Global Warning/Climate Change

Things that are not part of politics happening presently and how we approach or address it as Anabaptists.
GaryK
Posts: 2281
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 6:24 pm
Location: Georgia
Affiliation: Unaffiliated

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by GaryK »

Bootstrap wrote:
GaryK wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:Consider Genesis 2:



Why would God need Adam to work the garden of Eden and keep it? Certainly God was capable of doing that on his own! Still, I suspect there would have been consequences if Adam had not done these things. And certainly God could have prevented Adam and Eve from the forbidden fruit, but he did not.

The actions of human beings do have consequences. The Bible is clear about that. It's not because God is dependent on us.
Boot, with respect, I think you know what I'm getting at. In my mind it basically boils down to this. To be so firmly convinced that the warming is caused by humans with no possibility of it being another instance where God is changing the climate, as he has many times in the past, is limiting God and putting human reasoning ahead of Him. In one of your earlier posts you stated that "God alone controls the weather". You can't really believe that and then in essence say that humans are controlling the weather without it being a contradiction.

Earlier you also stated "I don't think science is about proving or disproving God". I hope you are not saying that a lot of scientists are not trying disprove God.
Hmmm. Maybe I'm being dense, but I really don't understand that critique. I think there is a significant risk that scientist are warning about. If it were a weather report, I would bring my jacket with me. If it's consequences of our pollution, I would pollute less. God could choose to stave off the rain, and he is certainly in control of the weather, but I don't think that God is telling me to leave the jacket at home. In either case, human knowledge is limited and the prediction might be wrong. In either case, God could choose to intervene even if we take risks that we know about. But I still think it's more prudent to act responsibly.

Doesn't mean we have to see it the same way, but I don't understand what's wrong with that, I don't think it has anything to do with having less faith in God. My understanding of faith says that a Christian can go ahead and put on a jacket if there's a credible risk of rain. I'm not trying to poke holes in what you say - I'm having a hard time understanding it, but that's OK - but I am trying to explain the way I see it. I'm not sure if you understand what I'm saying either, though ... are we just talking past each other?

Is any scientist making a serious argument that global warming disproves God? I haven't heard that one.
Let me ask a very simple question.

Do you believe that God alone controls the weather as you stated earlier?
1 x
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Bootstrap »

GaryK wrote:Let me ask a very simple question.

Do you believe that God alone controls the weather as you stated earlier?
Yes. I think I've answered that several times now.

But perhaps we mean different things when we use the same words in that sentence? Let me start a separate thread for discussing just that:

http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1005
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
User avatar
Robert
Site Janitor
Posts: 8522
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2016 4:16 pm
Affiliation: Anabaptist

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Robert »

http://www.theclimatebet.com/
In 2007, University of Pennsylvania Professor J. Scott Armstrong challenged former U.S. Vice President Albert Gore to a 10-year bet on global average temperatures. Professor Armstrong’s challenge was in response to Mr. Gore’s warning that we were about to experience a dangerous “tipping point” in temperatures. Mr. Gore and the climate scientists he cites in support of his warnings are not forecasting scientists. The proposed $10,000 bet was intended to draw attention to the need to assess the predictive validity of climate forecasts.

After emails to Mr. Gore and replies from his staff, Professor Armstrong was informed that Mr. Gore did not take bets. The important question of whether public policies should be based on the alarming projections remained, and so Professor Armstrong commissioned theclimatebet.com site to track the bet on a monthly basis in order to determine who would have won had Gore accepted the challenge.

At the time of the challenge, Mr. Gore had been warning that climate was warming at such a rate that large public expenditures should be made with great haste in order to prevent disaster. His book Assault on Reason—published in April 2007—stated on p. 204: “Many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several ‘tipping points’ that could – within as little as ten years – make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage of the planet’s habitability for human civilization.”
Image
0 x
Try hard not to offend. Try harder not to be offended.
Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they are not after you.
I think I am funnier than I really am.
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Bootstrap »

Once again:

1. The troposphere is not the land or the sea.
2. Satellites don't measure temperature, and there isn't agreement on how to compute temperature from satellite data.
3. Other groups working with the same datasets as the UAH come up with different results.

The dataset that the climate bet site uses is the UAH satellite data.
Screen Shot 2018-01-27 at 1.41.08 PM.png
Screen Shot 2018-01-27 at 1.41.08 PM.png (40.01 KiB) Viewed 428 times
They seem to be comparing this to the IPCC predictions on land and sea temperatures, ignoring the fact that the IPCC does not offer just one, but gives several probable temperature ranges based on different assumptions:
Screen Shot 2018-01-27 at 2.05.32 PM.png
Screen Shot 2018-01-27 at 2.05.32 PM.png (83.02 KiB) Viewed 428 times
Incidentally, the file reference is useful. If you want to see what I was talking about earlier about the complexity of these satellite calculations and the effect that various parameters have on the computed temperature, take a look at this README:

https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt ... .04Mar2015
Version 6 is still under construction but considerable progress has been made. We are seeing consistent results as we refine the adjustment method to be as straightforward as possible. The trend in TMT will likely increase from its current value (+0.054 C/decade) while the trend in TLT will likely decrease from its current value (+0.138 C/decade). The correction for NOAA-15 makes a noticeable difference for TLT by removing some spurious warming.
OK, they are making adjustments that will result in significantly cooler temperatures. Are these adjustments the right ones? Let's see ...
After 3 years of testing many different ways to solve uncertainties
with the MSU/AMSU data we are getting close to releasing v6.0. This
version will have completely new limb-corrections, diurnal corrections,
and hot-target corrections. As noted before, we did not apply any
diurnal corrections to the AMSUs (starting in 1998) due to the fact AQUA and MetOP
were non-drifting satellites. However, NOAA-15 was a key link in the chain
and as an A.M. orbiter it backed into "warmer" parts of the diurnal cycle, and
thus contributed to a slight spurious warming (noticeable mainly in LT). This
is one factor that is improved. Another key factor is that we now use a
multichannel representation of MSU 2 from the AMSUs so that rather than
assuming AMSU 5 equals MSU 2 (which is not strictly true) we now have a
representation of MSU 2 from AMSU 5,7 and 9). We hope to be out with this
as a beta version by the end of 2014.
Well, I have no idea, and this is just one short excerpt from a very long file.

I understand thermometers on earth pretty well.

I do know that other researchers use different values for these same parameters, and that some seem to have serious doubts about the accuracy of the temperatures UAH computes. The README does tell me how the various corrections affect temperature, they don't tell me the criteria used to determine whether these calculations provide more accurate temperatures or not.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
User avatar
Robert
Site Janitor
Posts: 8522
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2016 4:16 pm
Affiliation: Anabaptist

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Robert »

This is how so many of the climate change reports look to me from the media.

Image
1 x
Try hard not to offend. Try harder not to be offended.
Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they are not after you.
I think I am funnier than I really am.
temporal1
Posts: 16279
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2016 12:09 pm
Location: U.S. midwest and PNW
Affiliation: Christian other

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by temporal1 »

Ground hogs are not cooperating with the agenda. :o
Now they are being dismissed as unreliable. They should have known better.
https://www.inverse.com/article/40860-g ... on-animals

Thinking of this thread/topic, i started a related thread, “Science and faith,” under General Theology.
http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1023
0 x
Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


”We’re all just walking each other home.”
UNKNOWN
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Bootstrap »

temporal1 wrote:Ground hogs are not cooperating with the agenda. :o
Now they are being dismissed as unreliable. They should have known better.
https://www.inverse.com/article/40860-g ... on-animals

Thinking of this thread/topic, i started a related thread, “Science and faith,” under General Theology.
http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1023
Our local groundhog, Sir Walter Wally, is predicting spring. Punxatawny Phil is predicting winter. We just don't know what to do when the authorities disagree like that ... it's a major crisis.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Bootstrap »

Robert wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:If it is offensive to correct facts and show mistakes and misunderstandings, then we are saying we don't care about truth.
When one does it unendingly to show how the other is wrong, it wears on and one feels beat down continually.

It comes down to the question, what is more important, being right or having a relationship?
I'm moving this to a more relevant thread. Here's the first post of the thread:
Robert wrote:Because it just isn;t fun unless Boot and I go at it a bit. :lol:

http://www.dailywire.com/news/10202/rep ... es-barrett
If you look a the first several pages, several people groaned, including me, saying we really didn't miss this topic from MD. But it's here, and it will continue. Not something I asked for. And I think this thread is a good example of what I was talking about earlier:
Bootstrap wrote:Robert, I really see this quite differently. To me, the cycle that repeats over and over again looks like this.

A: Here's this fact that proves that those people I want to throw mud on are awful.
B: Let's take a look at those facts to see if they are true. Hmmmm, I don't think so ...
A: You are just trying to throw dirt on me! You think you are better than me! What makes you think you know? I know this a whole lot better than you do, here are some awful things that I'm going to speculate you are probably thinking about me inside your head ...

To me, the solution is either (1) to stop trying to throw mud on people who aren't here, or (2) to look at the facts together and stop trying to throw mud at other participants. I think I'm very willing to change my opinion in light of facts, but I don't think a discussion that is about who is more right or who is better is going to lead to truth.

In the political field, A is often simply repeating the latest gossip from the political right or left. On MN, it's the political right. The "facts" that are given must not be challenged, and if they are, A is going to feel insulted. In fact, that's part of the whole game - "you must accept this as true, or at least not challenge it, because if you don't, I will take it personally".

If it is offensive to correct facts and show mistakes and misunderstandings, then we are saying we don't care about truth. Feel free to correct my facts and show my mistakes and misunderstandings any time.
In this thread, the people you want to throw mud at are scientists who believe in global warming - which is pretty much the same thing as all scientific associations and publications. And an awful lot of these posts point, directly or indirectly, either to (1) paleoclimatology, or (2) UAH satellite data. Whenever people ask, I explain my positions on these things, providing data, and asking people to discuss it. Crickets.

Or people want to discuss conspiracy theories about scientists and their funding, but they don't want to evaluate the scientists they champion using the same criteria.

I took these posts from the "elitism" thread. I imagine scientists who are actually able to evaluate this data are elites, there are a few laymen who have studied aspects of this well enough to have an educated opinion. But you can't evaluate scientific claims without knowing how science is done. And if you want to know what mainstream science says, you look at scientific publications and associations - when people claim that no real scientist would say what mainstream science does say, that's a bit silly.

Is that elitism? I hope not. I think you have to understand how science is done before you can "scientifically" prove mainstream science is wrong. I think you have to actually understand the various funding issues and associations of all authorities with skin in the game before you can know how to evaluate the conspiracy theories.

And in this context, when you say this:
Robert wrote:It comes down to the question, what is more important, being right or having a relationship?
It sounds like you are saying you insist on being able to push this without being contradicted, and that's more important to you than having a relationship with me. That's sad. I very much want to have a relationship with you, but I also feel we are living in a time that people are dismissing all reliable sources of truth, insisting that arrogant opinion should trump the process of carefully sifting through the facts together to see what is true.

Do you know the saying, "be hard on facts and soft on people"? It requires getting our egos out of the way, assuming that any of us can be wrong, changing our mind in light of fact, not building teams who are so loyal to a given perspective that they can't change their minds.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
User avatar
Robert
Site Janitor
Posts: 8522
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2016 4:16 pm
Affiliation: Anabaptist

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Robert »

Bootstrap wrote:It sounds like you are saying you insist on being able to push this without being contradicted, and that's more important to you than having a relationship with me.
I have given up on it. This is one of the few times I will respond to you. I have not of late, and plan not to in the future.
0 x
Try hard not to offend. Try harder not to be offended.
Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they are not after you.
I think I am funnier than I really am.
User avatar
Bootstrap
Posts: 14445
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:59 am
Affiliation: Mennonite

Re: Global Warning/Climate Change

Post by Bootstrap »

Robert wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:It sounds like you are saying you insist on being able to push this without being contradicted, and that's more important to you than having a relationship with me.
I have given up on it. This is one of the few times I will respond to you. I have not of late, and plan not to in the future.
This is your forum, and if you feel like that, it's time for me to go. Blessings to you, and if you want to talk to me at any time, you know where to find me. I will not be posting on MennNet.com unless you and I restore our relationship and you invite me back.
0 x
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
Post Reply