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Paper Mac posted:A1F1, which we're tracking at this point, takes us to 5 deg C by 2100 in the absence of any feedbacks and conservative assumptions about climate sensitivity. 7-10 deg C is usually a post-2100 scenario, not "by-2100" unless you postulate feedbacks, but there's sufficient fuels in the ground to take us there. In any case, I'm not sure who you've been talking to, but there's a consensus that 4 deg C above pre-industrial represents widespread disaster in terms of population health, social cohesion, etc. The 7-10 deg C warming scenarios I'm talking about are beyond imagination. We're in the process of baking in 4 deg C with our current emissions. Whether or not we get to 7-10 will depend on our emissions course over the next 50 years or so. Which is really my point. We'll never make meaningful action if our argument is "Do what I say or else the world will be doomed in +100 years". We sound just like a doomsday cult, and we'll have the same predictive accuracy. Widespread disaster and an end to global society and economics are two vastly different things. We've had widespread anthropogenic disasters for the last 200+ years and often it strengths global trade and institutions. We are talking about climate change undoing a large chunk of the advances in human quality of life, and that's going to be a dark age if we let it happen, but it won't destroy our human institutions. Really, mitigation is a dead horse (not enough money to be made) and geoengineering is going to be the new hotness (which might mean worse impacts but certainly not the predicted ones).
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# ? Sep 26, 2013 22:40 |
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# ? May 31, 2024 01:01 |
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Squalid posted:Well no poo poo duh we're all toast in a business as usual scenario. If we get to a point where we can't grow unirrigated corn in Ohio I'll probably be more interested in what I can pillage from the smoking ruins of Pittsburgh than peanut yields per hector in Niger or w/e. The problem is that the notion that BAU results in basically "adaptable" climate change is incredibly widespread. Squalid posted:However I disagree that adding human variables doesn't make systems less predictable. Especially when action may be contingent on large scale institutional action that is subject to the whims of a few individuals. The IPCC could produce a much more precise warming prediction if they could just replace the human economy nice, predictable CO2 making machines. Sorry, I need to be much more specific: the fact that humans have the technical capability to move water around does not make growing conditions much less predictable. We can make pretty reasonable predictions about how long particular aquifers can hold out at particular consumption rates under particular precipitation regimes. Generally speaking these answers are not encouraging if what you want to do in response to drought is to build out massive irrigation works. There may be other technical solutions to this problem, but one way or the other they're going to be subject to logistical models. You are of course right that above that there is a whole layer of political and institutional indeterminacy, but I'm speaking only to the question of "could technical solutions be used to overcome predicted drought conditions in eg. the Mississippi basin in 20-30 years" and as far as I can tell the answer to that is "maybe inconsistently mitigate". Squalid posted:One of the things that causes me a lot of anxiety is what even a plateau in global per capita agricultural productivity could do to tropical forests. I just can't imagine the governments of Indonesia or Brazil resisting domestic pressure to develop tropical forests without massive payments from more developed nations, yet the amount of carbon that would be released by clearing the Amazon represents a planetary death sentence, just as certain as burning all the oil shale. Yeah, it's a good point.
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# ? Sep 26, 2013 22:47 |
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Trabisnikof posted:Which is really my point. We'll never make meaningful action if our argument is "Do what I say or else the world will be doomed in +100 years". We sound just like a doomsday cult, and we'll have the same predictive accuracy. Right, there's a difference between advocacy and political speech and an internet message board, though. It sounds like we're on the same page here, all I'm saying is that if you care about this issue, being honest about the stakes is important. Our current trajectory is an incredibly dangerous one, and the amount of institutional inertia and path-dependence keeping us locked to it is formidable. Trabisnikof posted:Widespread disaster and an end to global society and economics are two vastly different things. We've had widespread anthropogenic disasters for the last 200+ years and often it strengths global trade and institutions. We are talking about climate change undoing a large chunk of the advances in human quality of life, and that's going to be a dark age if we let it happen, but it won't destroy our human institutions. Institutions only matter when they can mobilise human beings and resources (social, material, spiritual) in the service of some goal. I think prognoses here are going to depend on your diagnosis of the current institutional paralysis. I look at institutions that live in energy-profligate logistical wonderland (JIT is an incredible feat of organisation if you think about it) who still can't manage to lower the gun they're holding to their own temple, and I don't see them responding well when energy shocks become more common (either as a result of regulation, climate change, post-peak pricing, or whatever). I think the question is not "are current institutions going to be abandoned" (many inevitably will be no matter what happens) but "which institutions do we perform triage on, which ones do we write off, and which new ones do we need, at what scale, and with what relationship to each other and existing instititutions (including states etc)". Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Sep 26, 2013 |
# ? Sep 26, 2013 23:00 |
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Paper Mac posted:Sorry, I need to be much more specific: the fact that humans have the technical capability to move water around does not make growing conditions much less predictable. We can make pretty reasonable predictions about how long particular aquifers can hold out at particular consumption rates under particular precipitation regimes. Generally speaking these answers are not encouraging if what you want to do in response to drought is to build out massive irrigation works. There may be other technical solutions to this problem, but one way or the other they're going to be subject to logistical models. You are of course right that above that there is a whole layer of political and institutional indeterminacy, but I'm speaking only to the question of "could technical solutions be used to overcome predicted drought conditions in eg. the Mississippi basin in 20-30 years" and as far as I can tell the answer to that is "maybe inconsistently mitigate". Yeah I agree with all that. Although in my original post I wasn't specifically addressing crop failure due to drought, which gave me more room for confidence.
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# ? Sep 26, 2013 23:06 |
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Trabisnikof posted:Look at this chart. This is all awful stuff we should prevent, but its not the collapse of the global economy. I think the problem with charts like this is they encourage people to view the effects in isolation. They see "hundreds of millions facing increased water stress" or "millions more experience coastal flooding each year" and think "Well, that will be tough, but we can deal with it". The problem is that in reality we'll be experiencing all of those effects at the same time. It's a lot harder to deal with a big food shock when you're already spending all your money on shoring up coastal defences and your infrastructure is failing. Instability can have feedbacks as well as climate. Of course, you have to draw a distinction between the real global economy and the global financial system, but if a bursting bubble (real estate/commodities/debt, pick your narrative) can bring the latter to the brink, I hate to think what climate change can do to it. In more immediate concerns, the crazy negotiations over the US debt ceiling are heating up (), and that Republican wish list they sent over includes approval of Keystone XL and unspecified but presumably large rollbacks of environmental legislation. Not surprising maybe, and not going to happen, but I think it shows that if the Republicans were to regain power it's probably game over.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 10:43 |
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New report to quote out of context yay:IPCC 2013 posted:Relative to the average from year 1850 to 1900, global surface temperature change by the end of the 21st century is projected to likely exceed 1.5°C for RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 (high confidence). Warming is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 (high confidence), more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5 (high confidence), but unlikely to exceed 2°C for RCP2.6 (medium confidence). Warming is unlikely to exceed 4°C for RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 (high confidence) and is about as likely as not to exceed 4°C for RCP8.5 (medium confidence). Everyone go check it out and play the game too!
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 18:05 |
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Trabisnikof posted:I'm sorry but there's not a research consensus to support global economic collapse in a 7-10˚F (no one seriously argues for a 7-10˚C model) scenario. quote:Our calculated global warming in this case is 16°C, with warming at the poles approximately 30°C. Calculated warming over land areas averages approximately 20°C. Such temperatures would eliminate grain production in almost all agricultural regions in the world. Increased stratospheric water vapour would diminish the stratospheric ozone layer. Not 'research consensus' but not some uninformed nutcase either.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 19:01 |
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TACD posted:This is not quite true. Yeah, but in the post above you I included the newest IPCC conclusion which is: IPCC 2013 Policymaker Summary posted:Relative to the average from year 1850 to 1900, global surface temperature change by the end of the 21st century is projected to likely exceed 1.5°C for RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 (high confidence). Warming is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 (high confidence), more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5 (high confidence), but unlikely to exceed 2°C for RCP2.6 (medium confidence). Warming is unlikely to exceed 4°C for RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 (high confidence) and is about as likely as not to exceed 4°C for RCP8.5 (medium confidence). Also the paper that the article cites in fact has a vastly different conclusion than ThinkProgressive makes: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.4846.pdf
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 19:06 |
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TACD posted:This is not quite true. "16°C" is for for the scenario of "burning all fossil fuels", and it's over a much longer time scale than the end of the century mark used by the IPCC report.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 19:25 |
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TACD posted:This is not quite true. Well, good news is if we can reproduce those numbers on Mars we might have at least one habitable planet in the solar system.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 19:33 |
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Uranium Phoenix posted:"16°C" is for for the scenario of "burning all fossil fuels", and it's over a much longer time scale than the end of the century mark used by the IPCC report.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 21:13 |
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TACD posted:That's true, I forgot the context of 'by 2100' in my quote. I don't think it's unreasonable to look at the effects of burning 'all fossil fuels' when that appears to be our default trajectory, though. Please, even if climate change didn't exist we wouldn't ever "burn all fossil fuels" just simply because it doesn't make economic sense to do so. Hanson's paper was answering a "what-if" question, it doesn't tie back a realistic policy scenario.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 21:22 |
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I've recently received a newspaper article from a family member that raised some issues with the current climate change predictions. Since the newspaper is well respected but still a newspaper, I'm not sure how to interpret it, since it offers no statistics or sources. Also, searching on the website of the newspaper I find contradictory statements. Basically, it asserts that temperatures haven't risen the past 10 years, in contrast to every climate model we have. It also asserts that sea levels aren't rising abnormally fast, that any rise could be due to any number of reasons, etc. It continues on to say that deserts aren't getting bigger and that the frequency of tropical storms isn't increasing, all in contrast to all the doomsday predictions of the common climate change views. I've done some light googling but came up empty. Anybody know where and how they got that data and if it is in any way correct? The family member in question is a heavy climate sceptic and the newspaper is generally trustworthy so I'd appreciate any clear and concise scientific data about this.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 22:02 |
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The temperature record is easy to check. It has indeed been steady, or even slightly decreasing, over the past decade, which is not what most models predicted. But periods of stability or decline in themselves don't indicate that a large-scale rise isn't happening; there was also an overall decline from 1940 to 1980(!). This could fairly easily be something similar.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 22:08 |
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The IPCC report summary came out today, but it had been leaked last week and some bits were cherry-picked. All of that stuff comes from the IPCC leaked report, and it's all at least somewhat misleading. http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/09/ipcc-climate-change-report-is-out-its-warmer-and-were-responsible/ It will take a few days for the full story to filter through to the newspapers, and the full text of the report doesn't come until Monday. Expect some page 18 one line retractions.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 22:10 |
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Kalenden posted:I've recently received a newspaper article from a family member that raised some issues with the current climate change predictions. Have a look at skepticalscience for a primer, it's designed specially to answer these points and give you some references. These 'arguments' have been going around for a long long time, no matter how many times they're addressed and debunked they just keep getting trotted out. Also most newspapers are pretty bad on climate science
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 22:50 |
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Kalenden posted:I've recently received a newspaper article from a family member that raised some issues with the current climate change predictions. Kalenden posted:Basically, it asserts that temperatures haven't risen the past 10 years, in contrast to every climate model we have.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 23:03 |
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Uranium Phoenix posted:However, the models used for predicting climate are quite reliable.
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 23:26 |
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Strudel Man posted:Man, that's a pretty weak response. If the argument is "[Models] are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data," you can't exactly disarm it by saying that the hindcasting is accurate. What are you talking about? Who is making that argument?
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# ? Sep 27, 2013 23:48 |
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The other issue is how do scientists publicize this information and get people on board to seriously discuss what we need to do right now. http://www.straight.com/news/431576/gwynne-dyer-when-feedbacks-are-triggered-climate-change-becomes-runaway-engine quote:CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST JAMES Carville coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” to focus the attention of campaign workers on the one key issue that would get Bill Clinton elected president in the 1992 U.S. election.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 00:18 |
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Uranium Phoenix posted:What are you talking about? Who is making that argument?
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 01:03 |
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Kalenden posted:I've recently received a newspaper article from a family member that raised some issues with the current climate change predictions. All of this is true, except its 13 years and not 10. The AR5 climate models are actually running way too hot at the time that the report is published (i.e. today)...so they're pretty much worthless immediately. The CO2 emissions are running ABOVE the highest emissions scenario of RCP8.5, but temperature is running below the low emissions scenario of RCP4.5. In the picture below, everything pre-2000 is a hindcast. Post-2000 is a forecast. The top chart at the following link shows that we're outside the 95 percentile of the models over the past 20 years (and again, this is the "low emissions" model): http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ObservedTrends25year.png Sea level is very easy to follow. We have satellites tracking global sea levels. Just go to sealevel.colorado.edu and the graph is right there. It's updated every 3 months. Models expect sea level rise acceleration, which has yet to materialize. An indeterminate amount (and likely close to the entire amount) of the sea level rise is naturally occurring. Sea levels rise all throughout interglacial periods as the ice age glaciers melt and the oceans continue their thermal expansion. Sea levels will then rapidly fall during the next ice age. We're about 5-10 meters below where sea levels were at the peak of the last interglacial. The usual state of our planet is an ice age. Humanity has sort of taken hold in this interglacial period called the Holocene, a very very brief 10,000 year time period that might end any century now. As far as the year 2100, I seriously doubt we'll get anywhere near the 2-3 feet that the IPCC has as their top range prediction considering its conditional upon their climate models. More likely it'll be closer to their low end prediction of 10 inches. Droughts, flooding, and tropical storms are actually addressed in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the IPCC AR5 report. There is "low" confidence that any changes in any of those 3 can be tied to human activity. Global storms are neither increasing in frequency nor intensity. This is an about face from AR4 and an alteration that follows the scientific literature. Previously the IPCC had claimed that these were all changing as a result of humanity. And you've likely heard Gore, et al hype up this bit of alarmism quite a bit.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 04:02 |
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Strudel Man posted:The link in the quote? Oh, sorry, I thought you were referencing someone in the thread. Well, first, hindcasting is relevant. This is because climate models being able to "predict" past events successfully means they have a better chance of predicting future ones. That's not fudging data, that's creating models that can accurately reproduce past events. Also, the link goes on to talk about why what little inaccuracies there are exist (and they are small, especially compared to "skeptic" models, which are horrendously inaccurate), highlights several models that have predicted subsequent observations, and how the world is definitely warming anyways so small inaccuracies are dumb to narrow in on.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 04:17 |
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Uranium Phoenix posted:However, the models used for predicting climate are quite reliable. That is a 3+ year old link featuring 8+ year old data. Anyone trying to convince you that the models are "quite reliable" either is an idiot or thinks you are gullible. Do yourself a favor and don't rely on Google searches that land you on SkS pages. The models show exponentially increasing temperature. We're not even increasing at the moment, and the increase could very well even be logarithmic over time. The models have been diverging from observations for 13 years now to the point where we have exited the confidence intervals. Science generally works where you have a hypothesis (in this case, climate sensitivity), and you test the hypothesis. The initial test of the climate model hypothesis is failure. So either we are missing some gigantic & temporary unknown variable that is suppressing the temperature rise, or the modelers have bungled -- severely overestimated -- climate sensitivity. Trenbeth had the big paper about temperature increases in the ocean which is perhaps 'stealing' heat from the atmosphere, but this shouldn't necessarily be viewed as anomalous. The ocean is many magnitudes denser, so if the heat is being mixed into the deep ocean, that could work out amazingly for everyone.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 04:26 |
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Overfitting is a very real issue with any statistical modeling and should not be neglected. Unfortunately we can't exactly slap together another Earth for some nice controlled experiments so you try your best with careful hindcasts.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 04:28 |
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Arkane posted:That is a 3+ year old link featuring 8+ year old data. The reason I link that is it's easily accessible information, and the concept (models are largely accurate) is correct. I guess I could link a more recent one like I already did earlier in the thread. Funnily enough, you never responded to that post, or TACD's post. Please don't act like myself and others haven't already addressed this bullshit before in this very thread.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 04:46 |
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So torn...on the one hand, I get really tired of reading goony projections of various post-apocalyptic scenarios and welcome a return to discussion of more concrete science and projections (sorry, guys). On the other hand, the fact that we're about to go on a ride with Arkane is like finding out that after years of eating nothing but cotton candy, here's a big bowl of pancake batter just to change things up. I mean, it's nice to have something different, but ghhhhhhhhhgggh Could we fast-forward through a couple talking points (I'm genuinely trying to save you having to retype these, dude)? Presumably it is still your contention that:
You can tear these up, I've tried to be pretty fair/accurate in summarizing your previous posts. I'm geniunely trying to save time here so we can get past everyone piling on you and you having to restate all this stuff. Are these relatively accurate? Have you found anything in AR5 that contradicts these positions? Edit: it's lame to post these without some counterpoints, so in order:
rivetz fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Sep 28, 2013 |
# ? Sep 28, 2013 05:01 |
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Unrelated: for a good example of skeptic BS, should anyone have a need to show someone just how lovely things get on that side of the fence, you can look no further than http://plantsneedco2.org/. Hey, interesting, this site seems fairly legit. Well-organized, sounds scientifically accurate, wow I had no idea Check out this bio page! quote:"Leighton Steward is a geologist, environmentalist, author, and retired energy industry executive. He has written about the reasons for the loss of much of the Mississippi River delta (Louisiana's National Treasure) and has given advice on how the nation can achieve "no net loss" of wetlands in the future; advice that has been accepted by the EPA and U. S. Corps of Engineers. Leighton was lead author on a book about nutrition and health (Sugar Busters) that gave advice on how to lose weight and prevent and or treat diabetes. The book became a #1 New York Times Best seller for sixteen weeks and made a significant contribution to the changes that have occurred regarding the availability of no-sugar-added, higher fiber, and low-glycemic products in the super markets. More recently, he has written a book (Fire, Ice and Paradise) that is an endeavor to educate the non-scientist about the many causes of global climate change so that the reader will be better prepared to understand what they hear, see, and read about in the media and from the politicians. In recognition of his many environmental efforts, Leighton has received numerous environmental awards, including the regional EPA Administrator's Award for environmental excellence. Aw, what a nice guy. That all sounds pretty good, dude is obviously a credible and unbiased source. Couple of minor questions, though: Why doesn't this bio mention that H. Leighton Steward is an honorary director of the American Petroleum Institute? Or that the innocuously-named EOG Resources is actually Enron Oil and Gas? Or that this site is funded entirely by Corbin Robertson, Jr., who also heads both Quintana Minerals (oil and gas development) and Natural Resource Partners (managing coal, oil and gas resources in over 35 states in the US)? Or that Steward's the former chairman of the US Oil & Gas Association? Answer: Because H. Leighton Steward thinks (and is probably correct) that the average visitor to his site is too lazy, busy or stupid to verify anything he's saying here. I'm startled that they're brazen enough to put someone with his history up there instead of finding some nobody, giving him a bunch of bullshit titles, and paying him a truck of money to smile and come off as unbiased, instead of asking people to believe that this guy who fuckin bleeds oil is really a credible source
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 05:18 |
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rivetz posted:So torn...on the one hand, I get really tired of reading goony projections of various post-apocalyptic scenarios and welcome a return to discussion of more concrete science and projections (sorry, guys). On the other hand, the fact that we're about to go on a ride with Arkane is like finding out that after years of eating nothing but cotton candy, here's a big bowl of pancake batter just to change things up. I mean, it's nice to have something different, but ghhhhhhhhhgggh Your list missed paleo, which I think is in many ways the worst facet of climate science. I mean the guy who deleted the post-1960 data from the "hide the decline" graph is one of the lead authors of the AR5 section. The idea that this field is still just a cloistered group re-using the same two data sets over and over again is mindblowing. The stuff they get away with -- from hiding data to flipping data upside down like Mann did to the PAGES 2k where they used data that was denied publication -- is mindblowing. I feel like the McShane and Wyner paper should've been like the start of the death knell of that group, but instead it's been largely forgotten. The hockey sticks are artifacts of terrible, godawful statistics. The McShane and Wyner paper showed loud and clear that there is not a single, verifiable reason that a hockey stick is the statistical "result" of a multi-proxy reconstruction of Mann's data. It would be amazing to me if 60 Minutes or Nate Silver (who already came to find out the climate models were awful when writing his book) did an in-depth study on this group and their methods. I actually wrote an email to Michael Lewis a couple years back that it would be a great book. And it would be, especially since the emails went public. Going backwards on your list, I think Hansen still has a lot of credibility even if pretty much everything he has predicted except for GHG emissions has been awful. Overall his sentiment that the Earth is going to poo poo very quickly is sort of the theme of this thread. He is a crackpot as far as I am concerned. His sea level projections are very, very wrong (his most recent prediction is 5m by 2100, which is 400% higher than the absolute highest level in the IPCC report). His temperature forecasts are very, very wrong (we're below his 0 emissions scenario forecast and his predictions just keep getting bigger the more wrong he is). His hurricane scare tactics are wrong. This guy is like the reverse Inhofe. Next on your list. The AR5 climate model projections are little changed from AR4 (although they did reduce their forecasts slightly). Not sure that you really have any sort of point there that I am using old data. Little material change. As to sea level, I'm not sure if it's to be "expected" or how we would even know that, but yes I do think to date it is unremarkable as we currently understand it. The melting of WAIS goes hand-in-hand with the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, both of which have physical limitations in the ability to melt even in the most extreme of conditions, such as discussed here and here. The contribution of glacial melt to sea level rise is also a low percentage (roughly .3mm of the 3.2mm annual increase), and sea level projections in the area of 1m would require current levels of sea level rise growing by a factor of ~4x averaged out from our current level to what will be required to achieve 1m by 2100 (exponential growth obv). Most of that rise would be thermal expansion, which is conditional upon the climate model forecasts. I don't think it's pointless to assume that the oceans are taking in more heat than expected, but realize that the ARGO floats were put out within the past decade and show very different results than the old methods. And it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if the ocean is absorbing more heat than expected and mixing it into the deep layers. The ocean is incredibly dense compared to the atmosphere. Global temperatures have been relatively flat for 13 years, yeah. Just as a general comment to this subservience to the climate models...I mean it should come as tremendously awesome news that the climate is probably less sensitive than was hypothesized and the climate models are awful, but I guess it's anathema because it contradicts your political posturing. The denial of science appears to be switching across the aisle. I think it was duck monster who posted a few pages back that he didn't even think the hiatus was happening because it was hot in his area.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 06:44 |
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Around here the local Global Climate Change deniers are straight up writing pieces for Neoliberal think-tanks on the side, but they like to obfuscate that and just state that they are totally legit professors (of They are totally doing this non-profit so please show your support and ~donate~. Somehow they still manage to get plenty of space in the media, year in and year out.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 08:17 |
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It seems to me that there is a certain type of conversation that, while very entertaining for the participants, is not very useful in any direct way. There are many ways to talk about why this might be the case. Here is one:Kuhn posted:This genetic aspect of the parallel between political and scientific development should no longer be open to doubt. The parallel has, however, a second and more profound aspect upon which the significance of the first depends. Political revolutions aim to change political institutions in ways that those institutions themselves prohibit. Their success therefore necessitates the partial relinquishment of one set of institutions in favor of another, and in the interim, society is not fully governed by institutions at all. Initially it is crisis alone that attenuates the role of political institutions as we have already seen it attenuate the role of paradigms. In increasing numbers individuals become increasingly estranged from political life and behave more and more eccentrically within it. Then, as the crisis deepens, many of these individuals commit themselves to some concrete proposal for the reconstruction of society in a new institutional framework. At that point the society is divided into competing camps or parties, one seeking to defend the old institutional constellation, the others seeking to institute some new one. And, once that polarization has occurred, political recourse fails. Because they differ about the institutional matrix within which political change is to be achieved and evaluated, because they acknowledge no supra-institutional framework for the adjudication of revolutionary difference, the parties to a revolutionary conflict must finally resort to the techniques of mass persuasion, often including force. Though revolutions have had a vital role in the evolution of political institutions, that role depends upon their being partially extrapolitical or extrainstitutional events. The implication here is that it is necessary to place ourselves in an inquiry about the consequences of some lived model or set of assertions in addition to understanding the internal integrity of such models. A examination of internal integrity alone will often be insufficient to compare and decide between two models, particularly when such debate becomes abstracted from any situated experience, as it often does. How then might we categorize the two basic paradigms that come up here, such that we can cast our minds beyond an internality of debate, which will in almost all cases be futile? There seem to me various versions, though I know others in this thread can do a much better job of naming them should they be so moved. For my own part I tend to make an initial distinction between linear and non-linear futures and go from there. Linear Changes are taking place, but they are simply consistent with historical precedent and nothing to be greatly worried about. It is certainly not the case that there is any noticeable or appreciable human effect involved in such changes. There are things to do to address globally complex issues, but such issues as equity and climate are really quite separate. Non-Linear Changes are taking place and are effected by, if not a result of the human enactment on the planet over the past couple of centuries. That enactment benefits a tiny minority of the planet who also use the majority of the planetary resources, many of which are non-renewable. This enactment is now taking place at the same scale as planetary systems and so effecting those systems. 'Climate' is a symptom and one of the most 'visible' forms of feedback in an immensely complex global phenomena. This enactment has changed some of the basic dynamics of planetary systems, leading to phenomena that are not easily explained using reductionist methods. There various extreme and moderate expressions of these. Your own expressions and understanding of the 'paradigms' likely differs, as the above is pretty brief and somewhat cartoonized. The question is about inhabiting some form of these conflicting paradigms and then considering extrapolated consequences, including but not limited to your own interests, implied change or argument from within the deletion, distortion and strategic complexification that arises in the effort to defend some paradigm or prove some other paradigm wrong. I will say for myself that doing this leads me to the living as if the non-linear future were the most likely. What is often deleted in the consideration is the role of interest or use orientation in holding one or another point of view. When present it is viewed as some political agenda or corruption. What is not included is the investment arising from self-identification, particularly in the cases of beneficiaries of some particular paradigm. If and when this is missing, as it often is in some of the arguments cyclically put forth in this thread, I find that I grow increasingly curious about that sort of grounding. I am personally persuaded in my own views in an odd way. Over the past decades I had access to the strategy think tanks of most Fortune 20 companies and many of the large consultancies. While publishing research and PR on linear growth models, they were also actively creating and enacting strategy based on non-linear effects, such as human amplified or created planetary climate effects. They still are. This is not 'contingency'. These are active plans and implementations based on cost control and profit from such effects, rather than plans based on a linear extrapolation. This includes radical changes in trading strategies and how they even understand trading strategies, asset investment and management, patent strategy, human development mapping, etc., etc. From a strategic view it is also useful to try and understand how the large explicitly military systems on the planet view the relationship between climate and security. What conclusions have they reached and how have they done that? I am not suggesting some 'you' should be persuaded by any this. That would be a colossal waste of time in any case. I am merely saying that I came to be persuaded that we are living through and contributing to a change in era on the planet through my own exposure to this. At the very least, considering the system of models and strategies with respect to consequences, I became persuaded that it was necessary to live as if this were the case, rather than the reverse. Further, I am suggesting that a failure to consider multiple paradigms from the point of view of lived and globalized consequences, when that is possible, is unethical and disingenuous. There are some fairly stunning examples of this off and on in the thread, it seems to me.
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# ? Sep 28, 2013 19:03 |
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One thing's for certain: After visiting the FRAM museum, I was extremely impressed by this tough Norwegian exploration vessel pre 1900's that made attempts to map out the northern arctic - and then antarctic. You can see the scars along the ship's hull where the arctic ice formed up and would engulf the ship as it made its way across the northwestern passage - how it was designed to float "above" ice forming around the ship and to be pulled / hauled, or moved to combat ice floas. This was a tough "little" ship designed to explore the most perilous waters known to humankind at the time. Other exploration vessels before its time met rather grisly fates, as the ice would crush the hull of the ships, forcing the crew to scuttle. That was the deadly power of the arctic. Nowadays, even the Canadian government is building infrastructure to monitor and observe international shipping routes up in the passage, as it is estimated that in the next upcoming years the passage will be clear enough to be a viable alternative to the Panama canal. Guigui fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Sep 28, 2013 |
# ? Sep 28, 2013 23:42 |
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I believe there is currently a shipping vessel sailing through the passage. Somebody felt the risk was good enough to base an entire company on.
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# ? Sep 29, 2013 01:53 |
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hobbesmaster posted:Well, good news is if we can reproduce those numbers on Mars we might have at least one habitable planet in the solar system. There would need to be a magnetic field around that planet if we ever want to make that poo poo breathable or it'd all just blow away into space or some poo poo like that.
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# ? Sep 30, 2013 17:10 |
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I found this TL;DR version of the IPCCs AR5 in The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/27/ipcc-climate-report-digested-read It's just as depressing as you think it is.
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# ? Sep 30, 2013 20:59 |
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Is weakening thermohaline circulation thought to mitigate polar warming to any meaningful extent?
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# ? Oct 1, 2013 01:05 |
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Thanks for your response; slammed w work but I'll get to this later this week.
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# ? Oct 1, 2013 02:32 |
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Arkane posted:Going backwards on your list, I think Hansen still has a lot of credibility even if pretty much everything he has predicted except for GHG emissions has been awful. Overall his sentiment that the Earth is going to poo poo very quickly is sort of the theme of this thread. He is a crackpot as far as I am concerned. His sea level projections are very, very wrong (his most recent prediction is 5m by 2100, which is 400% higher than the absolute highest level in the IPCC report). His temperature forecasts are very, very wrong (we're below his 0 emissions scenario forecast and his predictions just keep getting bigger the more wrong he is). His hurricane scare tactics are wrong. This guy is like the reverse Inhofe. http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html What's more unreasonable here, what he's saying about the future of the climate, or his solution to fix it. I don't understand how anyone can watch that video and say anything other than "wow, that's a really good idea". A revenue-neutral carbon tax that's redistributed from large fossil fuel corporations to the people. This is the nightmare we're scared of? a lovely poster fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Oct 1, 2013 |
# ? Oct 1, 2013 02:38 |
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a lovely poster posted:http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html Hell, I think global warming is a load of crap and I still support the idea. Ultimately, it acknowledges that taxes are a punishment and can be used to discourage behaviors. Right now, we punish people for productive activities by taxing income, investment and commerce. Replacing one of those (perhaps the payroll tax) with a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be a step in the right direction.
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# ? Oct 2, 2013 00:35 |
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# ? May 31, 2024 01:01 |
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StarMagician posted:Hell, I think global warming is a load of crap and I still support the idea. No snark intended; I'm genuinely curious assuming you're not just trolling or something.
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# ? Oct 2, 2013 04:00 |