Discussion > Raff’s Carbon Tax
More banality from ATTP to justify his use of "denier". And to think that that the mind behind such ignorance and circular reasoning teaches as well.Jun 23, 2016 at 12:02 PM | Unregistered Commenterhunter
He teaches something called "Astrobiology". A whole scientific subject without an object.
At another university, I was in the pub with faculty members of the Chemistry Department when a new department of Astrobiology was being discussed. Like me, they were almost screaming with laughter.
michael hart
GC: truth is, I tire of the whole charade – the political corruption of science, and, today, we are being encouraged to vote away democracy. For both, the scene where I could crow, “I told you so!” is so much worse than the other way around, with others chanting that phrase into my face. I do despair – the future is not going to be as rosy as we all wish, should this corruption be completed, or the useful idiots keep us in thrall. (For me, the fact that leaving would put Neil Kinnock out of a job was reason enough to vote that way; that he would be joined by other failed British politicians that few would soil their shoes kicking is just icing on that cake.)
The longer retribution is held back, the more fierce it will be, and the greater the collateral damage. I can only warn my own litter, in the hope that they will take heed for that dark, dark night (with no stars) – but, they would not listen, they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.
Radical Rodent
michael hart, I remember The Clangers on the BBC. How did the Soup Dragon know how much soup to make, without an accurate climate prediction?
Fortunately there are no Little Green Men on distant planets, far far away, to point out forecast errors.
Perhaps if Carbon Taxes were renamed Soup Dragon Taxes, we could set some aside for chillier times ahead.
The BBC dropped The Clangers in the early 70s, and adopted Climate Science a decade or so later. Since then, things have got worse than they previously thought possible.
golf charlie
Radical Rodent, interesting coincidence that you quote "Vincent" and his starry starry nights, as I reference The Clangers. Both written in the early 70s too!
golf charlie
RR,
What primarily justifies the skeptical stance is the confluence of evidence that the consensus is wrong.
Significant failures in the consensus are rooted in their failure to properly describe the basic carbon cycle, move on to consistent failures in modeling, relying on historical revisionism, and statistical manipulation; a long list of failed predictions large and small, particularly with SLR, Ocean Ph, species extinction, "climate refugees", weather events, and so much more.
An important secondary pillar of support is the behavior of the consensus apologists: They typically rely on the use of "denier" to denigrate and dismiss skeptics; they seldom if ever admit failures in the predictions of major opinion leaders and will perform spectacular feats of mental contortions to justify even plainly incorrect, if not outright loony, predictions. Their inability to honestly consider that just maybe their apocalyptic obsession on CO2 might be worth critical review is how religious fanatics behave, not people who are serious about the facts of a position.
A third pillar of skepticism is in the failure- at huge public cost- of every single proposal the so-called consensus has put forth.
It is not apparent if even one consensus pushed idea for "climate", "CO2 reduction" "renewable" energy has worked as predicted. If the "consensus" was offering real solutions that actually improved life for anyone others than those directly profiting from the money spent on the idea, there might be some merit to consider. Instead we see a social movement that is based on behavior more properly associated with parasitic life forms, not progressive forward thinking people.
hunter
Hunter
Examples?
Phil.
Phil Clarke
Phil Clarke,
Examples of models being right?
Examples that prove a Carbon Tax will achieve anything at all apart from increase coal burning in parts of the world with no Carbon Tax, and increase the amount of Carbon Tax paid to move goods to places with Carbon Tax?
The Guardian favours off shore bank accounts, and big multinationals favour Countries with tax advantages. We are just going to end up with offshore carbon filling stations for commercial shipping companies. They are known as oil tankers.
golf charlie
All models are wrong, but some are useful
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/comparing-cmip5-observations/
Or you could go to the IPCC Third Report and examine their model run projections for 1990-2010 and compare them to observations.
Phil Clarke
Link for model run projections
Phil Clarke
Phil Clarke 5:28 & 5:29
Which of the wrong models that you link to will be useful in evaluating whether a Carbon Tax has served any purpose at all?
Should there be an Unpredicted Cooling Off period, can we call it off?
golf charlie
PC,
Nope, prove me wrong.
hunter
I do find the concept that, though all the models are wrong, the average of the models is correct a very odd concept. Would that had been applied to my multi-choice exams; even if I didn’t get any of the answers right, the average of all the wrong answers would have given me a pass. I wonder… could this be how the PPE degrees are sold marked?
Hunter: be careful – that sounds dangerously like returning to how science used to be.
Radical Rodent
RR,
Thanks.
So a few examples:
Polar bears- not going extinct, not in trouble.
Models- useless since they rely on conflicting ensembles tossed together and manipulated to give a desired result.
Tibetan glaciers- not going away as predicted.
Storms- flat worldwide
SLR- islands not sinking due to sea level rise as was predicted
pH- no significant changes
coral reefs- not being killed by "acidification" or heat.
"climate refugees"- nope- political corruption and bungled policies
Arctic sea ice- hasn't disappeared as predicted. Historical records and pale-records show a very dynamic Arctic sea ice.
"Consensus" programs: Name one that has worked as advertised.
RR, the list is likely a "pearls before climate swine" exercise, but we shall see
hunter
PC,
Here is a link to peruse about the uselessness of the climate consensus.
My bet is you will explain it away using the same techniques as a religious fundamentalist uses in explaining away conflicts and discrepancies in the Holy Scripture of their choice.
http://climatechangepredictions.org/
hunter
hunter & Radical Rodent, so the object of a Carbon Tax is to keep Climate Scientists employed and feeling useful, even though with all the taxpayers money they have had so far, they still can not produce any scientific justification for their scary stories and have to rely on fabricated consensus surveys.
In years to come, former US President Obama, is going to be remembered for quoting John Cook's 97% Consensus. Which is a shame, because of Obama's otherwise better than average efforts and integrity.
golf charlie
Polar bears, bit of a sideshow, however of the 19 populations most are stable, or data deficient 1 is increasing, 3 are in decline. Who predicted imminent extinction?
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html
Combining model runs averages out the stochastic noise, perfectly valid. Allegations of manipulating data to support a predetermined result is about as serious an aspersion as you can make against a professional scientist, but I know better than to ask for hard evidence.
What's so special about Tibet? Globally glaciers are in unprecedented decline
http://www.geo.uzh.ch/~mzemp/Docs/Zemp_etal_JoG_2015.pdf
Munich Re’s natural catastrophe database, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, shows a marked increase in the number of weather-related events. For instance, globally there has been a more than threefold increase in loss-related floods since 1980 and more than double the number of windstorm natural catastrophes, with particularly heavy losses as a result of Atlantic hurricanes.The rise in natural catastrophe losses is primarily due to socio-economic factors. In many countries, populations are rising, and more and more people moving into exposed areas. At the same time, greater prosperity is leading to higher property values. Nevertheless, it would seem that the only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change.
https://www.munichre.com/en/media-relations/publications/press-releases/2010/2010-09-27-press-release/index.html
.Climate change caused by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is now widely recognized. But the other side of the equation—the massive absorption of CO2 by the ocean—has received far less attention. The planet’s seas quickly absorb 25 to 30 percent of humankind’s CO2 emissions and about 85 percent in the long run, as water and air mix at the ocean’s surface. We have “disposed” of 530 billion tons of the gas in this way, and the rate worldwide is now one million tons per hour, faster than experienced on earth for tens of millions of years. We are acidifying the ocean and fundamentally changing its remarkably delicate geochemical balance. Scientists are only beginning to investigate the consequences, but comparable natural changes in our geologic history have caused several mass extinctions throughout the earth’s waters.
That careful balance has survived over time because of a near equilibrium among the acids emitted by volcanoes and the bases liberated by the weathering of rock. The pH of seawater has remained steady for millions of years. Before the industrial era began, the average pH at the ocean surface was about 8.2 (slightly basic; 7.0 is neutral). Today it is about 8.1.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rising-acidity-in-the-ocean/
Only 7% of the Great Barrier Reef has avoided coral bleaching
https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/only-7-of-the-great-barrier-reef-has-avoided-coral-bleaching
Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JYNDT2kProU
You're welcome.
Phil Clarke
Globally glaciers are in unprecedented declineAnd for how long does this precedent extend?
…shows a marked increase in the number of weather-related events.Of course, there is also a marked increase in people insuring their properties against weather damage, too. It is perhaps lucky that the number of Atlantic hurricanes is at a numerical low in recorded history, as well as of lesser intensity, too. Of course, finding something like “climate change” to blame for the increase in premiums is rather convenient, too, for Munich Re. It is odd how no-one seems able to point to any one event that can categorically be the result of climate change.
As measurement of ocean acidity has only recently really begun in earnest, and the number of measuring stations for 1.2 billion cubic kilometres of ocean still numbers in the low thousands, such claims as you posit should be taken with a lorry-load of salt. I do find it difficult to believe that you – or, indeed, anyone! – could be as gullible as you seem prepared to let us believe.
Oh, and coral bleaching is a natural process, and has been observed many times; each time, it has recovered pretty quickly.
Interesting to note that you are prepared to promote the “catastrophic” label for climate change.
You’re welcome.
Radical Rodent
Phil Clarke, here is a piece from Watts Up With That? The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change
Ten dire polar bear predictions that have failed as global population hits 20-31k
Guest Blogger / February 25, 2016
You will find it so much more reliable than all those alarmists sites you keep reading.
If only Global Warming experts had not told so many scary stories in the first place, there would be no need to scale them all down, now that nothing is happening. Without any scary stories, who needs a Carbon Tax, or climate science?
golf charlie
It wouldn't kill you to provide an actual link GC. I'm guessing Watts reposted an article from the reliably optimistic Susan Crockford, who has never actually published on polar bears, but then she doesn't need to because she is
a different kind of polar bear expert than those that study bears in the field but having a different background means I know things they do not and this makes my contribution valuable and valid.
For years Watts allowed a moderator to pose as a commenter, just to make damn sure the playing field was tilted, more recently he spends his time on Google Earth snooping scientsts' homes to see who does not have solar panels (and getting the wrong house much of the time).
My numbers came from these guys.
You're free to favour Watts as your goto science guy of course, but you will end up disappointed.
Phil Clarke
Denialist Blogger Anthony Watts Posts Error Strewn “Aerial Survey” of Climate Scientists’ Homes
If the science cupboard is bare, all you have left is ad hominem. What a creepy guy.
Phil Clarke
* The timescale is in the abstract
In this study we provide an overview and analysis of the main observational datasets compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS). The dataset on glacier front variations (42 000 since 1600) delivers clear evidence that centennial glacier retreat is a global phenomenon. Intermittent readvance periods at regional and decadal scale are normally restricted to a subsample of glaciers and have not come close to achieving the maximum positions of the Little Ice Age (or Holocene). Glaciological and geodetic observations (5200 since 1850) show that the rates of early 21st-century mass loss are without precedent on a global scale, at least for the time period observed and probably also for recorded history, as indicated also in reconstructions from written and illustrated documents
According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, 90% of glaciers worldwide are in decline.
* Anyone claiming that any one of these increased extreme events was 100% attributable to global warming would be ridiculed, and rightly so, the climate dice are loaded, but it is impossible to say that every six is attributable to the loading.
Here, we review the evidence and argue that for some types of extreme — notably heatwaves, but also precipitation extremes — there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n7/full/nclimate1452.html
It is perhaps lucky that the number of Atlantic hurricanes is at a numerical low in recorded history
Really?
The 2015 Atlantic hurricane season was a slightly below average season that produced twelve tropical cyclones, eleven named storms, four hurricanes, and two major hurricanes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Atlantic_hurricane_season
The 2016 Atlantic hurricane season is a current event in the annual tropical cyclone season in the northern hemisphere. […]. This season started exceptionally early, nearly five months before the official start, with Hurricane Alex forming in the Northeastern Atlantic in mid-January. Tropical Storm Bonnie followed in late May, which was the first occurrence of two pre-season Atlantic storms since 2012. On June 5, Colin formed, making it the earliest third named storm in the Atlantic in recorded history,[1] whilst Danielle became the earliest fourth named storm on June 20.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Atlantic_hurricane_season
Always worth fact-checking.
Phil Clarke
Phil Clarke
Carbon Tax was born out of daft politics.
Game over.
golf charlie
…there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate…Though none quoted or cited. Of course, human have some effect on climates, change in land-use being the most obvious – remove the rainforest from the interior, and the rainfall diminishes, so creating problems with the canal locks, which are now requiring pumped water. Remove a stabilising forest from a hillside, and the seasonal rains will show you the folly, there. Counterintuitively, it has been shown that the removal of grazing animals can be a good way for desertification.
“…which was the first occurrence of two pre-season Atlantic storms since 2012.” [my bold]So, they’re not unheard of, then? It has happened before, and will no doubt happen again, it’s just that these past four years, it hasn’t. Certainly, the past ten years have seen unusually low hurricane activity, which will no doubt reflect on Munich Re’s premiums… or will it?
The world is warming (where have I denied that?), so it is very likely that glaciers will experience some melting; it has happened before, and will happen again. Whether or not the rate of melt is “unprecedented” is more of point of how do you determine the precedent? While not all the glacier reduction is from warming (those on Kilimanjaro, I believe, are reducing in a drier atmosphere – whether caused by humans or evolution of the surrounding landscape, I don’t know; those in the Himalayas are probably experiencing the same fate), I would expect that similar warming in the past has had similar effects on glaciers. The retreat of the glaciers over Europe after the end of the last ice age was probably a lot more dramatic than what is happening, now – how “unprecedented” do you want it to be?
Always worth reading the facts properly.
Radical Rodent
I wonder whether Carbon Taxes contributed towards the British Revolution?
The Green Blob were warned not to destroy peoples lives with ludicrous policies.
Who now cares if they now start to listen?
golf charlie
Radical Rodent, I accept that Polar Bears have increased in numbers since Mann's Hockey Stick, but I am not sure if this proves anything. Soon the Inuit will be seeking permission to start shooting them again, so they can eat Polar Bears, rather than get eaten by Polar Bears.
I wonder if Polar Bears grew fat on the back of the Franklin expedition, in the same way the Green Blob have been growing fat on the back of Polar Bears, with Carbon Taxation as extra relish.