Olivier5
 
  2  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 04:54 pm
@BillRM,
Mankind loves to reassure itself that it's going to be alright.
layman
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 05:04 pm
@Olivier5,
Quote:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.


Stephen Schneider, the "climatologist" who started out saying we had to cover the polar caps with soot to avoid a catastrophic freezing of the planet, but soon moved on to making up stories about global warming, eh?

Quote:
Schneider was the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers and other publications. He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II IPCC TAR and was engaged as a co-anchor of the Key Vulnerabilities Cross-Cutting Theme for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) at the time of his death.

BillRM
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 05:06 pm
@Olivier5,
Quote:
Mankind loves to reassure itself that it's going to be alright


So that is why as child I needed to take part in drills of ducking under my classroom desk in case of a nuclear attack?

That is why one book after another become best sellers predicting one doomsday or another?

Let see the book Silent Spring was one that I remember a doomsday base of the use of pesticides.

Then the fear and panic over the change to the year 2000 and all the computers failing as a result taking planes from the sky and shutting down the power grid.
0 Replies
 
Olivier5
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 05:16 pm
@layman,
Don't worry layboy, everything's gona be alright... You and i will die before the serious **** hits the fan anyway. We'll just see the start of it, if we're lucky. Our kids will see it grow bigger and bigger. Our grandkids will curse us.
layman
 
  0  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 05:21 pm
@Olivier5,
Well, Ollie, since I aint got no choice about the outcome, lemme just say this:

I would more soon rather sell the farm while catchin some rays up on the beaches at the north pole, than be covered up by an onslaught of massive ice at the equator, know what I'm sayin?
Olivier5
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 05:39 pm
@layman,
That's not what the alternative is. It's about whether we dodge the bullet, or whether we don't. We're not dodging it.
BillRM
 
  2  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 05:44 pm
@Olivier5,
Quote:
Our kids will see it grow bigger and bigger. Our grandkids will curse us.


That crystal ball of your have one hell of a range but the likelihood is that our grandkids will have concerns that we can not dream of and our predictions of the problems facing them will not be anymore accurate then the predictions of someone living in 1930 was concerning us.
BillRM
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 05:47 pm
@Olivier5,
Quote:
It's about whether we dodge the bullet, or whether we don't. We're not dodging it.


The funny part is we might be dodging or at least delaying the next ice age.
Tuna
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 06:54 pm
@BillRM,
That's based on computer models, Bill. Didn't you say you don't believe in those?
BillRM
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 07:22 pm
@Tuna,
Quote:
That's based on computer models, Bill. Didn't you say you don't believe in those?


No that I know of as the idea/theory of ice age cycles is base on the known history of the planet and as far as I know there had been no computer models that give detail predictions on the next ice age.
Tuna
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 07:30 pm
@BillRM,
It was based on the history of the climate in the 1970's. It's now established that the glacial/interglacial cycle is related to the Milankovitch cycle.

Speculation that AGW could cause the climate to miss the next glacial period is based on computer models. See David Archer's The Deep Thaw for further details.
BillRM
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 07:36 pm
@Tuna,
As I said we just do not know as we do not have anywhere near the understanding of the earth climate that would be needed to made any valid predictions one way or another.

Humans just hate not knowing so once we cut up animals or humans and looking at the remains made prediction and now we program a computer to do the same thing.
Tuna
 
  2  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 07:55 pm
@BillRM,
If this was 1970, you'd be right. It was said then that climatology was a science of wild guesses. Things change.

Computers helped us get to the moon. They land airplanes everyday. They govern the operation of your car. They extend the capability of the human mind, which wasn't too shabby to begin with. It's acting on what we know that tends to be the challenge.
FBM
 
  2  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 08:20 pm
Let's say the odds that the climatologists' predictions are right is only 50:50. Would I want to play Russian roulette with a revolver that had only two chambers? Nope.

Or if the odds were only one in three, a revolver with three chambers. Nope.
One in four, four chambers, still nope.
Etc, etc.

But here's the thing, the odds that the climatologists' predictions are wrong is the small fraction, not the odds that they're right. So by refusing to act on current climate predictions, we'd actually be playing Russian roulette with a revolver in which every chamber is almost guaranteed to have a live round.

Disclaimer:
I just woke up. This may not make sense after a pot of coffee. http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb192/DinahFyre/wake.gif
BillRM
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 08:35 pm
@Tuna,
I love computers but I also know their limits and we are no where near having the whole earth climate system broken down into mathematics equations that could be place into a super computer and run forward decades and hundreds of years and get any meaningful results.

Getting to the moon is nothing for a computer to plot out as all you have is one simple equation f=[m1*m2/d^2] * G.

I remember for the fun of it setting up a computer model to show the path of an object in a solar orbit using a TI99/4A computer.

Not a problem at all to do even with a 1980 home computer with 16 k of ram and a very slow system clock.

Now we are talking about the earth weather system that would need not one simple equation but thousands of interacting second order and must higher differential equations with in many cases unknown constants not a simple G constant as in newton law.

Sorry we are no where near meaningful computer modeling of the whole earth climate system.

Take note of the state of the art hurricane tracking computer models where we are talking about days not centuries and where all the local atmosphere conditions are known in some details.

This is a tens of millions or more simpler problem and yet while the over all predictions are useful there is still a wide margin of error and at that they do not run one computer model they run five or more models and combine then together while adding human judgement to get those predictions..
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 08:38 pm
@layman,
You are attacking science if you corrupt the process with religion or politics.
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  1  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 08:39 pm
@BillRM,
Quote:
we have one hell of a short detail base line to judge what is within normal limits of climate flux and what is not.
This is exactly why GW is not science, but uncontrolled fear.
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  2  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 08:43 pm
@Olivier5,
Quote:
But the global trend is to warming
It has been warming off and on for 10,000 years with huge fluctuations. If glacial advances and retreats are at 100,000 intervals then we have 40,000 years to go before we start to cool (as a very rough guide). Overall we are in a cooler period that started 3 million years ago.
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  2  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 08:50 pm
@BillRM,
Quote:
Maybe instead of cutting green house gases we should be having human sacrifices to the climate god instead.
But we already are...Norway spent billions to provide a off-seas oil platform with energy. A proposal to build a coal fired power station in Africa was cancelled. They sent them one solar panel so the hospital can either power the operating theatre or the fridges with medicines and specimens in it. Whilst BS like this is happening, politicians meet for talk fests that consume enormous amounts of energy. If the GW money, running into trillions in research and uneconomical laws was put to ending Third World problems....
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  2  
Sat 19 Dec, 2015 08:53 pm
@Tuna,
Quote:
It's now established that the glacial/interglacial cycle is related to the Milankovitch cycle.
No. One possible cause for some Ice Ages is the Milankovitch cycle.
0 Replies
 
 

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