Global Warning/Climate Change

[Bootstrap]

... was willing to watch to learn I guess but probably with the assumption that I will 1) not get a lot of it and 2) assume it is deception anyways

For many events, the IPCC gives 4 likely scenarios, with a probability for each, and a "confidence level" - how sure we are of the probability. In the first movie, Gore tended to show the worst of these 4 scenarios vividly. You have to compare that to the best of the 4 scenarios, and realize that there are a few in between.

I assume the second movie is along the same lines, but I have not seen it.

[appleman2006]

All very convincing Bootstrap except for the fact that in the particular subject we are talking about there have been some very high profile cases of collusion to actually cover up truth and mess with actual data. That more than anything else has made me a skeptic. That and the way people are treated that actually dare to doubt. That also is very telling to me. And I am not talking about armchair observers like myself. I am talking about very well respected scientists who have been all but blacklisted simply because they have dared to speak out or raise doubts.
The almost religious fervor that has taken over the so called scientific community on this issue where more effort is placed into getting rid of the plastic bag than in actually doing things that would make a significant impact leaves me cold and disillusioned towards the whole thing.
In my short life I have seen far too many people hide behind science to push their pet projects to the detriment of greater society and frankly it has made me quite cynical. And just for the record I do not care whether the group that is doing it is Greenpeace or AIG. I find them equally sad.

[Bootstrap]

Consensus means agreement. When scientific associations pretty much all agree that something has been proven, that tells you something.

Scientific consensus in the 15th century: Alchemy
Scientific consensus in the 16th century: Geocentric solar system
Scientific consensus in the 17th century: Spontaneous generation
Scientific consensus in the 18th century: Phlogiston combustion
Scientific consensus in the 19th century: Luminiferous aether

Pretty much every scientific breakthrough is the result of someone questioning consensus, rather than accepting it. Looking at agreement among scientific associations does tell you something, but not necessarily about the way the universe actually works.

I agree. But every scientific breakthrough also has to be proven the same way as the last. And not everyone who disagrees with scientific consensus is the next Einstein - many are hired gun scientists working for lobbyists, are involved in political messaging campaigns, or are simply scientists who fail to provide adequate proof. That's why it's important to keep looking at new research that may change our understanding, but test it the same way as everything else.

And I do think science has come a long way since the 19th century. Hurricane predictions may not be 100% accurate, but they are good enough that we take notice and consider evacuating. Eclipse predictions are good enough that we buy funny glasses and go out to places where an eclipse actually does occur.

[Bootstrap]

All very convincing Bootstrap except for the fact that in the particular subject we are talking about there have been some very high profile cases of collusion to actually cover up truth and mess with actual data.

Climategate (in 2009) was a real problem. But the response to Climategate has been to (1) make the vast majority of data freely available so anyone can do their own analysis and (2) create a very transparent process of peer review, with a careful paper trail.

And if you throw out all the data associated with Climategate entirely, it does not change the overall picture.

That more than anything else has made me a skeptic. That and the way people are treated that actually dare to doubt. That also is very telling to me. And I am not talking about armchair observers like myself. I am talking about very well respected scientists who have been all but blacklisted simply because they have dared to speak out or raise doubts.
The almost religious fervor that has taken over the so called scientific community on this issue where more effort is placed into getting rid of the plastic bag than in actually doing things that would make a significant impact leaves me cold and disillusioned towards the whole thing.

I see religious fervor on both sides, and I see people on both sides trying to bully or insult other people into agreeing with them. There are times I see very respectable scientists treated like hired guns for lobbyists because they disagree with the consensus view. We don't need that.

But that's not what I see in the IPPC reports, and there clearly are scientists who publish papers in respected journals that disagree with the consensus view. I am not familiar with all of the scientists who say they are being blacklisted, the right way to look into this would be to see a paper that was submitted and ask the journal why it was rejected. Remember that journals reject papers all the time for valid reasons - some papers are simply not that good, some authors have a history of being misleading about conflicts of interest, etc. Some of the authors I have seen who claimed to be blacklisted were also writing papers that I wouldn't expect to be accepted in a journal due to misleading claims.

Which papers were rejected that you think should have been accepted? Is there a copy of the rejection letter so we can see what the journal said? If there are questions about it, has anyone asked the journal for comment?

In my short life I have seen far too many people hide behind science to push their pet projects to the detriment of greater society and frankly it has made me quite cynical. And just for the record I do not care whether the group that is doing it is Greenpeace or AIG. I find them equally sad.

Sure. Or often, hide behind pseudo-science. They want the authority of science without accountability.

But when the decisions we make depend on our best understanding of science, where do you turn? Personally, I would at least start by seeing if there is a consensus among scientists and what the evidence is for that consensus. I just had a skin cancer removed, and I am using scientific consensus to figure out how to protect myself against future cancers. I'm sure not everyone agrees with that consensus.

[Wayne in Maine]

Consensus means agreement. When scientific associations pretty much all agree that something has been proven, that tells you something. Scientists know how to evaluate scientific evidence. That includes these 18 American scientific associations, these 200+ international scientific associations, the IPPC, and the vast majority of university programs.

What alternative do you propose? Do you believe that anything is ever scientifically proven? How can people know if something has been proven? For almost any scientific question, I look at comprehensive literature reviews, what the scientific associations say, etc. How do you approach this? How do you figure out what mainstream scientists believe about a subject? How can two people agree on that?

I'm actually surprised that you, an educated person working in technology, understands so little about what science is.

Wayne, I really do think you are plainly wrong about the role of consensus in science. If you have such superior knowledge, please demonstrate that knowledge with answers, not with insults.


Building consensus and the process of coming to agreement is a huge part of what science is. This is the kind of thing you study in history of science or philosophy of science - how do the scientists in a field become convinced that something is true and communicate that to the public?

Again Boot, you seem not to understand fundamental science. I do not mean this as an insult. Here to illustrate is what the scientific method is. Note that there is no vote being taken, no polling or process for coming to a consensus - that process is something outside of science itself :

To steal and paraphrase a quote: "Science is the business of testing theories with measured data from the outside world." Consensus simply has no role in this process. The data either establishes the hypothesis or it does not.

Who decides if it established the hypothesis or not?

The data and reproducible results speak for themselves - that is the point of science. If the results do not support your hypothesis you do not change the data or denigrate as "deniers" those who point this out and instead take a vote to arrive at a consensus.

When science has ramifications for policy making, scientists form groups like scientific associations to build consensus about what the science says. They do to make it easier for policy makers to sort out the crackpots from mainstream science, because some people keep loudly proclaiming the same thing long after it has been disproven.

But that is not "science" that is politics.

Climate science involves creating mathematical models which hypothetically predict phenomena when certain variables are altered. One cannot easily test these models which predict events 100 years in the future, though one can test these models on real sets of data from the past to see if the results over recent times are consistent with the models.

Right. And of course, you can then track performance of these models over time.

Few modern climate models actually produce temperatures (let alone other results) that have been measured over the past couple of decades without these measurements being "adjusted" --- to fit the models, or as one climatologists put it "to hide the decline". That is not science, in spite of the politically popular consensus that human produces Carbon Dioxide is driving global atmospheric temperatures higher.

Ah, now we're starting to discuss the science!

Actually, I think the models have done well, and predictions by skeptics that we were entering a phase of cooling were simply wrong.

GlobalTemp.png

This graph illustrates the change in global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 average temperatures. Sixteen of the 17 warmest years in the 136-year record all have occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998. The year 2016 ranks as the warmest on record. (Source: NASA/GISS). This research is broadly consistent with similar constructions prepared by the Climatic Research Unit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And other scientists have produced results that are not consistent with the models:

Also, I think you are using "adjusted" and "hide the decline" out of context in a way that is misleading, implying that someone is fudging data. "Hide the decline" has become a slogan for skeptics, who mostly have no idea what the phrase means or where it came from. It is not about a decline in global temperature, it is about a decline in tree growth at that happens at high-latitudes which makes tree-ring measurements inaccurate.

I've noticed that in some of the media there is an attempt to hide the "hide the decline" statement that created the "climategate" scandal. More precisely, tree ring proxy data over a short interval in the 20th century showed a decline in temperature where surface measurements showed an increase, so the "trick" was to graft in measured data to a proxy data set. Why do so? Mann wrote that Briffa’s proxy “series … is the problem we all picked up on (everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably consensus viewpoint we’d like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al series.” Hide the Decline The practice of adjusting data sets to support a consensus one wants to show is not good science.

[Robert]

And not everyone who disagrees with scientific consensus is the next Einstein - many are hired gun scientists working for lobbyists, are involved in political messaging campaigns, or are simply scientists who fail to provide adequate proof.

Some are and some are not. Some honestly disagree. Anytime I present someone like that, you find a way to discredit the person instead of listen to their input. You sir, are doing the same thing that many politicians are doing to those who disagree. You ignore honest sincere disagreement and brand them deniers and shills.

You may not see that you are doing that, but you are. Just because someone SPOKE at a Heritage Foundation event does not mean they are shills for them.

Just because a scientist publishes and is accepted by the IPCC does not mean they are shills for them.

My concern is the group think that I see happening in this. I have watched it many times over the years. Bran muffins are one example. Things get hyped way over what they are. This is what Lomberg has been addressing and presenting. I find his approach sensible and rational, yet he has been branded as a denier and one who has to be shut down. Why? Because the drive for cap and trade and UN control of the climate is just a power grab, it really has little to do with helping the world.

All this is based on an untested, unsubstantiated theory that small amounts of co2 will have massive amounts of affect to the climate. Climate history does not prove that. The earth was also 10 degrees hotter before and life flourished. Temperatures need to go up some. By raising the temperature, and increasing the co2 emissions, plant life flourishes, more photosynthesis, more food, and the o2 levels raise. An increase in o2 speed healing, and improves health. We are starved for o2 presently.

[KingdomBuilder]

Wayne, your elementary graphic leaves off "peer review". In all of my schooling, peer review has always been mentioned as a fundamental part of analyzing and interpreting data.

[Wayne in Maine]

Wayne, your elementary graphic leaves off "peer review". In all of my schooling, peer review has always been mentioned as a fundamental part of analyzing and interpreting data.

Peer review is not a part of the Scientific Method, it is what ensures that the method is being followed - it is (presumably) what keeps practitioners of science honest. An experiment or method of analysis in support of a hypothesis must be reproducible (that's what's left out of the graphic), the task of one's peers in a field of study using the scientific method is to attempt to reproduce the results.

[Bootstrap]

Again Boot, you seem not to understand fundamental science. I do not mean this as an insult. Here to illustrate is what the scientific method is. Note that there is no vote being taken, no polling or process for coming to a consensus - that process is something outside of science itself :

I think your diagram shows only the process for an individual experiment, and that leaves out a lot that is fundamental to science.

But who decides if the process has been followed, if the model is adequate, if the data supports the claims? How is peer review done to decide if an article actually proves its claims and is good enough to be published? Who compares this single experiment to other experiments that show similar or different results to try to understand the system as a whole, and how do you make sure that all relevant studies are included in such a literature review?

This is a fundamentally important part of doing science. You cannot ignore this and have a grasp on the science.

The data and reproducible results speak for themselves - that is the point of science. If the results do not support your hypothesis you do not change the data or denigrate as "deniers" those who point this out and instead take a vote to arrive at a consensus.

The notion that "the data and reproducible results speak for themselves" without any need for interpretation is really quite naïve. Reading and evaluating even a single paper takes a significant amount of work, and reading and evaluating all of the published papers in a field is a massive undertaking that few of us have time for, even those who have the skills. I don't think you would claim that you have done that. And even if you or I did that, we would need other people to look at it and help us be sure we got it right. We would compare that to the results of other people who have done the same. And that's basically what the scientific associations and IPPC are doing.

Remember lung cancer? Even as the science became clear, lobbyist groups and others were creating papers that looked scientific, but were clearly skewed, and that made it extremely difficult for anyone except a real expert with loads of time to wade through the evidence. Data does not "speak for itself", and when it does, it rarely speaks as loudly as lobbyist groups.

[Bootstrap]

And not everyone who disagrees with scientific consensus is the next Einstein - many are hired gun scientists working for lobbyists, are involved in political messaging campaigns, or are simply scientists who fail to provide adequate proof.

Some are and some are not. Some honestly disagree.

True. And I think I said that clearly in the part you didn't quote ;->

Anytime I present someone like that, you find a way to discredit the person instead of listen to their input. You sir, are doing the same thing that many politicians are doing to those who disagree. You ignore honest sincere disagreement and brand them deniers and shills.

Clearly, there are some deniers and shills who are working as lobbyists and seem to be intentionally misrepresenting things, and many of these are directly connected to the same people who did the same kind of work for the tobacco lobby. And some of these people have been quoted here. These are some of the loudest people in the climate debate - after all, they are being paid to be loud.

There are other scientists who are doing good work and coming up with different results. I think John Christy is a good example of an honest climate skeptic, and I think I treated him that way.

But I keep coming back to the same question. If you want a summary of what we think we know about climate change, and our level of confidence in each claim, where do you go for reliable information? I keep suggesting that the scientific associations and the IPPC are the best sources we have.

Do we have an alternative that has the same kinds of transparency and accountability? Who?