The global warming issue is complex. If you are a skeptic about CO2 increases due to humans, warming since 1880 or the basic science of greenhouse gasses you are simply uninformed. However if you are not modestly skeptical of mult-decade forecasts of temperature, rainfall or cyclones you are simply naive. These are incredibly complex systems that are only partial understood.
95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
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Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#32This is where the guy loses me: "then there is even less reason to force expensive and prosperity-destroying energy policies down our throats" and "increase energy prices and freeze and starve more poor people to death for the greater good" As if he gives a crap about poor people. People freeze not because of energy policies but because we have poor social welfare and exploitive foreign policy that itself is motivate…
You lost me. Where does the author make the claims that you appear to be disputing?
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#33I don't know why the uncertainties of climate modelling is valid reason for inaction. When one of the possible outcomes of dumping trillions of tons of GHG into the atmosphere is global disaster, then the poorer our models the more we should be worried.
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#34To anybody reading this article, While Dr. Spencer does have real credentials, he is a know denier. I'm not saying that makes him necessarily wrong, but he is extremely biased in his views, and often publish research to back up those biased views. So I think he's comments should be taken with a grain of salt.
Indeed, had to look at the author after the poor emotionally charged writing made his biases immediately clear.
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#35This is very interesting.. I'd like to hear more from experts in the field. I was never fully convinced that global warming was that bad. But then again I have always taken it for granted that we caused it, and that it has great effects on humans and animals.
Here you go:
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#36This is where the guy loses me: "then there is even less reason to force expensive and prosperity-destroying energy policies down our throats" and "increase energy prices and freeze and starve more poor people to death for the greater good" As if he gives a crap about poor people. People freeze not because of energy policies but because we have poor social welfare and exploitive foreign policy that itself is motivate…
You lost me. Where does the author make the claims that you appear to be disputing?
Does your ctrl+f not work? Both of those quotes were in the sixth paragraph.
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#37For a blink I thought I had read "posterity-destroying" and I nodded.
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#38I'm a natural skeptic, so when everyone believes something I think that is the most important time to question it. I found Economist Bjorn Lomborg's take on climate change to be very impactful... http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_prioritie... The basic idea is: that given our limited resources how can we do the most good? The answer is that focusing that effort on climate change is frivolous even by…
The problem with doing net present value calculations on climate change is the possibility of "infinite" cost events.
Sure it might make more sense from a NPV perspective to spend a given number of dollars on say improving the water treatment in poor countries rather than stopping GHG emissions, but only if we know the maximum cost of climate change. The problem becomes how do you do a NPV calculation on the possibility of a positive feedback warming event that causes the Earth to become uninhabitable. This is effectively an infinite cost event. Even if such a risk is small, no NPV calculation has any value.
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#39I don't know enough about meteorology to comment on the article, but this quote bugged me: "And if humans are the cause of only, say, 50% of the warming (e.g. our published paper), then there is even less reason to force expensive and prosperity-destroying energy policies down our throats." No, there's the exact same amount of reason. This isn't a morality play, who's "fault" it is doesn't matter. If there were a met…
If the impact of global warming is significantly smaller than predicted and the human-induced contribution to that reduced warming is also much smaller than claimed, then expensive "green" policies indeed need to be reevaluated. Your fault reasoning has nothing to do with it. Think of it from a programming perspective. You've suddenly discovered that your program runtime wasn't near as slow as you thought. Plus you'v…
Except that the entire "humans are responsible for say n%" is the latest diversionary tactic by climate deniers to sucker rational people onto opposing policy that mitigates climate change.
The argument is akin to saying "your program slowdown is - and I'm making up a number out of thin air - 50% caused by systems outside of your control so you should definitely spend 50% less time optimizing the things you can optimize".
The logical flaws are blatant: the % is an invention, and the truth or otherwise of the premise has no bearing on the action you can and should take.
Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong
#40More on the author of this post: https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Roy_Spencer.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)#Views Another interpretation of this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/1xuccb/95_of_climat... (also see ovis's link in a reply below) Regarding very similar claims: https://www.skepticalscience.com/curry-mcintyre-resist-ipcc-... http://www.skepticalscience.com/ipc…
"Earth and its ecosystems – created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence – are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting" - Roy Spencer