**official** Environmentalists Do The Dumbest Things Thread

[vbnautilus 48]

Just some info, without comment:and this:

I think the problem with ice core temperatures is that they only reflect local conditions and don't necessarily tell us about the global change. If you change the scale you can see this problem. Global temp:Local temp recorded at several arctic stations during similar period:

[LongLiveYorke 38]

The other day, my friend claimed that he was taller than I. So, I showed him a picture of mount everest and said to him, "Look how much variation there is in the Earth. How could I possibly compare our heights when the world we live in varies in heights by miles and miles."

[Balloon guy 158]

The other day, my friend claimed that he was taller than I. So, I showed him a picture of mount everest and said to him, "Look how much variation there is in the Earth. How could I possibly compare our heights when the world we live in varies in heights by miles and miles."

So you use math to compensate for your diminutive size?Do you also drive a big truck?

[hblask 1]

I think the problem with ice core temperatures is that they only reflect local conditions and don't necessarily tell us about the global change.

Is this ice core data from a single location? Or is it averaged from many locations? How does it compare to other methods?

The other day, my friend claimed that he was taller than I. So, I showed him a picture of mount everest and said to him, "Look how much variation there is in the Earth. How could I possibly compare our heights when the world we live in varies in heights by miles and miles."

So you don't think the historical record is relevant to discussions of climate change? That we should just cherry-pick data that looks more dramatic?

[donk4life 34]

It's annoying when people blindly dismiss websites as "having an agenda" and therefore they are automatically as bad or biased as any other site with an agenda.SkepticalScience.com is quite good. It's mainly a FAQ for climate change with links to the supporting science. It's paints a very complete picture and is quite thorough.

I wasn't blindly dismissing it? But using it as your only source may cause a problem given the website's primary objective.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

The other day, my friend claimed that he was taller than I. So, I showed him a picture of mount everest and said to him, "Look how much variation there is in the Earth. How could I possibly compare our heights when the world we live in varies in heights by miles and miles."

So you don't think the historical record is relevant to discussions of climate change? That we should just cherry-pick data that looks more dramatic?

He then said to me, "You don't think our height on the Earth is relevant to the discussion?" I replied, "Well, of course its important in the sense that it determines how high we are away from the center of the Earth, and in a sense that's what we're comparing, but changes in the Earth's height don't prevent us from understanding smaller, more local changes. Therefore, your showing a picture of mount everest, while pretty looking, doesn't count as evidence for or against our height discussion."

[Balloon guy 158]

He then said to me, "You don't think our height on the Earth is relevant to the discussion?" I replied, "Well, of course its important in the sense that it determines how high we are away from the center of the Earth, and in a sense that's what we're comparing, but changes in the Earth's height don't prevent us from understanding smaller, more local changes. Therefore, your showing a picture of mount everest, while pretty looking, doesn't count as evidence for or against our height discussion."

I've had a similar discussion regarding how 'good' a person is compared to another person.

[vbnautilus 48]

Is this ice core data from a single location? Or is it averaged from many locations?

It's all from Antarctica, but I think they have 2 drilling sites. I would assume that ice that old is limited in its geographical distribution.

How does it compare to other methods?

I am not knowledgable enough to make that evaluation.

[Balloon guy 158]

It's all from Antarctica, but I think they have 2 drilling sites. I would assume that ice that old is limited in its geographical distribution.

Cause of the cyclical global warming eras that melted it in other places?

I am not knowledgable enough to make that evaluation.

I should really make this my signature.

[hblask 1]

He then said to me, "You don't think our height on the Earth is relevant to the discussion?" I replied, "Well, of course its important in the sense that it determines how high we are away from the center of the Earth, and in a sense that's what we're comparing, but changes in the Earth's height don't prevent us from understanding smaller, more local changes. Therefore, your showing a picture of mount everest, while pretty looking, doesn't count as evidence for or against our height discussion."

You just evaded the question, really. If the earth goes through regular temperature swings every 100,000 years, and the current swings are well within the range of those swings and within the approximate time span, don't you think that should factor into our science? I have no problem with the claim that human activity has *some* effect on climate. What I have a problem with is the alarmism that claims this is some highly abnormal period in earth's history, with unprecedented temperature swings. Clearly, it is not.What caused the drop after the previous swings? Will those factors affect us again? In 1000 years, will people be cursing us for speeding up the next ice age?The long-term historical record needs to be taken into account if you want to discuss temperature variation honestly. I don't see how you can ignore it.Nobody knows exactly what caused most of those other swings. For all we know, human contribution will not even reach the noise level in that graph, even if we tried. This is an issue that the global-warming scaremongers always seem to ignore -- because the models are not accurate enough.

[SilentSnow 1]

The problem is you're continually using a website whose agenda is to attack skeptics of global warming. Of course the articles in there are going to have selected specific pieces of evidence which best fits their agenda. For every article posted on that website I'm sure there is evidence to counter it. I e-mailed my climatology professor about it last night and he told me to be weary of anything posted on that website, and he's a global-warming believer. I don't doubt Cook is using reputable sources and information, but it's going to be twisted and cherry-picked that you have to take it with a grain of salt. There's viable arguments to counter the CO2 lag behind argument, the CO2 increase arguments, almost any global warming argument there is going to be a counter argument to it, and they're not completely out of line either. Hell, even a simply graph like Henry's could very well counter that we're the main cause of global warming. We just don't have enough recorded data (and I'm not saying paleoclimate data) to accurately predict anything. We may very well be in an anomaly period with rapidly increasing temperatures resulting from some non-anthropogenic fingerprint (although, there was a decade where temperature rises halted while C02 emission continued to increase). It's just hard to discuss other sides to the climate change debate when you're going to reference the one site whose sole purpose is to dispel any skepticism of global warming.

Maybe its sole purpose is to spread the truth about global warming. It's up to the skeptics to provide valid counterarguments. The problem is that skepticalscience presents much stronger arguments than the vast majority of global warming skeptics can refute, so they will try to illegitimately disparage it. Think on the bright side- thanks to skepticalscience it is now easier than ever to refute global warming. Many of the scientific arguments are compiled on one site. Of course, it could be a massive negative if skeptics are actually hiding behind a gish-gallop of distortions. Even if it is "biased", the bottom line is that if you aren't capable of refuting an argument on that site then you have no business having an opinion on global warming. Your only other reasonable option is to accept the opinion of the vast majority of experts.

[SilentSnow 1]

You just evaded the question, really. If the earth goes through regular temperature swings every 100,000 years, and the current swings are well within the range of those swings and within the approximate time span, don't you think that should factor into our science? I have no problem with the claim that human activity has *some* effect on climate. What I have a problem with is the alarmism that claims this is some highly abnormal period in earth's history, with unprecedented temperature swings. Clearly, it is not.What caused the drop after the previous swings? Will those factors affect us again? In 1000 years, will people be cursing us for speeding up the next ice age?The long-term historical record needs to be taken into account if you want to discuss temperature variation honestly. I don't see how you can ignore it.Nobody knows exactly what caused most of those other swings. For all we know, human contribution will not even reach the noise level in that graph, even if we tried. This is an issue that the global-warming scaremongers always seem to ignore -- because the models are not accurate enough.

The problem is not the swing, but the rate of the swing. The earth is warming a hundred times as fast as it would normally. It's the difference between jumping out of a plane with or without a parachute. What caused the drop is that carbon(and methane) gradually gets re-absorbed back out of the atmosphere, allowing the earth to cool again. But this takes a very long time. Climate scientists do not even remotely ignore the long term historical record. They are practically obsessed with it. There is a remote possibility that they are wrong, but right now most evidence points to the swing being a whole lot more than just "noise". I already talked about the model's accuracy in my previous post in this thread- short summary- they are accurate.

[SilentSnow 1]

Is this ice core data from a single location? Or is it averaged from many locations? How does it compare to other methods?

It's averaged from lots of locations. Nearly every method to determine warming is generally in agreement, but the "noise factor" varies from method to method. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core

[hblask 1]

The problem is not the swing, but the rate of the swing. The earth is warming a hundred times as fast as it would normally.

[citation needed] -- and in the context of long-term temperature swings, not the 100 year record.Please point to something that shows that the difference in this latest rise is mathematically significant compared to those spikes from the graph.

[SilentSnow 1]

[citation needed] -- and in the context of long-term temperature swings, not the 100 year record.Please point to something that shows that the difference in this latest rise is mathematically significant compared to those spikes from the graph.

You shouldn't need a citation. Your own hand picked graph shows that the spikes occurred over thousands of years(maybe 10,000 on average?). The current projections are for a similar level of warming over one or two centuries. There is no such thing as mathematical significance for a one-time event. As far as we know this rate of warming is unprecedented.

[hblask 1]

You shouldn't need a citation. Your own hand picked graph shows that the spikes occurred over thousands of years(maybe 10,000 on average?). The current projections are for a similar level of warming over one or two centuries. There is no such thing as mathematical significance for a one-time event. As far as we know this rate of warming is unprecedented.

So the fact that this has happened many times, long before humans, is supposed to indicate that the current spike is human-caused?And, oh, by the way, the theory is unfalsifiable, unable to be verified by silly things like math?I believe human activity has contributed to some of the warming over the last 100 years, but responses like yours is why the complete skeptics are so adamant and persistent.

[SilentSnow 1]

So the fact that this has happened many times, long before humans, is supposed to indicate that the current spike is human-caused?And, oh, by the way, the theory is unfalsifiable, unable to be verified by silly things like math?I believe human activity has contributed to some of the warming over the last 100 years, but responses like yours is why the complete skeptics are so adamant and persistent.

More terrible logic. The fact that the spike doesn't look anything like something natural and that humans are doing things well known to cause climate change is what indicates the spike is human caused. The theory is unquestionably falsifiable. Facts falsify things, not math(assuming your math is right). The typical lack of logic in your post is the real reason they are so adamant and persistent.

[hblask 1]

The fact that the spike doesn't look anything like something natural and that humans are doing things well known to cause climate change is what indicates the spike is human caused.

Climate scientists cry a little every time you defend them. The spike looks exactly like all the others. There is no meaningful visual difference. It is possible there is a mathematical difference, but I have never seen such an explanation. But I don't follow this debate as closely as some people. That's why I asked you if you have seen some actual data that supports that this recent climb is different. Your response -- that it is obviously different -- is silly, because you could put those spikes in any order and the graph would be pretty much the same visually.

The theory is unquestionably falsifiable. Facts falsify things, not math(assuming your math is right).

"Eyeballing a graph" is not scientific or reproducible. Running the underlying data through statistical analysis is. Then we can argue about whether the statistical techniques used were applicable. But yes, if you have a series of data points, and you run a statistical analysis on it that says "this climb has the exact same statistical characteristics as all other climbs", that would falsify the claim that "this climb is unique".Do you believe it is possible to use math to analyze data sets? Yes or no?

[vbnautilus 48]

So the fact that this has happened many times, long before humans, is supposed to indicate that the current spike is human-caused?

I personally don't care too much whether it was human caused. Well, its an interesting scientific question, but doesn't bear too much on the what we should do part (except that understanding how things works can help decide how best to deal with it I guess). But if it's going to get warm enough that there will be negative consequences for us, we should try to mitigate that either way. I don't refrain from using the air conditioning just because the temperature outside is a natural fluctuation vs. a man-made one.

[brvheart 1,752]

I personally don't care too much whether it was human caused. Well, its an interesting scientific question, but doesn't bear too much on the what we should do part (except that understanding how things works can help decide how best to deal with it I guess). But if it's going to get warm enough that there will be negative consequences for us, we should try to mitigate that either way. I don't refrain from using the air conditioning just because the temperature outside is a natural fluctuation vs. a man-made one.

Based on the other global warming thread, I think I remember that I pretty much agree with you on this topic, and I also agree with what you're saying here. The crazy thing seems to be that virtually everyone is in this same boat (except for far leftist crazies, like SS).For instance, take the most conservative far right-wing person you can think of in America today. Is it Rush Limbaugh? Ann Coulter? Pick one. Do they promote destruction of the environment? Do they do oil changes in their driveway and pour the used oil in the backyard? Do they love pollution?It seems to me that this is a purely economic issue. If we don't know for certain that this isn't just cyclical, then why spend 5 trillion on X. It's also REALLLLY hard to swallow the pill of change when all of the most vocal proponents are huge hypocrites that fly in private jets all over the world, and have huge mansions that use more energy in a week than I do in a year.All of this being the case, I absolutely am not opposed to trying to actively protect the environment. I never litter. I don't dump oil in my yard. I very much wish that I could afford to buy a Tesla car, as I'm a huge fan of the idea behind electric vehicles. I also love saving money on gas, and all other things being equal would always choose to buy a vehicle with better gas mileage. Also, I think the government should actively and harshly fine companies that pollute... etc etc.

[El Guapo 8]

That was a great post. I think that brv propbably speaks for the majority of, if not all the so called conservatives on this site with that post.I would like to add two things to it.1.

If we don't know for certain that this isn't just cyclical, then why spend 5 trillion on X.

I'll take it one step further, not only we don't know it's for certain, we also don't know if we spend 5 trillion on X, if it will do anything at all.2. I have said this before, but if I get Solar, which I probably will, I will own a Tesla if I can buy one used. Not sure how many have been produced yet. But they are being made in the Bay Area at the old Toyota/GM/Saturn plant that recently closed.

[BaseJester 1]

I personally don't care too much whether it was human caused. Well, its an interesting scientific question, but doesn't bear too much on the what we should do part (except that understanding how things works can help decide how best to deal with it I guess).

I agree totally.

But if it's going to get warm enough that there will be negative consequences for us, we should try to mitigate that either way. I don't refrain from using the air conditioning just because the temperature outside is a natural fluctuation vs. a man-made one.

Fascinating choice of metaphor.

[BaseJester 1]

Ahhem. I said forces of nature will take care of it.

[ShakeZuma 585]

oh, hahaha, that's awesome

[vbnautilus 48]

Based on the other global warming thread, I think I remember that I pretty much agree with you on this topic, and I also agree with what you're saying here. The crazy thing seems to be that virtually everyone is in this same boat (except for far leftist crazies, like SS).For instance, take the most conservative far right-wing person you can think of in America today. Is it Rush Limbaugh? Ann Coulter? Pick one. Do they promote destruction of the environment? Do they do oil changes in their driveway and pour the used oil in the backyard? Do they love pollution?

Well, no, they don't love pollution, but I think they love business more than pollution regulation. Some of them may even profess a belief about the free market automatically taking care of pollution problems, or whatever, as if their preferred policy is better at protecting the environment. Doesn't mean they are right; its certainly possible that some policies will do better at protecting the environment than others, and it seems to me that people do have different priorities with regards to balancing the rights of businesses with the protection of the environment.

It seems to me that this is a purely economic issue. If we don't know for certain that this isn't just cyclical, then why spend 5 trillion on X.

It's not that simple though. Part of my point was that even if it is cyclical we may still need to do something about it in order to survive. But if there is a 50% chance that we wipe out all of humanity unless we spend a few trillion dollars, should we do it? What about a 1% chance? We are talking about such high stakes that the amount of money involved can take on a different perspective.

It's also REALLLLY hard to swallow the pill of change when all of the most vocal proponents are huge hypocrites that fly in private jets all over the world, and have huge mansions that use more energy in a week than I do in a year.

<Robin Leach voice>On this edition of Lifestyles of the Rich and Scientific we will be visiting climate scientist John Forsythe as he drives to the lab in his luxurious 1997 Volkswagen Beetle. Munching caviar while he crunches data? No, this quirky professor professes to prefer pretzels!</Robin Leach voice>

All of this being the case, I absolutely am not opposed to trying to actively protect the environment. I never litter. I don't dump oil in my yard. I very much wish that I could afford to buy a Tesla car, as I'm a huge fan of the idea behind electric vehicles. I also love saving money on gas, and all other things being equal would always choose to buy a vehicle with better gas mileage. Also, I think the government should actively and harshly fine companies that pollute... etc etc.

agreed

Fascinating choice of metaphor.

haha