Bad news just keeps piling up for climate alarmists

[_Res Ipsa]

Moksha, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution.


CO2 is Not a Pollutant: Debunking a Global-Warming Myth

I guess that means NASA can stop using those pesky CO2 scrubbers in spacecraft....

[_bcspace]

NASA should also use more RTG's and actual nuclear reactors.

[_Tarski]

Moksha, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution.

Brackite,

This tack is sophomoric. Words are multivalent and their meanings are ultimately determined by use and depend on context.
First of all, the meaning of "pollutant" is not simply the same as that of poison.

This seems reasonable to me:
"A pollutant is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effects, or adversely affects the usefulness of a resource."

Cardboard isn't normally considered a poison either but if a beautiful lake or stream were to get filled with soggy McDonalds soft drink cups and paper bags, that would be pollution. And the dying fish aren't comforted by your pointing out that cardboard isn't poison.
Likewise, filling a fishing stream with inapproriate amounts of raw manure, or even bologna sandwiches would be pollution.

In the case of CO2, the consensus is that it (or actually, the disruption of a balance of sequestered to nonsequestered carbon) has a harmful effect on the environment in that the environmental effects threaten human beings.
Now you can't claim that CO2 emissions can't be considered pollution because there is no harm since that just begs the question. The person using the term in that way (Moksha) has accepted the majority scientific opinion about climate change and so the use of the word pollution makes sense.

Now, no one I have ever met thinks that CO2 is a poison in the same way that cyanide is poison. Everyone also knows the role of CO2 in plant metabolism. But once we are speaking from the stance that accepts the dangers of the greenhouse effect and so on, the word can certainly be used.
For example, if you say that pornography is poisoning my mind, I can't counter by accusing you of not knowing what the word poison means. That would be silly.
In fact, maybe I had better point out that poisonousness is not an intrinsic property of a substance. Poisonous to who or what? Poisonous in what quantity? Poisonous when injected in what manner and with what concomitant substances or conditions? In what sense etc.

If I consider the biosphere to be a system roughly analogous to that of an organism that can be thrown off balance in a catastrophic way by greenhouse gases, then it is surely not a semantic error on my part to opine about poisoning the environment.

I also wonder why it does not embarrass you to appeal to outlier scientific opinions (like one in 10 thousand) posted on a rightwing blog and treat them as though their word settles an issue against an entire scientific field other than the field of the outlier. (On this point, that guy is a well known nut and his "arguments" in the article are simple minded, uninformed and confused to put it mildly)
Only politics and a foregone premptive conclusion could push someone to do that.
I can more easily find doctors that believe in the healing powers of crystals. I might be able to find a dozen or so that think aids is caused by sin or bad toilet habits. But I wouldn't think of posting articles by them as a way to prove someone wrong. But that's the kind of thing you just did.
*sigh*
Very weird-- but I am getting used to it.

[_Tarski]

quote="Tarski"
Seriously, how can any one person be so clueless about the state of real science?/quote


Which, for years now, you have made painfully and embarrassingly clear you have no real interest in at all.

OK Droopy, I have pretty much had it with your foolishness and your big mouth (a big mouth is basically all you are).
You have just claimed that I have no interest in real science. You have also many times before insulted my reasoning powers, intelligence, scientific knowledge and judgment.

I am designing a rather elaborate but irresistable test and challenge for you. The details are under consideration and open to negociation. While the challenge is not yet official, the following are almost certain to be part of the challenge:

1) There will be a professionally judged series of 3 closed book, on location, examinations on general science, scientific reasoning and scientific statistical analysis. These will be followed by examinations designed to test each of our ability to understand and analyze scientific papers on the subject of climate science. There will be no time pressure, but also no internet access, no cells phones or other references—especially no damned thesaurus.

2) The loser will pay for the cost of employing 3 judges. The loser will pay airfare for both parties to a neutral location where judges can be easily found each holding doctorates in a physical science (I am even thinking of asking BYU professors if you think they would be less biased). The loser will in addition pay the winner at least $500 US dollars, issue a public apology in their own name (in real life name) and finally pay for a nice party for up to 20 message board folks after the decision.

3) This will involve me giving up my anonymity here and making the whole thing a spectacle for everyone's amusement. (How cool for you if I lost hey!)

4) The loser must promise to refrain from pontificating online regarding any subject related to science or national science policy issues for a minumum of 3 years (during which time the loser may wish to study while eating humble pie for nutrition)

An addition possibility would be a fully proctored standardized IQ examination.
Obviously, there are details to be negotiated but if I exhibit even a tenth of the intellectual incompetence that you accuse me of, then surely you will win. So, one wonders why you would refuse.
Oh, and I know what you look like and your real name so don't even think about sending a ringer in your place.

You may suggest solutions to logistical problems and start unloading your inevitable suspicions about the ways in which I might rig things and so on ASAP.

How about it?

Oh, and by the way, I think a more relevant challenge/wager might involve you and Gadianton on the topic of economics or philosophy. Yeah, that would be even better. I wonder if he would be up for it.

[_Droopy]

quote="Tarski"
Seriously, how can any one person be so clueless about the state of real science?/quote


Which, for years now, you have made painfully and embarrassingly clear you have no real interest in at all.

OK Droopy, I have pretty much had it with your foolishness and your big mouth (a big mouth is basically all you are).
You have just claimed that I have no interest in real science. You have also many times before insulted my reasoning powers, intelligence, scientific knowledge and judgment.

I am designing a rather elaborate but irresistable test and challenge for you. The details are under consideration and open to negociation. While the challenge is not yet official, the following are almost certain to be part of the challenge:

1) There will be a professionally judged series of 3 closed book, on location, examinations on general science, scientific reasoning and scientific statistical analysis. These will be followed by examinations designed to test each of our ability to understand and analyze scientific papers on the subject of climate science. There will be no time pressure, but also no internet access, no cells phones or other references—especially no f*****g thesaurus.

2) The loser will pay for the cost of employing 3 judges. The loser will pay airfare for both parties to a neutral location where judges can be easily found each holding doctorates in a physical science (I am even thinking of asking BYU professors if you think they would be less biased). The loser will in addition pay the winner at least $500 US dollars, issue a public apology in their own name (in real life name) and finally pay for a nice party for up to 20 message board folks after the decision.

3) This will involve me giving up my anonymity here and making the whole thing a spectacle for everyone's amusement. (How cool for you if I lost hey!)

4) The loser must promise to refrain from pontificating online regarding any subject related to science or national science policy issues for a minumum of 3 years (during which time the loser may wish to study while eating humble pie for nutrition)

An addition possibility would be a fully proctored standardized IQ examination.
Obviously, there are details to be negotiated but if I exhibit even a tenth of the intellectual incompetence that you accuse me of, then surely you will win. So, one wonders why you would refuse.
Oh, and I know what you look like and your real name so don't even think about sending a ringer in your place.

You may suggest solutions to logistical problems and start unloading your inevitable suspicions about the ways in which I might rig things and so on ASAP.

How about it?

Oh, and by the way, I think a more relevant challenge/wager might involve you and Gadianton on the topic of economics or philosophy. Yeah, that would be even better. I wonder if he would be up for it.

It would be far easier, and far less expensive for everybody if you would just admit that you believe in and support DAGW/CAGW not because of any empirical, observational support for it but because it seamlessly integrates with your preexisting ideological commitments and worldview and because giving it up, even under the pressure, as is the present case, of a complete lack of empirical evidence for the theory and overwhelming counter-evidence from a variety of earth sciences, would involve also giving up the most powerful and effective intellectual weapon against capitalism, property rights and individual liberty (the real enemies against which the environmental movement struggles so desperately) the Left has ever wielded in the arena of political struggle.

You could just be intellectually honest and admit that DAGW is not now and never was about science, scientific evidence, or legitimate scientific knowledge, but has always been about ideology, power, and money, and was never conceived by those who conceived and framed it as anything other than this.

You could just admit what countless other highly educated, intelligent, knowledgeable people across the globe know for themselves by a concerted study of the evidence across scientific, economic, political, and philosophical dimensions: that DAGW/CAGW is a Lysenkoist fraud of astounding proportions that has corrupted science, poisoned the peer review process within "climate science," defrauded the public of vast oceans of financial resources, created a gigantic crony capitalist faux business sector (the "green" technology sector) composed of rent-seekers dependent upon taxpayer subsidy for the viability of their industries, and encouraged among ensconced political classes and bureaucratic agencies throughout the West the serious contemplation and pursuing of fantastic quasi-totalitarian fantasies of control and regulation of virtually all aspects of human existence which threatens, not only the most basic liberties, freedoms, and foundations of individual human self-determination but severe diminution of living standards across the Western world and the foreclosure of economic growth and rising living standards in the Third World.

Just "come clean," Tarski. That's all we ask of such as yourself.

[_Tarski]

It would be far easier, and far less expensive for everybody if you would just admit that you believe in and support DAGW/CAGW not because of any empirical, observational support for it but because it seamlessly integrates with your preexisting ideological commitments and worldview and because giving it up, even under the pressure, as is the present case, of a complete lack of empirical evidence for the theory and overwhelming counter-evidence from a variety of earth sciences, would involve also giving up the most powerful and effective intellectual weapon against capitalism, property rights and individual liberty (the real enemies against which the environmental movement struggles so desperately) the Left has ever wielded in the arena of political struggle.

Man, you are dense.
Listen closely:
1) I beleive that the best current data and the best theoretical analysis strongly suggest climate change is real and significantly influenced by human activity.

Wait! Did you manage to simply read that without an immediate knee jerk need to make a stupid comeback? I have simply told you the truth about my state of mind and I am authority on that matter.

2) I believe this because of empirical evidence, because my background gives me perspective on science in general, and also because I personally know and trust a significant cross section of climate scientists who I know to be honest, meticulous, intelligent and showing no trend toward political motivation. A particular irony is that one of these scientists whom I know best happens to be a church going social conservative (explain that!).

3) You are flat wrong about my having an ideological motivation. I am not a socialist and I don't believe that climate science is providing anything that could realistically be leveraged by socialist activists also though some might think so simply because there are always people who believe weird things. In either case, the usefulness of a scientific fact to an ideological movement is irrevelvant to the question of its truth. It is the evidence!

4) You are providing yourself with a grossly distorted view of the situation by your selective reading from blogs and news sources instead of scientific outlets and statements by numerous scientific bodies. It is frankly disturbing to witness. In reality, the consensus in the field remains (and no science is not "done by consensus" --However, a consensus is simply what is reached as the evidences piles up and is significant for that reason.)


5) All scientific knowledge is tentatve, at least in principle. If new evidence did suggest a different picture about global warming, I would accept it and feel nothing but the kind of surprise I would feel if it turned out that AIDS is not afterall caused by the HIV retrovirus.
I would certainly feel no political disorientation or any other such thing. Again, contrary to what you need to believe, my scientific opinion about this is unrelated to my opinions about capitalism.

6) I believe in property rights and personal liberty. The only limits to these are connected with the question of when a persons actions can be reasonably seen to encroach on another person's rights or liberty, or cause harm to other people, or injure or threaten the basic background structures we all need in order that we and our children can continue to pursue our own happiness.
For example, I deny a persons right to cause harm to thier own children (say by failing to provide a reasonable amount of nutrition.
I also deny my neighbors right to empty 40 containers of antifreeze into the stream that runs though both of our properties.

For the record once again:

I believe that our natural biological environment is valuable and delicate in some ways. I appreciate natural beauty and believe our natural environment is part of who we are spiritually. However, I do not worship nature or hold any superstitious notions about "gaia" or any supernatural pagan ideas about nature.

I believe a properly trained adult should have the right to own a reasonable amount of fire arms for a number of purposes including recreation, self defense, hunting or even enacting weird sexual fantasies. You can even dream about shooting down UN heliocopters for all I care. This right should be a extensive as can be safely sustained by our complex modern society.

I believe in the right to collect capital and run a business in order to make a profit. I expect that taxes will need to be payed and they should be as low as possible but not so low that worthy public programs and agencies cannot be financed. The details should and will be fought over and handled in a democratic manner.

You could just be intellectually honest and admit that DAGW is not now and never was about science, scientific evidence, or legitimate scientific knowledge, but has always been about ideology, power, and money, and was never conceived by those who conceived and framed it as anything other than this.

This is flatly false. It is about the evidence and about my personal taste for reality (physical science) as opposed to fantasy (Kolob).

You could just admit what countless other highly educated, intelligent, knowledgeable people across the globe know for themselves by a concerted study of the evidence across scientific, economic, political, and philosophical dimensions
...

snip: Droopy's embarrassingly stereotypical conspiracy thinking
....

What a shocking delusion.


Droopy, Droopy Droopy,
You are wrong. Massively.

Now back to the challenge.

You have asserted and/or implied that my scientific knowledge base, my scientific judgment and intellectual competence regarding science is deficient and by implication inferior to your own since you clearly feel qualified to pontificate on scientific matters.
You are a big mouth and someone needs to call you on it. That someone is me.

So, since you claim to be all about empirical evidence, let us put this to the test in a controlled way.

Take my challenge!
How does the begining of June sound? How about U of U campus? Any suggestions about judges? I have found some standardized GRE style science examinations that we might be able to use. Another possiblity is to draw randomly from a large sample of final examinations from university science courses. Of course, the main part will be the challenge to analyze technical papers on climate science.

We need to get this thing organized so you can prove yourself and prove your insulting assertions about me.

Well?

[_Droopy]

Man, you are dense.
Listen closely:
1) I believe that the best current data and the best theoretical analysis strongly suggest climate change is real and significantly influenced by human activity.

1. This is a scientifically meaningless statement.

2. No serious skeptics of DAGW/CAGW have ever argued that humans do no influence the climate dynamics of earth. Your major problem here is the term "significantly," a claim for which there is not and has never been a shred of empirical evidence and which a substantial quantity of empirical data from the earth sciences has been falsifying for quite some time now.

2) I believe this because of empirical evidence,

Which you may now state.

because my background gives me perspective on science in general, and also because I personally know and trust a significant cross section of climate scientists who I know to be honest, meticulous, intelligent and showing no trend toward political motivation. A particular irony is that one of these scientists whom I know best happens to be a church going social conservative (explain that!).

Nice story, Tarski, but science isn't done either by consensus, anecdote, or character reference.

3) You are flat wrong about my having an ideological motivation. I am not a socialist and I don't believe that climate science is providing anything that could realistically be leveraged by socialist activists also though some might think so simply because there are always people who believe weird things. In either case, the usefulness of a scientific fact to an ideological movement is irrevelvant to the question of its truth. It is the evidence!

The only "evidence" that has ever existed for the theory of CAGW is in computer code. Empirically - actual empirical, experimental, observational field science - the concept has been refuted and discredited for well over a decade.

4) You are providing yourself with a grossly distorted view of the situation by your selective reading from blogs and news sources instead of scientific outlets and statements by numerous scientific bodies.

My criticism of CAGW/DAGW as a scientific matter comes exclusively from competent and distinguished scientists in climatology and its many related disciplines in the earth sciences. Blogs are clearinghouses for information and knowledge, and quite worthy of perusal (and some of them are run by people in specific disciplines much more competent than you to judge the nature of the evidence in the allied climate sciences).

In reality, the consensus in the field remains (and no science is not "done by consensus"

And yet again, after a bevy of denials, you expose and paint yourself once more as an ideologue following and regurgitating a party line. Classic. There never was a "consensus" at all on whether the earth was warming do a dangerous or catastrophic degree due to human generated CO2. There indeed has been a general acceptance of the idea that anthropogenic CO2 is or could be, to some degree, altering the climate of earth, but this has always come with substantial uncertainty and tentativeness regarding the degree and nature of that change.

We now know (and have long known) that it has only been a tiny cabal of ideologically fevered and/or government grant money bought-and-paid-for scientists, first at the IPCC (around 70 or so of the vaunted 2,500 and much less than this who did not have a vested interest in the alarmist interpretation), a small group at the University of East Anglia, the "team" of Michael Mann and his group of merry pranksters at RealClimate, and budding police statist and data fudger, James Hansen, at NASA, that began the global mass hysteria now known as AGW.

Many otherwise competent scientists climbed on the AGW gravy train, some for ideological reasons, but many as the oceans of government grant money for the "correct" scientific studies coming to the "correct" conclusions began to flow and turned into a torrent as the Hockey Team worked behind the scenes to ensure pal review and to establish a working blacklist of skeptical scientists at the major science journals, among them the most prestigious.

All of this is old news.

5) All scientific knowledge is tentatve, at least in principle. If new evidence did suggest a different picture about global warming, I would accept it and feel nothing but the kind of surprise I would feel if it turned out that AIDS is not afterall caused by the HIV retrovirus.
I would certainly feel no political disorientation or any other such thing. Again, contrary to what you need to believe, my scientific opinion about this is unrelated to my opinions about capitalism.

As there is no empirical reason to believe in DAGW, what are you waiting for?

6) I believe in property rights and personal liberty. The only limits to these are connected with the question of when a persons actions can be reasonably seen to encroach on another person's rights or liberty, or cause harm to other people, or injure or threaten the basic background structures we all need in order that we and our children can continue to pursue our own happiness.
For example, I deny a persons right to cause harm to thier own children (say by failing to provide a reasonable amount of nutrition.
I also deny my neighbors right to empty 40 containers of antifreeze into the stream that runs though both of our properties.

Those are nice, broad libertarian-sounding ideas, Tarski. Why haven't you ever actually defended or articulated any of them before?

For the record once again:

I believe that our natural biological environment is valuable and delicate in some ways. I appreciate natural beauty and believe our natural environment is part of who we are spiritually. However, I do not worship nature or hold any superstitious notions about "gaia" or any supernatural pagan ideas about nature.

Good for you, but this position is not shared by a substantial number of those in the environmental movement who are the most avid supporters of DAGW, nor the sentiments you expressed regarding freedom and property rights above.

You have asserted and/or implied that my scientific knowledge base, my scientific judgment and intellectual competence regarding science is deficient and by implication inferior to your own since you clearly feel qualified to pontificate on scientific matters.

Based on 99% of what you've ever posted here on any political, economic, or social issue, I assert that you are a leftist for whom DAGW is a sacred cow that cannot be abandoned easily and which holds the promise of wrapping many of the policies you support in the lofty robes of science as, precisely, a fundamental means of circumventing deliberative democratic processes and institutions. This has been attempted many times before, mostly by the social sciences, but now, by elements within the natural and hard sciences for whom money, power, influence, and the idolatry of ideology have overcome intellectual ethics.

[_subgenius]

Bc, did you notice the black line has stayed consistently within the bounds of the other lines?

widening the pavement eventually keeps everyone on the road.
but hey, backpedaling to "close enough" is good too
(obviously you missed the part of the graphic about the big white line)

[_Res Ipsa]

Tarski, I don't know why you waste your time with Droopy. He's the most massive case of projection I've ever seen.

[_Tarski]

1. This is a scientifically meaningless statement.

It is a meaningful statement and you know it since it is exactly what you deny.
And of course, the significance part can be quantitatively fleshed out as well and has been as you well know.

has never been a shred of empirical evidence and which a substantial quantity of empirical data from the earth sciences has been falsifying for quite some time now.

Flatly false. The evidence is based on measurements and the predictions are based on application of the mathematics appropriate to the physical theory exactly as stated by the climate science community. In particular, and your conspiracy theory notwithstanding, the IPCC's annual reports are a summary of several thousand scientists' combined work, detailed research, meticulously argued, evidence-based, published peer-reviewed articles.

Which you may now state.

If I were to state it to a two year old it would do no good. So, as I have suggested elsewhere, your ability to understand the evidence should be established first. Not only that, but you childish notion that the evidence could be meaningfully presented in a message board post shows that you haven't a clue about what good evidence should look like and how much there should be.
To even list the articles that contain the evidence would make this post several pages long. Indeed, the IPCC summaries are already very long. Your denialist fantasy that the IPCC reports are some sort of communist manifestos prevents you from seeing the evidence in much the same way that my mother can't see the evidence for evolution since she thinks the scientific literature on evolution consists of lies inspired by the devil (literally). She also demands a one sentence statement of the evidence. You are both equally silly.

Nice story, Tarski, but science isn't done either by consensus, anecdote, or character reference.

Science is done by observation, reason, experiment and also by debate within the community of experts. I am getting tiered of pointing out that to say that science is not done by consensus does not mean that a consensus is insignificant. Usually, people say that to point out that we don't decide what is true by letting the public vote. Expertise is required and it there that the consensus needs to be achieved.
Consider how it would be if there were never a consensus within the scientific community. Under those circumstances we surely could not say that science progresses or that knowledge accumulates. It would be chaos and not worth doing.

Now when it comes to public policy, consensus in the scientific community matters very much. Consider this example: Imagine that a legislative body is deciding whether to make a certain drug legal. The question of whether the drug causes cancer is raised. Now, what should the legislative body do? Suppose someone suggests that the consensus of experts in the appropriate field should be consulted in order to settle the question for the purposes of the legislation. Now, some Droopy type shouts out "Science is not done by consensus" and I know a guy who thinks the drug is safe and he is a doctor!"
If you can't see how ridiculous that is then you have even worse intellectual issues than I thought.
In short, the consensus reached by the experts in a scientific field is precisely what should be taken into account when non-experts must make a policy decision. This is the way in works in every other area--especially medicine.

The only "evidence" that has ever existed for the theory of CAGW is in computer code. Empirically - actual empirical, experimental, observational field science - the concept has been refuted and discredited for well over a decade.

Once again, you have a 10 year old's idea of what empirical science means.

Please please, I beg you to read what I wrote below carefully and with a tiny bit of humility.

Data by itself is useless and there are no bare facts. The data must be interpreted in light of the our previously developed theoretical base and in light of our developed ability to identify possible confounding factors. The data must undergo strict and often subtle statistical analysis--the kind of analysis that involves statistical concepts much deeper than could be understood by someone who barely knows what a normal distribution is or the meaning of mean and variance (which every adult should have an idea about). We must also take the raw observations and "plug them into" the physically relevant equations. Now here comes the part you don't get: Carrying out those calculations by hand is no different than having a computer carry them out --except that for large complex systems only a computer could finish this century. All applications involve simplifying assumptions (which are varied in many different ways for greater confidence) and numerical methods must be applied (which means for example, that differential equations are replaced by linear systems or convergent approximating procedures. This is the case in all of science and we understand well how to apply these appropriately).
The predicted behavior of the aircraft that you have probably flown on without worry are arrived at by computer models and confidence has to be reached on that basis long before money is irreversibly spent on the manufacturing process. The fact, that we are confident that the aircraft will not suddenly massively fail after a few years is also based on computer analysis and not because we have test flown the jet around for years already. If you really had a problem with computer models, you wouldn't be getting on any planes.

Computer modelling of complex systems is a solid and ubiquitous part of empirical science. Exxon itself makes decisions based on computer models all the time.
Note also, that a computer model is simply a model that must be executed on a computer. Even Maxwell's equations are a mathematical model of one aspect of nature.

There are even purely logical proofs in pure mathematics whose steps must be carried out on a computer. No one claims that they are invalid because the steps weren't carried out by a pencil and a fleshy human brain (basically a computer itself).

It should also be noted that independent computer models that emphasize different aspects relevant climatic processes are giving similar results. Coincidence? How is it rational to ignore that? How responsible would it be to not use our modern vast computer power to make estimates of the behavior of complex systems that matter to us? It would be irrational and criminal to ignore what models based on proven physical theory are telling us.

My criticism of CAGW/DAGW as a scientific matter comes exclusively from competent and distinguished scientists in climatology and its many related disciplines in the earth sciences. Blogs are clearinghouses for information and knowledge, and quite worthy of perusal (and some of them are run by people in specific disciplines much more competent than you to judge the nature of the evidence in the allied climate sciences).

This would be like me saying that my opinion that AID is unrelated to the HIV virus is based on the opinions of distinguished scientist---you see there ARE such distinguished scientists who say that. But I would be a fool to ignore the majority opinion within the relevant field--especially since they have already identified the errors of the rough HIV denialists. It is also the same tack taken by creationists (they also have a list of evolution denying scientists and a couple of them are actually distinguished).

In reality, the consensus in the field remains (and no science is not "done by consensus"

Oh my God!
I have explained this too you many times. Clearly you are so arrogant that you don't think you need to read and think while reading.

Science uses observation, modelling, experiment and reason. A consensus is often reached eventually by those working in the field. The consensus is significant and without it we would be unjustified in claiming that science progresses. We would have nothing to work with and policy makers would have nothing to turn to other than becoming expert scientists themselves in that field and starting over (but of course, action could still not be taken until they reached a consensus).