That Special relationship

[Garpy]

A great big Thank You to George Bush....for basically telling Tony Blair to go shove it, despite his unflinching support in Iraq these last few years.

And it's not like Blair's asking anything for us, like some special trade concession...no, all he's asking is for Bush to recognise that global warming is man made and to chip in with the rest of us to try and sort the problem.

So you know, thanks and everything....yeah right, thanks a yahooo.

[Arac]

Didn't you get the memo? America is the most powerful country in the world! It can do what it wants, when it wants, no matter what the result is for the rest of the world or what anyone else thinks.

[anthonyX]

Didn't you get the memo? America is the most powerful country in the world! It can do what it wants, when it wants, no matter what the result is for the rest of the world or what anyone else thinks. DAMN right!

[Mr No Name]

Originally posted by anthonyX:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Didn't you get the memo? America is the most powerful country in the world! It can do what it wants, when it wants, no matter what the result is for the rest of the world or what anyone else thinks. DAMN right! </font>[/QUOTE]Don't you forget it either! graemlins/av_rofl.gif

[Garpy]

yeah well ya-boo-sucks to you guys...we got the Olympics.

sheesh...lets see what a balls-up we make of London 2012.

[DanS]

no, all he's asking is for Bush to recognize that global warming is man made and to chip in with the rest of us to try and sort the problem.
Well that might be fine if the science was settled but otherwise you are suggesting that Bush should agree to any request only on the basis of Quid Pro Quo. That sounds like a wonderful decision making process for a democratically elected leader to follow.


Since your next response is likely to label me as a Neanderthal for daring to question the 'scientific fact' that global warming is man made I'll prime the discussion with my thoughts:

1. The Earth's temperature has been in flux (both warming and cooling) long before man had any ability significantly impact the environment. Examples include little ice ages in both the Medieval ages as well as between 1600-1800 followed by subsequent warming periods (e.g. the Viking settlement of Greenland)

2. If you buy into the UN's IPCC Report (http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/online.htm) on climate change then you have to acknowledge that half of the temperature delta took place prior to the industrial age and there has been no subsequent acceleration in warming.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/03/12/muller2121703.jpg

3. The crux of the UN reports has been related to 'the hockey stick' curve produced by Michael Mann. However this curve does not seem to account for the generally acknowledged and previously mentioned little ice ages. If it does not properly represent the past why would it properly represent the future? That question was posed by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick in a little process that you may have heard of called 'peer review'.

Yep - believe it or not, people tried to apply a cornerstone of scientific method (repeatability of results) to global warming dogma. The results?

- Mann would not release the algorithm used in his study (hardly an encouraging sign in the pursuit of scientific method).

- In the absence of the actual algorithm, McIntyre and McKitrick reverse engineered an algorithm based upon Mann's assertion that principal component analysis was used in the study. As a result, they found that Mann overemphasized data points that would produce a hockey stick (including 15 data sets related to US bristle-cone pines whos authors specifically stated that the increase on ring width was not related to temperature. - remove the 15 data sets and the hocky stick 'magically' vanished).

- McIntyre and McKitrick subsequently created test data using a Monte Carlo analysis and found that it (random data)also produced a hockey stick pattern.


In short, it is a sad day when those who try to apply scientific method to a problem are sneered at as Neanderthals. The 'science' is yet to be settled and is unfortunately highly politicized at this point.

This is not to say that the Earth is not warming but it does call into question two things:
1. Is the Earth in fact warming and if so, at what rate?
2. To what degree is the warming man made?

DanS

[DanS]

A sincere congrats on the Olympics Garpy. Did you see the classy sales effort that Chirac (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/05/wchir05.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/05/ixnewstop.html) was making?

DanS

[Garpy]

Dan because I'm no scientist, and not in a postiion to confirm or counter the facts as you present them, I have to rely on good old common sense. If atleast 4/5 of the global scientific community is telling us that global warming IS man made, I'm inclined to believe that's the case.

With reagrd to the minority of scientists who claim its perfectly natural and we should do nothing about it, I do tend to wonder, who is funding their research.

nb: olympics...thanks....should be fun

[Thud]

Well DanS, as you seem to value a quantifiable time period as a necessary means for analysis, a few questions for you:

a) how long a period of time do you think is necessary to ascertain that the warming effects we are currently experiencing are a trend and not a glitch?
b) how long would humanity need to forestall human-produced global warming, if indeed it was determined to be taking place?

I am sure that you are also factoring in the rate of change (ie - the extreme increase in CO2 levels in the circumpolar region) as a vital criteria, aren't you? Or are these also simply anecdotal?

As for the Little Ice Age (LIA), this from Wikipedia:

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), based on Bradley and Jones, 1993; Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Crowley and Lowery, 2000 describes the LIA as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C, and says current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries.Last point - as far as 'buying into' the IPCC, I think you either do (as you did to support your point 2) or do not. What I find puzzling is both quoting it for support while at the same time questioning its validity.

[DanS]

Garpy,

If atleast 4/5 of the global scientific community is telling us that global warming IS man made, I'm inclined to believe that's the case.
I would be interested to see the source for 4/5 of the scientific community. I'll remind you that one of the most hysterical attempts to demonstrate such support was made by the Union of Concerned Scientists who eventually secured 700 signatures from scientists including a great many members of the National Academy of Sciences and Nobel laureates. However, only 3 or 4 of the signatories had any involvement in climatology.

In the mean time, roughly 17,000 (http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm) American scientists signed (those independently verified out of ~19,500 signatories) apetition (http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p37.htm) to reject Kyoto:

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
With regard to the minority of scientists who claim its perfectly natural and we should do nothing about it, I do tend to wonder, who is funding their research. So, do you question the funding of all of these people? McIntyre and McKitrick (http://www.climate2003.com/FAQ.htm) do not accept funding for their research. Do you also happen to question the funding of those associated with global warming dogma? You should when people have lost their funding (http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg15n2g.html) for failing to support the dogma:
In the winter of 1989 Reginald Newell, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lost National Science Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net warming over the past century.DanS

[DanS]

Error 404,

Interesting questions.

how long a period of time do you think is necessary to ascertain that the warming effects we are currently experiencing are a trend and not a glitch?
I couldn't tell you but withholding the algorithm for the study on which the strongest case is made for global warming certainly does not speed our route to ascertaining anything.

how long would humanity need to forestall human-produced global warming, if indeed it were determined to be taking place? That would depend on the degree to which humanity was a causal factor. Does the lack of an increase in the acceleration of temperature post onset of the industrial age mean that there is 0% contribution or coincidentally was the earth cycling to a cooling trend and temperature did not decelerate due to the increase in green house gasses?

One way to be certain to eliminate or at minimum significantly reduce the claimed man-made contribution would be to completely relinquish our use of fossil fuels. But even Kyoto does not call for that (at least not from the worlds most populous nations). So why exclude China and India from the lesser standard set by Kyoto if removal of the human element is the implicit goal?

Well DanS, as you seem to value a quantifiable time period as a necessary means for analysis And you don't? We have a body of (while not normalized) data in front of us. Why would you place value in any study where the conclusions fall apart with the removal of a single data source when the authors of those data sources invalidated the data for the purpose in question?

I am sure that you are also factoring in the rate of change (i.e. - the extreme increase in CO2 levels in the circumpolar region) as vital criteria, aren't you? Or are these also simply anecdotal? If you are referring to the rate of change in temperature than I am explicitly including it. If you are referring to the rate of change in CO2 levels despite the actual versus projected temperature accelerations then I suggest that you recheck your suggestion. I am content to argue the case made by the IPCC which, though I disagree, seems to make the greatest case for man’s contribution to Global Warming.

As for the Little Ice Age (LIA), this from Wikipedia You gave me quite a laugh by culling out the portion from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_ice_age) explicitly sourced from IPCC to make your case (i.e. the hockey stick itself is being used to redefine the global vs localized nature of the Little Ice Age and if Wikipedia repeats it then it must be true) especially when the rest of the same Wikipedia article goes on to verify the LIA findings in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Nevertheless I accept your challenge and offer you the next logical step in return that should be an eye opener:

Lets presume for a moment that the Little Ice Age was limited to defined locations versus being a global phenomenon. Lets also assume that we know where several of these locations are. Would you agree that if the samples for the Mann study largely came from these same geographic regions then the ‘Hockey Stick’ should reflect the LIA?
Last point - as far as 'buying into' the IPCC, I think you either do (as you did to support your point 2) or do not. What I find puzzling is both quoting it for support while at the same time questioning its validity. Why would it be puzzling for a debater in any exchange to rely on the logical faults of the opposing case to demonstrate merits for his own case? Point number two references the historical start of the industrial age and compare it to the ‘historical’ start in temperate increase reported by the IPCC. Would I have to be a supporter of the IPCC findings in order to point out the logic contradiction? It would leave scientific method in dire straits if only postulate supporters could conduct peer review.

As I mentioned in my first post, if this is the best that the Global Warming side of the argument has to offer then the release of the research algorithm (allowing it to be subjected to peer review) would be the next logical step in the pursuit of scientific method. Lack of such disclosure should be troubling to anyone in this discussion who wants science to win out over politics. However, many people just want another reason to call Bush dumb.

DanS

[kyleh]

Is this thread in response to this (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22649-1684293,00.html)?

[DanS]

Kyleh,

Not in response to (given the timing of the posts versus the news) but related to.

Interesting that Chirac is willing to say a deal is done with the Americans before the American team is willing to do so. Time will tell.

DanS

[Thud]

DanS,

Thanks for your detailed reply. My time is a smidge more limited today than yesterday but I'll toss out a few responses and questions back.

quote: how long a period of time do you think is necessary to ascertain that the warming effects we are currently experiencing are a trend and not a glitch?

I couldn't tell you but withholding the algorithm for the study on which the strongest case is made for global warming certainly does not speed our route to ascertaining anything.Thanks but I am well aware from your last post of your concerns about the deficiencies of their approach. I was hoping that you could make a suggestion but I guess not. Oh well.

One way to be certain to eliminate or at minimum significantly reduce the claimed man-made contribution would be to completely relinquish our use of fossil fuelsYes, and that will take place sooner or later (more likely sooner if current global oil predictions hold true - unless you are one of those who believe that oil will simply not run out av_eek.gif ).

quote: Well DanS, as you seem to value a quantifiable time period as a necessary means for analysis

And you don't?Yes, I do. The difference is that I think that we are now in that time period whereas you seem to be stating (unless I have misread your meanings) that that time period only has value if viewed in retrospect.

quote: As for the Little Ice Age (LIA), this from Wikipedia

You gave me quite a laugh by culling out the portion from Wikipedia explicitly sourced from IPCC to make your caseI would like to stress that I was not in fact making a case; I was attempting to show that the data about the globality of the LIA you presented was not in fact as universally accepted as you implied in your original post.

I must say that I also had quite a chuckle when I went to the IPCC website and saw the other half (http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics/2001syr/small/05.16.jpg) of the graph in your original point 2...

Why would it be puzzling for a debater in any exchange to rely on the logical faults of the opposing case to demonstrate merits for his own case?Indeed, it is entirely correct for a debater to point out flaws in their opponents argument; that is a part of what debate is. Simply pointing out faults is not the debate itself, however ("Is this the right room for an argument?"). Until both sides state views and source them, true debate is impossible, I think.

Lack of such disclosure should be troubling to anyone in this discussion who wants science to win out over politics. However, many people just want another reason to call Bush dumb.Huh? You want science to win out over politics (which has never actually taken place IMO but whatever) and then throw in a reference to Bush? Hmmmm....

[DanS]

Error 404,

We are both short on time today. av_smile.gif

I must say that I also had quite a chuckle when I went to the IPCC website and saw the other half of the graph in your original point 2... I am missing your point. The second graph is a subset of the first and it still is reliant upon the same algorithm to reverse extrapolate temperatures (notice the still present margin of errors).

Indeed, it is entirely correct for a debater to point out flaws in their opponent’s argument; that is a part of what debate is. Simply pointing out faults is not the debate itself, however ("Is this the right room for an argument?"). Until both sides state views and source them, true debate is impossible, I think. I am just going to have to disagree with you. The thesis presented by the IPCC report either stands up to scrutiny or it does not. Part of that scrutiny involves examining it for logical consistency. Disproving the thesis does not remove the possibility of Global Warming but it does lead to the next thesis iteration.

Huh? You want science to win out over politics (which has never actually taken place IMO but whatever) and then throw in a reference to Bush? Hmmmm.... The thread started with a knock against Bush and an assumption that the debate in this arena was over. I perceived my response as in context but your mileage may vary.

G'nite all,

DanS