Global Warming

[huskerXman]

Well, maybe politically is an unfair statement. He's biased and it's plainly evident from the headline. We have been talking about how there's scientific debate over plenty of things within climate research - challenges to current models, ideas, data, so on and so on and so on. This is part of the ever-ongoing process of science and it's the process by which new and better knowledge is acquired about any number of topics.

 

It's great.

 

What's pretty inane is taking this and saying, "HA! Global warming is all lies. My side is right in that debate."

 

He's free to criticize alarmists, who have always been deserving of the criticism...but then he goes on and makes positive conclusions of his own, in that headline, as if to say it's now a settled matter in the opposite direction.

 

I think the best scientists in the world could tell you that the alarmists are taking something and just running with it way beyond where they should. Plenty of people can have very different, reasonable opinions about what sort of policy initiatives should be undertaken in this regard. But too many times you see science abused as a prop, such as in this article, and ongoing research and debates settled by opinion writers.

 

And, by the way, here's a little "simple research" on the sponsors of the Climate Change Conference the article is about:

 

 

I don't think he even hinted at "it's now a settled matter". To me, it looks like info is being presented that shows the opposite of global warming, thus showing there are serious question about the validity of man made.. WHICH calls into question all the regulations and extra taxes based on something that still is far from being fact.

 

You might have already said this but what is your take? Do you think it is real? Need more info? and I am talking about man-made global warming, not warming or cooling by itself

.

Also, are you automatically discrediting the info presented because you believe this person is biased?

[huskerXman]

nm.. for now

[knapplc]

You might have already said this but what is your take? Do you think it is real? Need more info? and I am talking about man-made global warming, not warming or cooling by itself

 

That's a good question that we should all answer. We get into the minutiae of who said this or which scientist did/said what, and while I freely admit I engage in that kind of stuff, it's all beside the larger point of, Is Global Warming/Climate Change Real?

 

Personal opinion - yes, something is going on with the climate. The polar ice melt is a huge indicator that something is happening. We've had an aggregate rise in temps over the past century of what - a degree Celsius? So yeah, something is changing.

 

HOWEVER - what does that mean? We can't answer that because we have barely enough context to grasp what's going on now, let alone what was happening with any kind of specificity 1,000 or 10,000 years ago. I know all about the ice core samples, tree ring analyses, sedimentary analyses, etc, so I'm not saying we're totally blind - it's just that we're not as informed as I think we need to be to make any kind of specific declaration of what's going on, and we certainly don't know why.

 

It could be solar activity, it could be human activity, it could be the natural cycle of the Earth, it could have something to do with our location in orbit around the center of the galaxy, or it could have something to do with something we've never heard or dreamed of. Or it could be nothing at all, just vagaries of weather.

 

My take on what we should do - proceed with caution. We don't know that we're not the cause of Global Warming, and there's some indication that we could be. So what's the harm in curbing our emissions or consuming less energy when we can? To me, the idea that we could be causing this weather change and we're obstinately not doing anything about it is criminal. I'm no tree-hugger, but I am a parent and I'm going to pass this planet on to my descendents. I'd hate to have them curse me in some future dystopia where they're suffering because I was an idiot.

 

tl;dr - The data is unclear, but let's stop polluting wherever we can.

[zoogs]

The headline smacks of it. And the info is being presented at a conference sponsored by a conservative think-tank with an outspoken agenda. So all that summed together, is what's causing me to discredit it. I discredited the actual information presented (and not the author's op-end conclusions) a lot less before I read up on the conference.

 

I don't know if I've gone in-depth in this thread. I think the consensus regarding anthropomorphic climate change is pretty strong around the world. I think the mass media likes going nuts over little and they are spreading a lot of misconceptions (but what else is new!). I think the answers to the question 'How bad is it?' are not really nailed down because there's a lot of ongoing research. I don't think there is any serious worry in the scientific community about any looming catastrophe. That's just public misconception.

 

However, I think it's entirely wrong and off the mark to take public misconceptions like that and use it to discredit the efforts of the scientific community. Which are always going off in a variety of sometimes disjointed, sometimes competing directions.

 

I did some superficial research on this as a project a few years ago, nothing that would really give me a definitive say-so (other than perhaps a clearer understanding of where the community stands)...but to summarize, what I looked at was glacial melting. And again, this is at a very superficial level. One of the, I guess I'd say aspects of that is there is a sort of time delay, particularly on the massive ice sheets, in their response to climate. In other words, the largest ice sheets' mass balance delta is responding to external factors from maybe thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years ago. Although I think there is data done on smaller segments within those sheets that prove useful (I forget the exact details, hehe...)

 

...and one of the more significant areas of focus, I think, are the smaller ice sheets, where the response times are far more recent and therefore the conclusions drawn, far more meaningful. I'll use the Himalayans as an example. So there's important data there, and for a human connection, one of the more interesting papers I read was regarding soot deposits on one of these smaller glaciers and the effect it was having. There was another study done on a more immediate, local (not global) impact regarding increased water levels in streams and rivers and how they were having a deleterious effect on the local ecology (and human community).

 

...There was also one paper I read that seemed a little careless with regard to conclusions and assumptions made, so I didn't think that was a very good study and threw it out for my paper. Not all science is good.

 

...And another little tidbit since that's all I remember now, bits and pieces...some of the early data collected on, I believe, the Greenland ice sheet, had some really wild and nutty error constraints (+/- percentages that amounted to more than the number itself). So yeah, there are much better modern data-collecting methods now, and I was reading up on some of them, but of course now I don't remember what they're called, dangit.

 

Where I stand on policy, I don't know. I don't really feel quite informed enough to get into that area. If I did this for a living perhaps I could sit on an advisory committee to make recommmendations for what laws or policies or research directions are good, but yeah, that isn't really my interest.

 

Overall, I'd say there's a lot of quite interesting work done in the area, and it's a shame the whole topic has been hijacked into a policy debate largely. I think assumptions are dangerous (such as that one paper I talked about) but the overall consensus is strong, but keep in mind that the conclusions are "No strong conclusions." Largely, a lot of credible work done in the field and yeah, it's pretty cool stuff if you ever want to get into it. Hope that answers your questions.

[huskerXman]

The headline smacks of it. And the info is being presented at a conference sponsored by a conservative think-tank with an outspoken agenda. So all that summed together, is what's causing me to discredit it. I discredited the actual information presented (and not the author's op-end conclusions) a lot less before I read up on the conference.

 

I don't know if I've gone in-depth in this thread. I think the consensus regarding anthropomorphic climate change is pretty strong around the world. I think the mass media likes going nuts over little and they are spreading a lot of misconceptions (but what else is new!). I think the answers to the question 'How bad is it?' are not really nailed down because there's a lot of ongoing research. I don't think there is any serious worry in the scientific community about any looming catastrophe. That's just public misconception.

 

However, I think it's entirely wrong and off the mark to take public misconceptions like that and use it to discredit the efforts of the scientific community. Which are always going off in a variety of sometimes disjointed, sometimes competing directions.

 

I did some superficial research on this as a project a few years ago, nothing that would really give me a definitive say-so (other than perhaps a clearer understanding of where the community stands)...but to summarize, what I looked at was glacial melting. And again, this is at a very superficial level. One of the, I guess I'd say aspects of that is there is a sort of time delay, particularly on the massive ice sheets, in their response to climate. In other words, the largest ice sheets' mass balance delta is responding to external factors from maybe thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years ago. Although I think there is data done on smaller segments within those sheets that prove useful (I forget the exact details, hehe...)

 

...and one of the more significant areas of focus, I think, are the smaller ice sheets, where the response times are far more recent and therefore the conclusions drawn, far more meaningful. I'll use the Himalayans as an example. So there's important data there, and for a human connection, one of the more interesting papers I read was regarding soot deposits on one of these smaller glaciers and the effect it was having. There was another study done on a more immediate, local (not global) impact regarding increased water levels in streams and rivers and how they were having a deleterious effect on the local ecology (and human community).

 

...There was also one paper I read that seemed a little careless with regard to conclusions and assumptions made, so I didn't think that was a very good study and threw it out for my paper. Not all science is good.

 

...And another little tidbit since that's all I remember now, bits and pieces...some of the early data collected on, I believe, the Greenland ice sheet, had some really wild and nutty error constraints (+/- percentages that amounted to more than the number itself). So yeah, there are much better modern data-collecting methods now, and I was reading up on some of them, but of course now I don't remember what they're called, dangit.

 

Where I stand on policy, I don't know. I don't really feel quite informed enough to get into that area. If I did this for a living perhaps I could sit on an advisory committee to make recommmendations for what laws or policies or research directions are good, but yeah, that isn't really my interest.

 

Overall, I'd say there's a lot of quite interesting work done in the area, and it's a shame the whole topic has been hijacked into a policy debate largely. I think assumptions are dangerous (such as that one paper I talked about) but the overall consensus is strong, but keep in mind that the conclusions are "No strong conclusions." Largely, a lot of credible work done in the field and yeah, it's pretty cool stuff if you ever want to get into it. Hope that answers your questions.

 

Very nice.. let me ask one thing. Don't you think the bold lends validity to the skeptics of the man-made portion of this debate?

[zoogs]

Well, it's why a lot of research is done on the smaller ice sheets, for example. And there is still, as I said, good data to be had from the Antarctic ice sheets, but they focus on maybe smaller floes and chunks. I'm getting pretty imprecise with my terminology here because my memory is hazy, and I apologize for that. I would say it's more of an explanation for research directions, and just some general knowledge about how it all works, which is important context for any discussion on ice sheet mass balance.

 

I think there's validity to skeptics regarding the extents of the man-made side of this. If you put a number on that, what is it? How valid is it? Are you characterizing it improperly high or low? That it is occurring, though, I think is more or less beyond skepticism at this point.

 

Probably the biggest disservice the media does to the scientific community is with their alarmist campaigns, because it gives off the impression that scientists are all collectively pulling their hair out and saying, "OMG! It's a disaster!" as well. That's not the case. Just like with, let's say, oil reserves. A lot of media scare-reporting on how we're going to all run out of oil soon, and so on...it's a similar alarmism, but it doesn't mean the actual scientific community is full of fraudulent mischaracterization.

[BigRedBuster]

Environmentalists need to go fix other countries MUCH worse pollution problem. When the rest of the world comes up to our standards then we can start acting like we need tougher environmental regulations in this country.

How would you propose that we encourage/force other countries to pollute less?

 

We can control what we do. We can't control what they do.

 

 

 

I'm glad you asked.

 

I completely agree that we directly can't control what other countries do.

 

However, here is just an example of how this world works. I think I have spelled this out on this board so pardon me if this is a repeat.

 

I compete with products that are made in China. These products are dirt cheap mainly because of how their businesses are allowed to operate with little or no environmental regulations and extremely low labor costs.

Some in our industry have succumbed to the pressure and started buying products made in China to compete. These people don't make any more per item they sell. BUT, they are selling more because they are cheaper. Meanwhile, we have environmental groups and some in our government that think WE need more environmental regulations and higher labor costs.

 

This doesn't work. More and more jobs in my industry are going to be sent to China in this scenario. So, how do you fix it???

 

Why don't we require any products that directly compete with a product made in the US to be manufactured in a plant that meets the US environmental and labor regulations?

 

Brazil has a tariff system where tariffs are low on products that don't compete with Brazillian made products. BUT, if there is an industry in Brazil that it competes with, then the tariffs are high. This basically ensures that domestically made products are competitively priced. I have tried importing products into Brazil and it is almost impossible to be price competitive.

 

Now, I don't necessarily want the US to go as far as Brazil because in some ways that can hurt your own economy. However, when it comes to regulations and labor costs, why don't we demand products that are imported to be manufactured to our standards?

 

This goes completely against both parties and neither party is willing to suggest this. But, to me this makes sense. We have the highest regulations of the industrialized world in many instances. It makes now sense to me to regulate us even more when there are countries like China that pollute so much that you can't even breath the air without getting sick. Their environmental regulations are absolutely disgusting.

 

My opinion is that the reason environmental groups work so hard in the US is because our form of government makes it easy for them. It is virtually impossible for them to go to China and force their government to change. They basically tell them to go to hell.

 

We are the largest consumption market in the world. We should have some power to dictate the conditions our products are made. Amazingly, this is one issue the federal government should be involved in. BUT, instead we make free trade agreements and force more regulations on companies that want to employ Americans. All of that just forces more jobs over seas.

[carlfense]

I honestly hope that people are trolling this thread.

(wishful thinking)

Hey, I'm feeling optimistic.

[carlfense]

BigRedBuster-

Are you proposing massive new regulations?

 

It's an interesting idea . . . I'm just wondering how it squares with the "government is bad" message.

[BigRedBuster]

The headline smacks of it. And the info is being presented at a conference sponsored by a conservative think-tank with an outspoken agenda. So all that summed together, is what's causing me to discredit it. I discredited the actual information presented (and not the author's op-end conclusions) a lot less before I read up on the conference.

 

I don't know if I've gone in-depth in this thread. I think the consensus regarding anthropomorphic climate change is pretty strong around the world. I think the mass media likes going nuts over little and they are spreading a lot of misconceptions (but what else is new!). I think the answers to the question 'How bad is it?' are not really nailed down because there's a lot of ongoing research. I don't think there is any serious worry in the scientific community about any looming catastrophe. That's just public misconception.

 

However, I think it's entirely wrong and off the mark to take public misconceptions like that and use it to discredit the efforts of the scientific community. Which are always going off in a variety of sometimes disjointed, sometimes competing directions.

 

I did some superficial research on this as a project a few years ago, nothing that would really give me a definitive say-so (other than perhaps a clearer understanding of where the community stands)...but to summarize, what I looked at was glacial melting. And again, this is at a very superficial level. One of the, I guess I'd say aspects of that is there is a sort of time delay, particularly on the massive ice sheets, in their response to climate. In other words, the largest ice sheets' mass balance delta is responding to external factors from maybe thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years ago. Although I think there is data done on smaller segments within those sheets that prove useful (I forget the exact details, hehe...)

 

...and one of the more significant areas of focus, I think, are the smaller ice sheets, where the response times are far more recent and therefore the conclusions drawn, far more meaningful. I'll use the Himalayans as an example. So there's important data there, and for a human connection, one of the more interesting papers I read was regarding soot deposits on one of these smaller glaciers and the effect it was having. There was another study done on a more immediate, local (not global) impact regarding increased water levels in streams and rivers and how they were having a deleterious effect on the local ecology (and human community).

 

...There was also one paper I read that seemed a little careless with regard to conclusions and assumptions made, so I didn't think that was a very good study and threw it out for my paper. Not all science is good.

 

...And another little tidbit since that's all I remember now, bits and pieces...some of the early data collected on, I believe, the Greenland ice sheet, had some really wild and nutty error constraints (+/- percentages that amounted to more than the number itself). So yeah, there are much better modern data-collecting methods now, and I was reading up on some of them, but of course now I don't remember what they're called, dangit.

 

Where I stand on policy, I don't know. I don't really feel quite informed enough to get into that area. If I did this for a living perhaps I could sit on an advisory committee to make recommmendations for what laws or policies or research directions are good, but yeah, that isn't really my interest.

 

Overall, I'd say there's a lot of quite interesting work done in the area, and it's a shame the whole topic has been hijacked into a policy debate largely. I think assumptions are dangerous (such as that one paper I talked about) but the overall consensus is strong, but keep in mind that the conclusions are "No strong conclusions." Largely, a lot of credible work done in the field and yeah, it's pretty cool stuff if you ever want to get into it. Hope that answers your questions.

 

 

Good post...

 

I have this question for you.

 

In your first paragraph, you stated that you discredit this information because it is being put out by a conservative think tank. While I agree that you always need to be skeptical of these issues, do you think the liberal side only gives out factual information?

 

I ask this because I have been involved in several industries in my lifetime that have come under attack by environmental groups. Each time, there is information given to the public by the groups attacking us that is absolutely fabricated BS.

 

From my personal experience, I tend to be extremely skeptical of "scientific" information that is given out by environmental groups. No different than the way you are skeptical of conservative think tanks.

[zoogs]

If it were a liberal think tank or a liberal environmental lobby group sponsoring a conference, I'd have the same reaction, I guess. I've walked around and seen some of those lobby groups handing out brochures and giving those streetside talks and asking for donations and such, and most of their information struck me as BS as well.

 

The other side here though is academia.

 

And to be clear, I wouldn't dismiss all of the research presented at the conference as necessarily bad. Perhaps a number of those teams present the same talks at other conferences, too. I haven't even looked at any of it. But the overarching narrative is troubling and I think raises fair questions.

[BigRedBuster]

BigRedBuster-

Are you proposing massive new regulations?

 

It's an interesting idea . . . I'm just wondering how it squares with the "government is bad" message.

 

 

No. I'm not asking for one single new regulation. Am I asking for a new tariff program? Yes.

 

What I'm asking for is for all products SOLD in the US to be manufactured by our regulatory standards that we have in place today.

 

I honestly can not figure out how people expect US companies to compete when they keep getting more and more regulations put on them while other countries do not. The world has become smaller and it is MUCH easier for foreign companies to market and sell products in our country. We make it extremely easy for them to do it in a manner that directly competes with people who want to employ Americans. THEN, when a company ships a factory to Mexico or China, everyone looks at them as the big bad ugly corporation.

 

Wake the hell up people!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The American public doesn't give a flying crap where something is made as long as it is cheaper than other options. So, if it is cheaper for a Mexican factory to make something, that is where the jobs are going to go.

[BigRedBuster]

If it were a liberal think tank or a liberal environmental lobby group sponsoring a conference, I'd have the same reaction, I guess. I've walked around and seen some of those lobby groups handing out brochures and giving those streetside talks and asking for donations and such, and most of their information struck me as BS as well.

 

The other side here though is academia.

 

Can you always trust academia?

[huskerXman]

The headline smacks of it. And the info is being presented at a conference sponsored by a conservative think-tank with an outspoken agenda. So all that summed together, is what's causing me to discredit it. I discredited the actual information presented (and not the author's op-end conclusions) a lot less before I read up on the conference.

 

I don't know if I've gone in-depth in this thread. I think the consensus regarding anthropomorphic climate change is pretty strong around the world. I think the mass media likes going nuts over little and they are spreading a lot of misconceptions (but what else is new!). I think the answers to the question 'How bad is it?' are not really nailed down because there's a lot of ongoing research. I don't think there is any serious worry in the scientific community about any looming catastrophe. That's just public misconception.

 

However, I think it's entirely wrong and off the mark to take public misconceptions like that and use it to discredit the efforts of the scientific community. Which are always going off in a variety of sometimes disjointed, sometimes competing directions.

 

I did some superficial research on this as a project a few years ago, nothing that would really give me a definitive say-so (other than perhaps a clearer understanding of where the community stands)...but to summarize, what I looked at was glacial melting. And again, this is at a very superficial level. One of the, I guess I'd say aspects of that is there is a sort of time delay, particularly on the massive ice sheets, in their response to climate. In other words, the largest ice sheets' mass balance delta is responding to external factors from maybe thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years ago. Although I think there is data done on smaller segments within those sheets that prove useful (I forget the exact details, hehe...)

 

...and one of the more significant areas of focus, I think, are the smaller ice sheets, where the response times are far more recent and therefore the conclusions drawn, far more meaningful. I'll use the Himalayans as an example. So there's important data there, and for a human connection, one of the more interesting papers I read was regarding soot deposits on one of these smaller glaciers and the effect it was having. There was another study done on a more immediate, local (not global) impact regarding increased water levels in streams and rivers and how they were having a deleterious effect on the local ecology (and human community).

 

...There was also one paper I read that seemed a little careless with regard to conclusions and assumptions made, so I didn't think that was a very good study and threw it out for my paper. Not all science is good.

 

...And another little tidbit since that's all I remember now, bits and pieces...some of the early data collected on, I believe, the Greenland ice sheet, had some really wild and nutty error constraints (+/- percentages that amounted to more than the number itself). So yeah, there are much better modern data-collecting methods now, and I was reading up on some of them, but of course now I don't remember what they're called, dangit.

 

Where I stand on policy, I don't know. I don't really feel quite informed enough to get into that area. If I did this for a living perhaps I could sit on an advisory committee to make recommmendations for what laws or policies or research directions are good, but yeah, that isn't really my interest.

 

Overall, I'd say there's a lot of quite interesting work done in the area, and it's a shame the whole topic has been hijacked into a policy debate largely. I think assumptions are dangerous (such as that one paper I talked about) but the overall consensus is strong, but keep in mind that the conclusions are "No strong conclusions." Largely, a lot of credible work done in the field and yeah, it's pretty cool stuff if you ever want to get into it. Hope that answers your questions.

 

 

Good post...

 

I have this question for you.

 

In your first paragraph, you stated that you discredit this information because it is being put out by a conservative think tank. While I agree that you always need to be skeptical of these issues, do you think the liberal side only gives out factual information?

 

I ask this because I have been involved in several industries in my lifetime that have come under attack by environmental groups. Each time, there is information given to the public by the groups attacking us that is absolutely fabricated BS.

 

From my personal experience, I tend to be extremely skeptical of "scientific" information that is given out by environmental groups. No different than the way you are skeptical of conservative think tanks.

 

Funding goes both ways that is for sure, BUT, from what I have seen it is grossly in favor of research that shows man-made global warming. Meaning, big money is given to those groups that spout man-made..

[carlfense]

No. I'm not asking for one single new regulation. Am I asking for a new tariff program? Yes.

My mistake. You aren't advocating for massive new regulations . . . you're asking for massive new tariff programs.

 

But . . . shouldn't we get government out of the way and let capitalism work it out?