Freeman Dyson On Why He's A Climate Change Skeptic
While a girl in my French class who earns her living arranging flowers for rich people told me she knows there's global warming, and knows it's caused by people, and knows it will be the ruin of the planet in short order unless we substantially change business and our lives and spend trillions stopping it...well, I know that I don't have a physics background, and that climatology is a complex science I don't understand, which is why I never blog on global warming/climate change.
I'm still not going to blog on it (I didn't go to bed last night a climatology idiot and wake up a climatology genius this morning), but I think this Q and A between Steve Connor and Freeman Dyson in the Telegraph is worth reading. An excerpt from Dyson's responses:
First, the computer models are very good at solving the equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world. The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly. Second, we do not know whether the recent changes in climate are on balance doing more harm than good. The strongest warming is in cold places like Greenland. More people die from cold in winter than die from heat in summer. Third, there are many other causes of climate change besides human activities, as we know from studying the past. Fourth, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly coupled with other carbon reservoirs in the biosphere, vegetation and top-soil, which are as large or larger. It is misleading to consider only the atmosphere and ocean, as the climate models do, and ignore the other reservoirs. Fifth, the biological effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are beneficial, both to food crops and to natural vegetation. The biological effects are better known and probably more important than the climatic effects. Sixth, summing up the other five reasons, the climate of the earth is an immensely complicated system and nobody is close to understanding it....I am saying that all predictions concerning climate are highly uncertain. On the other hand, the remedies proposed by the experts are enormously costly and damaging, especially to China and other developing countries. On a smaller scale, we have seen great harm done to poor people around the world by the conversion of maize from a food crop to an energy crop. This harm resulted directly from the political alliance between American farmers and global-warming politicians. Unfortunately the global warming hysteria, as I see it, is driven by politics more than by science. If it happens that I am wrong and the climate experts are right, it is still true that the remedies are far worse than the disease that they claim to cure.
I'm not a climate scientist, but my wife is. From what she's told me, the first half of the quote is basically an intelligent lay-person's take on the state of climate science, and absolutely does not reflect the actual, up-to-date work that has been done and is being done. Frankly, Freeman Dyson does not know the current state of the science, as everything he mentions has been or is being addressed by actual workers in the field.
The second half, however, is politics, and he's pretty much right. Al Gore admitted that he supported corn-based ethanol in order to win the Iowa caucus, and that was a mistake. There's a semi-underground movement among climate scientists to give up on prevention, and move on to mitigation. I think there's a chance that paying for flooded islands, and relocation of people otherwise affected by change that does happen will be less expensive than shutting down economies to try to prevent it.
Josh at February 27, 2011 12:25 PM
Well, Mr. Feynman is a legend, but don't cite him as definitive. That's the definition of the fallacy, "appeal to authority".
Start at the beginning. Take a look HERE.
Ask yourself some questions.
Where is that energy coming from, and what is it doing?
Do you recognize that this is just a fraction of what is happening globally?
Do you recognize that lighting puts out a lot of energy as heat?
Do you recognize that power generation releases heat into the atmosphere, too?
How much energy can you get from a pound of coal, and how much CO2 does that produce?
Is that more or less than was in the atmosphere before it was burned?
Yes, it is hotter in the city. Yes, there are more cities than there have been. Yes, we are releasing huge amounts of chemicals into the atmosphere.
No, the fact that natural processes emit some of these chemicals, in any quantity, does NOT excuse us.
Here are some suggestions about how to correctly address this issue:
1) Separate government actions from the issues they are supposed to address. As you have seen in the news, government agents do not have the same objectives you do. As an example, I would have you look at the promotion of gasohol. That cost you AND the environment in order to pay lobbyists who were merely effective in pointing out enough benefits for the right people to get legislation. But that did not invalidate the need for cleaner-burning fuel. A failure to address the problem correctly does not make the problem go away!
2) Distinguish between editorial content and information. This is something most people don't do. It doesn't matter if you're listening to Rush or the President - when they speak, they slant things. Yes, they do.
3) Recognize your own blind spots. Here's a GREAT example: When you read an article in the newspaper about your profession, you can see in detail how grossly wrong they are. Then, incredibly, you'll move on to the very next article on the same page and think THAT one is CORRECT! Are you nuts?
4) Quit using fallacious arguments. Yes, you (plural) often use them - you are not exempt. The pre-eminent fallacy used is "Appeal to Authority" - the idea that someone or some group is correct because of who they are. No. That's not true. An expert is NOT correct because of who she is, but because her job puts her in a position to study the issue. That allows the collection of evidence and general support for the issue. It is the support, not the identity of the affiant, that determines the validity of any assertion.
If that support is not present, you have to go find it. That's all. It doesn't take an expert to look at the picture of the Nile from space, which clearly shows the release of energy into the environment. It doesn't take an expert to note that it is warmer in the city.
It doesn't require any expertise whatsoever, just some thought, to note that whether energy is extracted from fossil fuel or radioactive isotopes, that is a TEMPORARY arrangement which cannot be sustained. Yet we think someone who cannot figure out how to eat healthy foods or handle their own money knows what to do about this?
However, it appears that it does require an attitude that learning about the issue, even for the whiz Feynman, should precede comment!
Radwaste at February 27, 2011 2:48 PM
In reading such comments such as Dyson's, it's good to keep some facts in mind:
- CO2 molecules have been repeatibly found to be responsive to some wavelengths of infrared radiation (IR) - which objects on earth continually emit.
- Data collected by a U.S. government lab atop Mauna Loa in Hawaii since the late 1950s has shown a strong upward trend in the concentration of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere (although its concentration swings about 5 ppm around an average drawn over time.)
- An analysis of satellite observations has revealed that the amount of IR radiated back into space has decreased over time, thus doing a lot to explain earth's warmup.
It's for reasons like this that I link global warming to the rising concentration of CO2 in earth's atmosphere.
But that won't stop a lot of people (like the sorts who get their "facts" from people like Rush Limbaugh) from believing in worldwide conspiracies of scientists to dupe people.
Iconoclast at February 27, 2011 5:06 PM
I think that the whole story that the global temperature is rising -- much less that any human activity is the cause of it -- is complete and utter bull. I also further claim that even if it is true, which it isn't, there is no justification for anyone to spend a single nickel trying to do anything about it. Here are the reasons why.
About three years ago I put up a comment at Chicagoboyz, which I unfortunately can't find now, containing links to two charts. One was to Dr. John Christy's work on measuring overall global atmospheric temperatures using infrared satellite measurements -- a far more reliable method than surface measurements, and a lot less prone to the data being gamed, as we have seen in the Climategate materials. The other was data from a space experiment called SOLCON, which measures the total energy output from the sun and has been in orbit in various forms since 1989, on board Shuttle, Mir, and ISS.
If you overlay the two charts, they correlate almost perfectly: rises in solar output match rises in global air temperatures, and vice versa. (As I recall there was one glitch in the 1993-94 period; I don't know what caused that, but it was the only place where the two sets of data don't track pretty closely.) So my conclusion is that, at least over the last 20 years, all significant variations in the Earth's atmospheric temperature are likely due to variations in solar flux. Further, the Christy data shows a flat overall trend during this period.
Second, I claim that the Earth has a significant CO2 self-regulating mechanism. No, not plant life. Rainfall. CO2 is highly soluble in water and rainfall absorbs significant amounts. (That is, after all, how a soft drink carbonator works: basically it creates a spray of water inside a tank filled with CO2.) If this didn't exist, Earth's atmospheric concentration of CO2 would probably be too high for animal life to exist, due to releases by volcanoes. (There is far more CO2 tied up in minerals than there is in the atmosphere.)
Third: Historical evidence suggests that a rise in Earth's temperature would, on the whole, be beneficial to humanity. During the Medieval Warm Period (which was certainly not the result of industrial activity), crops grew abundantly in places where crops don't grow well (or at all) now, such as Scandinavia and Greenland. Survival was easier and the human race flourished, resulting in the Renaissance.
And: The desperate measures that the AGW alarmists are taking to try to conceal evidence and use the power of the state against their opponents suggest to me that they know they are lying. If they had solid evidence to back their claims, why not reveal that evidence to the world and let the facts speak for themselves? Instead we get duck 'n cover, and when the data does manage to find its way to the surface, we inevitably find that, surprise surprise, it has been doctored -- and even so, much of the doctored data fails to support the alarmists' claims.
What can we conclude from all this: (1) Global warming isn't happening. (2) There appears to be no correlation between human industrial activity and global temperatures. (3) Even if global warming does happen, the results will almost certainly not be catastrophic, and may very well be beneficial.
Cousin Dave at February 27, 2011 5:06 PM
So, basically, Dave, you state that the combustion of hundreds of millions of tons of coal and oil has no effect.
Maybe you should look at that picture of the Nile Delta at night again, and return to the basics.
And I'm not being an alarmist. Yes, governments seize power as a condition of their existence.
Hmm. Solid evidence? Would you even understand it if it was presented? That's why I used the phrase about healthy eating and understanding money. People just don't bother!
That's not a dig at you, but an expectation that you've looked, but haven't dug far enough. Think of a spectator watching a professional and imagining that they could do that. Watching Jeff Gordon drive doesn't mean you (we) can do that.
Did you notice that you state that we can conclude something - after claiming that professionals have no explanation? Is this proper?
No, it's not. Because if "AGW alarmists" can't provide "solid evidence" for you, well, it wasn't evidence at all. If it was, you could properly explain why and how it was wrong.
I have a helluva time explaining to people that every measurement, of anything, properly includes the explanation of the method of measuement. People want to leave that out. They want to say, "{favorite} said this!" and be done. That's not how you show this!
Did you notice that part of the argument about measuring climate claims that satellite measurements are somehow better - yet there are volumes of claims how changes in gas concentration can't be accurately modeled? Ahem - "temperature" measurement via satellite makes assumptions about IR bandwidth but doesn't establish heat convection and conduction terms. This is central to arguments calling for deviation from black-body radiation terms - in short, how fast the Earth could radiate energy. Shorter still, if you can't decide what the radiative terms should be because your model doesn't map gases right, you can't call the satellite measurement "correct" because that term determines how the satellite measures!
-----
Aside: there are more details to this than I know or can put here, but the passage of SOME heat depends on the temperature of the source, the temperature of the sink and the transfer coefficient. This is complex for an atmosphere because some heat is conducted, the majority is convective, and a big chunk is radiated. Now - why I distrust the idea of betting everything on the satellite (aside from apparently appealing to consequences) is that the atmosphere can impede radiation from the ground, while still conducting and convecting it. I just do cooling towers and waste tank cooling, so I'm not the atmosphere god, but a few paragraphs doesn't prove one method of measurement is a good idea.
-----
Apart from the argument about AGW, conservation is still a good idea. Funny how some people claiming to be "conservative" don't want to do that.
Radwaste at February 27, 2011 6:40 PM
Gee. I have no idea how I confused Freeman Dyson with Richard Feynman. Sorry!
Radwaste at February 27, 2011 7:05 PM
I recall reading an article that showed a coerrelation between the expantion of the domestication of rice and a faster rise into the current interglaical phase than any of the other interglaical phases in the current ice age.
And that is a fact most people forget - we are in an ice age and have been for hunndereds of thousands of years. The last interglaical phase which ended 114,000 yrs ago was warmer that it currently is now. Warm enough apparently for hippos to wallow in the Thames(england for those who didnt know)
Were it not for rice-methane feuled global warming our species might not have survived
lujlp at February 27, 2011 7:13 PM
Rad trips over a common fallacy:
Laymen often wipe out on the big numbers, and vastly overestimate the impact of human actions in relation to the earth's atmosphere.
The total mass of the earth's atmosphere is:
5.1480×1018 kilograms
or 1.135×1019 pounds
In kilograms, that's a 5 with EIGHTEEN zeros after it:
5,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms
Even after 200 years of industrial revolution and thousands of years of human activity, carbon dioxide is measured as PARTS PER MILLION in that atmosphere. It's roughly 1/3 of one percent of the atmosphere (0.0034 or 34 parts PER MILLION).
So any talk about a "layer" of man-made CO2 that "traps" heat is garbage - because there simply isn't enough of it in the atmosphere to do that.
Total human-caused carbon emissions for 2007 were estimated as:
29,321,302,000 kilograms
Let's stack those numbers together to give a sense of relative scale:
5,000,000,000,000,000,000 - total atmosphere
0,003,40,000,000,000,0000 - total CO2
0,000,000,029,321,302,000 - human CO2 for 2007
... even if humans released the same amount of C02 in EVERY YEAR since the industrial revolution that they did in 2007 - and the oceans and forests did not sequester any of that "bad" carbon - we'd still only be responsible for less than 1/5 of the CO2 in the atmosphere.
Which itself is a tiny fraction of the total atmosphere.
Some more numbers:
Oceans, land, and living organisms exchange and sequester carbon.
Carbon content of the oceans:
36,000,000,000,000,000 - 36,000 gigatonnes
Carbon in soil and surface mineral deposits:
27,000,000,000,000,000 - 27 gigatonnes
Carbon in living biomass:
575,000,000,000,000 - 575 gigatonnes
... we humans are pikers when it comes to releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
Scientists are no where near being able to model the details of the carbon cycle, or the complex energy equations of global climate. But it's clear that blaming the changes on human action is a big stretch - simply by looking at the orders of magnitude involved.
Please stop overestimating the scope of human action. The earth is physically much more vast than most of the people making these arguments think.
Data nicely summarized at the following Wikipedia articles:
Atmosphere_of_Earth
Carbon_cycle
List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Ben David at February 28, 2011 6:00 AM
@Iconoclast -
Funny, I had called AGW a fraud before Limbaugh ever laid eyes on it. As soon as I heard it was being promoted by people like Paul Ehrlich, I knew it was made up out of whole cloth as yet another attempt by idiot leftists to impose social control.
These same clowns predicted a coming man-made ice age back in the late 70s. It was a lie then, and its a lie now.
There have been a continuing series of frauds uncovered in the entire AGW "science" so as to make one completely dismiss all the work that has been done.
brian at February 28, 2011 6:15 AM
There is also an interview w/ Greenpeace founder Moore, on why he left the movement, and how AGW has been going on since 1800.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtHZ9lZHW4
biff at February 28, 2011 7:30 AM
I'll start taking Global Warming seriously when Al Gore lives his life like he believes what he's saying. No Gulfstream jets. No SUVs. No entourage. No mansions that burn more electricity in one month than I use in a year.
Yet, for some reason, I'm lectured to about what I use. Curious, that.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 28, 2011 9:15 AM
All other issues aside, the hubris in thinking that we know enough to "solve" global warming is amazing. There is little talk of the unintended consequences of many, if not most, of the proposals.
Joe at February 28, 2011 9:45 AM
Dyson wrote an excellent piece for the New York Review Of Books three years ago that explains his thinking about global warming in detail:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/jun/12/the-question-of-global-warming/
Martin at February 28, 2011 9:54 AM
It's not clear there has been "global warming" in the past century. The use of highly unreliable proxies, poor thermometer placement, bad thermometers and scientists applying adjustments to all of these (and then sometimes losing the original data) makes the temperature record rather poor.
Interestingly, as soon as scientists figured out how to measure parts of the air in the early 19th century, they did so. Their findings: atmospheric CO2 was pretty much the same in the early 1800s as it is now (using the same techniques.) This is the single most damning evidence contraindicating CO2 as a cause of warming (which we know did occur since the minimum in the 17th century [and another in the mid-19th century].)
Another inconvenience is that as some glaciers have receded in the Alps, they've revealed inhabitations. This begs the obvious question: what temperature/climate is normal?
Joe at February 28, 2011 9:55 AM
"I'll start taking Global Warming seriously when Al Gore lives his life like he believes what he's saying."
he does. Think about this now: Why does Al Gore NOT have any solar panels or wind generators on any of his mansions? Because he simply buys the carbon offsets he needs to be carbon neutral, he does not need to spend thousands of dollars needlessly. For a few hundred bucks a year in carbon offsets he can achieve what $500,000 in solar panels would do. That’s why you don’t see any of these things near his properties, and he has a smaller carbon footprint than you or any his tofu eating solar powered neighbors and for 1 /1000th the cost. That’s why I say that once we have Cap&Trade, there will be no need for anyone (or any company) to invest in costly green technology. They will simply spend a few hundred dollars yearly and buy the carbon credits or offsets, done. Gore is no fool. Spending money on solar panels and windmills is for suckers. Ask yourself, which would you do, spend $50,000 for an ugly backyard windmill or $40 for a carbon certificate?..I thought so. You're more like Big Al than you thought.
klem at February 28, 2011 9:57 AM
Al wanted to use your tax $$$ to subsidize ethanol so he can pander to the farmers to get elected.
biff at February 28, 2011 10:05 AM
Pray tell, what the fuck is a "carbon offset" and how does it work?
And don't give me any bullshit about "you wouldn't understand". If you can't explain it in layman's terms, it's bullshit.
"carbon offset"
Sheeesh....
Flynne at February 28, 2011 10:21 AM
The theory behind "carbon credits" is that everyone (business and individual) will be assigned an arbitrary amount of "carbon" they can release into the atmosphere for a certain time period.
Those that will not release their entire quota will be able to "sell" the remainder to other people/companies who are going to go over their quota.
In other words, Algore is betting that enough people will reduce their "carbon footprint" by a sufficient amount that he won't have to.
That's the benefit of being an elite - you don't have to sacrifice. Sacrifice is for the little people.
brian at February 28, 2011 10:28 AM
Interesting that a study done by Hansen, Willis, and Schmidt of NASA using the Argo buoy system about 5 years ago indicates that the oceans are cooling. This pretty much shreds the AGW hypothesis.
AllenS at February 28, 2011 10:29 AM
I'm not a climate scientist, but my wife is. From what she's told me, the first half of the quote is basically an intelligent lay-person's take on the state of climate science, and absolutely does not reflect the actual, up-to-date work that has been done and is being done. Frankly, Freeman Dyson does not know the current state of the science, as everything he mentions has been or is being addressed by actual workers in the field.
I took Dyson's statement to be a recognition of how theoretical modeling really works in science. Yes, theorists can address a certain issue by adding another free parameter to their models but that does not mean that their models are any better at explaining reality. Whenever observations change, modelers tweak a parameter or two and are magically able to make post hoc predictions of observational effects. Truly predictive models that are borne out are much more rare.
As a scientist, I believe in global warming but am skeptical that we have any understanding of how bad the effects will be. When people go to their federal funding agency to get grants, they do not win by proposing that their observations and models show no impact to human life. Excitement wins and scientists are human too.
Astra at February 28, 2011 10:37 AM
yeah, Klem, except for where those "carbon offsets" are, how should we say
IFF AlGee. was actually serious he would use his celebrity cachet to lead by example.
SEE: Ed Begley Jr.
Ultimately it's better not to rashly waste the place we live, BUT, there is no such thing as sustainability. Sustain requires everyone rely on the "law of the jungle" where inputs and outputs are ruthlessly prosecuted by the system. The cute bunny must be eaten by the coyote.
It's OK for animals, but human beings seem to be thinkers, and they will never accept getting into the disintegration machine to keep everything balanced, or getting to LastDay without running.
eventually we'll want to expand outward...
The key question has always been, IFF this AGW exists, what is causing it. What input rides in the hight atmo spewing polutants as it goes... Hundreds of Thousands of Times a day WORLDWIDE.
b-b-b-ut we can't stop air travel.
Oh, you would look into it, if this AGW problem was such a big deal. But then politically connected airlines, and large chunks of the economy would be in peril.
It would be easier to make every consumer wear a hairshirt, after all they are just little people.
It doesn't matter if AGW is real, or it's the sun/earth system or whatever. You will never get a clear answer, because who is studying the problem scientifically? Who is funding daily temperature/chemical content data gethering flights every day, so that we have usable data? Anyone? No, lets wash the corrupt data we have so we can mess with the answer.
SwissArmyD at February 28, 2011 10:47 AM
The theory behind "carbon credits" is that everyone (business and individual) will be assigned an arbitrary amount of "carbon" they can release into the atmosphere for a certain time period.
Those that will not release their entire quota will be able to "sell" the remainder to other people/companies who are going to go over their quota.
In other words, Algore is betting that enough people will reduce their "carbon footprint" by a sufficient amount that he won't have to.
That's the benefit of being an elite - you don't have to sacrifice. Sacrifice is for the little people.
So, in other words, it IS all justa buncha bullshit!
Hah! I thought so.
Flynne at February 28, 2011 10:58 AM
"Excitement wins and scientists are human too."
That's right. I know a scientist who is a vocal climate skeptic, yet he openly admits that in order to secure his research funding he always links his research proposals to climate change. He says he feels guilty for this, but he's a pragmatist, he does whatever is necessary to continue his research. His research is earth science related but it is academic and does not have much in the way of commercial application, so government funding is how he survives. Climate change is his answer to continued research. I wonder how many scientists are out there in a similar situation.
Klem at February 28, 2011 11:08 AM
I wish people understood how science works a little better. It's perhaps the #1 lesson I try to get across to my students.
On the one hand, you have people who think science is equivalent to magic and cannot possibly be understood by anyone outside the clan. This leads them to undervalue scientific results, because if they are the equivalent of magic, then who is to say they are any better than alternative views of the universe?
On the other hand, you get people (the same people, really) who make overwhelming appeals to authority when the issue is one they agree with. In this case, they do not seem to understand that scientific communities operate like all other human communities: there are cliques, there are popular people and popular theories, there is a strong herd instinct, and there is the need to secure funding and accolades from your peers, all of which affect the product. And they absolutely do not understand that all data analysis has inherent uncertainties and that a lot of individual judgment has to go into how to treat those uncertainties.
I think science is the most powerful tool we have to explain the universe but you have to understand how it works.
Astra at February 28, 2011 11:29 AM
Oh by the way, some of you seem to be a bit new to the carbon offset and Cap&trade world. So here's something to help you understand the future better.
The trick about cap&trade is that the public thinks it will be applied only to the big polluters like coal and oil power generation, but these companies simply pass the extra costs on to you the consumer. In effect, Cap&trade on big polluters is really a cap&trade on you. It's a carbon tax and since carbon is used in all goods and services, it is a tax on everything. Over the next several decades, after everyone is accustomed to C&T, eventually we will all be carbon traders with the setting of carbon rationing or personal carbon credits. You'll be issued a carbon trading credit card and you will buy carbon offses like you buy gas; buy the carbon when the price is low, hold off when it's high. Can't you just wait to see your children issued their very own carbon credit card? It's all ready to go. This is the future our President envisions, just think, you voted for him.
Think I'm a ranting lunatic? read here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6167671.stm
http://ponderingir.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/a-carbon-credit-card/
klem at February 28, 2011 11:44 AM
Never let a good crisis go to waste. That's the lefists' motto.
AGW is bullshit, carbon credits are bullshit, and I'd bet real money that the Argo "study" is bullshit too since Hansen's involved.
brian at February 28, 2011 11:58 AM
"Laymen often wipe out on the big numbers, ..."
And so all you do is make an excuse, repeating that no, there is no effect.
Yet it is warmer in the city. The energy release can be seen from orbit.
Really. Is that smart? No.
Radwaste at February 28, 2011 3:12 PM
uh... heat island effect?
And the fact that it can be seen from orbit kinda implies that the energy is LEAVING THE FREAKING ATMOSPHERE.
Which, I mean, it isn't staying here, so it isn't WARMING THE FUCKING GLOBE.
If there were man made global warming, two things would be true -
1) The apparent temperature increase trend would not have flatlined in 1999 while atmospheric CO2 levels continued to increase.
2) There would not be so many incidences throughout recorded history pre industrial revolution that the temperature was subject to wild swings.
Here's the problem with everyone who believes the "global warming" line. First off, the IPCC models are all badly flawed. None of them can reliably predict the past, much less the future. They are all missing critical processes like cloud formation.
Second, the terrestrial measuring stations are a mess. See Watt's Up With That for more.
Third, the solutions offered for this and every other catastrophic man-made weather event is the same: collectivism. Given the Soviet Union's environmental record, why would anyone seriously proffer collectivism in any form as an answer to an environmental problem?
Could there be global climate change? Sure. It would require something with MASSIVE energy output though. Something on the order of our Sun.
brian at February 28, 2011 3:27 PM
Raddy, isn't challenging my credentials nothing more than an appeal to authority? That's pretty much what everyone who criticizes John Christy's work does: "Oh, that redneck from Alabama! He can't possibly actually understand any of this! He's not even working at an Ivy League school!" As for my credentials... actually, I think I'll withhold that information. What I want is for someone to address the substance of what I wrote.
BTW, just because I thing AGW is absolute bullshit doesn't mean that I'm opposed to conservation. There are lots of non-global-warming reasons to engage in reasonable conservation.
Cousin Dave at February 28, 2011 6:17 PM
Oh, and BTW, Al Gore "buys" his carbon offsets from a company that he himself owns. He has become a billionaire from selling carbon offsets.
Cousin Dave at February 28, 2011 6:20 PM
Way back, when Carl Sagan was declaring the impending next ice age was coming -- I was in high school. One of my science teachers required us to do a quarterly paper on a "scientific" subject.
I did four weeks of study on Sagan's (and associated ice age theorists) before I abandoned it as a topic. The reason was that I dug deep enough into his theory and modeling. The whole ice age was predicted on a one inch by one inch square that was 50,000 feet deep. And that was with a simplified computer model.
Other scientists used his model and had the computing power to get it to a 6" x 6" square later on and the model completely collapsed.
Jim P. at February 28, 2011 8:06 PM
Rad:
1) Cities have grown exponentially over the past 2 centuries.
2) Yet they are still a miniscule fraction of the earth's surface, compared with forests and oceans - both of which are major players in the carbon cycle.
Again - it takes time and review of the numbers to internalize the scale at which global weather and carbon cycles are happening.
Ben David at March 1, 2011 12:26 AM
Dear Jim P
I wonder what Carl Sagan's opinion would be today. Would he be a warming alarmist or would he be a AGW skeptic like Dyson, Lindzen and Spencer?
klem at March 1, 2011 8:48 AM
Klem, I believe what Jim P. was talking about was Sagan's work and predictions on "nuclear winter", the supposed Ice Age that would be induced by a nuclear war. Before he died, Sagan repudiated his previous work in that area. I've been looking for a link; so far neither Google nor Bing are coming up with anything. But I'm sure he did. I'll keep looking. I know that Sagan predicted that the Kuwaiti oil wells that Saddam's troops set on fire at the end of the Gulf War would cause a mini-nuclear winter. That of course did not happen, and Sagan was pretty embarrassed about it.
Cousin Dave at March 1, 2011 8:19 PM
CD,
You are right -- things get hazy 20+ years down the road. But regardless -- the whole Anthropomorphic effect on the climate (short of the governments cracking the world into chunks) is always questionable.
Look at the links for anthropomorphic global climate changes.
Then come back and discuss it here.
Jim P. at March 1, 2011 10:56 PM
Hi, Amy. Long time no quip.
I had to chuckle. One column and you got that much response. And, for once, I am not at loggerheads with you, despite continually being pigeonholed as a 'Leftist' in a country that has absolutely no concept of what people mean by that word ; just more DuckSpeak.
I don't claim to expertise either, but I got interested from a political perspective, where b.s. has no end.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2010/03/climate.html
opit at March 3, 2011 4:05 PM
Just keep on repeating "no effect", and you can go do what you want.
And oil will be free.
BTW, the "seen from orbit" retort not only reveals that the laws of thermodynamics aren't known, but the presence of generating plants is being ignored.
Radwaste at March 3, 2011 8:58 PM
Oil will be free? Wahoo! I mean free oil is bad, so lets switch to wind to save the planet.
Here's George Carlins take on saving the planet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
klem at March 4, 2011 5:19 AM
I alla fall jag kommer att prenumerera på ditt flöde och jag hoppas du skriver snart igen!
stödstrumpor at June 2, 2011 2:19 AM
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