Are you allowed to shout 'FIRE' in a burning auditorium?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, June 25, 2005 00:15
VIEWED: 6268
PAGE 2 of 8
Here's a really good artcle from The New Yorker that my wife Kathieisall found for anyone to read. It goes into detail that I only grazed on in my original post, and more.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050425fa_fact3
It's part 1 of 3, I guess there are links at the end of each part. I surely do feel as smart as Jayne when I'm doin' this computer stuff.
My first link Chrisisall
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Chris,
Thanks for being so responsive to my perhaps over-sensitive feelings. That is so rare on discussion boards. You're not only witty, but kind.
Just to clarify, I AM one of those people who don't think GW is a problem. And if it is a problem, I tend to think it is part of the earth's natural climate cycles and not a anthropogenic problem. If it IS an anthropogenic problem, I tend to think it has more to do with 6 billion people breathing in and out and cutting down forests left and right--and less to do with the exhaust of our cars.
I read your article, most of it anyway. Take this sentence I picked at random for example: "Antarctic ice cores also show that carbon-dioxide levels today are significantly higher than they have been at any other point in the last four hundred and twenty thousand years." Someone else may go, "Oh my God! How alarming." But my reaction is more skeptical. I ask myself, how do they really know that ice core readings are an accurate measure of CO2 levels 420,000 years ago? Which ice cores did they sample? Are they representative of all other ice cores, or were these ice cores biased towards more CO2? And if there is more CO2, how do we know it is CO2 from fuel emissions and not from the population explosion? See, it's a curse I have. I have a hard time taking someone's word for it. And when someone answers these questions, I have still more similar questions.
This is not to make a case for my position, but rather to offer a glimpse of what goes on in the perverse mind of a GW disbeliever. Since you asked, you know.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky 
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Quote:Science is the discipline of rigorous and unrelenting nit-picking. By all means, please nit-pick away.
Originally posted by rue:
Let me just nitpick for a while. Do you mean to say 'data'? Or 'analysis'?
Let me answer your question with a joke.
An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician were on a train going to Scotland. Right after they crossed the border into Scotland, they saw a black sheep standing in the field outside their window. The engineer exclaimed, "My God. All the sheep in Scotland are black!" The physicist remarked, "Well, at least ONE sheep in Scotland is black." The mathematician added, "Well, really, at least ONE sheep in Scotland is black, on at least ONE side."
The data itself is rarely questioned. It's almost always the interpretation of data that is disputed. There are always assumptions underlying interpretation, and some people are more precise and skeptical in their assumptions than others. Therein lies the punchline of the joke.
Quote:I am saying the conclusions drawn from these data might be hasty. Do they really indicate overall rising temperatures? Are these temperature measurements confounded, such as in the excellent example provided by Rocketjock? How do you pick which temperatures to represent "global temperature"? Obviously someone thought surface ocean temperature is a good indicator. What about stratosphere temperature, or ocean temperature 1000 ft deep, or soil temperatures 10 feet deep? It comes back to the rigorous nit-picking nature of science--are these temperature measurements truly representative of global climate?
The 'data'... ALL either directly measure rising temperatures across the globe, or otherwise indicate overall rising temperature. That is the data. The 'data' doesn't come from computer modeling. Are you trying to say the 'data' is faulty?
Quote:If indeed those temperature measurements are considered representative, the next assumption to question is are they significant? Here is where I haven't seen very compelling arguments supporting that recent changes in temperatures are beyond the normal variations of the planet.
Or do you mean to say that it doesn't exceed natural variation? ...For the 1-100 millennium time-frame, the answer is yes, it DOES exceed natural historical variation. (recent ice core isotopic studies establish that.)
Quote:Really? There is more interpretation for ya.
...many of the extreme climates of the past have been assigned actual causes: ...But these factors are no longer in play. To look at those past climates for comparison would be in error.
Quote:That is exactly the kind of catastrophic, alarmist interpretation that I believe is unwarranted by the data.
Have you considered that by the time anthropogenic global warming is 'proven' it will be too late to actually do anything about it?
Quote:I have no problem with treatment for experiment's sake if it is voluntary. What I do have a problem with is forcing someone to undergo treatment just to see if there is a problem.
To draw an analogy to medicine, sometimes the only way to diagnose an illness is to see if it responds to treatment.
The "consensus" in GW is very much an artifact of funding and political rhetoric. I believe using government coercion to enforce one point of view, when there is still a debate going on, is, to say the least, premature.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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I disagree with you as to the importance of global warming, I would place it up there with polution in general. I am, however, delighted to be in disagreement with someone so thoughtful and gracious. Thanks for your response, fellow Browncoat.
Skeptic is my middle name Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
And why do some keep playing the 'volcano emissions' card? Are we plagued with more erupting volcanoes in the past century than in the past 1000 years combined or something?Quote:
volcanoes lower the globe temp. Krakatoa 1880: 'The volcanic dust veil that created such spectacular atmospheric effects also acted as a solar radiation filter, lowering global temperatures as much as 1.2 degree C in the year after the eruption. Temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.' & there have be much larger ones in the past. Krakatoa also made a 'small ice age' in w eurpo.
"No matter where you go, there you are."
The Adventures of Buckaroo BanzaiNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I'm with the idea that there is no conclusive evidence that the earth's climate is experiencing a uniquely anthropogenic, catastrophic increase in mean global temperature.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
One thing, Finn, are you with the idea that nothing's really happening, and that other than a few noxious gasses bein' produced we might choke ouselves on a little, we're having no bad effects on the planet as a whole?
As far as “bad effects” in general: there are plenty of environmental concerns that I think are important; sadly however it seems increasingly difficult to discuss, much less address, these issues without the inclusion of the often fanatical and largely unfounded global warming demon. I’m not likely to be swayed by environmental scare tactics and I’m far more frightened of the implications behind many proposed “treatments” then I am of any possible warming trend that may be observed in the earth’s climate.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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canttakesky (Finn, too),
It seems to me we all agree that deforestation and polutants on this planet are a bad thing...by addressing it on the level you suggest, wouldn't that automatically take care of the global warming to a large degree (assuming for a moment that it exists)? I mean, don't we agree what needs to be done, just not for exactly the same reasons why it should be done?
Greenhouse gasses, bad for people gasses, it's all the same to me Chrisisall
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I guess that depends a lot on what you think needs to be done.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Protect as much of the Amazon jungle (and other co2 recycling forests) as possible, and heavily (no, I mean REALLY heavily) fine poluting buisnesses, whether it's sea or air fouling creeps.
I know, it's easy to say Chrisisall
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Personally, I think we need to reduce regulation of nuclear power. We need more nuclear power plants and we need more and vigorous research into controlled fusion.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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