What's the modivation behind "global warming"

[werepossum]

Yeah, I agree with everything you say, but I still think that the majority of scientists that study climate do believe that human activity is significantly contributing to GW. I do think tons of money should be spent. On research so we can figure the best possible solution, if any, to any bad effects.

That you mention coal burning as a contributor to GW raises a point to me. I've read that the clearing of forests, rainforests, vegetation, etc. has contributed more carbon dioxide and decreased the albedo of the Earth more than any other human activity, or @ least those 2 things has contributed greatly to AGW.

Seriously... I don't think anybody has really addressed my main point. I believe that the majority of the people that study coral reefs, ice cores, stalagmite oxidation, historical rainfall patterns, , etc. (this is a very long etc) are all inclined to say that human activity considerably effects GW. Clearly it's to early to say how and to what extent, why AGW receives so much, sometimes bitter, opposition.

I also think that nuclear energy solutions haven't been developed and deployed nearly as much as they should have. Same goes for solar which has amazing potential.

At this point I don't think anyone will ever really trust the CAGW advocates on the basis of evidence; either you believe it on faith (i.e. scientists are a different breed of human, immune to normal temptations and not to be questioned) or you say these guys are so fundamentally dishonest that anything they say is without merit. Funding research is good, but funding people like Hansen and the GRU is a very bad idea.

As to the clearing of forests, and particularly rain forests, there is no great pile of money awaiting from those who do that. The main motivation of CAGW being wealth transfer, there is thus no reason to bring that up. There are tree-huggers very interested in stopping deforestation because of the huge number of species, some endemic to very small areas, that are being lost, but very little interest from the CAGW crowd other than as a means to make money selling indulgences - sorry, carbon offsets. And as for nuclear, the very same people who are pushing CAGW as justification for society being increasingly managed like cattle by an elite* are dead set against nuclear power, almost without exception.

* This was the same prescription for combating the coming catastrophic anthropogenic global ice age. Curious, that.

 

[rudder]

Al Gore's worth about may around $10 million before he started his global warming crusade. It is now well over $100 million.

 

[KlokWyze]

At this point I don't think anyone will ever really trust the CAGW advocates on the basis of evidence; either you believe it on faith (i.e. scientists are a different breed of human, immune to normal temptations and not to be questioned) or you say these guys are so fundamentally dishonest that anything they say is without merit. Funding research is good, but funding people like Hansen and the GRU is a very bad idea.

As to the clearing of forests, and particularly rain forests, there is no great pile of money awaiting from those who do that. The main motivation of CAGW being wealth transfer, there is thus no reason to bring that up. There are tree-huggers very interested in stopping deforestation because of the huge number of species, some endemic to very small areas, that are being lost, but very little interest from the CAGW crowd other than as a means to make money selling indulgences - sorry, carbon offsets. And as for nuclear, the very same people who are pushing CAGW as justification for society being increasingly managed like cattle by an elite* are dead set against nuclear power, almost without exception.

* This was the same prescription for combating the coming catastrophic anthropogenic global ice age. Curious, that.

haha ok. I'm not really aware of the politics behind though I'm sure there was plenty of bad. It's unfortunate that there is all the hype and dishonesty because a lot of people won't (reasonably of course) listen. I guess the only thing to do is wait @ this point. :biggrin:

Slightly off topic: Why does every "witty" one liner come from people with 'lifer' under their username? D:

 

[werepossum]

haha ok. I'm not really aware of the politics behind though I'm sure there was plenty of bad. It's unfortunate that there is all the hype and dishonesty because a lot of people won't (reasonably of course) listen. I guess the only thing to do is wait @ this point. :biggrin:

Slightly off topic: Why does every "witty" one liner come from people with 'lifer' under their username? D:

Personally I'd like to see plans for some direct CO2 remediation rather than a demand that the USA pay third world nations for their "pain and humiliation". CO2 does some nasty things other than trap reflected heat, such as contribute to acid rain and stream/lake acidification (although not in the top two causes for the latter) and a high concentration is a stressor to reef-building corals and probably other creatures like cephalopods and other shell-building mollusks, which are often also stressed by pollution and/or siltation due to land use changes. If we're actually experiencing man-made global warming and that helps moderate it, so much the better. But the deliberate wealth grabbing politicization has turned off most of us to the point of being suspicious about anything that smells of CAGW, and true believers reject anything less than wealth transfer and behavior control.

OT, I suppose lifers have learned to spend less time per post, having been active here for so long. Also off topic, why the hell are perfectly good, common words like "cephalopods " and "siltation" not in the spell checker?

 

[QuantumPion]

Ya right! Nuc-power. We have a world wide supply that will last forty-five years at present consumption and all that supply is imports.

You forgot "million". Current uranium reserves will last in the neighborhood of forty-five MILLION years at present consumption using breeder reactors. And that supply is based on depleted uranium already processed but sitting around unused at enrichment plants.

 

[KlokWyze]

You forgot "million". Current uranium reserves will last in the neighborhood of forty-five MILLION years at present consumption using breeder reactors. And that supply is based on depleted uranium already processed but sitting around unused at enrichment plants.

They're saving the DU for der terrorizers.

 

[woolfe9999]

So scientific theory is law now? That's interesting, aside from the fact that you contradict yourself later.

Theories are postulates that have as yet not been proven. Once they are proven, they must continually be tested against any new data which may arise to maintain their validity. AGW has not done this.

QUOTE]

I am not arguing about the viability of AGW. I am correcting a previous poster who does not understand that a theory in science is not the same as a theory in common parlance. I am correct, and anyone who says otherwise must have missed his 7th grade science module.

And your definition of scientific theory is off. You say theories are postulates that have not been proven. This is false. What you have described are hypothoses. Then you correctly state that a theory is subject to constant re-evaluation as more empirical data is gathered in the future. While that is true, there must first be empirical confirmation for it to be called a theory in the first place, and in science, there must be substantial empirical backing for something to be given the label theory. The difference between scientific theory and theory in the ordinary sense of the word is that a scientific theory is backed by empirical data, while an ordinary theory is a conjecture that is not yet backed by any empirical data. The expression, "that's just a theory" - meaning a conjecture - that people use in every day speech does not apply to what are called theories in science.

This is the same fallacy that is used by creationists when they say "evolution is called a 'theory' even by scientists who believe it. Therefore, there is no evidence to support it." It's rank stupidity and utter nonsense.

You guys can carry on with the pros and cons of AGW, but whenever I see someone making the "it's just a theory" argument when applied to a scientific theory, it gets my hackles up because I presume anyone engaged in adult discussion has at least a middle school education.

- wolf

 

[drebo]

And your definition of scientific theory is off. You say theories are postulates that have not been proven. This is false. What you have described are hypothoses.

I disagree. The hypothoses are the postulates. A theory is one possible explanation for the postulate. Until that theory is proven to be the case 100% of the time, it is still unproven and therefore still a postulate or hypothesis. Gravity, for instance, always exists and always functions, and there is never a case where gravity does not exist or does not function.

As far as your assertion about creationists...anyone who denies that evolution is occuring is an idiot. However, there is no proven theory that life "evolved" from some primordial ooze. So, they're half right in saying that "evolution" isn't proven. Abject, fundamental creationists use the same fallacy that AGW use: "disprove creationism and I'll believe you."

AGW is one THEORY to explain the hypothesis that the Earth is getting warmer. It is not yet proven, and therefore cannot be taken as fact.

But, at this point, we're just arguing semantics.

 

[monovillage]

haha ok. I'm not really aware of the politics behind though I'm sure there was plenty of bad. It's unfortunate that there is all the hype and dishonesty because a lot of people won't (reasonably of course) listen. I guess the only thing to do is wait @ this point. :biggrin:

Slightly off topic: Why does every "witty" one liner come from people with 'lifer' under their username? D:

Sorry KlokWyze, but i posted a number of links where you could look at the basic science and where i addressed the main topic and your main point. If you didn't want to read them blame yourself, don't say that other people won't listen.

 

[woolfe9999]

I disagree. The hypothoses are the postulates. A theory is one possible explanation for the postulate. Until that theory is proven to be the case 100% of the time, it is still unproven and therefore still a postulate or hypothesis. Gravity, for instance, always exists and always functions, and there is never a case where gravity does not exist or does not function.

As far as your assertion about creationists...anyone who denies that evolution is occuring is an idiot. However, there is no proven theory that life "evolved" from some primordial ooze. So, they're half right in saying that "evolution" isn't proven. Abject, fundamental creationists use the same fallacy that AGW use: "disprove creationism and I'll believe you."

AGW is one THEORY to explain the hypothesis that the Earth is getting warmer. It is not yet proven, and therefore cannot be taken as fact.

But, at this point, we're just arguing semantics.

You're still defining theory as synonymous with hypothesis. You have identified both hypothesis and theory with "postulate" in your first and third sentences.

Also, I think introducing the word "proven" into the discussion is part of what confuses it semantically because the ordinary sence of "proven" is that there remains zero doubt and there is no such thing in science. You start with a hypothesis that is subject to falsification or confirmation by empirical data. When the hypothesis is sufficiently confirmed, it becomes a theory. The theory, however, continues to be subject to modification, and in rare cases, complete falsification, as additional data is gathered. I say rare, because in science you need significant and weighty empirical backing for something to be called a theory. It is nearly the opposite of what people mean by theory in common usage. In science, a "theory" is as good as it gets because every scientific principle remains subject to falsification based on uncovering data that is inconsistent with the theory or some part of the theory. Indeed, a "law" in science has no higher status than a theory - the difference between law and theory is only one of scope, not degree of certainty.

Gravity is good example of how a hypothesis becomes a theory, and why theories are subject to modification. Newton's theory of gravity was that it is a force exerted by mass, the strength of which was proportionate to the mass. While gravity is "real" in an observational sense, the notion that it is an invisible, magnetic like force exerted by objects on other objects was not precisely correct. Einstein's theory of general relatively is that masses actually curve the space time contiuum around them, and this then accounts for the observation of what Newton called gravity. It is geometry rather than forces of attraction. General relativity was a hypothesis, or what you call postulate, until it was confirmed that general relatively could predict the movements of celestial bodies more accurately than Newtonian gravity. Because of this empirical confirmation, general relatively was called a theory, and has been ever since. Yet Newtonian gravity wasn't wholly "wrong." It was modified by general relatively.

With respect to evolution, when people say the "theory of evolution," they do not mean evolution in the general sense of generic change. It means Darwinian evolution - which is evolution driven by mutation/selection. That is the "theory of evolution."

- wolf

 

[drebo]

nm

 

[KlokWyze]

Sorry KlokWyze, but i posted a number of links where you could look at the basic science and where i addressed the main topic and your main point. If you didn't want to read them blame yourself, don't say that other people won't listen.

No, I looked @ both links. The MWP definitely makes a great point and puts things in perspective. Looking @ a lot of those charts, considerably more warming could take place and it still be in lock step with a purely natural model of temperature flux.

That doesn't mean that human activity is not influencing temperature increases though. Writing off all of AGW because of this one good point is pretty premature if you ask me. I suppose that when you couple it with climategate, hockey sticks, etc. that it's not unreasonable to be suspicious.

Even after all that though. Climatologists and AGW theory is still respected in scientific circles. As time passes and new aspects are researched, correlated, proven and disproven the theory will mature.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Power, Transfer of wealth and giving up more control over your life.

 

[Munky]

Rob the middle class... undermine national sovereignty... push for a global government.

 

[Capt Caveman]

As Warming Melts Arctic Ice, U.S. Navy Races to Control New Territory

Oh, oh. Looks like Anand and the US Navy are Global Warming terrorists!!!

 

[monovillage]

Actually the Arctic ice cap is increasing in size, not growing smaller. Just another false story with false science and fake speculation.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Actually the Arctic ice cap is increasing in size, not growing smaller. Just another false story with false science and fake speculation.

O Rly?

 

[gsellis]

O Rly?

Did you happen to notice the last point in the dataset? The step increase from 2007?

 

[monovillage]

The article states that since a low in 2007 that the ice cap has increased in size in 2008 and 2009.

http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-polar-ice-caps-are-not-melting

and for a more historical perspective

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

What's the motivation behind "global warming"?

It's all about money and control. Look at this Himalayas scandal. The official "global warming" studies at the UN concluded that the Himalayan peaks will melt by like 2030, but the premise of the entire "study" was false because it was based off of some student's book report that was sent into a hiking magazine back in the early 2000's. Yet, the UN took it, knew it wasn't an official study and was in fact bunk, and ran with it to demand we stop eating meat, we stop driving cars, we need cap and tax, etc. etc.

Man-made global warming is the biggest scam in human history. Its believers are just fanatically devoted to the cult, despite the overwhelming and ever-increasing mountain of facts that show AGW to be nothing but a bunch of lies and scams.

 

[Modelworks]

Money for research and corporations trading carbon credits .

Scientist that are honest admit they do not understand how the cycles over the history of the earth work. Scientist that are dishonest claim they know the day week and temperature for the year 2100.

 

[Modelworks]

Al Gore's worth about may around $10 million before he started his global warming crusade. It is now well over $100 million.

And getting richer. He is a shareholder in a company that will be the premiere carbon credit trading broker.
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/index.jsf

Why does it always come back to Chicago with this administration ?
It is starting to make the conspiracy nuts look not so crazy.

 

[WHAMPOM]

You forgot "million". Current uranium reserves will last in the neighborhood of forty-five MILLION years at present consumption using breeder reactors. And that supply is based on depleted uranium already processed but sitting around unused at enrichment plants.

I am sorry old news, reserves were increased by 50% in 2003, usable uranium reserves are now reported to be 85 years.

edit: Oh wait, in 2007 reserves increased 15% due to finds in Canada and Australia, 100 years now. Breeder reactors, the one in France? Ya gonna use the Russian ones?

 

[gsellis]

I am sorry old news, reserves were increased by 50% in 2003, usable uranium reserves are now reported to be 85 years.

Thorium for the win

 

[monovillage]

And just for our friends in New Zealand a story how NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) "lost" ummm "destroyed?" their "adjusted data" after years of people trying to get the data out of them with freedom of information acts.

http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the...reveals-nz-original-climate-data-missing.html