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Why Do Environmental Activists Continue...

If you are pulling off an elaborate con game and something happens that exposes the con, but only a certain subset of the marks notices it, does it make sense to fold up your tent, or does it make sense to keep going?

And if you are really a serious scientist who has valid evidence that AGW is occurring and some minor emails that can be explained away rationally are revealed, does it make sense to abandon the science you believe in?

This is the problem. We can tell very little from the behavior of the environmental activists and scientists involved, because their actions if they are conning us and if they are serious would be identical.

In general, I am impressed by the credentials of the pro-AGW crowd and somewhat less impressed with their sincerity.
 
INRM said:
I am not saying that I do not believe humans have a global impact on climate -- I do believe human behavior can affect climate. What I am saying is that since 2000 there has been no reliable evidence of runaway temperatures
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Wow, this is a new tactic. They used to say "sure the earth is warming but humans didn't do it." Now it's "sure, humans can affect the climate, but it's not actually currently warming". Funny how that works.
 
lomiller said:
The natural variation present in the climate make it impossible to make any conclusive statements about trend for periods under ~20 years. The error bands on shorter trends are simply to large to say anything conclusive. This isn’t arbitrary, and there are well understood methods for determining it.

In terms of how the current change compared to past climate, wikipedia has a well cited graph of peer reviewed temperatures reconstructions.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
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In my post #9 above you will see (I hope) that I understand that short periods are not suitable for this type of study, so I am quite prepared to accept that a 20 year minimum is not arbitrary. Beyond 20 years the climate scientist will have to determine some starting point for the study. I still think that there is an "arbitrary" element to this.
 
dogguy said:
In my post #9 above you will see (I hope) that I understand that short periods are not suitable for this type of study, so I am quite prepared to accept that a 20 year minimum is not arbitrary. Beyond 20 years the climate scientist will have to determine some starting point for the study. I still think that there is an "arbitrary" element to this.
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Generally speaking climatologic use the period since systematic record keeping began, again not arbitrary. If they need to look back farther then 130 years they use proxies, which again are not really arbitrary since they go back as far as they can get reliable data. The only real trade-off is precision vs how far back in time the proxy goes.
 
Brainster said:
This is the problem. We can tell very little from the behavior of the environmental activists and scientists involved, because their actions if they are conning us and if they are serious would be identical.
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This line of thinking doesn't make sense to me. If global warming was an elaborate con, then the actions of the conmen would tend to reflect selling out to the highest bidder. In the case of environmental science being mixed with politics and money, the con artist scientists are going to be much more likely to promote "studies" that cast doubt on global warming and therefore free up the agendas of the wealthiest companies that represent the existing power infrastrucure. You really think that even the most corrupted warming advocate is going to be making as much as a phd shill for Exxon?
 
Upchurch said:
I just clued in on this:

Aside from my not being sure that is even factually accurate, this is appears to be an incident of cherry-picking. Pick an appropriately small enough time line and (I suspect) a small enough geographical area you can "prove" anything about environmental change.

For example, given my local climate data since yesterday, I can conclude that the Earth's environment will below absolute zero in just a year. But not to worry, based on projections for tomorrow, we will have long since drowned in the massive amount of floods based increased precipitation before that happens.


INRM, you have to take the long view of climate change over the entire global over long periods of time. A short local blip is just that.
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dogguy said:
I do not believe I have suggested any such thing.
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Your elaboration on this point only reinforces that you were suggesting just that.

You are suggesting that climate scientists have pre-existing positions on global warming and that they select their sample set to support that position. As if the scientific consensus on global warming is an arbitrary position rather than a conclusion based on the data.

If you are not and I am simply misreading you, then I apologize. The point is that OP is inherently flawed because the time span is absurdly small. (And I have yet to see any evidence that global temperature hasn't continued to trend upward.)

INRM?
 
Brainster said:
If you are pulling off an elaborate con game and something happens that exposes the con, but only a certain subset of the marks notices it, does it make sense to fold up your tent, or does it make sense to keep going?

And if you are really a serious scientist who has valid evidence that AGW is occurring and some minor emails that can be explained away rationally are revealed, does it make sense to abandon the science you believe in?

This is the problem. We can tell very little from the behavior of the environmental activists and scientists involved, because their actions if they are conning us and if they are serious would be identical.

In general, I am impressed by the credentials of the pro-AGW crowd and somewhat less impressed with their sincerity.
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You've just suggested a worldwide conspiracy MUCH larger than the truthers were suggesting for 9/11. Involving more experts, in more countries, over a longer period of time.

Virtually every scientist in the field, thousands of papers, millions of points of data. All conspiring in perfect unison, with no whistleblowers, according to you.

You've sank lower than the truthers.
 
INRM said:
I'm wondering if this is a kind of propaganda tactic. Even in the face of evidence suggesting that there is currently no serious sign of runaway increases in temperature, they keep suggesting there is, figuring that if they say it enough everybody will eventually believe it.
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My bold. What an interesting choice for that word. Can you provide a link to where "they" (?) claim "runaway" increases in temperature?
 
David Wong said:
You've just suggested a worldwide conspiracy MUCH larger than the truthers were suggesting for 9/11. Involving more experts, in more countries, over a longer period of time.

Virtually every scientist in the field, thousands of papers, millions of points of data. All conspiring in perfect unison, with no whistleblowers, according to you.

You've sank lower than the truthers.
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And you have not read my post with any evidence of comprehension. Try it again.
 
INRM said:
Why do environmental activists continue talking about the danger of increasing global warming effects even though it's been proven that the data that showed that since 2000 there has not been any evidence to suggest an increase in temperature (Even the BBC wrote this), and that conclusive evidence exists to suggest that the East Anglia CRU, along with other Climate Research Units around the world have went to elaborate machinations to manipulate climate research data to falsely show a progressive increase in temperature when there currently is none?

I'm wondering if this is a kind of propaganda tactic. Even in the face of evidence suggesting that there is currently no serious sign of runaway increases in temperature, they keep suggesting there is, figuring that if they say it enough everybody will eventually believe it.
nuclear power as a partial mitigation to the carbon/CO2 emissions problem, and the need to balance reduction with continued energy production?

INRM
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I think that would be a more informed question, and I am curious as to why you used the term "runaway" in your closing disclaimer. GW creeps up, be it by natural causes, human causes, or both. The analogy of boiling a frog is particularly apt in this case. ;) There are two particular issues associated with increased C02 density that have been bugging me for the lasts five to ten years.

1) Acidification of the ocean, as it has more CO2 absorbed into it.
2) The loss of CO2 absorbtion, massive deforestation in the developing world, and for that matter in North America (potentially) that not only hurts the global CO2 balance, but also has potential down side effects on habitat / animal life.

Plant a tree today. Plant one every year. Reforest the world.

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
1) Acidification of the ocean, as it has more CO2 absorbed into it.
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This one is kind of puzzling to me, actually. As I understand it, water's ability to retain gases is a function of temperature -- the warmer it is, the less gas it can hold. So if the ocean is warming, how is more getting absorbed? I'm sure there's a reason -- more being released from the floor, greater concentration in the air, etc. I just don't understand it fully.
 
Cynic said:
This one is kind of puzzling to me, actually. As I understand it, water's ability to retain gases is a function of temperature -- the warmer it is, the less gas it can hold. So if the ocean is warming, how is more getting absorbed? I'm sure there's a reason -- more being released from the floor, greater concentration in the air, etc. I just don't understand it fully.
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Reducing the capacity is not the same as eliminating it. Also there is the important fact that not all is chemistry, biology plays a big role in this. A significant part of the CO2 absorbed by the ocean surface finds it way to the deep sea in particulate form, as phytodetrital aggregates or fecal pellets.

The main problem is that the acidification is actually reaching the deeper layers of the ocean via the polar downwelling. This means, in professional terms, that the fecal pellets are about to hit the high speed propeller.

And if Copenhagen is any measure of the will to act, then it's going to be a hell of a ride.
 
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