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MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

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Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#31

Post by hga »

Kadin wrote: post #29
euroclydon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What motivates these global alarmists? And how do they get money by being so shrill? Is your average citizen just dying to be worried over the next catastrophe and willing to throw money at whomever can scare them the most?

> Is your average citizen just dying to be worried over the next catastrophe and willing to throw money at whomever can scare them the most? If you doubt this, I'd like to introduce you to the Department of Homeland Security.

Not a good example, unless you don't believe jihadists killed 3,000 on 9/11, aren't trying to get their hands on nuclear warheads, etc.

I think we can argue structure (e.g. DHS vs. the old, FBI vs. MI5), means, competence, etc. while still accepting the reality of a threat.

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#32

Post by protomyth »

euroclydon wrote: post #8
hga wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm ... he's been well known in this field for both of the above since the late '80s, when a friend of mine interviewed him. At the time he effectively said he had been rather naive in the publication of his research (as I recall it was a study going back 200+ years on ship temperature reports, rather important data since the majority of the world is covered by the seas). He had thought that the scientific community…

What motivates these global alarmists? And how do they get money by being so shrill? Is your average citizen just dying to be worried over the next catastrophe and willing to throw money at whomever can scare them the most?

Money is one motivator. Fame or the crusade itself may be others. Actually believing in the disaster and wanting to save people's lives is another motivator. It depends on the person.

The money argument is a pretty easy one. We are at a potential shift point in how we power ourselves. The problem is that the "new" power sources are not economical yet. Political pressure with subsides can make it economical (for the companies involved). Several politicians in the US are heavily invested in wind or solar. Fear works in spending public money.

The natural progression will happen when oil prices are too high and newer sources become economical or some breakthrough happens (think the progression of aluminum). Disaster / Fear means the change needs to happen before the market would normally change on its own.

I really wish media and politics had stayed out of the science. I mourn the loss of objectivity, testing, and discovery.

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#33

Post by DrSprout »

hga wrote: post #28
DrSprout wrote: post #14

While it's true that there's no consensus on the source of the warming, it is true that the planet is warming. That's something that tends to get lost in the shuffle, and it's really scary what percentage of the American public believes that the fundamental point is false. It also seems to me that Lindzen is exaggerating the degree of dispute over the future climate trends. I do agree that there's not a lot of eviden…

Hmmm, that's not my impression. The data reevaluation that resulted in 1934 being declared the hottest year in the 20th century, the "hide the decline" games, the fierce debate over the existence of the Medieval Warm Period and its extent (I think the alarmists now admit its existence, but debate its scope, e.g. there's a lack of data in the Southern Hemisphere and the oceans), they all suggest to me that the science…

>The data reevaluation that resulted in 1934 being declared the hottest year in the 20th century

This whole argument is getting extraordinarily tired, but 1934 could well be the hottest year on record in the 20th century without invalidating the claim that the climate has warmed on average by several degrees since then. Outlying data points are in every single data set.

>the "hide the decline" games

As I recall there was a single game, in a single email.

>the fierce debate over the existence of the Medieval Warm Period and its extent

Europe? As I understand that's where the data is from. But even so, even if the temperatures have precedents, that doesn't disprove the warming trend - it just casts some doubt on the alarmism. And that's what I'm trying to get at. Warming is happening. It will continue.

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#34

Post by deanj »

pavs wrote: post #9
dgabriel wrote: post #5

http://logicalscience.com/skeptics/Lindzen.htm

Important part: " Lindzen recieved $2500 a day from oil and coal interests for his services.1,2, 3 His article "Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus," was underwritten by OPEC.1 Lindzen has lectured at numerous Cooler Heads Coalition meetings. The Cooler Heads Coalition is funded by CEI which is in turn funded by Exxon Mobil. He has also given talks for the George C. Marshall Institut…

I get it, attack the person, not what he's saying.

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#35

Post by g2boojum »

dgabriel wrote: post #22
anamax wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to argue that he's been bought, you get to explain why AGW supporters aren't bought as well. After all, the connection between their conclusions and their funding is even stronger. Of course, the truth is that money isn't the most corrupting influence by a large margin - true belief is. You can often spot true believers by their insistence that money is the only reason why their position isn't univers…

All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent. Frankly, I think the connections to the oil industry, et al., are not as important as the veracity (or lack thereof) of his claims.

"All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent." Any evidence for that statement? My academic research was mostly funded by the US NSF, which doesn't really strike me as a "special interest". The NSF doesn't particularly care what the results are, just that the questions are worth answering and that the approach is reasonable.

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#36

Post by hga »

g2boojum wrote: post #35
dgabriel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent. Frankly, I think the connections to the oil industry, et al., are not as important as the veracity (or lack thereof) of his claims.

"All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent." Any evidence for that statement? My academic research was mostly funded by the US NSF, which doesn't really strike me as a "special interest". The NSF doesn't particularly care what the results are, just that the questions are worth answering and that the approach is reasonable.

I'm not asking you to do this work, but to prove your point you'd need to list some research that the NSF has funded that "denies" global warming (assuming they fund the reverse).

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#37

Post by hga »

DrSprout wrote: post #33
hga wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, that's not my impression. The data reevaluation that resulted in 1934 being declared the hottest year in the 20th century, the "hide the decline" games, the fierce debate over the existence of the Medieval Warm Period and its extent (I think the alarmists now admit its existence, but debate its scope, e.g. there's a lack of data in the Southern Hemisphere and the oceans), they all suggest to me that the science…

>The data reevaluation that resulted in 1934 being declared the hottest year in the 20th century This whole argument is getting extraordinarily tired, but 1934 could well be the hottest year on record in the 20th century without invalidating the claim that the climate has warmed on average by several degrees since then. Outlying data points are in every single data set. >the "hide the decline" games As I recall there…

The point here is not which year was the hottest but the incorrect research that said a recent one was. An additional point would be the big deal the alarmists made when the first results came out and their silence on the correction.

Your recollection is incorrect, "hide the decline" is found throughout the source code in the CRU archive leak (quoted like that in comments and directly expressed in the code). There's also the green line in that IPCC graph that just ends in the middle of a thicket of intersecting lines. If it had been continued, it would have ... declined. It's a pretty big deal since it throws into doubt the entire tree ring approach (not to mention the explicit or implicit fraud).

Agreed on the "casts some doubt on the alarmism", although I'd say more than "some", since they went to some effort to disappear it in the first place.

Hmmm, maybe I should ask, "Warming tend over what period?"

Since the last Ice Age, obviously. Since the Little Ice Age, certainly. Beyond that? The time series of data really matters in this debate, for if recent increases do not correlate with anthropogenic CO2 increases (e.g. if it got warm in the 20th century before that was big, and now is getting cooler) then it calls the whole alarmism crusade into doubt (at best).

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#38

Post by dgabriel »

g2boojum wrote: post #35
dgabriel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent. Frankly, I think the connections to the oil industry, et al., are not as important as the veracity (or lack thereof) of his claims.

"All science is bought by special interests to a certain extent." Any evidence for that statement? My academic research was mostly funded by the US NSF, which doesn't really strike me as a "special interest". The NSF doesn't particularly care what the results are, just that the questions are worth answering and that the approach is reasonable.

"To a certain extent," meaning that popular stuff gets funded at a much higher rate than unpopular research. I'm not suggesting your motives, or the motives of other hard-working scientists, are suspect. I'm just pointing out that most science is funded by outside organizations that have their own agendas, and can exercise those agendas by choosing what to fund. As an aside, this is true in scientific publications, as well. Just because your research is great, and your conclusions sound, doesn't mean Cell (or whatever journal) is going to print it.

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#39

Post by dgabriel »

protomyth wrote: post #32
euroclydon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What motivates these global alarmists? And how do they get money by being so shrill? Is your average citizen just dying to be worried over the next catastrophe and willing to throw money at whomever can scare them the most?

Money is one motivator. Fame or the crusade itself may be others. Actually believing in the disaster and wanting to save people's lives is another motivator. It depends on the person. The money argument is a pretty easy one. We are at a potential shift point in how we power ourselves. The problem is that the "new" power sources are not economical yet. Political pressure with subsides can make it economical (for the c…

"I really wish media and politics had stayed out of the science. I mourn the loss of objectivity, testing, and discovery."

I'm sure Galileo felt the same way... Science that might fundamentally shift worldviews has always been subject to meddling by the powers that be.

Re: MIT Prof Richard S. Lindzen: Global Warming Alarmists Are in Denial

#40

Post by BearOfNH »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #13
mnemonicsloth wrote: post #3

Header from the author's wikipedia profile: "Richard Siegmund Lindzen (born February 8, 1940, Webster, Massachusetts) is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen is known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and books…

I'd heard of him because he'd misinterpreted satellite data that apparently conflicted with the general consensus. I'd assumed that was an honest mistake but it appears that every time one of his theories gets shot down, he just moves on to the next one. The fact that they all seem to have an implicit message of "don't worry about it, everything's fine" is looking less coincidental as time passes.

every time one of his theories gets shot down, he just moves on to the next one

So ... when faced with facts that contradict his theories, he modifies his theories so as to be consistent with the facts. Isn't this what, you know, a real scientist should do?

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