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Albert22804 at 13:18 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
From Rob
"If you had bothered to read the actual paper it's explained why the figures are organized as they are."
I have read it many times and find that the paler is riddled with statistical biases and that categories 5,6 and 7 are red herrings designed to give a false sense of balance.
there is no logical reason given why the 3 categories are required other than to give a reason to have categories 5,6 and 7.
Also I have read many of the category 1 abstracts and find it puzzling how many of them could be considered endorsing category 1.
Moderator Response:[BL] ...and yet you lump categories 5, 6, and 7 together - along with categories 2 and 3 - when you calculate your irrelevant 1.6% figure. The logic behind those categories is explained in the paper, and has been explained here - you just don't like it.
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Albert22804 at 13:09 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Once again I ask, why have 3 categories lumped into the "97%" result when only one category saying "explicit or implicit support that humans contribute to global warming".
Again, virtually every sceptic scientist, meteorologist, geologist, etc would agree with the above statement so they will not be publishing a paper saying there is little or no anthropogenic warming.
Skeptics believe in the direct effect of CO2 causing an ECS of about 1.2C but reject the positive feedback theory pushing ECS to 3C and beyond.
So categories 5,6 and 7 are really meaningless, because of the above.
Quite commonly I see statements saying that Cooks paper said the "97% of scientists believe that humans are largely (>50%) responsible for global warming" but Cooks paper category 1 clearly and unambiguously states that the figure is 1.6%.
Moderator Response:[BL} None of the categories in the paper use the description you "quote" in your first paragraph. Making up quotes will not be tolerated, and if you continue to do so, expect to see heavy moderation of your posts.
The categories in the paper look at recent warming. That is a different question from (warming due to CO2), and if you do not understand the difference then you need to learn about it.
You are repeating your 1.6% number ignoring the criticism that has show it to be the result of an unreasonable grouping of categories 2-7..
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Albert22804 at 12:55 PM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
"I have linked to the journal article above, and you can scroll down and find the "Supplementary data" link. In that data, one of the files provides every single paper/abstract included in the study, and it's ranking. It's pretty trivial to read that into a spreadsheet and get totals for each group."
So why is the "64" not explicitly stated somewhere in the original paper and instead you have to find an obscure file, put into a spread sheet into comma separated columns and include a conditional statement saying if this is category "1" then increment sum.
so nobody could determine that category "1" had only 64 entries unless they knew how to download the data into a spreadsheet and do a conditional sort.
So, once again why was there no table listing the categories and theirs numbers?
Moderator Response:[BL] Your pattern of blasting many comments into a thread is forcing me to go into moderator role.
To begin, please read the Comments Policy.
As to your "question" - it took me less than an hour to accomplish the task of obtaining the data and determining the numbers in question.
You have completely ignored the comment I made about the bogosity of your "1.6%" calculation. You are trying to draw attention to a number that does not change the conclusions of the paper.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:12 AM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert @ 120 is doing an Arctic sea ice volume analysis using the standard "skeptic" analysis techniques that go into The Escalator:
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Bob Loblaw at 05:04 AM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Albert @909 starts off by questioning the groupings in the Cook et al 2013 study, saying that he searched and could not find totals for the individual categories.
I have linked to the journal article above, and you can scroll down and find the "Supplementary data" link. In that data, one of the files provides every single paper/abstract included in the study, and it's ranking. It's pretty trivial to read that into a spreadsheet and get totals for each group. Those totals are:
1 Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+% 64 2 Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise 922 3 Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it 2910 4 No Position 7970 5 Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW 54 6 Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify 15 7 Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50% 9 The paper points out that category 4 includes two groups, which need to be treated differently:
- No position (7930 papers)
- Uncertain (40 papers)
"No position" must be excluded entirely, as it is impossible to conclude a position that is not expressed in the paper's abstract. That makes a total of 4014 papers that express an opinion (explicitly or implicitly).
Given the groupings of 1-3 and 5-7, it is obvious that 1-3 share the trait of "not minimized". It is perfectly reasonable to treat "not minimized" as ">50%", when the paper does not quantify a value.
Likewise, grouping 5-7 together is the opposite: they all share the trait of "minimizes", whether they have quantified the minimization or not.
The point of the three categories is to distinguish between explicit quantification, explicit without quantification, and implicit without quantification - on both sides of the equation.
Now, what about that 1.6% number that Albert throws out? To get 1.6%, you have to pick category 1 (64 papers) and divide by 4014 (the total number that expressed an opinion, explicitly or implicitly).
So, while Albert is questioning the grouping of papers into 1-3 and 5-7, he sees no problem in grouping 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 together into one category and calling it "papers that disagree that humans caused most of the recent warming". That grouping is far less supportable than the grouping used in the paper. Categories 2 and 3 (totalling 3832 papers) clearly are not defined in such a way that you can interpret "not minimized" as "<50%".
In fact, if you only consider the papers that explicitly quantify the effect as >50% or <50%, there are only 73 papers in categories 1 and 7 - and 64 of them say >50% of recent warming is due to humans. That is 88% of the total. A far cry from Albert's 1.6%.
We can also compare categories 2 vs. 6. 98% are on the "endorses" side.
And we can compare categories 3 and 5. Again, 98% on the "endorses" side.
Either Albert has not really considered where the 1.6% value came from, or he is deliberately trying to bias the result in one direction.
As for his final claim about "skeptics" being included in the 97%, Skeptical Science has another blog post on that matter. Scroll down to the section titled "Confused Contrarians Think they are Included in the 97%".
Albert is just repeating frequently-debunked crap.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:16 AM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert @121, 122, 123,
I would be curious to learn what you believe explains the observed Arctic Sea Ice Mass changes since 2012.
In addition to MA Roger's clarification that Arctic Sea Ice volume is not 'trending up', the lack of statistically significant decline since 2012 needs to be considered along with other evidence like the continued significant decline of Antactic Ice Mass (NASA presentation here) and Greenland Ice Mass (ESSD Article here - see figure 4).
The lack of significant continued decline of Arctic Sea Ice Mass (volume) requires an explanation. But the explanation is unlikely to be that 'global warming impacts of human activity have not been significant since 2012'.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:04 AM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Also @909 you ask, "So what was the point in having 3 categories?"
Well, again if you read the paper, this is explained.
The fundamental question this research is asking is about quantifying the scientific concensus on climate change (as the title states). Categories 1, 2, and 3 all endorse the idea that human activities are the primary driving force for warming of the past 50 years (per the IPCC position).
Conversely, the point is to measure those endorsements of that position against papers that minimize the idea that human activities are the primary driving force for warming of the past 50 years.
This stuff is really very obvious if you read the paper.
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Rob Honeycutt at 00:58 AM on 19 April 2023There is no consensus
Albert @909... (yep, there have been almost 1000 comments made on this particular topic)
a) If you had bothered to read the actual paper it's explained why the figures are organized as they are.
b) Your 1.6% figure only relates to papers that explicitly quantify human contribution. With that you'd have to compare that to other papers that explicitly minimize human contribution. You can't count, for example, a paper that explicitly quantifies against a paper that implicitly endorses human contribution.
c) Your comment regarding "some warming" is also a misinterpretation of the paper you haven't read. If a scientist (or paper, in the case of this research... it's an evaluation of published research, not scientists' opinions) were to say they believed humans contributed "some warming" they would be "minimizing human contribution" and therefore included in categories 5, 6, or 7.
I hope that clarifies this topic for you.
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MA Rodger at 00:19 AM on 19 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Albert @121,
I don't think it is true to say "Arctic ice volume has been trending upwards since 2012," certainly not on the basis of PIOMAS data. The 12-month averages (Apr-to-Mar, so bang up-to-date) run like this:-
2011 - 2012 ... ... 13.83 M sq km
2012 - 2013 ... ... 13.44 M sq km
2013 - 2014 ... ... 14.57 M sq km
2014 - 2015 ... ... 15.62 M sq km
2015 - 2016 ... ... 15.00 M sq km
2016 - 2017 ... ... 13.07 M sq km
2017 - 2018 ... ... 13.22 M sq km
2018 - 2019 ... ... 14.11 M sq km
2019 - 2020 ... ... 13.47 M sq km
2020 - 2021 ... ... 13.40 M sq km
2021 - 2022 ... ... 13.98 M sq km
2022 - 2023 ... ... 14.24 M sq kmAnd a regression through that lot, even starting 2012-13**, gives a negative (thus decreasing) trend although lacking statistical significance. The PIOMAS anomaly graph you link-to @120 is using the same data. Mind, you could get an upward trend (still statistically insignificant) for a different 12-year period (again Apr-Mar); 1982-93 +0.050M/y +/- 0.125M/y.
(**2012 to 22 -0.064M/y +/- 0.156M/y)
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Albert22804 at 21:16 PM on 18 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php
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Albert22804 at 21:08 PM on 18 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
Arctic ice volume has been trending upwards since 2012
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Albert22804 at 21:08 PM on 18 April 2023Arctic sea ice has recovered
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Albert22804 at 20:41 PM on 18 April 2023There is no consensus
why does the original paper list the seven categories but not the seven individual totals. I searched but couldn't find any totals.
instead it lumps categories 1,2 and 3 into a single number. So what was the point in having 3 categories?
but we frequently hear that the paper showed that "97% of scientists believe that humans caused most of the recent warming" which is not true because only 1.6% of papers said that.
I don't know of any sceptic who doesn't think humans are causing some warming so they would all be in the 97% consensus.
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Ron at 06:54 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
I forgot to put a space after the link above.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/jainism/
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Ron at 06:48 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
But again, I'm not trying to rationalize the eating of meat. And I'm definately not trying to rationalize factory farming at all, or other mistreatment of animals (and there's a lot!). Just saying that maybe strict vegans should lighten up a bit on peoples not following all of their dictates to the letter. As I said before, people who are not flawless should not critisize other people's flawfulness (it's blatant hypocrisy), except in things where those decisions (like those of the fossil fuel companies) are impacting their lives and perhaps even the planet itself.
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Ron at 06:32 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Are we only against taking mammalian life because that is the form of life most like our own? Okay, but we should be willing to admit that that's a bit biased. Even breathing, how many living microbes are we ingesting? Should we wear masks all the time? To live we have to take life. A sad fact.
Moderator Response:[PS] Enough I think. This thread is about whether vegan eating would be a useful mitigation for climate change. Cruelty to animals, plants and rants about vegan self-righteousness and/or hypocrisy are pretty clearly offtopic.
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Ron at 06:25 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
OPOF, I agree with your first paragraph, obviously.
The second, I'm still not convinced. But maybe we can agree to disagree?
The third about trying not to cause harm is again, obvious. But we should be careful here not to become obsessed. Ultimately if we follow these precepts religiously we would become like the Jains of India. Do you carry a broom around with you all of the time? :)
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/jainism/Even gardening would not be allowed.
To get comparable nutrition from plants. Have you ever noticed that strict animal vegetarians eat plants pretty much constantly? Horses, cows, even pandas. Have to to get comparable nutrition.
Again, I think you're "brushing" (pun intended) aside my thoughts about plants. Even the Jains if you take it to it's ultimate conclusions. They say to eat only above ground plants and leave the root because it won't necessarily kill the plant. But, as a gardener, I can say that that's not necessarily the case all the time. I've noticed, for example, that evergreen trees take to pruning much more difficultly the deciduous. So I think you might be rationalizing away the pain caused to plants in the interests of keeping the human alive.
Point is, we have to kill something that wants to be alive if we want to live too. What is our choice, and would our victims agree with that?
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:48 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron,
Regarding the issue of climate change impacts:
A fundamental understanding is that limiting the harmful impacts of human activities is important. And a related understanding is that limiting human activity to ‘necessary actions for healthy living’ is probably the most significant reduction of harm that developed human societies have miserably failed to act on.
Regarding the ‘need to eat meat’:
There are many examples of vegans who have succeeded through many generations, and not just in India (admittedy, entirely vegan cutures are hard to find because just one person within the cuture not maintaining the vegan diet would disqualify that entire culture). That, combined with the BBC Reel anecdotal scientific test I linked to, indicates that the concern that humans 'must eat meat to be healthy' are misunderstandings.
Regarding ‘plants have feelings’:
The fundamental ethical understanding would be that, since any activity may be harmful, humans should:
- govern or limit their activity to necessary actions for a decent healthy life
- pursue increased awareness and constantly improved understanding of what is harmful and strive to limit the harmfulness of those ‘necessary actions’.
Applying that ethical understanding to the issue of ‘eat meat or plants’ raises the following considerations:
- Animals eat plants. So if the animal eaten has consumed more plants than the human needs to get comparable nutrition from plants then the animal definitely should not be eaten.
- If more artificial energy is needed to produce the meat to eat than the equivalent plant material then the meat should not be eaten.
- If more artificially delivered water is consumed to produce the meat to eat than the equivalent amount of plant material then the meat should not be eaten.
p.s. I have read many books on ethics, including many of Peter Singer’s books, including “Animal Liberation Now”.
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EddieEvans at 00:26 AM on 18 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Vegan lifestyles showcase ethical and moral thoughts about human health, animal rights, and ecological integrity. For example, only one in ten US residents with kidney disease (CKD) knows they have CKD. They might choose a vegan lifestyle if they knew because meat contains damaging phosphate levels for diseased kidneys, unlike plant-based diets.
I don't need to point out the terrible anxiety and suffering that sentient beings go through as we process them for consumption. Of course, the ecological damage caused by factory farming is well-known to readers of Skeptical Science. I'm not vegan, but I am vegetarian and pretty new at it.
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Ron at 14:05 PM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
I'm not an expert, so I don't know for sure. I do know that our closest genetic relatives, chimpanzees, are part-time carnivores too. I just wonder if it's not just a liking for eating meat, but through millions of years of evolution, has actually become a necessity of sorts as well?
They say we need protein for our larger brains. Are there other adaptations? I don't know. But the fact that we need to supplement with not readily available vegetarian foodstuffs (except with modern day markets), seems to indicate that it might be kind of necessity. Perhaps a generation or two can eat a vegan diet, but I wonder what the evolutionary implications will be to long term veganism?
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to not eat meat, but just vegetables tastes not great, especially if you're not a cook. But , then again, I think it's dishonest to only be concerned with mammalian life. If were doing it for ethical reasons, plants also want to be here. So it's a choice. But gotta eat to live.
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/plants-have-feelings-too
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BaerbelW at 05:39 AM on 17 April 2023Skeptical Science News: The Rebuttal Update Project
The blog post was updated on Apr 16 with the link to the latest rebuttal getting the "at a glance treatment": Are we heading into a new ice age?
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:23 AM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron,
The point of the third paragraph is that in spite of having canine teeth and having developed a liking for eating meat it is possible for anybody to live a healthy life by changing to a vegan diet. The key is to do the transition gradually. Attempting to cold-turkey the transition will not be successful. Watch the video. It is quite the experiment.
Another consideration is that there may be health benefits of changing to less meat eating. And the rate that a person pursues the health benefits of the transition can be influenced by how urgently they need to shift away from the harm they are subjected to by their meat eating.
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Ron at 03:51 AM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
OPOF, Thanks for the comment. I agree with your first two paragraphs, though on the second I think it depends on the kind of meat you're eating (i.e. beef vs poultry).
The third paragraph, I'm not exactly sure what you're saying...
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:21 AM on 17 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron,
Regarding the ability of humans to dramatically reduce their meat consumption:
When I was doing moderately high-performance training I learned that a human body will not benefit from eating more that 4 ounces (100 gms) of meat in a meal (a diversity of research reporting about that). So, most meat eaters can significantly reduce their meat consumption without any issues. Eat the same number of meat meals, but with smaller meat servings.
However, there is increasing evidence of the health benefits of eating fewer servings of meat. Simple internet searching finds lots of that learning.
Also, the following ‘anecdotal, but scientific’ case of very high-performance training indicates that people can transition their diet to be meat free, even though they have canine teeth with a liking for meat. The key is to do it in stages, more rapidly if the heath concerns of not changing the diet are significant (like the ‘now urgent’ need to change to limit and repair the harm done by developed fossil fuel use):
BBC Reel: “Is a vegan diet healthier than eating meat and dairy?”
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:40 AM on 17 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Regarding criticisms that comments to help understand and correct misunderstandings regarding climate science are ‘politically biased’:
Undeniably, an evaluation of the history of this issue leads to a consensus understanding that Conservative Movement populists divisively politicized the issue. They promoted pseudoscience and science denial to ‘successfully and harmfully’ appeal for support in their efforts to delay the limitation and correction of harm done by fossil fuel use.
SkS can be understood to be one of the many developments created in response to that 'successful' harmful populist divisive misleading political marketing.
See the SkS re-posting of the Thinking is Power item “Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial”, particularly the Standford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy “Science and Pseudo-Science” webpage that EddieEvans linked in their comment @5 and my response @6.
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BaerbelW at 20:19 PM on 16 April 2023We're heading into an ice age
Please note: the basic version of this rebuttal has been updated on April 16, 2023 and now includes an "at a glance“ section at the top. To learn more about these updates and how you can help with evaluating their effectiveness, please check out the accompanying blog post @ https://sks.to/at-a-glance
Thanks - the Skeptical Science Team.
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Mal Adapted at 10:10 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Dang, left an 'o' out of "copious"
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Mal Adapted at 10:09 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Peppers, Adfontes Media's Media Bias Chart places both NPR and Reuters near the pinnacle of un-biased, factual reporting. The chart's methodology is copiusly documented. Argue with its programmers, not with us.
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Ron at 04:08 AM on 15 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
By the way, to the vegans that prefer to eat soy, it's growing is also contributing to deforestation, especially in Brazil's Amazon and Argentina. It's true that most soy is grown feed livestock, but a lot of it to feed people as well. "Impossible Burger" needs to get their protein from another source, and care for the planet, not just their bottom line.
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Ron at 03:32 AM on 15 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Yeah, if one divorces Vegan's hypocritical self-righteousness, misanthopism, inflicted guilt and politics from the issue, I can understand their arguments about meat eating. These animals want to live as well. But then, any animal that's ever been eaten, even by another animal, wants to live too.
But I wonder about evolved human physiology as well. Could those of us that have bodies adapted to getting some of our nutrition from meat, probably most or all of us, and have since the beginning of our evolution, cope? Why did we evolve canine teeth? To eat plants? Why do strict vegans need to supplement with extra B12? What if that weren't available? IOW, is it natural for us to only eat vegetables?
Environmentally, I like the idea of eating meat-like vegetables, vegetables meant to taste like meat, like the "Impossible Burger". It's a great idea, cause I believe that the cattle industry is contributing to not just climate change, but the extinction of numerous other species as well to make room for one. But "Impossible Burger's" protein source is Monsanto's genetically engineered soy (cause they can't find non-GE soy that isn't contaminated with GE transgenes anymore thanks to the rather notorious Monsanto (omg!), and they don't want to use pea protein or something else). Also companies that sell their products, like Trader Joe's, quietly fill their shelves with IB, not caring that people shop there because they mistakenly believe that TJ's doesn't sell GMOs. It's all about the $$$ for them.
So a conumdrum. What to eat? Natural meat and vegetables? GMOs? Or only plants? Maybe if I could cook, and wanted to spend countless hours hunting down all the esoteric ingredients recipe books say that you need...
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:03 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Additionally, "whom are as biased as one can get" is utterly false. Both NPR and Reuters are widely recognized as straight journalism in its best sense. Compare that to FoxNews, who has now been proven in court documents to be "as biased as one can get" and could face potential bankruptcy as a result.
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Rob Honeycutt at 00:54 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Peppers... NPR is merely reporting what a scientific study says in that piece. That's as apolitical as it gets.
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peppers at 00:03 AM on 15 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
One Planet,
Im not sure why this site is going political, but using NPR, Rueters, as opinion sources, whom are as biased as one can get, turns your comments in to political shenanigans. It expands the line of thought of having a foregone opinion and then seeking out the answers that best, and only best fit your prior conclusion. Might sound familiar.
In 2020 Trump signed the Executive Order on “Modernizing America’s Water Resource Management and Water Infrastructure.” Oddly this dealt with all the premises of this article above. This went further though and established a Water Subcabinet specifically for the Colorado River region, to interface with tribal, local and area governments about the River.
You, and quoting several left sided websites, post a belittlement to advance a political agenda and start slinging poo. This is then the level you leave this site as as well then.
You can go to the archives.gov if you paste the executive order sentence above ( Im sorry I dont know how to condense a link here yet and I have ton study that ) and that article shows a 4 minute read.
Moderator Response:[DB] Please refrain from political rants (partially snipped).
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BaerbelW at 05:24 AM on 14 April 2023The Conspiracy Theory Handbook: Downloads and translations
On April 13, 2023 the Albanian and Macedonian translations of the Conspiracy Theory Handbook were published, bringing the number of available translations up to 18!
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:58 PM on 13 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
This April 12 NPR item "Swimming pools and lavish gardens of the rich are driving water shortages, study says" indicates that population growth and climate change are not the only significant factors leading to water shortages.
And Trump pursuing popular support by complaining about low-flush toilets and limited flow shower heads (reported here and there and everywhere) are examples of the harmful nonsense that Populists can temporarily benefit from (an example of the time limit is presented here).
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:20 PM on 13 April 2023Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial
EddieEvans,
Thanks for pointing to the Stanford University page. It is a great supplement to the Thinking is Power item reposted here on SkS.
I note that the list of criteria in 'Section 4. Alternative demarcation criteria; Sub-section 4.6 Multi-criterial approaches' starts with the following criteria identifying the practice of Pseudoscience:
"Belief in authority: It is contended that some person or persons have a special ability to determine what is true or false. Others have to accept their judgments."
Note that many believers of Pseudoscience that is professed by their "Identified Authority (Authoritarian ruler on the matter that they have passionate beliefs about)" often claim that a 'presenter of the developed consensus understanding regarding climate science and the resulting need to rapidly end the harm of fossil fuel use' is claiming to be 'the authority that others must accept the judgments of'.
The fact that the original Stanford document was published in 2008 appears to indicate that something is causing a powerful resistance to leadership learning the Truth about Pseudoscience, and not just regarding the climate impact case.
It appears that the powerful problem is harmful Populist political players as described in the detail in the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Digest item "Has populism won the war on liberal democracy".
The book "Has Populism Won? The war on liberal democracy", by Daniel Drache and Marc D. Froese, presents the diversity of Populists. Example of that diversity is Lula and Bolsonaro of Brazil both being Populists, as are Trump and Sanders in the USA. A common point about all Populists is their selling of different versions of a Big Lie that emotionally triggers support by making misleading, overly simple, claims about things. However, populists can be 'harmful or helpful'. Being misleading is not good. But it can temporarily reduce harm ... unless the 'helpful' Big Lie is 'seen through'.
Also note that the harmful Populists love to benefit from the promotion of Pseudoscience through the 'scientifically developed' power of misleading targeted marketing. Helpful Populists would be less likely to do that. The climate science case identifies the more harmful, less helpful, Populists.
A final point. Being scientific, and scientific developments, are no guarantee that harm is being reduced. What is chosen to be researched and how that learning is employed can be helpful or harmful. The science of marketing is an example. Nuclear weapons also prove that point. But misleading marketing is potentially a far more harmful scientifically developed thing.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:50 AM on 13 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Funny. I just realized I posted the exact same story on this thread 2 years ago. No matter. It's one worth re-telling.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:47 AM on 13 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
Ron... As a vegetarian of over 40 years, I have to agree with you, though I'd have to add the caveat that not all vegans are militant and self-righteous about their diet. Far too many of them are, though, and it leads to making too many factually inaccurate claims.
The rule I've developed for myself over the years is this: I'm vegetarian with caveats. When something culturally important or a unique life experience presents itself in the form of eating meat. Give me the meat.
Example: When my Chinese wife's grandmother got up at 5am on Chinese New Year morning to make pork dumplings for the family, as she'd done her entire life... the last thing I'm going to say is "no thank you, I'm a vegetarian." My response is, "These are freaking amazing! Can I have more?" And I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have shared in this special part of her life.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:40 AM on 13 April 2023Science tackles the West’s megadrought
Extensive additional reporting regarding the Colorado River challenge is provided by NPR, particularly NPR's KUNC. Search "colorado river" on NPR's website.
The inability (unwillingness) of the collective users to agree to reduced water use is tragically similar to the global response to the need for climate impacts to be reduced. Each State, or each regional interest, appears to have tried to get the most potential benefit possible. The result is the creation of the current day continuation of harmful over-consumption.
Another tragic similarity to the climate problem is that the reluctance of groups to reduce their harmful over-consumption produces the requirement for the Federal government (an external governing body) to 'impose restrictions'. That is likely to be abused by harmful populist 'freedom and sovereignty' political players to do their harmful misleading by attacking 'those others' who try to impose restrictions on freedom and sovereignty. The harmful populists will likely also blame 'those other water consumers' of being the real harmful over-consumers (populists thrive on finding ways to misleadingly be more popular by 'attacking or blaming others' - recommended related reading is the book "Has Populism Won? The war on liberal democracy", by Daniel Drache and Marc D. Froese).
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Ron at 04:58 AM on 13 April 2023Veganism is the best way to reduce carbon emissions
It always bugs me when Vegans (which seem to be more hateful and judgemental than Vegetarians) try to make people feel bad for being carnivores, or even drinking milk or having some butter.
It's not that I'm at all defending the meat industry, or the way in general animals are treated by them. And I hate the way some people in Asian countries are mistreating animals too. They're vicious and heartless (but I won't get into that right now). Also, about beef eating and the environment, I agree with Vegans. It is destructive and contributes to Climate Change, obviously, so should be phased out. And any fishing is overfishing these days, which is why I don't eat fish either.
But I think that Vegan's real issue is not about Climate Change. No, I suspect that their hostility and judgmentalism is actually about an enjoyment of telling people what to do! A hatred of people (there is reason to hate some people though).
Do Vegans eat plants? Of course. Yet, there's a whole field emerging that says that they, too, are sentient. Feel pain. Want to live. Use all kinds of tricks to foul up predators (like Vegans). What gives them the Right to take that life away just to feed their stomachs? Is it because plants can't say "STOP!" when they are eating them? Can't move out of the way to save themselves? Can't audibly scream? How arrogant of them! So thoughtless. But so human too. :/
Also, do Vegans have pet cats or dogs? Do they feed them plants? If so, they wont live long. I've seen it. Isn't it hypocritical of them not to call for us to stop owning them?
Are Vegans calling for only humans and their pets to stop eating meat? What about wild animals? Do they want the lion to lie down with the lamb? All meat eating to end, period? An environmental crash would soon follow. Some people eat insects now. Yech! But anyway, do they judge them too? Insects are animals as well. Want to live. Run when we come.
You know, they say whenever you point a finger at another person, four more are pointing back at you. Are Vegans perfect? They'd better be if they choose judge an otherwise good person. A great man once said not to judge others because with the measure you mete out to them, it will be meted out to you in return. A more modern way of saying that is that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. People can lay out their beliefs, and that's fine, but don't make it personal (except for real dicks) unless they themselves are utterly flawless. Are they? Only they know.
So I do eat poultry. You see, you gotta eat to live. That's just the way it works on this planet. But I try to find poultry that's raised humanely. Anyway plants, or animals, they ALL want to live as well. So you gotta make a choice. The alternative is to eat already dead things - or starve.
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EddieEvans at 23:53 PM on 10 April 2023Science and its Pretenders: Pseudoscience and Science Denial
In the context of climate deception, I started my morning learning about Karl Popper's explanations for science and pseudo-science. I came across this Standford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy Science and Pseudo-Science page. It's broad but may add to unavailing climate deceivers more quickly and thoroughly. I hope this helps someday.
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michael sweet at 05:25 AM on 10 April 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #14
This article from CleanTechnica.com describes how the North East Power system (PJM) is making gas power plants repay funds that were given to them to provide "reliable power". In December 2022 Winter storm Elliott took out up to 23% of "always on" gas generators. Meanwhile, wind generators provided over two times their promised electricity.
Rules put in place after a similar storm in 2014, when gas generators also failed to work, fine producers who do not produce as they promised and reward generators who provide excess power (not to mention recent Texas gas fiascos blamed on renewable energy).
Perhaps we will be able to avoid these consistent power shortages in bad weather when we have an all renewable energy system.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:24 AM on 6 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
Bob Loblaw @54,
I agree that JohnSeers was seeking a debunking of the claim that the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes was significantly due to underwater volcanoes heating the oceans.
I think it could be helpful to always clarify a 'climate change' question or claim in the context of 'its significance related to the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes'. And there are 2 dominant verifiable (real based on evidence) rapid recent changes:
- Increased CO2 levels
- Increased global average surface temperature (and warmer oceans)
The evidence and developed understanding to date is so robust that it is very unlikely that fossil fuel use is not the dominant cause of those verifiable rapid recent changes.
As your helpful comment confirms, that part of the science is almost as certain as science can get on any matter (part of the reason many IPCC participants see no value in 'another update'). That leads to misleading political actions hoping to benefit from the popularity of limited awareness and related increased misunderstanding which is limitless. Verifiable evidence always limits the range of believable explanations ...
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Bob Loblaw at 03:21 AM on 6 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
I had presumed that JohnSeers' question @ 49 was with respect to the direct heating effects of undersea volcanoes, rather than any indirect effects associated with CO2 emissions, etc.
Oceans are an important mechanism of heat transfer. Globally, tropical and subtropical regions absorb much more solar radiation than they emit back to space, so they show a net gain via radiation. Polar and sub-polar regions are the opposite - they lose more by IR emission to space than they absorb from solar radiation.
The climate system re-balances those regions of gain/loss by transporting energy poleward, and this happens via circulation in both the atmosphere and the oceans. Ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream, etc. move large amounts of energy.
And both land areas and ocean floors show vertical heat transport from the interior of the earth to the surface - but as discussed in the link I gave in comment #50, the amounts are small. And as pointed out in comments, to argue that current surface warming is the result of this flux of heat from the earth's core (via volcanoes or regular conduction) would require massive undetected increases in that geothermal heat flux.
Ain't happening, and anyone arguing that it is (without evidence) can be assumed to be badly uninformed (or mis-informed).
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scaddenp at 07:14 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
The idea of heating the oceans from below has so many things wrong it. Firstly, I highly recommend Bob's link to get a feel for the scale of different heat sources. Secondly, consider the vertical temperature profile of the oceans - rather consistant with heating from above not below wouldnt you think? And finally, to explain the rapid rise in ocean heat content, this is postulating the amount of heat being emitted geothermally has dramatically increased in recent years and yet is undetectable by observations of volcanism and vertical ocean temperature profiling. This is all about ignoring the simple, obvious explanation which is consistant with all of other data (adding CO2 to atmosphere from burning fossil fuels) and going for the extremely improbable, supported by no evidence at all, presumably because the likely explanation is unpalatable. I dont believe this is rational thinking.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:18 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
JohnSeers @49,
In addition to the responses by Bob and Rob I suggest that the following fairly obvious questions, with fairly obvious answers, are raised by that 3rd volcanic impact possibility:
- What is the evidence that underwater volcanic releases have dramatically increased recently in a way that explains the recent rapid increase of atmospheric CO2 levels and global average surface temperature increase?
- What has happened to all of the excess CO2 poduced by burining fossil fuels if it hasn't been causing the increase of atmospheric CO2 levels?
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:05 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
JohnSeers @49... I've heard that one many times before, at least relative to rising atmospheric CO2. What those who make that claim fail to recognize is that CO2 from underwater volcanoes would merely be dissolved into seawater before reaching the surface. It would lead to greater ocean acidification but any atmospheric changes would be limited to the second order effect from changes in the ocean/atmosphere exchange of CO2.
This argument seems more of a "what if" argument someone made up, didn't research, and spun up into a new denial theory.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:26 AM on 5 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
JohnSeers @49:
Without seeing details of the claim you are mentioning, it sounds like that would be a variation on the geothermal heat myth. You can read more about that here:
https://skepticalscience.com/underground-temperatures-control-climate.htm
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Bob Loblaw at 00:21 AM on 5 April 2023CO2 lags temperature
Terry2 @ 64:
Are you referring to the quote directly under the "Climate Myth" label? That is not a quote from the Science article - it is a quote from U.S. Rep Joe Barton. You can find the exact quote if you follow the "Full Statement" link immediately below the quote. It's Joe's interpretation of what he read (hopefully - he might just be repeating what someone else said) in the Science paper.
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JohnSeers at 23:06 PM on 4 April 2023Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes
There is a third argument made that volcanoes cause global warming. Many underwater volcanoes heat the ocean and transfer heat via the PDO, AMO, ENSO etc.
Is there any debunking of that anywhere?
