re/ climate & carbon

2012-02-01

Richard Moore

Bcc: FYI
rkm websitehttp://cyberjournal.org
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It’s official: You can stop worrying about global warming!
Les Lizama wrote:
Yup, why NOT just go back to rampant pollution of the planet…no enviromental laws…more Times Beaches…Superfund sites! Black skies, universal asthma…yay! There’s absolutely NO reason to clean up our act!!! Boy, that Erin Brockovich sure made a lot of money and fame screwing PG&E, but no more!
Burn those wood fires, tonight, everyone! Make it creosote railway ties!!
Mill Valley, CA

The urgent need for sustainability remains, for ending pollution, etc. And a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions is an inevitable by-product of achieving sustainability. Achieving sustainability also involves creation of infrastructure, such as efficient rail and sustainable-energy systems, and oil will come in handy to get those projects implemented.
What needs to be re-examined, if warming is not happening, is this whole business of carbon credits, carbon markets, carbon taxes, and resource metering. All of that is being justified by ‘alarming global warming’. And what it’s leading to is a system where all of our activities will be micro-managed, by micro-managing the allocation of resource credits. They’re already talking about these things, but they use euphemistic language. You’ll be living on the resource dole, depending on how useful you are to the system. Anything else would be inefficient, from the technocratic perspective. The concept of ‘human freedom’ translates into ‘loose cannons’, in the technocratic handbook. Each part must serve its function.
It’s the old trick: create a problem, then offer the ‘solution’ that was intended from the beginning. In this case they merely created the illusion of a problem. It’s amazing how successful they’ve been.  

rkm
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Les Lizama wrote:
Thanks, Richard. Your point about carbon allocation leading to micro-managing allocation of resources is a point well made. On the other hand, just call me a Loose Cannon. 

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Tasha wrote:
HI. This year, parts of the US have yet to have their usual winter. Philadelphia, for instance, along the east coast of the usa, where I live. it’s going to be 60 tomorrow here. 

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David Schwartzman wrote:
Well you are entitled to your opinion, albeit contrary to over 2000 climate scientists who contribute to the IPCC. The global water cycle and water vapor in the atmosphere in particular responds to the changes in trace gases, and there is no evidence for a negative feedback involved water vapor that you are proposing. And you continue to ignore my point about the Berkeley Group. Anthropogenic warming didn’t take off until the 1920 as CO2 levels started to climb exponentially. I have attached Hansen’s most recent paper for your information. So you are continuing to deny the warming in the 20th century.

Thanks David for our recent exchange, including your message above. Responding to you clarified my thinking, and that’s what led me to write the article, ‘Climate science in a nutshell’.
The 2000 scientists who contributed to the IPCC report did not write the summary of the report. That was written by politicos at the UN. The scientists did not agree that AGW is a certainty; the politicos added that. 
You say I deny warming in the 20th century. On the contrary, I say a two-century rise beginning around 1800 is exactly what the long-term temperature pattern calls for. And the pattern has been followed exactly; the rise has not become steeper due to any special modern influence, Co2 or otherwise. 
If Co2 is indeed a significant greenhouse gas, then its lack of influence on temperature means that it’s influence is being inhibited by negative feedback. That is evidence for negative feedback. There have also been studies that show a negative feedback directly. 
Hansen’s paper sheds no light on our discussion. He is simply stating his assumptions as fact, and then making extrapolations. Nothing he says in that paper presents a challenge to anything in my analysis. On the other hand, my analysis devastates his assumptions. 
And I object to your use of ‘opinion’. I don’t have an opinion about climate, I have an analysis that no one has pointed out any flaws in, though they often don’t want to accept the conclusions. 
rkm
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     Climate science in a nutshell
John Whiting wrote:
I remain highly suspicious of an explanation not endorsed by most independent climate scientists and which dovetails so neatly with the financial interests of the entire carbon energy complex. Follow the money. 

It seems that you are unwilling to try to understand the science yourself, and thus must go with what recognized authorities say. I suppose that’s what most people do for most topics. I made the argument as clear and concise as I could. Did you try following it?
As regards following the money, I think you’ve got your reasoning backwards. The carbon economy is being promoted by the folks at the top of the money pyramid. If you follow the money, it is the carbon economy you should be suspicious of. And carbon markets will increase the price of oil, which means all remaining reserves become more valuable. Oil companies love it.
rkm
 
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Les Lizama wrote:
Thanks, Richard, a fine scientific explanation. I would love to see you on a panel with other experts exploring the huge issue you failed to address in your explanation: the effect of human activity, as a comprehensive perspective, on global climate change, whether it be to foment unusual warming or cooling, or just “soiling”, from industry to the internal combustion engine, to CFCs to methane to all other manufactured pollutants. There is most definitely evidence that the seas are rising (or are land masses sinking?). All of this plays a role, and even if Co2 emissions aren’t a threat to the natural, healthy processes of earth, can we afford to just maintain the status quo?
  I suppose my question is a moral one rather than an exclusively scientific one: DO we have a responsibility to care for the ecosystems that make up planet Earth, or can we continue to pollute at will with no anticipated consequences? And, even if we CAN continue to ignore the effects of man’s activities on the Earth’s systems, should we hold ourselves to a higher standard, and aspire to that standard? Or not?

I think the overwhelming majority of people think we have a moral responsibility for the environment, and are quite concerned with the effect of human activity. After all, we are inundated with nature documentaries, showing us beautiful species and habitats that are sadly endangered. Environmental consciousness is very much mainstream, and is encouraged by the media. 
I live in Wexford which a port town. I’ve been here for 18 years. The sea has not risen at all. I have relatives in Hawaii, and the sea has not risen there in the past 20 years. The seas are not rising. It’s a Big Lie, just like global warming itself.
rkm
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Janet Hicks King wrote:
Richard,
Thank you for putting it so well. 
I hope it will help a lot of people see through the fog of disinformation!


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Anonymous wrote:
Whatever the cause, what solutions do you suggest?
People and other sentient beings are suffering, and some are dying.  Extreme weather events, including the usual plus larger numbers of wildfires and spreading drought, are raising widespread havoc. Fresh water, safe food, and other essentials to life are now huge issues.
My solution to every problem is the same: overcome elite power. Nothing else can solve any of our problems. The regime no longer sees the need to cater to our protests by granting reforms. That era is over. The trends are all the other way now. Either we fix everything or we fix nothing. Can anyone really argue with that?
And personally, I don’t see weather and climate as being near the top of the list of our problems. It’s certainly not something we can do anything about, unless we waned to start playing games with HARRP, which I wouldn’t recommend. I’m more worried about nuclear war, genocide in Africa, depleted Uranium spread around everywhere, and lots of other things – none of which can be addressed until democracy is achieved. 
rkm
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Janet Hicks King wrote:
Richard,
thought you might like to see one response from someone (to whom I forwarded your email) who has committed a lot of time and energy to the global warming catastrophe scenario… 
 

 —–Original Message—–
From: David   
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 7:54 AM
Subject: RE: Climate science in a nutshell

Janet
 Look at the address that stuff comes from… ‘yahoo’   That was an invention by Jonathan Swift, ape like people who sit up in trees and throw their feces at the passersby.
My sources are a Prof Thomas Duck at Dalhousie, and the PICS crowd at the U of Victoria. Duck is part of the group who actually measure what the ice has to tell us. The problem is with mathematicians who are prisoners of their XYZ logic. Construct a stupid ‘model’ and you get a stupid result. Duh!  Your Yahoo crowd are so intent on their theory of comparisons with the ancient past in 100,000 chunks, they haven’t noticed the speed of the change in the last ten years. Whether the excess eventually boils off into space or not, in the meantime it does a lot of damage here and now.  As I talk with HAL (reference to an earlier exchange about Facebook) ,  I realize he has been made by mathematicians. They have no idea there is a ‘cautionary principle’ that trumps smart-ass arguments by Welshmen from Wexford vying for publicity for their ‘papers published’.
  And so the argument goes on. I spent a year in the Arctic. I know how human activity makes it change. Yes, the changes are all local, and some go up while others go down. It is far too complex to pretend we understand it. But I believe Dr James Lovelock when he described it as Gaia… a living self regulating organism (within limits) with interlocking life forms all playing their part to maintain a benign world for all.  Break the web of life through massive extinctions, and Gaia is in trouble. What are the life forms that keep Welsh Mathematicians from Wexford alive? Why argue about where the limits are for the sake of some ‘dirty-fuel’ barons? The by-product chemistry is far more measurable (and probably in the short term far worse).   ‘I can, therefore I will’. I’m a conceited mathematician. I believe in Infinity in all things. Especially the genius of my own ego.

It is interesting to notice the percentage of the words in the response devoted to discussing the topic, versus the number of words devoted to irrelevant snide remarks, such as linking the word ‘yahoo’ to feces throwing. We are seeing an extreme form of what the Greeks called an ad hominem argument: attacking the person when you aren’t able to respond to the argument. It is a debating tactic, aimed not at understanding but at obfuscation; it’s basically an attempt to win by cheating.
This ad-hominem approach has a subtle power to persuade. In the first two paragraphs of the response, the reader’s attention is shifted away from whatever I said in my article. What the paragraphs say doesn’t matter, as long as they shift attention to some other realm. Those paragraphs serve as a ‘frame’, whose purpose is just the same as if he had said, “Hey, forget all that stuff Richard was talking about. Instead let’s start over and you listen to me.” It’s a very effective approach, for most readers, even though it operates at a subconscious level.
And then he ‘starts over’, presenting arguments that are already refuted in my article. However, the reader is not comparing those arguments to the arguments in my article – the article has been jogged from memory by the ‘frame’. The reader is simply reading along, evaluating whether the new argument sounds sensible. At the end he might want to choose which argument to believe, by comparing how convinced he feels at the moment, with how convinced he remembers feeling at some time in the past, when he read my article. In the end, the reader has ‘selected a belief’, he has not gained an understanding of climate.
Now I would very much welcome a serious, biting critique of my article. From that I’d be likely to learn something. But a serious critique would not begin by trying to ignore my arguments. On the contrary, it would quote me, it would say, “Here you’re making this statement, and that doesn’t make sense because you’re making this false assumption.” A rebuttal needs to be linked into the argument being rebutted; it is a response to it. 
David, our responder, is like someone in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon. He puts his soapbox near mine, and he tries to out-shout me, to bring the crowd over to his soapbox. What he’s shouting has no relevance to what my article talks about.

rkm
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