Politics Climate Change Paradox (cont in part 2)

Should we act now, or wait for a unified global approach


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Ron:

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that may have been related to other warming events in other regions during that time, including China[1] and other areas,[2][3] lasting from c. 950to c. 1250.[4] Other regions were colder, such as the tropical Pacific. Averaged global mean temperatures have been calculated to be similar to early-mid 20th century warming. Possible causes of the Medieval Warm Period include increased solar activity, decreased volcanic activity, and changes to ocean circulation.[5]

The period was followed by a cooler period in the North Atlantic and elsewhere termed the Little Ice Age. Some refer to the event as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly as this term emphasizes that climatic effects other than temperature were important.[6][7]

It is thought that between c. 950 and c. 1100 was the Northern Hemisphere's warmest period since the Roman Warm Period. It was only in the 20th and 21st centuries that the Northern Hemisphere experienced warmer temperatures. Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at different times for different regions, indicating that the Medieval Warm Period was not a globally uniform event.[8]
 

RobbieK

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$300 Million Question:
Are Pacific islands like Tuvalu sinking or rising?

Hint: According to the disciples of the Church of Global Warmology, these island should be under rising sea levels long ago.


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MICHAELSMITHNEWS.COM

Their ABC Fact Check confirms - Craig Kelly correct, Tuvalu growing, not sinking

You do realise that all this means is that there are some environmental forces that are causing some islands to grow at a rate that outstrips the rate that they would be sinking due to rising sea levels, yeah?

It isn't proof that the sea levels aren't rising. The point of the research is simply that the effects are not uniform and that rising sea-levels does not pose a threat to all islands equally. As the link you posted and the research it is based on indicates, this growth is not uniform, other islands are indeed being lost.

So... Kelly is right, the main islands of Tuvalu have got bigger. But he is not right to use this as a reason to dismiss the threat of climate change. There will always be local variations when it comes to matters like this, and cherry picking the best or worst case scenarios to extrapolate a general policy is a poor method. That's why climate scientists take a macro view.
 
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You do realise that all this means is that there are some environmental forces that are causing some islands to grow at a rate that outstrips the rate that they would be sinking due to rising sea levels, yeah?

It isn't proof that the sea levels aren't rising. The point of the research is simply that the effects are not uniform and that rising sea-levels does not pose a threat to all islands equally. As the link you posted and the research it is based on indicates, this growth is not uniform, other islands are indeed being lost.

So... Kelly is right, the main islands of Tuvalu have got bigger. But he is not right to use this as a reason to dismiss the threat of climate change. There will always be local variations when it comes to matters like this, and cherry picking the best or worst case scenarios to extrapolate a general policy is a poor method. That's why climate scientists take a macro view.

They probably do realise. It is just that they are all about the feels. Sensible response to climate change will probably lead to regulation they don't like.
 

Ron The Bear

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Ron:

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that may have been related to other warming events in other regions during that time, including China[1] and other areas,[2][3] lasting from c. 950to c. 1250.[4] Other regions were colder, such as the tropical Pacific. Averaged global mean temperatures have been calculated to be similar to early-mid 20th century warming. Possible causes of the Medieval Warm Period include increased solar activity, decreased volcanic activity, and changes to ocean circulation.[5]

The period was followed by a cooler period in the North Atlantic and elsewhere termed the Little Ice Age. Some refer to the event as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly as this term emphasizes that climatic effects other than temperature were important.[6][7]

It is thought that between c. 950 and c. 1100 was the Northern Hemisphere's warmest period since the Roman Warm Period. It was only in the 20th and 21st centuries that the Northern Hemisphere experienced warmer temperatures. Climate proxy records show peak warmth occurred at different times for different regions, indicating that the Medieval Warm Period was not a globally uniform event.[8]

Not globally uniform perhaps, but thousands of studies have found warming all over the world outside the equator, in both hemispheres. Most estimates peg the temperature from this period at between 0.75-1.4 degrees higher than today's.

Of course, 'Hockey Stick' Mann denies that either the MWP or the LIA actually occurred, based on a single study of tree rings. The IPCC adopted this position from 2001, and that is more or less what we see in the large graphic. The MWP was one of the central topics of the Climategate emails - that temperatures had recently been higher through natural variation. It was an obstacle, an inconvenience.

The good thing about science is that the truth comes out in the long run, hence my stance of wait and see. Thank goodness for satellites that were launched prior to the warming movement and can't be tampered with.
 
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Not globally uniform perhaps, but thousands of studies have found warming all over the world outside the equator, in both hemispheres. Most estimates peg the temperature from this period at between 0.75-1.4 degrees higher than today's.

Of course, 'Hockey Stick' Mann denies that either the MWP or the LIA actually occurred, based on a single study of tree rings. The IPCC adopted this position from 2001, and that is more or less what we see in the large graphic. The MWP was one of the central topics of the Climategate emails - that temperatures had recently been higher through natural variation. It was an obstacle, an inconvenience.

The good thing about science is that the truth comes out in the long run, hence my stance of wait and see. Thank goodness for satellites that were launched prior to the warming movement and can't be tampered with.

It is what gets through peer review. "Hockey Stick" Mann is a fantastic scientist whose work goes through the peer review process. If you criticise him on the basis of criticisms from political hacks, it really weakens your arguments. If it is hotter by 1.5 degrees in certain locations then that doesn't necessarily lead to a change in the global average. If, for example, it was caused by a warm patch in the ocean it could remain warm somewhere for a century and then warm somewhere else for a century. The global average would remain unchanged.

Those of us who understand the clear and present danger of climate change could easily do something as dishonest. We could cherry-pick the change in temperature in the Arctic, which has seen many seasons with a 7 degree warmer average than the long-term average. Of course, there is potentially a good reason to cherry-pick this data because much of the feedback we're worried about will occur in the Arctic. Reduction in albedo and release of greenhouse gasses from under the permafrost being of most concern.

I really don't understand the mentality of fighting against climate change research. The overwhelming evidence keeps pointing to the one cause. The overwhelming predictions from this evidence are terrible. This is done by university and government body based researchers. They have nothing to gain from this being untrue or true. In fact, if one could disprove the need to worry about climate change they would become a very rich man as they travel the world demonstrating how fossil fuel companies could continue to drill baby drill. On the other side of the coin we have a few fringe scientists (very often out of field) and lobbyists who used to work for tobacco companies being funded by conservative and libertarian "think tanks", which are funded by large companies who have billions of dollars to gain every year we slow down our response to this.

It is the same approach that tobacco companies took. They knew the lawsuits and bans were coming. They just new if they could obfuscate for long enough they could make more money in the meantime then the fines would cost. The difference here being is that we are all figuratively passive smoking.

Somehow a few untrained experts on the internet somehow know the truth that those who spend their life studying this can't see. It really is a weird phenomenon.

Read about Michael Mann and his amazing career here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann

You can also access a number of his publications here: https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=michael+mann+climate&btnG=

Perhaps you can give me a clear scientific arguement why his data or statistical methods are wrong.
 
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It is what gets through peer review. "Hockey Stick" Mann is a fantastic scientist whose work goes through the peer review process. If you criticise him on the basis of criticisms from political hacks, it really weakens your arguments. If it is hotter by 1.5 degrees in certain locations then that doesn't necessarily lead to a change in the global average. If, for example, it was caused by a warm patch in the ocean it could remain warm somewhere for a century and then warm somewhere else for a century. The global average would remain unchanged.

Those of us who understand the clear and present danger of climate change could easily do something as dishonest. We could cherry-pick the change in temperature in the Arctic, which has seen many seasons with a 7 degree warmer average than the long-term average. Of course, there is potentially a good reason to cherry-pick this data because much of the feedback we're worried about will occur in the Arctic. Reduction in albedo and release of greenhouse gasses from under the permafrost being of most concern.

I really don't understand the mentality of fighting against climate change research. The overwhelming evidence keeps pointing to the one cause. The overwhelming predictions from this evidence are terrible. This is done by university and government body based researchers. They have nothing to gain from this being untrue or true. In fact, if one could disprove the need to worry about climate change they would become a very rich man as they travel the world demonstrating how fossil fuel companies could continue to drill baby drill. On the other side of the coin we have a few fringe scientists (very often out of field) and lobbyists who used to work for tobacco companies being funded by conservative and libertarian "think tanks", which are funded by large companies who have billions of dollars to gain every year we slow down our response to this.

It is the same approach that tobacco companies took. They knew the lawsuits and bans were coming. They just new if they could obfuscate for long enough they could make more money in the meantime then the fines would cost. The difference here being is that we are all figuratively passive smoking.

Somehow a few untrained experts on the internet somehow know the truth that those who spend their life studying this can't see. It really is a weird phenomenon.http://www.climateaudit.info/pdf/mcintyre-heartland_2010.pdf

Read about Michael Mann and his amazing career here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann

You can also access a number of his publications here: https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=michael+mann+climate&btnG=

Perhaps you can give me a clear scientific arguement why his data or statistical methods are wrong.

Oh dear. I didn't know whether to puke or laugh out loud.

Stephen McIntyre exposed Mann's shoddy work. This presentation by him is a good summary.

http://www.climateaudit.info/pdf/mcintyre-heartland_2010.pdf

Despite Mann's best efforts to prevent FOI access to the raw data, McIntyre found many mistakes in both the statistical techniques and the data used to make the hockey stick.

His finding included Mann’s undisclosed use in a 1998 paper (“MBH98”) of an algorithm which mined data for hockey-stick shaped series. The algorithm was so powerful that it could produce hockey-stick shaped 'reconstructions' from red noise.

Mann also deleted inconvenient data to 'hide the decline' in late 20th century temperatures. a phrase that was highlighted in the Climategate scandal, along with revelations that Mann and his buddies conspired to delete embarrassing emails on this matter.

After being discredited Mann later attempted to re-justify his hockey stick based on a ludicrously small sub-sample of just 12 Siberian larch trees.

Other errors by Mann were highlighted - such as a mistake that prevented 1934 being shown to be warmer than 1998 in America, the smoothing of sea-level rises in a way that concealed recent deceleration, the use of a Swedish lake sediment series upside down so it showed recent warming instead of cooling.

Conveniently, all Mann's errors served to reinforce his anthropogenic hypothesis. Various emails to colleagues point to a motivation to deliberately hide inconvenient data.

Mark Steyn's book is another good summary.

51ysQya9zoL._SX351_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 

M Malice

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I'm largely a science illiterate, although a supporter of it but this climate change stuff has me really conflicted/confused. I find it very hard to believe that a reliable model could be developed to accurately predict global outcomes and their causes within such a complex, multi faceted, nuanced system that has been ongoing for billions of years.
 

Ron The Bear

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I find it very hard to believe that a reliable model could be developed to accurately predict global outcomes and their causes within such a complex, multi faceted, nuanced system that has been ongoing for billions of years.

It can't, or at least not accurately. E.g. computers are nowhere near fast enough to model cloud formation/dissipation under warming (never mind that the microphysics of clouds are not well understood, preventing cloud modelling even if computers were powerful enough). Crude approximations are used instead - of today's climate, not future climate. Even the modellers concede it's a major cause of uncertainty.
I really don't understand the mentality of fighting against climate change research.

I'm not opposed to the research, just the way some of it is being used. Obviously there has been some warming to this point, and most likely some of it is human-caused. But where there is no agreement on even the amount of warming that has taken place, opinions quickly diverge.
 

Balls In

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Whats the problem if the weather heats up a couple of degrees anyway? There are potentially as many positives as negatives, food production for instance. People might just need to adapt, move to different geographies for instance.
 

Claude Balls

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We only have one planet and so can’t afford to * this up. Shouldn’t we proceed as if the very probable case the (vast) majority of scientists are making is indeed true?
 
The key word is "we". We isn't even on a suburb level, it's internationally.

The argument for going solo as a pioneer, showing the rest of the world how to do it, lead-follow-get out of the way. It's quite arrogant.

There are already nations running very green and they aren't getting nations on board, and not the ones that need to.

We need fusion power. That's the answer.

Adding expense to local production actually risks making the problem worse assuming demand for goods remains the same. A green power requirement or carbon capture use regulations add to the final price of the goods, now your client moves production from Australia to China where they will burn dirty to get it done as cheap as possible and then burn more to ship it here.

That didn't solve anything.

Fusion power.
 

Claude Balls

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The key word is "we". We isn't even on a suburb level, it's internationally.

The argument for going solo as a pioneer, showing the rest of the world how to do it, lead-follow-get out of the way. It's quite arrogant.

There are already nations running very green and they aren't getting nations on board, and not the ones that need to.

We need fusion power. That's the answer.

Adding expense to local production actually risks making the problem worse assuming demand for goods remains the same. A green power requirement or carbon capture use regulations add to the final price of the goods, now your client moves production from Australia to China where they will burn dirty to get it done as cheap as possible and then burn more to ship it here.

That didn't solve anything.

Fusion power.

Arrogant? That’s almost as strange a use of the word as the US senator who said it was arrogant of Man to think he had the power to change the climate. Empty rhetoric.

If you accept that the climate is changing and we are the cause, then the motivation to act despite representing only a tiny fraction of global emissions comes from the knowledge that it is the right thing to do.
 
Arrogant? That’s almost as strange a use of the word as the US senator who said it was arrogant of Man to think he had the power to change the climate. Empty rhetoric.

If you accept that the climate is changing and we are the cause, then the motivation to act despite representing only a tiny fraction of global emissions comes from the knowledge that it is the right thing to do.
There are millions dying of malaria, why aren't you helping them?

I'm comfortable disagreeing on the value of tiny contribution nations lowering their emissions. That's the beauty of everyone getting their say.
 

Claude Balls

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There are millions dying of malaria, why aren't you helping them?

I'm comfortable disagreeing on the value of tiny contribution nations lowering their emissions. That's the beauty of everyone getting their say.

The beauty of everyone having their say is that they can have their say?

Funny you mention malaria, there’ll be a lot more dying from it as its geographical range expands with rising temperatures. Anyway I infer from this comment that you do regard it to be the right thing to do, technically, but that you see little value in doing what’s right if there is little to be gained from it in a practice sense. Is this the case?
 
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M Malice

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Arrogant? That’s almost as strange a use of the word as the US senator who said it was arrogant of Man to think he had the power to change the climate. Empty rhetoric.

If you accept that the climate is changing and we are the cause, then the motivation to act despite representing only a tiny fraction of global emissions comes from the knowledge that it is the right thing to do.
No doubt climate is changing, it always has and we are one of the causes, the question is to what degree are we contributing to it and how much of a positive affect on it can we have and how quickly.
 
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No doubt climate is changing, it always has and we are one of the causes, the question is to what degree are we contributing to it and how much of a positive affect on it can we have and how quickly.

The only question is whether our technology can outpace our stupidity in order to avert our extinction.

Everything else is bullshit.
 
The beauty of everyone having their say is that they can have their say?

Funny you mention malaria, there’ll be a lot more dying from it as its geographical range expands with rising temperatures. Anyway I infer from this comment that you do regard it to be the right thing to do, technically, but that you see little value in doing what’s right if there is little to be gained from it in a practice sense. Is this the case?
We should absolutely be working on a solution to the issue. That solution is fusion power.

All the other things we do in the meantime to take a few steps backwards on the train heading forwards are mostly only valuable in that they give people a sense of contribution.

But the reality is we are so insignificant that even the entire nation as one is insignificant.

But if we can develop stable fusion power we can save the planet, actually even that won't do it alone - it will just stop it getting worse.

The true issue has always been that we have the money to make better choices, to not deforest that continent, to buy solar panels etc but those nations contributing the most don't have that choice.

So we need to put our money into fusion research and do our part there.
 
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