Climate Change Politics

@kennethamy,

What sucks about not being a scientist, is having to take one on trust. An issue like this is so politicized that it's not easy to make heads or tails of. Between honest mistakes and profitable lies, it's hard to tell.

0 Replies

@memester,

memester;113387 wrote:

so you're asking if the rate of change of the rate of change has changed ? no, that you want to know if the rate of change has changed upward ?

I didn't apply a value to the question. Yes, I'm asking if the rate of change has changed. [Delta temperature / delta time] / delta time. Acceleration.

I don't care if it's upwards or downwards. It doesn't matter. The first order of business is whether we're having a conversation in which we draw inferences from data. If you are indifferent to data but preoccupied with conspiracy theories and dubious research ethics, then we're having different conversations -- one is about climate change as a scientific question, and one is about climate change politics.

memester;113387 wrote:

do you know the answer to this , so that you could assess an answer ?

Well, I wouldn't say I have an intimate command of this particular discipline. All I know is synthetic material. This kind of stuff seems pretty convincing to me, and it has never been rebutted, only alternatively explained -- the slope from 1920 to 2000 is steeper (and increasingly so) as compared with 1880 to 1920, with the exception of the 20 year stretch in the middle of the 20th century.

Recent Climate Change - Annual Average Global Surface Temperature Anomalies 1880-2008 | Science | Climate Change | U.S. EPA

File:Instrumental Temperature Record.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But again, I'm not asking to pin you to a right or a wrong answer. I'm only asking to find out if you even give enough of a crap about this topic to talk about the science.

memester;113387 wrote:

Do you need me to ask you to supply a yes/no answer to a question, to show how ridiculous your assertion on that yes/no topic is?

I don't need anything. Just finding out if you're trying to participate in this thread, or if you're simply trying to kill any chance of a productive conversation. Answering yes/no isn't the issue. Validating the question is.

memester;113387 wrote:

OK. One reading is 80 degrees, and the other reading is 50 degrees. Calculate the statistical significance, please ?

Very funny. For the rest of the readers here who may lack your statistical genius, significance cannot be calculated based on only two data points. If those are the means of large sets, though, you certainly can.

---------- Post added 12-21-2009 at 11:17 PM ----------

Reconstructo;113401 wrote:

What sucks about not being a scientist, is having to take one on trust.

Well, the science for the most part is all in scientific publications. Go to your local university and pull the journals. It's just a matter of learning the language.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;113410 wrote:

I didn't apply a value to the question. Yes, I'm asking if the rate of change has changed. [Delta temperature / delta time] / delta time. Acceleration.

I don't care if it's upwards or downwards. It doesn't matter. The first order of business is whether we're having a conversation in which we draw inferences from data. If you are indifferent to data but preoccupied with conspiracy theories and dubious research ethics, then we're having different conversations -- one is about climate change as a scientific question, and one is about climate change politics.

where's your raw data ? Or is this a conversation stemming from something in your imagination ?

Quote:

Well, I wouldn't say I have an intimate command of this particular discipline. All I know is synthetic material. This kind of stuff seems pretty convincing to me, and it has never been rebutted, only alternatively explained -- the slope from 1920 to 2000 is steeper (and increasingly so) as compared with 1880 to 1920, with the exception of the 20 year stretch in the middle of the 20th century.

Recent Climate Change - Annual Average Global Surface Temperature Anomalies 1880-2008 | Science | Climate Change | U.S. EPA

File:Instrumental Temperature Record.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But again, I'm not asking to pin you to a right or a wrong answer. I'm only asking to find out if you even give enough of a crap about this topic to talk about the science.

Have you read the title of this thread ?

Quote:

we're having different conversations -- one is about climate change as a scientific question, and one is about climate change politics

It appears you have found yourself in the wrong thread.

Quote:

I don't need anything. Just finding out if you're trying to participate in this thread, or if you're simply trying to kill any chance of a productive conversation. Answering yes/no isn't the issue. Validating the question is.

Very funny. For the rest of the readers here who may lack your statistical genius, significance cannot be calculated based on only two data points. If those are the means of large sets, though, you certainly can

Oh yeah, here we go. :detective: So how large a set of points are you claiming is necessary ?.

1 Reply

@memester,

memester;113436 wrote:

where's your raw data ? Or is this a conversation stemming from something in your imagination ?

You're having tremendous reading difficulty. I'm giving you opportunity after opportunity to enter into the conversation. I've got my own opinion based on my own completely amateurish (and somewhat disinterested) reading of the science. But that's not the point, for the umpteenth time. The point is that you don't actually care about the science. You're indifferent. You're all about politics, all about rhetoric, and there's no substance underneath. It's anti-conversation. It's anti-philosophy. It's trolling.

memester;113436 wrote:

Have you read the title of this thread ?

Mais oui, but the political conversation is a bunch of hot air if it's indifferent to the actual science. At least in the evolution topics you pretend to be interested in the science. Isn't it a legitimate question to examine the scientific foundations of the political stances? After all, the anti-climate change political movement bases their claims solely on a scientific argument -- and vice versa.

memester;113436 wrote:

Oh yeah, here we go. :detective: So how large a set of points are you claiming is necessary ?

You're completely missing the point. You can plug in whatever the hell you want, but the question for which you are interested in significance is whether two sets differ -- not whether two numbers differ. If you have two sets with two measurements each, one is 50 and 51 and the other is 80 and 81, you WILL demonstrate statistical significance, because the means are so far apart. If your sets are 50 and 51 and the other is 52 and 53, then you WILL NOT demonstrate statistical significance. On the other hand, if you have a million readings in each set, in set one half are 50 and half are 51 and in the other set half are 52 and half are 53, then you WILL demonstrate significance. The required sample size partly depends on how close the means are.

Statistical power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sample size - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Degrees of freedom (statistics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;113441 wrote:

You're having tremendous reading difficulty. I'm giving you opportunity after opportunity to enter into the conversation. I've got my own opinion based on my own completely amateurish (and somewhat disinterested) reading of the science. But that's not the point, for the umpteenth time. The point is that you don't actually care about the science. You're indifferent. You're all about politics, all about rhetoric, and there's no substance underneath. It's anti-conversation. It's anti-philosophy. It's trolling.

you're spewing trash. get a grip.

Quote:

Mais oui, but the political conversation is bereft of meaning if there is no reference to the science.

I'd seriously suggest that you not even try to pose as if you have any science to offer on this.

Quote:

You're completely missing the point. You can plug in whatever the hell you want, but the question for which you are interested in significance is whether two sets differ -- not whether two numbers differ. If you have two sets with two measurements each, one is 50 and 51 and the other is 80 and 81, you WILL demonstrate statistical significance, because the means are so far apart. If your sets are 50 and 51 and the other is 52 and 53, then you WILL NOT demonstrate statistical significance. On the other hand, if you have a million readings in each set, in set one half are 50 and half are 51 and in the other set half are 52 and half are 53, then you WILL demonstrate significance. The required sample size partly depends on how close the means are.

Statistical power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sample size - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Degrees of freedom (statistics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm not missing the point.

You certainly have given a very amusing explanation. I gave you two numbers that were far apart. 80 and 50. Let me give you two more then. 50 and 80.

calculate please

BTW, the "trash" you offer, is that "being about" rhetoric, is to be despised - trash commentary, considering the title of the thread.

It's about the rhetoric. Similarly, you dismiss use of semantics. It's ridiculous to be demanding and declaring the superiority of "science" talk on a philosophy forum - when the title clearly denotes the author's hoped-for content.

and so I submit that it is you , doing any trolling, if it is to be found.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;113383 wrote:

Well, first, take note that you are misusing the phrase "statistically significant" here. Statistical significance has to do with comparison between groups and determination of how likely it would be that the observed difference is due to chance. In order to speak of statistical significance, then, you need to define your comparators.

Yea, I was assuming that we're on the same page more that we are. I meant compare the 20th century to the last 2.5 million years. I'm not your enemy here. I'm a fellow citizen of planet earth.

Aedes;113383 wrote:

"That doesn't tell us anything about what is responsible for it. But then when you look at earlier periods and find that there is no comparable situation, you need to ask what is unique..

There are points in the last 2.5 million years when the carbon dioxide levels and temperatures were much higher than now. You can wiki the word interglacial. There's good books on historical geography... I think you'd really dig it.

Aedes;113383 wrote:

"Do we dare to be wrong? Isn't there enough other justification to modify behavior (last I checked pollution isn't good for human health either, irrespective of the climate)...

There is muchos muchos reason to modify our energy usage. And yea...China's dependence on coal has apparently produced a generation of COPD sufferers in industrial areas... and they didn't get the good part of smoking.

1 Reply

@Arjuna,

Arjuna, the difference between historic levels of carbon dioxide levels and temperature changes compared with modern figures, is the speed of change. Nothing compares with what we are seeing now, the speed of change is frightening. You dont have to believe any one scientific field of investigation all those who are concerned with our earth are warning us of the consequences. If those who oppose this view would enter into meaningful debate instead of playing petty politics we might find reasonable grounds to understand change is required for more than one reason. We cant continue to burn fossil fuels at the rate we are, even if you dont believe the world is warming, the oceans are rising, the glaciers melting. Just simple that the seas are dying because of our emission's, should be sufficient to drastically change our ways.

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;113557 wrote:

Arjuna, the difference between historic levels of carbon dioxide levels

historic levels of carbon dioxide levels.

Quote:

and temperature changes compared with modern figures, is the speed of change.

so... it's not change in CO2 level vs. change in temperature ? It's CO2 level vs change in temperature. Is that correct ?

Quote:

...If those who oppose this view would enter into meaningful debate instead of playing petty politics we might find reasonable grounds...

so....If only those, whose parties do not endorse the view that you support, would stop playing games, and be reasonable - as those in your party are - then we'd be getting somewhere.

1 Reply

@memester,

memester;113561 wrote:

historic levels of carbon dioxide levels.
so... it's not change in CO2 level vs. change in temperature ? It's CO2 level vs change in temperature. Is that correct ?

so....If only those, whose parties do not endorse the view that you support, would stop playing games, and be reasonable - as those in your party are - then we'd be getting somewhere.

You continue to show you have no intention of debate. You so remind me of a petulant child that refuses to eat his greens. When you can answer a direct question I will debate with you, till then go get your roughage else where. Verbal constipation is an awful affliction.

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;113567 wrote:

You continue to show you have no intention of debate. You so remind me of a petulant child that refuses to eat his greens. When you can answer a direct question I will debate with you, till then go get your roughage else where. Verbal constipation is an awful affliction.

Surely I'm not that much worse than other Truth Denyers ?

After all, its only reasonable that the least reasonable of your party is more reasonable than the most reasonable member of any other party.

1 Reply

@memester,

memester;113572 wrote:

Surely I'm not that much worse than other Truth Denyers ?

After all, its only reasonable that the least reasonable of your party is more reasonable than the most reasonable member of any other party.

Ramble on , if you wish to debate let me know till then, adios amigos.

0 Replies

@memester,

memester;113448 wrote:

I gave you two numbers that were far apart. 80 and 50. Let me give you two more then. 50 and 80.

calculate please

The p value is 0.0000021 using Chi-squared analysis. It is 0.843 if the groups are 50/50 vs 51/51.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;113576 wrote:

The p value is 0.0000021 using Chi-squared analysis. It is 0.843 if the groups are 50/50 vs 51/51.

the sets used are ( 80, 50) and (50, 80).

---------- Post added 12-22-2009 at 03:08 PM ----------

xris;113575 wrote:

Ramble on , if you wish to debate let me know till then, adios amigos.

Wouldn't it be easier if I were a Climate Change Denyer, a GW Denyer, or an AGW Denyer. Unfortunately, you seem to wish me to support these things - they are who you have your sights set on, and yet I won't be pushed into those positions.

2 Replies

@memester,

This is an emotional topic even for scientists. I first learned about the greenhouse effect as a teenager in the 70's, and got interested in historical geography in the 80's. In many ways this is a different world. Back then the thought of doing something about the greenhouse effect was a pipe dream. We were pretty impressed that we were able to get active about the ozone layer.

It remains unclear what we can do to be responsible about greenhouse gas emission. Those who talk as if they know what measures would be required to impact it one way or another aren't being honest. There are too many variables and too much unknown about climatology.

I can't fault those who push hard in the face of the unknown... for so long it seemed that no action at all was possible. I see benefit in pursuing a shift away from fossil fuels. If fear over the greenhouse effect will spur that on.. then woo hoo! There's a philosophical quagmire around the question of whether a religious attitude has invaded the issue. One doesn't want to even approach that topic because of the fear that someone might physically explode in the midst of discussing it.

Check this debate out if have free time. You can download it to an iPod from iTunes, also.

'Global Warming Is Not a Crisis' : NPR

0 Replies

@memester,

memester;113577 wrote:

the sets used are ( 80, 50) and (50, 80).

I haven't been ignoring your question, by the way. I just discovered that my copy of SPSS is not compatible with Windows 7, which I upgraded to last week, so a few hundred bucks out of my pocket and I'll be up and running (which I need for more pressing things anyway).

At any rate, if you take your data set and use a statistical comparison that compares means, like the Student's T-test, you'll get a P-value of 1 because the means are identical. (This is using a 2-tailed test, which is necessary because a temperature can be below 50 or above 80, i.e. you can have variance in either direction -- a 1-tailed test would give you a P-value of 0.5).

It's sort of a strange question, though, because embedded in most of these formulae is the assumption of a sort of distribution (i.e. normal or not normal), and it's mathematically impossible to make that determination with only two data points per set.

Given that we cannot "assume" normal distribution or pairing for these samples, I would normally use a Mann-Whitney U test. This I cannot do in Excel, which I incidentally have found rather limited for stats -- better for organizing data than for analyzing it. If I get SPSS up and running next week when I can make it to the bookstore, I'd be happy to run it.

As for the Chi-squared analysis, this was perhaps not the best test to choose because it's really a measurement of distribution and not means (it's also properly speaking a Chi value and not a p-value).

That's the best way I have to answer the question without just throwing out numbers. Obviously having greater sample sizes allows for more robust statistics because the distribution of data becomes more precise and the effect of outliers is minimized. The statistical test you choose depends in part on the question you're asking, the assumptions you make about your data, and parameters like whether they're paired or not and unidirectional or bidirectional.

2 Replies

@Aedes,

Well what I was originally asking (and I'm clueless about how to get the answer) is: what can you do with 100 years worth of data to say something about a climate situation that has been fairly stable for 2.5 million years? How big a child distribution do you need? Does my question even make any sense?

With the ozone layer, we have knowledge about what chlorine would be expected to do in the atmosphere. Yes, there were holes over Australia, but I think the theory itself drove action to control CFC's. In the end, we failed to address one of the bigger producers of chlorine: treated drinking water. We failed to address that in the same way we've been failing to do practically anything significant about greenhouse gases: we don't know what to do. I know that many are happy with doing something rather than nothing, but when people change to low energy lightbulbs in a building that is basically a gigantic refrigerator in the summer, and go home happy with themselves that they did something... I just gotta say: get real.

Long story short: it might be a mistake to point to temperature readings. If they'd been going down instead of up, would the theory be discounted? Would anybody know in that case that temperatures would have dropped more if it hadn't been for the greenhouse effect?

Ok, I gave myself a confusion headache.

2 Replies

@Arjuna,

Arjuna;114074 wrote:

Well what I was originally asking (and I'm clueless about how to get the answer) is: what can you do with 100 years worth of data to say something about a climate situation that has been fairly stable for 2.5 million years?

You have 100(+) years worth of thermometry, but temperature is reflected in other measurable variables. The oxygen isotope dating from ice cores is the most famous.

Arjuna;114074 wrote:

Long story short: it might be a mistake to point to temperature readings. If they'd been going down instead of up, would the theory be discounted?

It's not only temperature readings, it's end effects of rising temperatures, as evinced by recession of temperate glaciers and the polar ice caps, by changes in sea level, and by ecologic changes. And these things are also measurable and corroborative.

This stuff seems pretty solid -- were it the opposite, i.e. if the world by all measures were cooling, we'd be trying to figure out why it's cooling instead of why it's warming. Given that the hypothesis is that manmade factors are responsible, it makes no sense to look at data that only resolve to millions of years (like fossils), because the human impact has only been around a blink of an eye by comparison.

So we have historical controls -- we are comparing ourselves at point Z against ourselves at point X. This is intrinsically imperfect research, it's like asking why there is more cancer in 2009 than in 1909.

0 Replies

@Arjuna,

Arjuna;114074 wrote:

Well what I was originally asking (and I'm clueless about how to get the answer) is: what can you do with 100 years worth of data to say something about a climate situation that has been fairly stable for 2.5 million years?

The climate hasn't been stable. Various things have caused the planet to warm or cool throughout history. There have been times when much of the world has been under ice, there have been periods were no year-round ice was found on the planet.

The problem with the warming trend being currently observed it that it isn't part of a natural cycle as far as experts tell.

Therefore it seems that things such as mankind's elimination of parts of the carbon cycle might be mitigating factors.

And the last 100 years of climate data strongly support the idea.

Quote:

In the end, we failed to address one of the bigger producers of chlorine: treated drinking water.

But that wouldn't be a problem unless people turned it into an aerosol form. Seeing as this didn't happen to most drinking water it never posed a threat to the Ozone layer.

Quote:

We failed to address that in the same way we've been failing to do practically anything significant about greenhouse gases: we don't know what to do.

We did - the effect of chlorinated water was clearly negligable so we didn't bother worrying about it.

Quote:

Long story short: it might be a mistake to point to temperature readings. If they'd been going down instead of up, would the theory be discounted?

Probably - it would certainly need closer examination.

We know that carbon gasses and H2O absorb long-wave radiation, and that we need them in the atmosphere for it to hold heat. Ergo - more carbon gases (and H2O) in the atmosphere - more heat.

It would be a bit odd if there wasn't a warming trend following an increase in these gases, so if a cooling occured there would have to be either something else in line with it - or something wrong with our understanding of the gasses.

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen;114082 wrote:

But that wouldn't be a problem unless people turned it into an aerosol form. Seeing as this didn't happen to most drinking water it never posed a threat to the Ozone layer.

And chlorine is not synonymous with chlorofluorocarbons! There is a crapload of chlorine in the ocean in the form of chloride ions. Drinking water if I'm not mistaken is treated with hypochlorite, which is the conjugate anion in household bleach. That is a decidedly different molecule than a CFC.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;114084 wrote:

And chlorine is not synonymous with chlorofluorocarbons! There is a crapload of chlorine in the ocean in the form of chloride ions. Drinking water if I'm not mistaken is treated with hypochlorite, which is the conjugate anion in household bleach. That is a decidedly different molecule than a CFC.

Hey you're right! Chlorine gas does diffuse out of bleach, but it can't make it up to the stratosphere unless it manages to bypass rain and sunlight. Good to know. I'm sure you know that the real problem isn't the CFC's, it's the chlorine released when they decay.

As for my question about the climate... I guess I'll get it answered some day. Smile

0 Replies

Climate Change Politics

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know