Anti-Government, but don't touch my Medicare

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Friday, May 7, 2010 16:50
VIEWED: 8545
PAGE 7 of 16

PREV PAGE 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NEXT PAGE

KWICKO

Saturday, April 24, 2010 6:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Do not trash your living space.

But they are saying, what if Bad Business trashes YOUR living space? Why not put a gun to their head and force them to clean it it up?

Well, YEAH. I mean, it's a great idea to think that because capitalism is so goddam great that the invisible hand of the market will preclude anyone from ever doing harm to others in the chase for short-term profits, but unfortunately for the rest of us, we live in the REAL world, and the Tooth Fairy ain't hiring. So if being nice to people doesn't stop the corporation from polluting your lake in the first place, why would anyone think that being nice would push them into cleaning it up in the second place? It's easier and more profitable to just trash the place, take the profits, declare "bankruptcy", and walk away, leaving the poor dopes who were stupid enough to give you tax abatements to clean up your mess, as always.

You can SAY that's not the way it should be, but you absolutely can't change it being that way WITHOUT THE FORCE OF LAW AND REGULATION BEHIND YOU. You can claim all day long that that's not the way it SHOULD be, or the way you WANT it to be, but that's the way it IS, and that's the reality we have to deal with. People don't act in ways that do them the most good; more often than not, they act in ways that cause them the least money and the least work. The Big Mac doesn't sell because it's fine cuisine; it sells because it's gullet-filler you can throw down your throat for under five bucks, and won't generally kill you too quickly.

Mike

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, April 24, 2010 8:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
CTS, have you tried "going to the source" yourself? Because there is plenty of well-documented data out there supported climate change. It's a little shocking to find an intelligent, curious person who hasn't seen it.

Of course, I went to the source myself. Who else would go to the source for me?

That is a bit like saying, "Have you tried thinking for yourself?"

Yeah. Yeah, I have. That's the problem. If I let all these experts think for me, I'd be humming along with everyone else on the global warming joyride.

Quote:
This shows a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of climate change: thermometer data is damned near worthless. We have been taking reliable measurements of temperature for really only century or so, and that's with limited spatial sampling.

I agree. But reliable measurements of temperature, even with limited spatial sampling, is at least, REAL data. It doesn't give us much to go on, to be sure, but slow data streams doesn't mean you get to start substituting imaginary data and pretend they're real, just cause you got tired of waiting, and you want to publish *now*.

I'll save you some time. I have looked into this. I already know all this stuff you're telling me. You're talking down to me like just because I disagree, I must be a newbie to this issue and embarassingly ignorant of the research--"try wikipedia for a start." No, I've read the research, and I find the conclusions are not supported by the data.

Quote:
I think they just squash the numbers together, get a pretty hockey stick graph, and go with it.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
This site explains what they do with the real temperatures. Scroll down to "If SATs cannot be measured, how are SAT maps created ?"

In short, they use the real data they got, and they guess for the data they don't, they stick them all in a computer model, which spits out a 30 year average called a climatology, which "hopefully represents" the real world.

I understand having fun with a SIM Climate program, and being excited that all your guesses must be on the right track because they match up with someone else's guesses for temperature proxies (be it tree ring or ice core or whatever). I get that. Woohoo!

It's still all speculation that has to be interpreted very cautiously. Because all's said and done, you're still matching imaginary data with imaginary data. In fields of speculative science, you have to be very careful to distinguish hypothesis from fact. The qualifier, "We think, but we're far from being sure,..." should precede every conclusion. The word "solid" definitely doesn't belong in there.

I'm not saying the imaginary data should be thrown out. I don't have a problem with using computer modeling. By means, use it. Hypothesize, study, correlate... But don't forget your data sources--they are still all imaginary.

Here's another thing about imaginary data. You can imagine them to be whatever you want, based on your modeling parameters. So you want a very very close correlation to methane proxies? Program that SIM just right, and you got it. See? THAT's the problem with imaginary data. It depends on who is imagining it.

-----
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

-- HDT

MAL4PREZ

Saturday, April 24, 2010 9:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I agree. But reliable measurements of temperature, even with limited spatial sampling, is at least, REAL data.

Huh. I'm not sure what you're after. You said you want to see thermometer temperature data, but you already know that it's useless.

Quote:
I'll save you some time.

You really shouldn't. Did you read the rest of my post? It appears you didn't, because I flat out said that any of these recent time studies are not what makes the strongest argument. It's the temperature data from hundreds of thousands of years ago that tell the story.

These data do not come from thermometers, but they are data nonetheless. They show climate temperature fluctuations better than any model can.

Quote:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
This site explains what they do with the real temperatures. Scroll down to "If SATs cannot be measured, how are SAT maps created ?"

This is not very detailed information. A colleague of mine has tried contacting these people to see their exact data and the algorithms they use is these SIMs, and it is nearly impossible to get a detailed science-based answer out of them.

They really are just squishing the numbers together and running with it. They pretty much admit it themselves on that page - "To measure SAT [surface air temperature] we have to agree on what it is and, as far as I know, no such standard has been suggested or generally adopted."

This is not science-based computer modeling. It is number crunching, and you're right to doubt it. I do too - I think it's complete baseless to make long term predictions based on modern temperature readings. It's just bad science.

Did you read the rest of my post? Because the real computer modeling I'm talking about, and the data that tells a convincing story, has nothing to do with the last decade.

I'll compose a separate post about that.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

MAL4PREZ

Saturday, April 24, 2010 10:22 PM

Most of this info comes from Ruddiman's book: Plows, Plagues and Petroleum. Very interesting read. I've posted about it before. It's the first climate change science I've encountered that really looks like science. Well, most of it. He does hand wave a bit. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8014.html

First the data: this figure I got from wikipedia.

The top three plots are CO2, temperature and CH4 from Vostok ice cores. The bottom curve is solar radiation from computer models of orbital variations. The peaks in the top three curves are warm interglacial periods, and they happen when solar radiation in the northern hemisphere is at a high.

The thing that was new to me when I saw this is that earth is most often in an ice age. Melts like the one we're in now happen every ~100,000 years and last about 10,000-20,000 years. Then when the radiation goes down, you get almost immediate drops in temperature drops, CO2, and CH4, and the glaciers come back.

But not this time around.

Yep, looks like something happened 8,000 years ago that changed the natural CO2 trend, and something happened 5,000 years ago to change the CH4. Hmm... Ruddiman asks: how about land clearing for agriculture, then irrigation for rice farming? CO2 comes from releasing bond carbon, CH4 comes from rotting vegetation. It's not a slam-dunk, but it's pretty damned striking coincidence.

Looks like humans have been fucking with the climate for a long long time, and its having an effect. At this point of the previous cycles, glaciers were spreading across Baffin Island in Canada, not melting faster and faster. Not that I mind that one too much, but who knows what the accelerated carbon levels from the past few hundred years will do. If agriculture delayed an ice age, what in the hell will industrialization do?

Ruddiman's Theory:

And no, this shit won't be happening tomorrow. Likely, it'll take several centuries to really do it's thing, so why should we care, right? The sad thing: I think it'll be slower to happen than most forecast, but it'll also be more extreme and slower to right itself. Things will really, really be different in 1,000 years because of what we're doing now.

I do realize I've hijacked a bit. Sorry. Will get back to economics now, but I just to show that there is science behind CC. Pretty compelling, I have to say.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

KWICKO

Saturday, April 24, 2010 11:22 PM

Quote:

In short, they use the real data they got, and they guess for the data they don't, they stick them all in a computer model, which spits out a 30 year average called a climatology, which "hopefully represents" the real world.

I understand having fun with a SIM Climate program, and being excited that all your guesses must be on the right track because they match up with someone else's guesses for temperature proxies (be it tree ring or ice core or whatever). I get that. Woohoo!

Again, this methodology holds true for just about ANY scientific endeavor. A hypothesis is not a fact; it's a guess which "hopefully represents" the real world, which has to be tested. At some point, you have to guess a bit, try to predict data based on what you already have, and see if it holds true.

It's starting to sound like you're simply looking for any kind of reason to dismiss something you've already made up your mind to dismiss.

By the way, basing the entirety of your knowledge only on what is already known is a pretty poor plan, don'tchya think? I mean, it would never move you forward at all, would it?

Mike

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Sunday, April 25, 2010 12:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:

I said, "good" ecology. You said, what does "good" mean. I said, "sustainable." So what do you mean that ecology is not sustainable, and that is the whole point?

There are plenty of sustainable ecologies in the world.

I was speaking in short cuts. I found it interesting that you used the term 'sustainable' to denote pure capitalism, when the term sustainable is so abhorrent to many free marketeers. Sustainable is not what the current system we have is...that's why you have scientists, lobbyists and others trying to create some change. That was the point. Dare I say, I found it ironic?

I thought I gave a sufficient explanation of why the your description of the organic nature of capitalism is not such a desirable one, because I at least would like to see as system that wasn't purely based on predators and prey. I'd like to see human misery not factored in as a part of a system just because that's what works best.

Quote:
If you want to define capitalism so narrowly as only the practices that are entirely unsustainable, always predatory, and always short-sighted, it is your right.

Just please note that others might have a different, broader definition.

I prefaced my earlier comments by saying that capitalism had its benefits and strengths. It also has its short falls, like any system. I think it tends towards being focused on short term goals, and can be predatory unless tempered by boundaries and limits.

I get that some might see it in a much more myopic manner as being a force for pure good, but I think I'm a bit more realistic.

KWICKO

Sunday, April 25, 2010 1:04 AM

Quote:

My model is not about the acceptability of predation in the wild. It is about everything having a life cycle, from infancy to maturity to death, that has natural checks and balances from other members of the ecology that makes the entire system sustainable.

These checks and balances would limit the kind of pollutants businesses can produce, without the use of force.

Again, I am not against limiting pollutants. I am against the use of force to limit pollutants.

Ummmm... you were saying something about using imaginary data... ?

You realize that virtually every single thing you've said about "good" capitalism is based entirely on IMAGINARY data, imaginary happenings in some fantastical imaginary world, where apparently humans don't exist and all the shops are owned and run by the Do-Gooder Fairy.

Sorry, but I can't take your positions any more seriously than you seem to take climate change.

Mike

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions

MAL4PREZ

Sunday, April 25, 2010 1:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
It's starting to sound like you're simply looking for any kind of reason to dismiss something you've already made up your mind to dismiss.

Bingo. I mean, CTS wants temperature data, even though she (she?) very well knows that it's useless.

I could be wrong. CTS is generally pretty sharp. I'm looking forward to seeing what she says about Ruddiman's theories.

As for economics: did CTS really say that the oil industry is inventing climate change because sequestration plans burn more oil? Really? CTS - please explain this. I worked in the petroleum geophysics field for 13 years and never heard about that.

What seems plainer is that accepting climate change means putting some pretty serious limits on industry. Not just cars: the bigger culprits are power plants and factories and such. If they suddenly had to invest in being cleaner, it would seriously hurt their bottom line.

And as for the petroleum industry: the frikking AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists - supposedly a respected scientific organization) gave an award to Micheal Crichton for his PURELY FICTIONAL criticism of climate change.

The American Association of Petroleum Geologists takes a broader view. It is presenting its annual journalism award this year to Michael Crichton, the science fiction writer whose latest book, "State of Fear," dismisses global warming as a largely imaginary threat embraced by malignant scientists for their own ends.

"It is fiction," conceded Larry Nation, communications director for the association. "But it has the absolute ring of truth."

That is not the way leading climate scientists see it. When the book was published in 2004, climate experts condemned it as dangerously divorced from reality. Most of these scientists believe human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is changing the atmosphere's chemistry in ways that threaten unpredictable, potentially damaging effects.

The book is "demonstrably garbage," Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford climatologist, said in an interview yesterday. Petroleum geologists may like it, he said, but only because "they are ideologically connected to their product, which fills up the gas tanks of Hummers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/national/09prize.html

Oil is against climate change. Big time. I'm shocked that any thinking person can convince themselves differently.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, April 25, 2010 2:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Sorry. Will get back to economics now, but I just to show that there is science behind CC.

I did read your posts in their entirety, and I apologize I did not express myself clearly enough to show it.

In my view, it's like this. There is science, and there is "science." Real science, good science, makes observations, tests hypotheses in experimentation, measures data, and calculates statistical probabilities that the measured data reflects the influence of the independent variable rather than random fluctuations. Then they retest it, and so forth. This is the scientific method.

Not every field allows for this kind of experimentation and data measurement. So other fields do the best they can, taking measurements, calculating correlations, look for patterns. In recent years, they have had the benefit of computer modeling as an added tool. Strictly speaking, none of these fields do rigorous science, since there is no experimentation to test hypotheses. However, they still carry the label of a "science" because they dutifully carry out the first steps of the scientific method the best they can--observation and hypothesis.

I like to call disciplines that engage in experimentation "science," and disciplines limited to observation and hypotheses, "quasi-science."

Much of the social and behavioral sciences, medicine, paleontology, paleogeology, and climate studies are quasi-sciences. They cannot engage in experimentation and lack the most critical tool of the scientific method.

So quasi-sciences deal more with speculation, data proxies, correlation, and other similar artifacts. This doesn't mean their work is not important or should be dismissed. It means without experimentation, their quasi-science needs to be interpreted very, very cautiously and tentatively--with the understanding that at the bottom of it, it is mostly guesswork.

You can post all the graphs you want about what researchers THINK happened 10,000 or 100,000 years ago. But at the end of the day, they don't have any PROOF--they just have SUPPORT. There is a big difference. Ice core proxies for CO2 and CH4 and temperature can never take the place of REAL data measurements for those variables, which we don't have and will never have. We can guess that global warming is what is happening, based on our best models and proxies and other stand-in data. But when all is said and done, none of it is proven with REAL data--it is still a guess, at best.

I do not have a problem with the hypothesis of global warming. I have a problem calling it a theory, and I certainly have a problem calling it a fact.

I hope that clarifies that I am not out to dismiss anything. I just require data quality to correspond to level of certainty and confidence. I don't see the empirical data required to support the level of certainty claimed by GW proponents. No more, no less.

-----
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

-- HDT

CANTTAKESKY

Sunday, April 25, 2010 2:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Bingo. I mean, CTS wants temperature data, even though she (she?) very well knows that it's useless.

I want REAL data to go along with the high level of confidence expressed in the GW hypothesis. Real temperature data is insignificant (better word than "useless") in the time scale of climate studies, yes. But I would feel much better about the GW claims of the 0.6 degree increase if they had actually added all the temps from all existing temp stations and averaged it out and discovered this increase over the last 100 averages. I don't feel good that this "average global surface temperature" is actually a computer invention based on 5x5 grids of the earth, AFTER a lot of data adjustments and extrapolations. Do you see what I mean?

And yes, I am a she.

Quote:
I could be wrong. CTS is generally pretty sharp. I'm looking forward to seeing what she says about Ruddiman's theories.

I can't really comment until I've read his book. I'll look into it.

Quote:
As for economics: did CTS really say that the oil industry is inventing climate change because sequestration plans burn more oil? Really? CTS - please explain this. I worked in the petroleum geophysics field for 13 years and never heard about that.

I said economics explains why the oil industry supports GW, and maybe even encouraged the movement. Sequestration requires increased consumption of energy (be it oil, coal, wind, whatever). Oil is an energy industry, so they are very likely to get increased sales. Whatever costs GW legislation requires in limits and cleanups will just get passed onto the consumer. So they have very little to lose and everything to gain by an increased demand on energy. I hope that makes what I meant clearer.

Quote:
Oil is against climate change. Big time. I'm shocked that any thinking person can convince themselves differently.

I appreciate your example. But your example is of petroleum geologists, who are not selling oil or energy. I still haven't seen where any of the oil companies (like BP or Exxon) is opposing the idea of GW.

-----
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. -- HDT

PREV PAGE 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NEXT PAGE