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The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 11:06:46

Now don’t you start!
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 11:35:45

I'd just like to see one again, thats all.

The ratio of intelligent posts to ad hom attack posts is very low for that particular member, and honestly I haven't seen an intelligent or informative post from that direction in quite a while. If it should ever happen again I don't want to miss it. There used to be a "hall of fame" on the main page for especially good posts here at this site, and if it ever happens again perhaps it could be posted prominently there for all to enjoy the rare event.

Cheers!
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 12:50:40

Plant,

Don’t even try to talk your way outta it. No personal attacks.

Don’t be the second hand clapping.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby asg70 » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 18:41:09

I'm not the only one who has called Plant out on his cognitive dissonance. IMHO, it deserves to be called out anytime he climbs back up on his environmental high-horse and starts pointing fingers this way and that. I reject the hypothesis that I'm making simple ad hominem attacks. It cuts to the heart of whatever political argument he's trying to make on the basis of "do as I say...not as I do".

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 25 Aug 2019, 19:23:12

ASG,

In case you haven’t noticed I’m in no mood to argue.

Both you and Plant cease this personal fight. Trade emails and call each other all the names you want.

Future posts of this nature will be deleted.
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Fall after the Flood

Unread postby Whitefang » Sat 14 Sep 2019, 07:58:34

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/897

A synthetic history of human land use
Humans began to leave lasting impacts on Earth's surface starting 10,000 to 8000 years ago. Through a synthetic collaboration with archaeologists around the globe, Stephens et al. compiled a comprehensive picture of the trajectory of human land use worldwide during the Holocene (see the Perspective by Roberts). Hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists transformed the face of Earth earlier and to a greater extent than has been widely appreciated, a transformation that was essentially global by 3000 years before the present.


Abstract
Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 years before the present (yr B.P.) to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists by 3000 years ago, considerably earlier than the dates in the land-use reconstructions commonly used by Earth scientists. Synthesis of knowledge contributed by more than 250 archaeologists highlighted gaps in archaeological expertise and data quality, which peaked for 2000 yr B.P. and in traditionally studied and wealthier regions. Archaeological reconstruction of global land-use history illuminates the deep roots of Earth’s transformation and challenges the emerging Anthropocene paradigm that large-scale anthropogenic global environmental change is mostly a recent phenomenon.


Our fall from grace, taking more than we needed millennia ago :cry:

Maybe we made our climate stable for a while, preventing a new cold snap to a true ice age, 2 degrees Celcius cooler.
Maybe something made us self domesticated, a new way of thinking, our brains actually shrunk 10 % or so.
Maybe we homo sapiens lost more than we gained, the feeling of knowing what is what, to grasp this world with our minds.
Maybe we lost a magical world with beings like the hunter gatherers painted on the walls of caves.
Everybody knows about an internal struggle, the faint echo of a war we lost ages ago.
And now this thing is taking down complex life as we know it.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 16 Sep 2019, 08:50:22

"Maybe we made our climate stable for a while, preventing a new cold snap to a true ice age, 2 degrees Celcius cooler."

As Hansen pointed out, if this were the goal, it would only require a few dozen plants producing one of the more powerful greenhouse gasses, like fluorinated gasses, to achieve it.

Instead we have blown way, way past that goal (which probably was unnecessary anyway for at least a few hundred more years) and dumped so much CO2 and methane into the atmosphere that we have kicked off feedbacks that will knock us right out of the cycle of glaciation that have characterized the planet for many millions of years.
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Lonely Planet

Unread postby Whitefang » Mon 16 Sep 2019, 11:54:58

we have kicked off feedbacks that will knock us right out of the cycle of glaciation that have characterized the planet for many millions of years.


Without the abundance of complex organic life, it will very likely be lonely, how much fun are bacteria and the like?
Only for 5 to 10 million years though, so no worry, everything will be allrighty then :roll:
Not certain we, Earth I mean will have ice again, a hothouse is the more stable position and could well last until the very end as the sun becomes what, a supernova?

Will the spirit shed a tear? No more life stories from most of organic life as we know it.
If there is a miracle worker, a messiah, he or she should make a move and start working, I bet this magical being is still waiting for a last panic mode to settle in. If indeed we are all magical beings the awareness of our doom, our pending death should give us the sobriety to look out for the spirit, to let go, to break this perception and spread our wings into the unknown.
How did Blake said it? Cleanse our glasses to percieve things as are, infinite?

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes ... liam_Blake

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”


“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”


“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”


He knew we are living a description, maybe he knew about our other life as as well, our total being.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby clif » Thu 19 Sep 2019, 01:54:46

Not certain we, Earth I mean will have ice again, a hothouse is the more stable position and could well last until the very end as the sun becomes what, a supernova?


The sun will not go "supernova" as you put it. Simply it is not large enough, IE enough mass to get to the needed levels of fusion to create enough layers of fusion of different atomic structures to do so.

At the current time the sun is primarily only fusing hydrogen into helium. The most basic level of fusion possible. When most of the core of the sun has been fused into helium fusion will temporarily stop. The gravity of the sun's mass will cause it to contract, until the heat generated by said contraction causes the now helium core of the sun to begin fusing into carbon atoms. A layer outside this fusion cycle which will still be primarily hydrogen atoms will contain enough pressure and temperature to begin a hydrogen fusion cycle. These two fusion cycles will create enough energy to resist gravity as such and will cause the sun to expand to a red giant size, somewhere between the Venus-Earth orbit to possibly as large as Mars orbit. Time frame for this process is about 3.5 billion years. After the Helium fused into Carbon fusion cycle depletes the vast majority of helium in the core of the sun, another cessation of fusion, and resultant shrinkage of the size of the sun due to gravity will also occur. At the same time as the fusion of three helium atoms into carbon, sometimes a carbon atom and helium atom will fuse into an oxygen atom, since the energy levels for this to happen are near the same as a triple helium into single carbon atom fusion process requires.


This is as far as the mass of the sun will allow the fusion cycle to proceed, because it doesn't contain enough mass once this cycle stops the sun will cool, gravity takes over again, the center of the sun will heat up but not far enough for any more fusion to proceed and the sun will begin to cool. It has essentially become a white dwarf, and when a long enough time period has happened the sun will become what is known as a black dwarf.

Some much more massive stars move up the periodic table to the level of fusing oxygen into silicon, and the final fusion process possible the fusing of silicon into iron. This is where all star fusion stops because iron takes more energy to fuse than is given off in the process, thus slowly cooling the interior of the star in said process. (that cooling is relative) Stars that reach this point can no longer hold themselves together and the interior collapse into a black hole while the outside shells are ejected in what we call a super nova explosion.

However the limit for life on earth is shorter than the scenario of hydrogen fusion might have one believe,

For an explanation of that this link explains it very well;

http://astro.hopkinsschools.org/course_ ... h_dies.htm
How cathartic it is to give voice to your fury, to wallow in self-righteousness, in helplessness, in self-serving self-pity.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Thu 19 Sep 2019, 04:09:18

@clif,
Your stellar evolution post is largrly correct, but once iron and even a tiny bit more stable Nickel-62 is formed the star will not simply cool down.
Gravity will compress it to the point when entirely new thermonuclear reactions take place resulting in rather powerful explosion.
This is usually resulting in production of large quantity of heavy elements and a neutron star "remnant".
Neutron star or at least its interiors can be vieved as a large atomic nuclei, but it is a bit of oversimplification.

Black hole on rare occassions can also be formed out of particularly heavy stars. There can be an intermediate quark star state between these two and candiidate objects are identified by astronomers.
Quark star could be vieved as a large hadron (again oversimplification, but still).
Quark star could reignite as an electroweak star. If so then it could produce substantial output of energy for millions of years and lose mass to evade BH formation. Heavier quark/electroweak stars would succumb though, due to lack of ability to get rid of excess of mass timely enough.
The faster stellar remnant rotates the more likely it will evade collapse into BH at least for some time, until rotation slows down.
Black hole is formed at the point when density of matter in neutron or quark star attains a level where speed of sound equals speed of light (speed of sound grows with density of medium and at certain huge density will equal with speed of light). Initially a tiny "seed" BH would form in a centre and then "eat" an entire stellar core.
It is believed that 2-3 solar masses of a stellar remnant are needed for this to happen.

There is also another intersting issue during BH formation, the process of conversion of fermionic matter to bosonic matter (boson particles in opposition to fermions can have all quantum numbers equal and they can occupy exactly the same space in the same time).
Examples of bosons are photon, W & B-bosons or Higgs.
But during BH formation yet another bosons must be formed and we have no idea at all, what these might be.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby asg70 » Thu 19 Sep 2019, 11:05:38

The way things are going I would expect Peakoil.com to still be debating ETP when the sun meets its fate.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Sun 23 Jul 2023, 09:32:55

Patrick Brown wrote:What The Science Can’t Say About Climate Change

“The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.” –Neil deGrasse Tyson

It is a comforting idea that Science is true, whether or not someone accepts it. This way of thinking, endorsed by the renowned scientist and science advocate Neil deGrasse Tyson, suggests that in an uncertain world where beliefs often clash, Science can be an arbiter of truth.

Unfortunately, there is no objective arbiter of truth. Although “Science Says” may be accurate for a limited scope of fundamental inquiries, it simply doesn’t apply to most of the complex decisions societies face today. And that is why it’s so alarming that the phrase has become a common prefix in discussions about climate change.

Science as bludgeon

It’s no secret that invoking the special authority of science can be a powerful rhetorical device, creating a contrast between the scientifically minded protagonist and their dogmatically ignorant antagonists. It’s also not surprising that politicians and political movements often exploit this tactic. “I believe in Science,” Hillary Clinton declared to thunderous applause during her 2016 speech accepting her party’s nomination to run for president. “I believe climate change is real,” she continued, “and that we can save our planet while creating millions of good-paying clean energy jobs.” The subsequent “March for Science” became a platform for opposition to the Trump administration, and the popular sign reading “In this house, we believe ... Science is real” remains a fixture in many front yards.

But what does science say about saving the planet with good-paying jobs? Or about whether Trump should be president? Almost nothing. And what does it say about how we should address the climate change problem? Only a little bit more.

First, what Science has taught us: Climate change is a real side effect of humans’ efforts to harness energy—the bedrock of our material well-being—via fossil fuel combustion. We know that there are sufficient fossil fuels around us that, if we were to burn all of them, global temperatures could potentially be raised by more than 10°C above preindustrial levels over thousands of years. We understand that this would be a magnitude and rate of change matched only by catastrophic events like the end-Cretaceous extinction, which caused the demise of the dinosaurs as well as around 75% of all species on the planet.

But we also know that human material well-being is fundamentally tied to the availability and affordability of energy, and over the past several centuries, humanity has found that the combustion of fossil fuels constitutes a particularly effective means of obtaining this energy. In the most extreme hypothetical case of halting all greenhouse gas emissions immediately (i.e., in a matter of weeks or months), we know that global economic production and trade could grind to a halt, and that the basic provision of food, water, and protection from the elements would be out of reach for large swaths of the global population.

Most people would thus agree that we would like to avoid both the consequences of the combustion of all fossil fuels as well as the consequences of eliminating all fossil fuels immediately. There’s a sweet spot, in short, somewhere in the middle.

Climate action advocates often claim that, according to The Science, we have already blown past that sweet spot and that it is therefore necessary to embark on a very rapid transition away from current energy, industrial, and agricultural systems, such that there are net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and the globe avoids 1.5°C of warming. In the corporate sustainability world, such goals are even referred to as science-based targets.

In this worldview, humanity’s apparent inability to fully adopt science-based targets is an indictment of our systems of governance—and of human nature itself. Slower-than-recommended progress on decarbonization must mean that politicians are bought off and that we as a species are selfish, myopic, and rife with science-denialism. But does The Science actually dictate the optimal speed and pathway to decarbonization? It does not.

There is no single entity named The Science to call upon to make such a prescription, and even if there were, it would not be able to objectively and definitively weigh all the pros and cons of various courses of action across different people, societies, and species over space and time in order to come to such a conclusion. Thus, the best we can hope for is what already exists: a messy process of decision-making in which mostly democratically elected leaders—influenced by a variety of stakeholders—try to determine reasonable policies and actions.

ChatGPT HAS ENTERED THE CONVERSATION...

I
n environmentalist discussions, the phrase “the science says” is often used as a way of referring to the body of scientific evidence and research that supports a particular environmental argument or viewpoint. Environmentalists often use this phrase to emphasize the importance of relying on credible, peer-reviewed scientific evidence when making decisions about environmental policy and to counter arguments that are not supported by the scientific community.

For example, in the context of climate change, an environmentalist might say “the science says that burning fossil fuels is causing the Earth’s temperature to rise, leading to dangerous and potentially irreversible impacts on the environment.” By using the phrase “the science says,” the speaker is implying that their argument is based on a solid foundation of scientific evidence and research, and is not simply a matter of personal opinion or political ideology.

The phrase “the science says” is used to assert the importance of evidence-based decision-making in the face of conflicting opinions and conflicting political or ideological interests. It is also used to emphasize the role of science in informing and guiding policy decisions that have important environmental consequences, and to highlight the need for transparency, accuracy, and impartiality in the use of scientific evidence in environmental debates.
What is science?

To understand why science cannot make our most important decisions for us, it’s important to recall what science is, and the different types of knowledge that fall under its umbrella. Under the strictest definitions, the scientific method involves making observations, forming hypotheses about the underlying causes of those observations, and then meticulously designing experiments to test the validity of the hypotheses. The strongest hypotheses, and those that get conferred the status of being more-or-less true, are those that have withstood all attempts to falsify them to date.

Unfortunately, the types of questions where it is feasible to design neat tests of clear hypotheses are rather narrow and tend to be limited to fundamental aspects of physics, chemistry, and biology. Outside of those types of questions, what gets called “science” usually resembles something more like the inductive inference conducted by a detective: You have some evidence and clues, and you attempt to assemble the general story that is most consistent with these lines of evidence.

This style of reasoning, however, can be weak if the practitioner is not open to letting the evidence take them to any and all conclusions. Consider the case of Galileo. His meticulous observations seemed to point to a heliocentric model of space over the geocentric model favored by the Catholic Church. Yet without irrefutable hypothesis tests, many astronomers and mathematicians of his era were just as able to defend elaborate systems of “epicycles and deferents”—circles within circles that could account for the apparent motions of the planets and other celestial bodies while keeping the earth at the center of the universe.

As more and more observations were made, it became increasingly clear that the heliocentric model was a more elegant and simpler explanation of the motions of the planets, and it largely won out on those grounds. But the lesson remains: When there are several possible interpretations of the same observations, the detective’s preferences and biases may play a large role in their conclusions. This may be built into our reasoning at a fundamental level. In fact, cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have argued that human reasoning likely did not evolve simply to orient us towards truth but rather to convince others of our own preferred views.

In practice, this means that when we as a species (and scientists are no exception) encounter evidence that conforms to our preferred views, we tend to ask ourselves, “Can I believe this?”—and when we encounter evidence that does not conform to our preferred views, we ask ourselves, “Must I believe this?” The answer to the first question is almost always yes, and the answer to the second question is almost always no; it’s easy to come up with a reason to doubt the quality or credibility of undesirable evidence.

Understanding as much informed the work of the philosopher Carl Popper, who argued that the difference between pseudoscience and science is that pseudoscientific experiments are designed to use evidence to try to confirm hypotheses, while science experiments focus on trying to falsify them. Given our propensity to seek out evidence that confirms our hypotheses, we are all naturally pseudoscientists.

To counter that tendency, formal scientific institutions like scientific societies and journals have historically attempted to pit different perspectives against each other so that biases could be canceled out, and what emerged would be the closest possible approximation to the truth. (This is similar to the criminal justice system, where two presentations of the case are explicitly contrasted to try to arrive at the truth.)

Other checks on the scientific process have been developed over time, including the use of double-blind controlled experiments. At a more macro level, studies are subjected to peer review before publication. Anonymous experts are assigned the task of scrutinizing any given study for any flaws or limitations, and if a study withstands the review process, it is deemed sufficiently credible to be published. This is far from saying that the study has revealed the truth, of course, but it is at least a useful signal that the study has overcome a first hurdle.

So what to make of the thousands of studies that do get published? Do they amount to a truth? Here we run into another problem: The choice of what to study and how to conduct the study is left to individual researchers and research groups, which leads to a diversity of answers to slightly different questions and a general, uncertain fuzzy picture of reality. The task of combining this knowledge into a clearer overall picture is often taken up by researchers who write so-called synthesis reports. These authors are experts who evaluate and highlight what they believe to be the overarching findings of the field. But inevitably, even they must rely on their own subjective judgments to decide what research questions are worthwhile and what published studies to call attention to.

The Science cannot say how to address the climate problem in principle

All the shortcomings of scientific research collide when it comes to climate change. For the climate problem, the most well-known and widely respected assessment reports have been written by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and it is the IPCC that is often cited as representing The Science that mandates limiting global warming to 1.5°C and complete global decarbonization by 2050.

However, a reader of the reports will not find any such sentiment explicitly articulated. Indeed, it would be impossible for the IPCC to credibly do so. Here’s why:

The mainstream climate change narrative can be summarized as the understanding that A) the phenomenon is real; B) it is caused by human activities; C) it has negative impacts; and D) global decarbonization over the next few decades without substantial societal disruption is plausible. The IPCC reports are structured around this narrative, with the first part of the reports addressing the reality and causes of climate change, the second part addressing the impacts and consequences, and the third part addressing potential solutions.

Although climate science is heavily constrained by the impossibility of using copies of earth to test any hypotheses about the causes and consequences of global climate change, statements A and B are essentially narrow enough to be addressed by components of the scientific method. We can test, for example, that gases like carbon dioxide absorb and remit radiation at wavelengths that cause them to have a greenhouse effect. We can observe the increase in the greenhouse effect directly using satellites and surface instruments, and we can document the enhanced greenhouse effect’s predicted consequences on temperatures through independent observations and instrumental networks. Finally, we have physics-based mathematical models that allow us to conduct simulated hypothesis tests of what the world would look like with and without increased greenhouse gas concentrations. The oft-quoted “97% scientific consensus on global warming,” applies to statements A and B.

But from there, things become less scientific. Statement C—on the negative impacts of climate change—veers from a descriptive claim of reality to a normative claim of desirability, invoking values outside of the traditional realm of science. Statement D, about the feasibility of decarbonization, involves considerations about engineering, economics, governance, and social behavior that cannot possibly be constrained by the scientific method.

In terms of the negative impacts, Statement C—changes to the climate system that are of concern—include increases in extreme heat, sea level rise, increases in floods and droughts in some regions, enhanced fire weather conditions, and possibly stronger hurricanes. It may be widely agreed—though not scientifically “proven”—that these obvious first-order negative impacts from carbon emissions outweigh the obvious first-order positive impacts (from, for example, reduced deaths from cold spells, carbon dioxide fertilization of plants, or the expansion of agricultural zones in higher latitudes).

Beyond the first-order effects, though, there is also the net effect of industrialization via fossil fuels to consider. And on that score, global warming has coincided with a major increase in human material well-being, including through increased human lifespan, increased food supply, increased clean water supply, decreased poverty, decreased child mortality, decreased occurrence of many diseases, and many other welcome changes in the human condition. Our vulnerability to climate hazards has even decreased dramatically since we first began using fossil fuels.

And then there is the feasibility of decarbonization, Statement D. Alternatives to fossil fuels are, of course, available, but much research, including my own, highlights that there are major costs associated with the transition away from fossil fuels. One of my studies, for example, showed that the net economic effect of meeting the 1.5°C Paris Agreement temperature target would be a substantial loss of global GDP relative to no climate policy this century. The net costs come about because transitioning from energy-dense fossil fuels back to dilute and intermittent renewable sources of energy, like solar and wind, requires more inputs in terms of land, material resources, human time, and machinery to produce the same amount of energy.

Those drawbacks would be difficult enough for wealthy countries to stomach, but consider, too, that decarbonization recommendations also typically include potential brakes on the growth of energy use for low-income countries. Given the close correlation between development and societal resilience, such plans may leave the world’s poorest more exposed to the elements when they do experience extreme weather and climate events. When we acknowledge a trade-off between more efficient poverty reduction and more warming, a strong case can be made for reducing poverty and accepting the additional warming.

A case could be made for the opposite, too. These considerations are all extremely uncertain, but the thought exercise demonstrates the enormous scope of the issue and makes it clear how unrealistic it is to expect something called The Science to be able to deliver us a packaged correct course of action.

And yet many still claim that the IPCC provides just that, particularly through its use of the 1.5°C target. But if that target didn’t spring directly from The Science, where did it even come from?

The economist William Nordhaus first made a target of 2°C prominent in the late 1970s, reasoning that such an increase was near the upper boundary of the range of global temperatures experienced in the past 10,000 years, and that staying below the upper boundary seemed technically and politically feasible. Over the 1980s and 1990s, the 2°C number solidified as a useful goal for organizing climate policy. Meanwhile, in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted the official objective of stabilizing global temperature at a level that would “avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” In 2009, there was pressure to be more precise on what constituted dangerous anthropogenic interference, and the Copenhagen Accord adopted a definition that said “2°C.” The 2015 Paris Agreement affirmed this 2°C goal, but the more ambitious goal of 1.5°C also emerged out of some of the political negotiations among delegates.

Only after the official adoption of the 1.5°C target in the next few years did the United Nations solicit a report from the IPCC to assess its value. The resulting 2018 report compared impacts at 1.5°C and 2.0°C, finding that they were worse at 2.0°C. What the report did not do was claim that global warming becomes catastrophic beyond 1.5°C, and it certainly did not claim to have conducted an exhaustive cost-benefit analysis that determined that the optimal rate of decarbonization resulted in net zero emissions by 2050 and 1.5°C of warming.
The Science can say even less about how to address the climate problem in practice

Prescribing the path forward on emissions reductions is, in principle, outside of the realm of science. But that hasn’t stopped it from trying in practice.

Scientific research can, of course, inform our understanding of impacts and potential decarbonization pathways. But in order for this research to be maximally useful, the field has to have sufficient intellectual diversity to ensure that a wide variety of research questions are being asked and that the peer-review and knowledge synthesis processes are truly rigorous. Instead, the field is organized to select for research results that amplify the negative impacts of climate change and downplay the costs of imposing rapid decarbonization.

In part, that’s because the researchers who choose to study climate change impacts and mitigation are a group who self-selected into dedicating their professional lives to doing so. It makes sense that they would come into the field with the presumption that climate change impacts are large and severe. Meanwhile, their professional incentives are shaped by enormous pressure to be published—to inject themselves into the conversation—and they are disproportionately rewarded for publishing studies that seek out and highlight the most severe impacts they can find.

And impacts can be found anywhere you look. For example, temperature is such a fundamental variable—the speed of movement of molecules in a substance—that it can be plausibly said to have some effect on virtually everything. With sufficient data and sophisticated-enough methods, some statistically significant relationship between temperature and a negative impact can almost always be found.

Contributing to research bias, researchers generally have the freedom to change the specific research question indefinitely until a relationship is found. This and similar practices amount to what is known as p-hacking: searching through different datasets, models, methods, variables, time periods, scenarios, and so on until a desired relationship is discovered. A competent researcher can almost always make a plausible-sounding case to justify the methodological choices that ended up giving them their result. Combine this with a large amount of pressure to publish concise, positive results and to quickly move on from analyses that found no relationship—and never publish them—and you have a pretty high likelihood that the balance of the scientific product will mostly confirm the discipline’s priors.

To be sure, when a study eventually wends its way from a researcher’s laptop to the inbox of a journal, reviewers will generally ask for minimal demonstrations of the robustness of conclusions to methodological choices. But this does not prevent non-robust research from being published. That’s because researchers have unlimited time to come up with justifications for their choices and, more importantly, have unlimited chances to submit to journals. If their paper is rejected from one journal, they can tweak it and submit it to another journal with fresh reviewers. With enough persistence, the study will be published somewhere. Publication and truth are thus not synonymous—not even close.

These types of biases also pervade decarbonization research. Much published research does indeed indicate that a rapid energy transition away from fossil fuels is technically feasible and even economically desirable. But when evaluating these findings, it’s worth remembering that the vast majority of researchers in the field are highly motivated to come to precisely that conclusion. They went into the field with a desire to find pathways toward decarbonization, and most of their institutions, publishing journals, and peer reviewers share this goal. Combine goal-oriented research with the luxury of working mostly in hypothetical model worlds, and it becomes not at all surprising that there are numerous studies suggesting we could give up all fossil fuels tomorrow and walk away much the happier.

But imagine, for a moment, a different world where an army of smart, creative researchers are trying to produce studies to show that rapid decarbonization would be undesirable. It’s easy if you try. A researcher could, for example, note that many medical emergencies require swift actions to save people’s lives and that there is some additional risk of death for every minute of delay in getting a person professional medical attention. Then the researcher could note that even under the most optimistic scenarios, it takes longer to charge an electric car than to refill a gas car. They could even calculate the portion of all emergencies that would be affected by the additional delay, and that number could be converted into the additional lives lost per every new electric vehicle. Now imagine that this is just one of hundreds of ideas that researchers came up with to show the undesirability of decarbonization. Soon, journals and media headlines would be flooded with results of a similar tone.

You don’t have to imagine too hard because this is not very far from the current state of climate impact research. It results in headlines like “Global heating is cutting sleep across the world: Data shows people finding it harder to sleep, especially women and older people, with serious health impacts” when the underlying study, even taken at face value, showed that 1°C of warming was associated with a loss of only 20 seconds of sleep per night for females and 16 seconds of sleep per night for males. Other studies supposedly show the detrimental effects of climate change on plane turbulence, the taste of wine, the price of tampons, trust in political leaders, and hate speech. A lot of the field’s output appears to be exercises in brainstorming. It’s not that the literature is even wrong; it’s just that the aggregate message is only loosely constrained by the data and it is heavily influenced by the proclivities and priors of the researchers doing the writing.

Those who endorse Neil deGrasse Tyson’s view of science, or who enthusiastically participated in the March for Science or display “Science is Real” signs in their yards, may be reluctant to accept the extent to which non-objective social forces influence supposedly scientific results. But we’ve had to grapple with this fact many times before; geocentric astronomy, eugenics, alchemy, phrenology—all were “scientific” until they weren’t. This doesn’t imply that contemporary climate research is remotely equivalent to phrenology, which was heavily influenced by racist and sexist social norms, but it does highlight that all forms of knowledge creation are shaped by forces outside of pure reason and objectivity.
It’s time to discard “The Science Says”

Overall, The Science on climate change is only equipped to authoritatively address a relatively narrow set of questions—for example, approximately how much the climate has warmed since the Industrial Revolution, how much of that warming is attributable to increases in greenhouse gases, what that entails for certain weather phenomena, and other narrowly defined downstream impacts. The Science, however, cannot definitively weigh all the costs and benefits of fossil fuel use or calculate the optimal rate of decarbonization. Such calculations involve technological, economic, ethical, philosophical, and moral questions outside of anything that can be answered with the scientific method.

And so, in conversations about climate change, we need to abandon the phrase The Science Says and replace it with the more honest “I think that …,” followed by supporting evidence. This would eliminate the rhetorical sleight of hand intended to define opinions as facts, and it would make it harder to dismiss legitimate opposing arguments as misinformation.

This framework allows us to see our slow progress on decarbonization policy in a new light. The United Nations has hosted international decarbonization negotiations annually for almost 30 years, and global emissions have only possibly begun to plateau recently. Instead of seeing this as a failure of governments to acknowledge scientific fact, we can see this as the result of governments grappling with both information provided by the IPCC and countervailing forces like the infeasibility of forcibly transitioning proven energy, agricultural, and industrial systems to less proven and more costly systems in the near term. When we acknowledge that the idealized conception of The Science was always a fantasy, we can come to understand that this system in which mostly elected officials, rather than a technocratic ruling class, hold the most sway in important societal matters is actually the best system for collective decision-making we can hope for.


LINK
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby careinke » Sun 23 Jul 2023, 17:00:53

Tanada wrote:
Patrick Brown wrote:[b]What The Science Can’t Say About Climate Change


ChatGPT HAS ENTERED THE CONVERSATION...

I
n environmentalist discussions, the phrase “the science says” is often used as a way of referring to the body of scientific evidence and research that supports a particular environmental argument or viewpoint. Environmentalists often use this phrase to emphasize the importance of relying on credible, peer-reviewed scientific evidence when making decisions about environmental policy and to counter arguments that are not supported by the scientific community.

For example, in the context of climate change, an environmentalist might say “the science says that burning fossil fuels is causing the Earth’s temperature to rise, leading to dangerous and potentially irreversible impacts on the environment.” By using the phrase “the science says,” the speaker is implying that their argument is based on a solid foundation of scientific evidence and research, and is not simply a matter of personal opinion or political ideology.

The phrase “the science says” is used to assert the importance of evidence-based decision-making in the face of conflicting opinions and conflicting political or ideological interests. It is also used to emphasize the role of science in informing and guiding policy decisions that have important environmental consequences, and to highlight the need for transparency, accuracy, and impartiality in the use of scientific evidence in environmental debates.


LINK


Great article Tanada, although the Chat GPT part confused me so I jumped to the link and read the original article. Turns out the only part he gives his AI, (Chat GPT), credit for, was the part I copied above. I think protocols need to be developed to standardize the way use this type of AI.

That said, I still think the article is on point and brings up a serious issue with people ASSuming Science is EVER conclusive. Science is a process not a fact.

Hell the WEB telescope is proving this on a daily bases, showing stars, solar systems and even galaxies that should NOT exist according to current science. Yet there they are, complete with great photos proving the scientists wrong in their previous claims.

Which seems to be the entire point of his article.

Thanks again for the link, I really enjoyed reading it. Lots to ponder.

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Re: Fall after the Flood

Unread postby theluckycountry » Mon 24 Jul 2023, 04:26:25

Whitefang wrote:https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/897

A synthetic history of human land use
Humans began to leave lasting impacts on Earth's surface starting 10,000 to 8000 years ago...


Our fall from grace, taking more than we needed millennia ago :cry:


Well you could look it that way I suppose, but lets look at a longer time frame for a moment, one including Glaciations, asteroid strikes, all the big earth shattering events and even the nasty (that's an understatement) effects caused by super volcanoes. Considering all that what difference does it really make what we did for a few millennia. True today we are screwing things up royally, but even that is nothing compared to a decent asteroid strike.

I think you could make the case that we're just having a little fun in the back garden before the sun goes down again.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby theluckycountry » Mon 24 Jul 2023, 04:33:46

It is a comforting idea that Science is true, whether or not someone accepts it.


Well there is Science and then there is $cience, so depending on which one we are discussing depends on it's validity. No one, NO ONE, questioned Penicillin. It could be reproduced in any lab and it's effects on the human body were clear and obvious. mRNA-Vaccines? Well thousands of doctors and other scientists have called them out as dangerous but they were all silenced. That's $cience at work.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 24 Jul 2023, 09:25:23

While I in fact agree with much of the article and am pretty upset with how the research has been misused I am also somewhat skeptical of the articles path.

I like to think in terms of risk analysis. What is the potential downside of a particular action. Take a very simple analogy; Russian Roulette. “Science Says” that the risk is 1 in 6. Risk Analysis says NEVER do it.

Yes we do not have complete wisdom over the course of our actions. How close to the margins of extinction do we want to push the envelope? And the worse our “science” the larger margin is called for.

But there is another way if thinking about it, which is even more difficult. And which brings up some deeper questions.

Why are we in Earth? Do we have a ultimate purpose?

On the one hand this can be answered as a collective “Humanities purpose is to…..”

On the other hand it can be answered as an individual “My purpose is to….”

In the former case one needs to look far into the future to assure there is a future for humanity.

In the latter case, because our existence stops with us, why should I care if my actions destroy Earth, I won’t be here. He who dies with the most toys wins kind of attitude.

There may be some kind of blended solution but you can not come to that until you study the two options and weigh them.

Only once you answer this can you then decide on how to live your life. Then what to do with the scientific data you have. Otherwise you are just bumbling along in a state of ignorance, which pretty much describes where the vast majority of us are.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby theluckycountry » Mon 24 Jul 2023, 15:22:33

Cancellations Start For John Clauser After Nobel Physics Laureate Speaks Out About "Corruption" Of Climate Science

Last week, Clauser observed that misguided climate science has “metastasised into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience”. This pseudoscience, he continued, has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other related ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies and environmentalists. “In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis,” he added.

The Australian climate journalist Jo Nova was in fine form reporting on Clauser’s recent comments... She noted the lack of any mainstream media interest in Clauser’s recent comments, asking: “How much damage would it do to the cause if the audience finds out that one of the highest ranking scientists in the world disagrees with the mantra?” A question of course with an obvious answer. Quite a lot.

The same team that tells us that we must ‘listen to the experts’ won’t listen to any experts they don’t like. They rave about ‘UN Experts’ that hide the decline, but run a mile to avoid the giants of science. They’ll ask high-school dropouts about climate change on prime-time TV before they interview Nobel Prize winners. It’s a lie by omission. It’s active deception. And the whole climate movement is built on it.

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/07/23/can ... e-science/

My own personal views of AGW are not necessarily in line with the nobel laureate's but I respect his right to heard along with mentally handicapped children like Greta thunberg.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby AdamB » Mon 24 Jul 2023, 16:32:52

theluckycountry wrote:Cancellations Start For John Clauser After Nobel Physics Laureate Speaks Out About "Corruption" Of Climate Science
The same team that tells us that we must ‘listen to the experts’ won’t listen to any experts they don’t like. They rave about ‘UN Experts’ that hide the decline, but run a mile to avoid the giants of science. They’ll ask high-school dropouts about climate change on prime-time TV before they interview Nobel Prize winners. It’s a lie by omission. It’s active deception. And the whole climate movement is built on it.

Wow if this doesn't sound like the same thing that happened in the peak oil world I don't know what is. Pick experts...just not the ones that don't back up the mantra of the belief system you've gone for hook, line and sinker.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby yellowcanoe » Mon 24 Jul 2023, 16:55:25

theluckycountry wrote:Cancellations Start For John Clauser After Nobel Physics Laureate Speaks Out About "Corruption" Of Climate Science


Just because someone has a stellar reputation in a specialized field (theoretical and experimental physics in this case) doesn't make them an expert in everything. Indeed, I think a lot of smart people delude themselves into believing that they can quickly do some research and become an expert in any other field.

I used to get sent to deal with IT problems for a science professor when he was getting frustrated with the level of support provided by the people who normally would provide that support. This fellow is a Canada Research Chair, highly regarded in his field and continues to do research and teaching fulltime even though he is well past the normal retirement age. He would quite often follow me out into the hall when I was leaving and noticed that I always took the stairs instead of the elevator. I explained that I took the stairs to get exercise. So did this highly educated professor recognize that taking the stairs is a great way to get some exercise. No, not all all. His conclusion, which he revealed to one of my co-workers, was that I was afraid of elevators! It's a pretty funny story but the more general case I see is that academics who are quite proficient in their area of expertise may struggle to understand situations outside their area of expertise.
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Re: The Geoengineering Thread Pt. 2

Unread postby AdamB » Mon 24 Jul 2023, 19:05:24

yellowcanoe wrote:
theluckycountry wrote:Cancellations Start For John Clauser After Nobel Physics Laureate Speaks Out About "Corruption" Of Climate Science


Just because someone has a stellar reputation in a specialized field (theoretical and experimental physics in this case) doesn't make them an expert in everything. Indeed, I think a lot of smart people delude themselves into believing that they can quickly do some research and become an expert in any other field.

Do you think it is the lack of ability, or not, to do research that is primary...or the inability...or lack thereof, to be objective on a topic?

yellowcanoe wrote: I explained that I took the stairs to get exercise. So did this highly educated professor recognize that taking the stairs is a great way to get some exercise. No, not all all. His conclusion, which he revealed to one of my co-workers, was that I was afraid of elevators!

Making it up as they go along. Yup...peak oil experts must have learned a thing or two from your professor.
yellowcanoe wrote: It's a pretty funny story but the more general case I see is that academics who are quite proficient in their area of expertise may struggle to understand situations outside their area of expertise.

And then some. Geologists versus economists is where my favorite stories come from on exactly this point.
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Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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