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Comments 62151 to 62200:

62151. dhogaza at 03:07 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       John Russell:

       I wonder if any of the 19th century denial ever took the form of, 'x is plant food'?

       Well, as a matter of fact, those who were sellng nightsoil from the city's cisterns argued against losing their jobs, and the farmers purchasing it were unhappy about losing this cheap source of ... plant food! :)
62152. les at 02:51 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Great article. A similar parallel I occasionally proffer is the From Horse Power to horsepower story... Although the advent of the motorcar is a step on the road to AGW... the important point being that overcoming human caused pollution, far from bringing about economic collaps, mostly energised the economy.
62153. Joel_Huberman at 02:23 AM on 12 March 2012
       How you can support Skeptical Science
       John, it's now 2012, and your web site (which I've just discovered) is clearly doing very well. I intend to study it thoroughly when opportunity permits over the next several months (I have lots of other stuff on my agenda). But I'm so impressed by my initial explorations of your web site that I'm about to send you a donation via PayPal. Please update your March 26, 2010, message to let us viewers know how we can help you improve the web site in 2012. Surely some of the agenda that you laid out in 2010 has already been accomplished, and probably there are now new needs not previously anticipated.
62154. Joel_Huberman at 02:01 AM on 12 March 2012
       We've been through climate changes before
       This is the first article I've read on Skeptical Science. I was tipped off to its potential interest by Joe Romm on his Climate Progress blog. I was delighted not only by the interesting article but also by the intelligent, frequently informative comments. How different from the comments I usually see (for example at the Scientific American web site) posted after articles dealing with climate change! Congratulations to Sarah and to all commenters! I want to echo MattJ's (#26) suggestion: Sarah's article would have much greater impact on scientifically trained readers if its graph showing global temperature fluctuations for the past 750,000 years had a properly labeled vertical axis (showing the magnitude of the temperature changes in degrees C or F). I hope that Sarah will update her article with such a modified graph.
62155. JMurphy at 01:26 AM on 12 March 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
       I have some links that tell you what is going on in some of the so-called skeptical sites without having to go there yourself - unless you want to, to confirm that they have actually posted something as dodgy as is being claimed ! Another Nail in the Coffin... Neverending Audit What's up with that Watts (But it's a shame that Denial Depot seems to have gone quiet since last August) More seriously, I like : Moyhu Jeff Masters (Oh, and Idiot Tracker is always worth a look, but that would make 7 links in total, so I'd better not...)
62156. shoyemore at 01:15 AM on 12 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       There was a good TV documentary on Bazelgette a few years ago in a series about major engineering projects Modern Industial Wonders of the World, starting with an 18th century Scottish lighthouse, and ending in the Hoover Dam. It included the Panama Canal, the US Transcontinental Railroad, the Great Eastern and the Brooklyn Bridge. A box-set of the series might be on e-bay. There was a program on Bazelgette's London sewage works. It shows how the right effects were brought about (clean water) for the wrong reasons (smell is not a disease vector). Interesting to compare "human effluent" with CO2 and what deniers say about it. I mean, it is a "natural by-product of nature", and must therefore by a good thing, right? It is "plant food", right? So why is Big Government trying to control it, and make the little guy pay taxes to keep it away from drinking water?
62157. John Russell at 20:20 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Absolutely superb article Andy. I'd never thought about these parallels before. I wonder if any of the 19th century denial ever took the form of, 'x is plant food'?
62158. Glenn Tamblyn at 19:51 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       "So far, we’re not doing any better than cyanobacteria." Arguably we are doing much worse. cyanobacteria have survived for 2-3 Billion years. Whats our track record?
62159. Glenn Tamblyn at 19:08 PM on 11 March 2012
       We've been through climate changes before
       Andrew Sipocz I read somewhere a while ago, but can't confirm this, that significant parts of the US Plains States were once desert. That features like the South Dakota Badlands were once sand dunes and that explains the geology/topography of the region. Rolling hills that are actually old sand dunes, where when the surface gets broken through, erosion of the old dunes then causes features such as the Badlands.
62160. takver at 19:01 PM on 11 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       To answer 5. Jose_X , There was a scientific breakthrough announced in January 2012 regarding an improved method of removing carbon dioxide (CO2) cheaply from industrial smoketacks and even scrubbing the air. Still early stages of research yet, but shows promise. See Alain Goeppert, Miklos Czaun, Robert B. May, G. K. Surya Prakash, George A. Olah, and S. R. Narayanan, Journal of the American Chemical Society - Carbon Dioxide Capture from the Air Using a Polyamine Based Regenerable Solid Adsorbent (Abstract). My article includes a non-scientific description and links to all associated media releases and the article abstract.
62161. Glenn Tamblyn at 18:52 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Strangely, I didn't have an epiphany moment. I have an engineering background which gives you a range of basic science. And I have always been interested by Science and scientific ideas and thinking Probably my biggest on-going source was 'New Scientist'. Interesting, topical but not too hard-core. So over the years an acceptance of AGW coalesced. Then as the years passed and the world basically was doing diddly-squat about it I started getting onto a limited number of blogs - reading and later commenting. And I quickly realised how many people who were skeptical on-line were either poorly informed or deeply biased. Then as you start putting arguments to people, pointing out the fallacies in their viewpoint - not differences of opinion but actual logical fallacies, failure to consider all the evidence etc - and again and again they don't shift their view, you start to realise that their 'skepticism' isn't really rational but has other deeper psychological underpinnings. This also forced me to expand my knowledge base - paleoclimatology, radiative transfer physics, the change in the Sun's heat output over deep time etc, carbonate chemistry in the oceans. And as one does so, the skeptic arguments just get thinner and thinner. Then when you see that not one 'skeptical scientist' is acting as an 'honest broker', never do they present the full picture, you realise that 'professional skepticism' is a sham. Their motives may be many and varied - pecuniary, political, philosophical, ideological, personal esteem or the lack of it, defence of a worldview even if that requires closing the mind to the evidence. Psychology would be such a wonderfully interesting topic if its consequences weren't so serious. Finally some very key data then narrows the options for what is causing AGW and then it really really jells. Put simply, any argument about AGW that just looks at Surface Air Temperatures without considering other key information - Ocean Heat Content changes are the Elephant in the Room here - is either ignorant or deliberately mendacious. I hope to have a post up this week looking at the Elephant and just how much it informs our opinions. At this point you realise that commenting on Anti-AGW sites has one purpose and one purpose only. To try and make a sensible case to all the 'lurkers' on the site. Just ignore the main players and their regular acolytes, they are a lost cause. But so many un-commited people can be informed with the facts or misled by the misreprentation.
62162. Glenn Tamblyn at 18:19 PM on 11 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       Simple question. How do you get someone like Hansen in front of conservative audiences? Won't shift the hard core, but for the many disengaged right-wing, the moderateness of his tone might have an impact.
62163. Tony O at 17:42 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Perhaps our perceptions are coloured by where we enter an argument. When I first heard about global warming, it was a possible minor problem a long way into the future. I then thought no more about it until about 5 years ago, when we had the massive sea ice melt of 2007. Maybe it was this this set me on a path of always thinking the scientists are far too conservative. However, just because I can see a problem does not mean I can put figures to that shortfall. Gradually most of what I saw as incompleteness has been answered. In hindsight I realise I could see changes as far back as the early eighties. The edge of the Western Australian wheat belt had moved westwards. Moora traditionally too wet for proper wheat growing had become a very productive wheat area. I am still deeply pessimistic about where we are heading.
62164. Bruce at 17:26 PM on 11 March 2012
       Oceans Acidifying Faster Today Than in Past 300 Million Years
       Rob, o.k. We need to beat the drum but I am both a farmer and a fisherman. It is about impossible to produce fish for sale and avoid enormous fuel consumption. Small scale farming can be much more energy efficient but where I live (calif.) we aren't really fed by small scale farming. I have been pushing the ocean acidification message for five years, I was in the acid test movie but people don't understand the bottom line. Whether you're an australian or a u.s. consumer on average you are responsible for about 17 tons of Co2 emissions . We need to get that down to less than one ton. I'm not trying to bait anyone but let's get real , we need good working models for how to pull this off. How do we(and I'm trying) produce food with extremely low fossil fuel consumption? Energy in and calories out gallons of fuel consumed and pounds of food produced. Numbers Rob, what does it take ? Please excuse my frustration but I have used up 5 years of the 20 or 30 years I think we have to make the necessary changes , changes 7 billion of us need to make. I know the odds. I know the price of failure
62165. Doug Hutcheson at 16:04 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       

       If our leaders are ever to be motivated to timely action on climate change by a Big Stink, then that stink is going to have be raised by us, their electors.

       Quite right. Science can tell us the parameters of the problem, but only concerted action by populations can provide necessary responses to the problem. Each must do whatever he or she can. I will continue writing letters to the editor and emailing my representatives, which is my right and my responsibility in a democracy. Those who have more influence have a moral obligation to exert it and not shy away from "getting involved".
62166. actually thoughtful at 15:23 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       The equivalent to the big stink may well be the next strong El Nino. El Nino's seem to magnify the heat-related effects of global warming. It would be ideal to have one this summer, in the run-up to the US elections.
62167. actually thoughtful at 15:07 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       When I set out to understand the controversy, I was struck by two things - one skeptical arguments simply don't hold up to inspection. And I was thrilled and intrigued by the absolute cleverness of the way climate scientists figured things out about the past (tree rings as a proxy for temperature data, for example). Brilliant! For those who engage in online discussions and have a signature - I suggest something simple like "The world is warming, man is to blame." - It keeps the topic ever-present, even if you are discussing the precise number of angels that can dance on a pinhead.
62168. Lloyd Flack at 13:14 PM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Looking at the comments here, what is not getting across to the public is the urgency of the problem. If you look at it in detail the urgency comes across automatically. But we cannot reasonably expect everyone to look at that level of detail. We have to convey the urgency simply but not so simply that we can be attacked as misleading. As you convey the urgency you also have to give realistic solutions with realistic costs. The denialists are exagerating the cost of solutions but there is a temptation to treat techically immature solutions as if they were economically viable now. A bit of counting chickens before hatching is going on in renewables. But there is plenty that we can do now.
62169. Andrew Sipocz at 12:01 PM on 11 March 2012
       We've been through climate changes before
       I'm looking for a good, recently published N.American paleoclimatology book; one that focuses on the late Pleistocene and Holocene. I read through the Desert's Past (Paleoclimates of the Great Basin) and found oodles of good information there, but not so applicable to my region. I work in SE Texas and apparently during the Holocene Optimum we experienced a significantly different climate; one that was at least drier if not warmer, or at least more prone to long drought. Unfortunately our surface sediments are muddled enough by ubiquitous burrowing rodents and tree throws leading to argument on what really lead to today's land forms. Further, human action could have caused much of what we see in palynological studies so I'd like to read up on what solutions a broader study on N. American Holocene climatology has to offer. If the Texas H. Optimum climate was what I think it was, and if we are facing a similar climate (or maybe already), then we have some unpleasant suprises awaiting us.
62170. Tom Curtis at 12:00 PM on 11 March 2012
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       sOnathan @171, I recommend to you the two excellent replies by Chris and Rob Painting (and Dikran's sage advise). As they have covered much of the territory I would have, I will try to restrict my comments to points they have not already covered. 1) Ocean Heat Content The obvious point here is that David Evans has picked a high point in the data as his start point, thereby artificially increasing the apparent discrepancy between the data and the models. This is made obvious by comparing the graph shown by David Evans with that shown by Rob Painting. Evans justifies his start point by saying,

       "We’ve only been measuring ocean temperature properly since 2003, using the ARGO system."

       That claim is simply false. Prior to Argo, a number of different methods where used to measure ocean heat content, of which the largest was the XBT in which over 5 million eXpendable BathyThermographs were deployed from the 1960s onwards. They do not give perfect information, but imperfect information is not the same as no information. The habit of ignoring imperfect information because it does not tell you what you want to here is, to put it mildly, not scientific. What is more, the Argo program was not yet extensive enough in 2003 to give significantly improved data compared to the XBT program: It is only in 2006 that it became an effectively global program. But had Evan's zeroed the curves in 2005 or 2006 it would not have told the right story, which I guess is exactly the point. 2) Hansen's 1988 predictions You have to wonder why Evans chooses to focus on a 1988 model when computing power was to crude for the model to include aerosols, a known significant factor, instead of on later models from the 2001 IPCC report, or the 2007 IPCC report. This is particularly the case because Hansen's predictions are known to be wrong, and are predicted to be wrong by the global warming community. This is primarily because the forcing factor of CO2 was determined in 1998 to be overstated by 18%. Therefore, as a criticism of AGW, Evans' blogpost is fourteen years out of date. More concerning is Evans little edit to the 1988 forecast graph indicating that scenario A is what happened. For reference, here is a comparison between actual 2010 GHG concentrations and Hansen's scenario B projections for 2010: Table 1: Scenario B greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration in 1984, as projected by Hansen's Scenario B in 2010, and actual concentration in 2010 GHG 1984 Scen. B 2010 Actual 2010 CO2 344 ppmv 389 ppmv 392 ppmv N2O 304 ppbv 329 ppbv 323 ppbv CH4 1750 ppbv 2220 ppbv 1788 ppbv CCl3F 0.22 ppbv 0.54 ppbv 0.24 ppbv CCl2F2 .038 ppbv 0.94 ppbv 0.54 ppbv To be fair, Hansen's scenario A projection for CO2 was 391.5 ppmv, which is pretty close. But CO2 concentrations where well less than Hansen's scenario A projections in the 1990s due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and caught up again in the 2000s due to the rapid industrialization of China. The net effect is that on average the CO2 forcing was well below the Scenario A projection, and because of thermal lag, it is the earlier (and lower) part of that projection which has the most significance for current temperatures. It should also be noted that NO2 concentrations and CFC 12 concentrations are less than Hansen's scenario C projections. Overall the effect is as if GHG concentrations had tracked just below Hansen's scenario B. The interesting question to ask Evans is, why did he state Scenario A is what happened, and how did he check? The answer, as it cannot have been a thorough check will reveal that what he is doing is not science, but propaganda. This is also shown by his use of the HadCRUT3 temperature index, which is known to have less than global coverage, which is known to create inaccuracies. What is more, it is also known that it is obsolete and is about to be replaced by HadCRUT4, which like GISTEMP shows 2010 as being hotter than 1998. That would lift the end point of the temperature graph to just below Hansen's scenario B projection. Given the actual development of GHG concentrations, that's not such a bad projection, but of course, again, its the wrong story. (For far more details on Hansen's 1988 projections, I suggest you read Dana's excellent article on the topic.) I notice Evan's finishes with a call for a debate. Well, apparently unknown to Evans, there is an actual scientific debate about AGW that goes on in the scientific literature. Unfortunately for Evans, in that debate you are required to handle your data with integrity, which it would appear would leave Evans shooting blanks. In fact, the stunning dearth of "skeptical" voices in the scientific literature really seems to come from that one requirement. Until so-called skeptics actual start publishing their theories in respectable, climate oriented scientific journals, the proper assumption is that they cannot because their argument evaporates when you are required to handle data with integrity. It therefore follows that on climate they really have nothing interesting to say.
62171. Jose_X at 11:54 AM on 11 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       Does anyone know how much success has come from research to sequester CO2? For example I had read of various lab success in using the sun, semiconductors, and/or bacteria to absorb CO2 and turn it (back) into oil or some other stable form. We have enough sunlight to drive the process but it would still have to be cost effective and end up + over the lifetime of the devices and also be economical.
62172. Andy Skuce at 10:22 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Thanks for the comments. Chris: yes, indeed, what you say is more strictly correct. Really, I was trying to make the rhetorical point that the effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is, on human scales, forever, whereas a pulse of pollution in an estuary can be flushed out over a time period measured in days. I'll tweak the text.
62173. Chris McGrath at 10:16 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Yes, a fabulous and insightful piece.
62174. rustneversleeps at 10:02 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Big thanks and kudos for this , Andy.
62175. Chris McGrath at 09:39 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Well done Andy. A very interesting historical perspective. I'd suggest making some minor changes to your sentence: "The mean lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is 12-14 thousand years (Archer et al, 2009), the Thames in London is flushed twice a day by tides." I suggest changing this to "The mean lifetime that fossil fuel CO2 affects the atmosphere is 12-14 thousand years (Archer et al, 2009), the Thames in London is flushed over hours or days depending on riverflow and tides." The reason for the first change is that CO2 from fossil fuels does not remain (literally) in the atmosphere for 12-14 thousand years on average. Rather, it moves through the carbon cycle in the atmosphere, oceans, land and biosphere for that time (see the Archer article you cite and his other work). This means it continues to affect the atmosphere and climate over that time period. The reason for the second change is that flushing of rivers depends on their rate of flow and in their tidal sections this is affected by tides. Even if the flushing were purely from the tides there would not be a complete turn-over. All partially enclosed water bodies such as bays and rivers that are flushed by tides have a tidal prism. They are not fully flushed with each tide. Some of the water sloshes back and forth and can remain for a long period of time (slowly turning over at the edges only). I don't know the tidal prism for the Thames but I'd suggest referring to "hours or days". In a dry season when there was little flow and small tides, making the tidal prism large, the turnover might be longer but I won't worry about that. These points don't relate to the main thrust of your article but I thought you'd like to be aware of them none-the-less. Thanks again for your very interesting article.
62176. OPatrick at 09:19 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       An outstanding article Andy (you've added significnatly to my reading list) and an outstanding comment thread. In many ways I'm jealous of those who have recently awakened to the alarming nature of this issue, I sense that in a way it gives a greater confidence in your understanding of the issues - and of course "you're only as young as the last time you changed your mind". I grew up with a strong sense of the importance of the environment instilled in me and in the early to mid 80s it would seem this ensured a concern about anthropogenic climate change. I can't remember a time when it wasn't part of my environmental awareness and by the time I came to my O' level English project (at 16 years old) I was already writing about these concerns in words that I would barely change today. The obvious concern for me then is whether I have ever really questioned or tested these beliefs. Having spent some seven years studying philosophy, and the philosophy and history of science in particular, I've certainly challenged many of my assumptions and I know I have changed my modes of thought as a result, thrown out lazy, convenient and comforting beliefs. But my concerns about our influence on the climate have only strengthened. I'm as certain as I can be that I've been honest with myself, but even so every time a 'sceptic' challenges me to question my beliefs (so about 5 times a day on average I'd guess) I still go through the process of wondering if this is so tied up with my identity that I can't let it go. It would be wonderful if I could, how easy and comfortable life would be ... for now.
62177. sauerj at 09:06 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       R. Gates (@16): I agree SO much with your sentiment! I hope, & pray, that real change is within 5-10 years. In some way, I find myself hoping for some major, catastrophic event that happens sooner than later, at least BEFORE tripping points are passed. But, what I hear at work (from educated, technically versed men that should know better but never take the time to read good sources on the subject), OR what mass media thinks are the "issues" of the day (& lack of indepth climate reporting), OR sick-minded denier ridicules on sites like realclimate OR letters-to-editor on our local paper, it seems like we have a LONG way to go! When versed, intelligent engineers don't have the foggest idea about ANYTHING pertaining to climate science, to me, this is very concerning! Though a bit of a stretch, I think the civil rights movement has some parallels concerning what I believe, SADLY(!!!), will be long drawn-out timeline here. When the blacks came back from the semi-integrated WWII battle field, it took another 20 years before the civil rights movement brought about real policy change. And, it was a HUGE uphill battle. To me, though a few beacons have shone in the last 20 years, it seems like, only in the last couple years, has a grass-roots core of action-minded people been developed (i.e. with growth at sites like www.350.org, www.climateprediction.net, etc). It is like we just came back from WWII; now we have the real, uphill work ahead of us. But, in the same spirit of MLK, the work will have to be done with upmost integrity and dignity otherwise we will only be shooting ourselves in the foot.
62178. witsendnj at 08:29 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       It's certainly encouraging to know that thoughtful people can examine the evidence and change their minds. I do know complete skeptics who were turned into alarmists overnight because of "An Inconvenient Truth" although for me, I was immersed in other things at the time I saw it, and was somehow able to believe for a while that climate change was going to happen far away, and in the distant future. I didn't become an alarmist until 2008, when I realized all the trees are dying. It scared the daylights out of me, and I read everything I could find about climate change. Ironically, I no longer believe it is climate change that is killing trees (yet) because they are dying everywhere, even in places where there are no insects, or drought, or significant temperature rise. It's become quite obvious to me that tropospheric ozone, which is well known to be toxic both to humans and to vegetation, is killing the trees, both directly and by making them more vulnerable to insects, disease, fungus, drought and wind. The optimism bias against this conclusion is even stronger, I've found, than the urge to deny the existential peril from climate change. It's too bad, because if people would really look at trees and see the terrible condition they are in - even trees in landscaping nurseries being fertilized and watered - perhaps the understandable resistance to the drastic sacrifice required to avert continuing emissions would be reduced. http://www.deadtrees-dyingforests.com/ has links to research, including the draft EPA report that the Obama administration didn't want on the table, which concludes that ozone is causative in damage to forests - and annual crops as well.
62179. Bert from Eltham at 08:08 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London
       Great article Andy S! A conservative friend asked me why anyone should pay a carbon tax in Australia. I asked him how much a year do you pay to get rid of your sewerage, garbage and hard rubbish. He thought about it and replied, too much! It then dawned on him that dumping any pollutant into our atmosphere and thus our environment also should not be free of cost as it affects us all. I then invoked the user pays principle much admired by conservatives. If you pollute then you pay for the damage. Bert
62180. Rob Painting at 07:56 AM on 11 March 2012
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       s0nathan - climate models do not anticipate La Nina & El Nino to suddenly disappear, so clearly the figures in your post are wrong - surface temperatures are not expected to increase in a straight line. This is from a recent Real Climate post by climate modeler Gavin Schmidt: Note how the observations are still within the range of the IPCC climate model ensemble. And also check out figure 1 in my comment @170. The ocean heating rate and TOA (top-of-the-atmosphere) radiation flux fall within the simulations of the 15 climate models used there. And this is quite revealing too:
62181. Chris G at 07:46 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       sauerj (#13), One of my favorite quotes, by Ghandi: "Ah, because I have learned something since last week."
62182. Chris G at 07:15 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       FYI, my perception of the relationship between energy price and food price: FAO Food Price Index Commodity Fuel (energy) Index 30-Year
62183. william5331 at 07:06 AM on 11 March 2012
       Peter Sinclair interview with Michael Mann
       What amazes me is that for the most part, the climate deniers tend to be professed Christians, often fundamentalists. In my reading of the "good book" I note that god gave man dominion over the beasts of the field and the fish in the sea (or was it the birds in the air). He didn't actually say take it and look after it but I think we can assume that it is what he meant. So why are they hell bent on doing everything possible to trash all this beauty and wonder. Perhaps religious fundamentalism is simply a state of mind, possibly genetically determined, that results in the inability to see evidence outside a notion that has become fixed in your mind.
62184. Chris G at 06:58 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       andylee, R. Gates, I share your conclusions.
62185. Chris G at 06:56 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       An interesting discussion. My own moment of revelation, if you will, came from growing bacteria in a petri dish in 7th grade science class. My colony went from tiny, to thriving, and eventually to overpopulation, decay and mostly death. That took about a week. It made me sad that if only the population had kept itself in check, there would have been enough gelatin to keep the colony thriving for a long time. It struck me that any population without predation would grow exponentially, consume all resources, and then collapse. Humans have managed to effectively overcome all predators. The only effective predator of man is man. Since then, I've always figured humanity was in for trouble at some point, just a question of when and what form. Currently, I think when is the lifetime of this generation of young people, who face a triple jeopardy of climate change, peak oil, and overpopulation. Food energy is a limiting factor for any species; and we have been leveraging energy from fossil fuels to produce food energy. At the same time, emissions from fossil fuels have produced a food security issue through changing the environment. It will take some portion of the energy we have available to shift to an alternate energy production paradigm; so, unavoidably energy costs will rise during the transition. There is also a rising demand for energy to produce food (and comfortable shelter) because of the rising population (and the desire of those eating mostly rice to eating more like westerners), at the same time, fossil energy that is easy to produce and use in mobile applications is in decline. (There is a reason we are drilling for oil under 2 miles of ocean, producing tar sand oil, etc.) Food and shelter at the moment take precedence in people's minds over food and shelter in the future. So, there will be great reluctance to let energy prices rise more, even if would only be temporary, in order to invest in non-fossil energy technologies. It will continue to be exceptionally challenging to convince the general population to take some lumps now in order to avoid far larger lumps in the future. It will be very hard to have a change in energy production paradigm at the same time that energy cost is already causing economic difficulties. Population growth would be a problem regardless of climate change, but it would be easier do deal with whatever limit there is on carrying capacity if that carrying capacity were not also in decline. Less productive land takes more energy (through fertilizer, irrigation, etc.) to produce the same amount of food. I believe the Arab "spring" (It's not any Spring that I would want to experience.) was triggered by rising food prices, which were at least in part a result of the Russian wheat failure, which was caused by changing climate. As heat waves become more common, crop failures will become more common. (I am skeptical of the notion that Siberian and Canadian tundra will convert to productive fields in the near term; nevermind bare rock exposed by retreating ice.) This will result in global food prices continuing to increase. Areas where food represents, say, 5% of the typical income will be largely unaffected; areas where food represents more than half the typical income will be in bad shape. I see people ask when climate change will have what negative impacts, and I think: It has already started; open your eyes.
62186. R. Gates at 06:39 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       @ #13, sauerj: Very nicely put. This part is the heart of my #10 post: "Someday real, substantial pain may slap-up us public dullards, then the argument will change from ‘belief’ to ‘physical reality’, but I believe (ha) that that day, when sufficiently significant mass pain starts to sway the facile and fickle-minded politics, is at least 25 years away." ____ I hope it is not 25 years away, as each year that passes, creates that much more work and difficulty later. Unfortunately, I do think that we are at least 5 to 10 years away, but each passing year will bring more shocks to the system and the obviousness of the situation will only increase until it drowns out the politically motivated "noise". In the meantime, the personal changes that Andy has so nicely detailed for us, are necessary to set the stage and lay the foundation for future consensus of the body politic so that action can be taken once the noise is gone.
62187. andylee at 06:15 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       We have evidence already - lots of it. Communicating it to a scientifically illiterate and unreceptive population is not easy. By the time we have extraordinary evidence, it may be too late to correct. Humanity is going to hit a wall. Why does it have to waste time working out the speed of impact *before* applying the brakes?
62188. Martin Lack at 06:05 AM on 11 March 2012
       Lindzen's London Illusions
       #65 Please accept my apologies John. That was a bit hypocritical of me. Thankyou for ignoring it. Roe (2006) says: "...variations in melting precede variations in CO2. Thus, the relatively small amplitude of the CO2 radiative forcing and the absence of a lead over dV/dt both suggest that CO2 variations play a relatively weak role in driving changes in global ice volume compared to insolation variations. This certainly does not rule out CO2 as a primary cause of tropical or other climate variations, or of the apparent synchronization of the ice-age signal between hemispheres". To me, none of this could have been - or can be - used to refute what I had just stated is the consensus view (i.e. "...because natural change is temperature-driven we can be sure unnatural CO2 change will cause temperature change because radiative energy balance must always be restored...") Therefore both Lindzen and Monckton conspired to shut me up. Q.E.D.
62189. JMurphy at 05:55 AM on 11 March 2012
       It's not bad
       MarkOhio, I did not intend to over-react but if it is seen in that way then I apologise to mohyla103 for giving that impression, and hope I haven't scared him/her away ! However, I still think it excessive to make the four accusations I quoted in my previous post, without the required solid evidence to back them up. At least, I don't see the abstracts as containing such solid evidence, anyway. And I'm not saying that the accusations are necessarily definitely wrong - just unproven and, so far, carelessly made, in my opinion.
62190. John Hartz at 05:36 AM on 11 March 2012
       A Sunburnt Country
       @Norman #70 Before you get too carried away with your analysis of NOAA tornado data, please ponder the following. “First, the existing record of tornado events is seriously problematic, even here in the US - it's much, much worse outside the US, unfortunately. The existing record of tornado occurrences simply will not support any speculation about trends in the observed events, in large part because the existing record is overwhelmingly dominated by non-meteorological artifacts in the data. I've spent the last 40 years exploring that record (along with several colleagues, including Dr. Harold Brooks). I have a number of peer-reviewed publications related to the topic of severe storm and tornado climatology. Those data simply don't allow us to make any statement whatsoever about long-term trends.” Source: “Sandboxes” by Chuck Doswell, Chuck’s Corner, March 8, 2012 To access this blog post, click here.
62191. sauerj at 04:59 AM on 11 March 2012
       James Hansen's Motivation
       Yes, very good talk! Maybe a bit too simple to sway hard-cores, but maybe simple is better! 3-Cheers to Mr. Hansen.
62192. Bud Ward at 04:51 AM on 11 March 2012
       Peter Sinclair interview with Michael Mann
       Book review complementing the video is online at http://climatemediaforum.yale.edu
62193. chuckbot at 04:40 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       I can certainly identify with a lot of this. I am a skeptic about most things, and climatology doesn't get a free pass. From childhood, I'd been environmentally conscious, including exposure to the idea of global warming. However, I was having serious doubts by the mid-2000s, due to a generally ornery personality and my difficulty believing that a rich politician like Gore seriously cares about the environment. (I still have these traits ;D ) The more I thought about it, it seemed rather incredible that human CO2 emissions were significant compared to natural sources like volcanoes. How did we know it wasn't the sun? And the climate is a complex dynamical system; how is attribution even possible in such a situation? But like I said I'm a skeptic, in the actual meaning of the word - I require that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - and I set out to find what the real story is. It turns out, I was wrong: anthropogenic emissions are orders of magnitude larger than natural ones; solar forcing does not explain observed warming; attribution is a sophisticated geophysical exercise rather than mere correlation-finding; and complex dynamicism doesn't mean acausality. I'd found the extraordinary evidence. SkepSci wasn't the only resource I used in my search, but it was certainly helpful. Thanks!
62194. chris at 04:34 AM on 11 March 2012
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       s0nathan, the first figure is simply incorrect in two respects. (i) Analysis of the full ocean depth record indicates that the oceans have continued to take up heat at least through 2008 (e.g.): Church, J. A. et al (2011), Revisiting the Earth’s sea-level and energy budgets from 1961 to 2008, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L18601, doi:10.1029/2011GL048794. (since the AGU website is down this afternoon, I'll reproduce the abstract at the bottom of this post) (ii) Climate models don't predict a regular monotonic increase in ocean heat. abstract: "We review the sea-level and energy budgets together from 1961, using recent and updated estimates of all terms. From 1972 to 2008, the observed sea-level rise (1.8 +/- 0.2 mm yr(-1) from tide gauges alone and 2.1 +/- 0.2 mm yr(-1) from a combination of tide gauges and altimeter observations) agrees well with the sum of contributions (1.8 +/- 0.4 mm yr(-1)) in magnitude and with both having similar increases in the rate of rise during the period. The largest contributions come from ocean thermal expansion (0.8 mm yr(-1)) and the melting of glaciers and ice caps (0.7 mm yr(-1)), with Greenland and Antarctica contributing about 0.4 mm yr(-1). The cryospheric contributions increase through the period (particularly in the 1990s) but the thermosteric contribution increases less rapidly. We include an improved estimate of aquifer depletion (0.3 mm yr(-1)), partially offsetting the retention of water in dams and giving a total terrestrial storage contribution of -0.1 mm yr(-1). Ocean warming (90% of the total of the Earth's energy increase) continues through to the end of the record, in agreement with continued greenhouse gas forcing. The aerosol forcing, inferred as a residual in the atmospheric energy balance, is estimated as -0.8 +/- 0.4 W m(-2) for the 1980s and early 1990s. It increases in the late 1990s, as is required for consistency with little surface warming over the last decade. This increase is likely at least partially related to substantial increases in aerosol emissions from developing nations and moderate volcanic activity."
62195. sauerj at 04:30 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Interesting: Figuring out how to get the globe's "political mind" to catch up with its science is an interesting subject. Personal stories are so important because, in the end, that's what it is all about! Nothing less is required to get a semi-universal acceptance on this matter, thereby getting people to really cooperate with the sacrifices that will be required. If not, then eventually the physics will demand that political & military entities take control (with or without the backing of the masses). Such a non-cooperative prospect is a troubling thought. In my limited experience amongst my little circle of manufacturing chemical engineers, it seems that once a person has PUBLICALLY made a statement casting their deep-seated conviction, they have, in doing so (whether they like it or not), FIXED themselves in immobile concrete. It seems that the very act of a public proclamation has some sort of power over the mind that affixes a person's core convictions. Even if these convictions are based on obfuscated, erroneous information (that might partially trouble a person's inner conscience), once a person publically states his/her personal-defining belief on the matter, it is very hard for them to skeptically listen, let alone accept, any contradictory information. They seem to only listen to what they want to hear and their convictions only become more entrenched. The parallels between this process with that of publically stating one's faith is not an overstatement, I think, as for most of us, who are not privy to “touching” the real data, the whole AGW argument really comes down to trust and belief. Someday real, substantial pain may slap-up us public dullards, then the argument will change from ‘belief’ to ‘physical reality’, but I believe (ha) that that day, when sufficiently significant mass pain starts to sway the facile and fickle-minded politics, is at least 25 years away. In the meantime, changing fixed minds will be a STEEP, uphill battle. To be fair, all of us are guilty of this (both sides of the AGW argument). Addressing this is, at its core, the whole idea of this 'skeptical' site; it hammers home the idea of always fighting (deep in ourselves) the possibility of getting entrenched in erroneous bias. Over my years as a chemical engineer, I have been wrong about MANY things dealing with process & management issues around our corn wetmilling plant. It is humbling to look back and think about the stupid things I screamed about, but which turned out to be non-issues (or else minor issues that we were able to overcome without the dire consequences I forecasted). This has been a good life lesson for me, humbling me to, instead, start off my thinking, on any subject, with the strong likelihood that I'm probably more WRONG than RIGHT (although, I'm probably being overly kind to myself on this ‘humble’ characterization). Good character traits are rudimentarily very important here: 1) that it is better to see 'GRAY' and not 'BLACK & WHITE', 2) swallowing one’s pride and accepting the real possibility that there might be real truth on the other side of the argument ... and, I think most important, 3) that an OPEN ARENA of COMMUNICATION is fundamentally required to changing minds. We must allow everybody to feel that they can openly voice their little, deep-seated argument s (without being ridiculed). If we instead bully people to submission, we will never really get cooperation (which, speaking for myself, is my lofty goal). The bully approach will only get people to nod their heads ‘yes’; but then, after we part company, fight me with even more vigor than before. I’m sure that all of this is at the heart of John Cook’s visionary project here. This site is really quite a ground-breaking combination of virtue mixed with social networking. As the years pass, I will be very glad to look back and remember little bright spots on this whole geopolitical endeavor. And, I am most confident that Mr. Cook’s work here, along with all the climate scientists working so hard without any thanks, will be near the top of this bright list.
62196. Andy Skuce at 04:21 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       Thanks for the comments everyone. I appreciate all the personal stories . MA Rodger: To be clear, my point about the Gore movie wasn't that it was bad (it was mostly good, I think now) but that I obsessed about one aspect of it and concluded that because one politician had framed an issue deceptively then that somehow was evidence that climate scientists generally exaggerated. Chris@5: Yes the old gradualism/catastrophism debate in geology is similar to the debate between the gradualists like Richard Dawkins and the punctuated equilibrium model of Stephen Jay Gould (although I believe that the "debate" was really almost non-existent among biologists and something of a vanity project kept alive by Gould). As I understand it the gradualist "creeps" largely prevailed over the catastrophist "jerks" in evolutionary biology as they did in geology. Sometimes the creeps overreached in geology, for example in the long and bitter debate over the origins of the Scablands in Washington State; where a catastrophic origin for these valleys is now orthodoxy.
62197. Dikran Marsupial at 03:48 AM on 11 March 2012
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       s0nathan I suspect the response for the first figure would be to ask for it to be plotted again, this time showing the uncertainty on the observations and the spread of the model runs (which is an indication of the uncertainty in the projection). For the second image, try this article.
62198. dana1981 at 03:45 AM on 11 March 2012
       Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal
       To give some credit to Gore, my climate 'trigger' moment was in watching An Inconvenient Truth. Before then, like Kate @1, I only had a vague notion that global warming was a problem. The film got me curious and started me researching the subject, and 6 years later I haven't stopped.
62199. KR at 03:39 AM on 11 March 2012
       Peter Sinclair interview with Michael Mann
       One important note regarding my last post - the pressure shown is the partial pressure of CO2, and since we're at ~392 ppm, we are simply not on the chart for anything but gaseous CO2 on Earth.
62200. s0nathan at 03:38 AM on 11 March 2012
       It hasn't warmed since 1998
       I am trying to find a response to the data collected by Dr David Evans. It show climate modeling has not proceeded as predicted and flattening in the ARGO data. Four fatal pieces of evidence
       Response:

       [DB] Please limit image widths to 450 pixels (now fixed).  And keep in mind this site's Comments Policy.  You deleted comment was in violation of it.

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