See Hank Roberts’ comment in the post on another repeat of the old DDT/Rachel Carson hoaxes.
Clearly, performing the science and writing the journal articles isn’t getting the messages out that need to be gotten out, not on the continuing destruction of our environment, which leads to the continuing destruction of our climate, nor on health care, nor sex education, nor the destruction of public education in the name of “teacher accountability, nor evolution as the vastly superior and more accurate portrayal of life than creationism, nor the failure of supply-side economics, nor on a number of other issues.
Remember Flock of Dodos? Andrew Revkin at Dot.Earth, a New York Times blog, interviewed Randy Olson about the Nerd Loop. Specifically, Olson thinks we need to avoid it. I like Olson’s use of graphics in this interview.
Alas, Olson doesn’t offer us any pixie dust. Maybe we need to stop waiting for pixie dust, eh?
What do you think?
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Scrooge,
Hmmm… I think we have a seperation of terms here.
“Chaotic” in general math and science terms does not mean “wild” and “crazy”
It means “wholly unpredictable, with observable patterns”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set
Mandelbrot sets, for example – the pattern repeats, it is infinitely scalable, but the dots on that make the pattern appear wholly random in their placement.
It is not a “need”
It is a fact of science – something desperately short in the Climate ‘science’
You are not fully informed. There is volumes of info on this subject, if you actually wanted to know it.
There is no need to “slow” CO2 – its effects – as they are logarithmic, are essentially irrelevant
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All I can say the human race has been lucky climate is not chaotic. We would not have thrived like we have. I understand your “need” for cosmic rays to influence cloud formation but you would need a whole lot more than we have observed. And after that figure what the sensitivity of those clouds is. After you did all that the best scenario you could come up with is to slow the effects of CO2.
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Scrooge,
Other me, you are the only one who has said that here.
Climate is even more chaotic – which is why models do not work to forecast, predict or do any such things.
It is infinitely chaotic
Not so “mysterious” – lots of hypothesis, with a few of good merit.
We can “see” them, and “identify” them, and scientifically prove their effect on the atmosphere and in creating clouds.
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Blackflag posted this: https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/fight-the-nerd-loop-science-education-and-communication-for-a-troubled-and-troubling-world/#comment-161912
All since then has been absurd, and frankly, I was not missing Eugene Ionesco at all.
[ignore]Blackflag[/ignore]
Gee, that’s better.
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I don’t know of anyone here saying models prove AGW. Seems there’s only one person here claiming to have proved anything. As far as your chaotic climate you may be confusing climate and weather. Weather is chaotic and that’s why models won’t work to forecast a year out. The best guess for a year from now is what climatolgy says. Global climate not so chaotic. Regional can be. If you are worried about rapid climate change you will need a trigger or switch. Now rapid is a relative statement, but I think we can rule out ice age in the near future so the only trigger or switch we have right now is CO2. Or I guess mysterious cycle or cosmic rays we can’t see or identify.
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Ed,
You are insane.
If a person discredits her own work – to you that means she has discredit her own discredit, and therefore can be trusted!
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Ed,
Using your water fall model, please tell me about to get hydrogen from water using aluminum.
Gee, you can’t – the model tells you NOTHING about this process because the computer program has not been programmed to know about this.
And since you did not know, you could not program it!
Only by scientific experiment would you discover the reaction.
Science method, Ed – something you have consistently avoided in these discussions because it is simply lost on you and your ilk.
The moment your ilk needs to answer to science, you fail.
Thus, you refuse it, believing that will win the science argument!
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Black Flag, first you hold out Naomi Oreskes as the source that backs your claim, then you claim she’s untrustworthy as a source.
Now you demonstrate disassociative tendencies — when I ask you the question, you appear to think I offered Oreskes as the source, when I was merely showing that you misread what she wrote. For heaven’s sake, man — you held up her paper as the authority. Why are you debunking your authority now?
Quit being so bizarre.
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Ed,
For example,
Using the model of the waterfall in Star Wars, please explain how water droplets create waves.
Pretty simple – given the model can prove something, right?
But it can’t – there is nothing in the model of that water fall that will tell you one thing about the water ripples.
Yes, you can program the computer to make it appear there are ripples, but you have no idea how water makes ripples
For your education, they are created by
water tension
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/time-warp-water-droplet.html
That is the difference between a model and a science experiment – and confuse them, you become confused.
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Ed,
But why bother – she admits it herself she made a serious mistake
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Ed,
Do your own work.
Easy:
Google
“Oreskes debunked”
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Ed,
Nothing – at all – about your definition (which is the same as mine) makes it science
There is no PROOF within a computer program.
No, it is the difference between knowing that the Zeno’ paradox has an inferred, but fallacious premise.
and ignorance about such premises.
…so her own admittance of her flaw is utterly ignored by you…
Nonsense!
Science is full of volumes upon volumes of experimental proof!
Shockingly, you believe this does not exist!
In fact, we do.
You are so very confused.
We humans are absolutely, positively, assured that gravity exists because -by experiment- we have proven it.
You believe because you can’t find a particle for it, means that it doesn’t exist – but no, Ed, whether or not it is a particle or not does not change the fact that gravity exists and is measurable and is provable.
No, Ed, we can scientifically perform direct experiments and measurements which prove gravity exists
Those models do NOT prove gravity.
Those models, using our knowledge by experiment can help determine these things.
Again, you have it ass-backwards.
You do not know what you are talking about.
By my standards the standards of the scientific method gives such proof.
Because there is no proof for your falsified hypothesis you must attack science.
Sir, perhaps you should begin to think.
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You’re blind as well, BF. If you think her work is statistically fallacious, why did you cite her paper to us to back up your claim?
I suspect that you simply find a citation and put it into your posts in the hope that your bullying will put others off on bothering to check your citations, which, as I noted earlier, in every case go to papers that say the opposite of what you claim.
Did you bother to read Dr. Oreskes’ paper before you cited it to us?
The old AOL boards had a wonderful “ignore” feature. One could put a screen name on “ignore,” and their posts would not show up when you looked at a thread. I almost wish WordPress had such a function at this moment.
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BF, must we do everything for you? I weary of your inability to read for understanding:
It’s the difference between understanding that you can eventually catch up to a tortoise walking across the desert, and thinking that because of Zeno’s paradox, you’ll be doomed to trail the turtle forever if you give the beast a head start.
Dr. Oreskes — who has not been questioned seriously about any of her statistical work, by anyone with the guts to publish a paper — suggests that people who call for “proof” of global warming do not understand what they ask for. Proof can never be achieved to the level they (you) ask — and so models are good enough to show what will likely happen. Anyone with common sense should see the trends of the various lines of evidence, she argues.
For example, we have no solid proof of gravity. It’s been only rather recently that scientists determined gravity is carried on a particle (graviton) — but as with the atom, no one has ever seen one. No one has ever directly observed gravity. Tests to catch a gravity wave have come up dry so far.
Heuristically, we can intuit that gravity exists, and using Newton’s models, we can predict actions and reactions under gravity, including ballistic routes, rates of acceleration when an object falls, orbital velocities, escape velocities, and much more.
By your standards, there is no proof gravity exists. And so, according to your line of argument on global warming, we should assume anyone can fly any time, any where, and making airplanes will prove fruitless. Using Newton’s rules is similarly fruitless, under your paradigm.
So, heuristically, the rest of us may note that your claim is nuts. You may have a leg to stand on, but under your model, you have no place to put it, and no gravity to hold it down.
Perhaps you should rethink.
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Ed,
Actually, they do.
My conclusion:
AGW hypothesis has been falsified, and therefore must be discarded
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http://www.dailytech.com/Survey+Less+Than+Half+of+all+Published+Scientists+Endorse+Global+Warming+Theory/article8641.htm
…but hey, the fact remains this:
Science is not a democracy
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
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Ed
Most obviously you do not.
From “reference.org”
Simply means the common sense evaluation of something as opposed to rigorous scientific testing
It means, Ed, it is not science.
I am sure this will be completely lost on you, but I’ll try anyway.
In Star Wars, there is a scene where two Jedi Knights walk under and through a water fall.
The water fall was all CGI – it modeled a water fall.
Looked pretty real – it appeared heuristically correct.
But there is not one thing you can tell me about how water falls, the component of water, water and temperature, gravity, or anything from that CGI of water, let alone “prove” anything about water.
In other words, you have your understanding ass-backwards.
When you know the science, you can accurately model it.
When you are understanding science, models do not help you prove a darn thing.
Her works has been discredited as statistically fallacious.
These objections were put to Oreskes by science writer David Appell. On 15 December 2004,
….she admitted that there was indeed a serious mistake in her Science essay. According to Oreskes, her study was not based on the keywords “climate change,” but on “global climate
change” (3).
Further,
RESULTS
The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes’ findings and essentially falsify her study:
Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (or 1%) explicitly endorse the ‘consensus view’.
322 abstracts (or 29%) implicitly accept the ‘consensus view’ but mainly focus on impact
assessments of envisaged global climate change.
Less than 10% of the abstracts (89) focus on “mitigation”.
67 abstracts mainly focus on methodological questions.
87 abstracts deal exclusively with paleo-climatological research unrelated to recent
climate change.
34 abstracts reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of the
“the observed warming over the last 50 years”.
44 abstracts focus on natural factors of global climate change.
470 (or 42%) abstracts include the keywords “global climate change” but do not include any direct or indirect link or reference to human activities, CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions,
let alone anthropogenic forcing of recent climate change.
As usual, those that depend on myth must ignore fact.
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Ed,
Where in your link regarding that case mentioned the Scientific Method?
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Scrooge,
I disagree with using Models as proof, something they cannot do.
Models are fine in creating hypothesis – but I find that you, among many confuse hypothesis with proof and confuse claims with conclusions.
I come from the day – and still live in those days – where models provide an hypothesis that may be worth further investigation, and not the end of investigation.
As pointed out already, climate is an infinitely chaotic system that makes it impossible to model.
This is not a matter of “knowing” some physics formula or not – it is a matter of fact regarding chaotic systems.
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Ed,
Where in your like regarding that case mentioned the Scientific Method?
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Do you know what “heuristic value” means?
No, I didn’t think so.
Look up Naomi Oreskes, will you? You could learn a lot from her, BF.
Like here: “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science Magazine
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full
Or here: Merchants of Doubt FAQ
I think you’re batting 1.000 on this stuff, BF — not a single source you’ve cited against the idea of anthroprogenic global warming doesn’t disagree with your conclusions exactly.
Naomi Oreskes has an entire chapter in her book on people who deny global warming, and how they are wrong, or tools, or evil, or any combination of the three.
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Models are tools that are produced using applied knowledge. Aren’t computers great. They take the place of thousands working with pencil and paper, slide rules and crayons. Which models do you disagree with and why? If there is a legitimate disagreement more than likely that can be explained. Trust me I come from the days when you looked at models after you did your work and that was just for reinforcement. If there is a model I cite for something that I don’t understand I will say so. I am not foolish enough though to think that if I don’t understand what physics went into a certain model that it must be false.
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Things have changed at the Supreme Court since 1789. You should check again. See especially Daubert v. Merrell Dow.
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I know Pang, Scrooge and you love climate models as your proof….
Read here:
Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The primary value of models is heuristic.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/263/5147/641.short
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Ed,
Water can be a deadly poison. It’s called drowning.
Yeah, right.
You think Co2 @ 300 or so parts per MILLION is a poison…..
No, they are not, by definition.
The last time I checked, the Supreme Court does not abide by the Scientific method.
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CO2 can be a deadly poison. We have NIOSH guidelines to limit its concentrations in workplaces, and local codes have restricted it in schools for 50 years or more. Your failure to understand how damaging and toxic a substance is does not mean it is not a pollutant.
Greenhouse gases are pollutants by definition, CO2 past certain concentrations. The Supreme Court rejects your idea that CO2 is not a pollutant — what is wrong with the reasoning of the Court in that case — can you be specific?
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Ed,
So is arsenic, but so is water.
Because these are natural makes not one wit of difference to them being pollutants or poisons or not.
Co2 is not a pollutant, and not because it is natural.
Co2 is not a pollutant because it does not pollute human life. It is plant food, and a necessity of all life on earth.
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Urine is natural, too — mind if I pee in your soup? Excrement can fertilize the fields. Want some in your salad?
How about a smart pill? I keep them in the sheep pasture . . .
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This is sad really. The feature that is destroying countries like Somalia, and if countries aren’t enough continents like Australia, is the same feature that will make the SW a dustbowl and will change weather patterns over Europe to put them a permanent drought situation. This will not take much of a temperature increase to occur. To understand this should be at most middle school science. Europeans get this, why can’t Americans. Scientifically we are near certain humans are causing global warming. That puts it up there close to gravity. Though it is not just CO2, it is the most significant.
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Ed,
Only to those who live in fantasy.
I wouldn’t blame any kid under your control taking drugs – it would be the only way to deal with an insane person as yourself.
More ad homenien and devoid of any reason or argument as usual
True.
I do not suffer idiots, fools and the stupid.
hahahahahahahhahahahahah!
Whew, that was funny!
No, it is not saying that at all, and only fools say such as you!
Because some one writes it does not make it true, Ed.
It appears you believe that just because it is in print, must be true, but that is your fault and failure for you cannot discern fact from fiction, truth from lie.
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Ed,
Let’s reverse this:
Please tell me which nation has achieved Kyoto.
Oh, none.
Ok, I’ll be gracious and make it easier.
Which are on track to achieve Kyoto in the next 20 years.
Oh, none.
Other than Australia, which nations have distorted their economies to “fix” something they cannot fix?
Oh, none.
So, you poke a finger in your eye and proclaim what observably is false.
We will see.
Given that solar cannot replace the nuclear energy, there are only three outcomes:
German economic collapse due to exhaust of the power grid
German reversal on their nuclear power plant decision
German expansion of consumption of oil resources.
They don’t work.
IF your claim was true, such a economic drop would be proportional – but it is not – carbon credit schemes are approaching bankrupt
Co2 is not pollution.
Pollution of the human environment affects humans – thus, humans tend to prefer pollution reduction for it betters human life.
It is no mystery to why garbage collection is a service.
The failure: believing Co2 is a pollution and would react to the same methods of pollution reduction. It is not pollution, does not effect human environment and its reduction does not improve – actually destroys – human lifestyles and comfort.
Carbon credits are not free-market, they are typically run and mandated by government threat and coercion.
Only the blind and thoughtless believe Carbon credits exist out of the creation of free men. They are enforced by government writ, hence, totalitarian.
But, ya know, don’t take my word for it about Kyoto and the collapse of the Greenie political movement.
Former UN Climate General Secretary Yvo de Boer in an interview.
The spirit of the Kyoto Protocol has disappeared. Its body is being artificially kept alive and perhaps some of the organs may get transplanted. But we have to admit that the Kyoto Protocol is dead.”
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First, you didn’t limit your critique to carbon credits trading. You said that every other nation on Earth has abandoned programs to combat global warming. That would be a lie, if you had the discernment to determine truth from fact. I answered your assertion, not the assertion you’re trying to switch to now.
Second, both of those nations above have gone whole-hog into greening their energy grids. Germany has formally abandoned nuclear power in favor of alternatives, doubling down their investments in wind and solar. The two leading nations in export of solar cell products right now are Germany and China. China has bought in heavily for the simple reason that they cannot continue to live with poisoned air.
Carbon credit markets are in trouble, yes, but not because they don’t work. They suffer from the worldwide economic malaise, which has produced a decrease in industrial output, which has reduced carbon emissions, both of which have contributed to there being a lot of credits available — and supply/demand economics not having been suspended as you wish, with an oversupply of credits, the prices have dropped. Because pollution credits worked so dramatically well in the U.S. and Europe in reducing sulfur, nitrogen and particulate pollution, no one is throwing in the towel on carbon credits. They offer a free-market, non-totalitarian way to reduce pollution, despite your completely fact-free rants.
But what’s a fact to you? You are set in your knowledge that what the rest of the world considers wise and necessary action is both foolish and wasteful — and from there you extrapolate, oddly, that everyone else outside the U.S. agrees with you and so has already acted as you would have them act, rashly, stupidly and without regard to the facts.
You’d do well to ponder the advice of the humorists.
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Which is why your answers are so divorced from reality. Seriously, you’re among the more ill-informed people I’ve met anywhere lately. If I had a kid in class who demonstrated your inability to read critically and draw a rational conclusion, I’d look for drug abuse or some other kind of abuse that causes disassociation.
And so far, I see absolutely no indication that you’ve grasped just how far you deviate from the simple facts of every given situation we have explored here.
Plus, your actions here are frequently rude. Even smiling attempts to get you to see your unfairness and bullying tactics don’t work.
Newspapers are good sources of information. Saying you don’t get knowledge from newspapers is no less shocking than saying you don’t get your knowledge from books, or you don’t believe scientists should get their information from scientific journals.
If it were just a quip, it would be unfunny. Alas, I suspect you’re telling the truth, and you want a merit badge for it.
No merit badges for ignorance, alas for you.
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Carbon trading was never seen in Europe as a “greenie” solution, it was always seen as a right wing American response to it. Saying. we have more money than the rest of the world, and we will use that to buy our way out of doing anything.
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Ed,
PS: No, I do not get my knowledge from “newspapers” – though, I believe you do.
Here is your “carbon” credits value:
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/market/data/summary.jsf
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Ed,
Germany? Bailed.
China? Never bought.
The rest -don’t matter – they never bought and have bailed.
Carbon Trading – yep, the index has utterly collapsed – essentially worthless.
Throw your money away, Ed. Luv ya for it!
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Riiigggghhttt…..
Elimante a significant source of energy and replace it with what….solar??? ahahahhahahahahah
Yeah, Germans are not idiots. Something will give, and it won’t be a rush to “Greenie” idiocy.
You can’t run engines on nothing, no matter what the “Greenies” promise.
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Except Japan, Germany, England, France, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and nearly every other nation on Earth.
A list of nations that have canelled “greenie” programs would be much shorter — and it wouldn’t include the U.S.
Don’t believe me? Try to list ’em. Just try.
Except in Europe and almost everywhere else.
Do you read newspapers with a mirror, BF?
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Thanks Ed. Of course the latest out of Germany who are now even doing away with nuclear. They will be 80% renewable by 2050. The state minister said that Germany will be able to do that because they don’t have the Koch brothers. It sucks when we are a joke to the rest of the world.
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PS: Though I am a bit impressed you actually understand the nuance of my “hippo” comment….
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Ed,
Why do you think I alluded to the hippo?
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Nearly every country has suspended or canceled any “Greenie” programs. Carbon Trading schemes have all collapsed – Greenie companies are going bankrupt – few are “buying” into the Greenie scam.
After Germany ended its commitments, the rest of the world is bailing out. (exception, Australia – whose political insanity continues unabated for reasons that escape rational people).
The political class has always been clueless to science, but are very sensitive to the voting public, and the public have spoken.
No one is willing to sacrifice the economics for some hearsay junk science.
As long as the cost was nil, the people didn’t care about the hearsay
The cost is not nil,
Now they care.
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Our older son likes to puzzle people with the question, “Which mammal in Africa is deadliest to humans?”
Turns out not to be the lion, nor the cheetah, nor the elephant. It’s the hippopotamus. They aren’t friendly, and they don’t like to be bothered. On land, they run a lot faster than most people think they can, and in the water or on land they can crush a human in their mouth very quickly.
You have to watch out for a hippo. Pay attention to the beast. You can’t talk much to them, but you’d damned well better respect them, if you’ve got half a brain and a hankering to live.
All of that went right over BF’s head.
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Ed,
You are incapable of understanding the Scientific Method, so babble about in a world of fantasy and myth.
You can’t comprehend – a requirement of coherency – so it is no surprise dialogue with you is like talking with hippo.
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Information cannot penetrate Black Flag’s helmet. It features titanium, eider-down-lined ear muffs to keep out all noise, and blackout goggles so he flies blind.
If he thinks most countries have abandoned the Kyoto Protocol or have decided not to work to stop global warming, what could possibly dissuade him from such a delusion? If one were to tally the nations, one by one, one would discover BF can’t count. If one were to detail the arguments, one would discover BF cannot comprehend. It’s almost Biblical — he can’t comprehend in any language.
Thanks for trying to straighten him out, Scrooge. Your efforts are much appreciated by everyone.
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Well actually there are 4 countries that don’t seem to be able to grasp the problem. U.S., Canada, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Gee I wonder if big oil plays a role in misunderstanding. Of course the media may play a role. They seem to think that if they have a scientist on to explain something they have to have Fred Shnerps on who lives down the street and heard that other scientists don’t agree.
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Indeed!
The massive majority of the world has discarded the wholly discredited AGW myth – and only zealots who hold it as a religon remain.
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I don’t know if Science communication is the problem. The rest of the world seems to grasp it. You will always have the tin foil hat group but Americas problem mainly arise from politicians and politics.
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Typical anti-human rant, but not a truth.
The human environment has been getting cleaner and better, not worse.
But such progress to the anti-human crowd, such as Ed, makes their agenda pointless – so they have to lie about it.
Climate cannot be “destroyed” – so this is just more of a mindless rant of a anti-human demagogue.
Now that would be something to cheer about! End of Public Education – which is the breeding ground of this mindless dribble that has infected society, such as the Greenie, anti-human zealotry.
Keynesian economics has always been a mess. It is doubtful the Keynes even understood his incomprehensible theories.
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