Discussion > Why Do Climate Scientists Believe That There's a Debate To Be Had
shub
"Why develop a resource if it is not sufficiently profitable?"
Precisely.
Anyway,<rant>
shub, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't what your ramble means. I don't know what it is you think you're saying by describing oil companies as lambs. I suppose their execs are innocent. Or maybe you think I should buy a line like that. Another twelve dollar bottle of wine.
After agreeing you lost me. Why do it then. Why frac? It is unprofitable, and will always and forever, remain so.
replicant
Like I said, replicant, I am not interested in discussing energy or economics. The question is whether sceptics have bad apples in their 'side', such as oil companies, Monckton, Slayers. I'm saying oil companies aren't that bad given that their green counterparts require enormous mental leaps to be considered good, owing to the poor quality and general uselessness of their products.
Please follow the trail back. You'll it started with me trying to tell something like the above to tinyCO2.
shub
shub
The question is whether sceptics have bad apples in their 'side',
And this consumes your consciousness? Not actually any other issues. Got it.
replicant
Oh grow up, replicant. We don't and we can't discuss every topic on every thread. Of course there is much else that 'consumes our consciousness' every day. At the moment I'm fascinated by the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Just because I don't interrupt every thread with that can't be taken as evidence of lack of concern. I'm also very interested in what's happening in the aftermath of the Ellison Review into the investigation into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence not far from me in south east London. I put up a couple of posts on that on Bishop Hill, because of a strange link with the aftermath of Climategate. That's just two things off the top of my head. Shub will be thinking of other things on the West Coast of the USA, no doubt.
But this thread has never been about renewable energy. It's been about the apparent unreality geronimo found in the reaction of 'consensus scientists' to the recent paper by Lewis and Crok. A key theme has been what TinyCO2 said in the second comment:
The consensus supporters have always talked about their own construct of a sceptic, not actual sceptics.
A related theme has been what responsibility individual sceptics have for the sins of others - especially imaginary sins discerned by 'consensus supporters' for which no real evidence is ever given. That got Shub into a very interesting discussion with Tiny on the relative badness of fossil fuel and renewable energy companies - where I've particularly valued and agreed with his analysis.
So, grow up - or alternatively stop diverting this thread with your apparently high-minded but futile accusations.
Richard Drake
Richard
Of course there is much else that 'consumes our consciousness'
There is no need to get your panties twisted Richard and pretend I need to grow up. I wasn't talking to you or the group. I was talking specifically to shub and I think everything considered that is perfectly clear. So I don't really understand why should take personal umbrage with that.
replicant
I'm not taking personal umbrage, I'm objecting to you taking this thread way off course through stupid arguments. If Shub disagrees with me about that I'll be delighted to listen. But I think you're trying to disrupt this thread and I'm calling you on it. I don't need anyone else's permission to do that, any more than Shub needed my permission when he first came onto the thread. But his contributions were bang on topic and that's the difference.
Richard Drake
Richard
Just because I don't interrupt every thread with that can't be taken as evidence of lack of concern.
I had never given it a second thought. Not even a first thought.
I have no idea about the rest of what you are talking about. I posted a response to something that shub posted and then others posted something to me. I am not diverting the thread about anything. I am responding to posts to me. For instance. Your post which requires this post. Why post to me. It says nothing about anything except that you are accusing me of doing something I wasn't doing.
replicant
I had never given it a second thought. Not even a first thought.
I'm so happy about that because I never said you had. It was argumentum ad absurdum. What you'd assumed, very snidely, about what 'consumes [Shub's] consciousness' was exceedingly dumb and I took exception to that, not least because a lot of the previous discussion had been of high quality. Does that explain my meaning any better?
Richard Drake
Richard
I'm objecting to you taking this thread way off course through stupid arguments.
All I can say is that I didn't realize I had been violating any rules. Perhaps it was a childish low blow.
I'm sorry you feel they are stupid. I'm certainly quoting the best sources in industry that I know.
I have no further interest in the thread.
replicant
replicant, I pointed out the direction of my comments, not once but twice. Apologies if the message didn't come through.
On renewable energy technologies themselves, I believe I take a pragmatic view. We should keep researching them simply because one never knows what else's going to pop up and one ought to not voluntarily constrain curiosity. Government (among other funding bodies) can help such technologies to market, to an extent, again, because no one can predict what'll flourish. I won't lose sleep over such expenditure.
What's not going to happen is such things as wind and solar (and whatever else 'renewable' stuff anyone can dream of) becoming serious viable alternatives to fossil fuels and hydro and nuclear. What shouldn't be carried out is an <endless> support of such ventures with taxpayer funds and coercion of customers into buying their product, namely expensive electricity, in the name of saving the planet.
shub
Me:
>> Simon, your number 4 does not exist, as AGW is
quite clearly falsifiable.
Simon Hopkinson:
> delusional, and completely devoid of merit.
Does that mean you really think AGW is *not* falsifiable?
Shub,
> ... coercion of customers into buying their product,
namely expensive electricity
You might want to rethink that. 150MW at 8c per kilowatt-hour is expensive?
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/cheapest-solar-sunedison-sells-solar-pv-output-at-5ckwh-25296
Chandra
Chandra, I just got done pointing out to you that you incessantly conflate GHG theory with a mystical CAGW. I pointed out, again, that you seem incapable of advancing in any way within the debate. Waddayaknow, you're doing it again.. setting up straw man arguments because you're incapable of conceiving real points of debate.
I've come to the conclusion that you're stuck, ineducable, and boring as hell. But hey, you have your faith, so knock yourself out. I'm agnostic (in the actual sense of the word, rather than EM's) and am unwilling to make the significant leap of faith required to support the CAGW hypothesis.
Do you believe in God, Chandra?
Simon Hopkinson
"your number 4 does not exist, as AGW is quite clearly falsifiable."
Please outline, in one or two lines, how that could be done.
Martin A
Martin, you can google for more, perhaps you already have, but examples are a sustained significant drop in global temperature or sea level and a significant fall in CO2 levels. In each case as long as there was no clear reason for the change, AGW would essentially be falsified should they occur.
Chandra
Chandra, you agree then that increases in CO2 and no discernible rise in global temperatures has falsified AGW?
Or is this the CAGW religion's equivalent of "God moves in mysterious ways"?
I'm looking to move this debate along a little, so that both "sides" can understand the other better. Can you answer the question, Chandra: Do you believe in God?
Simon Hopkinson
God is not univocal as Tom Wright likes to say - in other words, the kind of god or gods believed in by different people at different times varies greatly. Isn't this a bit of a diversionary question therefore? Especially asked of someone sometimes called a troll. :)
Richard Drake
Well I have to concede that progression here is on the presumption that Chandra is honest and not a troll. My question isn't a lead-in to a "gotcha", it's an honest platform for advancing understanding. It would be most effective if Chandra doesn't believe in God because, as in diplomatic negotiations, first establishing common ground is an excellent means of calibration. This way, we can track how our beliefs and understandings diverge.
I have no issue with religious belief, nor in principle with those who practice. Although I am a theological agnostic, this only means I am not closed to the idea that god's existence could potentially be established, but that it has not yet been established outside of the notion of faith/belief. My only real problem with religion is, in social terms, the implications of theocratic dictation - that someone with a belief is able to impose the implications of that belief on someone who doesn't share it.
Framing the discussion in religious terms is not unreasonable, and is instead rather useful since every aspect of the CAGW hypothesis is founded in belief rather than evidence while there are aspects of climate science (CO2 as a warming gas, for example) which do have a firm basis in good science (i.e. good scientific practice, experimentation, observation, refinement of theory etc).
The most fanatical, radicalised, followers of religions are taught that what they believe is actually what is known. There is no room for uncertainty, no space permitted for alternative viewpoints, and no recognition of fallibility. This may sound familiar to those who follow the climate debate from an agnostic viewpoint, yet meanwhile those who are radicalised will not recognise these deficiencies, or cannot recognise them AS deficiencies.
Now that I've set out my stall, I'll have to assume that Chandra will not participate. Nobody likes to have the deficiencies in their religion exposed, and I've never known fervently devout believers respond positively to having the basis of their faith challenged. Invariably they respond in precisely the ways Chandra and Entropic Man have done.
That, as they say, is the nature of the religious beast.
Simon Hopkinson
Nice reply Simon. Cf Andrei Linde's What if I am tricked?
Richard Drake
Chandra, you said
"Simon, your number 4 does not exist, as AGW is quite clearly falsifiable." in response to Simon having said:
"4. Reject the CAGW hypothesis on the basis that climate scientists who do study the subject have failed to advance into testable, falsifiable theory."
I asked how 4 could be falsified and you said:
"Martin, you can google for more, perhaps you already have, but examples are a sustained significant drop in global temperature or sea level and a significant fall in CO2 levels. In each case as long as there was no clear reason for the change, AGW would essentially be falsified should they occur."
Thanks for the reply. If I correctly understand your reply to me, your reply to Simon really meant "AGW is quite clearly falsifiable but only in very special circumstances such as a sustained significant drop in global temperature or sea level and a significant fall in CO2 levels"
What I was really asking for was how 4 could be falsified either now or within a few years but without depending on some extremely unlikely event to have happened.
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(I'm not sure that your example *would* falsify AGW. Suppose temperatures dropped and CO2 levels fell more or less at the same time. Couldn't it be argued that the presence of human-caused CO2 had resulted in a smaller temperature fall than would have occurred in its absence? The relation between temperature and the rate of CO2 release by natural sources seems poorly understood so almost anything could be argued to have happened.)
Martin A
Combining threads...
God?
God is the system. The chaotic system.
One small advance in understanding the rhythms was what Richard pointed out. A minute level of understanding.
Is CAGW falsifiable? When you understand the system. Then you become God.
What do we really understand of the rhythms of our planet, galaxy and the/our universe? Not a lot.
When the weather cannot be predicted more than a few days in advance, understanding God is quite away off.
Everything else are just false Gods. CAGW is no different than the dark age peasants trying to put a reason to their existence. Or an Amazonian tribe explaining that unless they perform this action the world will end. Just because its proponents carry an iPad and drink cappuccinos doesn't really alter much.
I recommend reading http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fermats-Last-Theorem-confounded-greatest/dp/1841157910 (even if Singh is the author). Because you understand the efforts made over the last 150 years to prove 1+1 always equals 2. it seems self evident but how do you prove it. The foundations of mathematics were systemically proved to allow further building.
What have you got with CAGW? A bell jar heating up. Like one electron shown to be orbiting a nucleus in an atomic sized bell jar.
What happens when that bell jar is removed? When that is set free in this universe? Can you predict what will happen?
Do you know the rules of a chaotic system? Can you model it?
Are you God?
Jiminy Cricket
Er, no.
It reminds me of my closest friend at school who I realised was sobbing as he crossed the (rather posh) Haileybury quadrangle walking away from me. I rushed out and, sure enough, Nick was inconsolable about some criticism he'd just received from another Christian. I reminded him of the incident some years later. His comment: "Yes, I think Mark had just revealed to me that I was not The Great I Am."
Showing that even fervent believers can tell it against themselves occasionally.
Scientists can also provide amusing moments. Did I really hear Neil Turok say on Today this morning:
Stephen has postulated a way of starting the universe off but it doesn't seem to work
Come on, Dr Hawking, we were expecting more of you.
Richard Drake
Martin, your post is like a beacon in the mist
> "AGW is quite clearly falsifiable but only in very special
circumstances such as a sustained significant drop in
global temperature or sea level and a significant fall in
CO2 levels"
It was a list, not a combination, and I didn't phrase it well. I meant either a drop in temperature or a drop in sea level or a fall in CO2. I don't know that these would really be considered 'very special circumstances' if AGW doesn't exist, although explaining how they could happen might be difficult.
> What I was really asking for was how 4 could be falsified
either now or within a few years but without depending on
some extremely unlikely event to have happened.
By 'extremely unlikely event' you mean the combination you referred to above, I suppose. Do you think the individual events listed are extremely unlikely? I imagine one would have to say no if one doubted AGW. As for falsifying in a short period, these are the staples of some strains of scepticism, aren't they? Show greenhouse gas theory to be untrue and you have overthrown AGW. Show that there is no 'back radiation' and you have overthrown AGW. Show that CO2 is increasing due to factors other than our emissions and you have overthrown AGW. Show that much of the climate science is a hoax you have overthrown AGW. etc...
Note that there is no original thought on my part here.
Chandra
Chandra, may I please know what area of science you are educated in?
Not to score a point of any sort but It would serve to know to what depth you are acquainted with scientific method?
Andy
jones
Chandra - yes I took what you wrote literally.
(a drop in temperature or a drop in sea level and a fall in CO2) =
(a drop in temp AND a fall in CO2)
OR
( a drop in sea level AND a drop in CO2).
Do I think the individual events are extremely unlikely? Well, my guess is no better than anyone else's, but here goes anyway:
- A drop in temperature - quite likely, I'd hazard a guess that a drop in temp (over a sustained period - say 15 yrs) is about as likely as a rise in temperature by the same amount, over the same period.
- A drop in sea level. I'd say extremely unlikely.
It's been rising at least since the end of the little ice age and I imagine there is more sea level rise already in the pipeline, to appear over the coming years. No reason to think it will suddenly reverse.
- A drop in CO2. I'd say very unlikely but not *extremely* unlikely.
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Show greenhouse gas theory to be untrue and you have overthrown AGW. That's a couple of huge oversimplifications. Would need a long discussion on what each of those statements actually meant.
Show that there is no 'back radiation' and you have overthrown AGW. Huh? Back radiation exists. People who say it does not exist are - shall we say - lacking an understanding of elementary physics. There is a lot of misguided discussion about whether or not it heats things (it does not, if you ask fundamentally what is the process by which a planet, starting from cold, reaches its 'operating temperature').
Show that CO2 is increasing due to factors other than our emissions and you have overthrown AGW. Yes, I might buy that.
Simon's point was, as I understood what he was saying, that when the AGW due to human released CO2 was announced to the world, the people who formulated should have said:
- We hypothesise that human-released CO2 has caused and will continue to cause global mean temperature to rise.
- If we see ABC, this will confirm our hypothesis.
- If on the other hand we see XYZ, this will show that our hypothesis was wrong.
But, so far as I can tell, the whole thing was presented as established beyond all doubt ("the science is settled", to coin a phrase) from the start. As Simon said "... climate scientists who do study the subject have failed to advance into testable, falsifiable theory".
Martin A
"Why develop a resource if it is not sufficiently profitable?"
Precisely.
Anyway, economic arguments are another waste of time. Products can come to market or be brought to market with government support (It's ok, government can help a few poor sods here and there). But the product then has to perform. With the internal combustion engine or the coal plant turbines, the power from the energy source is there. The question in front of engineering is about how to control it. The problem with solar and wind is that the power isn't there and the question becomes how to make best of what little there is. So you have to bend the world to fit your solution (screwy bulbs, energy storage systems, smart meters, car pooling, tens of thousands of miles of copper cabling, triple insulation, different metrics for energy costs, despoilation of intergovernmental science bodies, top-down pricing of electricity and a suite of philosophical devices to serve as lubrication: sustainability, footprints, climate etc etc, ... give up already). Oil company corruption is a lamb in comparison.