Atlas members worse than holocaust deniers

[angus]

I'm a Greenpeace member, and I think denying climate change is very, very, veeery dangerous.

Yes, but somehow it strikes me as less dangerous than chaining oneself to giant redwood trees or going out in the open ocean in inflatable rafts to chase oil tankers and sneak aboard them.

[Niemeyerite]

I'm a Greenpeace member, and I think denying climate change is very, very, veeery dangerous.

Yes, but somehow it strikes me as less dangerous than chaining oneself to giant redwood trees or going out in the open ocean in inflatable rafts to chase oil tankers and sneak aboard them.

It isn't.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I'm a Greenpeace member, and I think denying climate change is very, very, veeery dangerous. But I don't think Snowguy is, I'm sure he's reasonable enough not to completely deny it, and, what's more important, I'm sure he realizes we, humans, have something to do with the fact that our wonderful Planet is ill.

Indeed I do very much care about the environment, and I actually worry that focus on climate change is siphoning resources away from other very important, urgent environmental issues.

If you look at the most recent science that estimates the sensitivity of our climate to CO2, they are coming in with lower and lower values.  The IPCC is now the outlier at assuming 3C warming from a doubling of CO2.  A study put out by IPCC scientists in recent days removes the highest numbers from the 95% confidence range and moves the whole range lower with a median sensitivity over the next 50-100 years at 1.3C.

Keep in mind this is from a doubling of CO2 from 280ppm to 560ppm... and as the planet has already warmed 0.6-0.8C, we don't have much more warming to go.

This is assuming this new estimation isn't just a step in the right direction and is actually accurate.  There are also the possibility of negative feedbacks (like clouds, which the IPCC assumes are a net positive feedback.  But clouds can only trap heat already coming from the surface... they generally reflect enough sunlight back into space to cause a net cooling effect.  That is, your night might be a bit warmer due to cloudiness.. but the daytime will be even cooler compared to normal.)

Less than 1C warming in 100 years would not even be a problem.  It would be welcome.  Such gradual warming and so little would allow ecosystems to adapt and would ultimately increase the fertility of the planet.

Furthermore, on top of negative feedbacks... there is the chance that natural variables could exert enough influence to mask such a warming trend anyway.

The sun is going to sleep, and will remain in such a phase for decades to come.  The last two times this has happened, it corresponded with significant global cooling.

Literally no weather event in recent history can be definitively tied to global warming.  You clutch at straws to try and connect them.  Barbara Boxer ranted out a big old load of stupid yesterday, saying global warming would cause it to "snow in some places in the summer time".. that "it was all going to get worse".. .and Senator Whitehouse already tried to tie the tornado in Oklahoma to climate change.

Like I posted in the tornado thread.. this still remains a very quiet year for tornadoes in the U.S.  Was that also due to global warming?  Or does global warming now impact individual tornadoes to such a degree as to make them worse or steer into populated areas?

Much of this is addressing Politicus.. who uses a lot of "will happens" in her posts regarding climate change.. but she presents no evidence.  In fact, the scientists wouldn't agree with her "will happens"... they at the very least would suggest she use less definitive language... saying "could happen" instead.

And she is praised for it with her posts put into the "good post gallery"... because she has the "courage" to come out and predict the future with confidence knowing full well she won't be held accountable when and if it never comes to pass?

Please.

[anvi]

Well, I certainly don't know what's going to happen with the climate in the next hundred years--I'm not even remotely qualified to know.  My understanding of the next IPCC report, based on some reading, is that, while there is greater uncertainty about atmospheric temperature changes projected over the next century, there is fairly strong consensus about causes of warming over the last two hundred years as well as stronger confidence that the Arctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting rapidly, which in turn gives rise to worries about rising sea levels, particularly as it may effect certain regions.  I put a recent Politicus post in the Good Post Gallery because of her suggestion that investing in green technologies would not merely be devastatingly costly, but may present opportunities for growth in new industries and because it might help protect certain vulnerable regions from possible (my emphasis) deleterious effects of climate change.  It's always seemed to me that doing what we can to moderate atmospheric temperatures, despite whatever their other disparate causes may be, and not knowing exactly what the future will hold, would just be plain old-fashioned prudent.  JMO--and in this case I'll be the first to admit that it's not even close to being an expert one.

[Torie]

Is it realistic to believe that any government program within the realm of economic possibility will cause much of a change in the otherwise applicable projections?  What is the evidence for that? And did Politicus document the claim that "investing" in "Green" that will allegedly do the trick per the current Green agenda, will cost anything other than trillions upon trillions of dollars?  Even but one trillion is still real money these days. To me the above is the weakest part of the Green case.

And then when I read Snowguy's stuff, I just have to think that given the current play of the data, and what we know, and don't know, going Green except around the edges to the extent that it is  primarily "fueled" by the global warming specter, just makes no sense at all - particularly when we still have about a billion or two folks on this planet who are desperately poor (this agenda will not be in their economic bests interests at all).  That just seems wrong to me - indeed morally wrong.

[Ban my account ffs!]

The wrangling around "well, I'm certainly no expert" and the ass kissing of climate scientists is ridiculous.

You've written with confidence on myriad issues on this forum.  I doubt you were expertly trained in all of them.

*I'm* not the one making the findings that leads to conclusions of lower climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentration.  Expertly trained scientists are doing that.

I am merely saying I agree with them and I am presenting my own argument based on that science.

Wringing your hands and expecting, at minimum, that somebody put a * next to any post about holy climate change denoting their complete lack of knowledge in the subject period before they go on to say what they mean to say... is ridiculous.

We have plenty of people here who make bold claims on issues they probably aren't qualified to make bold claims on ALL THE TIME.

Why should this issue be the exception?

I'll tell you right now I've read enough of the literature to make the claim that I am more informed on climate change issues than most people.

And in what world is wasting a grand sum of money on inefficient energy sources while holding billions in poverty that much longer "plain old-fashioned prudent"?

Nothing you've said in your paragraph can't be disproven with scientific literature that is new to the debate since the last IPCC report.

"Greenland and Antarctica are rapidly melting"?  According to whom?  The most recent literature suggests that unprecedented (in our records) snowfall increases on Antarctica could mitigate nearly all of the contribution to sea level rise that melting ice is contributing (keep in mind nearly all of the sea level rise in the past 40 years is due to thermal expansion.. not melting ice.  Warmer water takes up more room.  You don't need an expert to figure that one out.)

No.  It is absolutely ridiculous that you'd put her post in the "Good Post Gallery"... why?  Because she wants to wreck economies in order to save us from an imaginary problem?  It's again... ridiculous.

And as far as there being "greater uncertainty".. which is actually just an alarmist confusionist tactic... all the new literature points to less climate sensitivity... but we're too stuck in our ways to accept that outright... so we just increase the uncertainty but still base our alarm stories on the increasingly unlikely worst case scenarios...

I think we're going to find there's more and more uncertainty as the planet continues to behave differently than our models think it should.  If 15 years of no warming is turning potential catastrophic warming into "no big deal".. imagine what 25 years of no warming will do!

I think what is prudent is to end this gigantic, self-perpetuating tangent in science and go back to worrying about actual problems like rising food costs, deforestation, collapsing fisheries, water pollution...

[anvi]

Ok, then.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Ok, then.

I realized how hostile that post was, so I apologize for that.  You are a friendly, agreeable person and I just kinda steamrolled over you.  I hope the view from flat on the pavement isn't too terrible

Please just try to look at it from my perspective.  If climate change were for the most part a non-issue... that it could even be a net benefit... completely rebuilding an economy based on the threat of catastrophic climate change seems, well, wholly imprudent.

I understand the perspective you have.  That the costs aren't necessarily that high (but they are for developing nations)... and the risk is simply too much.

I get that.  In such a case, it would seem like the most prudent decision in the world to make!

But we need to de-politicize this, because that's the only way we can get back to the science.  And only then can we get the answers we need from science to drive an informed policy agenda.

In the meantime, I think we can say more certainly now than in the past 20 years that urgency is maybe not yet needed and we have some time to study the situation more carefully without the influence of politics.

Again, I apologize for being so hostile towards you, Anvi.

[anvi]

No worries, Snowguy.  I really shouldn't talk when I don't know what I'm talking about, so the canvas is an appropriate place for me when I do.

I really should learn more about this issue, in any case, so if you can point me to some good reading on it, I'd appreciate it.

[Ban my account ffs!]

No worries, Snowguy.  I really shouldn't talk when I don't know what I'm talking about, so the canvas is an appropriate place for me when I do.

I really should learn more about this issue, in any case, so if you can point me to some good reading on it, I'd appreciate it.

Judith Curry puts together a nice blog.

http://judithcurry.com/