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UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

timesonline.co.uk

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Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#61

Post by bballant »

beagle3 wrote: post #60
bballant wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust your instinct and don't lose site of the fact that these cases of bad science are few compared to the good. My instinct tells me that we're destroying the planet. The effect of global warming is hard to see, but it's not hard to imagine given all of the other messes we've made.

How do you know that "these cases of bad science are few compared to the good"? Seriously, whenever money or prestige is involved, the bad science has a much better chance.

I guess one can't know for sure, but I imagine the climate-change deniers and conspiracy-theorists would have uncovered more than one case of data fudging if it was wide spread.

Money and prestige? Really? I wasn't aware climate science was the path to fame and wealth. Do you only trust the poor and obscure?

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#62

Post by lacrossegm »

ErrantX wrote: post #58
lacrossegm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. The fervent nature of global warming denial-ism drives people to go to great lengths to undermine the real science and delay action.

The fervent nature of global warming believers makes it hard to separate political posturing from useful action. Lets get the data sorted out; not so that we know what to do (that is easy, and almost irrelevant to GW issues - just no one is really bothering....) but so that the politicians can't abuse the figures for their own end.

To each their own. I have looked it from both sides. The real-climate science camp seems genuinely concerned about causes and consequence of global warming. The other camp, call them deniers, skeptics, or whatever are more concerned about money. They believe that the cost to combat global warming is too high. It also seems divided along political lines. It is flawed logic but some people do think they can use it for political gain, on both sides of the aisle.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#63

Post by vannevar »

ErrantX wrote: post #58
lacrossegm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. The fervent nature of global warming denial-ism drives people to go to great lengths to undermine the real science and delay action.

The fervent nature of global warming believers makes it hard to separate political posturing from useful action. Lets get the data sorted out; not so that we know what to do (that is easy, and almost irrelevant to GW issues - just no one is really bothering....) but so that the politicians can't abuse the figures for their own end.

"Lets get the data sorted out"

The data HAS been sorted out, by people who have spent the better part of their lives studying climatology. And among the group that has spent the most time studying Earth's climate, there is broad consensus that a) Earth's climate is warming and b) increased CO2 levels from human activities is the primary cause.

The great thing about this debate, if you're a lobbyist for industrial groups opposing any action to limit CO2 on financial grounds, is that you don't have to prove all those people wrong. You just have to cloud the issue enough to create the illusion of debate over points a and b. It's the PR equivalent of 'reasonable doubt'.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#64

Post by ErrantX »

lacrossegm wrote: post #62
ErrantX wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fervent nature of global warming believers makes it hard to separate political posturing from useful action. Lets get the data sorted out; not so that we know what to do (that is easy, and almost irrelevant to GW issues - just no one is really bothering....) but so that the politicians can't abuse the figures for their own end.

To each their own. I have looked it from both sides. The real-climate science camp seems genuinely concerned about causes and consequence of global warming. The other camp, call them deniers, skeptics, or whatever are more concerned about money. They believe that the cost to combat global warming is too high. It also seems divided along political lines. It is flawed logic but some people do think they can use it for…

The way I see it is: going green is just sensible irrespective of the actual facts. I just don't see any actual committed progress to being "green" (I could name you 10 policy ideas right now that would have a massive impact).

The climate work, IMO, is about talking a very very close look at how much of an impact we are having - and assessing if our response is enough or if more is required.

But all I see, especially recently, is corruption, money and political manoeuvring on both sides.

EDIT: I disagree with your appraisal of the 2 camps though (I'm guessing you fall into the believers camp). As someone sat in the middle, in frustration, both camps are as bad as the other.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#65

Post by gjm11 »

yannis wrote: post #59
gjm11 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that the best policies do not involve taxation? (If it's because you take it as an axiom that no good policy involves taxation, then the fact that you don't want taxation in this particular case is perfectly uninformative.)

It's because in general I believe tax money is not utilized effectively and their impact on demand is minimal. Non-tax policies could have similar effects. For example the government could impose a ban on manufacturing SUV vehicles or improve the public transport system. Increasing the age at which one could get a driver's license in the USA would probably reduce petrol consumption by a few percent (as more families…

> What evidence do you have that the money received in tax would not purchase goods and services that would increase emissions?

Eh? Where did I say or imply that it wouldn't? I asked why you're so sure that taxation couldn't be part of the best policy. I didn't say I'm sure that it should be. I don't know what the best policy is.

(In any case, surely what's relevant is not whether any tax revenue would go to purchasing things that increase emissions, but whether the net effect would be an increase in emissions.)

> I never made an axiom. [...] It was your assumption.

You might want to remind yourself of the meaning of the word "if".

> The least you could have done was to ask me to clarify my position.

Curiously, that is exactly what I did.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#66

Post by gjm11 »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #56
vannevar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only conclusion that I 've been able to draw from this mess is: climate science has been seriously compromised" Really? I'll give you a more plausible conclusion: that the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests from people whose only interest was to disseminate distortions of their findings.

requests from people whose only interest was to disseminate distortions How do you know the intent of those asking for information? It seems to me that there are plenty of people here on HN that would just like to try their own hand at models. Who gets to decided when a request merits a response? the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests The one who pays the piper…

My understanding is that they couldn't make everything available, because some of their data came from sources with confidentiality conditions attached. See, e.g., http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427393.600-battle-fo... (note: "New Scientist" is less than perfectly reliable, but I have no reason to think they're wrong on this particular point).

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#67

Post by gjm11 »

gjm11 wrote: post #35
yannis wrote: post #14

I am glad this is breaking out slowly but surely and the C02 saga will probably be the greatest scientific scandal of our time. I have been following the story for as far as I remember as I had an interest in Ice Ages. This article http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf is very good at debunking some of the myths. You can play with a model online with this http://cs.clark.edu/~mac/physlets/GEBM/ebm.htm#tipt…

> or you can write your own Clojure one, like the one we had yesterday here at HN. The Clojure one we had yesterday that 1. looked only at data during the "hockey-stick handle" period; 2. found, in his very first graph, a steady increase in temperatures over that period whose magnitude (>2 degrees C) was greater than that in the usual "hockey-stick" graph (~ 0.7 degrees C); 3. plotted a bunch more graphs in ways that…

(Evidently I am unable to count to 4. Sorry about that.)

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#68

Post by anamax »

bballant wrote: post #54
anamax wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we just need to observe the ice at poles It's currently increasing at both.... The polar bear populations are increasing too. > the dead coral reefs Runoff from deforestation is killing most of them. There's some effect from increased disolved CO2, but it goes both ways. (Some creatures/plants benefit, others have problems, and still others don't seem to care.)

Ice is and polar bear populations are increasing? I have only read evidence to the contrary. Please provide a citation so I don't think you just made this up.

http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=153

You can look up the polar bears yourself. You'll find that the population now is about 4-5x the population in the 60s. It may be decreasing slightly in the past few years, but that's in the noise compared to the recent increases. There's no reason to suspect temp change has had an effect comparable to direct intervention by humans.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#69

Post by anamax »

vannevar wrote: post #52
anamax wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're hearing a lot about market failure these years, how's this for government failure? Govt failure isn't new. Govt is systemic risk. When US car companies decided that they didn't want to make the kind of vehicles that I wanted, Toyota was willing to do so. When the US govt decides to do something dumb, I'm expected to pay for it. And when I point out that it's doing dumb things, I get yelled at by folks who thi…

Indeed, screw all this 'democracy' business where I'm sometimes in the minority, and this 'free speech' nonsense where people voice disagreement with me. And screw these pointy-headed academics with their sinister hidden agendas, telling businessmen what to do. C'mon boys, let's get our jack-boots on and take care of this silliness once and for all.

Say anything you want, just don't force me to pay for it.

> And screw these pointy-headed academics with their sinister hidden agendas, telling businessmen what to do.

If something is such a great idea, spend your money and get rich. Of course, I also expect you to take the loss if you're wrong.

What? You're not willing to risk your money?

Which congress critters do you think can run your life better than you can? Seriously - I want names.

Democracy? Would you choose Congress to run anything

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#70

Post by bballant »

anamax wrote: post #68
bballant wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ice is and polar bear populations are increasing? I have only read evidence to the contrary. Please provide a citation so I don't think you just made this up.

http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=153 You can look up the polar bears yourself. You'll find that the population now is about 4-5x the population in the 60s. It may be decreasing slightly in the past few years, but that's in the noise compared to the recent increases. There's no reason to suspect temp change has had an effect comparable to direct intervention by humans.

Thanks for sharing the article. In looking at the data, one notices a clear cyclic pattern but also a subtle general upward trend in temperature and downward trend in ice cover (i.e. the temperature lows are higher and the highs are higher) over time. But I'm no climate scientist.

With respect to the polar bears, I searched around and found many articles which state that the population in the 60's had been diminished because of hunting and that, currently, the plurality of polar bear populations are in decline because of climate change. The one article I found that supports your argument was from Fox News (no bias there ;-)).

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