Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Thanks for the link Thomas,

Book - guilty, Lomborg - not guilty.

Interesting how the DCSD couldn't even agree on it being a science book. That raises the issue of why someone would use it as a science source.

If it is a science book it is dishonest.
If it isn't a science book than the DCSD probably had no jurisdiction.

Either way it really shouldn't be quoted as science.

But it doesn't bother you that when challenged to do so, they couldn't/didn't come up with one single thing as to why the book was 'guilty'? Doesn't that give you the least pause for thought?

And with that, here is my take on the last page of this thread.

[b]January 2003:[/b] A scientific monkey trial finds Lomborg's book guilty of "objective scientific dishonesty". It makes all kinds of accusations, but does not quote any specific citation from the book -- not even one! -- to back up any of its accusations. [b]February 2003:[/b] Lomborg files a complaint. [b]Early December 2003:[/b] Having examined the matter, the Danish ministry of science expounds the many ways in which the trial was of the monkey nature. It resubmits Lomborg's case for a real trial. [b]Late December 2003:[/b] Challenged to put up or shut up, the agency who conducted the monkey trial decides to shut up, but only after throwing a few more barbs in Lomborg's direction. [b]July 2006:[/b] Parados notes that a committee found Lomborg's book guilty of scientific dishonesty. He does not, however, note the monkey nature of the committee, and the fact-depleted reasoning it employed to reach its conclusions.

I stand by my opinion that this is below your usual standard, Parados.

You forgot one part there Thomas,

July 06, BernardR posts part of the book as basis for a scientific argument.

Parados dealt with the statement from the book itself and showed it was dishonest.

In what way was it "dishonest"? If the cited material is itself free of dishonesty or bad science, how is posting it here "dishonest"?

george,
see here....

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2137794#2137794

Lomborg's point was: "The claim that the temperature is higher now than at anytime during the last 1000 years seems less well substantiated since the data essentially exclued ocean temperatures, night temperatures, and wintertemperatures and moreover are based almost exclusively on North American data." His source was Mann (1999) (PDF here.) In his Table 1, Mann lists the data sets that go back 1000 years. They do not include the coral data. While he mentions corals in the introduction, but as I understand his Figure 1 he doesn't seem to use them. Lomborg seems to fairly sum up Mann's paper. So maybe the problem isn't with Lomborg's dishonesty, but with the age of BernardR's authorities.

On a more general level though, I agree Lomborg is a bad witness for Bernard. His main argument is whether global warming is worth preventing given the extent the IPCC expects. He basically goes with the IPCC data, even though he criticizes it somewhat. Maybe BernardR "forgot" to tell you that.

China chemical plant risk warning
Nearly half of China's chemical plants pose "major environmental risks", China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has said.
SEPA warned of an increase in pollution incidents if safety was not improved, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Gas or chemical leaks blamed on poor construction or maintenance are not uncommon in China.

The report comes days after a chlorine gas leak left 160 people in hospital in the north-western city of Yinchuan.

Forty-five percent of the country's chemical and petro-chemical plants posed "major environmental risks", SEPA said.

Toxic fumes

Out of 7,555 facilities surveyed across China, 81% were located along rivers and lakes or in densely-populated areas, the environment agency said.

If "effective measures" were not taken, "the trend of surging environmental incidents in the country would not be checked", the agency warned.


Sunday's leak of chlorine gas was blamed on a break in a rusty pipe, Xinhua news agency said.
The victims of the toxic fumes were said to be mainly children and elderly people who lived nearby.

The leak was under control by Monday, Xinhua said.

In March, some 15,000 residents were forced to evacuate their homes after a leak from a gas well in the south-west of the country.

New priorities


Pollution risks have risen up the political agenda since a major incident in November.

An explosion at a chemical factory in the north-eastern province of Jilin resulted in the release of 100 tonnes of the carcinogens benzene and nitrobenzene into the Songhua River.

The chemicals moved hundreds of kilometres downstream. Water supplies had to be cut in the town of Harbin, leaving some of its 3.8 million people without water for five days.

In January, Chinese environment chief Zhou Shengxian said the government's priorities were changing:

"The Chinese government has made a very timely and determined decision to stop the conventional approach of development, which could be characterised as 'pollution and destruction first, treatment later'," he told a news conference.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5168012.stm

I concur. Lomborg's basic point was that the models & numerical simulations being cited did not have sufficent geographic coverage and specific detail to support the conclusions the warming zealots were making with anything like the reliability they claimed. That is certainly a reasonable and arguable point. Given the many uncertainties that pervade any attempt to forecast atmospheric behavior, calling him scientifically dishonest for doing this was itself a most unscientific travesty. He may well have been guilty of heresy with respect to the dogma of the warming cult, but that is beside the point.

It is worth regognizing that a much more detailed, data rich, and comprehensive atmospheric model, using the best available computing facilities, to produce short term global weather forecasts yields results that are valid for at most 8 days - after that the simulation forecast, although it looks realistic, bears no relation to what actually occurs due to the intrinsic complexity of the atmospheric system.

george, What my observation shows is that short-term and long-term climate predictions by meterologists (with all the computers and software available) are often wrong. With such a unpredictable science, trying to assume conclusions from the 100-200 year old data seems a futile attempt to describe global warming.

I agree. However, neither do I think we have a scientific basis on which to conclude that a degree of global warming may result from human activity will not occur. The key questions are; How much?; How long? What will be the net effect, given other atmospheric factors that are changing at the same time? Unfortunately science doesn't yet offer a conclusive answer to these questions. Various doomsday scenarios involving presumed 'tipping points' at which changes accelerate, have been offered by some zealots. While science cannot exclude all of these possibilities, neither can it demonstrate they will occur.

Prudence in developing alternate sources of energy with less atmospheric impact and new fuels for our transportation systems are in order. However, imposing a regulating authority on the backs of huumanity with the power to ration energy use, carbon fuels, etc. and manage the design of automobiles and other systems on which our modern economy depends -- all as the zealots of global warming assert is needed now -- is a remedy worse than the problem it purports to solve.

Do I perceive a Libertarian viewpoint coloring some folks' arguments here?

I agree.

Mr. Thomas wrote:

When the committee published that verdict, it did not contain a single example of Lomborg's alleged scientific dishonesty. Lomborg then asked it to name such examples, and the committee preferred to withdraw the verdict rather than reopen the case. All of this can be looked up in the Wikipedia entry on Lomborg, under "accusations of scientific dishonesty".

If you must bring up this old hat again, at least bring up all of it. You're usually less gullible than this.
*********************************************************

That shoots down Mr. Parados who is trying to shoot the messenger.

What Mr. Parados does not know( he did not read the book--I did) is that Professor LOMBORG does not make up his statistics. He posts from Scientific Articles.

If Mr. Parados knew anything about the book and had read it, he would find that Professor Lomborg writes a section and gives FOOTNOTES FROM SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES.

I will give an example---quote from P. 263


The Climate, 1856-2100

The development in the instrumental global temperature record from is shown in Figure135.

(The chart on the page gives a chart NOT MADE UP BY LOMBORG AS MR. PARADOS WOULD HAVE IT BUT A CHART FROM

Jones, New, Martin, Parker and Rigor "Surface Air Temperatures and its changes over the past 150 years" Review of Geophysics 37(2):173-99)

(quote from page continued)

On the whole the temperature since then has increased by 0.4-0.8 C--FOOTNOTE 2147 --IPCC 2001a:2.2.3.3

Closer inspection reveals that all of the twentieth century's temperature increase has occurred abruptly within two time periods, from 1910 to 1948 and from 1975 to today."FOOTNOTE 2148--Barnett et al--"Detection and Attribution of recent Climate Change- A status report" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80(12):2.631-60.

THIS IS THE END OF THE QUOTE FROM THE PAGE 263 IN PROFESSOR LOMBERG'S BOOK. I make the following observations and then would ask anyone to comment on them.

l. After Mr. Thomas's posts on the findings about Lomborg's book, it is clear that it is a book accepted by the Scientific Community

2. I have replicated quite a few pages from Professor Lomborg's book. Mr. Parados chooses to denigrate Professor Lomborg. I am sure that he has not read the book because if he had he would find that 90 % of the book is HEAVILY FOOTNOTED.

3. These footnotes lead to SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ARTICLES WHICH ARE SURELY PEER EVALUATED. If Mr. Parados had read my posts carefully, he would have found that almost all the material which I quoted from Professor Lomborg DID NOT, I REPEAT DID NOT, come from Professor Lomberg but rather from SCIENTIFIC PEER APPROVED JOURNALS.

4. If Mr.Parados claims that some of these findings are "old" all he has to do is to CAREFULLY take the "OLD" finding and show Scientific Journals or Reports which show that the finding is no longer applicable. HE DID NOT DO THIS WITH REGARD TO 80% OF THE MATERIAL I POSTED FROM DR. LOMBERG.


Perhaps, Mr. Parados should try to get a copy of this book. It might open his eyes.

George OB 1 wrote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree. However, neither do I think we have a scientific basis on which to conclude that a degree of global warming may result from human activity will not occur. The key questions are; How much?; How long? What will be the net effect, given other atmospheric factors that are changing at the same time? Unfortunately science doesn't yet offer a conclusive answer to these questions. Various doomsday scenarios involving presumed 'tipping points' at which changes accelerate, have been offered by some zealots. While science cannot exclude all of these possibilities, neither can it demonstrate they will occur.
___________________________________________________________

Dr, Lomborg wrote: P. 265

"How much effect does CO2 have on the temperature? The important question is not whether the climate is affected by CO2 but HOW MUCH, if the effect on the climate of an increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is slight, global warming may not be particularly important"

Could there be other causes behind the increasing temperature?
If the temperature increase we have been able to observe is not due SOLELY to global warming, this also means that global warming is also less important.

Are the greenhouse scenarios reasonable? When we are told what will happen, we must ask ourselves if these predictions are based on reasonable assumptions.

What are the consequences of a possible temperature increase? Of any temperature increase does not imply catasthropic consequences, then the problem is not as great as we are told.

What are the costs of cutting versus not cutting? If we are to make an informed decision on global warming we need to know the costs of not acting but also the costs of acting.

How should we choose waht to do? What considerations should we employ to decide between costs of action and costs of inaction?

end of quote from Lomborg


I would say that George OB 1 has somewhat the same concerns as Professor Lomborg.

Hey, georgeob1, at least Massagatto isn't calling you "Mr."

Perhaps it's because we generally agree on that point.

I wish he would get over the need to be so combative and to continually assault his interlocutors instead of engaging in a dialogue with them. None of us knows for sure we are absolutely right in all our opinions and deductions. We disagee, often vigorously, but that does not require that we abandon respect and consideration for each other. Sadly, Bernard does not seem to be able to understand that, or to be able to interpret disagreement as anything less than an assault, requiring retaliation. Very foolish; very annoying; very self-defeating.

Cicerone and I agree on a few things, and disagree rather strongly on others,. On the latter I sometimes think he is a bit wrong-headed, as very likely he does me. We each approach these questions from the different perspectives of our lives and experiences, and that makes much of the difference. However that has never required that either of us offend the other or adopt a combative attitude towards each other. A result is that I enjoy the dialogue with him (as I hope he does with me) and every now and then I pick up a new slant on things or a new interpretation that enhances my own knowledge and understanding.

This beats the hell out of endless invective, personal criticism, and defensive argument.

George Ob1 wrote:

we abandon respect and consideration for each other. Sadly, Bernard does not seem to be able to understand that, or to be able to interpret disagreement as anything less than an assault, requiring retaliation. Very foolish; very annoying; very self-defeating.

I must strongly disagree. If you wish, George OB1, I will search for posts in which I have been called NAMES. People like Setanta and Imposter and Nimh have showed their frustration by name calling. I have made copies of such events. Would you allow someone to tell you that you should stop "playing with yourself"?

Would you allow someone to call you the Village Idiot?

Would you allow someone to say that you remind them of a piece of excrement?

You would not.

You can search my posts and you will find that I do not name call.

You are intelligent enough that if you wish to take the time to review this long thread, you will discover that Mr.Parados also indulged in name calling when he became frustrated at not being able to respond to my post.

I would respetfully ask you,George Ob1 to turn your attention to the post I made comparing Professor Lomborg's statement with one of yours.

You will find there is a concurrence.

That, and, not your complaint about my interpretation of disagreement is what this post is all about. Now you must excuse me since I need to rebut more of Mr. Parados's ridiculous arguments.

Agreed. And I am sick to death of this Dr. Lomborg.

Can't we change the topic of the discussion to something else?

Mr. Thomas wrote:

On a more general level though, I agree Lomborg is a bad witness for Bernard. His main argument is whether global warming is worth preventing given the extent the IPCC expects. He basically goes with the IPCC data, even though he criticizes it somewhat. Maybe BernardR "forgot" to tell you that.

END OF QUOTE

I am very much afraid that Mr.Thomas has not examined my previous posts. I will replicate them to show that I am indeed aware that Dr.LoMBORG B A S I C A L L Y goes along with the IPCC data although HE CRITICIZES IT SOMEWHAT.