Climate Change -- conspiracy theory or is it time we all drive a Prius?

Quote: AZDuffman

We are not talking about any possible system, we are only talking about the climate of the earth. I will maintain that a 1% change having dire effects does not pass the smell test. Not with so many other variables. And if the non-man CO2 is 20 times the man-made CO2 then I really don't see it. No reason to assume all other sources have stayed constant.

You maintain it all you want. I'll await your evidence one way or another, and then make a decision based on the facts, and not your smell test which sadly fails -my smell test-

I just wanted to make it clear that a highly complex system can be affected by small changes in one of the variables. Like, the climate, which is a highly complex system. Which I know is your point with 'weather happens', but to dismiss one factor because you don't like the political conclusions some folks come to, is faulty logic.

Quote: TheCesspit

You maintain it all you want. I'll await your evidence one way or another, and then make a decision based on the facts, and not your smell test which sadly fails -my smell test-

I am not trying to produce my own theory, I am just saying why I am not buying what the Global Warming Believers are selling. If you want to buy into it, feel free. Just don't ask me to pay taxes on CO2 on all of this. If the believers believe they will reduce use on their own, which should lower emissions by itself. Of course, few believers are willing to do this.

If you are willing to spend about $20 additional per Megawatt for electricity (we use average of 2.35 Megawatt hours per month) you can specify that your electricity come from wind or solar. That would probably do more for the environment than purchasing a Prius, and it would cost you a lot less in the long run.

Quote: AZDuffman

In reality, the AGW movement is 100% political.

Let's leave aside the liberal politicians (Gore) and the envirowacko activists (Greenpeace) and talk exclusively about the scientists.

Are the scientists in on a grand conspiracy?

Do the scientists know that they are lying?

Is the goal of the lying to get grants, award$, tenure, and prestige? Are they being bribed to lie?

Or are the scientists just ignorant fools?

I'm particularly curious about how you explain away UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller who has completely changed his mind about global warming. For many years he was a fearless critic of the climate change theory, but in 2012 he and his colleague Saul Perlmutter (who won a Nobel Prize in astrophysics) published a peer reviewed article about the link between global CO2 and temperature rise.

Is Muller a liar? Did someone bribe him? Or is he just a moron who doesn't know anything?

Quote: Richard Muller

"How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase."

"It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.

Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous."

They obviously didn't pay him enough, or offer enough of the tax rises.

Quote: reno

Are the scientists in on a grand conspiracy?

Probably more useful idiots or dupes than "in on it."

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Is the goal of the lying to get grants, award$, tenure, and prestige? Are they being bribed to lie?

I think it is more threats than bribes.

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Is Muller a liar? Did someone bribe him? Or is he just a moron who doesn't know anything?

Based on the quote he seems to only be saying "it's better than anything else we have come up with." As to me, I am going to stick with my belief that we don't even have a long enough measurable string of data to determine we have a warming trend in the first place.

If you believe, feel free to sell your car crack the engine block on your car and recycle it so nobody else warms the planet; take the bus; downsize to an apartment; and all the other things you need to do to make a difference. I never see believers doing this, I see them calling for more taxes and regs on everybody. No need to wait, show you care by example.

Quote: AZDuffman

I think it is more threats than bribes.

Who's threatening them?

Sigh.

There is the expectation that for your career to go forward, you need to publish papers -- "publish or perish" in your field of interest, to lecture well, to participate in committees and adminisration, and to do meaningful research. All of your research is carefully scrutined, first by professors in your university, and then by peers who are specialists in the field at other universities. It doesn't matter which science you are working in or how you are tracking to tenure, it's all the same way. If you have a theory that is controversial, you can bet that it will be vetted carefully and that your research is based on sound background.

Papers that show up in science journals (and there are a myriad of them covering pretty much every subject and specialty imaginable) are all peer-reviewed before they are published.

A scientist who is found to be wrong, or lying, or doing research based on false premises stands to lose their position in the university and be ostracized by members of their community. Although the AGW movement looks like a movement, it is built on some very rudimentary science: that carbon dioxide absorbs solar energy more than the other constituents in the atmosphere, and a change in the concentration of CO2 changes the earth's energy equation. That evidence is WIDELY accepted and known by pretty much anyone. The basis for this is in chemistry, not in climatology. And there are plenty of "standard candles" to build a valid temperature record that goes far beyond 150 years.

The problem with most scientists who criticize the AGW view is that their papers can easily get picked apart through the peer review process. If their scientific views were valid, the paper would get published. A few are.

The career path that a university student has to follow to become a professor is long and arduous. Few succeed. You live in poverty pretty much until you get your Ph.D, and then you have to work very hard to get from the rank of lecturer to associate professor to assistant professor to full professor. Money is good once you get to associate professor, but most people who are in the field aren't in it for the money, as their brains could easily be used in the private industry making double of what they make in their field. Most people who are in the field are in it because of their love for the subject, for the research, or for the ability
to teach others.

So, I don't buy the conspiracy thing one bit. There is always the push to publish, just like there is always pressure to perform at your job to get a level up.

Quote: reno

Who's threatening them?

Can be anyone from their peers shunning them to their bosses withholding funds, promotion, tenure, etc. If you haven't noticed the believers are getting tired of defending their belief and pulling an Archie Bunker "CASE CLOSED" stance the last few years when called into question.

Anyone who has worked in an organization knows what happens to your career when you go against the corporate culture.

Quote: AZDuffman

Probably more useful idiots or dupes than "in on it."

Ah yes, Saul Perlmutter: just another "useful idiot." How many Nobel Prizes in astrophysics does a guy need to convince AZDuffman he's not an idiot?

The shipping industry must be full of useful idiots who claim that global warming has opened up profitable new lanes through the melting Arctic ice.

This phenomenon is real. It's not a lie. And according to Muller, (a former skeptic!) the CO2 data and the temperature data correspond too perfectly to be a coincidence.