Okie's point is well taken too. The rich pay a much larger share of taxes than the poor do--most of the poor pay very little in taxes--which isn't really pertinent to this discussion. What is pertinent is that it is the poor who are much more likely to suffer most from ill advised and ineffective rules and regulations to combat global warming while it is the rich gurus who seem to be much more interested in increasing their own personal fortunes without making any personal sacrifices themselves.
_________________
--Foxfyre
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I?-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
There's a 95% confidence interval that you are exactly correct Av; but what if you're wrong, the other 5%?
AGW alarmists are the liberal and libertarian version of survivalists on a long, long scale. Fun to laugh at, but if they turn out to be right it's gonna suck. An ounce of prevention. Go Nuclear power!
Cycloptichorn
Yeah, but the saying isn't "a pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure." Like I keep saying, let's get some numbers for how much actual good we can do with how much expense, even if they're a crummy estimate. If it turns out to be relatively cheap now, sure, okay, we can do what we can. But, and I hate to say this is the way I expect it to turn out, if those expenses are overwhelmingly large, it's entirely possible we simply cannot do it (with modern technology, an important caveat.)
But yeah, go nuclear power. ;p
George Will asks an important question:
Efforts to save environment can do more harm than good
April 12, 2007
BY GEORGE WILL
In a campaign without peacetime precedent, the media-entertainment-environmental complex is warning about global warming. Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans, 83 percent of whom now call global warming a ''serious problem.'' Indoctrination is supposed to be a predicate for action commensurate with professions of seriousness.
For example, Democrats could demand that the president send the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate so they could embrace it. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 in opposition to any agreement that would, like the protocol, require significant reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in America and some other developed nations but would involve no ''specific scheduled commitments'' for 129 ''developing'' countries, including China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Indonesia. Forty-two of the senators serving in 1997 are gone. Let's find out if the new senators disagree with the 1997 vote.
Do they also disagree with Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist? He says: Compliance with Kyoto would reduce warming by an amount too small to measure. But the cost of compliance just to the United States would be higher than the cost of providing the entire world with clean drinking water and sanitation, which would prevent 2 million deaths (from diseases like infant diarrhea) a year and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill.
Meat has been designated a menace. Among the 51 exhortations in Time magazine's ''global warming survival guide'' (April 9), No. 22 says a BMW is less responsible than a Big Mac for ''climate change.'' This is because the world meat industry produces 18 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, more than transportation produces. Nitrous oxide in manure (warming effect: 296 times greater than carbon) and methane from animal flatulence (23 times greater) mean that ''a 16 ounce T-bone is like a Hummer on a plate.''
Speaking of Hummers, perhaps it is environmentally responsible to buy one and squash a Prius with it. The Prius hybrid is fuel-efficient. There are, however, environmental costs to mining and smelting (in Canada) 1,000 tons a year of zinc for the battery-powered second motor, and the shipping of the zinc 10,000 miles -- trailing a cloud of carbon -- to Wales for refining and then to China for turning it into the component that is then sent to a battery factory in Japan. A report from CNW Marketing Research (''Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles from Concept to Disposal'') says in ''dollars per lifetime mile,'' a Prius (expected life: 109,000 miles) costs $3.25, compared to $1.95 for a Hummer H3 (expected life: 207,000 miles).
We are urged to ''think globally and act locally,'' as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has done with proposals to reduce California's carbon dioxide emissions 25 percent by 2020. If California improbably achieves this, it will have reduced its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions 0.3 percent. The question is: Suppose the costs over a decade of trying to achieve a local goal are significant. And suppose the positive impact on the globe's temperature is insignificant -- and much less than, say, the negative impact of one year's increase in the number of vehicles in one country (e.g., India). If so, are people who recommend such things thinking globally but not clearly?
Avatar ADV wrote:
Typically, it's not "science" unless you have a confidence interval of 95%. That doesn't mean "it might be off by 5%", it means "there's a 5% chance that the observations I've made are completely unrepresentative of anything!" That's completely independent of any methodological weaknesses, incidentally - even if you did everything perfectly, that chance that you're just plain wrong remains.
It isn't science unless the confidence level is 95%? What kind of crap is that? Are you saying medicine doesn't rely on science? The confidence level for one year of survival with a stent is about 71%. I guess stents aren't science then in your world.
Where can I find this 95% rule for science? Or did you just pull it out of your ass and hope no one would question it?
Avatar ADV wrote:Yeah, but the saying isn't "a pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure." Like I keep saying, let's get some numbers for how much actual good we can do with how much expense, even if they're a crummy estimate. If it turns out to be relatively cheap now, sure, okay, we can do what we can. But, and I hate to say this is the way I expect it to turn out, if those expenses are overwhelmingly large, it's entirely possible we simply cannot do it (with modern technology, an important caveat.)
But yeah, go nuclear power. ;p
So lets see your 95% interval numbers concerning the cost.
I will bet you can't provide any that even approach a 95% interval. I would guess my chances are in the 99% interval. :wink:
It seems George Will has decided to repeat already debunked claims and modifies others beyond what CNW even claimed.
Even CNW admits that its Prius estimate for '05 will come down quickly for the newer ones because the '05 include design costs that will go away as more vehicles come out.
Some of the assumptions made for the Prius. 1. It is only driven 6,700 miles per year (compared to 13,000 average for other cars.) 2. People won't buy used ones. 3. Prius tires will only last 16,000 miles.
CNW uses 300,000 mile lifetime for the H3, not the 207,000 Will claims.
The environmental claims about Canada's mining are from the 1970s.
From this week's New Scientist
Quote:NOWHERE TO TURN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS
Wiggle-room shrank this week for those who believe that global warming is not caused by human activity. The latest report from the UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change shows that the world is already changing in line with forecasts from computer models that include greenhouse gases as an intregal factor.
Everything from the increasong numbers of glacial lakes to the poleward shifts in the ranges of animals and plants is almost certainly down to global warming. The IPCC also finds that natural variation is "very unlikely" to be the sole cause of such changes. Models that include only natural influences on temperature, such as volcanoes and solar activity, are significantly outperformed by models that also include greenhouse gases.
Why shouldn't we take these results at face value? Assuming there is no global scientific conspiracy, the only other occasionally voiced argument is that the IPCC scientists have staked so much on greenhouse gases that they are unwilling to brook any alternative. This notion runs so completely counter to what science is about that it is as likely as a global conspiracy.[/i]
Scientific ideas are judged by their ability to explain the natural world, and the best ones win. No amount of polemic or political influence will change that, or make a wrong idea right. Some scientists are challenging our ideas on climate change, which is vital if we are to progress. But to overturn present thinking will need very strong evidence because, as the IPCC states, confidence in the idea that anthropogenic warming is changing our world has never been higher.
my italics. It illustrates one of the cardinal priciples of the scientific method,
avatar ADV wrote
Quote:Blatham, glad to hear that your heart trouble proved treatable. As far as doing the research, well, we're -here-, aren't we? If we weren't interested in the issue, we'd all be talking about Imus or something just as silly. ;p
I'll also agree with you that actual policy decisions have a moral dimension that can't be reduced to numbers, but with the proviso that they should still be INFORMED by numbers. Even if it's really important to you, you can't make it snow in June. Right now, we don't really know the damages and we don't know the costs - without that data, how can you be informed enough to make a moral judgment?
Thankyou kindly. I got lucky.
And yes, the moral questions/arguments don't look to have much gravity where they are disconnected from real numbers and real states of affairs. Even if the converse looks equally true. Messy bloody universe, this one.
It's a pleasure talkiing with you.
Avatar ADV
Avatar ADV. welcome to A2K. You will meet a lot of smart, rational folk here. Just ignore the idiots.
BBB
parados wrote:Avatar ADV wrote:
Typically, it's not "science" unless you have a confidence interval of 95%. That doesn't mean "it might be off by 5%", it means "there's a 5% chance that the observations I've made are completely unrepresentative of anything!" That's completely independent of any methodological weaknesses, incidentally - even if you did everything perfectly, that chance that you're just plain wrong remains.
It isn't science unless the confidence level is 95%? What kind of crap is that? Are you saying medicine doesn't rely on science? The confidence level for one year of survival with a stent is about 71%. I guess stents aren't science then in your world.
Where can I find this 95% rule for science? Or did you just pull it out of your ass and hope no one would question it?
Confidence intervals and 'confidence levels' or percentage guesses, aren't the same thing.
For example, you could say with 95% confidence that there is a 71% chance of survival for a year with a stent. It basically is the same thing as saying 'we're 95% sure that this prediction is not completely wrong, even though it might be off by a bit.' There is always a chance that some unknown factor is screwing the research, that's what a confidence interval seeks to quantify - how many unknown factors can be ruled out.
Shrug. It was the rule of thumb for us in the Physics dept.
Cycloptichorn
You do bring up a good point, though:
Specifically, how will an increased focus on AGW - starting NOW - hurt people more than it helps the environment and humanity as a whole?
Specifically. I have never seen anyone answer this question.
Cycloptichorn
An interesting article by Dr. Thomas Sowell
February 13, 2007 12:00 AM
Global Hot Air
Greenhouse hysteria.
By Thomas Sowell
The political Left's favorite argument is that there is no argument.
The name of "science" is invoked by the Left today, as it has been for more than two centuries. After all, Karl Marx's ideology was called "scientific socialism" in the 19th century. In the 18th century, Condorcet analogized his blueprint for a better society to engineering, and social engineering has been the agenda ever since.
Not all the advocates of "global warming" are on the Left, of course. Crusades are not just for crusaders. There are always hangers-on who can turn the true believers' crusades into votes or money or at least notoriety.
Whether the globe really is warming is a question about facts ?- and about where those facts are measured: on land, in the air or under the sea. There is no question that there is a "greenhouse" effect. Otherwise, half the planet would freeze every night when there is no sunlight falling on it.
There is also no question that the earth can warm or cool. It has done both at one time or another for thousands of years, even before there were SUVs. If there had never been any global warming before, we wouldn't be able to enjoy Yosemite Valley today for it was once buried under thousands of feet of ice.
Back in the 1970s, the environmental hysteria was about the dangers of a new ice age. This hysteria was spread by many of the same individuals and groups who are promoting today's hysteria about global warming.
It is not just the sky that is falling. Government money is falling on those who seek grants to study global warming and produce "solutions" for it. But that money is not as likely to fall on those skeptics in the scientific community who refuse to join the stampede.
Yes, Virginia, there are skeptics about global warming among scientists who study weather and climate. There are arguments both ways ?- which is why so many in politics and in the media are so busy selling the notion that there is no argument.
If you heard both arguments, you might not be so willing to go along with those who are prepared to ruin the economy, sacrificing jobs and the national standard of living on the altar to the latest in an unending series of crusades, conducted by politicians and other people seeking to tell everyone else how to live.
What about all those scientists mentioned, cited, or quoted by global-warming crusaders?
There are all kinds of scientists, from chemists to nuclear physicists to people who study insects, volcanoes, and endocrine glands ?- none of whom is an expert on weather or climate, but all of whom can be listed as scientists, to impress people who don't scrutinize the list any further. That ploy has already been used.
Then there are genuine scientific experts on weather and climate. The National Academy of Sciences came out with a report on global warming back in 2001 with a very distinguished list of such experts listed. The problem is that not one of those very distinguished scientists actually wrote the report ?- or even saw it before it was published.
One of those very distinguished climate scientists ?- Richard S. Lindzen of MIT ?- publicly repudiated the conclusions of that report, even though his name had been among those used as window dressing on the report. But the media may not have told you that.
In short, there has been a full court press to convince the public that "everybody knows" that a catastrophic global warming looms over us, that human beings are the cause of it, and that the only solution is to turn more money and power over to the government to stop us from our dangerous ways of living.
Among the climate experts who are not part of that "everybody" are not only Professor Lindzen but also Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, whose book Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, punctures the hot air balloon of the global warming crusaders. So does the book Shattered Consensus, edited by Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, which contains essays by others who are not part of "everybody."
Wonder how much he got paid to write this one. His credibility is less than zero at the moment.
Cycloptichorn
Will "global warming" theory-hurt humanity as a whole?
I don't know but it may very well hurt the Dutch, the French and the Germans.
Steven Mufson--Washington Post.com wrote in an article --"US looks to green Europe"
"Europe has already hit a few bumps with its program. There's the Dutch silicon carbide maker that calls itself the greenest such plant in the world, but now cannot afford to run full time(Europe's program has driven electricity prices so high that the facility routinely shuts down part of the day to save money on power). the French Cement workers who fear they are going to lose jobs to Morocco, which doesn't have to meet the European guidelines; and the German homeowners who pay 25 percent more for electricity than they did before."
I am interested in the crediblity rating of Doctor Sowell. Can you provide a source which measures credibility?
Orilione wrote:I am interested in the crediblity rating of Doctor Sowell. Can you provide a source which measures credibility?
Orilione, welcome. You appear to be another rational voice. I love Thomas Sowell. He has the ability to cut throught the hype and break down the haze to summarize something in simple terms.
Orilione wrote:I am interested in the crediblity rating of Doctor Sowell. Can you provide a source which measures credibility?
Dr. Sowell is an economist and not trained in the physical sciences so far as I know. But he is one of the most down to earth, intelligent, and clear thinking individuals with a libertarian soul that I know--I have read him for some 20 years now. I've never known him to use sloppy research or seriously flawed logic about anything.
Orilione wrote:I am interested in the crediblity rating of Doctor Sowell. Can you provide a source which measures credibility?
His credibility with those that disagree with him obviously. But does that really matter?
Nah.
