5 minutes

Discussion in 'Science' started by Robert, Jul 12, 2021.

  1. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    5 minutes
    Posted on July 11, 2021 by curryja | 181 Comments
    by Judith Curry

    How would you explain the complexity and uncertainty surrounding climate change plus how we should respond (particularly with regards to CO2 emissions) in five minutes?


    Last week I served on a panel for a summer school in Canada for engineering students. They are working on the energy transition, and their Professor wanted them to be exposed to the debate surrounding all this, and to think critically. I was the only climate scientist on the panel, the others were involved in renewable energy. Each panelist was given 5 minutes to make their main points. The essay below is what i came up with. 5 minutes is longer than an elevator speech, but it is still pretty short



    Let me start with a quick summary of what is referred to as the ‘climate crisis:’

    Its warming. The warming is caused by us. Warming is dangerous. We need to urgently transition to renewable energy to stop the warming. Once we do that, sea level rise will stop and the weather won’t be so extreme.

    So what’s wrong with this narrative? In a nutshell, we’ve vastly oversimplified both the problem and its solutions. The complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity of the existing knowledge about climate change is being kept away from the policy and public debate. The solutions that have been proposed are technologically and politically infeasible on a global scale.

    Specifically with regards to climate science. The sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of carbon dioxide has a factor of three uncertainty. Climate model predictions of alarming impacts for the 21st century are driven by an emissions scenario, RCP8.5, that is highly implausible. Climate model predictions neglect scenarios of natural climate variability, which dominate regional climate variability on interannual to multidecadal time scales. And finally, emissions reductions will do little to improve the climate of the 21st century; if you believe the climate models, most of the impacts of emissions reductions will be felt in the 22nd century and beyond.
     
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  2. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Judith again


    Whether or not warming is ‘dangerous‘ is an issue of values, about which science has nothing to say. According to the IPCC, there is not yet evidence of changes in the global frequency or intensity of hurricanes, droughts, floods or wildfires. In the U.S., the states with by far the largest population growth are Florida and Texas, which are warm, southern states. Property along the coast is skyrocketing in value. Personal preference and market value do not yet regard global warming as ‘dangerous.’
     
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  3. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Judith Curry remains a light in the darkness of modern climate science.
     
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  4. drluggit

    drluggit Well-Known Member

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    One of the things that keeps the AGW message from really getting traction has always been the inability of anyone to ascribe real harm to warming natural or otherwise. There are lots of folks out there fear mongering, attempting to coopt the observation as a lever from which they can wrest away power and wealth from others. And that truly is the insidious part.

    Climate has, it does, and it will always change. And not seeing that for the exercise in flexibility and adaptation that it is dishonest.

    The interesting thing is that even the "hottest" of data sets is now showing parts of the world who have dramatically cooled this year. And while there are some small areas where there are warmer than average, a very large portion of the world is seeing pretty significant cooling.

    All of this relies on a belief that "average" is a real measure that describes "should be". Which isn't honest either. It is simply the average for the amount of data we've collected. For now, the cooling being seen around the world this year hasn't been mentioned much. Why? It devalues the fear being driven by folks who would fleece you just as quickly as they could to take advantage of your immature knowledge of the subject.

    Lots of things are working against warming right now. Distance. Volconism, CO2 impact limits. Lots of things. The old adage, the times, they are a changing, is very appropriate right now.
     
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  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    She talks about boiling both the problem AND "the" (as if there is only one) solution down to 5 minutes!!!

    THEN she complains about not including the nuances - ambiguity, how much energy source changes can help, ignoring other solutions, ramifications of warming. (costs), and pretty much everything else that is required when attempting to make rational policy decisions.

    Absolutely PATHETIC! I like some of what Curry has said, but this one is absolute garbage.

    Her problem is in the title - 5 minutes!! Who the heck ever claimed that climatology, Earth's warming, the nuances of rate and confidence levels could be explained in 5 minutes?? Then, she wants to add in a particular solution!!

    What the HECK was she thinking, and why would ANYONE on this board consider the failure of 5 minute arguments as impugning anyone BUT CURRY?

    It is too bad thaty there wasn't a real climatologist on that pannel.
    And, one can only guess who on the pannel represented the economic, technical, political, social, and other considerations.

    Climatologists the world over clearly state that the time frame for benefits from greenhouse gas emissions reductions today IS significantly in the future.

    Our society is tuned to demanding 5 year ROI. Seeing the longer timeline on this problem as a justification for sitting on our asses isn't acceptable for obvious reasons. Some problems just don't have a 5 year solution.
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2021
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  6. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Please cite support for your ideas from reputable sources of climatology.
     
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  7. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    Why? You would attack any that disagree with you. Waste of time.
     
  8. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    If you think those ideas are indefensible, you should be looking further.
     
  9. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    OMG you are hilarious. Tell that to the 80 or so people who burned alive while trying to escape the fire in Paradise a few years ago.

    [​IMG]

    Kept it from gaining traction? Only in your mind. Only for 30% of this country - you know, the antivaxxers and trump lovers et al. The rest of the world says otherwise.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2021
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  10. drluggit

    drluggit Well-Known Member

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    Arson sucks. Why do democrats let criminals out of jail? It seems you don't know who aren't getting vaccinated either. If you rely on the rest of the world to tell you things, it explains a lot about your commentary.

    Nature is a powerful thing. The idea that we as a species know anything about how to control it is the worst kind of sophistry.
     
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  11. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well that clears up nothing.
     
  12. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Judith Curry is a real climatologist.

    She said this.
    This is what she talked about.
    The sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of carbon dioxide has a factor of three uncertainty. Climate model predictions of alarming impacts for the 21st century are driven by an emissions scenario, RCP8.5, that is highly implausible.
     
  13. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Common sense dictates that having 7+ billion people on Earth, plus all the development that has been done, plus all the pollution created, etc. all within the closed eco-system of Earth...must have impacted the atmosphere, including climate, and will continue to do so unless something changes.

    Ignoring telltale signs of these changes and doing nothing would be foolish.

    Ignorance and arrogance will not lead us down the best path...
     
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  14. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    "Alarming" is NOT a measure of anything.

    For example, the impacts we're seeing today are serious enough to be considered alarming.
     
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  15. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Apparently you did not read enough to find the origin of the "5 minutes" standard. Hint: It wasn't Curry's idea.

    "Last week I served on a panel for a summer school in Canada for engineering students. They are working on the energy transition, and their Professor wanted them to be exposed to the debate surrounding all this, and to think critically. I was the only climate scientist on the panel, the others were involved in renewable energy. Each panelist was given 5 minutes to make their main points. The essay below is what i came up with. 5 minutes is longer than an elevator speech, but it is still pretty short."
     
  16. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    The failure of "consensus" climate science in the matter of climate sensitivity is a signal of a collapsed paradigm.
     
  17. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    There are no telltale signs.
     
  18. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I didn't claim it was her idea. I DO claim that the 5 minute rule is ridiculous. And, anything it showed is a product of that ridiculous rule.
     
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  19. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Then I suppose you should take it up with the Canadian professor rather than using it as an excuse to parade your animus toward Curry.
     
  20. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    There is no "failure of consensus climate science".

    There IS disagreement on particular sub issues. And, that's true in pretty much ALL science. After all, it's based on new hypotheses advancing knowledge by disproving current understanding.

    I'd also point out that ANY result of science is the result of numerous iterations of experimentation, review and evidence from observation.

    And, that's all one really needs to call it an issue of consensus - so YOU saying that about climatology is not informative in any way.
     
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  21. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    ?? I respect Curry. She's an outlier by a good margin, but she does have some good ideas. I especially like her ideas concerning finding ways to improve review. and publication. As you point out with your PLOS example, review is incredibly important. Without review, ideas get buried without any broad level examination by the community of scientists working in the area of the paper.

    And, her direction toward work we need to do to accommodate the warming that she agrees is happening is also important, as there is no solution to slowing warming that is sufficient.

    However, the cited comments are just plain irritating due to the predicate she pretends is indicative of something. And, she IS an outlier.
     
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  22. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    LOL.

    CURRY promoted that professor as being an indicator species.

    And, THAT is what I objected to.
     
  23. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Seems to me there's still places that are too hot to live and places that are too cold to live, still places that are too dry for crops and places that are too wet for crops. Climate change just means places that are cool and wet now may become hotter and dryer... but also the reverse will happen in other places. How much of Siberia and Canada becomes farmable as temperature increases? No one knows, but certainly some of it. Its not so much that I think we shouldn't worry at all about climate change, its just that theres so many other things that we know for certain are going to harm our future that we need to fix before we start focussing on things that we'll simply have to move around to adapt to. We're still irradiating the environment, dumping heavy metals into it (some on purpose to try to prevent climate change...), altering its ph, hormonally and genetically modifying it, plasticizing it... these are going to kill us a lot faster than climate change, and are a lot easier to fix, and yet carbon, aka plant food, is our biggest concern? That's the result of a deceptive agenda, pure and simple.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2021
  24. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Do you know of ANY country where people "moving around" in order to find food is considered acceptable?

    Will the USA decide that people to the south of us should be allowed to move around if Mexico looses agricultural capability?

    Will India decide to lower its walls against the people of Bangladesh?

    If India suffers loss in agricultuiral capability, where will their millions of losers go?

    In short, do you disagree with our DoD on the threat of climate change to security?
     
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  25. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    On the contrary, as set out in detail in the thread linked here, consensus climate science has failed to solve the puzzle of climate sensitivity. That is a clear signal of paradigm collapse.
    The Test and Failure of the AGW Paradigm
     

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