Heartland Institute attacks Pope's position on Climate Change

[Poptech]

I've read his paper, and I understand it just fine. The fact that you're already trying to call it 'propaganda' tells me that you're not exactly an impartial source on this matter, as does the fact that you linked such a sloppy and irresponsible paper uncritically.

Clearly not.

1. How many papers are in the climate science literature?

2. How many papers in Cook et al. (2013) quantified AGW as +50% (Humans are the primary cause)?

 

[realibrad]

Consensus on exactly what? Consensus that AGW is warming the planet? Consensus on how much AGW will warm the planet in the next century (1 degree, 5 degrees, 20 degrees)? Consensus on the impact of that warming on the planet (net positive, net negative, net neutral, net catastrophic world ending, etc...)? Consensus on the impact of outlawing fossil fuels (net negative, net neutral, net positive, net catastrophic, etc....)? Etc.....

In the end it really is a silly argument on both sides. Like scientific consensus now is going to determine the weather in 2100. When we are all dead, the world will know if the predictions of these scientists were accurate or if there were serious variables missed that made their predictions garbage. In any event none of us will never know.

We do know that their models missed significantly for the past 25 years. They will obviously make adjustments to their models to account for this previously unknown variable.

I would be pretty interested in the scientific models that prove burning fossil fuels is a net negative to humanity. From a quality of life POV, that clearly seems to be the exact inverse of documented reality. Less starvation, better health care, cleaner water, safer food..... it is world wide phenomenom. In the face of 100 years of catastrophic AGW, humanity has lived far far far better than any society in world history and it just keeps getting better.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37353339&postcount=256

You asked that question before, and I think I may have already explained it.

Physics can tell us that extra carbon dioxide holds in more heat. We can then from there see what would happen with more heat. We know what will happen if the world heats up. The only question you seem to be asking that is valid, is the world actually heating up. The vast majority of data seems to say yes.

 

[fskimospy]

Hand-waving and attempted mind-reading are not valid arguments.

I have supplied specific methodological and statistical errors that he made, which you have attempted to hand wave away:

1. Claims of reviewer fatigue were based on a citation of a study that addressed fatigue of interviewees after being polled several times. The same study actually found increases in interviewer skill over time, which would be the closest approximation to a reviewer in this case. This is something that peer reviewers should have caught, and is a basic error on Tol's part. If you had actually read his paper you would not be arguing that he said this.

2. As already linked to, a statistical analysis of his 'correction' showed that it decreased the percentage of agreement regardless of the data input into it. That is an obvious sign of a flawed metric. In case it isn't obvious to you, it's impossible to show someone else's metric to be wrong if the instrument you're using for it is impossibly flawed itself. This is basic logic.

I strongly suggest you actually go read the analyses of his paper. It was embarrassingly badly written. This is likely why it was repeatedly rejected by several different journals, btw.

Show me an actual published comment and I will provide you with the rebuttal. You appear new to this debate and should have done more homework before entering it.

I already have, as I said in your link he addressed no substantive arguments against his paper, he merely repeated his prior claims. It is abundantly clear to me that you don't understand this topic or the criticisms leveled against his paper. You have not addressed a single one of them other than to unilaterally declare them wrong.

As I said before, if you can link me any rebuttals where he addressed the logical and methodological errors in his paper I would love to read it. I have not seen any, likely because he has no answers for them.

I'll just give you a warning now, you probably shouldn't try and keep telling people that they are new to this topic and don't know as much as you do. From what I've seen of you so far it's going to end badly for you.

 

[fskimospy]

Belief and scientific evidence supporting a claim are two different things. Utilizing impact studies is not scientific evidence in support of the existence of AGW, as it is no better than using an editorial. What is dubious is presenting a study that falsely claims 97% of the climate science literature endorses AGW when in reality you only have 65 papers and the majority 66% held no position.

Interesting, yet you were very impressed at the credentials of Dr. Tol working for the IPCC, despite the fact that he worked on impact studies there. (before quitting partway through)

Regardless, you would not be making this claim if you had read even the abstract of Cook's paper. Silliness.

 

[Poptech]

You might want to mention that he was a coordinating lead author on a section of the IPCC not dealing with the causes of AGW and that he quit without finishing.

Just like the truck loads of impact papers the cartoonist John Cook used in his propaganda study to mislead the public about a so-called "consensus"?

Dr. Tol resigned because the IPCC report was stating propaganda like Cook et al. (2013) did.

UK professor refuses to put his name to 'apocalyptic' UN climate change survey that he claims is exaggerating the effects

A climate scientist has accused the United Nations of being too alarmist over global warming – and demanded his name be removed from a crucial new report. Professor Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex, said fellow UN academics were exaggerating climate change and comparing it to the ‘apocalypse’. [...]

He said: ‘The message in the first draft was that through adaptation and clever development these were manageable risks, but it did require we get our act together.

‘This has completely disappeared from the draft now, which is all about the impacts of climate change and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.’

 

[fskimospy]

Just like the truck loads of impact papers the cartoonist John Cook used in his propaganda study to mislead the public about a so-called "consensus"?

Dr. Tol resigned because the IPCC report was stating propaganda like Cook et al. (2013) did.

UK professor refuses to put his name to 'apocalyptic' UN climate change survey that he claims is exaggerating the effects

You're arguing in circles now. You're the one that seemed to think it was a good credential and now you're trying to dismiss it. Cook's study was looking at the opinion of the scientific community as it related to climate change. It makes perfect sense to include impact studies in it, as those people studying how to lessen mankind's impact clearly accept AGW science.

Dr. Tol having worked for the IPCC in an impact capacity does not give him any special insight over others working in the field and it doesn't make him some authority on the science. It just makes him another researcher working in the AGW field like anyone else.

EDIT: Also, repeatedly attempting to smear Cook by calling him a propagandist just shows how unhinged you are.

 

[Poptech]

I have supplied specific methodological and statistical errors that he made, which you have attempted to hand wave away:

Incorrect, you claimed them to be methodological and statistical errors but failed to show that.

1. Claims of reviewer fatigue were based on a citation of a study that addressed fatigue of interviewees after being polled several times. The same study actually found increases in interviewer skill over time, which would be the closest approximation to a reviewer in this case. This is something that peer reviewers should have caught, and is a basic error on Tol's part. If you had actually read his paper you would not be arguing that he said this.

This is mind-reading as you are attempting to claim why he cited a paper. Quote where he makes any such claim.

2. As already linked to, a statistical analysis of his 'correction' showed that it decreased the percentage of agreement regardless of the data input into it.

The link was broken.

I strongly suggest you actually go read the analyses of his paper. It was embarrassingly badly written. This is likely why it was repeatedly rejected by several different journals, btw.

Incorrect, you appear to have no knowledge of this issue.

"My comment on Cook's consensus paper has at last been accepted. It was rejected by three journals -- twice by Environmental Research Letters and once by two other journals for being out of scope."

None of them were because it was badly written. Why did you lie?

I already have, as I said in your link he addressed no substantive arguments against his paper, he merely repeated his prior claims. It is abundantly clear to me that you don't understand this topic or the criticisms leveled against his paper. You have not addressed a single one of them other than to unilaterally declare them wrong.

You repeating a false statement does not make it true. More hand-waving, as I have addressed each one.

As I said before, if you can link me any rebuttals where he addressed the logical and methodological errors in his paper I would love to read it. I have not seen any, likely because he has no answers for them.

He has addressed every one, the fact that you are unaware of them speaks volumes to your limited knowledge of this issue.

I'll just give you a warning now, you probably shouldn't try and keep telling people that they are new to this topic and don't know as much as you do. From what I've seen of you so far it's going to end badly for you.

You clearly have no knowledge of this topic outside of what you turn up in Google search. I am glad I am here to give you a proper education on this subject.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Interesting, their presidential nominee's campaign platform included a cap and trade provision but I guess Republicans didn't really support that.

So wait, are you trying to argue that although Republicans supported cap and trade regulations for a bunch of other pollutants relating to energy production that it only becomes unworkable when applied to CO2? Spin us some more, haha.

Romney was against CO2 cap & trade during his presidential run and there was never any broad Republican support for CO2 cap & trade. Now you're trying to move the goal posts as if we were talking about the concept of cap and trade in general...we weren't, we were specifically talking about CO2. You're the one spinning here...not me.

So let me get this straight, if I say I want to spend $100 last year on something and then say I want to spend $110 on it this year, you take that to mean that I've reduced my support for it.

Now that's some impressive math right there.

When you asked for $100 and were given $112 last year, but want to only spend $110 the coming year...that's a REDUCTION in real spending! I'm getting dizzy watching your mental gymnastics...it smells of desperation. Face it, Obama is lukewarm at best regarding nuclear. I'm really starting to worry about you.

 

[Poptech]

EDIT: Also, repeatedly attempting to smear Cook by calling him a propagandist just shows how unhinged you are.

My apologies Cook is a cartoonist and a propagandist. I always forget to include his occupation he held for over a decade.

 

[bshole]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37353339&postcount=256

You asked that question before, and I think I may have already explained it.

Physics can tell us that extra carbon dioxide holds in more heat. We can then from there see what would happen with more heat. We know what will happen if the world heats up. The only question you seem to be asking that is valid, is the world actually heating up. The vast majority of data seems to say yes.

The earth is heating up. There is no doubt about it. The data shows that. I do not deny that in the least. The weather is changing now and will continue to change until the sun dies.

The more important question to me is whether carbon fuels are a net positive or a net negative. My premise is that they are an overwhelming net positive. We would have stopped innovation in the 18th century without fossil fuels. They facillitate every single thing in our lives (ease of transportation, cheap food, clean water, computers, light bulbs, etc...). Think about it. So that is what fossil fuels have given us. They have made man nearly impervious to weather variability. While weather used to kill on a mass scale (millions), that is now in our distant past due to fossil fuels. So I look at bigger picture of what fossil fuels have given us and quite frankly I cannot conceive of global warming every causing a problem that our technology does not kick the ever living shit out of. It is beyond my experience and comprehension. It is a fairy tale in my world.

 

[fskimospy]

Romney was against CO2 cap & trade during his presidential run and there was never any broad Republican support for CO2 cap & trade. Now your trying to move the goal posts as if were we talking about the concept of cap and trade in general...we weren't, we were specifically talking about CO2. You're the one spinning here...not me.

There was never any broad support for it, despite it being their presidential nominee's position in 2008. Got it.

I would suggest you read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...artys-drastic-shift-on-energy-climate-issues/

So yeah, you were saying?

When you asked for $100 and were given $112 last year, but want to only spend $110 the coming year...that's a REDUCTION in real spending! I'm getting dizzy watching your mental gymnastics...it smells of desperation. Face it, Obama is lukewarm at best regarding nuclear. I'm really starting to worry about you.

So you're repeating back to me my own points, that Obama is pro-nuclear, but not as much as the Republicans. You seem to think that because he continues to not be as pro-nuclear as the Republicans but has become more so in recent years, that this is some sort of mental gymnastics as opposed to common sense.

I worry about you too, friend DSF. You seem to have gone further and further into ultra-right news sources recently and you're increasingly accepting them uncritically. I hope some of my suggestions about sources has not fallen on deaf ears.

 

[Poptech]

Interesting, yet you were very impressed at the credentials of Dr. Tol working for the IPCC, despite the fact that he worked on impact studies there. (before quitting partway through)

Why would you not be impressed he had the integrity to quit an organization promoting propaganda?

Regardless, you would not be making this claim if you had read even the abstract of Cook's paper. Silliness.

How many papers in Cook et al. (2013) quantified AGW as +50% (Humans are the primary cause)?

 

[thraashman]

Man, eskimospy is kicking some ass in this thread. I don't have nearly the patience that he does for goofballs like Poptech and DSF.

 

[realibrad]

The earth is heating up. There is no doubt about it. The data shows that. I do not deny that in the least. The weather is changing now and will continue to change until the sun dies.

The more important question to me is whether carbon fuels are a net positive or a net negative. My premise is that they are an overwhelming net positive. We would have stopped innovation in the 18th century without fossil fuels. They facillitate every single thing in our lives (ease of transportation, cheap food, clean water, computers, light bulbs, etc...). Think about it. So that is what fossil fuels have given us. They have made man nearly impervious to weather variability. While weather used to kill on a mass scale (millions), that is now in our distant past due to fossil fuels. So I look at bigger picture of what fossil fuels have given us and quite frankly I cannot conceive of global warming every causing a problem that our technology does not kick the ever living shit out of. It is beyond my experience and comprehension. It is a fairy tale in my world.

Carbon fuel has been amazingly great for humanity. The idea that we would have stopped innovation in the 18th century is stupid though. I am guessing you are trying to exaggerate to explain it would have been slower, but that is a really stupid way of saying it.

At the end of the 18th century we had about 1 billion people on this planet. We are now 7 billion. Even if people per capita used the same amount of oil, that would mean an increase by 7 times the amount. We actually use much more now, and that is a lot of carbon to put out.

 

[fskimospy]

My apologies Cook is a cartoonist and a propagandist. I always forget to include his occupation he held for over a decade.

Feel free to offer a substantive rebuttal to the obvious holes in Tol's paper at your leisure.

I'm especially interested to hear your response to the methodological flaws.

 

[realibrad]

Man, eskimospy is kicking some ass in this thread. I don't have nearly the patience that he does for goofballs like Poptech and DSF.

Its a lot easier when you are on the right side.

Pro-Free Trade
Pro-Global Warming is True

Now if I an just get him to the idea of smaller role for government... 🙂

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

There was never any broad support for it, despite it being their presidential nominee's position in 2008. Got it.

I would suggest you read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...artys-drastic-shift-on-energy-climate-issues/

So yeah, you were saying?

Just because McCain supported it doesn't mean there was broad Republican support. You might be able to come up with a handful (which the BLOG you linked clearly admits), but the fact of the matter is there was never broad Republican support for CO2 cap & trade. Why is this so difficult for you to admit?

So you're repeating back to me my own points, that Obama is pro-nuclear, but not as much as the Republicans. You seem to think that because he continues to not be as pro-nuclear as the Republicans but has become more so in recent years, that this is some sort of mental gymnastics as opposed to common sense.

I worry about you too, friend DSF. You seem to have gone further and further into ultra-right news sources recently and you're increasingly accepting them uncritically. I hope some of my suggestions about sources has not fallen on deaf ears.

Whatever...in your mind, it seems that wanting to spend less money than the previous year on nuclear is somehow taking a leadership position on the issue...I'm done. You wore me out once again!

 

[Moonbeam]

Why would you not be impressed he had the integrity to quit an organization promoting propaganda?


How many papers in Cook et al. (2013) quantified AGW as +50% (Humans are the primary cause)?

The first question I would ask is if he didn't quit because they weren't spouting his propaganda. It seems that propaganda is propaganda to those who see the truth, and truth to those who have been propagandize do to believe in delusions of that kind.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Man, eskimospy is kicking some ass in this thread. I don't have nearly the patience that he does for goofballs like Poptech and DSF.

eskimospy is OK in my book...I'm glad he has patience and makes decent arguments. As for those who are incapable...I guess they'll just have to be content getting their ya ya's out vicariously. Peace.

 

[Moonbeam]

Doc Savage: Whatever...I'm done. You wore me out once again!

M: you should take a shot at curing conservative brain defectives.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

The first question I would ask is if he didn't quit because they weren't spouting his propaganda. It seems that propaganda is propaganda to those who see the truth, and truth to those who have been propagandize do to believe in delusions of that kind.

There were several cases of non-peer reviewed "alarmist" studies being used in the IPCC report which were later proved completely wrong. Surely you know this? But, as always, I do enjoy your perspective.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Doc Savage: Whatever...I'm done. You wore me out once again!

M: you should take a shot at curing conservative brain defectives.

And how would you have me proceed with this?

 

[Moonbeam]

And how would you have me proceed with this?

With lots of stimulants and no soft place to rest.

 

[Brian Stirling]

There will be no substantive changes to improve CO2 emissions and things will only get worse. The repubs will not act because they have a religious view that man has no involvement in the problem, that this is all a natural occurrence beyond human control so why impede industry's desire to make a profit. If man isn't responsible why penalize industry.

The dems, OTH, are looking at window dressing with cap & trade. As if setting up a money making exchange, where brokers playing three card monte, will solve the problem. Yeah, setting up an exchange where insiders make huge money trading credits -- that's going to fix the problem.

I'm not seeing much to hang my hat on...


Brian

 

[fskimospy]

Its a lot easier when you are on the right side.

Pro-Free Trade
Pro-Global Warming is True

Now if I an just get him to the idea of smaller role for government... 🙂

I wouldn't hold your breath, haha. The politburo would never stand for it.