Chip with simple program for Toy

[Les Cargill]

Chiron wrote:

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:32:49 -0400, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

Chiron wrote:
On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:01:46 -0400, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

snip

Well, I'm not saying I have all (or any) of the answers. What I
*am* trying to say is that our problems don't result from some
single, easily- fixed fault like "the Liberals." We're looking for a
scapegoat, but that isn't going to help us. There is no scapegoat,
no guilty party, no bad guy. Trying to find someone to fix the blame
on isn't going to do jack for us. Sure, some bone-headed decisions
caused problems; but those decisions were also a *result* of
problems. It is impossible to single out any one person or group as
being guilty of creating our problems. It just isn't how it
happened.

Example: We continually make idiotic scientific decisions (which
hurts technology and business), because nobody in this country (at
least not enough) understands science or critical thinking or logic.
That's because we're not teaching science properly in the schools.
And that's because we've made other dumb or unhelpful decisions.

We've got people who think we need to be teaching the Bible in
schools - sharia law for the US. That would put us about even with
Afghanistan. These guys have some serious political clout, and are
contributing to our problems.

Whenever I see something like, "All we have to do is..." I know
they're full of shit. It's not that simple. A solution, if one
exists, is going to be complex, difficult, and slow. It will require
rethinking our way of life and some major changes. We simply cannot
continue to live as we've been doing. We've been hogging more than
our fair share of resources for decades.

That's a *modestly* overblown belief. To me, that always reduces to
us using oil to commute to work. I would bet we could change nothing but
transportation patterns and use a fourth as much. That 1/4
figure might be asymptotic ( or just plain impossible) but we
could do a lot better.

We don't because oil price very nearly won't let us. but dear
$DEITY, commuting two hours a day is a horrible waste.


Some people on the fringes talk about different land taxation regimes
that would seem to - emphasis seem - go a long way towards
reversing this.

This being said, if I were Chinese, I would be horrified
to see car culture take root there. And I don't know how
India can do it at all. But China and India were built
out when Europe was a total backwater, even before
the Romans. Never mind the US.

Now we're no longer powerful enough to enforce that policy. Our
standard of living is going to have to decline until it is more in
keeping with that of other countries. If we try to impose our will
through force, we'll only succeed in bankrupting ourselves with
unwinnable wars. Kind of like how England did, back in the day.

Our basic standard of living isn't that profligate.

I say "standard of living" though probably that's not quite the
right phrase. Our material lives are glutted; however our
psychological, spiritual, emotional, and other lives are
impoverished. We've got more "stuff" than anyone else, but we're
mostly miserable - or at least, unfulfilled. Even our medical
standards, once the highest in the world, have fallen. Our infant
mortality rate is worse than that of Cuba, for crying out loud. Yet
we easily outspend everyone else on medical costs.

Infant mortality figures are biased against the US because of prenatal
care*. Not saying there isn't a problem; just saying that there may be
unexpected biases in the data.

*I think that's it... but it's worth checking up on me anyway.

So our material goods will decline, but we may in fact benefit from
it in the long run. If our food supply were reduced, we might lose
some collective weight and get healthier.

It's hard to say. Other than consuming more sugar, nobody seems to have
a handle on the why of it.

If we had fewer toys, we might (re)learn to talk more with our
families and friends (he says, as he sits at his computer). If we
had fewer drugs and medical toys, we might go back to the days when
doctors actually examined us and listened to what we had to say -
which could help restore the quality of our medical care.

If, if, if. Maybe I'm full of shit. I don't know... but from where
I sit, it really looks like we're just about headed for a serious
comeuppance with the rest of the world. If we handle it right,
maybe we'll be joining the rest of the human race, rather than losing
America. Or maybe not. Ask me in about 100 years or so, maybe I'll
know then.

But I'm pretty sure that if we keep trying to 'stay the course,'
we're fucked.

I expect that not only are we in better shape than people think, but
that more and more of the world will do better ( and better means
something like "be more like us" for now ).


In the parts of "Bowling for Columbine" that weren't just assault
journalism, Mike Moore started to do a pretty good compare/contrast
between the US and Canada. The main thing he noticed was how TV
worked in Canada and how it worked in the US.

At the time I saw this ( in the immediate aftermath of the tech
crunch ), I was rotating back and forth to Canada. So when I saw the
movie, I "saw" what he was saying. It's not the whole problem, but
I felt like I could watch Canadian TV without my mind being "raped".
(I dunno what word to use). Lets just say I felt "assaulted" by US
tv when I got back. Louder, brighter colors, more "shoutier". Dumber.

I think The Box is pushing people's buttons. If you read "The Hidden
Persuaders", it's hard *not* to think that - the ad men of the 50s
and 60s were born of the OSS propagandists from WWII. With the
( IMO, very very IMO ) much greater sense of civic responsibility
and just plain old lower budgets of Canadian TV, that didn't happen
as much.

Sadly, what I've seen now is that they are catching up.

--
Les Cargill

 

[Les Cargill]

P E Schoen wrote:

"Chiron" wrote in message news:1HMmr.31408$Ex1.11697@newsfe18.iad...
snip

I think you are correct on many points. Right-wing-nut propaganda
such as the video Jim posted, and the cartoon Jamie posted, seem to
be the product of thinking that the world is still OUR oyster, and
we can go back to "business as usual" or even return to the days of
even more "pure" capitalism that resulted in the robber barons and
severe abuses of people because of greed and short-term gain.

Y'know, we never really got a good explanation of the robber barons.
We tend to get false dichotomy thinking from the Progressives and
something like puffery/nostalgia from the other end.

The robber barons varied. There weren't really many norms to
use as guides. Ford and Rockefeller were both actually
Progressive in lots of ways. That means "weird".

I can point to people who are more careful in their thinking that
show that capitalism is not necessarily exploitative. the obsession
with price isn't capitalist; it's consumerist.

When you read some of the better bios of the Barons, you'll
almost certainly get your biases tossed and I think that's a good
thing. Our main story comes from Hearst, and he was one of them
( and is the model for Gail Wynand form Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" ).

Politics has become unworkable because the Democrats and Republicans
have become outrageously polarized. The right-wing, especially, has
expended most of its time and energy over the past four years
playing knee-jerk obstructionism and blocking legislation even they
had previously supported, solely for the purpose of creating
dissention and economic failure and trying to make it look like
everything is the fault of Obama and the left-wing and even
moderates.

George Will is fond of saying that the system works exactly like it's
supposed to. It's full of massive negative feedback. What happens
with right-wing punditry is that it verges into "unseemliness*" rather
quickly. There's button pushing built into it because the button
pushing helps consumers of that as entertainment product willingly
suspend disbelief.

To get agreement from someone, start with disagreement and work your
way back...

*yes, I saw Charles Murray on BookTv....

The fact is that the world is a very different place now, and
"business as usual" just won't work anymore. Larger countries,
particularly China, are now becoming major world powers, and their
people rightfully demand a shot at a lifestyle on par with what most
Americans have enjoyed until it all started to fall apart around
2008.

Oh, China *HAS* to do better than we did. Has to. We made a ton of
mistakes they simply can't afford to make.

See, I see this as an opportunity for us to free ride their
innovations...

The problem is that there are just too many people in the world, and
not enough resources to provide the same elevated standard of living
for all, that most US citizens enjoyed and came to expect.

No, I quite disagree. The detailed explanation would take too much,
but... simply put, an iPod uses a lot less resources than a comparable
innovation from 1910.

If we use too much anything, it's oil, and we have a lot of slack
in that equation. Sadly, people will get hurt.

It is simply not sustainable, and the economics of continued
exponential growth, making money on speculation and the expectation
of limitless expansion, is mathematically destined to fail as surely
as any Ponzi scheme.

The median Baby Boomer will be dead around ...2025 or so ( 1940 - 2035
is about 85 years - somewhere like that... ). After that, most of the
problems simply vanish.

I'm not calling the Boomers out here - it's just a demographic bubble.
Doctors will take discounts or turn people away. It's that simple...

The videos only reflect the immature and unrealistic beliefs of
those who refuse to see the facts, and continue to blame the
"liberals" for all the problems. Of course there are many problems
that have been caused by delusions and emotionalism of "bleedin'
heart" liberals who are responsible for the badly broken "criminal
justice" system

David Friedman has written at length about this for decades, and
nobody's doing it. I therefore presume we prefer the broken
version.

and poorly designed welfare and other public services.

Meh? They're not half bad. YMMV, of course, but get the numbers,
then decide. The price effects of something like WIC are much more than
what we actually spend on it. It moves on from there...

But the policies touted by ultra-conservatives simply won't work
either. We have only a relatively short time in which to use logic
and good judgment to arrive at a workable moderate program that most
ordinary people can support and receive reasonable benefit.

The US is losing their superiority on many fronts. Education is
being decimated so that fewer young people have the skills to get
good jobs in an increasingly technological marketplace. There is even
a reduction of actual intelligence because of irresponsible
procreation among those with the least to offer, and results in an
increase of criminal behavior and a reduction of moral and ethical
values.

Yikes! I most strongly disagree. See Stephen Pinker.

People have become accustomed to high-paying jobs, even for minimal
skill levels, and there are people in countries like China and
Mexico who are willing to and able to do a better job for less pay.

"ECONOMIES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!" - Morbo

So what will replace a Chinese "peasant" laborer who moves to the big city?

Machines.

And very few people will accept manual labor positions, either
because they are physically unable to do the work, or they complain
that they cannot maintain their unreasonably excessive lifestyle on
the wages that are offered.

Very many actually *do*, and skilled labor is enjoying quite a
renaissance these days ( outside of housing ). Sadly, nobody
can quite remember how to hire any more.

Nobody has all the answers, and we can't fix this problem by making
huge, unpopular, changes in government and social policies as
claimed by those who seek office, opposing the present administration
in every possible way. You can't make impossible promises that, at
best, are temporary measures, and will create even worse problems in
the future. Like it or not, there are a lot more "99%ers" than the 1%
who control most of the wealth,

Would you *really* trade what you have for what, say, Mitt Romney
has? I wouldn't. Most people wouldn't. And ... there you have it.

The most hyperbolic thing to do is "accuse" the wealthy
of making something like a deal with the Devil. that's a sloppy
metaphor, but it still explains why most people would not choose it if
they could.

Really, the guy is just stuck with an inherited pile from George, who
invented a lot of what's now known as structured finance. See a book
titled "Borrow". Roughly, financialization promises more returns
than actual production; people buy into it and we get what we now
have.

and they are unlikely to be fooled by all the smoke and mirrors, and
outright lies, deception, and corruption. It seems that the
right-wingers, especially, believe what they WANT to believe, and
make proposals that have no chance of becoming reality in our present
world.

I dunno. With right wing stuff, the theories seem pretty good ( at
least good enough to debate ) but putting them into practice is
problematic.

And perhaps the most disturbing aspect of their attitude is the anger
and rage that they often express, but I suppose that is the way
spoiled brats act when they no longer can get their own way, and are
forced to adopt cooperative behavior, rather than unfairly
competitive and aggressive bullying to soothe their greedy egos.

It's fear. People are overwhelmingly less and less of a factor of
production. Labor is a declining factor of production. The inner
wrestling between one's consumer-self and producer-self is
increasingly difficult.

This produces something like free-floating anxiety. That attaches
itself to ... something, anything.

This, by the way, works for both left *and* right - the music is the
same, but the lyrics aren't...

Paul

--
Les Cargill

 

[Les Cargill]

Tom Del Rosso wrote:

P E Schoen wrote:
It is simply not sustainable, and the economics of continued
exponential growth, making money on speculation and the expectation
of limitless expansion, is mathematically destined to fail as surely
as any Ponzi scheme.

As surely as Social Security and Medicare then.

You can make laws that are sustainable, or laws that are progressive.
Democrats have made the latter their main focus and now they want to claim
they've been aiming for sustainability all along?

So pull the camera back to where the timeline is the
last 200 years. The Progressives *won*. They got
everything they asked for, enabled by escalating industrial
production.

They're out of low-hanging fruit. What's left is increasingly
silly. Meanwhile, the "balance of power" between labor
and production is shifting rapidly, but in a manner more
familiar to Schumpeter than Marx.

--
Les Cargill

 

[Les Cargill]

Chiron wrote:

On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:50:03 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

This makes very little sense. A theory is a very humble thing. All it
takes is one demonstrable experiment against it and it vanishes.

True - what it's actually a theory. Unfortunately, many, MANY people use
the word "theory" to describe any old notion that cannot, even in
principle, be falsified.

I can't help that.

Such "theories" are immune to experiment or
observation. They sound nice - they make you feel all warm and fuzzy, or
they maybe are exciting (the world's going to end again, this time on
December 12, 2012, that sort of thing). Of course, that one's
falsifiable.

So they're stories masquerading as theories...

Not so the ones that describe "unknown" energies, "alien" technologies,
"forgotten" civilizations that left no traces, and so on. In order to
explain the profound lack of evidence, many turn to conspiracy theories
("they" have suppressed all the evidence), which again makes their
notions incapable of being falsified.

Well, not everybody in the lunatic fringe can put on a rainbow
wig and hold a "JOHN 3:16" sign at sports events...

--
Les Cargill

 

[Chiron]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:55:46 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

Our basic standard of living isn't that profligate.

Not if you're an American. However, if you simply compare what we use
and spend, versus what is available to the world, it is utterly
profligate.

I have no doubt that for each point I raise, you will be able to find
some special pleading to refute it. I don't even insist that all my
points are valid.

What I am seeing is a pattern of unsustainable expenditure of money,
resources, energy, all of our resources. It will end. There is no point
in arguing whether it *should* end. You can't spend beyond your means,
borrowing endlessly. At some point you have to pay the loans or default
on them. You can't continue to use non-renewable resources of any kind,
without eventually using them up. The question has never been whether
we'll reach the end of our resources, but when it will happen. At some
point we'll run out of petroleum - maybe soon, maybe not for hundreds of
years. Whenever it happens, we're going to be in trouble if it catches
us by surprise.

The "why" of our obesity? It's eating more than we burn off. The
solution to that isn't simple (solutions tend not to be simple); but with
decreased food available, we are likely to experience some reduction of
the excess. But maybe not - maybe it's some chemical thing caused by
exposure to plastics, or even some subtle chemical we don't even know
about. I just offered this example as a possibility of how we might
benefit if our "standard of living" were to decrease; that is, if we had
less "stuff," fewer toys, had to make what we had count.

I totally agree with you about our transportation issue. It's massive
and it's killing us. Everyone wants their own car, has to drive to work,
and we cannot maintain that.

But everything I said, if I'm right about it, will automatically correct
itself eventually. The hope that I have is that we'll be smarter than
the cultures on petri dishes, and take steps to rein in our growth before
the inevitable population collapse. If not, we'll simply have a bubble
that bursts, enormous suffering, and a return to a much more primitive
lifestyle - at least for a while.

We don't need the rest of the world to "catch up" to us. We need to ease
back and move somewhat towards where the rest of the world is - say, what
they're doing in some European countries. They manage to have a pretty
decent lifestyle without as many excesses as the US. Maybe they managed
to do this because they don't have the car mentality we have here. It's
a thought...

As for TV - couldn't agree with you more. I gave my TV away in 1979 and
haven't watched since, except for occasional major events like the 9/11
atrocity. Too much brainwashing and bullshit for me; so I have to seek
mine out on Usenet. ;-)

Ah, never mind. There's no reason to think I know what I'm talking
about. As some comedian said (one of my favorite sayings): "It's too
bad that all the people who could fix this country are cutting hair and
driving taxis."

OK, I've said my piece, and I freely acknowledge that I'm probably as
full of crap as anyone else, if not more so. I'm getting off my soapbox,
and letting others take over...
--
He keeps differentiating, flying off on a tangent.

 

[Chiron]

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:24:50 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

Chiron wrote:
On Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:50:03 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

This makes very little sense. A theory is a very humble thing. All it
takes is one demonstrable experiment against it and it vanishes.

True - what it's actually a theory. Unfortunately, many, MANY people
use the word "theory" to describe any old notion that cannot, even in
principle, be falsified.


I can't help that.

How is your inability to help that, relevant? What was your point about
that?

Such "theories" are immune to experiment or observation. They sound
nice - they make you feel all warm and fuzzy, or they maybe are
exciting (the world's going to end again, this time on December 12,
2012, that sort of thing). Of course, that one's falsifiable.


So they're stories masquerading as theories...

Yes, exactly. That is why I put the word in quotation marks - to signify

that I don't consider them to be theories.

Not so the ones that describe "unknown" energies, "alien" technologies,
"forgotten" civilizations that left no traces, and so on. In order to
explain the profound lack of evidence, many turn to conspiracy theories
("they" have suppressed all the evidence), which again makes their
notions incapable of being falsified.




Well, not everybody in the lunatic fringe can put on a rainbow wig and
hold a "JOHN 3:16" sign at sports events...

No; but unfortunately, many people who have no clue at all about science,
are trying to make decisions about what to do about scientific issues.
Some of these people vote. Most of the people in the US are entirely
unqualified to debate scientific issues, but do so freely; and they vote.

I'm afraid this won't end well...

--
Being ugly isn't illegal. Yet.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Apr 29, 6:39 am, Chiron
<chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:14:29 -0700,BillSlomanwrote:
On Apr 28, 3:05 am, flipper <flip...@fish.net> wrote:
snip

So far, so good.

So called 'Climate Change' operates on the same 'logic' as the crystal
spheres model in that proponents deliberately refuse to make
falsifiable, testable, predictions.

There is where flipper loses it. The basic proposition of anthropogenic
global warming is that an increasing level of CO2 in the atmosphere
increases the average temperature of the earth (as measured at sea
level).

We are busily engaged in testing the hypothesis by continuing to burn
fossil carbon and dump the carbon dioxide produced in the atmosphere,
and monitoring the - rising - average temperature of the earth.

So far, the observed temperature rises are consistent with the
hypothesis. They aren't all that big when compared with the natural
noise sources, but we've been burning fossil carbon for long enough to
have made a significant difference to the temperatures measured at the
surface of the earth. No other explanation fits the data as well. The
rise became significant around 1990, and that's the point where the
scientific community was persuaded.

Flipper is thus some twenty years behind the times.

This whole "Global Warming" thing has become a holy war.  Almost every
layman is arguing from a position of faith, rather than actual
knowledge.

Speak for yourself. I was exposed to enough of the relevant science in
the course of getting my Ph.D.in physical chemistry to be rguing from
knowledge rather than blind faith.

 The science is complex, the trends subtle, the short-term
variations enough to swamp smaller long-term trends.

Almost right. We've been monitoring accurately enough for long enough
to know that the smaller long term trend is persistent and real.

 We've chosen a poor
term for the phenomenon, one that adds to the confusion.  Every time we
get a hot summer, the True Believers say, "See, Global Warming is true!"
And every time we get a cold winter, the Infidels say, "See, Global
Warming is false!"  In the meantime we've got politicians getting onto
the bandwagon, either stirring up the Believers or the Infidels in order
to garner votes.  The truth is not a matter of great concern to these
politicians, as usual.

Not true either. It was politicians who set up the IPCC in order to
get access to the best available scientific advice. Now that we've got
it, other politicians want to ignore it, and are paying for a
propaganda campaign to devalue IPCC's advice which is back-handed
evidence of their concern about the truth - you don't need a well-
funded propaganda campaign to minimise the influence of advice based
on demonstrable falsehoods.

An increase of CO2 does not necessarily cause global warming,

Actually, it will. There are theoretically possible counter-measures -
sun-shades in orbit or the like - which could counteract the warming,
and natural events - like the Gulf Stream getting turned off, as
during the Younger Dryas - which could slow it down for a while, but
the physics are unambiguous. More CO2 in the atmosphere increases the
greenhouse effect, and that makes the earth's surface warmer.

nor will reducing CO2 output necessarily avoid it.

Only if you increased the atmospheric concentration  of some other
greenhouse gas - methane for example - at the same time.

That is a simplistic and useless view.

It's not simplistic - though concentrating on CO2to the exclusion of
other greenhouse gases would be a dangerous over-simplification - and
it isn't useless. If we could act on the basis of the knowledge we
have now we could rework our energy economy to rely on renewable
energy sources - which we are going to have to do eventually, since
there's a strictly finite amount of fossil carbon left in the ground
for us to dig up. It would slow down our economic growth rate, but
only for a few years, and nowhere near as much a the consequences of
unrestrained anthropogenic global warming - have you ever thought
about the economic consequences of a six metre sea level rise?

There are dozens of known factors affecting climate,
ranging from solar activity (overall activity and various cycles), the
earth's relationship to the sun (distance, angle, etc.), clouds, ice,
pollution, greenhouse gases, water vapor, ocean currents, and on and on
and on.  Each can enhance or reduce the effects of CO2 on global warming.

But not - with the exception of extra ice-and-snow cover in the
northern parts of the northern hemisphere - enough to make the kind of
difference we've seen since the industrial revolution. We've raised
the atmospheric CO2 level from about 260ppm before 1750 to it's
current 392ppm. More than half of that rise has taken place since we
started monitoring atmospheric CO2 levels some fifty-odd years ago.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

The *consensus* among climate scientists is that yes, there is global
warming that is beginning to affect the long-term climate.  Even so,
there are respected skeptics among these scientists, guys who doubt it's
happening.

About ten of them in the top 300. Political and religious convictions
can make it difficult for even a top scientist to accept what the
evidence is saying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

talks about the way political conviction has persuaded a number of
eminent physicists to ignore the scientific evidence or global
warming, the destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain and the dangers
of smoking.

The *consensus* among climate scientists is that some part of global
warming is anthropogenic; but again, there are some respected skeptics
among these scientists.

They are respected for good work they've done, but their wrong-headed
ideas about global warming - which tend to be based on political or
religious convictions, sometimes aided by a little greed - haven't
improved their standing in the scientific community.

As for what, if anything, we can do about it?  Not such a consensus.  As
far as I know a majority of climate scientists think it might be a good
idea to throttle back on CO2 and CH4 emissions, but I'm not sure it's
that much of a majority.

There was a survey published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Science that put the majority at 97% in the top 300 climate
scientist. The proportion in the thousand-odd climate scientists
surveyed was lower, but not much lower.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full

 There is some thinking that we've already
passed a point of no return, or that it's coming up very quickly.  Once
we pass it, positive feedback kicks in and the process takes on a life of
its own that we won't be able to stop.

That's a risk. Since this involves hard-to-model non-linear effects
like ice-sheets sliding off into the oceans, the IPCC has been
reluctant to try and put number on this kind of risk.

Beyond that, the consensus falters.  Predictions range from the Al Gore
apocalypse, to the usual conservative head-in-the-sand attitude of
"nothing's going to happen."  My guess is that like most things, the
truth lies somewhere in between.  Some things will suck, some won't be so
bad, and we'll muddle through somehow.  Just my own wild guess...

The IPCC predicts anything from 1.1 to 6.4K temperature rise by 2100,
depending - in part - on how much we do to slow it down.

The likeliest level of warming is a bit below 4K. 2K of warming seems
likely to be enough to generate inconvenient changes in rainfall
distribution, which is to say lots of starvation.

Unfortunately, most of the people arguing about all this aren't climate
scientists, or scientists of any kind.  In fact, most of the debaters
don't understand the science behind the issues.

You seem to be one of them. Why don't you learn a bit more?

 They talk about
"believing" in global warming, as though discussing a belief in God.
They're the ones the politicians listen to.

Perhaps.

The sad fact is that the people of the US are incapable of having an
informed discussion about global warming.  We haven't had the training in
critical thinking or basic science required to understand the issues.  We
don't have the tools to take it beyond the level of a holy war, a debate
based on faith.

Actually, it isn't a debate, but rather a tribute to the effectiveness
of denialist propaganda. The tobacco companies worked out a system for
devaluing scientific evidence a couple of decades ago and the fossil
fuel extraction industry turned to the organisations that the tobacco
companies had set up when the evidence about anthropogenic global
warming started looking persuasive enough to justify slowing down the
extraction and sale of fossil carbon as a fuel. They've spent quite a
lot of money to make life more difficult for our children and their
children

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Apr 29, 6:53 am, Chiron
<chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:31:51 -0500, flipper wrote:

snip









This makes very little sense. A theory is a very humble thing. All it
takes is one demonstrable experiment against it and it vanishes.

It does unless one is so in love with their theory they reject those
'demonstrable' things. In fact, it never even reaches to 'theory'
unless one proposes falsifiable and testable predictions but that
doesn't stop people from claiming their notion is not only a 'theory'
but 'true'. So called "Global Warming," or "Climate Change," is one
example as proponents have never proposed falsifiable predictions and
get quite agitated if you ask them to because, after all, it's 'true',
so there is no need to 'test' it.

What kind of predictions are you asking for,

The same 'kind' required for any science: testable predictions capable
of falsifying the premise.

Flipper, you've got your facts wrong.  Climate scientists have made
dozens of predictions.  Some few have been "confirmed" - or rather, the
observations failed to falsify the theory.  Most of the predictions
require decades or centuries to show a result.

The idea of widespread glacier melting, rises in sea level, changes in
weather patterns, etc., are all predictions made by the climate
scientists.

snip

  Climatologists most certainly
make falsifiable predictions...

Name one.

See above.  Pretty much anything conservatives are screaming about, is a
prediction that climate scientists made about global warming.

The closest thing that came to a 'prediction' was the climate model's
atmospheric temperature distribution and it's been long enough to test.
But when it turned out observations did not match the models AGW
proponents went on a screaming fit that was *NOT A PREDICTION!!!*

Yes, AGW *proponents* do scream.  They are not climate scientists.  The
climate scientists don't scream.

They got pretty upset about the persistent uncorrected errors in the
satellite data being put out by the University of Alabama at
Huntsville.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Christy

Nobody actually screamed, but it took quite of lot of work to persuade
Christy and Spencer to correct their data

http://www.skepticalscience.com/uah-misrepresentation-anniversary-part1.html

<snip>

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Phil Allison]

"Chiron"

This whole "Global Warming" thing has become a holy war. Almost every
layman is arguing from a position of faith, rather than actual
knowledge. The science is complex, the trends subtle, the short-term
variations enough to swamp smaller long-term trends. We've chosen a poor
term for the phenomenon, one that adds to the confusion.

** Amen ....

The *consensus* among climate scientists is that yes, there is global
warming that is beginning to affect the long-term climate.

** Quite unlike religion or politics, science NEVER relies on consensus !!!

In fact, " consensus" is completely antithetic to uncovering the truth
about natural events.

**Cos the truth is NEVER to be found by taking a vote** !!!!!!!!

The *consensus* among climate scientists is that some part of global
warming is anthropogenic; but again, there are some respected skeptics
among these scientists.

** The heart of the nonsense we have going on now, is that AGW protagonists
are controlling the agenda - and it is all a game of words and semantics.
Until you manage to see through the mischievous semantics, you are as blind
as a pilot flying over the North Pole in a white out.

Unfortunately, most of the people arguing about all this aren't climate
scientists, or scientists of any kind.

** Very few "climatologists" are genuine scientists of any kind - the vast
majority are a gaggle of Johnny come latelys who sensed a nice meal ticket
from miles off and jumped on the AGW Gravy Train. Every so called " climate
scientist " is a totally compromised person, since his or her income depends
on AGW being held out as real.

NB:

*** If ever anyone proves it is fake (or greatly exaggerated and hence a
non- issue) then almost the whole damn lot would lose their research jobs
overnight ***

FFS - that ain't no scientific consensus, that is a simple conspiracy of
self interested bastards.

The sad fact is that the people of the US are incapable of having an
informed discussion about global warming. We haven't had the training in
critical thinking or basic science required to understand the issues. We
don't have the tools to take it beyond the level of a holy war, a debate
based on faith.

** The vast majority of the public have been blinded by anything that smacks
of "science " for so long and to such a degree that it has become a
monstrous Holy Cow - totally beyond rational criticism if you do not want
to be accused of being a complete cretin, or a "denier"......

Science is the search for FACTS about the natural world and as such is it
NOT in the least reliant on the OPINIONS of any person or group involved in
attempts at such discoveries. Particularly any with a vested financial or
ongoing career interest in the research work itself.

Same goes for anyone with a GREEN political agenda blathering about AGW -
cos they are the real protagonists here.


BTW:

Da Slow Man is a congenital, autistic mental defective and as such is
incapable of independent thought.

In his grossly distorted world view - ONLY the opinions of anointed experts
have credibility. Hence he actively seeks them out, dines heartily on their
pronouncements, adopts them as if his own and then bloats his pathetic ego
up on them like a Toad Fish.

A truly revolting thing to do.

Cos Bill is a truly revolting man.




..... Phil

 

[Chiron]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:41:55 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Apr 29, 6:39 am, Chiron
chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]

Speak for yourself. I was exposed to enough of the relevant science in
the course of getting my Ph.D.in physical chemistry to be rguing from
knowledge rather than blind faith.

How nice for you. Meanwhile, the substance of my statement is not

affected by your erudition. Almost no one involved in the Global Warming
jihad has any idea of what they're talking about. I'm referring to
people on *BOTH* sides of the issue; True Believers *AND* Infidels. I
think you missed that part, the first time around.

Almost right. We've been monitoring accurately enough for long enough to
know that the smaller long term trend is persistent and real.

Really? Where did you learn this (cite or link or something)?

Not true either. It was politicians who set up the IPCC in order to get
access to the best available scientific advice. Now that we've got it,
other politicians want to ignore it, and are paying for a propaganda
campaign to devalue IPCC's advice which is back-handed evidence of their
concern about the truth - you don't need a well- funded propaganda
campaign to minimise the influence of advice based on demonstrable
falsehoods.

Oh, fuck the IPCC. Politicians don't give a shit about that. They're

shameless whores. They want votes, period. They will deny the results
of the IPCC, if they think they'll get the votes they need. They will
support the IPCC, if that's what they think gets the votes. Reality has
nothing to do with politics. Oh, did I mention that politicians are
shameless whores?

Actually, it will. There are theoretically possible counter-measures -

No, it won't - not by itself. Climate is an incredibly complex system.
Twiddling with one parameter isn't necessarily going to have a simple
effect.

sun-shades in orbit or the like - which could counteract the warming,
and natural events - like the Gulf Stream getting turned off, as during
the Younger Dryas - which could slow it down for a while, but the
physics are unambiguous. More CO2 in the atmosphere increases the
greenhouse effect, and that makes the earth's surface warmer.

Yes, the *physics* are unambiguous. Increased CO2, without any other

changes, will inevitably raise the global temperature as a result of the
greenhouse effect. However, the "without any other changes" part doesn't
apply.

You're talking about an extremely complex system here, with negative and
positive feedback systems that we simply don't understand adequately.
There are some indications that positive feedback could occur - release
of methane from thawing permafrost, lowered albedo from less ice and
snow, possibly infrared trapped by clouds, whatever. All kinds of stuff.
And there are some indications that negative feedback occurs - increased
cloud cover reflecting sunlight, I forget what all. I'm not arguing for
or against global warming. I'm simply stating that it's a highly
complicated topic, beyond the ability of the vast majority of Americans
to understand.

Only if you increased the atmospheric concentration  of some other
greenhouse gas - methane for example - at the same time.

All I'm saying is that CO2, all by itself, isn't the answer. It's a part

of a much more complicated problem. Global warming isn't some simple
thing that all we have to do is reduce CO2 emissions, and it all goes
away. That's probably a great place to start, but it's not the whole
answer.

In fact, last I heard, CH4 was a far more powerful greenhouse gas; and
it's released by our factory farms in huge quantities. So an argument
could be made for becoming vegetarians, based on that (I'm not being
sarcastic here). Eliminating factory farming might be an important way
of reducing the greenhouse effect.

It's not simplistic - though concentrating on CO2to the exclusion of
other greenhouse gases would be a dangerous over-simplification - and it

That's what I'm fucking saying. People are going around claiming that
all we have to do is turn off the CO2, and we'll make it all better. Not
true. It's just a beginning. It's not enough.

isn't useless. If we could act on the basis of the knowledge we have now
we could rework our energy economy to rely on renewable energy sources -

If, if, if. But we aren't going to do that, because no one understands a
fucking thing about Global Warming except you, and no one's listening to
you. The public "debate" centers around faith, not reason, and certainly
not science (again, I'm talking about *both* sides, for and against).

which we are going to have to do eventually, since there's a strictly
finite amount of fossil carbon left in the ground for us to dig up. It
would slow down our economic growth rate, but only for a few years, and
nowhere near as much a the consequences of unrestrained anthropogenic
global warming - have you ever thought about the economic consequences
of a six metre sea level rise?

Have you ever seen any peer-reviewed publications that claim there will

be a six-meter rise in sea level? It's not there. One set of islands
where the sea level supposedly had risen, turned out to be sinking
instead.

Hmm... are you in the Netherlands? If so, I can see why you'd be
particularly concerned. You're already way below sea level. Add another
six meters and you'd have more problems. But I don't think any climate
scientist is claiming a rise of six meters. If I'm wrong - again - could
you point me to a cite?

But not - with the exception of extra ice-and-snow cover in the northern
parts of the northern hemisphere - enough to make the kind of difference
we've seen since the industrial revolution. We've raised the atmospheric
CO2 level from about 260ppm before 1750 to it's current 392ppm. More
than half of that rise has taken place since we started monitoring
atmospheric CO2 levels some fifty-odd years ago.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

[quoted text muted]

About ten of them in the top 300. Political and religious convictions
can make it difficult for even a top scientist to accept what the
evidence is saying.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that any of these skeptics are

motivated by religious or political views? Or was that just an ad
hominem attack against people who disagree with you?

When I said these people were respected skeptics, I meant that they
weren't seen as fringe scientists, voices crying in the wilderness. They
simply had doubts about the meaning of the evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

talks about the way political conviction has persuaded a number of
eminent physicists to ignore the scientific evidence or global warming,
the destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain and the dangers of
smoking.

Right. It's the golden rule. Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
Scientists have to eat; scientists can be bigoted or fanatical or just
plain wrong. Happens all the time. But just because some scientists
don't agree with you, or disagree with the consensus of their peers,
doesn't make them wrong, stupid, crazy, religious, or otherwise faulty.

They are respected for good work they've done, but their wrong-headed
ideas about global warming - which tend to be based on political or
religious convictions, sometimes aided by a little greed - haven't
improved their standing in the scientific community.

Or maybe their peers understand that they have reasonable doubts about

the evidence. Again - the fact that these guys are in the minority, and
they disagree with you, doesn't necessarily make them wrong or in any way
less scientists than their peers. I personally feel they *are* wrong -
but who the hell am I? I'm not a climate scientist; I can't judge whose
evidence is better, or whose conclusions are better.

There was a survey published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science that put the majority at 97% in the top 300 climate
scientist. The proportion in the thousand-odd climate scientists
surveyed was lower, but not much lower.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full

I believe that's accurate. About ten guys total, if memory serves.

However, science is not a democracy. You don't get to vote on what's
true. History is filled with examples of the majority being wrong.
Continental drift? Nonsense! Stones falling from the sky? Rubbish!
And so on.

That's a risk. Since this involves hard-to-model non-linear effects like
ice-sheets sliding off into the oceans, the IPCC has been reluctant to
try and put number on this kind of risk.

OK, sure, but it's not my point. My point isn't whether Global Warming
is "true" or not; it's that the issue is beyond the capacity of most
Americans to discuss rationally.

The IPCC predicts anything from 1.1 to 6.4K temperature rise by 2100,
depending - in part - on how much we do to slow it down.

The likeliest level of warming is a bit below 4K. 2K of warming seems
likely to be enough to generate inconvenient changes in rainfall
distribution, which is to say lots of starvation.
[quoted text muted]

You seem to be one of them. Why don't you learn a bit more?

WTF are you talking about? If you can make this sort of comment, it is

clear that you aren't understanding what I'm saying.

You don't have the slightest idea what I already know about this. You
apparently think I'm arguing against the idea of global warming; if
that's the case, you have misunderstood me completely.

I am not arguing against the idea of global warming. I am stating - as
clearly as I can - that the American public is incapable of holding an
intelligent debate on the subject, because they don't understand the
issues, the science behind it, and they don't know how to reason
critically. Because of this, they base their beliefs on faith - on who
sounds better, which "scientist" was more convincing, which side had the
better graphics, who baffled them with bullshit. So you've got True
Believers, who accept that global warming is a fact, we're heading for
disaster, and all we have to do is stop making CO2. Instant relief. And
on the other side you've got the Infidels, the deniers, the ones who
(also based on faith) believe there is no such thing as global warming,
or if there is, there's nothing we can do about it, or it's not going to
be so bad.

But neither of these groups - which represent the vast majority of the
people trying to discuss the topic - knows what they're talking about.
They're parroting the lines fed to them by the propagandists they happen
to believe.

Perhaps.

No perhaps about it. The entire public "debate" is faith-based,
Believers vs. Infidels. Hardly anyone knows the science and is able to
view the evidence rationally. At least, not in the US. I don't know
whether they're better trained in Europe.

[quoted text muted]

Actually, it isn't a debate, but rather a tribute to the effectiveness
of denialist propaganda. The tobacco companies worked out a system for

Yeah, call it "denialist" and make it go away. Just like the other side
calls it "alarmist." Those pejorative terms simply confuse the issue
even more.

Yes, there most certainly is what you'd call "denialist" propaganda.
What you aren't seeing is that there is also "alarmist" propaganda. Both
types of propaganda are bullshit and harmful. But they're mostly what
people have to rely on because they don't understand the science.

devaluing scientific evidence a couple of decades ago and the fossil
fuel extraction industry turned to the organisations that the tobacco
companies had set up when the evidence about anthropogenic global

Of course they did. And they get away with it because we Americans
generally haven't been properly trained to sniff out the bullshit; so you
get some "scientist" claiming there's no such thing as smoking-related
cancer, or AGW, and huge numbers of us will believe it. Maybe enough to
stop any action on AGW; but at least slowing it down so you can squeeze
more profit out of whatever you're doing.

And you know, I can't say I blame these Americans. Life is scary
enough. We've got terrorism; we're at war. Aids, avian/swine flu,
pollution, rising fuel prices, etc. - who wouldn't prefer to listen to
the soothing reassurances that really, AGW is not happening, go back to
sleep? Ignore those bad AGW proponents with their scary stories.
Everything will be just fine...

If a person has no means of making reasoned judgements about these
issues, why shouldn't he prefer to listen to the guys who tell him what
he wants to hear?

warming started looking persuasive enough to justify slowing down the
extraction and sale of fossil carbon as a fuel. They've spent quite a
lot of money to make life more difficult for our children and their
children

Yes, I agree with this. We absolutely need to get off fossil fuels, even
if they have no effect on global warming; it's a finite resource we'll
eventually run out of. That being the case, and the evidence for global
warming being suggestive, NOW is a great time to figure out how to wean
ourselves off of petroleum.

Probably won't happen, as long as Americans are obsessed with their cars.

--
The world is coming to an end--save your buffers!

 

[Les Cargill]

Chiron wrote:

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:55:46 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

Our basic standard of living isn't that profligate.


Not if you're an American. However, if you simply compare what we
use and spend, versus what is available to the world, it is utterly
profligate.

I don't like* the algorithm you're using to conclude that. Perhaps it's
just habit, but I've always considered that Americans wanted to
sort of proselytize for "our way of life" and that this was how
it *should* be.

People could then pick and choose what they thought worked from it.

*in the sense of "I don't agree with".


Cherry-picking from Charles Murray's recent defense of his book
"Coming Apart", Americans should preach what they practice.
Having this standard of living is an achievement, and we
should have some pride in it.

But I have *no idea* what it really means to be Indian or
Chinese. I'm pretty sure they'll see it differently.

I have no doubt that for each point I raise, you will be able to
find some special pleading to refute it. I don't even insist that
all my points are valid.

I'm not playing word-tennis; just musing out loud. Hope
that's okay. But I like dialogue as a way to do that.

What I am seeing is a pattern of unsustainable expenditure of money,
resources, energy, all of our resources. It will end. There is no
point in arguing whether it *should* end.

No, I don't see why it *would* end. The stuff at the edges isn't running
out very quickly. We have problems which can only be expressed in
accounting terms but that are caused by people's attitudes. These
problems are "internal" and not caused by shortages of time, materials
or ability. They're essentially behavioral.

One of those attitudes is to sort of be "guilty" about
having a high standard of living. Well, a high standard of
living is more of a function of people behaving a certain
way than anything else.

I think a higher standard of living is not only desirable, but is
morally justifiable for its own sake. I don't mean 25,000 sq. ft.
houses, 14 SUVs in the garage and other such. I just mean being
basically comfortable, able to do more or less something
that's rewarding and being able to produce.

At some point, affluence becomes a caricature of itself.

You can't spend beyond your means, borrowing endlessly. At some
point you have to pay the loans or default on them. You can't
continue to use non-renewable resources of any kind, without
eventually using them up. The question has never been whether we'll
reach the end of our resources, but when it will happen. At some
point we'll run out of petroleum - maybe soon, maybe not for hundreds
of years. Whenever it happens, we're going to be in trouble if it
catches us by surprise.

We don't know what any of that really means. Seriously. All we have
is a bucket full of partial theories.

The "why" of our obesity? It's eating more than we burn off. The
solution to that isn't simple (solutions tend not to be simple); but
with decreased food available, we are likely to experience some
reduction of the excess. But maybe not - maybe it's some chemical
thing caused by exposure to plastics, or even some subtle chemical we
don't even know about. I just offered this example as a possibility
of how we might benefit if our "standard of living" were to decrease;
that is, if we had less "stuff," fewer toys, had to make what we had
count.

There are a lot of Whole Foods markets out there. IMO, food and
entertainment got cross linked... my *base* attitude towards food
is "it's fuel", but sometimes, it's entertainment too....

I totally agree with you about our transportation issue. It's
massive and it's killing us. Everyone wants their own car, has to
drive to work, and we cannot maintain that.

I just think that that is the sort of change that will bear the most
fruit. But right now, it's a silly idea because of how
the prices work.

But everything I said, if I'm right about it, will automatically
correct itself eventually.

I think it will too.

The hope that I have is that we'll be smarter than the cultures on
petri dishes, and take steps to rein in our growth before the
inevitable population collapse. If not, we'll simply have a bubble
that bursts, enormous suffering, and a return to a much more
primitive lifestyle - at least for a while.

I suppose one thing you and I can disagree on is what "growth" means - I
think of it in terms of escalating value. Escalating value may actually
involve *less* - but better - stuff.

We don't need the rest of the world to "catch up" to us. We need to
ease back and move somewhat towards where the rest of the world is -
say, what they're doing in some European countries.

Maybe. I can certainly see that as a back-and-forth - and we should
adopt what works ( assuming we can make it work, too ). I tend to have
a suspicion that Yurps sweep a lot under various rugs...

They manage to have a pretty decent lifestyle without as many
excesses as the US. Maybe they managed to do this because they don't
have the car mentality we have here. It's a thought...

Yeah, but it's not exactly paradise over there, either. I say
that having been exposed to expats.

As for TV - couldn't agree with you more. I gave my TV away in 1979
and haven't watched since, except for occasional major events like
the 9/11 atrocity. Too much brainwashing and bullshit for me; so I
have to seek mine out on Usenet. ;-)

There ya go!

Ah, never mind. There's no reason to think I know what I'm talking
about. As some comedian said (one of my favorite sayings): "It's
too bad that all the people who could fix this country are cutting
hair and driving taxis."

But we are what we is.

OK, I've said my piece, and I freely acknowledge that I'm probably
as full of crap as anyone else, if not more so. I'm getting off my
soapbox, and letting others take over...

Nicely done, and thanks for the good words. If you haven't found them,
you might find all the Adam Curtis films interesting. He's not perfect,
but (IMO) he gets a lot right, especially the questions.


They are freely available online.


--
Les Cargill

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Apr 29, 3:37 pm, Chiron
<chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:41:55 -0700,BillSlomanwrote:
On Apr 29, 6:39 am, Chiron
chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]

Speak for yourself. I was exposed to enough of the relevant science in
the course of getting my Ph.D.in physical chemistry to be rguing from
knowledge rather than blind faith.

How nice for you.  Meanwhile, the substance of my statement is not
affected by your erudition.  Almost no one involved in the Global Warming
jihad has any idea of what they're talking about.

You've got no way of finding out. Al Gore may not know too much about
the basic science, but he has access to people who do, and a long
history of being able to take advantage of expert advice.

 I'm referring to
people on *BOTH* sides of the issue; True Believers *AND* Infidels.  I
think you missed that part, the first time around.

A faith proportion of the "infidels" are bought-and-paid for members
of the denialist propaganda machine.

Read "Merchants of Doubt" for a detailed and insightful discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

Almost right. We've been monitoring accurately enough for long enough to
know that the smaller long term trend is persistent and real.

Really?  Where did you learn this (cite or link or something)?

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - amongst other places

http://www.pnas.org/search?fulltext=global+warming&submit=yes

Not true either. It was politicians who set up the IPCC in order to get
access to the best available scientific advice. Now that we've got it,
other politicians want to ignore it, and are paying for a propaganda
campaign to devalue IPCC's advice which is back-handed evidence of their
concern about the truth - you don't need a well- funded propaganda
campaign to minimise the influence of advice based on demonstrable
falsehoods.

Oh, fuck the IPCC.

That would be fairly a stupid waste of resources.

 Politicians don't give a shit about that.

They gave enough of a shit to organise and fund the committee in the
first place.

They're shameless whores.

Some of them are. Quite a few a sufficiently interested in covering
their backs to makes sure that they have access to the best available
- they may go on to ignore it for a while to win a short term
advantage, but most of them have enough sense to want to avoid getting
stuck with predictable problems, and anthropogenic global warming is
definitely a predictable problem.

They want votes, period.  They will deny the results
of the IPCC, if they think they'll get the votes they need.

They'll certainly defer any reaction to the predictions being made by
the IPCC if it's to their short term political advantage. Most of them
are sensible enough not to deny them - few are as idiotic as James
Inhofe.

 They will
support the IPCC, if that's what they think gets the votes.

 Reality has nothing to do with politics.

Don't be silly. Successful politicians are in very close touch with
the reality dictated by the people who vote for them and give them
money. They do tend to be influenced by short term advantage but a
good proportion of them have enough sense not to solve today's problem
in a way that will create a bigger problem tomorrow.

 Oh, did I mention that politicians are
shameless whores?

You did. Some politicians do deserve that description. Others are too
stupid to live - James Inhofe is a prize example - but there are quite
a few politicians around with a sense of responsibility and an eye for
long term advantage. Al Gore took up anthropogenic global warming long
before there was any great chance that it would win him a Nobel Prize.

Actually, it will. There are theoretically possible counter-measures -

No, it won't - not by itself.  Climate is an incredibly complex system.
Twiddling with one parameter isn't necessarily going to have a simple
effect.

sun-shades in orbit or the like - which could counteract the warming,
and natural events - like the Gulf Stream getting turned off, as during
the Younger Dryas - which could slow it down for a while, but the
physics are unambiguous. More CO2 in the atmosphere increases the
greenhouse effect, and that makes the earth's surface warmer.

Yes, the *physics* are unambiguous.  Increased CO2, without any other
changes, will inevitably raise the global temperature as a result of the
greenhouse effect.  However, the "without any other changes" part doesn't
apply.

And what "other changes" did you have in mind. Richard Lindzen's daft
ideas about compensating changes in cloud cover are about as
respectable as that approach gets, and it's still total rubbish.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=983

You're talking about an extremely complex system here, with negative and
positive feedback systems that we simply don't understand adequately.

We don't understand it perfectly, but we do understand it well enough
for most practical purposes. You can't use our imperfect understanding
as an excuse for swallowing denialist propaganda.

There are some indications that positive feedback could occur - release
of methane from thawing permafrost, lowered albedo from less ice and
snow, possibly infrared trapped by clouds, whatever.

The release of methane from thawing permafrost is happening now, and
on a large scale. The reduced albedo of the northern parts of the
northern hemisphere is a large part of what ended the last ice age and
the current reductions in sea ice cover around the Arctic Sea are the
best available explanation of why the Artic currently is warming up
much faster than the rest of the planet.

These aren't positive feedbacks the could occur, they are positive
feedback that are known to be occuring.

All kinds of stuff.

Which you don't know enough about to sort into real as opposed to
potential effects.

And there are some indications that negative feedback occurs - increased
cloud cover reflecting sunlight, I forget what all.

That Lindzen's silly idea, long since exploded.

 I'm not arguing for or against global warming.

You are arguing for not taking it as seriously as we ought, on the
basis that we know less than we actually do.

 I'm simply stating that it's a highly
complicated topic, beyond the ability of the vast majority of Americans
to understand.

Twaddle. The basic idea is simple. The denialist propaganda machine
sets out to confuse the unsophisticated reader with misleading claims
about the complexity of the subject, where well-understood facts are
confused with long-exploded hypotheses. The technique was developed to
protect the tobacco industry from the scientific revelations about the
damage that smoking did to your lungs and the same evil crew who
peddled those lies is now peddling a new set of lies about
anthropogenic global warming.

Only if you increased the atmospheric concentration  of some other
greenhouse gas - methane for example - at the same time.

All I'm saying is that CO2, all by itself, isn't the answer.

It's close enough to an answer that if we dealt with it we wouldn't
have to worthy about dealing with anything else.

 It's a part of a much more complicated problem.

True but irrelevant.

 Global warming isn't some simple
thing that all we have to do is reduce CO2 emissions, and it all goes
away.  That's probably a great place to start, but it's not the whole
answer.

It's close enough, and a long way closer to the whole answer than
starting anywhere else.

In fact, last I heard, CH4 was a far more powerful greenhouse gas; and
it's released by our factory farms in huge quantities.

It's certainly a more potent greenhouse gas, but there's a lot less of
it in the atmosphere. It has about a tenth of the effect of the CO2 in
the atmosphere. It degrades to CO2 with a half-time of about 8.4
years, whereas CO2 that gets into the atmso[here sticks around for
some 800 years before it gets trapped as carbonate rock.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

 So an argument
could be made for becoming vegetarians, based on that (I'm not being
sarcastic here).

Just ignorant and unrealistic.

 Eliminating factory farming might be an important way
of reducing the greenhouse effect.

It would help. In terms of bang for the buck, reducing methane
emissions is a cheaper way of reducing anthropogenic global warming
than reducing CO2 emissions, but runs into diminishing returns a lot
earlier. The best it can do for us is to give us a bit more time to
build the solar powered power stations that will allow us to stop
burning so much fossil carbon to generate power.

It's not simplistic - though concentrating on CO2 to the exclusion of
other greenhouse gases would be a dangerous over-simplification - and it

That's what I'm fucking saying.  People are going around claiming that
all we have to do is turn off the CO2, and we'll make it all better.  Not
true.  It's just a beginning.  It's not enough.

On the contrary. If we did turn off the CO2 we would have solved the
problem. It's not the cheapest nor the most optimal approach, but a
gigantic reduction in our CO2 output is an unaviodable part of any
long term solution.

isn't useless. If we could act on the basis of the knowledge we have now
we could rework our energy economy to rely on renewable energy sources -

If, if, if.  But we aren't going to do that, because no one understands a
fucking thing about Global Warming except you, and no one's listening to
you.

Don't be silly.

 The public "debate" centers around faith, not reason, and certainly
not science (again, I'm talking about *both* sides, for and against).

The denialist propaganda machine wants to frame the debate in these
kinds of terms, but they know perfectly well that there are enough
educated citizens around that this is strictly a holding action. The
real debate centres around the science, which is unambiguous - and if
you think differently, you need to get educated.

which we are going to have to do eventually, since there's a strictly
finite amount of fossil carbon left in the ground for us to dig up. It
would slow down our economic growth rate, but only for a few years, and
nowhere near as much a the consequences of unrestrained anthropogenic
global warming - have you ever thought about the economic consequences
of a six metre sea level rise?

Have you ever seen any peer-reviewed publications that claim there will
be a six-meter rise in sea level?  It's not there.  One set of islands
where the sea level supposedly had risen, turned out to be sinking
instead.

Hmm... are you in the Netherlands?  If so, I can see why you'd be
particularly concerned.  You're already way below sea level.

I'm not. My suburb of Nijmegen is more than 6 metres about NAP, which
is to say current sea level - Nijmegen (like Arnhem) grew up on a
terminal morraine laid down during the last ice when the Rhine was a
glacier.

 Add another six meters and you'd have more problems.  But I don't think any climate
scientist is claiming a rise of six meters.  If I'm wrong - again - could
you point me to a cite?

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise

It isn't going to happen before 2100 (unless the the Greenland ice
sheet slides off a lot faster than currently expected, which could
happen).

But not - with the exception of extra ice-and-snow cover in the northern
parts of the northern hemisphere - enough to make the kind of difference
we've seen since the industrial revolution. We've raised the atmospheric
CO2 level from about 260ppm before 1750 to it's current 392ppm. More
than half of that rise has taken place since we started monitoring
atmospheric CO2 levels some fifty-odd years ago.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

[quoted text muted]

About ten of them in the top 300. Political and religious convictions
can make it difficult for even a top scientist to accept what the
evidence is saying.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that any of these skeptics are
motivated by religious or political views?  Or was that just an ad
hominem attack against people who disagree with you?

John Christy and Roy Spenser are both born-again Christians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Christy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_%28scientist%29

They presumably believe that god wouldn't be so mean as stop people
making money by digging up fossil carbon.

When I said these people were respected skeptics, I meant that they
weren't seen as fringe scientists, voices crying in the wilderness.  They
simply had doubts about the meaning of the evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

talks about the way political conviction has persuaded a number of
eminent physicists to ignore the scientific evidence or global warming,
the destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain and the dangers of
smoking.

Right.  It's the golden rule.  Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
Scientists have to eat; scientists can be bigoted or fanatical or just
plain wrong.  Happens all the time.  But just because some scientists
don't agree with you, or disagree with the consensus of their peers,
doesn't make them wrong, stupid, crazy, religious, or otherwise faulty.

Those two are certainly religious, and they were unfortunately slow in
correcting the errors in the data that they were collecting and
presenting.

Stephen Jay Gould's book "The mismeasure of man" talks about the way
even good scientists can be uncritical about data that happens to fit
their preconceptions.

They are respected for good work they've done, but their wrong-headed
ideas about global warming - which tend to be based on political or
religious convictions, sometimes aided by a little greed - haven't
improved their standing in the scientific community.

Or maybe their peers understand that they have reasonable doubts about
the evidence.

If the doubts were reasonable they would be more widely shared. 97%
agreement doesn't say anything good about the 3% with different ideas.
Einstein's opinions were not widely shared when he started his career,
but we aren't talking about any Einsteins here.

 Again - the fact that these guys are in the minority, and
they disagree with you, doesn't necessarily make them wrong or in any way
less scientists than their peers.

But that's the way you bet... The sceptics have been around for long
enough that if they had any convincing basis for their scepticism we'd
have heard about it

 I personally feel they *are* wrong -
but who the hell am I?  I'm not a climate scientist; I can't judge whose
evidence is better, or whose conclusions are better.

[quoted text muted]

There was a survey published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science that put the majority at 97% in the top 300 climate
scientist. The proportion in the thousand-odd climate scientists
surveyed was lower, but not much lower.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full

I believe that's accurate.  About ten guys total, if memory serves.
However, science is not a democracy.  You don't get to vote on what's
true.  History is filled with examples of the majority being wrong.
Continental drift?  Nonsense!  Stones falling from the sky?  Rubbish!
And so on.

There aren't any Einsteins amongst the sceptics, nor any revolutionary
new science in their ideas. Henrik Svensmark likes to claim that his
ideas about cosmic rays represent such a break-through, but in as far
as his daft ideas can be falsified they have been falsified.

That's a risk. Since this involves hard-to-model non-linear effects like
ice-sheets sliding off into the oceans, the IPCC has been reluctant to
try and put number on this kind of risk.

OK, sure, but it's not my point.  My point isn't whether Global Warming
is "true" or not; it's that the issue is beyond the capacity of most
Americans to discuss rationally.

Since the denialist propaganda machine took to filling up US
newspapers with delierately confusing rubbish, the Americans that post
here have become remarkably ill-informed. John Larkin regularly cuts
obvious propaganda from The Register and pastes it here - most
recently one more of Henrik Svenmark's revelations.

<snip>

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[John Fields]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:51:58 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<eacaws@gmail.com> wrote:

On Apr 29, 3:37 pm, Chiron
chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:41:55 -0700,BillSlomanwrote:
On Apr 29, 6:39 am, Chiron
chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]

Speak for yourself. I was exposed to enough of the relevant science in
the course of getting my Ph.D.in physical chemistry to be rguing from
knowledge rather than blind faith.

How nice for you.  Meanwhile, the substance of my statement is not
affected by your erudition.  Almost no one involved in the Global Warming
jihad has any idea of what they're talking about.

You've got no way of finding out. Al Gore may not know too much about
the basic science, but he has access to people who do, and a long
history of being able to take advantage of expert advice.

 I'm referring to
people on *BOTH* sides of the issue; True Believers *AND* Infidels.  I
think you missed that part, the first time around.

A faith proportion of the "infidels" are bought-and-paid for members
of the denialist propaganda machine.

Read "Merchants of Doubt" for a detailed and insightful discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

[quoted text muted]

Almost right. We've been monitoring accurately enough for long enough to
know that the smaller long term trend is persistent and real.

Really?  Where did you learn this (cite or link or something)?

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - amongst other places

http://www.pnas.org/search?fulltext=global+warming&submit=yes

[quoted text muted]

Not true either. It was politicians who set up the IPCC in order to get
access to the best available scientific advice. Now that we've got it,
other politicians want to ignore it, and are paying for a propaganda
campaign to devalue IPCC's advice which is back-handed evidence of their
concern about the truth - you don't need a well- funded propaganda
campaign to minimise the influence of advice based on demonstrable
falsehoods.

Oh, fuck the IPCC.

That would be fairly a stupid waste of resources.

 Politicians don't give a shit about that.

They gave enough of a shit to organise and fund the committee in the
first place.

They're shameless whores.

Some of them are. Quite a few a sufficiently interested in covering
their backs to makes sure that they have access to the best available
- they may go on to ignore it for a while to win a short term
advantage, but most of them have enough sense to want to avoid getting
stuck with predictable problems, and anthropogenic global warming is
definitely a predictable problem.

They want votes, period.  They will deny the results
of the IPCC, if they think they'll get the votes they need.

They'll certainly defer any reaction to the predictions being made by
the IPCC if it's to their short term political advantage. Most of them
are sensible enough not to deny them - few are as idiotic as James
Inhofe.

 They will
support the IPCC, if that's what they think gets the votes.

 Reality has nothing to do with politics.

Don't be silly. Successful politicians are in very close touch with
the reality dictated by the people who vote for them and give them
money. They do tend to be influenced by short term advantage but a
good proportion of them have enough sense not to solve today's problem
in a way that will create a bigger problem tomorrow.

 Oh, did I mention that politicians are
shameless whores?

You did. Some politicians do deserve that description. Others are too
stupid to live - James Inhofe is a prize example - but there are quite
a few politicians around with a sense of responsibility and an eye for
long term advantage. Al Gore took up anthropogenic global warming long
before there was any great chance that it would win him a Nobel Prize.

[quoted text muted]

Actually, it will. There are theoretically possible counter-measures -

No, it won't - not by itself.  Climate is an incredibly complex system.
Twiddling with one parameter isn't necessarily going to have a simple
effect.

sun-shades in orbit or the like - which could counteract the warming,
and natural events - like the Gulf Stream getting turned off, as during
the Younger Dryas - which could slow it down for a while, but the
physics are unambiguous. More CO2 in the atmosphere increases the
greenhouse effect, and that makes the earth's surface warmer.

Yes, the *physics* are unambiguous.  Increased CO2, without any other
changes, will inevitably raise the global temperature as a result of the
greenhouse effect.  However, the "without any other changes" part doesn't
apply.

And what "other changes" did you have in mind. Richard Lindzen's daft
ideas about compensating changes in cloud cover are about as
respectable as that approach gets, and it's still total rubbish.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=983

You're talking about an extremely complex system here, with negative and
positive feedback systems that we simply don't understand adequately.

We don't understand it perfectly, but we do understand it well enough
for most practical purposes. You can't use our imperfect understanding
as an excuse for swallowing denialist propaganda.

There are some indications that positive feedback could occur - release
of methane from thawing permafrost, lowered albedo from less ice and
snow, possibly infrared trapped by clouds, whatever.

The release of methane from thawing permafrost is happening now, and
on a large scale. The reduced albedo of the northern parts of the
northern hemisphere is a large part of what ended the last ice age and
the current reductions in sea ice cover around the Arctic Sea are the
best available explanation of why the Artic currently is warming up
much faster than the rest of the planet.

These aren't positive feedbacks the could occur, they are positive
feedback that are known to be occuring.

All kinds of stuff.

Which you don't know enough about to sort into real as opposed to
potential effects.

And there are some indications that negative feedback occurs - increased
cloud cover reflecting sunlight, I forget what all.

That Lindzen's silly idea, long since exploded.

 I'm not arguing for or against global warming.

You are arguing for not taking it as seriously as we ought, on the
basis that we know less than we actually do.

 I'm simply stating that it's a highly
complicated topic, beyond the ability of the vast majority of Americans
to understand.

Twaddle. The basic idea is simple. The denialist propaganda machine
sets out to confuse the unsophisticated reader with misleading claims
about the complexity of the subject, where well-understood facts are
confused with long-exploded hypotheses. The technique was developed to
protect the tobacco industry from the scientific revelations about the
damage that smoking did to your lungs and the same evil crew who
peddled those lies is now peddling a new set of lies about
anthropogenic global warming.

[quoted text muted]

Only if you increased the atmospheric concentration  of some other
greenhouse gas - methane for example - at the same time.

All I'm saying is that CO2, all by itself, isn't the answer.

It's close enough to an answer that if we dealt with it we wouldn't
have to worthy about dealing with anything else.

 It's a part of a much more complicated problem.

True but irrelevant.

 Global warming isn't some simple
thing that all we have to do is reduce CO2 emissions, and it all goes
away.  That's probably a great place to start, but it's not the whole
answer.

It's close enough, and a long way closer to the whole answer than
starting anywhere else.

In fact, last I heard, CH4 was a far more powerful greenhouse gas; and
it's released by our factory farms in huge quantities.

It's certainly a more potent greenhouse gas, but there's a lot less of
it in the atmosphere. It has about a tenth of the effect of the CO2 in
the atmosphere. It degrades to CO2 with a half-time of about 8.4
years, whereas CO2 that gets into the atmso[here sticks around for
some 800 years before it gets trapped as carbonate rock.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

 So an argument
could be made for becoming vegetarians, based on that (I'm not being
sarcastic here).

Just ignorant and unrealistic.

 Eliminating factory farming might be an important way
of reducing the greenhouse effect.

It would help. In terms of bang for the buck, reducing methane
emissions is a cheaper way of reducing anthropogenic global warming
than reducing CO2 emissions, but runs into diminishing returns a lot
earlier. The best it can do for us is to give us a bit more time to
build the solar powered power stations that will allow us to stop
burning so much fossil carbon to generate power.


[quoted text muted]

It's not simplistic - though concentrating on CO2 to the exclusion of
other greenhouse gases would be a dangerous over-simplification - and it

That's what I'm fucking saying.  People are going around claiming that
all we have to do is turn off the CO2, and we'll make it all better.  Not
true.  It's just a beginning.  It's not enough.

On the contrary. If we did turn off the CO2 we would have solved the
problem. It's not the cheapest nor the most optimal approach, but a
gigantic reduction in our CO2 output is an unaviodable part of any
long term solution.

isn't useless. If we could act on the basis of the knowledge we have now
we could rework our energy economy to rely on renewable energy sources -

If, if, if.  But we aren't going to do that, because no one understands a
fucking thing about Global Warming except you, and no one's listening to
you.

Don't be silly.

 The public "debate" centers around faith, not reason, and certainly
not science (again, I'm talking about *both* sides, for and against).

The denialist propaganda machine wants to frame the debate in these
kinds of terms, but they know perfectly well that there are enough
educated citizens around that this is strictly a holding action. The
real debate centres around the science, which is unambiguous - and if
you think differently, you need to get educated.

which we are going to have to do eventually, since there's a strictly
finite amount of fossil carbon left in the ground for us to dig up. It
would slow down our economic growth rate, but only for a few years, and
nowhere near as much a the consequences of unrestrained anthropogenic
global warming - have you ever thought about the economic consequences
of a six metre sea level rise?

Have you ever seen any peer-reviewed publications that claim there will
be a six-meter rise in sea level?  It's not there.  One set of islands
where the sea level supposedly had risen, turned out to be sinking
instead.

Hmm... are you in the Netherlands?  If so, I can see why you'd be
particularly concerned.  You're already way below sea level.

I'm not. My suburb of Nijmegen is more than 6 metres about NAP, which
is to say current sea level - Nijmegen (like Arnhem) grew up on a
terminal morraine laid down during the last ice when the Rhine was a
glacier.

 Add another six meters and you'd have more problems.  But I don't think any climate
scientist is claiming a rise of six meters.  If I'm wrong - again - could
you point me to a cite?

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise

It isn't going to happen before 2100 (unless the the Greenland ice
sheet slides off a lot faster than currently expected, which could
happen).

But not - with the exception of extra ice-and-snow cover in the northern
parts of the northern hemisphere - enough to make the kind of difference
we've seen since the industrial revolution. We've raised the atmospheric
CO2 level from about 260ppm before 1750 to it's current 392ppm. More
than half of that rise has taken place since we started monitoring
atmospheric CO2 levels some fifty-odd years ago.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

[quoted text muted]

About ten of them in the top 300. Political and religious convictions
can make it difficult for even a top scientist to accept what the
evidence is saying.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that any of these skeptics are
motivated by religious or political views?  Or was that just an ad
hominem attack against people who disagree with you?

John Christy and Roy Spenser are both born-again Christians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Christy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_%28scientist%29

They presumably believe that god wouldn't be so mean as stop people
making money by digging up fossil carbon.

When I said these people were respected skeptics, I meant that they
weren't seen as fringe scientists, voices crying in the wilderness.  They
simply had doubts about the meaning of the evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

talks about the way political conviction has persuaded a number of
eminent physicists to ignore the scientific evidence or global warming,
the destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain and the dangers of
smoking.

Right.  It's the golden rule.  Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
Scientists have to eat; scientists can be bigoted or fanatical or just
plain wrong.  Happens all the time.  But just because some scientists
don't agree with you, or disagree with the consensus of their peers,
doesn't make them wrong, stupid, crazy, religious, or otherwise faulty.

Those two are certainly religious, and they were unfortunately slow in
correcting the errors in the data that they were collecting and
presenting.

Stephen Jay Gould's book "The mismeasure of man" talks about the way
even good scientists can be uncritical about data that happens to fit
their preconceptions.

[quoted text muted]

They are respected for good work they've done, but their wrong-headed
ideas about global warming - which tend to be based on political or
religious convictions, sometimes aided by a little greed - haven't
improved their standing in the scientific community.

Or maybe their peers understand that they have reasonable doubts about
the evidence.

If the doubts were reasonable they would be more widely shared. 97%
agreement doesn't say anything good about the 3% with different ideas.
Einstein's opinions were not widely shared when he started his career,
but we aren't talking about any Einsteins here.

 Again - the fact that these guys are in the minority, and
they disagree with you, doesn't necessarily make them wrong or in any way
less scientists than their peers.

But that's the way you bet... The sceptics have been around for long
enough that if they had any convincing basis for their scepticism we'd
have heard about it

 I personally feel they *are* wrong -
but who the hell am I?  I'm not a climate scientist; I can't judge whose
evidence is better, or whose conclusions are better.

[quoted text muted]

There was a survey published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science that put the majority at 97% in the top 300 climate
scientist. The proportion in the thousand-odd climate scientists
surveyed was lower, but not much lower.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.full

I believe that's accurate.  About ten guys total, if memory serves.
However, science is not a democracy.  You don't get to vote on what's
true.  History is filled with examples of the majority being wrong.
Continental drift?  Nonsense!  Stones falling from the sky?  Rubbish!
And so on.

There aren't any Einsteins amongst the sceptics, nor any revolutionary
new science in their ideas. Henrik Svensmark likes to claim that his
ideas about cosmic rays represent such a break-through, but in as far
as his daft ideas can be falsified they have been falsified.

[quoted text muted]

That's a risk. Since this involves hard-to-model non-linear effects like
ice-sheets sliding off into the oceans, the IPCC has been reluctant to
try and put number on this kind of risk.

OK, sure, but it's not my point.  My point isn't whether Global Warming
is "true" or not; it's that the issue is beyond the capacity of most
Americans to discuss rationally.

Since the denialist propaganda machine took to filling up US
newspapers with delierately confusing rubbish, the Americans that post
here have become remarkably ill-informed. John Larkin regularly cuts
obvious propaganda from The Register and pastes it here - most
recently one more of Henrik Svenmark's revelations.

snip

---
But, as an antidenialist with no finger in the dike, you peddle
opinions from "experts" as if they were coined by you and, therefore,
infer relevance which doesn't exist.

--
JF

 

[Chiron]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:12:26 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

Chiron wrote:
On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:55:46 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

Our basic standard of living isn't that profligate.


Not if you're an American. However, if you simply compare what we use
and spend, versus what is available to the world, it is utterly
profligate.


I don't like* the algorithm you're using to conclude that. Perhaps it's
just habit, but I've always considered that Americans wanted to sort of
proselytize for "our way of life" and that this was how it *should* be.

People could then pick and choose what they thought worked from it.

*in the sense of "I don't agree with".

I expressed myself poorly. We waste a great deal. It would probably be

a good thing if we could throttle back on our unnecessary greed. The
waste doesn't enhance our quality of life.

Cherry-picking from Charles Murray's recent defense of his book "Coming
Apart", Americans should preach what they practice. Having this standard
of living is an achievement, and we should have some pride in it.

Well, our "standard of living" isn't an objective quantity. It's
subjective. By some measures we're way behind the pack. Our life
expectancy is no longer #1, nor is the quality of our medical care
(despite spending way more on medicine than anyone else). And so on.

But I have *no idea* what it really means to be Indian or Chinese. I'm
pretty sure they'll see it differently.

I'd assume so. At least in India, starvation is a fact of life. In some

areas, you have to kind of step over or walk around the people who are
dying. Even if you've got plenty to eat yourself, that has to leave a
deep impression on you - and instill a great respect for food. Here we
waste food; kids have food fights, throw eggs on Halloween.

I have no doubt that for each point I raise, you will be able to find
some special pleading to refute it. I don't even insist that all my
points are valid.



I'm not playing word-tennis; just musing out loud. Hope that's okay. But
I like dialogue as a way to do that.

No prob.

What I am seeing is a pattern of unsustainable expenditure of money,
resources, energy, all of our resources. It will end. There is no
point in arguing whether it *should* end.


No, I don't see why it *would* end. The stuff at the edges isn't running
out very quickly. We have problems which can only be expressed in
accounting terms but that are caused by people's attitudes. These
problems are "internal" and not caused by shortages of time, materials
or ability. They're essentially behavioral.

I don't follow. I was talking about non-renewable resources of various

kinds, in particular petroleum.

One of those attitudes is to sort of be "guilty" about having a high
standard of living. Well, a high standard of living is more of a
function of people behaving a certain way than anything else.

First of all, I am not talking about "standard of living" but of waste.

I think a higher standard of living is not only desirable, but is
morally justifiable for its own sake. I don't mean 25,000 sq. ft.
houses, 14 SUVs in the garage and other such. I just mean being
basically comfortable, able to do more or less something that's
rewarding and being able to produce.

Yes; but I'm talking about the 25,000 sq. ft. houses, etc. That's the

waste I'm talking about.

I have no problem with seeking a comfortable life. But what we're doing
is actually diminishing our standard of living. We have more "stuff," we
waste more energy, water, money, etc., yet we are less well off than we
were ten or twenty years ago.

At some point, affluence becomes a caricature of itself.

That too...

You can't spend beyond your means, borrowing endlessly. At some point
you have to pay the loans or default on them. You can't continue to
use non-renewable resources of any kind, without eventually using them
up. The question has never been whether we'll reach the end of our
resources, but when it will happen. At some point we'll run out of
petroleum - maybe soon, maybe not for hundreds of years. Whenever it
happens, we're going to be in trouble if it catches us by surprise.


We don't know what any of that really means. Seriously. All we have is a
bucket full of partial theories.

Not true. Whatever resources that exist on earth, if they're non-

renewable, then they're finite. They'll run out eventually. That's what
finite means, and that's not a "theory." It's one of the laws of
thermodynamics (or something). If you keep using something that isn't
getting replaced, eventually you'll use it all up and run out of it. If
you don't have a Plan B about what to do when that happens, you've got a
problem.

The "why" of our obesity? It's eating more than we burn off. The
solution to that isn't simple (solutions tend not to be simple); but
with decreased food available, we are likely to experience some
reduction of the excess. But maybe not - maybe it's some chemical
thing caused by exposure to plastics, or even some subtle chemical we
don't even know about. I just offered this example as a possibility of
how we might benefit if our "standard of living" were to decrease; that
is, if we had less "stuff," fewer toys, had to make what we had count.


There are a lot of Whole Foods markets out there. IMO, food and
entertainment got cross linked... my *base* attitude towards food is
"it's fuel", but sometimes, it's entertainment too....

Not only entertainment, but also emotional comfort, a means of bonding,

sometimes a drug... all kinds of stuff. I'm not too wild about Whole
Foods; they're not so whole, and they're outrageously expensive.

I totally agree with you about our transportation issue. It's massive
and it's killing us. Everyone wants their own car, has to drive to
work, and we cannot maintain that.


I just think that that is the sort of change that will bear the most
fruit. But right now, it's a silly idea because of how the prices work.

I tend to agree. That seems to be our particular blind spot. Somewhere

I saw a quote, supposedly from a Chinese kid, that Americans had two arms
and four wheels.

But everything I said, if I'm right about it, will automatically
correct itself eventually.

I think it will too.

The hope that I have is that we'll be smarter than the cultures on
petri dishes, and take steps to rein in our growth before the
inevitable population collapse. If not, we'll simply have a bubble
that bursts, enormous suffering, and a return to a much more primitive
lifestyle - at least for a while.


I suppose one thing you and I can disagree on is what "growth" means - I
think of it in terms of escalating value. Escalating value may actually
involve *less* - but better - stuff.

ABSOLUTELY! Quality, not just quantity. Thank you for expressing it so

well. That's what I was trying to say, but got bogged down in details.
We've lost sight of the quality of things, in our quest for "stuff."
Fast food, instead of family meals. Houses instead of homes.

We don't need the rest of the world to "catch up" to us. We need to
ease back and move somewhat towards where the rest of the world is -
say, what they're doing in some European countries.

Maybe. I can certainly see that as a back-and-forth - and we should
adopt what works ( assuming we can make it work, too ). I tend to have a
suspicion that Yurps sweep a lot under various rugs...

Yeah, you're probably right about that. It's easy for me to sit here and

see how great Europe looks; but what does it look like from inside? To
know, I'd have to go there and live for a while, see what's really going
on. I'm sure they've got plenty of their own problems.

They manage to have a pretty decent lifestyle without as many excesses
as the US. Maybe they managed to do this because they don't have the
car mentality we have here. It's a thought...


Yeah, but it's not exactly paradise over there, either. I say that
having been exposed to expats.

Right. It's a point I had overlooked.

As for TV - couldn't agree with you more. I gave my TV away in 1979
and haven't watched since, except for occasional major events like the
9/11 atrocity. Too much brainwashing and bullshit for me; so I have to
seek mine out on Usenet. ;-)


There ya go!

Ah, never mind. There's no reason to think I know what I'm talking
about. As some comedian said (one of my favorite sayings): "It's too
bad that all the people who could fix this country are cutting hair and
driving taxis."


But we are what we is.

OK, I've said my piece, and I freely acknowledge that I'm probably as
full of crap as anyone else, if not more so. I'm getting off my
soapbox, and letting others take over...

Nicely done, and thanks for the good words. If you haven't found them,
you might find all the Adam Curtis films interesting. He's not perfect,
but (IMO) he gets a lot right, especially the questions.


They are freely available online.

I'll see if I can check them out. It might be interesting...

But I think really your comment was most helpful, escalating *values* -
quality. Took me all this time to figure it out. Oh, well - better late
than never, hey?

Thanks again.

-B


--
Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world isn't out to get you.

 

[flipper]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 04:53:19 GMT, Chiron
<chiron613.no.spam.@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:31:51 -0500, flipper wrote:

snip

This makes very little sense. A theory is a very humble thing. All it
takes is one demonstrable experiment against it and it vanishes.

It does unless one is so in love with their theory they reject those
'demonstrable' things. In fact, it never even reaches to 'theory'
unless one proposes falsifiable and testable predictions but that
doesn't stop people from claiming their notion is not only a 'theory'
but 'true'. So called "Global Warming," or "Climate Change," is one
example as proponents have never proposed falsifiable predictions and
get quite agitated if you ask them to because, after all, it's 'true',
so there is no need to 'test' it.

What kind of predictions are you asking for,

The same 'kind' required for any science: testable predictions capable
of falsifying the premise.

Flipper, you've got your facts wrong. Climate scientists have made
dozens of predictions.

No, but it does seem that you do not have a good handle on what
constitutes a falsifiable prediction. It must be a new, previously
unobserved, measurable, replicable and repeatable, phenomena that is
inextricably derived from the core premise and for which there are no
alternate means of explanation.

None of your alleged 'predictions' come even remotely close.

Some few have been "confirmed" - or rather, the
observations failed to falsify the theory. Most of the predictions
require decades or centuries to show a result.

The idea of widespread glacier melting, rises in sea level, changes in
weather patterns, etc., are all predictions made by the climate
scientists.

One does not need to bring up 'man' or CO2 to know that 'warm melts
ice' and the same lack of any connection to the premise also applies
to the rest. I.E. The Earth has been both warmer and colder than today
and 'climate' perpetually changes. Your, so called, 'predictions' are
like 'predicting' it will rain during the coming year, well duh, and
then claiming, when there's rain, your 'theory' it's 'caused' by human
Chili farts must be true.

To wit, the current warming trend began around 1850, generally
considered the end of "The Little Ice Age." Temperatures warmed, ice
melted, oceans rose, and 'climate changed' but where were the SUVs?

Of course, we needn't restrict ourselves to 1850 since the Earth has
gone through all manner of small to large 'global warmings' and
'global coolings' throughout it's existence, all without the benefit
of man burning fossil fuels.

You claim that, out of the multitude, 'this time' it's man but merely
observing something similar to what's happened before has nothing to
do with the premise. 'That time' it was natural but 'this time' it
isn't? Really? How do you know that? How do you know the same thing,
or more, or less, wouldn't be happening regardless, especially since
it's happened many times before? How do you know the 'thing' you
picked is actually the cause, especially when the same results have
happened before without it? How do you know your, so called,
'prediction', which is conveniently 'predicting' the same thing you
already see happening, isn't just 'coincidence'.

Just observing a warming doesn't even begin to answer the question.

snip

Climatologists most certainly
make falsifiable predictions...

Name one.

See above.

See above.

Pretty much anything conservatives are screaming about, is a
prediction that climate scientists made about global warming.

That is just factually untrue.

The closest thing that came to a 'prediction' was the climate model's
atmospheric temperature distribution and it's been long enough to test.
But when it turned out observations did not match the models AGW
proponents went on a screaming fit that was *NOT A PREDICTION!!!*

Yes, AGW *proponents* do scream. They are not climate scientists. The
climate scientists don't scream.

That raises the interesting question of just who it is you claim is
the 'author' of the, so called, 'theory', who speaks for it, and who
makes the 'official', so called, 'predictions'.

It must be terribly convenient to pick and chose, after a 'criticism'
of the premise, who to toss under the bus and which 'predictions',
after the results come in, were not really predictions and which were.
Convenient but not science.

I do hope you're not going to point to the East Anglia CRU because
those folks have committed so many anti-science atrocities that I
doubt they even know what the word "science" means.

it's those very predictions
that seem to get some people's panties in a bunch.

Hysterics about what 'might' happen are not predictions, and they'll
tell you so if you bother to ask, nor are they intended to be testable.
You're supposed to scream in terror and do what they want long before
the 'doomsday' scenario that 'might' happen.

Agreed that hysterics are not predictions.

Good. Unfortunately that is 99% of what passes as 'public science'
these days.

You are confusing the claims
made by proponents of AGW, with those made by climate scientists.

See above. I'll entertain your explanation of 'who' you imagine are
the alleged "climate scientists" but the ones who *claim* to be 'the
climate scientists' produce the most vocal hysterics. And it is not
'by accident' nor are they 'misquoted' by the press.

The
climate scientists *did* predict that a rise in global temperature would
cause various climate effects.

Which get's back to "well, duh" and I can't imagine anyone doubting
that the last glaciation "cause(d) various climate effects" or that
the subsequent 'global warming' didn't also have "various climate
effects." Not to mention the ones before that.

Others, non-scientists, took that ball
and ran with it, until you wind up with the Al Gore apocalypse.

It's always been a mystery to me why anyone listens to Al Gore about
anything.

Which, so called, (non) 'prediction' are you favoring this week? That
we'll burn to a crisp or a new ice age gets triggered?


No climate scientist has made any such prediction. What AGW proponents
say cannot be considered a "prediction" since they are not climate
scientists.

Pardon me but now you're showing ignorance. The 'possibility' of
'global warming' triggering a new 'ice age' does come from 'climate
scientists', or at least they claim to be. The conjecture is a
disruption of the Gulf Stream.

Btw, we are *in* an ice age, the Quaternary to be precise. We just,
fortunately, happen to be in an interglacial but, compared to the
geological mean, the earth is damn cold right now.

The only
problem is that you can't get instant results. That's hardly the
climatologists' fault!

Einstein didn't have to create warp drive to test his theory of
relativity but even if, for the sake of argument, we accept your dubious
premise it's irrelevant because science does not provide an 'exclusion'
for 'tough to test'. No falsifiable predictions is not science,
'excuses' notwithstanding, nor does it qualify as a theory.

No, but Einstein was talking about an incredibly simple system, compared
to climate.

I'm not sure Einstein would agree with your assessment of 'complexity'
but, in any case, it doesn't matter because, as already mentioned,
science does not provide for a 'tough to test' exclusion.

I only mention Einstein's Theory of Relativity because it's an example
of good science.

Fortunately for Einstein, he made predictions that were
readily testable. However, even he had to wait for a particular eclipse,
for one crucial test to be made.

It wasn't a matter of 'fortunate', it was a matter of science, and it
only seems 'simple' in hindsight but if Einstein operated the way, so
called, 'climate science' does he'd have been whining about "what do
you expect me to do? Create a 'control universe' to 'test' my theory?"

Climate scientists have already made dozens of predictions;

You have, so far, failed to name a single one.

On the other hand, I have pointed to one that, if it were 'admitted
to', would seem to falsify the conjecture as currently formulated.

some of these
have failed to falsify their theories.

Pardon me but it only takes *one* to falsify a theory and you don't
get to 'discard' the ones that don't work but claim the leftovers
'support' it.

That you want to 'pick and chose' after the fact proves none of them
were 'predictions' to begin with.

Others require much more time to
yield measurable results, as I noted above.

If you say so, that's tough. And also irrelevant.

But yes, they've *already*
made testable predictions that could falsify their theories. Claiming
that they have not, is simply incorrect.

Everything you've provided and said proves the opposite.

Again I say that you are confusing the claims by AGW proponents - non-
scientists - with the predictions made by climate scientists.

Great. I await your coronation of 'who' are your 'climate scientists'.

This is a
mistake. Ignore what the non-scientists claim, and you wind up with some
excellent science. We just don't know where this science is taking us
yet - but that's no fault of the scientists.

I'll agree with "we just don't know" and suppose you're saying anyone
who claims we do is not a "climate scientist."

 

[Bob Masta]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:37:09 GMT, Chiron
<chiron613.no.spam.@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:41:55 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:

Almost right. We've been monitoring accurately enough for long enough to
know that the smaller long term trend is persistent and real.

Really? Where did you learn this (cite or link or something)?

There are good non-specialist science publications that have
been covering this issue from day one, as part of their
normal coverage of all science news. Two of my favorites
are:

Science News <www.sciencenews.org> (bi-weekly)

New Scientist <www.newscientist.com> (weekly)

Both of these do an excellent job of sifting through
specialized science journals and presenting key reports to
the general public. (Well, at least the moderately-literate
public.) Besides translating the techno-jargon, they add
background where needed to put the new reports into
perspective. They seem to set a good balance, neither over
your head nor talking down to you.

Science News is older and more conservative, New Scientist
includes some articles that are a bit more speculative (and
fun). The articles are reports on the science, not opinions
or advocacy... but you already know where to get those!

As always in science, there is no iron-clad gospel of
truth... you have to keep reading and sorting it out for
yourself. But these will give you a good overview of all
kinds of science, including climatology.

You may balk at the prices (though discounts are often
available for new subscribers), but after reading them for a
while you will realize that they are real bargains. And
they are really interesting!

Best regards,


Bob Masta

DAQARTA v6.02
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Sound Level Meter
Frequency Counter, FREE Signal Generator
Pitch Track, Pitch-to-MIDI
Science with your sound card!

 

[Chiron]

On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:48:01 +0000, Bob Masta wrote:

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:37:09 GMT, Chiron
snip

Thanks for the info, Bob. I'll check it out. It's *got* to be better
than the National Enquirer.



--
QOTD:
"He eats like a bird... five times his own weight each day."

 

[Chiron]

On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:42:31 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:

Bill, it is evident that you are not understanding what I'm saying. I
don't know whether this is because you're not getting it, or whether I'm
being unclear. If it's on me, then I apologize; if it's on you, I can of
course do nothing.

But I don't see much point in continuing this exchange, because we are
actually talking about two entirely different subjects.

Be well.

--
You have the power to influence all with whom you come in contact.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Apr 29, 6:39 am, Chiron
<chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:14:29 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Apr 28, 3:05 am, flipper <flip...@fish.net> wrote:
snip

So far, so good.

So called 'Climate Change' operates on the same 'logic' as the crystal
spheres model in that proponents deliberately refuse to make
falsifiable, testable, predictions.

There is where flipper loses it. The basic proposition of anthropogenic
global warming is that an increasing level of CO2 in the atmosphere
increases the average temperature of the earth (as measured at sea
level).

We are busily engaged in testing the hypothesis by continuing to burn
fossil carbon and dump the carbon dioxide produced in the atmosphere,
and monitoring the - rising - average temperature of the earth.

So far, the observed temperature rises are consistent with the
hypothesis. They aren't all that big when compared with the natural
noise sources, but we've been burning fossil carbon for long enough to
have made a significant difference to the temperatures measured at the
surface of the earth. No other explanation fits the data as well. The
rise became significant around 1990, and that's the point where the
scientific community was persuaded.

Flipper is thus some twenty years behind the times.

This whole "Global Warming" thing has become a holy war.  Almost every
layman is arguing from a position of faith, rather than actual
knowledge.  The science is complex, the trends subtle, the short-term
variations enough to swamp smaller long-term trends.  We've chosen a poor
term for the phenomenon, one that adds to the confusion.  Every time we
get a hot summer, the True Believers say, "See, Global Warming is true!"
And every time we get a cold winter, the Infidels say, "See, Global
Warming is false!"  In the meantime we've got politicians getting onto
the bandwagon, either stirring up the Believers or the Infidels in order
to garner votes.  The truth is not a matter of great concern to these
politicians, as usual.

An increase of CO2 does not necessarily cause global warming,

Wrong.

nor will reducing CO2 output necessarily avoid it.

Depends how much you reduce it, and what other greenhouse gases are
being injected into the atmosphere at the time, but reducing CO2
output is nevertheless a very good idea, and if we reduced it enough
we could almost certainly stop anthropogenic global warming in its
tracks.

 That is a simplistic and useless view.

It may be an over-simplified approach, but carrying it through would
produce an extremely useful reduction in rate of global warming.

 There are dozens of known factors affecting climate,
ranging from solar activity (overall activity and various cycles), the
earth's relationship to the sun (distance, angle, etc.), clouds, ice,
pollution, greenhouse gases, water vapour, ocean currents, and on and on
and on.  Each can enhance or reduce the effects of CO2 on global warming.

Water vapour is a much more powerful greenhouse gas that CO2, but its
residence time in the atmosphere is about three weeks - where CO2
hangs around for 800 years. Reduce CO2 levels and you reduce water
vapour levels. The other greenhouse gases are minor players

Ice and snow reflect more solar radiation than bare rock or
vegetation, but you won't get more of either until you manage to
reverse anthropogenic global warming. Everything else is either short
term - like ocean currents - or too small to matter.

The *consensus* among climate scientists is that yes, there is global
warming that is beginning to affect the long-term climate.  Even so,
there are respected sceptics among these scientists, guys who doubt it's
happening.

Nobody serious doubts that it is happening.

The *consensus* among climate scientists is that some part of global
warming is anthropogenic; but again, there are some respected sceptics
among these scientists.

Very few, and they aren't respected for their scepticism, but for
other stuff where they did get it right.

As for what, if anything, we can do about it?  Not such a consensus.  As
far as I know a majority of climate scientists think it might be a good
idea to throttle back on CO2 and CH4 emissions, but I'm not sure it's
that much of a majority.

Then you need to find out a bit more. If you accept the reality of
anthropogenic global warming you automatically accept that we have to
reduce CO2 and methane emissions. Completely eliminating methane
emissions wouldn't solve the problem, but reducing CH4 emissions could
be a cheap way of slowing it down for a few years.

 There is some thinking that we've already
passed a point of no return, or that it's coming up very quickly.  Once
we pass it, positive feedback kicks in and the process takes on a life of
its own that we won't be able to stop.

It's a risk.Nobody has identified any runaway global warming mechanism
that seems to be running away a the moment. Methane release from
methane hydrates around the Arctic Ocean is a potential candidate, but
we aren't yet seeing enough methane coming from there to suggest that
that process is anywhere near running away.

Beyond that, the consensus falters.  Predictions range from the Al Gore
apocalypse

Al Gore isn't predicting an apocalypse, he's just - perfectly
correctly - identifying it as one of the potential risks implicit in
the situation. Al Gore may not know much science, but he is in a
position to get good advice, and he's got a long history of listening
to the right people and understanding what they have been telling him.

to the usual conservative head-in-the-sand attitude of
"nothing's going to happen."  My guess is that like most things, the
truth lies somewhere in between.  Some things will suck, some won't be so
bad, and we'll muddle through somehow.  Just my own wild guess...

Why guess when you could get much better information by reading the
relevant scientific literature?

Unfortunately, most of the people arguing about all this aren't climate
scientists, or scientists of any kind.  In fact, most of the debaters
don't understand the science behind the issues.  They talk about
"believing" in global warming, as though discussing a belief in God.
They're the ones the politicians listen to.

Some politicians. People like James Inhofe listen to peole who are
making lots of money out of extracting fossil carbon and selling it
was fuel.

The sad fact is that the people of the US are incapable of having an
informed discussion about global warming.

Because they haven't been informed. The scientists - fronted by Al
Gore - got off to a good start, but the fossil fuel extraction
industry fired up their misinformation machine, using the techniques
originally perfected by the tobacco industry, and created a whole lot
of totally unjustified doubt about the science. The fossil fuel
extraction industry has won a few more years of maximum profits, and
we've lost a few years of work on reducing CO2 output. Our kids have
lost out big-time.

 We haven't had the training in
critical thinking or basic science required to understand the issues.  We
don't have the tools to take it beyond the level of a holy war, a debate
based on faith.

Sure you have, but the denialist propaganda machine has smashed them,
by subverting the mass media into publishing a lot of deceptive
rubbish, which has diluted the honest science reporting until it has
become pretty much ineffective.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Apr 29, 11:31 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com>
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:51:58 -0700 (PDT),BillSloman

eac...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 29, 3:37 pm, Chiron
chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:41:55 -0700,BillSlomanwrote:
On Apr 29, 6:39 am, Chiron
chiron613.no.sp...@no.spam.please.gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

I believe that's accurate.  About ten guys total, if memory serves.
However, science is not a democracy.  You don't get to vote on what's
true.  History is filled with examples of the majority being wrong.
Continental drift?  Nonsense!  Stones falling from the sky?  Rubbish!
And so on.

There aren't any Einsteins amongst the sceptics, nor any revolutionary
new science in their ideas. Henrik Svensmark likes to claim that his
ideas about cosmic rays represent such a break-through, but in as far
as his daft ideas can be falsified they have been falsified.

[quoted text muted]

That's a risk. Since this involves hard-to-model non-linear effects like
ice-sheets sliding off into the oceans, the IPCC has been reluctant to
try and put number on this kind of risk.

OK, sure, but it's not my point.  My point isn't whether Global Warming
is "true" or not; it's that the issue is beyond the capacity of most
Americans to discuss rationally.

Since the denialist propaganda machine took to filling up US
newspapers with deliberately confusing rubbish, the Americans that post
here have become remarkably ill-informed. John Larkin regularly cuts
obvious propaganda from The Register and pastes it here - most
recently one more of Henrik Svenmark's revelations.

snip

---
But, as an anti-denialist

Aren't we all? Lying to the great American public for money has to be
despicable - unless you are a politician or and advertiser. Nobody
here is a politician, and while John Larkin would like to be an
advertiser he's not quite subtle enough to qualify.

with no finger in the dike, you peddle
opinions from "experts" as if they were coined by you

Scarcely. I cite my sources, posting ISBNs and urls from time to time.

and, therefore, infer relevance which doesn't exist.

That "therefore" is bogus. Back to the night classes on joined-up
logic.

The only "relevance" I infer comes from the fact that I am talking
about the physical facts that determine the surface temperature of the
earth, the planet that most of us happen to live on (even Texans).

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen