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Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012 (Post 1647026)

Oh my god! The evidence you provide is stunning! I'm like, so punked!

I assume you know how to use Google?....

The subject has been studied and debated extensively, is well documented, and thoroghly ignored by the Al Gore Fan Club.

Mike

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS Fowler (Post 1647089)

So a stunning visual that is used to misrepresent facts is good science? or just excellent propaganda?

You're talking through your hat. You claim it misrepresent facts. You don't even know what facts it was claimed to represent.

Have you seen the movie? Or are you afraid of being contaminated?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst (Post 1647716)

It takes an engineer to make a SWAG about an engineering problem. Would you suggest that a chemist should be making architectural decisions?

If only the problem of global warming were as simple as an arithmetic summation! Then even an engineer could solve it!

The problem is a huge manifold. There is no provable, single solution. Instead there are an indeterminate number of cusps, local minima and maxima, any one of which could be mistaken for a final solution. There is no way to prove whether this or that cusp is THE solution set.

There are two broad fronts of attack on the problem. One is largely statistical inference (what does the historical record tell us and can we demonstrate correlations?) and the other is a physical description (what are the various sources and sinks and how do chemistry and physics describe the interactions?). Both approaches are used as inputs for various models of climatic conditions. Several independent models appear to be convergent on some anthropogenic impact on the climate. The majority of scientists who study climate-related functions concur with that convergence.

But there is a great deal of opportunity for unintentional mischief (not to mention intentional!). Probably the worst and most intractable is the phenomenon of group-thinking. In which consensus drowns-out dissent. It happens in science as it does in any human interaction among a large group -- ever worked with a committee that came to a dumb conclusion?

Then there is the problem of model validation. What data does one use to test the model against "real world" circumstances? There are lots of data out there. It is very easy to bias model validation (in a statistical sense --unintentionally) by selecting a biased data source for validation. How does one determine whether one is dealing with a statistically unbiased data set? It is a really difficult problem.

Is the program that runs the model itself reasonable (internally consistent and scientifically appropriate)? How do you tell? This is a constant problem for programmers for which there is no simple test or solution. It becomes intractably difficult as the algorithm complexity increases.

I think there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of the model output at this time. I say this, even though I believe that the models are reasonable and appropriate and consistent with the itty-bitty portion of the planet and short interval of time that I study. I'll be damned if I think it would be reasonable to scale-up my portion of the planet & short time interval to predict global climate shifts.

It is absolutely necessary and proper that people challenge the various climate theories. Put another way, why should we accept a theory -- because a committee of eggheads says we should? Heck no! Let them prove it. That's how the game is played, and it's a good thing.

Bot

"The strength of false ideas. .. the more accepted and widespread a notion, the more fiercely it should be suspected. Beliefs have a dangerous habit of creating their own momentum- the momentum of mere fashion - until any who oppose them become the subject of humorous derision, revilement, or worse...

Readers, guard yourselves, I urge you, against the toxic slumber of unanimity.

Seek instead, that most dazzling of prizes; to see through the delusions of your own time..... You will not fully escape the influence of your own time - that is an impossible hope - but, if you trouble always to find your own thoughts, you may just rise above the fog of its more ludicrous imaginings.

-Matthew Kneale, "Sweet Thames" regarding the 1849 Cholera Epidemic in London.

There were lots of theories behind what caused Cholera in 1849 London until John Snow came along. He was a strong skeptic of the Miasma theory of disease and faced the ridicule for it. That theory is particularly ironic in this discussion, since we're essentially discussing bad air.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012 (Post 1647817)

You're talking through your hat. You claim it misrepresent facts. You don't even know what facts it was claimed to represent.

Have you seen the movie? Or are you afraid of being contaminated?

Have you read the book??

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781596985018&itm=8

Or are you afraid of being contaminated?

Haven't seen that one. I'll look for it.

At any rate, we're going to have to start reducing fossil fuel usagae soon. Digging up every bit of coal in the world would be a disaster. Huge scarring of the earth, monster tailings piles, slurry ponds runoff, increased mercury in the atmosphere, radiation is ash. Good lord, it's a disaster in the making.

Oh but hey, we've got to have night-time ball games.

Take the spots from the apples but leave me the birds and the bees, please.

Don't it always go to show

That you never know what you've got 'til it's gone.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

B

Quote:

Originally Posted by raslaje (Post 1645470)

A commentator on public tv joked that the supreme court voted to take away his Nobel and give it to Bush.

Who said it was a joke?:D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst (Post 1650658)

Sarcastic or otherwise, some serious truth there.

BTW it goes "That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone . .

The cadence is better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012 (Post 1650976)

Sarcastic or otherwise, some serious truth there.

BTW it goes "That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone . .

The cadence is better.

Not sarcastic at all. I think Mitchell caught it perfectly -- we want blemish-free and vermin-free, and disease-free food but we also don't want pesticides all over our food.

With 6 bn people and growing, I doubt we will have the luxury to choose Mitchell's world but for maybe another generation, at most. On our current trajectory we will have to increasingly embrace genetically modified produce and animals and we will have to embrace more and more pesticide and fertilizer use. Or millions, perhaps billions will starve. we have an infinitely growing population on a finite planet.

What we are increasingly faced with is to compromise environmental ethics, or slow the rate of human reproduction, or we will die violently in war or die due to catastrophic, apocolyptic failures in husbanding our resources.

Now B, don't go all negative on us!

Tom W

Quote:

Originally Posted by t walgamuth (Post 1651037)

Now B, don't go all negative on us!

Tom W

Oh, it get's better.

I see the adventure in Iraq as just the latest little scuffle over resource partitioning. It will get far worse.

B

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst (Post 1651066)

Oh, it get's better.

I see the adventure in Iraq as just the latest little scuffle over resource partitioning. It will get far worse.

B

Yes, Iraq is just the opening shot. As Kunstler says "soon we'll all be fighting over the scraps of the twentieth century".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst (Post 1651066)

Oh, it get's better.

I see the adventure in Iraq as just the latest little scuffle over resource partitioning. It will get far worse.

In my darker moments, I lean that direction. As much as I don't like it, it could well be the harbinger.

I consider the biblical line: "and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

And then there's the "In that day, run for the mountains. Don't go back and get your coat, your hat, or your Mercedes," or something like that.

Lao Tzu said "when great armies meet for battle, the wise man runs for the hills." Who knows, was he coward or sage on that one?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012 (Post 1652463)

It could also be a comment on the cowardice of the "wise".

B

I don't think it's that simple. Some clashes of great armies were pretty pointless, IMO. I mean it would be one thing to leave your family helpless in the path of an advancing army but spiriting them up to the hills doesn't sound too whack.