Mal4Prez nails the climate change debate...
POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 04:17
VIEWED: 12057
PAGE 9 of 11
Oh. Then yes, that would be easy. There might be other chemicals involved that aren't so easy to remove though, nytimes does mention something about that.
Depending on the source of the cancer rates that DT is seeing, it seems we might be talking sufficient contamination in situ, from waste water never removed from groundwater. Not only does the TCE plume we're seeing from the air force base have a similar cancer rate, and we know that's TCE, but we know that methane isn't carcinogenic.
Even if it isn't TCE, we know something in the groundwater in DT's town is, and the entire town has been fighting some fracking spills that happened a few years back.
There's this guy I work with, he's been over in Vernal, the town with the big fracking operation in Utah, only over there they're trying to get oil shale instead. He's seen giant tanks by the drill pads, one I remember he said he noticed was labeled xylene.
There's some in the industry who say they've come up with some new lubricant for the fracking wells... Petroleum jelly. I believe you can see the issue I have with this, if they're already using petroleum products to frack with, and also the implications for some of the yield they've been reporting.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
What on earth...
DT posted his MATH. Talking through his hat? TEABAGGER? This is mischaracterizing quite a bit of this discussion.
Just because someone disagrees with you does NOT mean they can't make valid points.
Nick, just like all of us, DT can get caught up in long arguments involving long series of posts and not necessarily want to be. The fact that he did and does is not a valid logical counterpoint, pointing it out as an attack on his credibility is an ad hominem.
I note that insulting language, like calling someone a dirty word, is not an ad hominem, as the insults would have to comprise a portion of the subject and the argument and points being made. As such, DT asking you all not to dismiss him - though I admit in an insulting way - is not an ad hominem.
Making arguments from authority and attacking whether someone has expertise is not a valid counterpoint.
All of you who talk about the amount of evidence that contradicts DT, either post it or, if you're certain of your positions, the evidence, and so on, don't bother arguing with him. But this mockery is unnecessary.
I think the problem arises when DT, who kind of claims to be the expert on everything as far as I can see, comes up with a posters real expertise. It's kind of frustrating if it is 'your area' to see it distorted by a sloppy use of fact. Now I'm not weighing in on the climate debate, only that I read it and don't completely understand it. If most independant scientists believe that it is a credible argument, I'm going to have to believe them, not having the intellectual tools to debate with them on this one. It seems clear to me that dissent on this issue has come from those who have the most to lose economically and who are incredibly powerful conglomerate of corporations, media and government.
I've had arguments with DT before that have frustrated the hell out of me because its clear that on a lot of things he isn't that well informed and yet he argues as an expert. Doing a few quick googles does not constitute expertise, yet he rarely concedes that he might not know everything. I found it frustrating when its been about stuff that I have done a lot of reading on, and he posts a couple of photos as his winning argument and its a completely looney argument that he is trying to prove.
I think the problem lies in how he communicates. I do get he is throwing around a few far fetched theories, stuff that he has thought might be possible or could have some truth. I have no problem with that, but they often fly in the face of evidence which he won't concede. Science is wrong, except for his own science.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Oh. Then yes, that would be easy. There might be other chemicals involved that aren't so easy to remove though, nytimes does mention something about that.
Depending on the source of the cancer rates that DT is seeing, it seems we might be talking sufficient contamination in situ, from waste water never removed from groundwater. Not only does the TCE plume we're seeing from the air force base have a similar cancer rate, and we know that's TCE, but we know that methane isn't carcinogenic.
Even if it isn't TCE, we know something in the groundwater in DT's town is, and the entire town has been fighting some fracking spills that happened a few years back.
There's this guy I work with, he's been over in Vernal, the town with the big fracking operation in Utah, only over there they're trying to get oil shale instead. He's seen giant tanks by the drill pads, one I remember he said he noticed was labeled xylene.
There's some in the industry who say they've come up with some new lubricant for the fracking wells... Petroleum jelly. I believe you can see the issue I have with this, if they're already using petroleum products to frack with, and also the implications for some of the yield they've been reporting.
Oh, don't get me wrong I do see a lot of problems with fracking. I fully expect to see more and more solid evidence come back that it is causing problems. I hope when they do the EPA is in a position to put a stop to it, or tighten the regulations to mitigate the problems. You know as well as I do that it going to take a huge amount of data before people will listen and move.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
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Nick, I agree. :)
Magons, I think believing that you can't compete with those scientists on an intellectual level is selling yourself short. Science isn't really about who has the most credentials, but rather who has the best conclusions for the data and best predictions.
Maybe you might have the best ideas.
Of course, maybe my believing that is a big reason why most of my family kinda wants to slap me.
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see below
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I think the problem is WHAT he communicates.
He makes totally bogus statements and posts irrelevant and highly selective bits and pieces. Here are just a few of the MANY bogus things he posted that a quick trip through google would have uncovered, if he had bothered to make it.
"But the fractional change in co2, which is not caused by industrial emissions, is not having a deleterious effect on the planet."
By simple math, the global CO2 levels have gone up at least 25% in 55 years. As to the cause, global oil consumption alone (not counting natural gas or coal) for ALL uses (including our beloved cars - there's no need to only count 'industrial' emissions) has quadrupled over the same timeframe.
"Correlation doesn't prove causality."
But you are nowhere without an event followed by another event. And the FACT is that CO2 absorbs infrared - heat - and keeps it from being re-emitted into space. It literally traps heat. Let me repeat - that is a FACT. The increased CO2 is causing increased heat to be trapped.
"There's not really a strong historical correlation, in spite of those charts."
Because, frankly, other things happen, like plate shifts, the effects of vegetation, or major asteroid impacts or volcanism both of which put earth under a cloud of particulates.
The Ordovician cooling:
"By integrating rock magnetism evidence and the glacial deposit data, paleontologists have proposed a cause for this glaciation. When Gondwana passed over the north pole in the Ordovician, global climatic cooling occurred to such a degree that there was global large-scale continental resulting in widespread glaciation."
The carboniferous cooling:
"... this reflection of biospheric activity back upon itself, the activity of global photosynthesis depleting its own primary resource, atmospheric and oceanic CO2, converting that CO2 into the vast, carboniferous accumulations of deceased organic matter that became the fossil fuels."
The Jurassic cooling:
"For the first time, two long-term anomalies in δ18O are identified during the Toarcian and the Late Jurassic, in conjunction with intensive volcanism in large igneous provinces. These results support a strong influence of repeated volcanic pulses on the modulation of pCO2, temperatures, and polar ice cap volumes over protracted period ..."
Whether you agree with these cites, clearly, other things that drive global temperature can and have happened.
"Why doe the world mean temperature hug close to geothermal?"
This is a nonsensical question. There IS no 'geothermal mean'. It varies depending at what depth and where you are. Try looking it up - you will not find anything under google which even mentions that there is such a thing, let alone provides a definition, or - the holy grail (and just as non-existent) - cites a temperature.
"Not only does human industry not produce enough carbon to create the effect ..."
See 25% increase and quadruple the petroleum use in 55 years, above.
"Okay, what if we are producing 10 times as much as our norm per our biomass?"
Why 10X? Why not look at actual figures? Like this one, where baseline rates set at zero go up to over 9000 mmtons in a mere 250 years:
"GW crowds says the world average is 10 times ..."
Really? Cites PLEASE.
"There is probably no longer enough carbon floating about in our ecosystem to see a big kick back to the thousands, thanks to the sequestering of sea shells ..."
Well, according to these estimates, you're wrong. By simple ratio, if 1000gt for atmospheric CO2 is ~400ppm, then releasing the 8000gt of fossil fuel into the atmosphere results in an additional 3200ppm CO2, for a total of 3600ppm CO2. 
"Temperature of the Northern Hemisphere over the last 2000 years ..."
Other estimates - not so much
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Nick, I agree. :)
Magons, I think believing that you can't compete with those scientists on an intellectual level is selling yourself short. Science isn't really about who has the most credentials, but rather who has the best conclusions for the data and best predictions.
Maybe you might have the best ideas.
Of course, maybe my believing that is a big reason why most of my family kinda wants to slap me.
Oh you can have the best ideas, but you have to be able to back them up. Most people can't be the expert on everything, in fact most of us have little more than some ideas. There is a whole host of knowledge that I'll probably never have more than a glimmer of understanding of, and I can never expect to have the same knowledge and understanding as someone who has devoted their life to learning in that field.
Some things come easier than others. For example, I have a good understanding of history, English language, psychological theories, communication and conflict theories. I know a bit about art and neurology from reading and past studies. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to a lot of stuff about science, just never developed the building blocks.
I'd never argue neuroscience with a neuroscientist. I just couldn't. I could ask some questions, but I'd have to concede it is their expertise and not mine. I might not even have the language to be able to speak about it the same way that they, having studied and practised it for however many years would have.
To not recognise expertise is really downright disrespectful. Doesn't mean you can't question things, or you may have a gift for certain kinds of thinking even though you have no formal qualifications, but you need to recognise the limits to your own knowledge.
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Strange, I don't see it as disrespectful at all. Rather, I see it as necessary. A person can recognize the limits of their knowledge, but that doesn't mean accepting expertise above all other considerations. Experts can be wrong. I've forgotten more of my education probably than I ever even learned. Whenever I'm asking questions or arguing, I'm thinking back through the very limits of my memory capacity, and I'm a person who has trouble remembering a conversation I had not five minutes ago.
I might use scenarios I've encountered as example arguments, but I have never on this board brought up my job or my credentials like it would win me any kind of points.
This one time, I was arguing on the main board against someone's self-proclaimed Firefly characterization, storytelling, and plot expertise. He was the writer of a popular fanfic series, and he kept USING that as a justification for why he was right.
Or, not that we would, but what if Mal4Prez and I were to start arguing about whose expertise was more applicable, or who had more years of education (her), or who does the harder science and math (also probably her).
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Ahhh, Byte, and here I thought you were going to do something life-affirming and get out of this silly thread. Not silly in that it doesn't have pertinent points and facts, but silly in that it's a non-starter; I don't think anyone can PROVE either side completely or will convince anyone on the other side.
As for me, I find a very strong argument inQuote:
I don't see the people who say there IS a problem with climate change and that we are contributing to it to the point of danger as having the money, influence or power to compete in this arena, especially given mankind's instinctive wanting not to change things drastically and the fact that if we took it seriously, we'd have to change a LOT that we find convenient and comfortable now. That and the fact that there is a large body of the scientific community which believes it. I don't take scientists at their word, but when a LOT of them say the same thing, I start wondering if they might be right.
It seems clear to me that dissent on this issue has come from those who have the most to lose economically and who are incredibly powerful conglomerate of corporations, media and government.
I also don't see them as having nearly the motivation to fake it as I do the monied interests. If we go all the way back to Mal4's original statement and weigh the motivation between those with a HUGE interest in keeping things how they are (and continuing to drill more and more) and those who believe it's a danger and that things desperately need to change, the suspicion falls on those for whom profit drives all, who (like far too many) think in short-term gain and will do/buy/say whatever is necessary to keep those profits high.
It's just like fracking and so many other things; where there's profit, money is always spent to "yell the loudest". I suppose I'm somewhat like DT in that I think "man-ENHANCED" changes are affecting us; I don't understand enough to "know" climate change is man-MADE. I just believe they're far more enhanced by our activities than he does, and have less invested in proving my point.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Quote:
Ahhh, Byte, and here I thought you were going to do something life-affirming and get out of this silly thread.
I did for the rest of that day...
I agree with your post, though I think it's also important to recognize that any monied interest worth their solvency has a number of contingency plans in play just in case something that would otherwise be less than advantageous for them comes up. And that people might be using science for less than nice agendas as well, such as globalization and world government and petty rivalries.
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