Actually, many people do that all the time- how about smoking cigarettes or boozing or unprotected sex- you may say it's not rational but it simply may reflect high discount rates and/or preferences. I'm not saying it's good, but I'm not sure it's irrational.

Then you say...

"Why should we demand 100% certainty before avoiding this danger? Science has given the human race a dire warning with all the urgency and certainty we should need to prompt action."

No one is demanding 100% certainty but the range of options and coordination required is so massive- greater than anything that humanity has ever undertaken before- that I do think the answers are not at all clear cut and simple. I will be writing about this shortly.

J.S.


We need to focus on the root causes of problems.

Who amongst us is honestly willing to give up their car, that comfortable 72 degree temp, their lights, TV's, movie theatres, trinkets and basically all the modern conviences that come from being the smartest animal on the planet.

My guess is unless something better comes along maybe about 1%.

In the absence of Zero Point Energy Nuclear Energy is the only option. That is if your goal is to eliminate the carbon produced by man.

If anyone thinks they have a viable ZPE device the rest of the world and I waiting for proof.

Who is willing to let power companies build nuclear power plants in their back yard Let alone store nuclear waste?

Don't get me wrong I really believe if we were to put up enough windmills, solar panels and ocean based tide generators we could replace the big bad beast of fossil fuels.

That being said one has to ask; How many of these devices would be enough to supply enough electricity to power the human race in a manner it would be comfortable with?

The answer is every square inch of land and 1/3rd of the ocean would have to be covered. Unfortunately this would cause a problem for the other animals on this planet.

So the only viable option is nuclear energy.

Is it dangerous? Yes
Could it satisfy all the worlds' energy needs? If better batteries and more efficient transmission methods are developed, Yes

What can be done with the waste?
I would suggest launching it into space and burying it on the moon or some other lifeless planet preferably something big enough that it will not be knocked into the earth by any rouge asteroids.

Best practices for launching nuclear waste into space should include a limit on the amount launched in a single shot so as to limit the fallout in the event of a launch failure and supremely indestructible containers for the waste for the same reason.

Nuclear energy could actually live up to its potential.


Ed Wood

Nobody's asking you to give that up. We're asking that next time you buy a car you think about the milage it gets and that you switch the TV off at the wall instead of putting it into "standby" with the remote when you're not using it.

Small changes that won't affect your lifestyle in the slightest.

>>>"So the only viable option is nuclear energy.
Is it dangerous? Yes
What can be done with the waste?"

You need to brush up on reactor designs. You're still thinking of the reactors which were built in the '50s which were basically nuclear bombs which we were trying to explode in a controlled manner. They also had a design requirement of producing enriched plutonium for nuclear weapons, though that side of the "big rush to nuclear power" isn't discussed very often.

Modern reactors aren't dangerous and don't produce hard to deal with waste.

eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

I am all for nuclear Lets please switch to nuclear power it can be safe if the people using it are responsible safe people building responsible safe reactors.

I would let a power company build a nuclear reactor in my back yard. Will you?

My next car will probably be a hybrid car and I do turn my TV OFF. I do this not because of global warming I do this because it costs me money and I am tired of financing terrorists by buying their oil. So if the world needs an excuse to switch to nuclear and make more efficent cars then maybe human induced global warming works for you. I personally think it is a bunch of garbage. But if it gets the United States off the Middle Eastern Oil teet then Hooray global warming.

GO NUCLEAR POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ed Wood

While researching the "bottom of the world," Jeffrey Geddes made a discovery
about sea ice formation that has the potential to provide scientists with another piece of the climate-change puzzle.

"Our discovery that embayments occur approximately every three years at the same time in the same place seems to indicate there may be some inherent predictability in the variability of sea ice in that region," said Geddes, now a fourth-year student at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

as for the idea of launching the waste into space, no offence but thats probably the worst of all the ways to deal with nuclear waste. it costs somewhere around $12000 to launch 1 lb of material into space, and nuclear waste is extremely heavy because  it is made up of very heavy metals. basically launching nuclear waste into space would put nuclear power generation even more of a disadvantage compared to coal and natural gas.

As far as building reactors goes the plain simple fact is not too many people want one in their back yard. Even if we were tax carbon output to the point of economic collapse the same people would not want one in their back yard.

Not that I'm against having one in my back yard, I am all for it.

We may not have to tax carbon output as the oil will all be gone soon and there will be no choice but to switch to nuclear power or go back to the days of horse and carrige.

Bees are currently experiencing a mass extinction. Does this trouble anyone?

It should. All your food begins with Bees.

Where is this Zero Point energy? When we be able to manipulate gravity? When will I be able to fly to work in my flying anti gravity car? When will we pull our collective heads out of our collective butts and get serious about energy?

Sorry, Rambling.

Ed Wood

Greenhouse effect theory is over 100 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe

Malthusian catastrophe, sometimes known as a Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian dilemma, Malthusian disaster, Malthusian trap, or Malthusian limit is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population.

And here's where the Global Warmers clearly fall into the Crypto-Malthusian camp:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe

Another way of applying the Malthusian theory is to substitute other resources, such as sources of energy for food, and energy consumption for population. (Since modern food production is energy and resource intensive, this is not a big jump. Most of the criteria for applying the theory are still satisfied.) Since energy consumption is increasing much faster than population and most energy comes from polluting and non-renewable sources, the catastrophe appears more imminent, though perhaps not as certain, than when considering food and population continue to behave in a manner contradicting Malthus's assumptions.

The ignorance on energy issues is astounding.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2007/04/10/global-wa ...

As much of the nation suffers from an extended springtime spell of global anti-warming (like psychoanalysis, global warming theory is non-refutable and explains all outcomes), as, even in the face of springtime blizzards, the unrelenting parade global-warming related stories is ramped up to the level of overt propaganda, as all doubters are stridently shouted down and silenced by Gorean Truth (Thomas Friedman implied anyone who questioned man-made global warming was a “crank”), many are the millions who feel they have no choice but to believe in the “science” that says global warming is here, it is caused by man and it will wreak havoc on the environment and humankind.

A brief review of other scientifically foretold environmental disasters, which caused great panic in their time, shows that the dire predictions rarely, if ever, come true.

In response to the last post by jabailo, What about the fact that we are having more violent weather? Isn't this something that has been predicted?

trickytank I see you have obviously found the modern convience of the computer which if I am not mistaken does use electricity. Unless your computer is running on solar, nuclear, or some new fangled zero point energy (that don't exist) you are generating greenhouse gasses.

Good luck with that no air conditioning thing when you use your computer in a room that is 110 degrees F.

By the way if someone out there has a working zero point energy I'd be interested in using it to cool my house in the summer and heat it in the winter,

Ed Wood

While I think it is a good thing to find an alternative to fossil fules because we cannot sustain the current rate of production to meet current demand let alone future demand.

I don't think it requires us to be ignorant of the root cause of global warming.

The root cause of global warming is the supergiant rotating black hole at the center of our galaxy. you see as this giant matter sucking beast spins it disturbs space time twisting it aparrently emitting dark energy forcing anything gravitationally bound to this object to the galactic plane where dark energy is being thrown from jets on opposite sides of the object as matter is sucked in dark matter is pushed out  and as we ( the sun and its solar system ) crosses the the galactic plane the local gravity increases as we are bombarded by dark matter. every 25 thousand years something very interesting happens every 125 thousand years as we come into close contact with one of the jets  causing extra heating in the earth and the other planets of the solar system. as evidence of this certain things will happen over the next few years.

1 The rotation of all the planets will increase.

2 The temperature of all the planets will increase.

3 The temperature of the sun and rotation of the sun will increase.

4 As the jet passes us the mass rotation and temperature of the solar system objects will decrease very quiclky and we will be in a new ice age.

The the crossing will take place in december of the year 2012 and as the dark matter jet could be somewhere between 10 and 100 light years wide and moving around 50 percent of the speed of light the peak temperature depending on the distsnce from the earth as we cross the galactic plane could be within 10 to 100 years and if it lines up perfectly with the sun and the earth it will occure on december 21 in the year 2012 there will be massive earth quakes solar storms and bizarre weather. As the most intense portion of the jet moves away days will get longer and the earth will cool very fast.

My advise be prepaired.

Build or locate a bomb shelter with plenty of food where you can stay underground for a while. Be prepaired to move south. Attempt to move away from earthquake and volcanic prone zones as over the next few years these will become very dangerous.

Sounding the true alarm. Good Luck and may god have mercy on us all.  

Ed Wood

Well the truth about all things atrophying is wrong. Put simply, all things are reborn and so as one generation lives a sedentary life with climate control and television as their choice another chooses feeling the seasons and vigorous life that is full and rich. You can't possibly imagine that because that is to out of the box for you, but suffice it to say that with or without your help it is happening.

Your little 2012 prophecy might be true. I won't make fun of you for that even though you say it as a way to justify your fear of action. It is unfortunate that most people, like you, who see the writing on the wall, are so helpless and weak. You seem intelligent, I'll bet you would agree from what I have read that there are a ton of problems in the world and that our culture is the cause. I'll bet you loathe our current administration, the war, yet you sit there and nitpick on global warming because you cannot accept that by doing nothing you are responsible for all of it.

No-one can easily swallow the pill that is global warming. It would mean something if they allowed themselves to be objective and came to the conclusions that the facts point towards. For a guy like you it might actually mean that your back is against the wall and you are forced into the position of action by moral imperative. You might finally be elevated to a spiritual level that gives you the strength to act like a man for the first time in your life.

If global warming is real and we need to reduce carbon by 80% by 2050 then take a moment to imagine what a world like that would look like. Does it terrify you? Now imagine what the world will be like by 2050 if we don't succeed. Does that image scare you worse? This is a revolution, it changes everything. It must in order to save the human spirit. If you feel like that spirit can just die then you are a traitor to God and your children or your brethrens children.

This e-mail is harsh. I don't know you other than what you have written here before and I am not trying to argue with you and it doesn't seem much like you are really arguing with anyone. Your nuclear idea is a great band-aid; the problem is that our society is gangrene. No band-aid will help it with its lack of balance. The zero-point energy solution is simple, you use way, way, less and you use it only for important things and you don't have any electricity at your home and you get used to it. Maybe a library has electricity in your sustainable town of the future. Travel is no longer easy and cheap, but it doesn't mean that people regress to Neanderthals, we have so much knowledge that making small wonderful communities that are sustainable should be easy.

Anyway, I gave up my car this spring. I didn't sell it. I decided that cars are bad, a black and white decision after staring at the grey for so long. They are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, they are perhaps the greatest cause of global warming not only because of their emissions but for the sprawling individualistic society they allowed to develop. A society based on cars is a society that will probably never work. So I converted my car into an art piece by stuccoing it and painting it black.

http://autovoid.blogspot.com

I want to live in a society of humans that are free and willing to be proud of themselves for their achievements. Right now I live in a society of mice, I see no men among it. Everyone is afraid, everyone is obedient and detached from responsibility. Hopefully a global challenge like climate change can drive the change that is sorely needed because the only logical way to deal with it involves solving a lot of our major social problems. It also invariably points toward a cooperative global democracy, and it's rally cry is the truth that all things are connected.


The Black Car Project Killing cars before they kill us!

I believe in change.

I really want an alternative to fossil fuel.

Without fossil fuel the population of this planet would starve.

Remember not only does fossil fuel allow me to get around easier and stay warm it also drives the tractor that plows the fields and the truck that gets the food to the store,

I am proud of our accomplishments as a society.

I am proud of my accomplishments as a man.

I live in Michigan and have been without propane since late December. So cold showers and minimal heat throughout the winter are liveable.

I do not dispute the fact that the human race has made it through much worse in the past. and will probably go through worse in the future.

The population of the earth needs to know the current good times will be short lived without some vast alternative energy source and be at 1 with it reguardless of the causes of global warming or cooling. We are about to cross a threashold where the population of the planet is unsustainable. Some would say we already have.

Unless we all get together and quit fighting about the cause and or effects we will miss this golden opportunity to make a change. The Society of Man is at its historical pinnacle. We can rise to the ocasion or we can fail to meet the challenge.

However, it is our choice. Whatever motovates you fear, greed, self preservation, sex, or just because you want a challenge it is imperitive we rise to the ocasion.

We need a new source of energy if we wish to make beyond the next 50 years as the highest animal in the food chain.

We could all live like monkeys and yes the earth would go on without our modern convenciences. It has gone on wothout our modern conviences for

4.5 BILLION years

Thats a mighty long time. Almost 1/3rd the age of the known universe.

Modern society has been around 100 years. In comparison that is not eveen the blink of an eye.

Considering what we have accomplished in this short time to see us wiped out because we could not agree on the cause of global warming seems the high point of stupidity.

Let's all agree no matter what the cause of global warming is or isn't, to work together to come up with an energy solution that protects us from any outcome. Whether or not the end result is an ice age, high sea levels or nuclear wars over who controlls the worlds energy supply.

I want my childern to have it better than myself.

I want my children to have it better than me. I want my children and future generations to be explorers of the galaxy and beyond.

I don't want my children and future generations to devolve into mindless monkeys.

Can't we all get along?

Ed Wood

What you say is true. Oil companies, environmentalist and many other political voices use fear to bolster their argument for whatever they are trying to convince you of.

It's really annoying.

It seems lately instead of intelligent conversation about what will best serve our energy needs there is an argument about what will kill us.

This makes for great dramatic speech not necessarily good energy policy.

We do have to eat and we need energy for the modern convinces of life. Whether it be for the tractor that plows the field, the gas guzzling SUV, the fuel efficient hybrid, the heat in our homes, the light, the computer, or even the remote control to your TV we need it.

We need to make a decision about what to do out about our energy needs. It'd be nice if we could all admit to ourselves that we will be using energy for the forseeable future to do what we want/need to do.

It would be nice if our elected officials would quit trying to scare us into their notion of what is best. It would also be nice if our elected officials would learn to get along and quit trying to get over on each other by scare tactics and come to grips with the plain simple fact that we need energy.

If they could do this maybe we could have a decent comprehensive energy policy that keeps us prosperous, safe and clean as possible.

I'll say it again can't we all just get along.    

Have a good life.  


Ed Wood

Even the huge revolution in physics brought on by Einstein's theory of relativity did not render Newton's theories of classical mechanics useless. Classical mechanics is still used all the time; it is, quite simply, good enough for most purposes.

Newton is rarely used in the engineering world.  What is used is experimental data and testing to see how things actually behave.

These days, more and more behavior, even in the macroscopic world is being viewed as quantum.

In some sense, Einstein was a traffic cop, who saved Newton for one more century...but not much longer.

Huh?

Wha?

I wish gravity, or from the other perspective gravitational acceleration via the warping of space time through mass induced space-time accretion could be turned off and on at will.

That would be cool.

If it weren't for those nasty laws of thermodynamics you could turn it off and on without any energy or at least with less energy than the acceleration you feel.

force=mass*acceleration  

    or in other words

energy=mass*acceleration

or

as Einstein put it energy=mass*C^2

C^2 being the instantaneous acceleration experienced by two masses traveling @ the speed of light colliding head on.  

 I would hope the laws of thermodynamics are wrong about this and gravity or space-time flow energy take less energy to manipulate than is theorized. I do doubt it though.

However, if you ascribe to the notion that our universe existists within a singularity(black hole amongst billions of others within another universe and so on and that there may be an infinite quantum superstring connecting them all if one could bleed energy off of the thing one could have an infinite supply of power. Good luck with that.  

Maybe quantum mechanics holds the answer to our energy needs. Show me a working Zero point energy device that produces more energy than it produces and I will be the first in line to purchase it.

The Gravito Magnetic London Moment effect in superconductors is a very interesting development whether or not it proves to provide a means to manipulate gravity remains to be seen. Einstein was right on this one he however his math comes out lower than the measured results. So maybe there is something in the quantum realm than can explain this.  

Actually, I truly believe Einsteins' only shortcoming was his inability to believe his math because is showed that there was a beginning and possibly an end. He truly wanted to believe that the universe was everlasting, infinite and had no beginning or end. He was both right and wrong at the same time. A dichotomy of reason? No our singularity had a beginning just as the singularity our singularity is in and as the singularities that exist within our singularity. that is what happens when you attempt an infinite amount of mass within 0 space it creates space and the mass just keeps shrinking pushing itself both together and apart to satisfy the laws of thermodynamics. So Einstein was correct in that the universe is infinite, It had no beginning nor will it end it just fills less and less space getting infinitely smaller in comparison to the space it creates. now at some point when our universe has collapsed into the singularities within the space will be left behind as a dark unobservable void and the singularities within will keep emitting space until the singularities within them collapse into total darkness and the singularities within them will do the same this process is everlasting and infinite. Einsteins math proves this. Ever infinitely smaller ever increasing in number universes with life for ever and ever that appear to the inhabitants within who are able to perceived it to be ever expanding.

What an awesome sight.

What a beautiful thing Huh? Wha?

There I go prattling on.


Ed Wood

Yes, science proceeds by experimentation, gathering evidence and the like INSIDE A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.  Have you ever taken a physics course?  Everything that is done in physics is done from the perspective of classical mechanics or quantum mechanics / quantum electrodynamics or string theory.  It is impossible to learn any of the above without a foundation in basic Newtonian mechanics.  It is impossible to learn mechanical engineering without a foundation in basic Newtonian mechanics.

As for climate change, of course there are natural processes at work.  The climatologists warning of global warming have never said otherwise.  The claim is that the natural processes aren't the whole picture, that human activity is causing climate change to occur faster and to a greater extreme than would be the case through natural processes alone, that regardless of the cause, we're in trouble, and that maybe we can do something to make ourselves be in a bit less trouble.  It is interesting to consider in an academic sense what factors contribute to climate change and we should certainly continue exploring and discussing, while taking steps to protect the planet and ourselves.

I have started reading the online addition of the Anchorage Daily News.  For the people in Alaska, this stuff is not a matter of scientific debate.  Their world is changing and they see it changing. There is some headline every single day that illustrates the seriousness of the situation in the Arctic.  In the SE, the situation is just as serious.  Atlanta's major reservoir is running dry.  Wild fires raged through much of the summer in Georgia.  The smoke hung in the air in Atlanta, which was pretty far from the fires, and even in the mornings in Birmingham, which was a few hundred miles further from the fires.  The water reservoirs in North Alabama are low.  Governor Riley of Alabama has been demanding that the Corps of Engineers release more water from Georgia to Alabama while the Georgia governor is demanding that they cut water to Alabama and Florida.  There  are water "wars" in the SW that have been going on longer than in the SE.  In other parts of the world, the quotation marks around "water wars" can be removed.  There is fighting where rivers cross borders in a lot of places.  The UN and the US and probably some other people are very worried about the almost certainty that wars around the world will develop and/or escalate as fresh water becomes more scarce.  Don't believe climate change is really happening -- the Arctic tundra is being replaced by things that aren't supposed to grow in the tundra.  The Aral Sea is drying up.  Deserts are growing world wide.  I'm picking some isolated examples off the top of my head.

We have a serious problem.  A whole lot of climatologist are convinced that at last part of the cause of that problem is human activity.  There is, of course, some disagreement within the scientific community.  That's part of how science works.  I'm studying to be a mathematician -- we demand proof in math and everybody who understands enough to evaluate a proof has to be in agreement that it's true.  This is possible in math.  We agree on definitions and rules of logic and if we all start with the same definitions and play by the same rules and think hard enough, we should come to the same conclusions.  In the past, I was in chemistry. I have recently completed a minor (at the graduate level) in physics.  Scientists don't work the way mathematicians do.  There is never certainty in data.  Even in theoretical science, the goal is not so much to prove things as it is to account for experimental observation and to make predictions.  Probability and statistics are essential to the process.  Science is always somewhat inexact.  That can make for very interesting debates.  However, debating doesn't give us water to drink or bring back the dwindling numbers of caribou or help asthma problems that are exacerbated by wildfires and CO2 and other emissions that some people want to say aren't causing global warming.  Debating is fine if while we are debating, we are taking steps to clean up the air and water and make better use of resources.  This can't occur only on an individual basis.  We have to reach enough of a consensus that there is a problem that human action contributes to and can help solve so that basic infrastructure changes are made or Australia and much of the southern US and great many other parts of the world aren't going to have enough water for drinking or for agriculture, and lots of species are going to disappear and that's going to cause other problems and our food supply is going to start disappearing, ...

I apologize somewhat for the tone of this post, but really, I don't care if part of the problem is from volcanic activity or from solar cycles or from cosmic interactions.  All of those and more may contribute to climate fluctuations.  What I do care about is that climate fluctuations result in extinction of species, one of which could be us, and unlike the dinosaurs and other former residents of the planet, we might be able to do something to reverse the process enough to survive.  Why don't we work together to do that?

Andrea Jo Rush

Andrea Jo Rush

Have you ever taken a physics course?  

Everything that is done in physics is done from the perspective of classical mechanics or quantum mechanics / quantum electrodynamics or string theory.  

It is impossible to learn any of the above without a foundation in basic Newtonian mechanics.

It is?  

Why do you say that, because it's not true at all.

As you do mention, these things like Newtonian physics, are intellectual frameworks.  They hint at what the real world may be like.

In addition to my scientific challenge to the IPCC, I now pose some challenges to Andrea Jo Rush

The Andrea Jo Rush Challenges

1. Take any starting variables of a baseball pitch and using Newton's Laws...predict where it will end up.

2. Use Newton's Laws to predict the path of a rain droplet, steam from a tea kettle and oil from an oil slick.

I truly believe Einsteins' only shortcoming was his inability to believe his math

Einstein was the slowest reader of the bunch people doing quantum physics in the first half of the 20th century.   He came up with a set of primary school interpretations of the paradoxes of science.  

Most of the other guys were off working on the real answers, but Einstein looked the part of the friendly scientist and so the others put him up as their spokesperson because at that time there weren't huge Institutes and Cyclotrons and all to employ quantum physicists.

Even today, bring out a picture of Einstein and everyone gets all misty eyed and starts opening up the budgetary purse strings.

The plain and simple fact is it is happening.

Whether it is caused by humans or just part of a natural cycle it is happening.

The question is what do we do about it?

If it is caused by a natural cycle there is nothing we can do to change it and it is about to get really cold as indicated in the chart above.

If it is caused by man then there is the distinct possibility that it is too late to do anything about it and it will stop when the oil runs out.

This will be a sad day for humanity for we will be virtually be thrown back into the stone age without some alternative.

I am not a particularly fond of any of the alternatives but I think we need to work on them while we still have a chance.

Nuclear Can be dangerous especially in the hands of irresponsible people.

Coal is seen as dirty even with carbon sequestration and merury filters.

Wind and solar can help but cannot provide all that is needed.

Geo thermal is a decent alternative but there is not enough of it readily available.

Fusion, We are spending and have been spending a lot on Fusion If the moon could be mined for Helium 3 (eliminating the nasty neutron problem)this may be feasible if you use inertial confinement or exo-superconductive magnetic confinement. Good luck on the tokomak designs I don't think they will work.

Space Based Solar, a 1KM array Could
provide all of our energy needs however the initial investmet is extreme. I actually like this alternative the best.

Bio Fuels If you believe in human caused global warming this is not the answer as most bio fuels are less efficent than fossil fuels and as such put out more Co2.

ZPE total pie in the sky alternative as I have said before if anyone has one of these that actually works I will be the first in line to buy it.

I fall on the natural cycle side of the debate as you can probably tell by my previous posts.

That does not mean I think we should not do anything to secure our energy future.

I just don't want some carbon cretit trading scheme whereby the US is goaded into meeting impossible goals while China and India (the largest polluters on the planet) get away with anything they want even if they are still the largest polluters albeit slightly less than before.

Right now the United States is one of the least polluting industrialized countries on the planet. In fact if it were not for the United States sending up all our satelites, paying for research into climate change, and inventing emissions standards the rest of the world would not have a concept of what climate change is. We need to keep up the good fight.

Please don't hand over our soveregnty to some world government based on carbon credits.

On a creepy paranoid note what element has 6 protons 6 neutrons and 6 electrons and is found in the form of a rock?

Have a nice day.
    Ed Wood

 

Ed Wood

It is SNOWING IN BAGDAD!!!!

Ed Wood

A few quotes (caps are mine):

The changes observed over the last several decades are LIKELY mostly due to human activities, but WE CANNOT RULE OUT that some SIGNIFICANT part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.

and

Because there is considerable UNCERTAINTY in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as TENTATIVE and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).

and finally

The range of natural climate variability is known to be QUITE LARGE ...

Now, no one really disputes that that the climate changes.  Some people claim that man has NO effect on the climate (most of the people who sit in the skeptic realm don't really fit into either of these categories), so that leaves us with folks who don't really think that man's contribution to the climate is significant compared to the natural variability.  Nothing the IPCC (which also uses similar phrases) or the NAS says really challenges that when it comes to their actual findings of fact, they just imply that the variability isn't the biggest factor.  No peer reviewed study, to my knowledge, states that there is no natural variability.

One thing that gets under my skin is the comparison of all ranges of skeptics to Holocaust Deniers (the blog author does this in a subtle way by refering to 'stages of denial').  This creates the fallacy that conflates me with someone who doesn't believe the Earth's temperature ever changes.  I challenge the author to send an email to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Anti-Defamation League using the same wording as the NAS summary about the Holocaust and post the responses.  It might look something like this -

The deaths observed over the period of Nazi control of Europe are LIKELY mostly due to the Nazis, but WE CANNOT RULE OUT that some SIGNIFICANT part of these changes is also a reflection of natural causes.

and

Because there is considerable UNCERTAINTY in current understanding of how many Jews died naturally during Nazi control, the magnitude of Nazi murder should be regarded as TENTATIVE and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).

and finally

The range of death by natural causes during the Nazi rule of Europe is known to be QUITE LARGE ...

Since the proponents of the most extreme scenarios of anthropologic global warming are the ones who make this comparison all the time I would take them much more seriously if they were willing to follow through and see if these organizations accept words like 'likely' to mean 'bascially 100% sure'.  I have a feeling they won't.

I also want to point out:

"The mid-range model estimate of human induced global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is based on the premise that the growth rate of climate forcing 1 agents such as carbon dioxide will accelerate. The predicted warming of 3°C (5.4°F) by the end of the 21st century is consistent with the assumptions about how clouds and atmospheric relative humidity will react to global warming."

5.4°F is the high range, not the mid-range of the estimate, by reading this you'd think that's what the IPCC said.  The IPCC ran 200 or so models and the range was 2.4°F - 5.4°F.  That's a HUGE range.  I like to refer to it as it's formal name:  "a guess".  The problem is that it's misleading.  It implies a smooth distribution curve of the models, when in fact most of the curve sits on the middle/lower end (nearer to 2.4°F) and the IPCC states in the 'Climate Change Scenarios' section that even with drastic cuts in emissions that it would sit at the same place.  Once again, I think that if the author is intellectually honest, he would include in his email to those organizations a range of deaths.  Something like:

The consensus among our historians is that Jewish Deaths attributable to the Nazis' Final Solution were between 3.4 million to 6.4 million people.  All peer reviewed studies on the subject confirm this.

I'm sure folks will have all sorts of excuses for not doing this, but the bottom line is that if you're going to make Holocaust comparisons you should have the intellectual honesty to back them up.

I call it like it is.

1. Calling someone a 'denier' has a historically significant and cultural meaning that goes beyond the standard definition.  Whether or not you are aware of it, words often have meaning beyond a cursory check of the dictionary.

2. By your definition, everyone is a 'denier'.  If you and I don't believe that the sun is completely responsible for climate change, or that God created the world in seven days both you and I are, in fact, 'deniers'.  Everyone denies something.  So there would be no other reason to use the word other than to label someone with it's historical significance.

3. Given (2), it's simply namecalling.  I also hate it when folks who don't think that AGW is one of the greatest threats to mankind names like 'alarmist', 'liberal', 'swindler' and other such nonsense.

4. I find it intellectually dishonest and, to be frank, cowardice to hide behind a dictionary when using a phrase that one knows has such an obvious historical significance.  At least Ellen Goodman owned up to this point of view when using it.

5. Again, the usage by the author of the blog conflates anyone who disagrees with the most disasterous scenario with people who simply don't believe that the temperature changes, ever.  That's simply dishonesty on top of namecalling.

Fact is that when somebody denies something than that makes that person a denier. If you say evolution is bunk or HIV is bunk or human activities have had no impact on climate than you are in denial. Period.

Global Language Monitor, a company which is widely cited by the press and comprised of experts on the English Language as well as linguists in general, recognizes the social significance of the word "denier".

One way to determine if 'denier' truly has the innocent meaning you ascribe is searching for news articles (not including Op/Ed) where the author uses the word "denier" about AGW skeptics and isn't quoting someone at the time.  Good luck with that, you may find one from Iran's press.  Then do the same search "denier holocaust" and you'll find many non-Op/Ed pieces, using the term prominently in the title of the article.  Why do you think that is?

The simple fact is that you're demonizing your opponents.  I guess I'm not a fan of taking a low road which trivializes the Holocaust.

I tend to side with Kenneth Jacobson, Deputy National Director of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League:

From every side, I think the use of these kinds of holocaust analogies is counterproductive, disturbing, and offensive. People who use these kinds of arguments, as Hansen did, are trying to be deliberately provocative, knowing full well that the Holocaust is the epitome of evil in the world. But I think there's a price to be paid, in terms of the offensive element for Holocaust survivors, and it also debases the currency of genocide. It trivializes what the Holocaust was about.

Clearly there are serious environmental issues, and I think he's raising very important matters. But to resort to this kind of argumentation it also makes you wonder about the confidence he has in his own argument.

The earths' crust is on the move.
Over the past 20 years the number of worldwide earthquakes per year has doubled.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0197840.html

Since 1890 the number of earthquakes per year have more than quadrupled.

Given this and the fact that global warming is happening on other planets in our solar system:

Is it not possible this is somehow responsible for the majority of global warming?

Ed Wood


Ed Wood