand.

Sorry to tire you. I suggest parsing my words more closely.

It's the followers of GW that make it a religion, not whatever underlying science supports it.

I was in science for many years.

Funny thing is, in all my time there, at all the lectures and seminars and thesis defenses, I never heard some simpleton who couldn't diagram the structure of CO2 scream at somebody else, "you're a denier!"

It took Global Warming to do that.

Global Warming is a religion not because of the 0.0001% of its adherents that are rational, science based thinkers.

Global Warming is a religion because of the 99.9999% of its adherents who are scientific morons who base their hysteria on information that they don't understand and don't have the skills to analyze.

Global Warming is a religion.

Proof is being offered everyday.

I quote a study that says sun spot activity is predicted to decrease, causing global cooling over the next 2 decades and potentially issuing in a new mini ice age.

The response I get?

"You are tiresome, Infidel."

God Bless.

[dohboi]

More tiresome twaddle from the cashman.

Religion is a belief system based on something other than science. AGW has been supported by every established scientific body in the world that has weighed in on it. Denialist claims have been supported by none of the same. The latter sounds more like a candidate for the title of religion, but I would not want to sully the name of the great and not-so-great religions by comparing them to the cynical sham denialists present us with.

[Ibon]

The response I get?

"You are tiresome, Infidel."

God Bless.

What does it really matter that the vast majority of the masses take it as a religion as long as the underlying science is valid?

On a deeper level you are letting yourself get hooked by the rote dogmatic stupidity of others. This puts you deep into relationship with this behavior since you are so strongly in reaction to it. Why do you relinquish so much control over to people you acknowledge as being stupid?

I agree with what you said about 90% plus people taking GW as a faith beyond understanding the deeper science but in the end who cares?

You admit that you agree to the science. So why did you title this thread the way you did? Wouldn't it be more accurate to discuss the harm that is being done when GW departs science and becomes dogmatic religion? I think that is a valuable topic to pursue since this does great harm to the rational dialog required to get our society to move toward the necessary sacrifices required to reduce our carbon foot print on the planet. The naysayers and the religious GW zealots both muddy the waters.

[Ibon]

More tiresome twaddle from the cashman.

Religion is a belief system based on something other than science. AGW has been supported by every established scientific body in the world that has weighed in on it. Denialist claims have been supported by none of the same. The latter sounds more like a candidate for the title of religion, but I would not want to sully the name of the great and not-so-great religions by comparing them to the cynical sham denialists present us with.

He fails in framing the discussion properly because he is personally feeling attacked by zealots who take defending GW to extremes that start to border on dogma and religion. That is not a unvalid discussion to have since there are many Cashmeres out there and it is good to understand the psychology of how to deal with folks who take this irrational position.

We are highly irrational. Science is the first small step. Changing culture and society is another science.

[dohboi]

Nicely put, and I might add, probably quite generous.

Cash's highest claim to scientific background is that he once took a course in calculus. Calculus is far from the pinnacle of scientific understanding, more of a bare minimum. And of course any idiot can take it and remain and idiot.

[rockdoc123]

AGW has been supported by every established scientific body in the world that has weighed in on it. Denialist claims have been supported by none of the same. The latter sounds more like a candidate for the title of religion, but I would not want to sully the name of the great and not-so-great religions by comparing them to the cynical sham denialists present us with.

herein lies the problem. Notwithstanding the issue that science is absolutely not about consciensus, when you start digging into these claims that such and such organization supports the theory of AGW what you find is invariably that is a political statement that is not at all endorsed by all of the people in that organization. The IPCC is a good example, reading the statment for policy makers you are led to believe that there are no questions and all the scientists who participated are in complete agreement. Nothing could be further from the truth there are a host of scientists who were chapter authors, editors and reviewers who regularily dispute that statements coming from the IPCC. I´ve read a number of the chapters in the last IPCC report that were of interest to me and it is very clear that there are a number of uncertainties that are not pointed out in the summary. Politics and science are poor bedmates and that is very true when it comes to climate science.
On a number of threads where it has been suggested that the conscensus is all that matters I´ve pointed out examples where a single scientist swimming upstream against ¨conventional wisdom¨has proven to be correct....the ¨consensus¨being incorrect. The story of Alfred Wegener and much later J Tuzo Wilson and the advent of plate tectonics is certainly my favorite but there are a bunch of other examples.
Having spent part of my early career in the academic realm I can state with confidence that reputation should always be ignored when weighing the credibility of a theory....it has very little to do with who or what group proposes a particular theory but rather what the theory entails, what hard tests it has been exposed to and whether or not it has stood up to the rigors of critical review.

[dohboi]

Come on, rock. You know that to the extent IPCC is political, it is so in the opposite direction than the one you imply. There was enormous governmental pressure to tone down the dire warnings in the last draft, and they partly succeeded.

I know I will never convince. rock, since he do not seem to be completely sincere in his postings here, regularly posting 'findings' that he must know by now (since he is clearly intelligent) that are long since discredited. But others show know that any political influence on the IPCC is and has been almost completely in the other direction, away from full understanding of the direst consequences of AGW.

[TempleOfDoom]

I can think of 2 effects of PO on world pollution in the long-term (till the switch-over to non-polluting energy sources happen, if at all)
1. As the fossil fuels run out, there would be less of it consumed & hence pollution (also GW) would reduce.
2. During the messy transition away from oil, the world would be forced to use other, more polluting fuels (coal -> wood ??) resulting in increased pollution.

Unclear which of these would dominate.

[rockdoc123]

You know that to the extent IPCC is political, it is so in the opposite direction than the one you imply. There was enormous governmental pressure to tone down the dire warnings in the last draft, and they partly succeeded.

that is absolute horsecrap....have you read the IPCC reports, well I have. They are literred with comments regarding the fact that there is little known about certain aspects of climate including aerosols and cosmic ray affects. The policy statement on the other hand glosses over all of these uncertainties and implies that everyone who participated in the various studies agrees with the policy statement. Nothing could be further from the truth with folks such as Pielke and McIntyre and a host of others who were either editors or contributors continuing to criticize the conclusison. For you to portray it in any other manner speaks directly to what I've said about willful ignorance and the comparison between religious and climate worship.

regularly posting 'findings' that he must know by now (since he is clearly intelligent) that are long since discredited.

Lets see some examples. Most of the time what you call "findings" are the conclusions made by authors in papers posted in journals for which peer review is the standard (links to which I post on various threads here quite regularily). If they have been discredited then the responsible means of demonstrating that would be to point us to acutal "discussion" which appeared in said journal and the requisite "reply". If you can't demonstrate how the theories proposed (which are not mine but those of authors who have been contributing to scientific journals for years or decades) then I suggest you retract this claim.

But others show know that any political influence on the IPCC is and has been almost completely in the other direction, away from full understanding of the direst consequences of AGW.

bollocks, this is an opinion or belief you have which is not substantiated at all. I can substantiate my claim easily enough..just read the actual submissions to the various chapters and then take a look at how that is portrayed in the policy statement. On one thread early last year I did post some of the findings from the early released chapters which pointed to considerable remaining uncertainties. None of these have been alluded to in statements from the IPPC.

[Cashmere]

You admit that you agree to the science. So why did you title this thread the way you did? Wouldn't it be more accurate to discuss the harm that is being done when GW departs science and becomes dogmatic religion? I think that is a valuable topic to pursue since this does great harm to the rational dialog required to get our society to move toward the necessary sacrifices required to reduce our carbon foot print on the planet. The naysayers and the religious GW zealots both muddy the waters.

It's very simple.

When I look around and 99% of the people I see on my side of the issue are idol worshipers who don't understand science, it makes me extremely uneasy.

Why?

Because, given their lack of understanding of the science, they become hysterical at any attempt to refute their religion.

That is, the zealots have crossed the Rubicon mentally and do not leave as a valid option the concept of retracting the belief.

That's it in a nutshell.

I can't stand being part of group that is so intellectually lowly so as to use the word "denier" for a theory that was proposed only recently, that is hardly supported beyond reasonable doubt, and that is based on science that is among the least predictable of all the hard sciences and has very limited long term data.

I suppose I prefer to look around at my group and see reason and logic . . .


With 911 I do.
With PO I do.
With GW I do not.

The risk is great.

If you believe that you are right beyond question or retreat, it opens you up to manipulation.

The earth is presently cooling. True statement.

When somebody stands up and counters that statement with, "DENIER!", I don't want to be standing next to that person.

On a separate note:
The reason I titled the thread as I did has nothing to do with the veracity of GW.

It only has to do with the ordering, in the minds of the masses, of priorities.

[dohboi]

So it looks like the best that can be said about cash is that he is phenomenally bad at phrasing what he intends to convey. I guess I'll share in this (probably generous) assessment by ibon till further evidence indicates otherwise.

Rock is of course devoted to his religion; that is why, Rove like, he jumps to quickly accuse others of his own folly first so when they point out that the shoe fits his foot better, it can look like mere tit for tat. I never said he wasn't clever.

Some other time I'll dig up the reams of reports of last minute arm twisting by the Bush administration and some other governments to tone down the full severity of the situation we face. Anyone can google around and find these for themselves.

[Cashmere]

So it looks like the best that can be said about cash is that he is phenomenally bad at phrasing what he intends to convey..

And Yao Ming is short and has awesome vertical.

I'll run you under a rock with words.

[Ibon]

I'll run you under a rock with words.

Well , at least your honest enough to reveal your priorities which is to win arguments. These threads are full of such noise. The irony is that it seems to be noise your also complaining about all those deniers.

Winning arguments doesn't interest me. Helping bridge polarities and helping people understand does.

Have you thought about how effective you are being in getting across your message.

You may have some good points to make here. But they are eclipsed by your petty egotism......

Oh well, this is really an intelligent discourse we are having here isn't it?

[Cashmere]

I'll run you under a rock with words.

Well , at least your honest enough to reveal your priorities which is to win arguments.

Come now. My comment was only in rejoinder to some knuckle dragger attempting to say my writing wasn't cogent.

Hardly my priority, but I'll take on any poster I've read in this forum in a speaking or writing contest, and I'll dismantle everybody except for Montequest, who would run with me for a bit in the writing event.