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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

#141

Post by 1stop »

001sky wrote: post #130
1stop wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then please refute the "energy is the largest contributing industry" statement with some fact rather than rhetoric. In your metaphor, this is like blaming the drug dealers for the "drugs being sold on the street" problem. The drug dealer has no interest in selling you a 'drug manufacturing kit' for your home, he/she wants to keep you coming back. I was pointing out, that given it is a humanistic/moral issue. The corp…

This is a political argument about taxes, and has nothing to do with either climate or science. If you want to tax these people, go ahead...get together a bunch of special interests and some money and go lobby the relevant folks. "I was pointing out, that given it is a humanistic/moral issue." It may very well be indeed. But in the context of the submitted article and its discussion, it is proving the point about the…

I have no 'special interest'. I was responding to the idea that "we can't respond because of starving babies" comment.

That is factually untrue, and my response was based on fact, there is money, and it could be used, no babies would stave.

But I pointed out it was never considered because if the profit motive.

You seem to be railing against a position I am not holding.

To simplify:

"We could do everything we thought was needed to decrease global warming and no baby would need to starve".

I'm not saying:

- We need to do something

- We are the cause of global warming

- Doing the things we think will reduce global warming will actually reduce global warming.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#142

Post by MaysonL »

glenra wrote: post #112
MaysonL wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose that it's significantly greater than predicted? Are you willing to bet your future happiness, and the health and wealth of the rest of humanity, that it isn't?

> Suppose that it's significantly greater than predicted? Are you willing to bet your future happiness, and the health and wealth of the rest of humanity, that it isn't? Yes. Of course I am. We make those sorts of bets constantly, because Pascal's Wager doesn't work. We can't not make those sorts of bets. When somebody says "the end of the world is nigh!" it is almost always worth waiting a bit to see if in fact the…

The warming trend is continuing, and the insurance industry is already seeing significant negative effects. See for example [0], [1], [2], [3], all from a single search on "insurance industry extreme weather trends"

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/extreme-weat...

[1] http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/02/14/allianz-sto...

[2] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/partners/advinsurancetrends11...

[3]

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#143

Post by glenra »

MaysonL wrote: post #142
glenra wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suppose that it's significantly greater than predicted? Are you willing to bet your future happiness, and the health and wealth of the rest of humanity, that it isn't? Yes. Of course I am. We make those sorts of bets constantly, because Pascal's Wager doesn't work. We can't not make those sorts of bets. When somebody says "the end of the world is nigh!" it is almost always worth waiting a bit to see if in fact the…

The warming trend is continuing, and the insurance industry is already seeing significant negative effects. See for example [0], [1], [2], [3], all from a single search on "insurance industry extreme weather trends" [0] http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/extreme-weat... [1] http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/02/14/allianz-sto... [2] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/partners/advinsurancetrends11...…

Even if it's still "warming" at all - whether it is depends on what timescale you look at and how you average the data points - it's certainly not continuing as predicted, but rather at a lower rate than expected. Breathless media stories notwithstanding, nobody thinks the amount of warming we've seen thus far is likely to have generated measurably "more extreme" weather. One of your links is about Sandy, but atlantic Hurricane activity has been unusually LOW over the last decade, with 2013 one of the lowest yet. You should perhaps balance your diet with more stories like this:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/what-happened-to-the-2013...

(Regardless, even if there were measurable negative effects you would need to balance them against the measurable positive effects to determine if the NET externality was positive or negative. It's silly to add up just one side - even the IPCC doesn't do that.)

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#144

Post by brucefancher »

MaysonL wrote: post #117
waps wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that we have no idea what effect the policies have. They could be good, BUT they can also have bad results. I mean bad beyond just the economic implications. Since the climate system has been working a certain way for ~10000 years, I'd say the default position should be that nothing is going to change. What's missing from your reply is an answer to the data he's showing. A long…

Of course he's looking at one small set of data: temperature measurements. Consider the wide range of physical and biological changes occurring. Drunken forests. Polar ice melt. Bird migration changes (earlier spring and later fall, as well as some novel over-wintering). Changes in animal and plant ranges (including massive pest increases in some areas). Dying coral reefs. Increased extreme weather events (ask the in…

Thank you for providing evidence to back up your assertions. Oh wait . . .

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#145

Post by dredmorbius »

gruseom wrote: post #140
dredmorbius wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, there are people who consider evidence, logic, and consequences, and base their understanding off of that.

There may be a few, but there are countless more who falsely believe this about themselves. Therefore it is wiser in most cases, especially one's own, to presume that this belief is self-deception. Self-observation quickly reveals how often the emotional reaction precedes and conditions the cognitive one.

If someone can show a track record of having changed their views, and their arguments are from the perspective of achieving a greater understanding, and not of cramming some ideology down others' throats, I'm markedly more willing to consider that they are sincere in this statement.

It's not necessary to bend in every wind, but I look for some signs of adaptability.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#146

Post by brucefancher »

DanBC wrote: post #137
theg2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otherwise known as the Reddit hivemind syndrome. Don't agree with someone's opinion? Flag or bury it? How about instead you rebut it in the comments and help inform those "crap voters".

Because with things like climate change denialism there is very little point in having that conversation. People either listen to the vast majority of scientists (global change is happening; global change is almost certainly driven by human activity) or they can listen to scientists who do not work in climate and who have been paid by industry to create FUD - some of these scientists are the same people who ised to w…

Quite right, we wouldn't want to let any facts get in the way of belief. That's how science works, isn't it?

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#147

Post by dredmorbius »

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #63

I'll just leave this here without comment for the open minded: http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_compone...

Might be more persuasive if Huntsville hadn't been relocated to Alaska. Climate change is enough of a challenge to civilization without adding violent tectonic drift.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#148

Post by SamReidHughes »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #111
TheEzEzz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity I'm not convinced this is true. Certainly the story of Jesus is evidence , but it's not clear which direction the evidence should push us. Someone making a claim does not always mean our posterior estimate on the claim should increase. Here's a simple example: I hand you a small bottle filled with medical-looking pills and a nice label. I ask you, "What's the…

The right question: is P(prophet|says prophet) > P(prophet|says ordinary guy)? My argument is only that any semi-mainstream religion is more likely to be true than some random arbitrary belief system. I.e., Christianity and Islam are both more likely than Anti-Christianity. I just don't buy your argument that the evidence for all possible religions (including ones you made up for this argument only) cancel out. That'…

Your argument's invalid, because P(prophet) has nothing to do with whether $diety is telling the truth through said prophet or lying. The only way to predict whether $diety is an earnest hypocrite or a master of deception is by pulling a prior out of your posterior.

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#149

Post by yummyfajitas »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #148
yummyfajitas wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right question: is P(prophet|says prophet) > P(prophet|says ordinary guy)? My argument is only that any semi-mainstream religion is more likely to be true than some random arbitrary belief system. I.e., Christianity and Islam are both more likely than Anti-Christianity. I just don't buy your argument that the evidence for all possible religions (including ones you made up for this argument only) cancel out. That'…

Your argument's invalid, because P(prophet) has nothing to do with whether $diety is telling the truth through said prophet or lying. The only way to predict whether $diety is an earnest hypocrite or a master of deception is by pulling a prior out of your posterior.

Computing a posterior, whether about god or controlling climate via human actions, requires a prior. All decisionmaking requires a prior. What's your point?

Re: 95% of climate models agree: the observations must be wrong

#150

Post by corresation »

freshhawk wrote: post #70
corresation wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people, once they've established a position, become incredibly "biased" in their views. Skeptical Science, which I mention because it is referenced some dozen times in here, is the sort of site that proselytizes to the converted. It has driven a stake in the ground demarcating its position, and everything has to be relative to that stake.

True in the broadest sense I suppose. I'm personally fine with driving a stake into the ground at "the consensus opinion of scientific experts". That's a different type of bias than driving the stake into a specific conclusion because the other stake moves. Frequently. To be fair, I think this only because it agrees with my pro-reason bias.

There is consensus on a very small percentage of the dogma that is so often dragged into this debate. Haughtily declaring your "pro-reason bias" doesn't help your cause, and it makes you appear irrational.

The Earth's climate is an enormously complex mechanism that is barely understood, and there is a tendency to make models that confirm a hypothesis (just read this today - http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/15/rapidly_warming.... That sort of nuttery from the other side would get eviscerated, but it sells to an agenda).

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