Global Warmists back off on prediction
 

Guess what? The earth's climate is kind of stable. Yes, global warming could be a problem, but we know that despite Al Gore's phoney charts, the earth has been warmer quite recently than it is now. Anyway, at least we can take this particular bit of paranoia off the table... unless these computer models are as bad as the previous ones. *dulp!*

OSLO — Mainstream climatologists who have feared that global warming could have the paradoxical effect of cooling northwestern Europe or even plunging it into a small ice age have stopped worrying about that particular disaster, although it retains a vivid hold on the public imagination.

This is interesting, because I just read in the paper yesterday that NASA has just completed some computer modeling that was too late to include in the inter-government panel's report a couple months ago. Their models show that the effects of global warming will be far worse much sooner than anyone else had predicted.

I'll see if I can dig that up.

I think the NASA model shows things getting hotter faster. This doesn't dispute that, they're just saying Northern Europe won't get cold from the changing current temp.

It will be interesting to see the changes in localized weather patterns as the average global temperature rises. The article about the NASA model said that for the Eastern US seaboard, the changes would not be good at all. Instead of summer temps in the upper 80s they were talking about summer temps over 100 for extended periods of time. This is by the end of the century.

They had a guy on the news over the weekend that was predicting 108 deg F for the East Coast Summers.

A hundred years from now.

Up ten degrees in 70 years. That's a hell of a lot.

But hey, we'll probably be dead by then. Our kids will probably invent a fix-everything ray in the last minute. Anything we do now is just wasting money.

The unfortunate fact is that we really have no freakin' idea what the climate will be like in 10, 50 or 250 years. However, it does make good sense not to screw with the atmosphere or the oceans too much so we should probably just stick with that.

Less fortunate still is the sad fact that because there is so much static about who's right/wrong that even if someone did produce a correct model, we wouldn't even know it.

Equation for global warming.

X = Man made global warming

Y = Natural global warming

X + Y =10

Find X

Nor would they.

And as long as there's uncertainty about X, we should assume it's zero and not do anything.

Well, we always have the fix-everything ray if we are wrong.

I thought, maybe our kids should invent a time-machine, and bring the fix-everything-ray back here, but then I guess if they do that, they'd have done that, and everything could be fixed already. then I thought maybe there is a reason for that not happening yet, and then I thought there's a reason for everything, because The Lord works in mysterious ways. So, in conclusion, yeah we should just do nothing.

I think our creator is just about ready to throw the ant farm of humanity into the garbage.

Haven't you noticed he hasn't been watering us with the same care as he once did?

Why do X and Y sum to a constant? I think its...

X + Y = Z

Solve for Z.

We can calculate the total global warming but we can't calculate why the Earth is warming. I pretty sure most people agree that the Earth is warming and that is backed by scientific fact.

What we don't know is why the Earth is warming. That is the point of the two variables and why I made the point that it is impossible to calculate X without Y and why it is impossible to calculate Y without X.

To get to the point, even though both variables do add to global warming, we can not say what is causing how much warming so it is a flawed argument to say that global warming is man-made or natural made. It just annoys me when people say "global warming is because of this" when they have no proof to back it up with.

Here's something possibly irrelevant to this conversation but I'm going to tell you anyway.

The Al Gore lecture is doing the rounds over here at the moment, and my husband and two sons went along on Monday night to listen to it and watch the pictures.

When question time came up, my 10yr old stood up and asked this question.

"If global warming is caused by holes in the ozone layer [in part] then why can't the warmth get back out of the holes?"

Your reasoning reminds me of this scene in Fight Club:

...except that X, the consequential cost, is probably a lot higher than the cost of fixing the problem.

Invest in high ground.

There are fixes and then there are pretend fixes. Kyoto was a pretend fix akin to changing the oil in that rear differential. A public relations stunt saying, "We care!" Fully implemented, it would have very slightly delayed our reaching whatever number we're saying is too warm. (I say this assuming that CO2 doesn't follow warming but is causing it.)

I want us off fossil fuels for political and environmental reasons. I do, however, come back to the motives of the fear-mongerers. Conveniently enough, the biggest supporters of the Global Warming theory also support command economies a proven threat to humanity.

Inhofe finds 13 climatologists who have recently changed from global warming advocates to skeptics

I don't find Inhofe personally compelling but this list is interesting.

Lot of Canadians on the list, are you sure they aren't trying to fool us so Canada will thaw out?
I wonder if Bluesdave knows Dr David Evans?

The only clear way to get off of fossil fuels is to use less - a lot less. For the forseeable future (a vague term that), there is no alternative fuel that can displace more than a small percentage of our current oil consumption. Nothing. Not ethanol nor biodiesel nor DME nor hydrogen nor electrons. We can achieve more through efficiency and conservation than we can through all the ethanol that we could produce from corn. This is briefly discussed in the 20 in 10 thread.

[Homer] Orrrrr, we could use more, to use it up quickly, then there wouldn't be any to fight over. [Homer]

I know of him, but do not know him. He is a very smart guy, but not trained in climate research. You have to be careful when people with PhDs speak outside of their training. We have a tendency to think that because we have achieved a doctorate, that means we know everything. We don't.

David is quite correct when he says that the whole climate change debate has been hijacked by politicians. Several of us in my old project eventually came to the conclusion that we would never win the battle to convince the public. I always pushed the argument that it was better to sell the public on the benefits of cleaning up the environment, rather than throwing figures and graphs around, that were only going to confuse people. My point was that regardless whether man really is having an effect on the rate of climate change, it can only help the planet, and hence us, if we reduce pollution.

I am really worried about what is happening in China and India. It will be interesting to see how the Olympics go in 2008. The images of Beijing that I have seen, send chills down my spine. :greenface

Being hijacked not only by politicians, but charlatans and hucksters that prey on people who don't understand anything passed the headlines. Sure, people are subject to being scammed because they haven't delved into the story behind the headlines, but that doesn't excuse the scammers.

In fairness to the general public, we've dug into it pretty deeply here, in several threads, and still haven't been able to find definitive answers. There is a lot of opposing, subjective, conclusions, and conflicting data.

It's pretty well agreed that the Earth is warming up. I see no debate there, but why, how far it will warm, what the consequences will be and what we can do about it, are being debated.

Your position of, cleaning up can't hurt, is probably true. But I feel an organized effort, encompassing cost/benefit considerations, is the best way to attack the pollution problem. Unfortunately that requires government intervention, which scares most people because of the government's history of being inept and squandering resources.... not to mention full scale charges in the wrong direction.

China/India are indeed scary, just because of the scale and speed they are fouling the water, air and land. The long running, runaway, underground coal seam fires in northern China, probably spew out more pollution than most countries.

I have participated a few times in some of those threads, Bruce, if you remember. I tried to point out that it is impossible to design an experiment that will prove man's contribution to climate change. As you point out, there are conflicting "experts", and inconsistent data. I can only speak from my experience and the data we have collected. It becomes a pointless exercise repeating the same message over and over again, to the same audience. That is why I have not participated in every thread on the subject.

Climate change is like a religion. People believe what they want to believe, and others manipulate it for their own profit, or power.

Dave, I know I've asked you this before, but what Uni are you affiliated with?

I'm convinced you believe what you say to be the truth, to the best of your knowledge. And you are a genuine scientist, with no apparent axe to grind.
You've contributed a great deal of light, in threads with an abundance of speculation, guessing, hearsay and heat. You even asked your boss to shed some light.

But like you said yourself, there's a lot of conflicting stories and people giving answers that have no clue, or worse, an ulterior motive. I've got questions, as you well know. Nothing tricky, just plain old questions most everyone has. Unfortunately, questions are much easier to form than answers.

The other night on the TV news they were talking about a new computer model predicting a 10 degree increase in temperature and the very next day I hear another story. If the people that know the most don't don't agree, what are we mere mortals to think.... or believe?

Although I'm sure it's frustrating for you, please don't take my skepticism personally. I'm pretty frustrated too.


Oh, and bluesdave... don't let my skepticism dissuade you from preaching to the lurkers, you've got board creds.

And that is why we should never sign Kyoto.

Yep.

When someone else decides to murder 32 people, I always think to myself that that's why I should do it too...cause someone else did.

WTF???? Are you off your meds again?

Are you still a moron?

My point was that not signing kyoto because india and china output more gasses is an irrational decision.

We all know that the US and other countries, including Australia have been very rational about not signing though. I'm sure you don't need me to explain why to you.

The Kyoto is a conspiracy to hurt the American economy.

Everyone knows that...

*can I post a picture of a man with a tin foil hat or would that be bad taste?*

I doubt it is a conspiracy. How about you explain how the Kyoto agreement is good for the US economy when dealing on an international scale in competition with India and China.

It would be better if they complied.

Coal Man
There's at least one CEO left who is not buying global warming hysteria.

BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Saturday, May 19, 2007 12:01 a.m.

WASHINGTON--Every good party has its wet blanket. In the case of the energy industry's merrymaking for a global warming program, the guy in the dripping bedspread is a 67-year-old, straight-talking coal-mine owner by the name of Robert E. Murray.
You won't hear many of Mr. Murray's energy-biz colleagues mention him; they tend to avoid his name, much as nephews avoid talk of their crazy uncles. GE's Jeffrey Immelt, Duke Energy's Jim Rogers, Exelon's John Rowe--these polished titans have been basking in an intense media glow, ever since they claimed to have seen the light on global warming and gotten behind a mandatory government program to cut C02 emissions. They'd rather not have any killjoys blowing the whistle on their real motives--which is to make a pile of cash off the taxpayers and consumers who'll fund it.

And yet here's Mr. Murray, killjoy-in-chief at the global warming love-fest. "Some elitists in our country can't, or won't, tell fact from fiction, can't understand what a draconian climate change program will do [to] the dreams of millions of working Americans and those on fixed incomes," says the chairman and CEO of Murray Energy, one of the largest private coal concerns in the country. He's incensed by his fellow energy CEOs' "shameless" goal of fattening their bottom lines at the "expense of the broader economy." So these past months he's emerged from his quiet Cleveland office and jumped on the national stage, calling out the rest of his industry's CO2 collaborationists. He's testified in front of Congress; become a regular on television and radio programs; sat for profiles by journalists; and written letters to other energy companies exhorting them to think of the broader consequences.

It seems unlikely his campaign will slow the runaway global-warming train now hurtling through Washington. But Mr. Murray is certainly making the ride less comfortable for some corporate players. "For me, global warming is a human issue, not just an environmental one," he says in his slow, gravelly way, nursing a cup of coffee at a local shop here after recent congressional testimony.
"The science of global warming is speculative. But there's nothing speculative about the damage a C02 capture program will do to this country. I know the names of many of the thousands of people--American workers, their families--whose lives will be destroyed by what has become a deceitful and hysterical campaign, perpetrated by fear-mongers in our society and by corporate executives intent on their own profits or competitive advantage. I can't stand by and watch."

Tough words, and unusually brash ones for a respected CEO, though Mr. Murray is uniquely situated to deliver them. Unlike other energy executives--at industrial firms such as GE that make millions on wind turbines, or utilities such as Duke or Exelon who are making big financial bets on "clean energy"--coal CEOs such as Mr. Murray are the bad boys on the global-warming scene, and will see zero upside in a global-warming program. While the industry has certainly made advances on the real pollution front (sulfur dioxide/nitrogen oxide), coal still accounts for the vast majority of all electricity-related C02 emissions.

The only way to really cut carbon emissions would be to severely limit the use of coal-fired power plants and manufacturing facilities, which is exactly what environmentalists have wanted for years. "We're one of the targets of this campaign," says Mr. Murray. "Putting in place a global warming program is about putting limits on the coal business and low-cost energy." The Ohio coal miner therefore has nothing to lose by speaking hard truths.

He's also well-qualified to speak them, hailing from a long line of coal miners proud of their roots and their industry. A no-nonsense guy, Mr. Murray became the family provider after his father was paralyzed in a coal-mining accident. By 16, he was mowing lawns every day after school, using a coal miner's cap with a light on the front so he could continue to work past dark. He'd set his sights on a medical career when he was unexpectedly offered a chance at a scholarship to become a mining engineer. "I'm a fourth-generation miner, but it's only by happenstance," he chuckles.

There followed 31 years at the North American Coal Corporation, where he rose to CEO and then left in 1987 after a disagreement. Striking out on his own, he mortgaged his home to buy his first mine. Today, Murray Energy operates 11 coal mines in Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Utah, producing 32 million tons of coal annually ($800 million in sales) for U.S. electric utilities. He employs about 3,000, although he estimates that if you look at all the secondary jobs created to provide goods and services for miners, his company has helped create some 36,000 jobs.

Those jobs are top of Mr. Murray's list of concerns, and he's been determined to make people hear about them. At a recent speech to the New York Coal Trade Association, designed to whip some of his fellow coal industry friends into action, Mr. Murray recalled what happened in his region after the 1990 Clean Air Act, which imposed drastic reductions in coal production: "In Ohio alone, from 1990 to 2005, nearly 120 mines were shut down, costing more than 36,000 primary and secondary jobs. These impacted areas have spent years recovering, and some never will. Families broke up, many lost homes, and some were impoverished . . ." He finishes the thought by noting that a global warming program would make those prior coal cuts look like small potatoes.

These speeches and TV appearances have become more frequent--and it's a measure of just how big an irritant he's become to global-warming politicians and their new buddies in the energy industry, that when Mr. Murray was invited to impart his wisdom to Congress at a hearing in March, Democrats tried to keep him from testifying. They later gave in, although Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee Chairman Jim Costa pointedly left the room when it was Mr. Murray's turn to testify.

Had Mr. Costa bothered to stay, he'd have heard a useful, and irrefutable, analysis of just what today's legislative proposals for a global warming program would mean to the economy, including the nation's many miners. "Some 52% of this country's electricity is generated from coal," Mr. Murray says. "Global warming legislation would place arbitrary limits on the use of coal, yet there's nothing to replace it at the same cost. There's nuclear, but the environmentalists killed it off and aren't about to let it come back. There's hydro, but we're using that everywhere we can already. There's natural gas, but supply and pipeline capacity is limited, and it's three times the cost of coal. Politically correct--and subsidized 'alternative energy' is very limited in capability and also expensive.
"So what you are really doing with a global warming program is getting rid of low-cost energy," he says. The consequences? Americans have been fretting about losing jobs to places such as China or India, which already offer cheaper energy. "You hike the cost of energy here further, and you create a mass exodus of business out of this country." Especially so, given that neither of those countries is about to hamstring its own economy in order to join a Kyoto-like accord. He points out that since 1990, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 18%, while China's have increased by 77%. Mr. Murray also notes that many countries that have joined Kyoto have already failed to meet their targets.

Mr. Murray, like most honest participants in this debate, can reel off the names of the many respected scientists who still doubt that human activity is the cause of rising temperatures. But he tends to treat the scientific debate almost as a sideshow, an excuse for not talking about what comes next. "Even if the politicians believe 100% that man is causing global warming, they still have an obligation to discuss honestly just what damage they want to inflict on American jobs and workers and people on fixed incomes, in the here and now, with their programs."

This is where Mr. Murray really gets rolling, on his favorite subject of his fellow energy executives and the role they are playing in encouraging a mandatory C02 program. "There is this belief that since even some in the energy industry are now on board with a program, that it must be okay. No one is looking at these executives' real motives."

To understand those motives, you've first got to understand how a cap-and-trade plan works. The government would first place a cap on CO2 emissions. Each company would then be given an "allowance" for emissions. If the company produced less CO2 than allowed, it could sell the excess credits to others. If a company wanted to produce more CO2 than its allowance, it would have to buy credits. "The strategy for these folks now is to go to Washington, help design the program to suit their companies, and snap up all the carbon emission allowances," says Mr. Murray. "The more allowances they get, the more they'll have to sell, and the more money they'll make. . . . This has nothing to do with creating 'regulatory certainty,' which is how they like to sell their actions. This has to do with creating money, for their companies, off the back of an economy that will be paying more for its energy."

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/...l?id=110010098

If you mean who do I work for, the answer is no one now. I am retired. I have not been attached to the academic staff of any university; I worked for a government body (prior to that, a few companies). The project's goal is to distill data coming from researchers all over the world, and try to make some sense out of it. We then gave recommendations to the government, and also advised land users (such as primary producers), of our estimates of where the climate is heading. We (not me), wrote several computer models that tried to predict future rainfall in various regions of Australia. Our early models failed, as did those of many other researchers around the world. We all worked closely with many other researchers, so in that sense I had contact with many universities and research organisations. We used NASA data quite a bit.

We were all forced to sign non disclosure agreements in order to join the project, and the penalties were potentially quite serious - not to mention that if we were caught leaking information to the media, that would be the end of the person's career. This is why I have been very reticent to divulge too much information. Even though I am retired I still have a loose connection to the project.

That's very interesting thanks Dave. The reason I asked is because a lot of the things you post are very similar to the types of things my husband talks about. He's in environmental management.

Hey Dave, you could write a tell-all book and sell the TV/Movie rights for a fortune. Maybe you could star in it, too. And have a fan club and groupies... don't forget the groupies. Kind of like Trading Places with weather futures instead of Orange Juice futures.

Did I mention the groupies?

That's a great idea Bruce, but would the "groupies" be interested in a balding, grey haired old man? Somehow, I do not think so. :headshake

BTW, it is funny that you mention Trading Places. I was down at our local shopping mall this morning and saw that there is a two disc version of the movie available. The container did not say what is on the second disc. Unfortunately, I purchased the single disc version about a year ago (it was very cheap). It is a very funny movie. :D

Oh, wait! The guy with the inside poop on the OJ futures ended up in a gorilla suit! Better rethink that, I don't think you want that kind of groupie.

:shock:

The Juggernaut is in motion.
Big wheel keep on turnin'
Proud Mary keep on burnin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin' over reason.

And this is my point. Thank you for NPR following up on my thought process from 2 days ago...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=10221268

Merc, it is not only NPR who are shouting warnings about China (and do not forget India). I have mentioned them several times. The problem is: what can we do about it? All countries want to do business with China, so no one wants to offend them. As I said in this thread, the Olympics in 2008 will be interesting.

I have debated whether to bring this up, but now seems a good time. Do you know what really worries us? It is not just global warming, green house gases, etc. It is the impending shift in the Earth's magnetic poles. I do not know how many Cellarites have been following this story, but the magnetic poles are moving. At the moment the North Pole is somewhere in the mid far North Atlantic. We do not how far the poles need to shift before they "flop", but some researchers are predicting that we are approaching that time (others disagree and say that the rotation will be gradual, and consistent). Imagine the effect on the Earth's wildlife. We know that these events have occurred many times before, but we do not know the resultant effect on the Earth's ecology.

Wow, bluesdave--I've read a little about the magnetic pole switching, but only ever in the vein of "this is way overdue to happen, and when it does the results will be mind-blowing," never "it's actually showing signs of starting to move."

What are the ramifications for our current technology? Obviously once the flip is final compasses will be backwards, but what about plane navigation systems and such?

It will potentially effect just about everything. Not just compasses (which have not been used seriously since GPS came into being). I am far from an expert on this subject, but I have read that many of the possible effects are unpredictable. We are not sure to what extent it will confuse our wildlife - their use of the Earth's magnetic field for navigation is still being debated. We also do not know if the change will effect the Earth's weather patterns, and ocean currents. It is a huge hole in our knowledge.

We do know that the poles have swapped before, but we have no way of knowing what damage was done. The last time man was not running around with truck loads of electronics, either. :(

It also falls into the category of, it ain't our fault, and we can't do anything to prevent it. The question is how will it affect us and how can we prepare to diminish it's impact. I've seen a hundred articles on it being a possibility but never any on what the effect will be other than birds getting confused.

CRTs will go all wonky.

Hey, that's great. All our old monitors can be shipped to South America instead of filling the landfills

As I said, not much is known about the likely effects. Unlike climate change, we have little knowledge of when the event will happen - only certainty that it is on the way.

You are correct Bruce. This one is not our fault, and I did not suggest that it was. There is probably nothing that we can do to prepare for it, other than wait.

Maybe it is a good time to find that old fashioned religion? :eek:

I was really just trying to breathe a bit of life back into this thread. :sniff:

I think we should put more money into space exploration so we can find ourselves a new planet. :)

What a defeatist attitude, Aliantha.
With all the technology at our disposal, we could fuck up a new planet a hell of a lot faster.

I read you Dave, but pole swaps and Super volcanoes are just out of our control.

Probably what we should be trying to figure out is how are we going to adapt to the coming climate changes?
What are we going to have to adapt too, would probably come first?

Well the climate is going to be hotter, so women should wear less clothing, for starters. Hey, I am being serious.

We've adapted to climate change quite well in Oz. :) Cept we're always thirsty. :(

Here you go Bruce, some positive news in the fight against Global Warming:

I have been a supporter of hydrogen cells, but I accept that the cost is not reasonable, nor the length of mileage between "top-ups". Here is the full story (at least it is the press release). These guys are heading in the right direction.

Such arrogance that people think they can stop or slow climate change.
If everybody started using battery powered cars do you really think it will have an impact on the environment?
First it was the world was flat, then it was everything revolved around the earth, then it was we are alone in the universe and the latest arrogance is we are warming the globe.
We are so full of ourselves that we have entire bogus political movements based on it.

There is a difference between stopping climate change and stopping man-made climate change.

The fact you think we are changing the climate at this stage is arrogant.