Discussion: Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

[Paradoxium]

Now IPCC hurricane data is questioned

 

[LouFerignoDemon]

It would be very interesting how his information is reviewed. I definitely look forward to a review on his review, and how it relates to the report in terms of final analysis.


I'm also curious how much personal time he must've spent on this.

 

[Bob ROARman!]

I didn't claim they were lying, nor would I claim they are lying. Reduced talk time (which is a form of withholding) isn't necessarily honest, but it's not lying. It's not very simple at all. I'm not exactly sure why you believe it's cut and dry, "They're lying to us." Is there a goal for them to lie for?

Also, why is Rockefeller considered a monster?

Also, the Club of Rome in this statement does not declare the idea of Global Warming to be invented.

EDIT: Used wrong name.

Like they said, they know that there needs to be a motivation for people to change attitudes the way they want them to be changed, and that it must exist even if they have to make it up. Make sure there is always an enemy to war against, even if it the pretexts for it are imagined or created. It's not a new idea (just look up Operation Northwoods) it's just been applied in a different area.

Keep in mind Al Gore is part of this group as well. That report came out in 1991. You think maybe, just maybe, the same people in this think tank that "discovered" this threat, the same one that also said they would create BS reasons for a common threat, that they MAYBE just fudged a LITTLE bit? I don't understand how something like that could literally be in black and white and some people will still go "Ehhh, well it's just reduced talk time really, it's not lying. They wouldn't do that to us, why would they, they care about us."

We really do deserve it. We're just dumb. Like you said, why is Rockefeller a monster?

 

[LouFerignoDemon]

Well, I'm assuming you have a reason you consider Rockefeller (though, there are several to specify from) a monster. It is why I asked.

To the first paragraph. They stated an enemy to the common man real or imaginary unites them. This is generally sown through an unknowable force when imaginary, researchable and critical when real. Such as the Soviet Scare to Americans. The threat was both real AND imaginary, because it hinged on how they believed the Soviets were going to one day launch war on America, which was both a possibility and fantasy as there's no real way to say the Soviets WERE going to do it, even if they planned it. Imaginary scares will only work when patrolled by a small, controlled group in constant contact who control all of the data, while nobody else is able to do any investigation on this to reveal the potential fallacies of it. This situation happens to not be the case, as it is fully allowed for other people and stations outside of the group to research, determine, and interpret all data.

To move on to your second paragraph, there are two pieces to address:

It is still never directly stated that there is an imaginary enemy to combat, nor is there one so grand for people to fully rally behind. However, the truth of the matter is, the wording is tricky and fairly irresponsible to put forward. I would imagine they expect recoil and investigation on anything they put out, and probably is their aim to begin with. The problem truly is, I cannot recall any reports or statements where scientists have investigated and found proof against Global Warming aside from side data analyzed by climatologists, which doesn't seem to be built enough to stand the argument. Generally the argument against "warmers" is the sometimes lack of data climatologists have.

To move on to the second half:

To completely invent an event with the Earth, and then half thousands of scientists behind it after moderate research would be nothing short of a miracle for a single group of around fifty people, even one hundred people. To "fudge" it a "little" is most likely true. If the event is still there, to produce the shock needed to bring attention to their cause would probably have them playing up the dangers of Global Warming. The true problem generally is people, scientists, politicians, and the lives none of them overlap. For people, it's extremely reactionary. They see events going on, people panicking around them, or events contrary to what they believe to be the truth. In this event, people are far more likely to simply disbelieve in those who hold some form of authority over them, as it's commonly believed that the people over them simply would like to continue supressing them in some fashion or another. For scientists, they are generally in a more relaxed state. Rarely do we believe something happening will overtake humanity right away, and will generally undergo research and testing on the subject matter in a generally objective way as to best understand the situation, the effects we can have on the situation, and solutions we may have for the situation. A big problem is how scientists and data collection works, how people understand it, and how politicians endorse it. In the end, politicians are what drives most detractors. People generally view politicians as having personal schemes and lies, given a broad experience of people hearing about such things (which may or not be embellished by people reporting them, and the people talking about them). This is where the real problem begins, as Politicians generally are people who use force and shock to get people to garner to their sides. This includes scare tactics, and embellished truths. When a politician begins to endorse any form of science, the people who rarely understand the processes behind it begin to doubt it's legitimacy, with reasonable cause from the distrust of the politician. This is where it hurts understanding between scientists and people: Scientists are generally slow workers in more secretive areas so their work isn't to be taken out of context, or misinterpreted, and work literally by the time table funding allows, while Politicians stress urgency. People pick up on the urgency, and see the secretive information being taken slowly by scientists as a problem. Which is highly understandable. People are emotional, they're prone to fear, hate, anger, disgust, conspiracy, violence, anxiety and so on. So when they are confronted with two fronts, such as science and politics, who work together in many ways (weaponry, reasearch, medicine, the like), they believe they are on the outside, with the middle forcing them there.

However, I do not view regular people as dumb. I just view them as regular people. They're not scientists who've had to walk the line of datastreams while pushing the heart away, they're not politicians who make it their lives to talk to large groups of people about problems aspiring to people's hearts. They're just regular people who have things beyond their control happening to them, and generally believe those in control do not suffer similar fates. People are just really people, and will continue to behave as people. It's why the statement was made about people not working together until there is a common enemy, because unless there is one, people just turn on each other as common enemies since they have nothing else to polarize against. People aren't dumb, they're not really sheep to be led around. They don't like it, they never have, they never will, and will always rebel when they start being told how they're destroying something, or how they should live.

 

[Paradoxium]

Get ready for even foggier summers
Monday, July 6, 2009

The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it's about to get even foggier.

That's the conclusion of several state researchers, whose soon-to-be-published study predicts that even with average temperatures on the rise, the mercury won't be soaring everywhere.

"There'll be winners and losers," says Robert Bornstein, a meteorology professor at San Jose State University. "Global warming is warming the interior part of California, but it leads to a reverse reaction of more fog along the coast."

Fog over San Francisco thins by a third due to climate change
9:00PM GMT 15 Feb 2010

The sight of Golden Gate Bridge towering above the fog will become increasing rare as climate change warms San Francisco bay, scientists have found.

The coastal fog along the Californian coast has declined by a third over the past 100 years – the equivalent of three hours cover a day, new research shows.

And it is not just bad for scenery, the reduction in the cooling effect of the fog could damage the health of the huge Redwood Forests nearby.

Someone...

Please.

Shoot.

Me.

 

[BlackLantern]

which one is it?

 

[Nivek]

One thing mentioned in Climate Change events: Hard to predict Weather.

I love climate change discussion, underlines how fickle and ignorant a good chunk of people are.

 

[BlackLantern]

we don't get too much fog here in the northeast, but in the winters of 2005 2006 and 2007 we had a **** ton of fog during the winters and hardly any since

 

[Nivek]

the weather here has been very weird, according to the locals. Right now, it's the coolest it's been in Florida in 10 years.

 

[Paradoxium]

One thing mentioned in Climate Change events: Hard to predict Weather.

I love climate change discussion, underlines how fickle and ignorant a good chunk of people are.

Yea yea we get it, those who disagree have mental disorders. We all listen to demagogues like Glennus Beckus and *****ous Limballs, and we can't think for ourselves. Meanwhile imma gonna watch my favorite demagogue Keith Ubermann talk about thems "irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model teabagging supporter of violence against women" conservative nazi jews.

 

[dnno1]

Pretty funny:

 

[LouFerignoDemon]

I would very much enjoy seeing the models the two reports used.

 

[Kent]

It doesn't seem like Heretic will be commenting on my attempt to get to the bottom of what Phil Jones (climate scientist) really said about global warming in a recent interview.

Based on Heretic's posts on the subject he believes Phil Jones has said that there is no global warming.

I wanted to confirm with him that he's referring to news stories such as this one in the Daily Mail, which states:

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995.

Now... this Daily Mail piece references an interivew with BBC as it's source. But if you go to the transcript of the review you find that nothing quite so dramatic was said. The closest, and most likely candidate to have been misrepresented by the Daily Mail, and other secondary sources (remember, this is the transcript of the interview):

B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

There's a world of difference between saying "there has been no global warmning since 1995", and saying "there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995".
This can be easily seen from Phil Jones's answer since it actually confirms that there has been warming since 1995. There's been a warming of 0.12C per decade since then.

What Phil Jones is saying is that they don't have is a 95% significance level. In statistics, the significance level is a way of telling how certain we can be that a trend is real, and not just the result of natural variations in the data set. 95% is usually the significance level one strives to get, which means one has to have a big enough sample of data. Phil Jones, in his answer, alludes to the fact that the time period 1995 to the present is too short to get this amount of data, but still says that the data allows for a significance level quite close to 95% (80? 85? 90? Either way that's a large significance level).
The point Phil is making is, there's not enough data for this particular period of time.

Of course, Jones (and climate scientists) has more data to draw from, then the data from 1995 to now. Another quote makes it quite clear what Phil Jones thinks about global warming:

E - How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?
I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

So, by no means is Phil Jones saying that there is no global warming. But this is what happens when people ask a scientist a question loaded with technical jargon, or start reading technical e-mails only ever meant for people who know the jargon. They get things wrong and misunderstand what people are saying.

 

[Ocramed]

The problem is that "climate change" and many other environmental measures are costly affairs that destroy economies, not to mention anti-capitalistic in nature.

 

[bell110]

Plus, we'll all be dead by the time things get really bad, so who cares.

 

[Carcharodon]

The problem is that "climate change" and many other environmental measures are costly affairs that destroy economies, not to mention anti-capitalistic in nature.

On the other hand, the potential economic cost of doing nothing may be far worse.

 

[Paradoxium]

Costly solution that don't fix nothing in the middle of a global recession. Kind of like those who used to impose tariffs to protect domestic industries, only to have the tariffs be passed on to the consumer and not achieve it's objective.

I am sure if you found a means to harness alternative efficient energy sources, both those for and against the AGW theory will back it. It's not only environmental but economical. On the other hand, paying carbon credits as a video game cheat code to feel less guilty, doesn't change the fact you still ****ing polluted. Now you have less money that could otherwise been invested in more energy efficient stuff, and/or cleaner filtration systems.

 

[Paradoxium]

edit delayed double post

 

[Kane52630]

[YT]gV3SaxgDNnM[/YT]

 

[Carcharodon]

Costly solution that don't fix nothing in the middle of a global recession. Kind of like those who used to impose tariffs to protect domestic industries, only to have the tariffs be passed on to the consumer and not achieve it's objective.

I am sure if you found a means to harness alternative efficient energy sources, both those for and against the AGW theory will back it. It's not only environmental but economical. On the other hand, paying carbon credits as a video game cheat code to feel less guilty, doesn't change the fact you still ****ing polluted. Now you have less money that could otherwise been invested in more energy efficient stuff, and/or cleaner filtration systems.

Right on.

 

[Paradoxium]

Green fuels cause more harm than fossil fuels, according to report

Remember, the government spends billions in subsidies to "invest" In this. But do not worry, the government will tax you moar to pay for their ineptitude, and for carbon credits that won't help the environment. All so you can no longer afford that fuel efficient car. All in the name of investmentzz

 

[Ocramed]

First, I don't believe that "climate change" is solely the providence of human activity. I believe its a combination factors, including the fact that other planets in the solar system are warming, not to mention the fact that carbon emissions is a by-product of warming, not the other way around.

Second, having said that, the real problem with developing alternative energy supplies is being caused by the environmentalists and animal rights people. If you can't build windmills in certain areas, areas that would help make windmills profitable because of the birds. You can't build solar panels in the deserts without the conservationists screaming.

So you see, the people who are holding progress in implementing change towards friendly energy independence are the same one who wanted such policies in the first place! GAH!

O.

 

[VampElvis]

Costly solution that don't fix nothing in the middle of a global recession. Kind of like those who used to impose tariffs to protect domestic industries, only to have the tariffs be passed on to the consumer and not achieve it's objective.

I am sure if you found a means to harness alternative efficient energy sources, both those for and against the AGW theory will back it. It's not only environmental but economical. On the other hand, paying carbon credits as a video game cheat code to feel less guilty, doesn't change the fact you still ****ing polluted. Now you have less money that could otherwise been invested in more energy efficient stuff, and/or cleaner filtration systems.

Right on.

Indeed. I attended the yearly meeting my financial planner puts on Saturday and one of the presenters was an energy trust fund. With current technology, he predicted solar would compete with oil when oil reached ~200/barrel and wind at closer to $600/barrel. I'm not sure where those numbers came from, but if true they really put things in perspective vis a vis cost of energy sources.

 

[Carcharodon]

Second, having said that, the real problem with developing alternative energy supplies is being caused by the environmentalists and animal rights people. If you can't build windmills in certain areas, areas that would help make windmills profitable because of the birds. You can't build solar panels in the deserts without the conservationists screaming.

So you see, the people who are holding progress in implementing change towards friendly energy independence are the same one who wanted such policies in the first place! GAH!

O.

We shouldn't have to sacrifice our ecological conscience in order to develop and implement alternative energy technologies. The ones who typically protest that sort of construction without sound reason are extremists of a group that genuinely value the balance between ecosystem preservation AND alternative fuels. Most of the group actually have good reason for expressing concern in these situations, based on actual scientific research.

For instance, I'm part of that group, but there's no scientific evidence to indicate (as an example) that offshore oil drilling actually negatively impacts local ocean ecosystems (with the obvious exception of the benthic/bottom habitat being destroyed over a relatively small area). So I'm not anti-offshore-drilling.

The point is that most of us are able to look at these issues critically and honestly, and aren't quite as irrational as you're making us out to be.

 

[Carcharodon]

Wind power’s dirty secret: a carbon footprint

PORTLAND, Ore. - In 10 years Oregon has handed out $1.3 billion in tax credits for renewable energy and conservation projects like wind power, but questions about why the state is spending so much on something that may have a hidden environmental drawback have been raised by some.

While wind power is touted as the cleanest and greenest renewable energy resource, Todd Wynn of the Cascade Policy Institute, a Portland-based libertarian think tank, says it’s not as clean as advocates claim.

He says it’s simply because the wind doesn’t blow all the time.

There has to be a backup source to power generated by wind at all times to ensure electricity flows to customers without interruption. The more wind power put on line, the more backup power is needed, and often it’s coal or natural gas.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s hydroelectricity.

“So when the wind blows, the dams stop generating electricity, and when the wind stops, the dams continue to generate electricity,” said Wynn. “So, in fact, wind power is just offsetting another renewable energy source. It’s not necessarily offsetting any fossil fuel generation.”

Wynn says a Bonneville Power Administration staffer admitted to his think tank that wind does not reduce carbon emissions, but instead, creates them.

That’s because when wind blows, the dam - or fossil fuel - backs up. It doesn’t shut down, and it takes too long to start up.

It’s like a car stopped at a red light: The engine is still running, and just like the car, this “spinning reserve mode” as it’s called, consumes energy.

Doug Johnson with the BPA says wind power is exceeding all expectations in the amount of electricity it is creating, and according to Wynn, “We’re simply running out of hydro reserves in order to back this power up.”

According to BPA reports from 2008 and 2009, wind turbines generated so much more power than expected the system almost couldn’t handle it and began operating outside standards set by federal law.

BPA admitted it was at risk of running out of reserves and having a “wind-related reliability event” that would “negatively impact the reputation of wind power.”

With three times more wind power expected to flow down power lines within three years, the carbon footprint of using wind power may increase.

“Natural gas is probably the next best backup to hydro because those facilities can ramp up and down very quickly and move with the wind just like the hydro system,” said Johnson.

“Which would be, in fact, that they’re creating fossil fuel plants because they’re putting wind energy on the grid,” said Wynn.

But Johnson said people have to “remember (that) there is absolutely no carbon emission from the wind blowing.”

For now, the BPA sees wind not as a replacement for water but an enhancement to it. The BPA is also relying on new tools to better predict what the wind will do.

In Troutdale anemometers are used to transmit wind direction and speed, and the BPA schedules power by the half hour instead of by the hour. Soon, dispatchers will have screens with real-time wind generation data.

“The more we learn about wind behavior, the more you learn about what it’s going to do and schedule the amount of energy you expect as an output, the better you get and the fewer reserves you have to keep,” Johnson said.

Oregon is requiring that the largest utilities get one quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. For Washington, it’s 15 percent by 2020.

http://www.kval.com/news/87467517.html