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Comments 6401 to 6450:
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Luiz19760 at 23:07 PM on 13 September 2020Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
According to figure 1, "The Global Carbon Cycle", vegetation, land and the ocean absorb more carbon than they produce, 17 gigatons more. Where those extra tons come from? They have to come from somewhere, or someone. The answer is fossil fuel burning and land use. Nature is not seletive when it comes to carbon, it will absorb whatever is available. And by the way, part of the 29 gigatons produced by human actions, are absorbed as result of other human actions, technologies and materials. So the figure is misleading because the net result is not 29.
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Nick Palmer at 10:47 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
That's great. I'm sure you realise how many problems we denialist fighters face when we have to deal with countering the rherotic generated by political figures who spin a story that will appeal to their political base whch is not necessarily the complete scientific truth
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nigelj at 07:48 AM on 13 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
I do agree with Gseattle to the extent that Greata could fine tune her message on extinctions. Maybe to "modelling shows 200 species are dying each day". Or "Many species are dying each day". Or "we are at risk of huge biodiversity loss." However it doesn't keep me awake at nights. The underlying principles and message is what counts most.
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nigelj at 07:43 AM on 13 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
People like Gseattle appear to need very precise and proven numbers of extinctions, however we probably wont ever get this because of the huge challenges involved. We know its significantly more than 1.67 per year but can't be precise. We know with much better certainty that a large number of species are on the endangered list because its easier to measure actual populations than measure whether every last individual has died off.
So we know we have a problem. I dont understand the mentality of people that demand absolute precision before acknowleding we have a serious problem, and taking action. It just doesnt seem very realistic or very smart to me.
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BaerbelW at 05:22 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Nick Palmer @5
Nick - not sure if any presentation by anybody about climate change can be made completely "denialist proofed"! However, judging from the detailed speaker notes accompanying each of the slides Climate Reality Leaders get access to for their own presentations, I think that the answer is yes. The slides I thus far "sampled" all have references back to the sources and - where applicable - peer-reviewed literature.
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Nick Palmer at 04:02 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Has Gore 'denialist proofed' his slides and presentation, by paying attention to whether they can be easily misused?
When he did 'An Inconvenient Truth', the denialosphere was nowhere near as sophisticated as it is today and the ambiguities in his words back then gave them fertile ground to misrepresent the science in future by shooting the messenger - indeed, those weaknesses of expression helped the denialist ideology to grow... -
BaerbelW at 03:19 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
michael sweet @3
Mike - there are no special requirements to participate in the training. You'll however have to apply to join one and provide some reasons of why you'd like to participate. They have the following text about people participating in the training on their website:
"Who attends a Climate Reality leadership training?
Everyone. Seasoned community leaders, first-time activists, and business executives. Concerned parents and curious middle-schoolers.
Climate Reality Leaders come from all walks of life. But they all share the same desire to make a difference and help create a sustainable future for the Earth."
You can sign-up on their homepage to get a notification when the next trainings (in person and/or virtual) have been scheduled, most likely for 2021.
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Eclectic at 01:30 AM on 13 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle , it seems you are failing to think sufficiently rationally about planetary ecosystem degradation. Yes, your "gofundme campaign" suggestion to rescue a few species . . . is flippantly amusing. But you seem to mistake an accountant's numerical approach as being adequate for an overall assessment.
You are right that the IUCN has looked at only 120,000 species for extinction risk assessment ~ with 30,000 marked as "threatened". Yet the IUCN has still to assess a million species. Perhaps several million. If it ever gets around to completing such a large project.
The whole situation has a fuzzy uncertainty of numbers, but it would be moronic to take a complacent view of extinctions and worldwide ecological balance.
In this and other matters, I recommend you visit Dr Judith Curry's "ClimateEtc" blogsite [judithcurry.com] for both good & bad examples of rational/irrational thinking. ( I advise you avoid Curry's recent "Open Day" comments column devoted to political commentary ~ where The Usual Suspects really opened up in mouth-frothing form, almost reaching the depths of a typical average WattsUpWithThat commentary.)
And possibly you may wish to avoid a new article of Curry's , where she praises "The Ethical Skeptic" blog and its proposition that our modern global warming has been caused by an increase in geothermal heat. I hope this is a giant leg-pull by Curry . . . for if it is not, then she is veering even further from the path of scientific sanity.
But the main value in Curry's blogsite, is the appearances of Nic Lewis. Gseattle, you can learn a lot from observing how Nic Lewis confuses statistics versus realities.
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michael sweet at 01:26 AM on 13 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Baerbel:
I looked into Gore's training several years ago and it appeared to require a PhD in science to attend. Since I only have an MS I was not qualified.
What are the current requirements to take the course?
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Joel_Huberman at 23:27 PM on 12 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Thanks, Baerbel, you've inspired me to take Gore's training, but I'm going to wait until after November 3. Until then, the most important climate action that I--and all other climate activists--can take is to persuade our American friends to get out and vote--either on November 3 or by absentee ballot prior to November 3. For the US and for the world, for the climate and for democracy, this is the most important election of my 79 years on this planet.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:06 PM on 12 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @ 155:
What you forgot to include was any relevant science. Your numbers are mere fantasy in the world of carbon cycle descriptions and science.
"Pumping capactiy" is a meaningless term.
Your "efficiency" calculation is meaningless.
You are now talking about "returning to equilibrium" when in post 152 your were claiming that equilibrium was not a valid concept to use (and erroneously claimed that the existing science only describes the steady state).
Frankly, you have no idea what you are talking about. You are asserting meaningless claims with no reference to any reputable source to support your position.
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Postkey at 20:25 PM on 12 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
“Biodiversity collapses by two thirds in fifty years”
theecologist.org/2020/sep/10/biodiversity-collapses-two-thirds-fifty-years
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dkaroly at 15:50 PM on 12 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Thanks for your feedback on the Climate Reality training online. I helped with the in-person training in Australia in 2019. You can connect with Australian-based Climate Reality leaders and your new contacts from Sydney through the Australia-Pacific node of the Climate Reality project, based at the University of Melbourne http://www.climatereality.org.au/
Just note that the web site is in the process of changing. -
John Hartz at 09:22 AM on 12 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
The following statement is contained in the press release, Strategy for halting and reversing biodiversity loss revealed, posted on the UN Environmental Programme/WCMC website yesterday, Sep 10. 2020.
Today, over 1 million animal and plant species are threatened by extinction and many of the world’s ecosystems are at risk of collapse. In this major study led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), involving 58 experts from across 46 institutions including UNEP-WCMC, scientists use futures modelling to consider seven different scenarios to explore how we can bend the curve on biodiversity loss from habitat conversion and feed a growing population.
The study projects that without further efforts to tackle habitat loss and degradation, global biodiversity decline will continue at a rate close to or greater than that for 1970-2010.
“We wanted to assess in a robust manner whether it might be feasible to bend the curve of declining terrestrial biodiversity due to current and future land use, while avoiding jeopardizing our chances to achieve other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” explains study lead author and IIASA researcher David Leclère. “If this were indeed possible, we also wanted to explore how to get there and more specifically, what type of actions would be required, and how combining various types of actions might reduce trade-offs among objectives and instead exploit synergies.”
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sailingfree at 08:45 AM on 12 September 2020It hasn't warmed since 1998
to Philippe at 405:
Thank you so much for the updated temperature plot. It is the best "Hiatus Killer" I've seen.
For years I have been waiting to see the SKS escalator brought up to date, showing 2019.
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gseattle at 08:41 AM on 12 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Although this was around 2008, they say, quote: "There are 869 recorded extinctions" and mention 'year 1500' six times. So that would be around 1.67 per year.
Could you provide a link to IUCN where they say what you said they say? I'm not saying it isn't true, they may have changed their approach since 12 years ago, it's just that IUCN has around 178,000 webpages so it would be handy to have it narrowed down to one.
Critical thinking is what caused me to look into Greta's claim of 73,000 per year, and to be wanting to look at the extinction model formulas. A relevant Yale article.
I think Greta will have a fine future and be received well by more people now if she simply switches the message over to the number of currently threatened species like this:
Jul 9, 2020 "The IUCN Red List has today surpassed [...] 120,372 species now assessed.
Of these, 32,441 are threatened with extinction." [source]
We could, for example, have gofundme campaigns to help rescue some.
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Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slight correction to comment @152
I forgot to include the farm livestock in some of the numbers in my previous comment (@152). So the penultimate paragraph of that comment should read as follows:
The carbon pumping efficiency of the soil is only 4%. The soil contains over 1500 GtC but emits 60 GtC per annum. Humans store only 0.1 GtC but emit 0.8GtC per annum. That is an efficiency of 800%. It also means that the increase in CO2 production from humans and livestock (2.4 GtC per annum) is the same as that produced by about 4% of the Earth’s soil. That means that the total volume of soil must reduce by 4% over time as the volume of carbon entering the soil decreases and its pumping capacity is replaced by animals, if the ecosystem is to return to equilibrium. So 63 GtC will be lost from the soil while only 0.3 GtC will be transferred to the animal reservoir and none to plants. There is only one other place that most of the remaining 62.7 GtC can go: the atmosphere. This 62.7 GtC will increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 30ppm.
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Nogapspermitted at 23:06 PM on 11 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Thank you to the leadership who have the integrity to start the ball rolling and let real understanding begin. The pure scientific logic to the endless lies cannot be underestimated!
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Eclectic at 19:16 PM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @35 ,
it is important to think logically & scientifically about the problems being examined ~ without having the numbers distract you away from critical thinking.
Go to the IUCN website, and you will read that the IUCN does not state the total & absolute numbers of species extinctions as being 869 (or similar number). The IUCN gives various caveats about why the true number of extinctions must be far larger than the number you have mentioned. Which should have been obvious to you !
To examine the "distractions" further, I strongly suggest the examples to be found on Dr Judith Curry's blogsite ClimateEtc. Go to ClimateEtc and look up Nic Lewis as a salient example. Lewis is a good statistician but a poor scientist.
A contrast (found elsewhere) is "Tamino", who is good at statistics and good at scientific thinking.
The proper purpose of statistics is to illuminate the science of the underlying realities of this universe ~ not to obfuscate the scientific approach to understanding nature.
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gseattle at 15:24 PM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
"whether you accept or deny these statements about the modelling"
I searched for an equation for awhile. Without understanding the models, I don't know. Closest was this at Harvard by two who developed a model. I can't easily show their equation here, it would require an image.
Does anyone have a link to one of the extinction models used showing their equation?
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Bob Loblaw at 11:20 AM on 11 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @ 152:
So many basic errors.
- No carbon cycle descriptions or modelling do not assume steady state or equilibrium. They iinclude reservoirs of carbon, and fluxes between reservoirs, and all can vary with time.
- "Pumping capacity" is a meaningless term. All reservoirs have multiple fluxes in and out of them, and those fluxes are the result of a variety of factors. There is no single "pumping capacity".
- Fluxes are not the result of the size of the reservoir. For example, soil carbon is lost to the atmosphere by decomposition, and this is highly dependent on temperature and biological activity. In tropical forests, carbon added to the soil by dying vegetation is rapidly decomposed and retruns to the atmosphere. The soils reservoir has little carbon because the flux is so high. In contrast, colder climates like the boreal forest accumulate large carbon stores because decomposition is very slow.
- MA Rdoger has already pointed out your egregious logic error in claiming that a 70 kg person is a carbon source of 100 kg/year. If a person remains at 70kg, then whatever flux of carbon to the atmosphere is being exactly balance by an uptake in carbon from other sources.
- An increase in the human population means an increase in carbon storage. See point #4.
Your post is a distorted, misguided, uninformed outpouring. It bears little resemblance to reality.
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nigelj at 08:10 AM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @35, the 200 per day are based on modelling, because its known that its very difficult to pick up true numbers of extinctions by observation alone. The modelling is probably too high but the true numbers are likely much higher than 1.67 per year. All this has been explained to you up thread.
You do not indicate whether you accept or deny these statements about the modelling. You say you are interersted in science but one of the principles of scientific process is you have to be specific about what things you agree with and what you disagree with and why and with what evidence. If you cannot do this you have no place in the discussion. So shape up or go away.
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MA Rodger at 02:57 AM on 11 September 2020Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Slarty Bartfast @152,
Perhaps you don't understand the concept of a 'cycle' when you talk of the 'carbon cycle'. Let me explain. The carbon moves from A to B to C to D and then, likely back to A again. That is a 'cycle'. It goes round and round.
Now you are saying that a 70Kg human emits 100kg carbon a year. Given the weight of the annual carbon emission is greater than the weight of the human emitting, it should be telling you that the carbon must be coming from somewhere and into the human to allow the human to emit such a quantity. Within the waffle you present @152 I fail to see where you account for how humans source all this carbon. And until you do account for it, your attempts to analyse the impact of an increasing human population on atmospheric CO2 levels will remain no more than waffle.
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Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
You can’t use the carbon cycle to prove that human respiration isn’t increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere because the carbon cycle only describes the steady state. As others have already noted, the human population has grown exponentially over the last 100 years. It has almost quadrupled since 1920. That is not a system operating in the steady state or at long-term equilibrium.
To put it simply, the carbon cycle describes five carbon reservoirs (vegetation, animals, soil, the ocean and the atmosphere) all of which also act as carbon pumps. Moreover, these five reservoirs are all interconnected, and the pumping capacity of each depends on their size. Generally, the bigger they are, the more carbon they pump. That means that changing the size of one will change the size of all the others in order to balance pumping rates and conservation of mass. This will happen as the system seeks to find a new equilibrium position. So an increase in the human population affects everything else. It changes the pumping rates and it changes the relative size of the other reservoirs. And the thing is, we can estimate what size this change might be.
As the average 70 kg person generates about 1 kg of CO2 per day, that means they transfer 100 kg of carbon to the atmosphere every year. With nearly 8 billion people on the planet that equates to about 0.8 GtC per annum (GtC = gigatonne of carbon).
But that is not all. The average person probably eats their own bodyweight in meat every year. So the growth in the human population since 1920 must be reflected in the growth in the number of farm livestock. If we assume 2 kg of livestock per 1 kg of human (i.e. a 2 year supply of meat in production), then the overall CO2 production from both is 2.4 GtC per annum. This is about a quarter of our fossil fuel CO2 output. So is this directly increasing atmospheric CO2 levels as some climate deniers might claim? The answer is no, or at least not directly.
Some people have suggested that the increases in human and livestock CO2 emissions are offset by increased crop production. Their argument is that, as all the carbon we breathe out comes from crops, any increase in the CO2 produced by the human population will be offset by a commensurate increase in crop production required to feed the extra humans and their livestock. This is not true either.
Increased crop production comes at the expense of other types of vegetation (e.g. forests). The total area under human cultivation may increase, but the total amount of land and vegetation won’t. Deforestation in the Amazon region to grow crops and farm cattle does not increase the rate of CO2 capture in the region. If anything, it decreases it.
Increasing the number of animals does not increase the amount of vegetation or its growth rate. Instead it decreases the amount of carbon going into the soil. Animals eat plants before those plant can die and before they can decay in the soil. This means that animals replace the CO2 producing capacity of the soil. That is where the substitution occurs. And if the pumping efficiencies of both animals and the soil were the same then nothing much would change as the animal population increases. But they aren’t the same.
The carbon pumping efficiency of the soil is only 4%. The soil contains over 1500 GtC but emits 60 GtC per annum. Humans store only 0.1 GtC but emit 0.8GtC per annum. That is an efficiency of 800%. It also means that the increase in CO2 production from humans and livestock is the same as that produced by about 4% of the Earth’s soil. That means that the total volume of soil must reduce by 4% over time as its pumping capacity is replaced by animals and as the volume of carbon entering the soil decreases. So 60 GtC will be lost from the soil while only 0.1 GtC will be transferred to animals and none to plants. There is only one other place that most of the 59.9 GtC can go: the atmosphere. This 59.9 GtC will increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration by about 30 ppm.
So the human population increase could have increased atmospheric CO2 levels by up to 30 ppm over time, and about 20 ppm since 1920. Is this an upper estimate? Yes, probably. It assumes that the growth in the human population and farming livestock is a net gain and does not merely substitute for loss of other species. But we know this is not true. Humans and their livestock do displace other creatures to some extent. It also omits any additional loss of CO2 to the oceans and changes to vegetation volumes through loss of soil and increases in CO2. But what it does demonstrate is that when the human population changes, everything else changes.
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Doug Bostrom at 02:01 AM on 11 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2020
Duly noted, Dawei. :-)
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gseattle at 01:15 AM on 11 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
By the way here are some credentials for Dr. Edwin X Berry if anyone is interested.
On topic is Greta, extinctions numbers:
Greta says 200 per day, or 73,000 per year.
IUCN says 869 since year 1500. That's 1.67 per year.
Eclectic called the numbers a distraction.
Perhaps that means, in this case, nevermind science, the exact numbers don't matter, so long as they are sufficiently scaring everybody into action.
Do the rest of you hold that basic viewpoint?
Wouldn't her message be mocked less if it were not imaginary? She could talk about the actual threatened species currently, a high number, wouldn't that be good? Would it not help round up more people into the cause who simply could not buy into her non-science claim? Wouldn't Greta Thunberg's reputation be better that way when people look back on this time from the future if we have one?
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic and sloganeering snipped. Please stay on-topic.
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Dawei at 14:18 PM on 10 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #36, 2020
Thanks Doug! Would be cool to see the 'highlighted paper' feature every week.
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roflkopter at 11:58 AM on 10 September 2020Global Warming: Not Reversible, But Stoppable
How neat is that, Mark was wrong about the global GDP growth into 2020, its actually significantly higher than what he said!
Moderator Response:[JH] Please provide the source of your information.
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scaddenp at 10:13 AM on 10 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle - "It was said Berry's arguments are "plainly wrong". Name one?"
"The IPCC agrees today’s annual human carbon dioxide emissions are 4.5 ppm per year and nature’s carbon dioxide emissions are 98 ppm per year. Yet, the IPCC claims human emissions have caused all the increase in carbon dioxide since 1750, which is 30 percent of today’s total."
Well the IPCC does not report emissions in ppm per year (that is weird and comes from what the IPCC actually reports which is in Gt per year). However, it is true that FF emissions are a fraction of natural emissions so what gives?
Notice that Berry doesnt directly reference where in the IPCC reports that his numbers come from. (Hard to imagine a peer reviewer that wouldnt insist on that). I wonder why? Well they come from Chpt 6 of the IPCC, nicely summarized in Fig 6.1.
Immediately obvious from the diagram is that not only are there natural emission, but there are natural sinks and they balance. ie Berry omits the important detail. CO2 (whatever its origin) is cycled naturally too, however our emissions overwhelm the balance. Man's emissions are responsible for of the Increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. His statement is a misrepresentation of the IPCC argument. If you had got your information from the IPCC or bothered to check his claim, then you would see that. As others have pointed out, there are independent ways (O2 depletion and isotopic composition) to verify that FF emissions are responsible for the increase.
So I read only half a paragraph of Berry. That was enough.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:11 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Some aspects of government simply must be kept secret - battle plans, undercover agents, etc. Government must have a clear indication of what each security level means, though - and a willingness to be open about that which is not really secret. Too often, Access to Information regulations are designed to help keep information away from people. An uninformed public is an easily-manipulated public.
OTOH, the media as a business enterprise is driven by what people want, and if people feel more comfortable with lies, that's what they'll seek out. A good read is over at the Baffler: "The Long Con"
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con
An older, long and mainly academic read on why people believe what they believe is available online from another person with years of study in this area: The Authoritarians provides a very interesting read. The initial web page currently displays a short article on "Why Do Trump’s Supporters Stand by Him, No Matter What?", but on the right of the page are links to the original book (from 2004) and a few follow-up articles.
From the "About" page:
Bob Altemeyer is a retired professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba, where he studied authoritarianism for forty years.
...and on the main page, one of the statements that I think applies to the topic here is:
Compared to most people, studies have shown that authoritarian followers get their beliefs and opinions from the authorities in their lives, and hardly at all by making up their own minds. They memorize rather than reason.
Honoring truth and encouraging truth can only work when the audience is willing and able to call out the lying authority figures in their lifes. Liars lie because it works - they can achieve their goals that way.
From a T.A.'s desk when I was an undergrad:
"To accept everything or reject everything is an equally-convenient solution: it disposes of the necessity of thinking about the issue."
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:20 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Part of the problem is the lack of awareness and lack of acceptance that there is a significant difference between "Belief" and "Understanding".
Anything can be Believed. Understanding requires evidence and the pursuit of the best explanation for all of the evidence.
The pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding restricts the available realm for Belief. But many people do not like "Being Restricted" in any way. Many people are growing up in societies based on 'Strict beliefs' or the 'Belief in increased freedom to believe what you want and do as you please' (Liberty without the responsibility to helpfully learn and self-govern to limit the harm done - which is Anarchy - which is not Helpful).
A significant part of that problem is due to people growing up trained (ideologically indoctrinated) to believe things that evidence contradicts. Their lack of interest in giving up on developed preferred beliefs can be seen to be a harmful resistance to many required corrections. One of their last-ditch actions is discrediting anyone who presents helpful expanded awareness and understanding - the denigration of "Real Knowledge Elites" - because in the made-up minds of harmful believers All Opinions are Equally Valid.
Clearly 'Better Understanding of how to help achieve and improve important objectives like the Sustainable Development Goals based on the evidence' Trumps any Alternative Belief. But some people refuse to accept that because it will not be to Their Advantage.
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JWRebel at 02:04 AM on 9 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
Maybe there's a problem with the gate-keepers?
A lot of people are re-evaluating their trust in authorities in the light of conflicting reports, some of which seem a lot more plausible and probable than the spin we’re accustomed to.A big step up in confronting fake news would be to make secret services like the CIA and all the millions (yes) hiding behind ‘security’ claims as well as most other government/corporate memo’s public & transparent as soon as a policy is enacted. Secret government is a far bigger threat to ‘democracy’ than are internet whacko’s.
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nigelj at 18:21 PM on 8 September 2020Pro Truth: A Pragmatic Plan to Put Truth Back Into Politics
I can't help but wonder if all this post truth problem is largely the internet giving a free voice to all the morons, extremists, ideologues and cranks in the world, resulting in one giant cacaphony of insanity.
However thank's for the good advice. It will however be challenging. Group loyalty is prized, so criticising your fellow group members comments or your own groups dogma can get a hostile reception.
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John ONeill at 16:35 PM on 8 September 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Preston Urka - post 202
..claims nuclear process heat could be supplied from 250 to 1200 degrees C, whereas solar can only manage to ~650 C.
Current lightwater reactors operate around 330C, which is too low for most industrial use. Waste heat has been used for district heating though, for example in Switzerland from the Beznau reactor, in Czechia, and in Russia.
Simpler, lower pressure reactors operating at only about 90C and used solely for district heating are being built in China, and could make a big difference to winter air quality in cities like Beijing. LINK
The BN350 reactor in Kazakhstan operated for 26 years providing both electricity and desalinated water. ( It closed mainly because, after the Soviet Union broke up, Kazakhstan could not afford the fuel.) This was a sodium cooled reactor, and so could operated at 200C hotter than a light water reactor. Bill Gates' Terrapower sodium-cooled reactor company has recently developed a variant on their design which would directly heat molten nitrate salts, as used in Concentrating Solar Power plants. This would give about the same temperature salt as solar, but with the advantages of not needing to be in a desert, not needing natural gas to heat the boilers up in the morning, and giving 24/7 heat regardless of cloud or season.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened and activated links.
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Tom Dayton at 02:55 AM on 8 September 2020It's internal variability
New article 2020/9/7, Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?
Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth energy imbalance (EEI) is the most critical number defining the prospects for continued global warming and climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming ocean, atmosphere and land; rising surface temperature; sea level; and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory and presents an updated assessment of ocean warming estimates as well as new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the period 1971–2018, with a total heat gain of 358±37 ZJ, which is equivalent to a global heating rate of 0.47±0.1 W m−2.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:28 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Rather than just deleting most of geattle's post a little up=thread, I accidentally delted the entire thing. Most of it was inappropriiate complaints about moderation, etc. This is what should have been left:
What would happen if....
[deletion]
It was said Berry's arguments are "plainly wrong". Name one? I'm not asking as a gotcha. I might be convinced too that he's bad if you can just give me some content. But all you do is say he's plainly wrong, oh yeah, very bad. That's not how science works my friends.
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Tom Dayton at 01:01 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
MA Rodger, thank you for the link to the Dave Andrews paper! Moderators, will you please invite Dave Andrews to write an SkS post summarizing his paper?
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Tom Dayton at 00:52 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle: ResearchGate is not a publisher. It is merely an online community that allows (annoyingly, constantly harrangues) its members to upload documents of any kind. It intends those documents to be "research," but there are literally zero standards for what can be uploaded. It's like uploading documents to your LinkedIn account.
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MA Rodger at 00:05 AM on 8 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
seattle @29,
I don't think there is anything in my comment @28 which would lead to the inference you make @29. That a lunatic buys his onions in a particular supermarket does not turn that supermarket into a lunatic asylum. But a man buying stones from a shop that insists they are sellng him onions does give pause for thought for both the man and the crazy shop.
If you were wishing to find some support for the Berry paper (although myself I would not bother wasting time on such a fool's errand), there is the point that Berry (2020) has been published in an allegedly peer-reviewed journal. However, not all journals are high quality. Indeed some are less concerned with quality of content than the quantity of content and will publish anything for a fee.
But even if the journal were of quality, it is not entirely wrong to publish crazy papers if they have some level of merit within the arguments they set out. The isotopic analyses of Berry's paper could have pehaps be considered as providing such consideration except you will note Andrews (2020) 'Correcting an Error in Some Interpretations of Atmospheric 14 C Data' (which is the second citation accrued by Berry 2020) who debunks Berry (2020) as well as a few other denialist papers who plough that same particular furrow.
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Eclectic at 23:06 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle , thank you for giving me a good laugh ~ with your re-rendering of some of my earlier commentaries at SkS. You are a treasure.
I hope the Moderators will leave your lengthy post untouched and unedited, for the entertainment of the general readership here at SkS. Perhaps, in your haste to collect a bag full, you made one or two errors in quotation (not to mention a lack of context) . . . but hey, let's not quibble ! And quite rightly, you have been unable to dispute the accuracy of my observations [on the clientele at WUWT website and science-deniers more generally].
MARodger , it was very kind of you to devote so much time to Gseattle, to point out to him some of the fundamental errors in Ed Berry's thinking. Let's hope Gseattle won't now demand you explain all the gross errors in the thinking of each & every one of the 31,000 "scientists" who signed the Oregon Petition of yesteryear !
Thank you as well, MARodger , for linking to the "serious nutcases" at Principia Scientific International (PSI). And thus the Desmogblog exposure of PSI. Just when I thought Gseattle's efforts could not be topped . . . I saw the letter [April 2013] where Christopher Monckton described the Numero Uno at PSI as "confused and scientifically illiterate". Ah, such black humor (of the Pot and Kettle type).
Poor PSI's Numero Uno, being looked down upon by that well-known scientific exemplar Lord Monckton. It gives fresh meaning to the old saying: "Lower than a snake's belly".
All getting a bit Off-Topic for this thread, though. But worth it.
Priceless !
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gseattle at 21:59 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
The inflamatory and judgemental terms you used, like garbage, crazy etc, literally make it difficult for my brain to be able to focus on the otherwise maybe pretty good content. The reason I'm attracted to science (and math) in the first place from a young age is for the absence of that type of thinking.
I do appreciate that you cared to address content, restored my hope in humanity somewhat.
There's a simpler overview by Dr. Berry here. I only ran across it because I was looking for any other scientists who might be criticizing his work. Could use some help finding any that might exist out there.
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gseattle at 21:26 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
So you're saying all papers at researchgate are bad because they also published Berry's?
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MA Rodger at 19:43 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
gseattle @22,
While I have no idea what the 'X' stands for, there is no doubt that Edwin X Berry is a real person. It is more "ominous" that he chooses to post his grand paper on principia-scientific.com as that shows a serious lack of judgement. Those PSI guys are serious nutcases who are actually of the opinion that AGW cannot be real because the theory breaks the Second Law of Thermodynmics (which in their version apparently says that a photon cannot travel from a cold place to a hot place, which would presumably make observing distant snow-topped mountains another impossibility).
You appear to be asking for an explanation of why the detail of Berry's grand paper is so-much garbage (rather than why his conclusions cannot be correct).
If you examine his grand model, it says no more than that the atmosphere is like a lake - the level of the water will go up if the input is greater than the output and visa versa (which is of course logical). And the output will be in some way dependent on the level - the higher the level, the more water will pour out of the outflows. He then creates a very simple mathematical interpretation of this situation which has little logic or physical basis.
His model shows that with constant input, the CO2 level will tend to an equilibrium level logarithmically. Berry fails to consider that such a finding is entirely without basis for CO2 in the atmosphere as the outflows are pouring into volumes with their own constraints and are not free to accept ever-increasing quantities of CO2. Rather, the logarithmic relationship holds roughly for changes in volume, not changes of rate of volume.
Yet the big error in his reasoning is to use his fancy model before trying to compare it with the real world situation. He uses it to conclude that the rate outflow which defines the level in his model can be aportioned and thus the level likewise. Thus, if 95% of the outflow is natural, then his model shows that 95% of the level must also be natural. The crazy logic this presents wold mean that in 1750 the influx of CO2 from ocean & biosphere would have been only 150Gt(C)/yr as this would support the pre-industrial CO2 level of 280ppm and since that time this natural influx would have risen 40% to reach today's 210Gt(C) which is required to support 390ppm in the atmosphere which is what Berry tells us is the natural component of atmosperic CO2.
There is zero evidence for such a 40% natural rise in CO2 emission and no reason given for this natural rise occurring after ten millenia of flat CO2 levels, to magically appear in recent decades at just the time and the same rate as the anthropogenic input.
Berry however, makes no attempt to check his model against reality. Instead he launches into a misrepresentation of actual modelling of atmospheric CO2 with an analysis with isotope data (which I have not examined but assume it is as crazy as the foregoing analyses).
I hope this explanation of Berry's crazy theorising will suffice.
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gseattle at 19:11 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
To nigelj @24, you might prefer the one at researchgate then:
Moderator Response:(BW) activated link
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nigelj at 13:31 PM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @22, the link you post from principiascientific.com is part of a very politicised website. The link you post is also not convincing. Its full of basic misunderstandings so the maths ends up proving nothing.
I will try to explain this in my own words and keep it simplified. What actually happens is natural sources of CO2 largely exist in a balanced equilibrium with nature where emissions are absorbed by natural sinks, on decade to decade time framnes. For example the photosynthesis cycle. The paleo record shows all this, so its settled science. So CO2 stays largely constant in the atmosphere on decadal time scales.
Now sometimes things get out of balance if there is a sudden source of emissions and CO2 builds up in the atmosphere for example a truly huge volcanic eruption (these are uncommon) , or as part of the ice age cycle, so atmospheric CO2 increases on decades to centuries time scales. Again we know this from the paleo record. Eventually this reverses very long term as CO2 is absorbed by rock weathering processes, so you get balance again and no run away increase.
Over the last 100 years or so natural sources of CO2 have been in balanced equilibrium. There has been no build up in the atmosphere from natural sources. The build up in CO2 cannot be explained by natural causes. Volcanic and geothermal activity has been stable. The slowing AMOC is not causing the oceans to release CO2. We know this because the oceans are acidifying, so absorbing CO2 - the excess CO2 from burning fossil fuels being the obvious explanation. The reversal of the earths magnetic field started well before the 100 year increase in CO2 so cannot be responsible. There is no plausible causative mechanism anyway.
You dont even need any huge amount of science to figure these things out. Its just having a reasonable knowledge of the issues and some logical deduction. This is how I approach it.
The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 100 or so years is not from "natural causes". Multiple lines of evidenc point to all this. You have been given explanations by MAR and references to read on this websites myths column by eclectic, based on peer reviewed published reasearch, and you ignore these, and do not explain which elements you dispute, and instead post something by "eberry.com" which is not published research and author not identified. It suggests you just dont want to accept the possibility humans are causing the increase in CO2.
I think you need to ask yourself why you are doing all this. There is of course nothing wrong with healthy scepticism of scientific theories, but its silly to be sceptical when all the evidence points one way so convincingly, towards foosil fuels ebing the source of the CO2, and towards AGW, so the fact you continue to be sceptical suggests you either 1) simply do not understand or 2) are determined not to understand, perhaps being instead driven by some undeclared narrative whether political or conspiratorial or whatever.
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Eclectic at 10:55 AM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle , best if you exert yourself to making genuine points of argument, rather than use empty rhetoric (which is something that Moderators tend to zap). [ And yes, I do enjoy posting on this thread! ]
It would be helpful to readers (and possibly to yourself) if you clarified the underlying problem you have with Greta Thunberg.
Looking at the bigger picture : it sounds dramatic to say "200 species extinct every day". How accurate is that? ~ quite probably it is accurate enough for practical purposes (of guiding our actions).
Why probably? : well, there are many millions of species . . . and millions more of species which are not yet discovered/identified. The ecological balance has been tilted against these species, and so it is hardly surprising that you get a dramatic answer if you divide a very large Numerator by thousands of days.
We already know even prior to the current major warming . . . that the expanding human population has tilted the balance strongly ~ thanks to de-forestation, extensive agriculture, over-grazing, pesticide usage, etcetera etcetera. And we know from the paleo evidence, that the comparable rapid warming episodes of the past have caused massive extinctions.
IOW : at present, the plants & animals are being hit by a "Double Whammy". So you should not be surprised at the level of extinctions per day. And there seems little point in you arguing whether the "200 per day" might only be "100 per day".
The major concern is ~ What should be be done about these changes in the real physical world? Should we sadly shake our heads, and sit on our hands? Should we engage in a game of Trivial Pursuit, and spend our time discoursing about "200" or "50" or "100" ? Or should we look at the bigger picture, and avoid distractions, and take intelligent action?
What is your choice, Gseattle ?
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gseattle at 10:42 AM on 7 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
The author's middle initial of Ed Berry is X, seems ominous.
https://principia-scientific.com/human-co2-emissions-have-little-effect-on-atmospheric-co2/
What's one of the most plainly wrong of his arguments?
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Eclectic at 23:15 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
(continued)
Gseattle @18 ,
you should look up the definition of Ad Hominem Argument ~ you seem confused about its meaning. And with particular regard to the egregious Dr Ed Berry whom I mentioned again in post #16 :- if you read carefully, you will see I did not denigrate his arguments because of his imperfect (or perfect?) personal traits . . . but I denigrated them as being plainly wrong.
And the more intelligent a Denier is, the more he uses "Doublethink" to deceive himself that he is right ~ even when part of his brain knows he is plainly wrong. That's bad in itself ~ and even worse when he sets out (intentionally or otherwise) to grossly mislead the readers of his statements.
Gseattle, my apologies for my long postings . . . yet you may find the contents educational.
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Eclectic at 23:01 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35
Gseattle @18 ,
in your final paragraph, re Comments Policy, you seem to be misunderstanding the ordinary meaning of words.
For instance : where science is being discussed, the label "denier" is an accurate description of someone who promulgates untruths i.e. who asserts statements contrary to well-established facts
e.g. statements that evolution does not occur
. . . and that the Earth is Flat
. . . and rapid global warming is not occurring (or that it is not primarily human-caused; or that it is happening only to an insignificant extent; or that CO2 has little or no Greenhouse radiative effect; and so on. )
You will also see similar labels such as Denialist or science-denier or climate-science-denier or climate-denier and suchlike. The meaning of these terms is very clear ~ and in a "hard sciences" area like climatology, it is very easy to see who is a scientist and who is a pseudo-scientist. (Here I would emphasize the definition of a scientist as someone who thinks scientifically full-time, rather than part-time.)
The attribution of "another person's motives" for being anti-scientific, is usually best avoided, for we humans have complex brains and attitudes, often involving a Gordian Knot of tangled motives and emotions (some contradictory, some subconscious & unknown even to the possessor of anti-scientific views).
Perhaps, Gseattle, you have not recognized the psychological condition Motivated Reasoning ~ where an otherwise-intelligent person is driven by his emotional biases, to deny plain scientific evidence, and to use his intelligence to concoct all sorts of spurious reasons for denying well-established mainstream science.
Your man Dr Ed Berry (that you introduced in an earlier post) is a prime example of a Denier. Possibly a nice guy . . . possibly very correct in some other areas of science/engineering . . . but WRT the highly-important field of AGW/Climate science, he is a Denier. And it is efficient useful and proper, that we call a Spade a Spade.
In most cases, we can't be certain of the motives of climate-deniers. Some are crackpots, who can't think straight, but have a weird obsessive bee in their bonnet . . . though without an obvious political-extremist association. Others are simply "financial" shills who are paid to propagandize untruths & misleading half-truths. Some have extreme personality traits of anger and selfishness (you will see many of this sort on denialist website comments columns).
And some are in the very early stages of dementia from age, cranial arteriosclerosis, alcohol, etcetera ~ this can be the case with those elderly once-famous scientists who come to develop a Galileo Complex where they fancy that they can newly take up the science of climatology . . . and demonstrate how all the world's expert climate scientists are grossly mistaken! Amusing, but sad ~ so perhaps I shouldn't mention here some of the prominent names you will see associated with propaganda organisations such as Heartland and GWPF.
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BaerbelW at 22:27 PM on 6 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20
gseattle @11
I recently became aware of a new study published in The Lancet (link to open source article) which looks at populationg growth and they see the peak at around 9.7B in 2064 and then slowly falling to 8.8B by 2100. Here is the press release from July 14 about the article.
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