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Is Global Warming a Hoax?

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  1. #1
  2. #2
    Anything that starts off with arbitrarily defining a time period with no explanation except saying "reasonable" isn't worth watching.

    I'll post this again because it does the job.

    https://xkcd.com/1732/


    edit - Had to edit out the picture because FTR spoilers don't shrink and it still takes up all the space :/
  3. #3
    Regardless of what one thinks about it, making a claim one way or the other appears to be statistically very not rigorous and not robust.
  4. #4
    I wonder what they made thermometers from in Jesus days.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  5. #5
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    Inb4 wuf starts preaching creationism.

    Those are local temperature measurements in Greenland and the antarctic, and tell pretty much nothing about global climate. The whole point is that we are indeed supposed to be heading towards a new ice age so yes, there should be a cooling trend, but instead the global climate is getting significantly warmer.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by ImSavy View Post
    Anything that starts off with arbitrarily defining a time period with no explanation except saying "reasonable" isn't worth watching.

    I'll post this again because it does the job.

    https://xkcd.com/1732/


    /
    This graph starts at an arbitrary point...

    Guy in OP is correct. You can't prove global warming is not just random fluctuation.

    Next question: Are the random fluctuations in temperature being altered by human behavior such as burning of fossil fuels? Answer: Possibly.

    Next: If the above is in fact the case, does adding to the rise in temperature make things better or worse for us? Answer: Probably worse.

    There's plenty of good reasons to look for alternate fuel sources - carbon-based fuels are polluting; oil is expensive and its price is volatile which can have destabilizing effects on the economy; oil is non-renewable meaning it's price will continue to go up and up and up as it becomes more scarce.
  7. #7
    I taught ur mom creationism.
  8. #8
    So if we replace oil with, say, cold fusion, then either one of the following things can happen (but not both)...

    - fuel becomes cheaper,
    - global warming will cease.

    They can't both happen, because if fuel is cheaper, people like me will have the heating on for longer during the cold winter days. I might even just leave it on all winter. I wonder what the effect of that will be multiplied by the population?
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  9. #9
    I would expect humans to cause an increase in global temperature. Not just because of the burning of fossil fuels, I'd have thought the prime problem is cutting down those things that breathe in CO2.

    But it's very much clear that global warming is being used an an excuse to slap costly countermeasures on commerce, and to creep our heating bills up.

    It's obvious, because when I look at charts like the one savy posted, with the alarming warming trend over tens of thousands of years, I naturally ask myself how anyone could know how fucking warm the planet was back in those days to an accuracy we take for granted today.

    Especially considering we didn't even know how to measure temperature until the 1600's. Up until then we were measuring heat.

    Thus, I conclude that such charts are utter bollocks.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    So if we replace oil with, say, cold fusion, then either one of the following things can happen (but not both)...

    - fuel becomes cheaper,
    - global warming will cease.

    They can't both happen, because if fuel is cheaper, people like me will have the heating on for longer during the cold winter days. I might even just leave it on all winter. I wonder what the effect of that will be multiplied by the population?
    Practically zero is my guess. There's a lot of atmosphere, earth and water between the buildings people live in and the rest of the planet.
  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    But it's very much clear that global warming is being used an an excuse to slap costly countermeasures on commerce, and to creep our heating bills up.
    I thought the world was being run by commercial interests...why would they want to penalize themselves?
  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    Practically zero is my guess. There's a lot of atmosphere, earth and water between the buildings people live in and the rest of the planet.
    uum I don't think so. Practically zero multiplied by millions is a lot more than practially zero. Multiplied by billions and we're comfortably out of "negligible" territory. And, if you feel this way, that we as individuals cannot do any harm to the planet by warming our houses up, then I don't see how you can so easily subscribe to the idea that we're fucking things up by burning coal and oil. It's contradictory.

    Industry doesn't make global warming worse because sky, lakes and fields. That's the same argument.

    I thought the world was being run by commercial interests...why would they want to penalize themselves?
    My best guess is that it's all about regulating the shit out of the competition. Big business can afford it. Small business can't. Thus, monopoly is easier to maintain.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    uum I don't think so. Practically zero multiplied by millions is a lot more than practially zero. Multiplied by billions and we're comfortably out of "negligible" territory. And, if you feel this way, that we as individuals cannot do any harm to the planet by warming our houses up, then I don't see how you can so easily subscribe to the idea that we're fucking things up by burning coal and oil. It's contradictory.

    Industry doesn't make global warming worse because sky, lakes and fields. That's the same argument.
    I think you misunderstand the hypothesized causes of man-made global warming. It's not from the heat caused by burning things. It's from the emissions from said combustion, like CO2, which lead to the trapping of solar radiation.

    In winter, London is about 3 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside because of the heat generated in and by buildings. If this heat affected the whole planet then you would think it would affect the surrounding countryside as well. But it doesn't, the heat dissipates quickly in the atmosphere even from a place as big as London.



    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    My best guess is that it's all about regulating the shit out of the competition. Big business can afford it. Small business can't. Thus, monopoly is easier to maintain.
    The important question to me is whether or not we should continue to choose dirty, polluting energy over clean energy. I don't really care who makes money one way or another.
  14. #14
    But it doesn't, the heat dissipates quickly in the atmosphere even from a place as big as London.
    Dissipate does not mean disappear. Over time, it will cause a degree of warming. It must, because energy does not just disappear.

    But you're right, if we're talking about clean energy, then at least the emissions are eliminated.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  15. #15
    I can't imagine 7 billion heaters run 24/7 would be enough to raise global temperature by .1%

    Waiting on MMM to calculate wattage per meters squared and meters squared of atmosphere and clarify the situation.
  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I can't imagine 7 billion heaters run 24/7 would be enough to raise global temperature by .1%

    Waiting on MMM to calculate wattage per meters squared and meters squared of atmosphere and clarify the situation.
    TIL: wufwugy is a low key flat earther.
  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    TIL: wufwugy is a low key flat earther.
    I'm more like a line earther. This shit's only one dimension.
  18. #18
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    I'm on the side of the environmentalists on this one, and here's why.
    exhibit A: google earth. Zoom in anywhere on main land and it's either cultivated farm land, cities or roads. Unless you're actively looking for it, you're not going to find much land that hasn't been altered by humans.
    exhibit B: breathing is not as fun as it used to be, at least if you're in Paris, LA, or Delhi.

    I'm not going to look at any scientific data and pretend to understand it. I look at global warming predictions like a weather report. There's a chance of mass extinction based on horrific environmental events, and a chance of just partly cloudy. However one part of the forecast is alarming enough that I'd suggest we cut some of the shit that might increase the chance of the unfavorable outcome. What I don't agree with is the order of importance when it comes to the actions we take to combat this. I'm baffled that when we look at the global population growth nobody in the western world is even suggesting that everyone stop putting it in the front hole so much. If we cut the global population in half by the next 100 years, we pretty much solved all the problems and we didn't even need electric Jesus Elon Musk to help us out here.
    The strengh of a hero is defined by the weakness of his villains.
  19. #19
    Halving the global population over time would be a great idea, but it's poor economics. That's half the slave taxpayers to prop up the system. It's also half the consumers to buy shit we don't need. It also means less war (less territory and resource competition), and we all know that war is big business.

    Going clean is the only solution, but that won't happen while oil companies have the influence they currently have. Things won't change until we run out of oil, and we'll probably keep fucking finding more.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I'm more like a line earther. This shit's only one dimension.
    String earther, FYI. Lines have a very small amount of depth.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  21. #21
    So the latest claim is that glaciers on Antarctica are melting. Oh dear.

    So the question I'd ask is... to what extent does the weight of glacial ice deform the continent of Antarctica? As the ice melts, the landmass will become less deformed, resulting in lower displacement of water. Imagine, if you will, a lump of putty mostly submerged in a bowl of water, with plenty sticking out above the water level. Squish the putty to deform it so more of it is under water, and the water level will rise. Release the pressure so the putty takes back its original shape, and the water level will drop.

    Iceland is currently experiencing glacial melt, and is also noting its landmass rising. Thus, Iceland, while creating more sea water, is simultaneously displacing less sea water. There is a fear that this could result in greater volcanic activity. The irony there is that a big enough volcanic eruption will cool the planet sufficiently to reverse the melting trend of glaciers. Even if glacial melt results in a net increase in sea level, the time scale we're looking at means personally I'm more worried about a volcano going pop, blocking sunlight, and freezing the shit out of us.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  22. #22
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    Take a deep breath, wuf... I'm about to use a metaphor and some basic economics to 'splain this to you.

    ***
    There is no more sunlight 100 feet off the ground than there is at ground level.

    So why do trees exist?
    Competition for resources. Some plant ages ago grew slightly taller than the surrounding plants, spread its leaves out and "stole" the light from those shorter plants. The plant had to "waste" energy to be taller, but, at first, it was worth it.

    Then other plants catch on, and before you know it, everything is basically back where it started, but now with a lot of wasted effort. Now, the same number of plants are receiving the same amount of sunlight as if none of them had ever gotten "tall." However, since one of them figured out how to be greedy, there is now a mandate for tallness. It would be more efficient if all the trees would sign a treaty to agree that none of them should be tall, as it is ultimately against all of their cost-benefit analyses to compete in that way.

    However, even if trees were sentient, this can't really happen, because it only takes one renegade tree to go for "tall" again to reset the competition back in place.

    ***
    Oil, coal, gas, etc. are in place because of nations' needs to get ahead of each other. It would be better off for all of us if we just switched to purely renewable energy sources. However, that can't happen.

    E.g. if the USA suddenly mandate all green power sources only... we'd almost surely fail to compete with every other industrialized nation for goods and services. We'd have unilaterally increased our energy costs, and thus all costs, compared to the rest of the world. This can only work if everyone agrees together to clean up our collective act. Otherwise, one bad actor will use the dirty methods and gain economic advantage.

    ***
    I don't think anyone is actually arguing that we should keep using fossil fuels, whether or not they are the cheapest and most efficient energy sources. People are only saying, "Look, if we stop using these fuel sources, then we can't compete in any market. Our people will not prosper if we do that. We simply must keep using fossil fuels."

    The only real fault is to blame me any my fellow physicists and earth scientists who have failed to impart onto the general public a couple of important facts:
    1) Nothing compares to nuclear power when it comes to energy density. NOTHING. The amount of usable energy that can be extracted from equal masses of material using physical changes or chemical changes comes nowhere close to what you can extract via nuclear changes. Many orders of magnitude separate these values.
    2) Yes, the invisible threat of ionizing radiation is terrifying. The threat of unseen poison which attacks even children and doesn't show signs for possibly decades freaks people out (rightly so). However, the non-invisible threat of dumping tons and tons of visible poisons into the atmosphere on a daily basis is not better by any means. At least with nuclear waste, we take great efforts to contain it. With the waste from fossil fuels, we make next to 0 effort to contain it.
  23. #23
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    So the latest claim is that glaciers on Antarctica are melting. Oh dear.

    So the question I'd ask is... to what extent does the weight of glacial ice deform the continent of Antarctica? As the ice melts, the landmass will become less deformed, resulting in lower displacement of water. Imagine, if you will, a lump of putty mostly submerged in a bowl of water, with plenty sticking out above the water level. Squish the putty to deform it so more of it is under water, and the water level will rise. Release the pressure so the putty takes back its original shape, and the water level will drop.

    Iceland is currently experiencing glacial melt, and is also noting its landmass rising. Thus, Iceland, while creating more sea water, is simultaneously displacing less sea water. There is a fear that this could result in greater volcanic activity. The irony there is that a big enough volcanic eruption will cool the planet sufficiently to reverse the melting trend of glaciers. Even if glacial melt results in a net increase in sea level, the time scale we're looking at means personally I'm more worried about a volcano going pop, blocking sunlight, and freezing the shit out of us.
    Explain to me again how the rising land mass is somehow displacing less water than before?

    If you have a flexible bowl with water in it, and you push up a "mountain" from the bottom of the bowl, then you are going to see the water level in the bowl rise.

    It's no different than if you took that bowl and set it on top of a sponge. The sponge makes a little island. Now, start taking some of the water in the bowl and freeze it into ice, and stack it on top of the sponge. OK, now we're primed to do the experiment. As the ice melts, and fills the bowl, the water level will tend to rise. As the weight compressing the sponge is reduced, the sponge will expand and displace more water, and again, the water level will rise. Perhaps more of the sponge will be out of the water at the end, but the water level for the rest of the system will have risen. It is only the changing shape of the sponge that belies the change in water level.
  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I can't imagine 7 billion heaters run 24/7 would be enough to raise global temperature by .1%

    Waiting on MMM to calculate wattage per meters squared and meters squared of atmosphere and clarify the situation.
    It's not really about creating heat and contributing to global temperature. It's about creating a layer of atmosphere which reacts in a chemical way as a thermal barrier at the top of the atmosphere. It's not about creating more heat so much as it's about letting the created heat escape. (I can't remember the details as to why it isn't a moot point, i.e. it blocks incoming heat as well as outgoing heat, so I don't see why the net would be warming if it's blocking sunlight from entering. I'd bet monies that this is well understood by climate scientists, though.)

    I'm not gonna crunch numbers on this. I've seen very strong analyses on various aspects of global warming, but I know enough to know that I'm going to screw it all up if I try to explain all the details to this crowd's satisfaction. (You clever lot are collectively tougher an opponent than I can handle, outside of my expertise.)

    Besides, it would be emitted Watts, the specific heat of air, and the total volume of air to be heated. Nothing about square meters needed.
  25. #25
    ironic Ong arguing for changes to moderate global warming with all those lights and heaters used to grow weed dissipating heat into the environament , not to mention actually setting fire to the wed and generating even more heat to release into the environment.
  26. #26
    Not to mention the ten cups of tea he drinks a day. In fact, I bet if you go in Ong's back garden right now it's two degrees warmer than everyone else's.

    Jesus Christ man stop heating our planet.
  27. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    So why do trees exist?
    Competition for resources. Some plant ages ago grew slightly taller than the surrounding plants, spread its leaves out and "stole" the light from those shorter plants. The plant had to "waste" energy to be taller, but, at first, it was worth it.

    Then other plants catch on, and before you know it, everything is basically back where it started, but now with a lot of wasted effort. Now, the same number of plants are receiving the same amount of sunlight as if none of them had ever gotten "tall." However, since one of them figured out how to be greedy, there is now a mandate for tallness. It would be more efficient if all the trees would sign a treaty to agree that none of them should be tall, as it is ultimately against all of their cost-benefit analyses to compete in that way.

    However, even if trees were sentient, this can't really happen, because it only takes one renegade tree to go for "tall" again to reset the competition back in place.
    This is frankly amazing.
  28. #28
    Haha mojo's response is how I like to be slapped down. Science, bitch.

    Keith's response is his usual drivel where he judges me for being a stoner.

    Poop's response is funny. I think I might actually drink ten cups of tea a day during winter.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  29. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    But it's very much clear that global warming is being used an an excuse to slap costly countermeasures on commerce, and to creep our heating bills up.
    This is not the case. Governments in general have been extremely reluctant to impose regulations on commerce. Like MMM said for one government to go fully clean will put it at a disadvantage compared to everyone else.

    What we really need is a global price on carbon emissions so that all governments have an incentive to reduce their CO2.
  30. #30
    They should tax us for breathing.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  31. #31
    a500lbgorilla's Avatar
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    Yes, it's real.

    There was a climate skeptic that did due diligence and came through the whole experience believing that he has proved the globe was warming and that human's were the cause. The warming is moderate, about 1 degree C in the past century, but certainly caused by our industrial activities on earth.

    He's Richard Muller and he headed Berkley Earth.
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  32. #32
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    Don't listen to Dilbert-guy. He ran some blog recently about how scientists *have* to believe in global warming, that climate science wasn't like regular science, where you can triumph through the strength of your ideas, and if you don't go with the flow, you'll be out of the field.

    Don't listen to people who aren't doing the actual work.

    Remember, he knows persuasion. And persuasion can convince people America never landed on the Moon.
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  33. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    Take a deep breath, wuf... I'm about to use a metaphor and some basic economics to 'splain this to you.

    ***
    There is no more sunlight 100 feet off the ground than there is at ground level.

    So why do trees exist?
    Competition for resources. Some plant ages ago grew slightly taller than the surrounding plants, spread its leaves out and "stole" the light from those shorter plants. The plant had to "waste" energy to be taller, but, at first, it was worth it.

    Then other plants catch on, and before you know it, everything is basically back where it started, but now with a lot of wasted effort. Now, the same number of plants are receiving the same amount of sunlight as if none of them had ever gotten "tall." However, since one of them figured out how to be greedy, there is now a mandate for tallness. It would be more efficient if all the trees would sign a treaty to agree that none of them should be tall, as it is ultimately against all of their cost-benefit analyses to compete in that way.

    However, even if trees were sentient, this can't really happen, because it only takes one renegade tree to go for "tall" again to reset the competition back in place.

    ***
    Oil, coal, gas, etc. are in place because of nations' needs to get ahead of each other. It would be better off for all of us if we just switched to purely renewable energy sources. However, that can't happen.

    E.g. if the USA suddenly mandate all green power sources only... we'd almost surely fail to compete with every other industrialized nation for goods and services. We'd have unilaterally increased our energy costs, and thus all costs, compared to the rest of the world. This can only work if everyone agrees together to clean up our collective act. Otherwise, one bad actor will use the dirty methods and gain economic advantage.

    ***
    I don't think anyone is actually arguing that we should keep using fossil fuels, whether or not they are the cheapest and most efficient energy sources. People are only saying, "Look, if we stop using these fuel sources, then we can't compete in any market. Our people will not prosper if we do that. We simply must keep using fossil fuels."

    The only real fault is to blame me any my fellow physicists and earth scientists who have failed to impart onto the general public a couple of important facts:
    1) Nothing compares to nuclear power when it comes to energy density. NOTHING. The amount of usable energy that can be extracted from equal masses of material using physical changes or chemical changes comes nowhere close to what you can extract via nuclear changes. Many orders of magnitude separate these values.
    2) Yes, the invisible threat of ionizing radiation is terrifying. The threat of unseen poison which attacks even children and doesn't show signs for possibly decades freaks people out (rightly so). However, the non-invisible threat of dumping tons and tons of visible poisons into the atmosphere on a daily basis is not better by any means. At least with nuclear waste, we take great efforts to contain it. With the waste from fossil fuels, we make next to 0 effort to contain it.
    bump
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  34. #34
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    In an earlier post, I said I don't know why the blanketing effect of greenhouse gas accumulation in the upper atmosphere didn't have the same tendency to cool the Earth by blocking incoming sunlight as it has to warm the Earth by blocking escaping light.

    The answer is that it's not a 1 to 1 comparison. The blanket is more transparent to incoming light than it is to outgoing light. This is because most of the outgoing light was incoming light, but in reflecting and refracting around in the atmosphere for a while, being absorbed and re-emitted a lot, it loses energy. (It transferred energy to the system.)

    The incoming light is higher energy or "more blue" than the outgoing light, which is "more red." I mean this beyond the visible spectrum.

    If a yellow photon is absorbed by something and the something heats up a tiny bit, then it is more likely that the thing will emit that energy as it cools in the form of infrared light. Infrared light is commonly called "heat" because our bodies are at just the right temperature to have a strong interaction with light of that frequency.

    As the thing that absorbed the yellow photon cools, it lets out more photons of lower energy. Energy is conserved, but the form has changed from a single photon which easily passes through the upper atmosphere into other photons which are reflected by that same layer.
  35. #35
    There is no more sunlight 100 feet off the ground than there is at ground level.
    sudden urge to be pedantic...

    Surely there is a negligible amount of sunlight reflected by the atmosphere between sea level and 100 feet? Also, being slightly further away, the light will be fractionally less intense, no?
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  36. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    Don't listen to Dilbert-guy. He ran some blog recently about how scientists *have* to believe in global warming, that climate science wasn't like regular science, where you can triumph through the strength of your ideas, and if you don't go with the flow, you'll be out of the field.

    Don't listen to people who aren't doing the actual work.

    Remember, he knows persuasion. And persuasion can convince people America never landed on the Moon.
    I haven't been reading Dilbert's opinions on climate. If what you say he says is what he says, he's not wrong. Academia is full of its religions and global warming is one of them. Academics are supposed to follow the evidence where ever it leads and to view evidence with little bias, but that's not entirely what happens these days. Scientists have come nowhere close to demonstrating anthropogenic global warming with severe consequences, yet if you wanna get places as an academic, you'd best act like they have.
  37. #37
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    sudden urge to be pedantic...

    Surely there is a negligible amount of sunlight reflected by the atmosphere between sea level and 100 feet? Also, being slightly further away, the light will be fractionally less intense, no?
    Pedantically, yes, I agree.

    I'm not sure how to model the reflectivity of air as a function of height / density. It seems like this must be out there to find, but I can't find it in a cursory search, so I'll have to dig into it later.


    With the "further away" argument, you're talking about a difference of ~40 billionths of a percent.

    100' << 93 million miles

    The ratio in surface areas of the sphere which is 93,000,000 miles in radius vs. one which is (93,000,000 miles - 100 feet) in radius is
    0.000 000 041%.
  38. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Scientists have come nowhere close to demonstrating anthropogenic global warming with severe consequences, yet if you wanna get places as an academic, you'd best act like they have.
    This is not false only because the phrase "nowhere close" and the word "severe" are ambiguous.

    ***
    All this nay-saying of scientists is prattle.

    Yes, there are excellent and ridiculously bad people in every profession and the scientific professions are no different.
    Yes, I agree that there are incompetent scientists who say what they feel is the right thing to say, and have not pursued any research on many topics and simply blindly follow appeals to authority. This is a thing.

    That is not characteristic of good, or even most, scientists.

    There are undoubtedly some id10T errors in science, but it's unreasonable to assume that ALL accredited climatologists are publishing false claims and false repeatability studies.

    Furthermore, if you suspect this is the case, then let me invite you as a member of the wider scientific community to come and blow the lid off these charlatans and bring respect back to the field.
  39. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    This is not false only because the phrase "nowhere close" and the word "severe" are ambiguous.

    ***
    All this nay-saying of scientists is prattle.

    Yes, there are excellent and ridiculously bad people in every profession and the scientific professions are no different.
    Yes, I agree that there are incompetent scientists who say what they feel is the right thing to say, and have not pursued any research on many topics and simply blindly follow appeals to authority. This is a thing.

    That is not characteristic of good, or even most, scientists.

    There are undoubtedly some id10T errors in science, but it's unreasonable to assume that ALL accredited climatologists are publishing false claims and false repeatability studies.

    Furthermore, if you suspect this is the case, then let me invite you as a member of the wider scientific community to come and blow the lid off these charlatans and bring respect back to the field.
    I'm suggesting that there is a zeitgeist in academia (as there is everywhere) and that when things are open to interpretation, the opinion of scientists converge towards certain sets of opinions.

    Here's an example from the field I understand the best: every economist at my university is a Keynesian. Is Keynesianism the only credible field of thought in economics? Not by a long shot. In fact, the second most influential economist of the modern era (Milton Friedman, a monetarist) was not a Keynesian and some subsets in economics (like central banking) are more influenced today by monetarism than by Keynesianism. Today, the innovation at the central banking level is coming from market monetarism.

    In my money economics class last semester, I did a project that pulls greatly from market monetarism. My professor had no problems with the credibility of my argument. She told me many times that she disagrees with my argument, but that it is economically credible, meaning that I didn't argue anything she could say was wrong. When she found out I'm a Friedman fan, I got a big eye roll and smirk. This would be like a physicist rolling his eyes when a student speaks highly of Einstein or Feynman. The economists at my university have little respect for anything not Keynes. They teach other stuff because they have to in order to maintain their credibility as a university, but they often flat out say during lecture that those have been debunked (which is false) or they speak of the schools of thought in distasteful ways.

    Academic economics has little respect for everything non-Keynesian. Why? Well, if I had to guess, it's because the zeitgeist in academia is very pro-government, and Keynesianism is the only credible economic school of thought in which the case for more government can pretty much always be made.

    So far, I'm getting a very one-sided education in economics from my university. In the project I mentioned, my professor was excited that I was doing it because it was from a school of thought that is barely addressed in the syllabus and the other students would only get exposure to it through my work. This shows how the professors are being pulled from different directions at once. To move up in academia, they have to be Keynesians. The natural selection has made it so they are all actually Keynesians by now. But even so, even though they teach little non-Keynesianism and they speak poorly of the material when they do, they still know that non-Keynes economics are scientifically credible.


    To relate this to global warming, the data doesn't definitively tell us humans are causing a rise in global temperatures, yet the vast majority of climate scientists believe humans are causing a rise in global temperatures. Interpreting the data other ways is getting weeded out of academia.
  40. #40
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    That's a lot of words for a non-sequitur.

    You gave no evidence of anything happening in other fields than economics, or any indication that what you describe at your own school is indicative of any crossover to other schools & disciplines.

    You did not refute my prior statement in the slightest.

    You are, in fact, falling for your own criticism here. You are saying that climatologists are trusting their feelings more than data, but you are also trusting your feeling that this is the case, while presenting no data that it is.
  41. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by ong
    fractionally
    Quote Originally Posted by mojo
    0.000 000 041%.
    Like I said, pedantic.

    I'm not sure how to model the reflectivity of air as a function of height / density. It seems like this must be out there to find, but I can't find it in a cursory search, so I'll have to dig into it later.
    I think again, we're talking about fractions, but we know from atmospheric refraction that air scatters light, and we also know air gets denser (on average) the lower we get, so it stands to reason that there is some light that reaches 100 feet but not the surface. Of course, all light that reaches the surface was at one point at 100 feet. So... there is more sunlight at 100 feet than there is at the surface.

    Fractionally.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  42. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    You gave no evidence of anything happening in other fields than economics, or any indication that what you describe at your own school is indicative of any crossover to other schools & disciplines.
    I can only speak for my own sub-field in psychology here, but there's certainly no such thing as a dogma view you have to adopt to make it. In fact, I first made my name (fwiw) by challenging one of the more popular theories in my area. This is certainly looked on favorably compared to just repeating everyone else's ideas.

    One place where dogma does rule is in statistics where people continue to use p-values when other more sensible alternatives are available. I put this down to a) a lot of people not understanding statistics and just doing what they've been taught; b) a kind of inertia that keeps people doing the same thing because it's familiar and it takes effort to learn new things.

    The good news is by having a non-conformist opinion on how stats should be done, I've pretty much disqualified myself from ever having to teach it to students, most of whom don't have the ability to really grasp it anyways beyond the level of following a decision tree. Sadly, I suspect the same level of understanding is fairly prevalent among my colleagues and a lot of other scientists, and this has a large part to play in the current replication crisis.
  43. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    That's a lot of words for a non-sequitur.

    You gave no evidence of anything happening in other fields than economics, or any indication that what you describe at your own school is indicative of any crossover to other schools & disciplines.

    You did not refute my prior statement in the slightest.

    You are, in fact, falling for your own criticism here. You are saying that climatologists are trusting their feelings more than data, but you are also trusting your feeling that this is the case, while presenting no data that it is.
    My post had nothing to do with refutation of what you said, as what you said was on a different premise than what I said, and I clarified my point for your benefit.
  44. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    but there's certainly no such thing as a dogma view you have to adopt to make it.
    I'm responding to this idea exclusively.

    Be an academic and express any scientific support for eugenics, and your career is over (you may just not know it yet). Or express any scientific support for innate mental differences between races or genders, and you're finished (like Lawrence Summers, who resigned from Harvard president after a no-confidence vote partly due to his statement that women could have a 'different availability of aptitude at the higher end').

    The eugenics one is easy to see because virtually nobody likes it. But there are many harder ones to see because they're not so widely popular.

    There are today a handful of popular positions that contribute to academic biases. People like Gad Saad have discussed them at great length.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 12-20-2016 at 04:51 PM.
  45. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    My post had nothing to do with refutation of what you said, as what you said was on a different premise than what I said, and I clarified my point for your benefit.
    Sorry I misunderstood, then.

    I still think my response applies to your attempt to shed light on this:
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I'm suggesting that there is a zeitgeist in academia (as there is everywhere) and that when things are open to interpretation, the opinion of scientists converge towards certain sets of opinions.
    I don't believe you've demonstrated this, except in the description of economists' views at your university.

    I don't think this has anything to do with climate science or the conclusions of climate scientists.

    Can you connect the dots?
  46. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    Sorry I misunderstood, then.

    I still think my response applies to your attempt to shed light on this:


    I don't believe you've demonstrated this, except in the description of economists' views at your university.

    I don't think this has anything to do with climate science or the conclusions of climate scientists.

    Can you connect the dots?
    Have climate scientists demonstrated that humans are causing global warming? If the answer is "no", why is the number thrown around always something like "98% of climate scientists" believe in anthropogenic global warming?
  47. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    I'm responding to this idea exclusively.

    Be an academic and express any scientific support for eugenics, and your career is over (you may just not know it yet). Or express any scientific support for innate mental differences between races or genders, and you're finished (like Lawrence Summers, who resigned from Harvard president after a no-confidence vote partly due to his statement that women could have a 'different availability of aptitude at the higher end').

    The eugenics one is easy to see because virtually nobody likes it. But there are many harder ones to see because they're not so widely popular.

    There are today a handful of popular positions that contribute to academic biases. People like Gad Saad have discussed them at great length.
    There are a whole lot of things Summers did that got him the axe; it's unclear how much the comment on female aptitudes had to do with it, if anything.

    He's also not alone in making the argument that gender affects abilities. Those other people have not been sacked for saying that (afaik), because it's not a sackable offense to make a scientific argument.

    Making claims about eugenics involves a moral stance that is at odds with almost everyone, and saying things that are blatantly racist or sexist will disqualify someone from most jobs, not just academic ones.
  48. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Have climate scientists demonstrated that humans are causing global warming? If the answer is "no", why is the number thrown around always something like "98% of climate scientists" believe in anthropogenic global warming?
    It doesn't take a climate scientist to acknowledge that greenhouse gasses are emitted on the planet due to human activity.

    https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sou...-gas-emissions

    Note the non-0 values.

    Any questions?
  49. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Have climate scientists demonstrated that humans are causing global warming? If the answer is "no", why is the number thrown around always something like "98% of climate scientists" believe in anthropogenic global warming?
    It's a good question.

    But, the number 98% is misleading. It is really only 98ish% of the ones who have an expressed opinion. While they all pretty much agree the planet is getting warmer, it's much fewer who claim there's sufficient proof to conclude it's being caused by humans.
  50. #50
    Any questions?
    I have one.

    What's the opposite of greenhouse gas?
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  51. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
    I have one.

    What's the opposite of greenhouse gas?
    You mean a gas that reflects sunlight? Probably anything that isn't transparent?

    Are you suggesting we trigger a few volcanoes to balance things out?
    Last edited by Poopadoop; 12-20-2016 at 05:52 PM.
  52. #52
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    Not gonna lie. I've spent a few minutes trying to find good numbers and google isn't as awesome as it usually is.

    The actual amounts of ghg produced by natural sources is hard to find.

    The treatment of water vapor in the atmosphere and the feedback loop of
    warmer air -> holds more moisture -> holds more heat -> is warmer air
    is poorly understood, 'cause more moisture also leads to more clouds, which reflect incoming light before it warms the moist air below them.

    Not sure the long term trends on increased water vapor, and water vapor content in the atmosphere is (AFAICT) not something you can determine geologically or radiologically... so a huge ??? in past trends.

    None of which is contrary to the fact that humans are definitely emitting greenhouse gasses, which are so named due to their contributions to global warming. It's just that the long term effects are not well modeled.
  53. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    It doesn't take a climate scientist to acknowledge that greenhouse gasses are emitted on the planet due to human activity.

    https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sou...-gas-emissions

    Note the non-0 values.

    Any questions?
    The geophysics on what happens with carbon is persuasive and it's ultimately the reason why I tend to side with the idea that AGW is probably a thing. But the idea that the climate is warming because of human emissions has not been rigorously shown AFAIK. Part of why I started this thread is because inferring that humans are causing global warming from the available statistics doesn't strike me as sound.
  54. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    It's a good question.

    But, the number 98% is misleading. It is really only 98ish% of the ones who have an expressed opinion. While they all pretty much agree the planet is getting warmer, it's much fewer who claim there's sufficient proof to conclude it's being caused by humans.
    Do they all agree that the planet is warming at a faster pace coinciding with human activity? If the opening graph in the OP video is accurate, what statistical methods do they use to justify that?
  55. #55
    what statistical methods do they use to justify that?
    Look at this graph.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  56. #56
    What graph?
  57. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Do they all agree that the planet is warming at a faster pace coinciding with human activity? If the opening graph in the OP video is accurate, what statistical methods do they use to justify that?
    Don't know, but it can't be based solely on the numbers in the graph. I'm pretty sure the more serious ones recognized that a long time ago.

    One might argue along the following lines: All other things being equal, global temperature is as likely to have gone down as gone up in the last 150 years, or to have just gone on some random walk. All manner of possibilities are equally likely a priori.

    However, the fact that temperature is rising steeply, and that this correlates with the development of industry and the burning of fossil fuels/deforestation, etc., etc., could be seen as suggestive of human-caused warming. It would not be conclusive proof but it would point in that direction.

    An analogy would be if a coin came up heads X number of times in a row. It's not that this can't occur by chance, and hasn't occurred by chance in the past, but it's suspicious if this time it just happened to start at the same time as you let Greenhouse Gary do the flipping. With this information alone you can't prove Greenhouse Gary is rigging the global temperature coin (correlation doesn't prove causation) but you'd probably be wise to look into it further.
  58. #58
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  59. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    Without going into specifics (to save from getting bogged down), the broad criticism is that the evidence presented isn't actually distinguished from randomness. I get that it looks like humans are causing warming given the subsets of data/time periods we're looking at. But the conclusion reached appears to be shaky due to evidence of confounding variables that we haven't yet identified. Using the frame in the OP, how do we justify a very small blip in recent history as caused by something we know about when there were much larger blips in not-too-distant history caused by things we don't know about?

    I remember when I jumped on the AGW bandwagon it had a lot to do with being told that recent trends are very abnormal. But apparently they're not abnormal when sets of data are broadened.
  60. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    One place where dogma does rule is in statistics where people continue to use p-values when other more sensible alternatives are available.
    What are the other sensible methods?
  61. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Without going into specifics (to save from getting bogged down), the broad criticism is that the evidence presented isn't actually distinguished from randomness. I get that it looks like humans are causing warming given the subsets of data/time periods we're looking at. But the conclusion reached appears to be shaky due to evidence of confounding variables that we haven't yet identified. Using the frame in the OP, how do we justify a very small blip in recent history as caused by something we know about when there were much larger blips in not-too-distant history caused by things we don't know about?

    I remember when I jumped on the AGW bandwagon it had a lot to do with being told that recent trends are very abnormal. But apparently they're not abnormal when sets of data are broadened.
    The assumption your argument makes is that given our current abilities to observe and understand, we wouldn't have understood the causes of these past blips if they were contemporary. Climate scientists are essentially assuming that there is a high enough probability that the events that caused these blips are being shrouded by time, not our abilities to observe and understand. Couple that with the correlation between the industrial age and the blip-- and, well, you know my friend Occam..
  62. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    The assumption your argument makes is that given our current abilities to observe and understand, we wouldn't have understood the causes of these past blips if they were contemporary. .
    That is an astute assessment of the way I worded it. Allow me to clarify what I meant.

    The data over the millennia appears analogous to the following: if a town has a rate of cancer at 20% and the town next to it drinks lead every night and has a rate of cancer at 5%, the current claim that the climate is warming due to human activity appears to be similar to a claim that the town with the 5% cancer rate is causing their cancer via their lead consumption.

    Given the blip in temperature over the small quantities of years claimed, it appears that the blip could be a sampling error instead of an actual trend.
  63. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by !Luck View Post
    What are the other sensible methods?
    The more sensible methods are Bayesian stats and likelihood ratios. There's a whole catalogue of reasons why p-values are a poor way to evaluate data. Which is not to say they are worse than no statistical evaluation at all, just that there are better ways.
  64. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Given the blip in temperature over the small quantities of years claimed, it appears that the blip could be a sampling error instead of an actual trend.
    If that were the only argument for AGW, you'd be right. It's not.
  65. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    If that were the only argument for AGW, you'd be right. It's not.
    Well, what are the other ones that provide researchers with more certainty?
  66. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Well, what are the other ones that provide researchers with more certainty?
    You quoted the video coccobill posted and u didn't watch it?
  67. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Without going into specifics (to save from getting bogged down), the broad criticism is that the evidence presented isn't actually distinguished from randomness. I get that it looks like humans are causing warming given the subsets of data/time periods we're looking at. But the conclusion reached appears to be shaky due to evidence of confounding variables that we haven't yet identified. Using the frame in the OP, how do we justify a very small blip in recent history as caused by something we know about when there were much larger blips in not-too-distant history caused by things we don't know about?

    I remember when I jumped on the AGW bandwagon it had a lot to do with being told that recent trends are very abnormal. But apparently they're not abnormal when sets of data are broadened.
    All of this was addressed in the video.

    1. We are observing the climate now getting warmer, quickly, abruptly and against all the other data and understanding we have about the climate, it's changes and history. Everyone agrees on this, 100%. The 2-3% of scientists that are skeptics just argue whether it's humans. We are in a cool period with frequent ice ages, heading into a new mini ice age after the last one some 10000 years ago.
    2. Nothing we know about things that affect the climate, such as sun activity, fit the bill, the data just doesn't match observations.
    3. We know how much heat energy should be normally entering the atmosphere, we also know how much of it should be reflected back. We can measure those with satellites and monitoring equipment down on earth. According to measurements, less heat is measured escaping on the satellites than there should be.
    4. We know exactly how CO2 and other GH gases behave in the atmosphere, and know what kind of amounts should have what kind of an effect. Not so surprisingly, the changes in heat radiation, and the surface temperatures match exactly the amount of CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere.
    5. Therefore, it is largely irrelevant what historical blips there have been, since we have first hand evidence of what's going on now. Regardless, we can also account for pretty much all of those blips too and their causes, with precision. You make it sound like we don't, but that's only true for some local phenomena, not on global level.
    6. The OP video is meaningless, it talks about local weather, not the global climate. Predicting climate is possible, predicting weather is nigh impossible. The same goes for markets: predicting the behavior of one consumer is very difficult with any accuracy, but predicting the behavior of markets some people even call science.
    7. I have absolutely no clue what "evidence of confounding variables that we haven't yet identified" means or refers to, but that was your main argument against climate science. The evidence is that there might be something we haven't yet noticed? Care to elaborate?
    Last edited by CoccoBill; 12-22-2016 at 01:18 PM.
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  68. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    You quoted the video coccobill posted and u didn't watch it?
    *shocked*
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  69. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    You quoted the video coccobill posted and u didn't watch it?
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    *shocked*
    I watch everything I respond to. Often multiple times. I've seen all this stuff before too and used to be pretty big into it.

    It appears that my question is different than what you guys are addressing. Have scientists determined that the contemporary changes in climate are statistically unique? It appears to me that they have not. The magnitude of the increase in temperatures and the scope of years are very small. Back when I was a big time AGW proponent, part of my belief was because I thought the hockey stick graph was an extreme aberration that could only be explained by human activity. Now I am asking if that is actually true because an expansion of scope strongly suggests it may not be distinguishable from random given the knowledge we have.

    Don't get me wrong. If I had to put money it, I would say AGW is a thing. My issue (and I could be wrong) is that it appears to me that there is a great deal of unwarranted certainty on this belief in the climate science community.
  70. #70
    Allow me to add clarification: so far you both have acknowledged that it has not been demonstrated that humans are causing warming. Yet the arguments being made are more or less *wink wink here's why we can tell humans are causing warming*.

    I totally get how the evidence is persuasive on an intuitive level. What I find strange is that so many scientists claim on the one hand that we don't know humans are causing it, yet on the other hand such a vast majority of them believe humans are causing it. Isn't science supposed to be less biased than this?
  71. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Have scientists determined that the contemporary changes in climate are statistically unique?

    Answer is the same as before.

    Quote Originally Posted by poopadoop
    You can't prove global warming is not just random fluctuation.
    Edit: to qualify this, I mean you can't prove it statistically based on changes in global temperature alone.

    Note that my quote also isn't evidence against AGW. It's simply saying a change in temperature is a lack of sufficient information on its own to count as solid proof.
    Last edited by Poopadoop; 12-22-2016 at 04:20 PM.
  72. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    What I find strange is that so many scientists claim on the one hand that we don't know humans are causing it, yet on the other hand such a vast majority of them believe humans are causing it. Isn't science supposed to be less biased than this?
    Of the climatologists who have an opinion, 98% believe in AGW and 2% don't. The fact that some climatologists haven't yet formed their opinion is due to the fact that different people have different levels of evidence they need in order to form an opinion. Moreover, some people will weigh certain evidence more heavily than others will.

    Of the ones who don't believe there is enough evidence to form an opinion, they would like to see more evidence before they decide.

    It's not a simple question like 'is there such a thing as gravity?' where everyone can agree and there's no need to do more research. It's complicated, and getting to the bottom of it requires a lot of work.
  73. #73
    Even though I really do think AGW is real, I would not be surprised if the probability it's not is >20%.

    I'm reminded how all sorts of things make sense and look legit, yet with more rigorous testing, the associations break apart.
  74. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Have scientists determined that the contemporary changes in climate are statistically unique? It appears to me that they have not. The magnitude of the increase in temperatures and the scope of years are very small.
    They have, with enough credibility that 98% of them agree. What's happening isn't within the boundaries of normal variations that can be expected, the change is in the "wrong" direction, nothing else we know about stuff that changes the climate can explain it (sunspots, volcanoes etc) and the empirical evidence we have fit the theories of AGW perfectly. It's as much of a smoking gun as there can be. Surely it can also just be martians farting, but that isn't science.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  75. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    What's happening isn't within the boundaries of normal variations that can be expected
    I'd like to see the data on that. As far as from what I've seen, the variation today is much less than from the medieval, roman, and minoan periods.

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