Climate Lukewarmers and Pragmatism

More: http://wmbriggs.com/post/15170

 

You said science hasn't even scratched the surface, when science has settled on some fundamental conclusions. And, you've stated that humans can't get it together to make a difference.

At the time of the debate about cleaning up rivers, people on your side of the issue were against cleanup for the exact same reasons you are against action today - that we don't know what it takes, that it's too expensive, that the possible benefits are of unproven dollar value, that rivers can never be made perfectly clean so why try, etc. We made a public policy decision at that point even though we did NOT have perfect knowledge. We were right to follow science.

The unfortunate fact is that we can't ignore the need for reductions in carbon use, and those reductions will require changes by all. It's somewhat like with air pollution, where every car had to change. Yet, today you don't look at your car and say, "OMG, my catalytic converter is killing me."

 

This is just plain stupid.

If you're looking for financial influence, choosing research grants instead of the combined revenue of the oil,, coal and gas industries is the act of a blithering idiot.

And, thinking scientists are more likely to be at the table when oil, coal and gas issues are discussed is another point of purposeful puerility.


The next time you're in some "sunny upland" ask the guy you share an elevator with whether he is a scientist. LOL!!

 

Any other money is just a drop in the bucket compared to what government is spending on it. You should do some investigation instead of just relying true believer false talking points.

 

We not only don't have a good way to think about it we aren't in reality sure what the bill is for, who or what it is from, how it came to be, and why it's coming due and when. We think we know something but do we? This is the 29th anniversary of a space shuttle explosion on launch. It happened because that one time our best and brightest got it wrong. Now while the shuttle is a complicated piece of equipment comparing it to weather and climate is like comparing a child's building block to a 100 story skyscraper. We simply don't even begin to understand all the feed back loops, cycles within cycles and everything else that's going on. And please don't give me that base canard that weather and climate aren't the same. If you believe that crap try defining climate without using any meteorological terms.

 

this.

the only possible motivation anyone could have for ignoring it is self-interest. a desire to maintain a climate controlled (oh the irony) consumer lifestyle which gobbles resources at a spectacular rate. apparently even the possibility that one's children and grandchildren might suffer as a result of this lifestyle isn't enough to stop it.

even if the predictions are wrong in degree or nature, an adjustment to lifestyles benefits us all in myriad ways, and long term may very well be the difference between quality of life and misery, if not actual life and death. this is 'settled science'. resource gobbling and polluting is simply unsustainable.

and before anyone asks, yes, I and my family made the adjustments years ago. so that ours and yours might survive in 100 years time.

 

Lol. Climate IS a meteorological term. Plus, what you're suggesting is like asking for a definition of "average" without any reference to individual numbers. It's like asking for a definition of "traffic" without any reference to vehicles.

Climate can be defined as the average weather over time.


The mistakes on the shuttle are very well understood and were immediately corrected. Yes. Climate science has made mistakes that have been corrected, too.

Again, we NEVER make public policy decisions on perfect models. We STILL don't know what the exact effect of TARP or TARP2 was even after the fact. The Fed sets interest rates based on models that are imperfectly understood (or the Fed could be automated). We select pollution standards when we don't know the precise effects. Etc.

Perfect knowledge is something that science CAN NOT provide.

We make our decisions based on odds X costs.

The odds X costs that science provides indicates that it is time for us to make some public policy.

 

Nonsense. The combined revenue of the oil, gas and coal industries is gigantic multiples of the science being done.

 

Conspiracy theorists who yell "They're in it for grants!" have no clue about how grants actually work.

Say a scientist gets a million dollar grant. You know how much of that money he sees himself? Zip. Zero. Nada. Not a single penny. His or her salary and benefits remain exactly the same. As required by law. If it comes from government, all spending from that grant has to be tracked and reported to the government.

In direct contrast, those getting bribed by the denial industry get to pocket the money themselves, and have no restrictions on how they can use it.

All of the financial incentive for cheating comes from the denier team. Any honest scientist could double their salary by switching teams and playing for the deniers, so it's a testament to their honesty that they turn down bribes from those who want them to lie for money. Those climate scientists value the truth enough to take a pay cut for it.

 

So when I said " the earth seemingly has mechanisms that keep the system in balance, and we haven't even scratched the surface in understanding the totality of these mechanisms", that means that I don't believe in science? What happened to the reasoned responses from you earlier in this thread? With some polite pushback from me, you have reverted to the bombastic hyperbole of many of your leftist breathren.

What actually makes this even funnier, is that you were the one that made mention of the fact that we have recently begun understanding the role that oceans play in filtering the heat. Ehhh....You are only talking about 2/3 of the surface of this planet, and surely since weve just recently attained a new understanding, we must now know every facet of that aspect.

Judging by the fact that mankind has been perpetually at war since the dawn of time, I hardly think that is a controversial statement. Nor does it fit the all encompassing claim by you that I "don't believe in humans. I absolutely believe in humans while taking careful note of human nature, that has been validated since the dawn of civilization.

I wasn't around at that time, and cant comment on the nuances of whatever debate existed at that time. Somehow I doubt that anyone made the argument that a river can never be made perfectly clean so therefore why try. In fact Im calling BS on that statement and challenging you to provide a link for such an argument. You cant credibly sit here and fabricate what you think someone said because it suits your point at the given moment. As far as the entire analogy, it is in fact nothing more than a silly strawman argument.

Why cant we ignore the need for reductions in carbon use? Might that be based on a PROJECTION based on information that is incomplete in its understanding of the totality of all factors in play?

 

I just think that postulating that science doesn't know it's @#$@ from a ()*& in the ground is, broadly speaking, not a stance that is usually considered supportive of science.

That's not even a tiny change in what I've said throughout this thread.

 

That's sounds reasonable EXCEPT for the fact that the statement "the earth has mechanisms that keep the system in balance, and we haven't even scratched the surface in understanding the totality of these mechanisms", doesn't even remotely postulate that "science doesn't know it's @#$@ from a ()*& in the ground "

To imply that it does amounts to an out and out lie.

 

Since you have not looked into it, you have no idea what you are talking about. Government has spent close to a trillion on climate change whereas industry is around 70 million.

 

It seems a little weird to go hunting for wars to understand whether humans have a capacity to work together.

Might I propose instead that we look for cases where we work together?

There are even cases where we have worked together on combating problems we've found in the composition of our atmosphere - the ozone hole for one, but also on climate change!

 

The Ozone Hole, another media darling. The announcement of it 'healing' by only 4% in the Arctic only (no change in the Antarctic) when the time span of monitoring has been so very short without knowing how it varied before satellite data and just before the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol smacks of politics and not science.

 

That's not the correct comparison.

Industry has gigantic dollars to spend on protecting its positions.

By comparison, Science has almost nothing to spend on protecting its position.

And, THAT is the point.

When science goes to the government, it's lobbying dollars are essentially zero. When industry goes to the government, they can spend pretty much whatever it takes - no matter what.

 

I'm not sure how your accusation here could possibly make sense.

Plus, we do know something about the pre-satellite measurement situation with the Antarctic hole.

For example, humans were living underneath that part of our atmosphere!!

And, it got a LOT worse for them.

 

Can't help you if you are not willing to look into the actual spending but rely on true believer talking points.

 

Oh really? Please enlighten us with some facts.

 

You can sit there and choose to wait for the entire world to join hands and sing Kumbaya if you like. I on the other hand, prefer to live in the real world, based on the observation of human nature since the dawn of civilization. It sounds to me like you are a Sociology denier.

 

lol - you have that backwards, obviously.

I'm noting that there IS growing cooperation on this topic. I'm glad to see even China climbing on board! I'm not so sure they know the words to Kumbaya, but that may not be an important part of the process.

It is YOU who is denying that people can work together.

 

Of course, because this is political to begin with. The IPCC is a governmental report writing organization, created and funded by government for the sole reason of reporting to government.

 

That was a nonsense response.

The important issue was the cooperation. And, as I pointed out, we are seeing growing cooperation.

While you are looking for evidence that humans are not capable of working together, the real world is actually coming together on this issue.

 

LOL, so you thing the massive spending by government has no effect?

 

The IPCC is outside of any one government. Reports are assembled by teams which include key scientists in the fields related to the components of the report.

It publishes a summary of climatological results from scientists the world over. It is one such report.

It looks like you are using wording to back your preconceived notions rather than to inform anyone of what is actually being done.