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Comments 6701 to 6750:
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Keithy at 14:58 PM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Eclectic, I'm saying Al Gore got the ball rolling by making sweeping statments and forcing the deniers to nail their colours to the mast.
You're on some weird trip trying to imagine I am anti-science or something. Some business man you must be, lol!
Moderator Response:[DB] Ad hominem snipped. Do not make things personal.
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Eclectic at 14:14 PM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Typo above : warming rate around 0.15 degreesC per decade.
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Eclectic at 14:12 PM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy ~ Google is your friend. You can very easily research for yourself the gradual development of wind turbines.
But your questions are all over the place, like Brown's cows.
Concentrate the focus of your mind. Identify the basic "heart" of what problems are worrying you. What is it that is truly bothering you?
The world is warming gradually (from a slow start in the 1800's ). For the past 50 years, the average warming rate is around 0.15 degreesC : which is super-fast, in planetary/geological terms. And this will continue for decades into the future, with increasingly unpleasant consequences for most humans (but not for a very small minority).
Governments & businesses will adapt to some extent ~ but overall they won't enjoy it. And so the intelligent thing to do is to aim to minimize the adverse effects which are heading down the line toward us.
The deniers are in favor of taking no action ~ apart from bullshitting everyone. But what say you, Keithy? (It is a fruitless waste of time mulling over whether Al Gore stirred up the deniers, or the deniers stirred up Al Gore. That's history. We have to play the golfball from where it's sitting right now.)
Keithy , what do you think should be done about the AGW situation? Ignore it and deny its existence? Run around in circles in a panic? Surely, between those two crazy extremes, there is some prudent & logical action to be taken.
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Keithy at 13:04 PM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Everyone: how powerful were wind turbines before Al Gore?
Moderator Response:[DB] Pointlessly off-topic snipped.
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Keithy at 13:02 PM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Phillipe, are you saying your contribution is more valuable than anyone elses because you're in business?
In capitalism everyones in business...
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic snipped.
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Keithy at 09:29 AM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
BaerbelW, how vocal were the deniers before Al Gore?
Moderator Response:[DB] Pointless and argumentative snipped.
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nigelj at 07:52 AM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy @16
"No, nigelj, the problem does not speak for itself.....Most people don't care unless they are made to... Al Gore made sweeping statements that big business knew had to be refuted because investment certainty is a must in big business."
I dont entirely agree. Most people globally are aware of the climate problem, you see this in polling studies, and clearly most people havent even read Al gores book or seen his movie, just look at the number of sales globally. I think this could be true even in America. Many people live in countries who probably haven't even heard of Al Gore. Likewise all those countries also have plenty of climate denialism.
Most people including business interests probably get their climate information mainly from general media commentary on the issue and from media commentary on the IPCC reports. The denialists and business are also reacting to media commentary.
The most we could say is Al Gore has probably polarised things a bit in the USA because of his political leanings, and yes I would agree to the extent that his book probably helped motivate the denialists. But they would have been pretty motivated anyway just by things like the IPCC reports. Do you really believe denialists would have just ignored those?
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michael sweet at 06:05 AM on 18 September 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
Keithy,
Your comments do not make sense.
The video reports that it will be cheaper to build out a renewable energy system that provides 90% of electricity in the USA. That means people will make money building out the renewable energy system and consumers will pay less for energy. There will be threee times as many jobs in a renewable energy system that in a fossil system.
Fossil companies are backed into a corner because their products cost more and cause climate change (along with additional pollution problems). Since fossil fuel companies are among the largest in the world they are using their political power to keep out cheaper and more profitable renewable energy. Every year renewables are cheaper which drives more renewable build out.
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Philippe Chantreau at 05:15 AM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
It seems indeed that the only point to be extracted from Keithy's contribution is that Al Gore caused the denialism we have been witnessing and the pseudo-debate that is now raging. As Baerbel showed us, the timeline does not support that argument.
It's possible that an in depth analysis could in fact reveal that Al Gore managed to attract on the subject more public attention, an attention that some of the work of deniers ironically had aimed at keeping off the problem. So, if anything can be gathered from Keithy's contribution so far, it's that Al Gore forced the denial supporing industries to ramp up their effort. Wow! How unexpected, how surprising. We are so fortunate that someone came up to bring that powerful insight.
If there is anything left for Keithy to argue, that would be that the overall balance of Al Gore's climate campaign has been negative, but he has come nowhere near supporting that with facts and analysis; it would be a very difficult case to make in my opinion. Surveys of the general public, even in the ill-informed US, where denial is the best organized, most vocal and best connected, shows that the majority of the population is well aware of the problem and realizes its importance.
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BaerbelW at 03:18 AM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy @various
This graphic from our resource section shows that your "theory" of Al Gore sparking the deniers is off by almost 20 years - denial thrived way before Al Gore's AIT:
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Keithy at 01:19 AM on 18 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
MA Rodger, I think I was actually more saying the debate only exists because the deniers exist... Al Gore sparked the deniers and they put their money into advertising the whole issue.
Win, win, win scenario.
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Keithy at 23:35 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
I agree with your summary of my POV, MA Rodger, but you must admit I'm replying to more than one person.
To delay mitigation by a decade or two is certainly worth a fortune and that really is the only point I'm making. Yet: who exactly are the interests requiring such a delay? I put it to you that they are vast....
Therefore, I also put it to you, that they require more than a decade or two:
..because basic high school economics teaches that all government intervention in the market place is difficult to recede owing to the fact that the economy itself develops its roots around it depending on it level of intervention: and in the case of fossil fuels we all know that level of interevention is of almost a planet like proportion.
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MA Rodger at 20:23 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy @various,
You seem to have been vacillating between two arguments which is not helpful to setting out yor arguement.
Your initial point @9 concerned Al Gore's 2007 message which had been described @5 as not being denier-proof. You counter saying Al Gore's message had to resonate with a public audience meaning 'facts' are less important than 'drama' and (perhaps less well explained by yourself) that such a message would kick off a public debate which would include denialists.
@14-16 you imply that industry/business is synonymous with 'denier' and set out a second argument that unless AGW mitigation is made worthwhile for industry, they would not assist in it. (@19 you rather confusingly seperate 'blue chip company' and 'the garden variety denier', presumably this latter being the denialist public with presumably the former requiring 'facts' and the latter 'drama'.) In terms of which of the two is more important, industry or public, you assert @23 that it is primarily industry/business which needs to be convinced of the requirement to act on AGW.
And in similar vein you state @25:-
"Entrepreneurs don't get out of bed to make peanuts. If there is no pathway for future profiteering then the ideas of capitalism, with its associated captains of industry, itself go to sleep."
In trying to make sense of this "waffling" (as Eclectic terms it), I would suggest that there are certain industries which have been attempting to push back against AGW mitigation. A giant oil company, for instance, has assets on its books in the shape of oil reserves worth billions and it would be employing divisions of workers to find more, such operations also being book assets worth billions. AGW science is saying these assets should not be exploited and the search for more oil reserves should stop immediately. That presents such companies with the prospect of massive loss of assets. So to delay such AGW mitigation, even by a decade or two, is a very profitable enterprise for such companies.
But the vast majority of industry would not react so aggressively against AGW mitigation. And industry does not "go to sleep" when faced by the need to mitigate AGW. Certainly some industries will have a harder time than others in the carbon-free energy-scarce world which will closely follow successful AGW mitigation. Many will see once-profitable business likely disappear (eg steel cans & glass jars replaced by bio-plastic-&-cardboard containers) but when the economic writing is on the wall such industries will evolve into new businesses, either scaled down or providing the modern replacement product.
Of itself, industry is not a barrier to AGW mitigation. What is a barrier is a denialist public whose existence prevents an honest political AGW debate (which is required to mitigate for AGW). Certain industries have actively promoted public & political denialism and they are likely greatly surprised how successful they have been at it so far.
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Eclectic at 17:08 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy , you are still waffling.
Answer the question you raised : and tell the readers why (and what is still required) the currently-known information is inadequate for competent planning decisions.
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Keithy at 16:38 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Eclectic, its not up for me to say what numbers are required to be in because I am not the captains of industry.
You think you know what analysis is? You have never been payed enough to know what analysis of trillions of dollars worth of plant investment means.
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Keithy at 16:32 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Entrepreneurs don't get out of bed to make peanuts. If there is no pathway for future profiteering then the ideas of capitalism, with its associated captains of industry, itself go to sleep.
Where is the work involved in an imagined utopia?
There isn't any... thus we come back to the reality of price points and diminishing returns.
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Eclectic at 16:25 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy , sorry but you are getting vaguer and more incoherent.
(And even more waffly on the other thread you're posting in.)
Relax. Concentrate. Try again :- what are these necessary numbers which you yourself believe are not adequately "in" ?
IOW ~ what is needed for you (and any timid captains of industry) to make reasonable decisions in planning? Competent captains of industry would rightly say that a vast amount of data & analysis is already "in" (and has been, for years).
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Keithy at 15:58 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Eclectic: how do you make consuming voters do anything? By the power of your words? Your words are something I don't buy and I dare say most other people on the planet wouldn't bother remembering anything you ever said either.
The necessary number are what the people with the money deem necessary and you aren't them.
Welcome back to reality buddy!
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Doug Bostrom at 15:54 PM on 17 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #37, 2020
Thanks for the spots on PDF and the suggestion, Dawei. :-)
I thought of the same thing regarding DOI, then bumped into "lossy" capture aspect. For the time being I'd like to be conservative about preserving original provenance as captured in the journal URL.
The "PDF aliasing" issue— hmm.
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Keithy at 15:52 PM on 17 September 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
Let alone complex equations...
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Keithy at 15:51 PM on 17 September 2020Berkeley study: 90% carbon-free electricity achievable by 2035
Using language such as, "..backed into a corner,..", is interesting because that is generally not a winning formula- for it to be a winning formula the odds need to be considerably overwhelming in ones favour basically forcing a resignation.
Entrepreneurs don't get out of bed to make peanuts. If there is no pathway for future profiteering then the ideas of capitalism, with its associated captains of industry, itself go to sleep.
Where is the work involved in an imagined utopia?
There isn't any... thus we come back to the reality of price points and diminishing returns.
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Eclectic at 15:47 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy @21,
(chuckle) And you don't sound like captain or middle management.
Nor have you answered about what these necessary numbers are, which you say are not "in". Have you any idea what you are on about?
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Keithy at 15:28 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Eclectic, you don't sound like any captain of industry to me.
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Keithy at 15:25 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Phillip @17, which public companies are associated with such statements?
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Keithy at 15:20 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
scaddenp, false arguments are a dime a dozen: big business has only ever been forced to make public statements on the issue because of denier fed fier sparked by Al Gores sweeping statements.
The garden variety denier cannot be the public statment of a blue chip company because these public companies have reputations.
Once again, the climate change denier has every right to make his argument but an argument he must make. The consuming voter has power... He doesn't have to buy bulldust just like investors don't have to listen to every Tom, Dick and Harry or the blue chip companies themselves who compete against each other when push comes to shove.
Iff it were the case that the blue chip companies don't compete against each other then that would indeed be illegal, though it also the law that the shareholder is their priority.
Politics is all human relations....
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Eclectic at 15:09 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy , I take a business-oriented view ~ rather different to yours.
Your statement: "making sure the numbers are in" is too vague by far. Please specify what are these numbers which are "not in". What do you feel is needed to be in? And to what extent?
From my own business experience, I would say that delaying investment until complete certainty is reached . . . is a recipe for business failure. Good management requires reasonable decisions in the presence of some degree of uncertainty about present & future conditions. It was ever thus. Otherwise, your better-managed competitors run rings around you.
And I would want the accountants/auditors to give adequate warning, if there were early signs that my business was faltering. I am very surprised that you seem to think differently!
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Philippe Chantreau at 14:34 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy,
I've been at this long enough. Deniers are not careful with the evidence underlying their lines of argument. It ranges from the carbonic snow in Antarctica delirium to the Soon-Baliunas fiasco, hitting the grotesque Arcitc sea ice predictions by Jo D'Aleo and innumerable ridiculous pieces of idiotic nonsense. It works, although mostly with the Anglo-Saxon public, with the exception of New-Zealand. They are careful with how they deliver their message, with the best propagandist methods known to date. Perhaps that's what you meant by careful, it does not add anything to the message validity.
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Keithy at 14:16 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
No, nigelj, the problem does not speak for itself.
Most people don't care unless they are made to... Al Gore made sweeping statements that big business knew had to be refuted because investment certainty is a must in big business.
He lit a fire under their posterior.
All he did was use the age old political trick of making some noise(read: HEADLINES) and then massaging the message when he gets the required attention.
Welcome to the conversation fed by deniers...
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Keithy at 14:07 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Phillipe, didn't you ever consider that deniers have to be careful with their line of argument?
The voter is also a consumer... as such they can invest in publicly listed companies... publicly listed companies have reputations!
Like I said: the deniers are essential to any conversation or else there is no conversation.
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Keithy at 13:50 PM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
The denialists are simply making sure the numbers are in before they have to make drastic investment decisions. They have every right to question the significance of the data.
It's their money and everyone needs them to give them jobs.
(You don't become a blue chip company by listening to every Tom, Dick and Harry!)
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Dawei at 13:20 PM on 17 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #37, 2020
3. Also hovering over 'PDF' opens an explainer on the side for probability density function :P
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Dawei at 13:18 PM on 17 September 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #37, 2020
Great to see the update with Unpaywall! Two comments:
- Sometimes I see 'PDF' but it's not a clickable link, e.g. for Characterization of long period return values of extreme daily temperature and precipitation in the CMIP6 models: Part 1, model evaluation and Global aridity changes due to differences in surface energy and water balance between 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming.
- Is it necessary to include the DOI URL separately from the hyperlinked title? You could just do away with the journal-specific URL altogether and make the DOI URL be the URL for the hyperlinked title, no?
- Sometimes I see 'PDF' but it's not a clickable link, e.g. for Characterization of long period return values of extreme daily temperature and precipitation in the CMIP6 models: Part 1, model evaluation and Global aridity changes due to differences in surface energy and water balance between 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming.
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scaddenp at 08:40 AM on 17 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
From years of looking at the debate, I would say denialist arguments are mostly either strawman or cherry picks. (With a dose of "its a hoax" and conspiracy theories when public facts dont match expection).
Strawman arguments work because you have to know what the science actually says to spot them.
Cherry picking works because people are poor at looking at the data and thinking "Gee I would have expected that record to be longer", and finding the full dataset is work.
Either way, getting educated on the science is best defense.
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Postkey at 18:20 PM on 16 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Steve @5
“The IPCC report that the Paris agreement based its projections on considered over 1,000 possible scenarios. Of those, only 116 (about 10%) limited warming below 2C. Of those, only 6 kept global warming below 2C without using negative emissions. So roughly 1% of the IPCC’s projected scenarios kept warming below 2C without using negative emissions technology like BECCS. And Kevin Anderson, former head of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has pointed out that those 6 lone scenarios showed global carbon emissions peaking in 2010. Which obviously hasn’t happened. So from the IPCC’s own report in 2014, we basically have a 1% chance of staying below 2C global warming if we now invent time travel and go back to 2010 to peak our global emissions. And again, you have to stop all growth and go into decline to do that. And long term feedbacks the IPCC largely blows off were ongoing back then too.”
www.facebook.com/wxclimonews/posts/455366638536345
'Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius will not prevent destructive and deadly climate impacts, as once hoped, dozens of experts concluded in a score of scientific studies released Monday. A world that heats up by 2C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)—long regarded as the temperature ceiling for a climate-safe planet—could see mass displacement due to rising seas, a drop in per capita income, regional shortages of food and fresh water, and the loss of animal and plant species at an accelerated speed. Poor and emerging countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America will get hit hardest, according to the studies in the British Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions A. "We are detecting large changes in climate impacts for a 2C world, and so should take steps to avoid this," said lead editor Dann Mitchell, an assistant professor at the University of Bristol. The 197-nation Paris climate treaty, inked in 2015, vows to halt warming at "well under" 2C compared to mid-19th century levels, and "pursue efforts" to cap the rise at 1.5C.'
phys.org/news/2018-04-degrees-longer-global-guardrail.html#jCp
If 'change' can be implemented?
“LONDON, 19 February, 2020 − Virtually all the world’s demand for electricity to run transport and to heat and cool homes and offices, as well as to provide the power demanded by industry, could be met by renewable energy by mid-century. This is the consensus of 47 peer-reviewed research papers from 13 independent groups with a total of 91 authors that have been brought together by Stanford University in California.”Will there be change?
“Today’s global consumption of fossil fuels now stands at roughly five times what it was in the 1950s, and one-and-half times that of the 1980s when the science of global warming had already been confirmed and accepted by governments with the implication that there was an urgent need to act. Tomes of scientific studies have been logged in the last several decades documenting the deteriorating biospheric health, yet nothing substantive has been done to curtail it. More CO2 has been emitted since the inception of the UN Climate Change Convention in 1992 than in all of human history. CO2 emissions are 55% higher today than in 1990. Despite 20 international conferences on fossil fuel use reduction and an international treaty that entered into force in 1994, wo/man made greenhouse gases have risen inexorably.”Moderator Response:[RH] Please add to the discussion rather than just reposting links and quoted passages. I believe there have been previous warnings on this matter. Please take a moment to review the SkS commenting rules.
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:51 AM on 16 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
I object to the term "debate." A debate can happen when participants are arguing in good faith. That is clearly not the case with deniers.
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nigelj at 07:30 AM on 16 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy @9, I am struggling a bit to understand your point of view. I do not think Al Gore chose drama over facts. His book and movie sounded very facts based to me. Did you mean he emphasised drama over just a dry delivery of the facts?
I think Al gores book was good, but over simplified a few things. It could have better explained why CO2 lags temperature in the ice age cycles and generally how the thing worked.
But either way, I do concede there was a big element of drama and theatre in Gores book and movie, and that this would attract the denialists. But I'm not sure we really needed the denialists involved to advertise the climate problem. The problem speaks for itself.
Like PC says the climate change denialism is just misleading rhetoric and assorted nonsense. I think we can live without this frustrating public debate that seems to never end.
However Gores book and movie would probaly grab public attention. I read Al gores book and it did focus my attention on the climate issue because it was well presented. However it probably didnt go down well with the right wing in America, given Gore is a rich democrat. But whats done is done.
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nigelj at 07:02 AM on 16 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Steve @5, yes clearly industrial civilisation is harsh on the planet. Green technologies would at least improve that situation, along with eliminating or drastically reducing waste. Going further would mean we have to stop using things like computers and cars. Are you prepared to do that?
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:25 AM on 16 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Keithy "without them there is no conversation in the public square."
Well then it's a catch22 because there is no conversation possible with them either. They deny, they mirepresent, they mislead, refuse to acknowledge evidence, portray minor issues as if they could distract from the weight of the evidence, etc, etc. They are so dishonest that there is really no communication possible. They do, however, have good techniques, inherited from various industries who practiced denial before them, and are advised by experts in mind manipulation techniques, so they are convincing for the masses with little scientific literacy and limited critical thinking skills. That does not make them right or legitimize the so-called "conversation."
Deniers do not "advertise" (whatever that may mean) the "whole problem." They fool their audiences with methods in comparison to which Al Gore's small shortcomings are essentially negligible. They make an argument, shown to be entirely wrong, only to turn around and then pretend that the initial argument was not applicable anyway, not acknowledgeing that they initiated it. The list of their dishonest behaviors is almost as long as the myths listed on this site, or the the catalog that can be found in Wikipedia under "logical fallacies." Calling their participation a conversation would be a joke, if it was funny.
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Nick Palmer at 02:40 AM on 16 September 2020My Climate Story: Coming full Circle
Good to see Greg Craven getting a mention and the Manpollo crew of whch I was a small part which involved staying up late to ridiculous times researching for Greg's book which is an underappreciatede masterpiece.
Of course, denialist propaganda has moved on since then and Greg's clever 'assess who's the most credible' argument probably wouldn't help much today - even if we could claim that every single scientist in the world fully endorsed the science it still wouldn't shake their rhetoric much! -
michael sweet at 01:39 AM on 16 September 2020Wildfires are not caused by global warming
Atrain1906:
I saw a report (sorry no cite) that compared fires in large areas of the USA where no fire supression is done with those areas where high fire supression is done. These were high elevation areas or areas where the trees were not valuable for timber. They found that the natural areas are burning more today than 100 years ago. That could be the basis of the conclusion that cliamte change is theprimary driver and not fuel density since in the natural areaas fuel density would not have changed.
In general scientists have measured most everything. If you want to claim that they did not include fuel density in their models you need to provide data to support your claim.
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Eclectic at 00:19 AM on 16 September 2020Wildfires are not caused by global warming
A-Train @1 , in the above quote from the Fourth NCAR, the "burnt area" studied was for 1916 to 2003. Presumably the pre-1916 data would be too skimpy & poor to provide real value ~ and the assessed period itself contains major changes in population/settlements and multiple other factors.
A-Train1906 , one extra point you may not have considered, is that prior to 1916, going back 70 years to the Gold Rush times (and earlier, too) . . . what was the natural state of the vegetation? Natural wildfires occurred, even with the much lower human population. But what would have been the "natural" level of fuel density in those times of little or no actual fire suppression efforts? Would the untouched/unmanaged fuel density have been much different than the fuel density of recent decades?
To some extent, for climate-factor purposes, we would somehow have to compare (apples to apples) the 2000's with the 1800's rather than with (say) the 1950's or similar period of "unnaturally" lower fuel density.
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Keithy at 23:42 PM on 15 September 2020Participating in Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
Nick, Al Gore chose drama over facts because in the end the people lead and governments follow.
Governments are designed to work slowly and so only the voting public will be able to make any difference when push comes to shove.
He invites the deniers to the conversation in the public square because without them there is no conversation in the public square.
The deniers advertise the whole problem,... so Al Gore played a very good hand by making vague and sweeping statements that made the deniers have to take a stand... and the conversation began!
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Brainspin at 19:58 PM on 15 September 2020Clouds provide negative feedback
To this layman, a new report (Saint‐Lu et al 2020) seems to support Lindzen's "Iris effect" (that high cloud cover in the tropics diminish with increased temperature), but at the same time finds that high clouds have a neutral effect on global warming:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL089059
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A-Train1906 at 18:59 PM on 15 September 2020Wildfires are not caused by global warming
I didn't see any reference within this explanation to the main driver of increased fire intensity as well as acreage burned: Anthropogenic alteration of the historic fire regime. 100+ years of aggressive fire suppression has created significant carbon loads well above historical levels. We now see much larger fires now that burn with greater intensity than in the past with the primary driver being fuel density. I didn't see any study sited, or any evidence given as to what proportion of these increases in fire frequency or intensity is created by climate change and which proportion would be attributable to our altering the natural frequency of burn cycles. I'm not really sure how the fourth national climate assessment report could conclude twice the amount of acreage has burned that otherwise would not have because of climate change when fuel density wasn't used as a primary driver within their model.
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Lachlan at 17:52 PM on 15 September 2020Five science questions to be asked at the debates
Q4 is a yes/no question, which isn't good for debates. I'd have suggested "How will you use this opportunity..."
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Lachlan at 17:51 PM on 15 September 2020Five science questions to be asked at the debates
@Keithy, Trump didn't just do nothing. He went backwards by undoing things like vehicle mileage requirements (which help consumers in the short term, as well as the environment).
Can you think of another POTUS who has done as much damage?
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Steve19771 at 11:04 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
This is my first post and I really enjoy the complex explanations involved in climate science provided by this site. While all the science behind man induced global warming seems sound the crux of the problem will remain elusive to all politicians. I fail to see any one tackle the real problem and that is our wanton lifestyle that disregards and disrespect our only home in the univese. All I can see are politicians talking a good game about actions but yet do nothing about developments in wildland urban interface. People seem to think we can develop green technology to engineer the planet so that we can bake the cake and eat it too. Sadly if we don't change our ways and lifestyle then no force except for nature itself will aright the kilter.
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Eclectic at 09:16 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Govanguitar ~ if you haven't already seen it, then you might enjoy the video on Youtube by (science reporter) "Potholer54". Title is "The cause of Australia's bushfires" ( number #52 in the climate series ) regarding the major wildfires of early 2020 there. Duration 36 minutes - rather longer than Potholer's average - but very good value as an example of logical analysis.
The parallels are strong. Of course there are differences, some in climate, some in vegetation & management. And the western USA has also had a multi-decadal alteration in spread of plant types (versus mostly "old growth" in Australia's southeast).
But a similarity is the Murdoch media & friends, who reflexly front up with every possible excuse . . . except climate change.
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Govanguitar at 06:36 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
"forestry management" not "forestry mana", putting aside any Old Testament apocalyptic allusions
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Govanguitar at 06:33 AM on 15 September 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
I'm a longtime followe of this site, first time commenter.
Just want to mention what seems to be a popular broken arrow in the rhetoric quiver of climate change denialists; they are all quite eager to suggests that the conflagrations in the western USA are due to bad forestry mana practice. This may play a part, but many of them suggests it's the only thing. Hopefull, your team and a number of your readers who are forestry experts can smokejump into this location where the fire of irrationality are spreading and put this fire out. The John Batchelor show (#407) is one of these flareups. Guest is a Chicago finance academic, not a forester. Should be easy to put out.
Good work y'all.
Cheers
GG
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