But we need not worry about droughts. Our resident moron, Occom Bill, says we can just desalinate.
Advocate wrote:But we need not worry about droughts. Our resident moron, Occom Bill, says we can just desalinate.
Hay! How about that? Desalinating ocean water is using a reusable resource: ocean water.
Maybe we can lower the level of the ocean if we can convince enough people to urinate far away from shore! 
Naaah! That won't work. That idea is just as nutty as Al Gore's ideas. The H2O in urine evaporates and some of it will probably precipitate back into the oceans. 
I don't care which side of Obama's ummmm energy/save the planet plan you come down on, this is funny:
And so is this (besides being correct):
ican's "scientific"
quote :
Code:Climatologist Brian Fuchs of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said in February 2007 that it was "up in the air" how long the current warming trend would continue. Fuchs also replied "probably not" when asked if human emissions are solely to blame for global warming.
"up in the air" and "probably not " - those scientific explanations even i can understand .
wouldn't it have been more straight-forward (perhaps even honest) if he had just said : "i don't know" ?
hbg
I think he does know what the evidence shows, but he is acknowledging that the evidence is not conclusive. Certainty is a very big word with any scientist. You will find scientists who disagree that the evidence points to global warming; you will find scientists who agree that the trend supports global warming; you will find scientists who will say that the evidence does not support global warming being a serious problem, etc., but you don't find many people calling themselves scientists who will say that there is absolute certainty.
Ican, not claiming to be a scientists, has described himself as a 'probable-ist'. I think any scientists worthy of the name is a 'probable-ist' in any area of science for which there is uncertainty. And there is a lot of uncertainty within the global warming, especially the AGW debate.
An expert's 'probably' or 'up in the air' in a field of his/her expertise carries a whole lot more weight that the same terms used by you and me.
The only thing I know for certain is that I don't know anything for certain.
Probably there exists no one who knows anything for certain other than they know for certain they don't know anything else for certain. Probably there are many who refuse to acknowledge that they certainly do not know anything else for certain. :wink:
THE DISSENTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC DISSENTERS
Quote:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
188
Dr. Paul Reiter, a malaria expert formerly of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and professor of entomology and tropical disease with the Pasteur Institute in Paris, participated in the UN IPCC process and now calls the concept of consensus on global warming a "sham." Professor Reiter, an expert in malaria, had to threaten legal action to have his name removed from the IPCC. "That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed," he said on March 5, 2007. "It's not true." Reiter has written more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals. (LINK) Reiter also wrote on January 11, 2007: "For years, the public has been fed a lusty diet of climate doom and gloom, cooked and served by alarmists who use the language of science to push their agenda. Now, every politician of every stripe must embrace the ?'climate consensus' or be branded a callous skeptic. For twelve years, my colleagues and I have protested against the unsubstantiated claims that climate change is causing the disease [of malaria] to spread. We have failed miserably to alter the situation. Recently, the Associated Press quoted an entomologist who claimed there is an unprecedented outbreak of malaria in Karatina, Kenya, at 1,868 meters (6,130 feet). The heart-rending article began: ?'The soft cries of children broke the morning stillness, as parents brought them into the hillside hospital, one by one ... drained by a disease once unknown in the high country of Kenya.' But there is nothing new about malaria in Karatina. Between World War I and the 1950s, there were ten disastrous epidemics in the region, and they extended much higher into these hills," Reiter wrote. "We have done the studies and challenged the alarmists - but they continue to ignore the facts, and perpetuate the lies," he concluded
CORRECTION
The only thing I know for certain is that I do not know anything ELSE for certain.
i would say that "ordinary" people (those that are not scientists) would have said : "i don't really know , but my guess is , my gut instinct , my belief is ... ... " .
would have been a lot easier to understand , I BELIEVE :wink: .
hbg
hamburger wrote:i would say that "ordinary" people (those that are not scientists) would have said : "i don't really know , but my guess is , my gut instinct , my belief is ... ... " .
would have been a lot easier to understand , I BELIEVE :wink: .
hbg
Well obviously I wouldn't say it that way.
I have what I think is probably a good reason for saying: The only thing I know for certain is that I do not know anything else for certain. My reason is based on my bet that anything else that I or other people may believe, is based on my and their subjective or objective judgments about relative probabilities. That is, I bet my and their judgments are based on what I and they think is most
probably true or false.
By the way, I'm a retired electrical engineer and a semi-retired flight instructor.
hamburger wrote:i would say that "ordinary" people (those that are not scientists) would have said : "i don't really know , but my guess is , my gut instinct , my belief is ... ... " .
would have been a lot easier to understand , I BELIEVE :wink: .
hbg
Well yes, your manner of speaking would be different as is mine. I generally say "I don't have a clue" to acknowledge lack of information and 'gut instinct' for me might come out as "I would lay odds that......" or in the case where something has not yet been determined, I would likely says "It's anybody's guess. . . ."
"I don't really know" however would be inaccurate from a scientists who really knows a lot. "Probably" is not the same thing as 'gut instinct' or 'best guess'. "Probably" suggests that the proponderance of evidence comes down on a specific side. It's like saying that the Giants will probably beat the Steelers when they are ahead by three touchdowns, but we can't know for certain until game is over. "Up in the air' is as good a phrase as any to express that nothing is decided yet.
The excerpt posted by Ican is like all the others. None reflect the entire theory, thought process, or analysis of any of the scientists, but are excerpts to illustrate a point of view expressed by each. I
don't have a clue where he made those particular remarks, but I certainly don't think even a brilliant scientists has to be stuffy in his manner of speech in order to be credible.
THE DISSENTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC DISSENTERS
Quote:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
189
Lord Christopher Monckton, the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, a climate researcher, found 31 errors and exaggerations in the UN IPCC 4th assessment summary in February 2007. The IPCC quietly made the corrections without public admission of guilt, according to Lord Christopher Monckton. "The UN has still not corrected or apologized for the ?'hockey-stick,' by which it falsely abolished the Mediaeval Warm Period, when temperatures were 2 or 3C warmer than today, and disaster failed to ensue. But it has been forced to correct several schoolboy howlers - though it has not had the honesty to announce publicly and clearly that it has done so," Monckton said in March 2007. Monckton echoed UK Lord Nigel Lawson's call that the IPCC be disbanded. "It is too politicized and too incompetent to serve any useful purpose," Monckton said.
THE DISSENTS OF THE SCIENTIFIC DISSENTERS
Quote:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
191
Former Colorado State Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr., presently senior scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, chastised the news media for promoting the idea that the UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers is written by the scientists. "The media is in error when it states that, ?'The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -made up of thousands of scientists from around the world - reported earlier this month they are more certain than ever that humans are heating earth's atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels...,'" Pielke, Sr. wrote on March 9, 2007. "Are there really ?'thousands of scientists' who wrote this report? Hardly. The IPCC is actually led and written by just a few dozen scientists," Pielke Sr. added. (LINK) Pielke, Sr. believes land use changes play a key role in impacting temperatures and believes the IPCC fails to recognize this factor. "In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the IPCC Reports, the CCSP Report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of CO2 relative to the role of the diversity of other human climate forcing on global warming, and more generally, on climate variability and change," Pielke, Sr.'s blog states on the "Main Conclusions" page. (LINK) In a May 10, 2007 blog post, Pielke wrote that the UN was "disingenuous" with many of their claims. "Since about 2002 there has been NO statistically significant global average warming in the lower and middle troposphere and since about 1995 there has been NO statistically significant cooling in the stratosphere. The IPCC SPM conclusion that ?'warming of the climate system is unequivocal' is wrong as it ignores the lack of such warming in recent years by these other metrics of climate system heat changes," Pielke explained. "Perhaps global warming will begin again. However, the neglect to include the recent lack of tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling (both of which are predicted to continue quasi-linearly for the coming decades by the multi-decadal global climate models, except for major volcanic eruptions) results in a seriously biased report by the IPCC. It has been disappointing that the media so far has chosen to parrot the statements in the IPCC SPMs rather than do investigative reporting on these issues," he concluded.
Those who oppose the proposition of man-made global warming are outside the mainstream scientific thought. They make up a small percentage of the overall scientific community involved in environmental issues. The head scientist at NASA recently spoke to this.
Really? Would that scientist be James Hansen who has received big bucks as an IPCC spokesperson, making speeches, and working with the Goddard Institute that receives contributions from a lot if not all wacko encironmental groups? The same James Hansen who was an advocate for the global cooling impending ice age theory of the 1970s and who has been as equally discredited in his opinions re global warming now? At least he has on this thread. The same James Hansen who claimed he was being gagged by the Bush administration even as he went on 60 Minutes to tell all? (People who have really been gagged would appreciate such freedom to speak.)
Would that be your 'head scientist at NASA' who says so?
If you listen to the actual scientists - the ones working with the temperature data and the computer models - the certainty is a lot less evident.
Look, it's not like this is easy and the reason that we're seeing this is that the people involved are liars. Climate study is really hard. REALLY hard. Even to approximate climate, we're already simplifying the heck out of things. Even with very simplified models, they're still hellaciously complex. They are not good predictive models. They have a crummy track record of predicting the future. To be fair, the most recent generation or two of models has hardly had time to be judged by that standard, and they've got a lot more computing power to play with than earlier models, but even they aren't spot on. That's why there's such big error bars associated with climate predictions.
Furthermore, the actual science is being made much of, not by scientists themselves, but by political activists. There's always been a certain kind of environmentalist for whom large-scale cessation of industry has been an ideal, and they gravitated to the global warming movement en masse. I'm not saying ALL of them are turn-out-the-lights wackos, of course; there are plenty of people who honestly see worries about global warming as a good method of promoting alternative energy solutions, who are genuinely worried about tundra habitats, or who own low-lying coastal property and are really worried about rising ocean levels.
The real kicker is to ask the scientists about the proposed solutions. Would the US joining Kyoto have prevented global warming, assuming projections of global warming are valid? The answer is universally "no". All parties involved agree that restrictions would have to be much more draconian to have a significant effect. Indeed, economic analysis sponsored by the UN shows that, dollar for dollar, money spent attempting to ameliorate global warming is the worst possible use of that money (that is, assuming you're dedicating it to solve a big problem; I assume they didn't study going out and buying lots of drugs and booze with it, heh.)
So why push the Kyoto treaty and similar constraints, knowing that they don't even begin to go far enough to have an effect? Simple - asking for the draconian cuts they think they really need would get the environmentalists laughed out of town. So they want to "establish a framework" for regulations, and then when those regulations don't have the desired effect (because, at the level they were instituted, they couldn't have), the regulations can be ratcheted up. At that point, the environmentalists can always ask for "just a few more cuts" because "we've already dedicated so many resources to solving this problem". And if things get warmer anyway, they can just point to "the ever-increasing urgency of the problem" to justify harsher and harsher restrictions.
At this point, there is a VERY real question about the policy dimension - not "is there going to be global warming", but "ought we do anything about it?"
We can all cheer for the energy researchers; if someone comes up with a cheap solar cell, or workable ultracapacitors, or a working fusion plant, or any one of a dozen other good ideas, then a lot of this will cease to be an issue. We'll cut our carbon emissions without a government panel telling us to. But in the absence of a technological innovation or two, it's just not likely to happen.
NASA's Hansen is highly respected and, like everyone else who speaks, is entitled to receive fees. He gets a lot less than Clinton does.
Moreover, Hansen is in line with mainstream scientific thought on global warming, and his findings and conclusions have not been successfully assailed.
BTW, the administration did try to shut him down, and he holds his job only because of the bad publicity heaped on the administration as a result of its actions.
That's pure....what's Ican's word?...MARLARKY, Advocate. For somebody claiming that he has been 'shut down' when he is giving interviews to major magazines and newspapers is ludicrous. He lost all credibility with me right there. Respected? Absolutely by environmental wackos and AGW religionists. By the majority of the scientific world that sees him as scientifically flawed and overly political on this issue, no. He refused to debate Professor Michaels of Virginia when challenged to do so re AGW. Why would he have refused? Could it be that he knows full well he could not defend his promoted theories?
The only reason he kept his job is because of negative publicity if the Bush administration fired him? Equally ludicrous, especially considering that President Bush has joined the environmental religionists on this issue. Where are your kudos for the President? (He was prevented from stating what the official government policy would be prior to the government actually arriving at one.)
Indeed, Hansen has refused to debate out-of-touch contrarians. There is nothing to gain from it. The latter essentially wing it with far-out theories lacking any scientific bases. Reputable scientists, like Hansen, eschew such a waste of time.
