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daria_check at 09:18 AM on 15 January 2020'Cranky Uncle' smart phone game will show you how to disarm climate deniers
Hey, do you have anyone already helping with Russian translation? We can help.
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TomJanson at 08:32 AM on 15 January 2020Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
Hilarious. ignore what they did and focus on the fact that a Board "cleared them".
About as persuasive as when the police review board clears a police officer for shooting people without proper cause.
the hockey stick and climate gate emails are scandalous. they cherry picked the series they wanted, deleted embarrassing data, and sticky taped it all together to produce the most compelling picture they could.
it singlehandedly did more to undermine climate science than anything else.
and we see no acknowledgement. No contrition. Just this whitewalling garbage that "they were cleared".
and you wonder why people have doubts?
Moderator Response:[DB] Repeated sloganeering snipped.
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TomJanson at 08:04 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Eclectic,
There have been larger areas burned on the eastern states in previous fires, including the 1974 fires.
There's no scientific basis to the claim that these fires are completely different. The difference is people have climate change on their mind and will see every event thru that lens.
Moderator Response:[DB] Sloganeering snipped. Evidence for assertions is a mandatory condition of participation here.
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Nick Palmer at 07:59 AM on 15 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
OPOF@73 wrote "It is also undeniable that the future of humanity is more important and requires more precautionary leadership than any buildings in any nation"
I actually am not disagreeing with the 'precautionary principle'. Given the potential risks identified by some of the science back, then my feeling is that a thorough risk/benefit analysis would have showed that action was justifed long ago because of what the consequences might be - it's a version of Pascal's wager but some proof existed of God/climate change!
We don't need proof that our house is going to burn down to buy insurance... -
nigelj at 06:46 AM on 15 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer @72 says " Just to clarify - I am a significant fighter of denialist deceit and delusion but I will also always take on extremist alarmists and doomists too, and their 'mirror image' rhetoric."
I'm firmly in the same camp. And make no apologies for it. Although Nick, some advice, be careful you dont start to nit pick over the issues.
The link to Taminos comment was damn frustrating because it didnt even say it was Tamino responding and there was itallic type all over the place. Very hard thread to follow, bad graphics.
Our media said areas burned were unprecedented. That's simply not true and they presented no evidence. However its typical media hype to sell copy.
But the denialists are being stupid saying the 1970s were worse. Its too early this fire season to tell, and apparently the huge areas burned back then included mostly grasslands, judging by a comment made today by eclectic on the "intense conversation" article.
Its so hard unpacking all of the ridiculous claims made.
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nigelj at 06:20 AM on 15 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
OPOF @73, I've always been concerned about claims from lobby groups that there is insufficient evidence relating to some emerging problem. I've even made submissions to the powers that be arguing the lobby groups are wrong. Their position is often a delaying tactic, and of course they still use it with the climate issue when we have now got plenty of evidence. However with the climate issue in the 1970s it looks to me like there really was insufficient evidence!
We could argue about the 1970s forever and it would require a lot of time consuming digging. I get your main point. I won't be commenting on the past history further.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:41 AM on 15 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
nigelj @66,
Claiming there was insufficient evidence to limit the activity is the type of harmful correction resistant argument that so effectively and harmfully delayed corrective action regarding tobacco (the fight over tobacco started in the 1950s). And it is used to fight against correction of many harmful popular and profitable activities.
I argue that the collective impact of everyone's action is building the future of humanity. That is undeniable. It is also undeniable that the future of humanity is more important and requires more precautionary leadership than any buildings in any nation. And fossil fuel use was more harmful than tobacco, in many ways that were clear well before more detailed understanding of the climate change impacts were developed.
To protect the future from the harm of popular and profitable activity, leadership has always had to responsibly limit what is done if there are uncertainties until those uncertainties are adequately understood and addressed. Good business and political leaders have always understood that. What needs to be understood is how the less responsible harmful people gain control rather than good responsible people. That problem was happening before more detailed understanding developed. And the ability of those people to win has not been limited by the increased understanding.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:11 AM on 15 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
Hank @44,
I have worked with many international design codes and am well aware of the basis for wind design and other climate condition design requirements.
I understood what you presented. That is why I replied.
Climate change will result in many regional climate conditions that are more severe than historical records. As a result of the increases of extreme events every item design based on the less extreme history will become less safe than intended. Reread all of my comments with that new awareness and uunderstanding.
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wilddouglascounty at 04:54 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
#6 Claire
Thanks so much for the updates. I agree that you seem to have gained his trust enough that he is confiding from where he is coming from, which from your perspective is less about helping the community than helping himself. But since you are in conversation, he might learn to look at his community from a more inclusive perspective. And the uncertainty you and he feels is also good to share, because in times of change there is plenty to go around. Uncertainty allows the best solutions to emerge the soonest because when everyone is certain, they stop looking.
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Nick Palmer at 03:57 AM on 15 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
To anyone who clicks on the Tamino response link "You seem WAY too eager to accept the one number that will make the bushfires unprecedented, while ignoring the testimony from so many experts (including firefighters and scientists who specifically study bushfire) and from people who lived through both times in Australia""
Firstly, I did NOT ignore 'testimony' - we were arguing about media reports and how they misrepresented things to the crucially important general audience by tending to imply that the 'unprecendented' nature was that of acreage. Tamino seemed to think that I was unaware that inamongst the hype and exaggeration that there were some voices that were legit. He didn't seem to appreciate how the public sees these things.
Secondly, I also was not 'accepting the one number' either which, if Mr Sweet had looked to my next comment responding to Tamino, he would have seen this NP: "The point is that it isn’t just one number. There are multiple examples to see. See my reply to Philippe which includes the paper from which the data came: Appendix D P377 onwards...
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=scipapers "
I really think that if Mr Sweet sincerely thinks that "Barlow's position is much more reasonable than yours" then he ought to re-evaluate his views. Mr Barlow is one of the sort of waay over the top extremists that are one of the two major motivators behind the denialist propaganda (the other being hard right wingers trying to sabotage hard left wingers piggy backing on the science to spread their ideology).
Just to clarify - I am a significant fighter of denialist deceit and delusion but I will also always take on extremist alarmists and doomists too, and their 'mirror image' rhetoric. I consider both to muddy the waters and cause the public to be more confused about what the science actually says. There is nothing that makes the general public more likely to reject the sensible scientific middle ground between the two extremes than some plausible sounding (at the time) extreme prediction from the past that completely fails to manifest. Continuing public confidence in the science is rather more fragile than many appreciate. Probably the most prominent example of a scientist over-prognosticating was that of Paul R Ehrlich in his book 'The Population Bomb' in 1968 who famously wrote "[i]n the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now". I read it back then and I got misled by it for some considerable time. Perhaps that explains part of why I am now so critical of those who hype things up too much...
I have to say that 'doomists' tend to be harder to deal with, as they seem so convined of their extremism that they often regard anyone who tries to moderate their views and bring them back down to earth as almost some sort of traitor to their extreme cause. -
tomasz at 01:09 AM on 15 January 2020Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Figure 2 is wrong. This was pointed out more than 10 years ago @1 by HumanityRules. The caption for Figure 2 says "Change in spectrum from 1970 to 1996...", but Figure 2 is a copy of the Harries 2001 1c graph, a simulated spectrum, i.e. a purely theoretical graph, something never measured at all, which is why all the values are below zero Kelvin. This article should be using a copy of the Harries 1b graph instead: the actual measured spectrum difference between 1970 (IMG satellite) and 1996 (IRIS satellite). In the the 1b graph there are large portions above the zero line, e.g. between 750 - 1100. This is what @HumanityRules was asking about: why so much positive energy at these frequencies? @2 provides an explanation from the Harries paper itself about "residual small ice crystal effects". However, I believe this explanation is wrong. The real reason for a <b>net positive</b> energy difference between 1996 and 1970 is that the earth was warmer in 1996 than it was in 1970. The Stefan Boltzman law requires that a hotter earth emits more heat. Since CO2 and CH4 and other trace GHGs are blocking parts of the emitted IR spectrum, then other parts of the spectrum must make up for this. The Harries 1b graph simply confirms that earth was warmer in 1996. In contrast, Figure 2 implies that the earth was cooler in 1996 than in 1970.
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José M. Sousa at 00:39 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Well done!
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MA Rodger at 00:28 AM on 15 January 2020CO2 lags temperature
TomJanson @612,
I'm not sure what you mean by things being "statistically correlated" so cannot say more than that the usual statistical correlation is a two-way street and that possibly you are considering the idea of 'causality' rather than 'correlation'.
The CO2 feedback has more than a single source, the 'feedback' being the net result of a series of primary feedback, both positive and negative. Consider the rise in temperature out of an ice age which sees a net increase in CO2 - the ice melts adding 3% to ocean volumes which, now melted, will absorb CO2 to gain equilibrium with the existing ocean and atmosphere. The melt-water thus acts as a negative feedback, reducing the atmospheric CO2 levels.
For feedbacks to be strong enough to cause a 'runaway' temperature, they need to be at least as strong as the temperature rise/fall that they result from. If they are, for instance, just half as strong, the feedback temperature rise/fall would be 0.5+0.25+0.125+0.0625...=+1 x the temperature rise/fall that they result from, a long way from 'runaway'.
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Simon Crowhurst at 23:49 PM on 14 January 2020Milankovitch Cycles
Stonefly @ 42, it might help to consider the effect (or lack of it) of precession when eccentricity is zero, ie if the orbit was perfectly circular (which Earth's orbit never is, but it gets fairly close!). With that orbital geometry, the Earth would be equally close to the sun, and travelling at the same speed, at every point in its orbit. So there would be no differential effect on the hemispheres from the way the planet was oriented during the orbit - eg the NH would not be particularly tilted away from the sun during aphelion, because there would be no real aphelion - it would be the same distance all round the orbit. This is the reason why the eccentricity cycle modulates the precessional cycle; as eccentricity varies, so the impact of the precessional cycles vary. Hope this helps.
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Eclectic at 23:02 PM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
TomJanson , like Barryn56 @ post #8 , has failed to understand the essential differences in 1974 and 2019.
In the 1970's (and 60's and other years) there were frequent very extensive areas burnt ~ mostly grasslands / arid lands / unpopulated regions An apples and oranges comparison with the fires of end-2019.
Dr Spencer and other anti-science apologists try to drown the significant differences, with a flood of misleading statistics. (They are desperately trying to prevent the "sleepers" waking to the new realities of AGW.)
Better analysis is found with Nick Stokes at his moyhu.blogspot and his twitter comments. (For those unaware of Stokes, he is one of the few sane scientists to be found in the comments columns of WUWT ~ he is almost universally reviled & loathed by the Wattupians, because he shows them up for what they are.)
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TomJanson at 22:25 PM on 14 January 2020500 scientists refute the consensus
97% say humans are changing the climate, but how many say it's dangerous/catastrophic? And how many agree with the radical economic proposals to fix the problen?
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TomJanson at 22:17 PM on 14 January 2020CO2 lags temperature
If temperature kicks of the CO2-temp feedback look then how come it keeps stopping? How come temp keeps dropping (followed by CO2 drops).. Why doesn't it just runaway?
in reality it seems that CO2 is far more tightly statistically correlated with temp than vice versa.
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TomJanson at 22:03 PM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
2019/2020 Australian wildfires: 10 million hectares.
1974/75 Australian wildfires: 117 million hectares
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JW1234 at 21:10 PM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Gidday there Barry,
by complete coincidence, as i was scrolling through some other posts just now elsewhere, i discovered this... and so thought of you:Link to article in The Conversation
Moderator Response:[BW] embedded and activated link to avoid it breaking the page formatting
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Eclectic at 21:07 PM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Barryn56 @ #8 , you are hinting that there is some major causation (of our modern global warming) which must be "not CO2" .
It would be a kind deed if you explained this in detail at once, for it would relieve some of Doug_C 's unhappiness.
Sure, the rapid warming and ocean acidification etcetera would still be causing considerable biosphere damage . . . but at least Doug_C & other citizens would feel much less of collective guilt.
Barryn56 , I hope you are not toying with us readers, by going on to suggest Electric Universe effects, or Cosmic Ray effects, or Planet Nibiru effects, or suchlike fantasies. A genuine scientific explanation is required from you. And please don't come out with PRATT* [*Points Refuted a Thousand Times] or other insane nonsenses which surface all too often on the WUWT website.
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Doug_C at 19:24 PM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
I live in southern BC, Canada and we've had some wicked wildfire seasons in recent years, not as close to devastating as in Australia right now though. I've been following this since the late 1980s and watching the warnings being made then now start to become a reality is surreal, how could we ignore something that so many of the most informed people have been stating over and over in clear terms is an existential threat.
Getting caught in the middle of the extreme impacts of this is frightening, last year I almost lost my home to massive wildfires all around the area I live in and the year before that my brother and his family were the last ones out of the small city where we grew up and that was evacuated and patrolled by our military for a month Because of the massive wildfires all around it. One reached over 500,000 hectares, that seems pretty Biblical to me.
How can anyone still seriously claim that this isn't happening and that it isn't of the utmost importance that we take systemic measures across the globe to deal with this. They should have started decades ago, now we're looking at emergency mitigation of an exinction event that already seems to be well underway.
It sounds hopeful that you were able to make at least some progress with an individual, but how meaningful is that really. In the province right next door which had record wildfire activity last year and in 2016 had most of a city burn down from an early spring heat wave, the government there is spending millions of dollars to openly attack the science of climate change because it negatively impacts the main economic driver there, the oil and gas sector.
Jason Kenney touts $30M 'war room' but provides few details
How do you address a dominant groupthink that still places short term individual interests over everything. Even the survival of our species on the scale of decades from now when we look at how much trouble the biosphere is already.
If we've already killed half the life on Earth;
Understanding extinction — humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth
A what is left is at great risk;
UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’
Then this is no longer about short term individual interests at all.
I just shake my head when people go on about price of power from different sources and economic projections decades or more in the future based on factors that are already well on the way to exterpating most life on Earth in a matter of decades.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but refusing to even ask the question which is still the default on a policy level almost anywhere is... I don't have a word for it. How do we even describe killing off the overall biological system that makes life possible for such a rich biosphere in the first place.
I'm no longer religious, but I'm pretty sure this is not what was meant about god giving man dominion over the natural world. It was meant as stewards, not destroyers. Yet that is exactly where we find ourselves.
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barryn56 at 18:53 PM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Hi, as I live in Australia (Queensland) I have to comment that - again - here we have a tragic, though common, occurence couched as climate change driven. There have been much larger Australian fires in the past - 1974 comes to mind - so about 50 years ago - maybe climate change was worse then? These latest fires were in much more populated areas, hence the larger media coverage, despite covering one tenth the area of previous years'. Having said that, if you are really interested in understanding the science and why it has been hijacked, it is not difficult to conclude that CO2 is not the main reason behind planetary warming. My background is Physics, with a masters in engineering (both from the UK) and I have been directly invovled with geosequestration projects where we meet scientists vying for a share of $100 million in grants. I can tell you, that is a mighty strong cognitive biasing agent. My experience is that, if you're already believing the dogma, stating facts has little infuence because the issue becomes emotional, not rational. People have to research the facts themselves and question their belief - so if you google the bushfire histories, I can assume you are on the path to knowledge...
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Eclectic at 18:32 PM on 14 January 2020It's Urban Heat Island effect
Absolutely right, Darinscoop, if not more so. The alternating currents of the urbanised regions do produce a concentrated electromagnetic induction effect, warming the temperature sensors in the local weather stations. The previous explanation of UHI from "exhaust-heat and sun-warmed pavement" is a shabby falsehood put forward by a conspiracy of contrarians, who are receiving grants & other funding from Big Oil.
The world is actually cooling and the sea level is falling. Even the contrarians are hoaxing us.
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Darinscoop at 16:01 PM on 14 January 2020It's Urban Heat Island effect
Yes. I admit...I am a "Heat Islander" until all sources of science has been observered this effect has no bearing in cultural concern. This said, I have often wondered about how a geologist would respond to this subject as I have been taught that surface models have a tremendous impact on global climate. Then a friend of mine shared this link to me that shows that there is a noteabel absense from this field of science among the GWA board (LINK). If this wasn't enough to anger me, University of Maryland University College made a determination that the geology course was no longer transferrable as a "life science" towards my degree (this was during the time when the focus started shifting on the perils of greenhouse gasses in the media). Anyhow, if anyone is interested, I will gladly explane the global relief map codes that apparently used to be used by climatologists. I hope I can still find a copy of one online to illustrate.
Moderator Response:[DB] That is not a credible source for science information, as this Note details at length.
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richieb1234 at 11:43 AM on 14 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
nigelj & michael sweet:
Thanks for the feedback and helpful suggestions. My comment was not meant to express frustration. I really do think that energy/heat is a better measure of the warming than temperature. I will have to give iit more thought. meanwhile, I will use more pictures and fewer numbers.
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Claire Cohen-Norris at 11:01 AM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
ilfark2... Perhaps you can consider me a data point of evidence that your impression of CCLers is not quite accurate? Most of the people I work with (as a volunteer), live, eat, breathe climate work, driven by a sense of urgency that our families and relatives marvel at. I certainly do not want this post to be about CCL, or the relative merits of our work or our bill. We can save that for another post, another day.
But please know that this CCLer, along with many others, are quite alarmed and engaged to act. -
Claire Cohen-Norris at 10:48 AM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and questions. It is not easy to put a simple intense moment out for everyone's scrutiny. Thank you for taking it with the seriousness that these conversations really deserve, though often do not get.
This conversation is now several days old. This man has sought me out each day since to raise another concern...a challenge to accepting climate change. He starts with the concern, we talk about it a bit. Then we talk about some niceties, about our families, our pets, events at work. Then he raises some other idea that confirms climate change, with a spark of how crazy the weather is, or how scary things are. Usually at this point, he talks about what he needs to do to protect his financial and familial interests. Then I return us to our obligations to others. Today, after talking about disappearing housing insurance in California, and plummeting house values in Miami, he began to talk about selling his houses and renting. I said that might be sensible. But we have an obligation to others. His go-to reaction is that everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. So I said, if you want to talk about needing walls, imagine what this nation will look like if everyone in Miami that is poor becomes homeless. We need a plan...a PLAN...to avoid that...even if it isn't out of kindness, but simply to deal with this in a way that maintains stability. If only we had had a plan 20 years ago to deal with the current insurance crisis in California.
So what is interesting here is that he has decided he trusts me. And he is continuing to come to me to try to grapple with the conflicting feelings and worries.
It now feels like a heavy weight in some ways because he is clearly counting on me to help him make sense of this. And, of course, making sense of this is no easy task. I will be grateful if I ever do, myself. -
nigelj at 10:05 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Michael Sweet @70, yes Taminos description of the vapor pressue thing is convincing. I've pretty much had my say too. The media have screwed things up by saying unprecedented without being clear what they mean, but saying things were worse in the 1970s doesn't help much either because its too early in this fire season to compare.
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Hank11198 at 10:03 AM on 14 January 2020Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks
OPOF @ 43
OPOF I obviously didn’t explain how the wind charts are made very well. I’ll try again. In the 2005 version of the code the wind charts were made from 25 year, 50 year, and 100 year storms for the different risk categories. A 50 year storm has a 2% (1/50) probability of occurring at a location every year. The probability of a 50 year storm occurring over the 50 year design life of a building is 67%. This is of course way too large a risk. So the code applied a 1.6 load factor to the calculated wind pressure which in effect changes the 50 year storm to a 700 year storm. The risk of a 700 year storm occurring at a location over the 50 year life of the building is about 3% (That’s about right but I haven’t looked at the numbers in a while). That is what the code considers acceptable for a category II risk.Now the 2010 version of the code (and later versions) change the wind maps to show the wind speed of a 700 year storm and eliminated the load factor (or changed it to 1.0). Of course the wind speeds increased but that way everyone can see exactly what wind speed we are designing too, not the wind speed that is increased by a load factor for design.
The speed that is calculated for a 700 year storm for a specific location is based on past data. Every time a revision is issued the wind speed will probably be slightly different because there are 5 more years of data to include in the calculations. The study I linked estimated maximum global wind speeds between 1% and 10%. But that is global, not local. The maximum local wind speed for a specific location might be larger or smaller or the same as in the past. It’s the difference between climate and weather. In addition the maximum wind speed at a specific location will not be the wind speed of a 700 year storm, except by chance, since the wind speed of a 700 year storm is a statistical value base on probability of that storm occurring in any year. So those values are not based on trying to predict maximum future wind speeds, since as you said it is very uncertain, but on trying to establish risk.
As to the reduction of safety for a structure, it will depend on the location of the structure. If it is located where the 700 year storm wind speed is increasing there will be some increase in the risk. If it is located where the 700 year storm wind speed is decreasing there will be a decrease in the risk. It’s like insurance companies know how long the life expectancy is for each age group but they don’t know how long an individual will live. And that life expectancy for each age changes with time, depending on general health habits and other factors of the group.
Hope that helps
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nigelj at 09:33 AM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
"i've had these encounters and most people just reset after they walk away;"
Yes I have seen the same.
The way I see the whole denialist issue is we all have some natural healthy scepticism of new ideas, but get round to accepting them after hearing explanations etc. History shows this. Scepticism looks to me like it exists in many shades of grey from healthy scepticim to denialism, and its hard to know what category people are in, so we have to hope they are open to persuasion. Some will be some wont.
They may say they agree and walk away and reset into denialism, but it could operate the other way where they vehemently disagree, but go away and vote for the Green party or whatever. I've seen one or two characters do similar things.
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ilfark2 at 08:30 AM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
awesome, but please follow up with him in a month and then in 6 months... i've had these encounters and most people just reset after they walk away; not to mention there's a chance the person won't tell you what they are thinking anymore since they probably don't want to upset you anymore... but hey, if they start campaigning for bernie, i reckon that'll be the proof in the pudding
sort of funny it's a CCL person; most of those i know seem to think we've got decades to make drastic changes and are very naive about the way taxation and regulation work (if CCL had started in 1924, their methods might have had enough time to work)
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michael sweet at 07:42 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nigelj,
It is off topic to continue that discussion. I have had my say. Read the link to Tamino. I agree with Tamino.
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nigelj at 07:01 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Michael Sweet @65 , I don't accept that NP is concern trolling.
Typical definitions of a concern troll "A concern troll is a person who participates in a debate posing as an actual or potential ally who simply has some concerns they need answered before they will ally themselves with a cause. In reality they are a critic."
NP is clearly already "allied to the cause" because he is unequivocal in his worries about global warming and criticises denialists. Genuine concern trolls are somewhat more limited and nuanced in their acceptance (if any ) of AGW.
How is NP demanding scientific accuracy and scientific sense being a concern troll? That would make all scientists concern trolls.
You are seeing monsters under the bed :) Its because the denialists have us all on edge.
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nigelj at 06:51 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer @61, yeah I agree that the exact middle ground people we need to win over get turned off by hyper alarmism. But we do need "evidence based alarmism" to motivate people to change. So its a nuanced juggling act.
Barlows tirade of insults were way over the top and probably reflect his general frustration over the climate issue, that I think we all share. I find insults like that hurtful but I've come to realise its not me at fault.
You mentioned "I came to see that there were sufficient people who cared to make a difference and I've seen many initiatives succeed in increasing recycling, protecting areas of wildlife, specific threatened species, certain types of air and water pollution etc and all without 'crushing capitalism' - which is unfortunately, an ideology that some 'extreme ecologists' get driven towards.....The extreme ecologist Barlow's of this world, who use 'fear porn' in their rhetoric in a bid to scare the public towards their favoured solutions - in Barlow's case I suspect he is deep down a Back to Eden type - are no doubt sincere in what they believe, but they then go on to believe that their back to nature/abandon industry methodology is the only solution."
Agreed totally. I contribute a few comments over at RC and there is a certain character over there who promotes exactly this anti capitalism back to nature simplicity thing, and we have "locked horns" many times and its become divisive. I have received the same insults and worse than you received from Barlow. The guy in question means well, but just doesn't think things through.
However there is room for a half way house, to the extent of more recyling, some frugality, less waste etcetera. My position is that capitalism is a good system, but is certainly causing some intractable problems, and its inherent in the current form of capitalism. But rather than "throw the baby out with the bath water", we need to somehow modify capitalism to work more sustainably without killing the good parts of capitalism. There are obvious ways to do this, but this is probably not the right thread for it.
Of course all this enrages the back to eden types who want a simple sort of utopia that is a clean break from the current system. But such a thing is massively problematic. Eg: if we stop using industry and large scale electricity generation, we have to burn wood. Where does a global population of 7.6 billion people get enough wood?
Don't be too hard on Greta. Bright girl but remember her age.
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michael sweet at 06:30 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer,
I read your exchange with Steve Barlow and you look like a denier. Barlow's position is much more reasonable than yours. I note that you do not support your claims with citations and ignore Barlow's citations there also.
Using a review on SkS by Nigelj as support for your claims is not a substitute for citing peer reviewed papers.
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nigelj at 06:14 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
OPOF @60
"Claiming more needed to be known before acting is like saying that new structural systems and materials should be used without detailed understanding of their acceptability. And claiming that someone other than the ones wanting to benefit need to do the research into the potential unacceptability. In fact, it is like claiming that research to determine the safe use of the system or materials is not required up-front (I am indeed stating that your argument is defending actions that have a significant risk of harmful consequences being allowed before the consequences are reasonably understood)....That is what you are arguing as a defence. "
I dont think you can compare structural design and testing new materials to our use of fuels in the past. In the 1970's we had already been using fossil fuels for decades, and along comes some information that they could be a problem, but it was very preliminary information. It didnt look like enough to stop using fossil fuels, especially as 1) the agw thing was uncertain back then 2) there were no well developed alternative fuels, and 2) it was unclear if warming was a danger. Arrhenius claimed it was a benefit (erroneously as it turns out).
We just didn't have much to go on back then, regardless of the interests of powerful people. And yes of course some of them always try to downplay environmental problems.
I agree about the precautionary principle as a useful tool, but you do need a fairly clear threat to use it, otherwise we would not get out of bed in the mornings.
Remember what we had in the 1970s, a hypothesis that industrial emissions could lead to warming with no atmospheric experiment to really back it up. We literally had to wait to see if the atmosphere warmed, and if this could be attributed to CO2. J Hansen established there was a problem around 1990 and so I think that was the time to act. Bear in mind we still arent 100% sure of the risks, so have to still apply the precautionary principle. Getting that through to people is still frustratingly difficult.
However your argument is thought provoking, and a force to be reckoned with.
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michael sweet at 06:04 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer at 61: "[I] et labelled by themn as denialsist or a 'concern roll'(sic)".
Tamino says to you here "You seem WAY too eager to accept the one number that will make the bushfires unprecedented, while ignoring the testimony from so many experts (including firefighters and scientists who specifically study bushfire) and from people who lived through both times in Australia."
It is rare for Tamino to comment to posters in this way.
Greta Thunberg is the most successful climate activist in the world today by a lot. She was Times Person of the Year.
You are a concern troll.
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nigelj at 05:40 AM on 14 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
richieb1234 @15, if we used ocean heat content the denialists would probably say "and look that leads to just 1 degree, of warming" (or some other small number) and all the usual related blather. So we end up back where we started.
It might also create the impression we are trying to scare people by cherrypicking the most scary looking data, and if people start to think we are selectively doing this, scientists credibility gets shot to pieces.
The best thing is just to stick to the obvious thing people relate to which is temperatures like MS points out. Clearly 1.5 or 2 degrees doesn't sound very scary until you look into the consequences and how serious they are. I also like to point out that if we don't stop temperatures getting to 1.5 degrees, it could lock in tipping points that might take us over 5 degrees c eventually and 5 degrees should get peoples attention.
I totally understand your frustrations and I have experienced all the same things, but I think we just have to stick to the conventional approach and hope it convinces enough people. Once we try to be too clever in our approach to the thing it could backfire.
Denialists are frustrating. Even if we only convince a few of the hard core denialists its something, and it will probably only be a few.
Also people won't tell you if you are being persuasive, because people are too proud to publicly admit they have changed their mind. This doesn't meant they haven't changed their mind.
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Nick Palmer at 05:07 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
michael sweet@62 "Anyone who says Greta Thunberg is using "extreme rhetoric" is a concern troll. Greta constantly cites the IPCC reports when she speaks"
Where in the IPCC reports does the IPCC call for total divestment and ceasing of investment in fossil fuels right now?
Greta's latest heading for, later this month, the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"We demand that at this year's forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions, and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies, and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels," the op-ed declares. "We don't want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021, we want this done now—as in right now.""
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/10/greta-thunberg-and-20-youth-climate-activists-call-davos-attendees-abandon-fossil -
Nick Palmer at 04:56 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
"When lots of people call you a "concern troll"
Hardly anyone has - about two in 30 years... - stop making stuff up! -
michael sweet at 04:27 AM on 14 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
Ritchieb,
I understand your frustration. Imagine how Michael Mann and James Hansen feel after trying to deal with this issue for 30 years.
The Earths energy imbalance and ocean heat content have only been accurately measured for a few years, less than 2 decades. There are no proxies to extrapolate the data into the far past. There are still large error bars for these measurements. The deep ocean (over 2,000 meters) is poorly measured.
By contrast, there are accurate thermometer temperature measurements going back to 1880. Proxies have been found that accurately go back over 800,000 years and much further with poorer resolution. There is a reason deniers deny the Hockey Stick graph so much. Current estimates of the world temperature anomaly have error bars of hundredths of a degree. People do not understand what 2E18 joules means. I have a very strong scientific background and 2E18 joules does not have much meaning to me except it is a lot of energy.
As you point out, many people do not recognize that 2C will have big effects. I remember 10 years ago I wondered if I would live to see obvious sea level rise, more fires, increased storms, Antarctica melting and other effects (I expect to live to 2045). Here in just 2020 we see all of those effects already. Scientists seriously underestimated what effects 1C would have. Remember that only a 5C decrease in temperature means a mile of ice over New York! The last time carbon dioxide was over 400 ppm sea level was 20 meters higher!! (that will not happen overnight, do you care about your decendants in 300 years?).
It was recently pointed out here that 2C world average means 4C over land which is 7.2F over the entire USA!! I knew all the math but had not connected all the dots to see how much change F 2C really was. We are heading for most likely 3C by 2100 (more after that!) which is 11F every day all summer! Are your audiences really prepared for 11F? How could you visit Los Vegas half the year?
The deniers will deny whatever measurement scientists make. EEI and OHC would make no difference. I try to focus on the effects we all currently see. Point out that they will get worse over time. Here in Florida people moan about 10 inches of sea level rise. Can Miami Beach continue to exist when they already have 8 inches of water in the streets? Fires worldwide are obvious and people know about them. Storms like Harvey, Florence and Sandy are unprecedented and people worry. They have had three 500 year storms in the last 3 years in Houston.
If you are speaking to the public use the numbers you are most comfortable with. One talk I heard used pictures of people and had no data. The speaker found people did not relate to data no matter what it described but related to stories of people whose homes were flooded or Koalas killed in the thousands. One moving picture showed the speakers' friend who lost their home in the Paradise fire and is now a climate refugee in the USA. This October I went diving in North Cuba and Cozumel, both world class coral reefs. Over 90% of the coral was dead in both areas.
Use what you find relates best to people. If you find you are successful in reaching people come back here and tell us what works best for you.
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michael sweet at 03:44 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nick Palmer:
When lots of people call you a "concern troll" you need to consider if they are correct.
Anyone who says Greta Thunberg is using "extreme rhetoric" is a concern troll. Greta constantly cites the IPCC reports when she speaks. When you ignorantly call the IPCC "midballing" you demonstrate you do not know what you are talking about. Read more of the background material.
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kricklin at 03:23 AM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
A followup - I wonder if your co-worker will be responding to you again. My experience (online) is patience, knowledge, courtesy are key to having meaningful dialogue, but I've not had any success getting others to accept climate science.
Thanks - Ken -
kricklin at 03:20 AM on 14 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Well done Claire.
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Nick Palmer at 01:31 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
nigelj@54 wrote: "However in these posts I always mention that I think climate change is deadly serious and why, to try and get across that I'm not minimising the problem, but that we just need accuracy"
100% yes!! It's the lack of accuracy in the rhetoric that motivates me to take on 'difficult' people, both denialst or doomist or left or right and all of the various combinations. I try to explain to the hyper-alarmists that their overblown rhetoric is actually a significant problem to getting the public on board and get labelled by themn as denialsist or a 'concern roll'. It's frustrating because I know that any undecided more reasonable readers who may be following can be turned away from the sensible middle path by the prejudice and misinformation on display
Thank you for taking the time to 'judge' the Barlow/Palmer contretemps. I must say I have never been so insulted by someone who is nominally on 'our side' before and that is why I needed a little confirmation that it wasn't me who had gone too far down a path...
I accept what you say. It's interesting that you sense that Barlow is/was an ecologist type. In my own 'environmentalist career' I started out completely believing the imminent tales of ecological doom spread by such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth - indeed I was a local groups FoE 'coordinator' throughout the 90s. I very much thought that modern society had us on a one way irrecoverable trip to ecocidal hell with the job of our organisations being to slow down the damage as much as possible while fearing the worst would happen. In one sense I go a little easy on Steven Barlow and others like him because I (kind of) was like him several decades ago - I know his arguments well because they were also close to mine before I wised up (I think) a little...
I came to see that there were sufficient people who cared to make a difference and I've seen many initiatives succeed in increasing recycling, protecting areas of wildlife, specific threatened species, certain types of air and water pollution etc and all without 'crushing capitalism' - which is unfortunately, an ideology that some 'extreme ecologists' get driven towards.
Are there still large ecological problems? Sure, and climate change will have many large impacts if we don't get on top of it, but the years have made me more optimistic about how the human race can handle big problems, once it is aware they are genuine and not over-hyped, as many things have been in the past.
The extreme ecologist Barlow's of this world, who use 'fear porn' in their rhetoric in a bid to scare the public towards their favoured solutions - in Barlow's case I suspect he is deep down a Back to Eden type - are no doubt sincere in what they believe, but they then go on to believe that their back to nature/abandon industry methodology is the only solution. I mentioned earlier on that there were 'sufficient' people who cared enough to forego the trappings of civilisation to 'save the world' but I have come to believe, at least in the West, that that figure is only about 20-25% of the general population. Try and impose policies that threaten the lifestyles, ambitions and aspirations of the large amjority too much and one will probably come up against what the President of the Finance and Economics Committee of my then government explained would be (metaphorically) a lot of angry people with swords fighting back!
That is why I reject the increasingly extreme rhetoric that Greta Thunberg, and her back seat driver advisers, are drip feeding out to the public that we have to drop fossil fuel use almost overnight - see the link...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/10/greta-thunberg-and-20-youth-climate-activists-call-davos-attendees-abandon-fossilI accept the view of many economists that such draconian action would immediately precipitate the world into a colossal mother of all global economic crashes. I think that's why IPCC targets allow for continued (but steeply reducing) use of fossil fuels as late as 2050. I think that is sensible. It's hard not to see, because of this relatively new development, that behind the Thunberg speeches that there is more than a hint of some politically minded influencers trying to engineer the destruction or hobbling of capitalism.
I worry that if such extreme action gets validated and taken on board by her many followers that the great mass of the population will be repulsed by it in short order.
In my view over-hyping dangers, calling for extreme and immediate one dimensional 'solutions' runs a grave risk of immunising the public against more measured action, and in this respect I think it a comparable to (or possibly greater, these days) problem than out and out denialism, which I think has recently moved into a new phase. In public fora and media they less and less actually deny the science directly any more but instead focus on cherry picking extreme media statements by alarmists and polticians, and innacurate 'shock horror' journalism, which they then knock down to smear the actual science in the minds of the public by proxy.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:21 AM on 14 January 2020The never-ending RCP8.5 debate
Nigelj @58,
Another way to respond to "But the problem wasn't clear. There was nothing to act upon."
The significance of the issue to the future of humanity was not in question.
Claiming more needed to be known before acting is like saying that new structural systems and materials should be used without detailed understanding of their acceptability. And claiming that someone other than the ones wanting to benefit need to do the research into the potential unacceptability. In fact, it is like claiming that research to determine the safe use of the system or materials is not required up-front (I am indeed stating that your argument is defending actions that have a significant risk of harmful consequences being allowed before the consequences are reasonably understood).
That is what you are arguing as a defence. And the undeniable reality of how harmful it is to allow actions to not be restricted 'because not enough is known about them to be sure they should be restricted' is understandably absurd, potentially repugnant (Absurd and Repugnant are the technical terms used in ethical arguments).
My point remains that the power players of the 1960s and 1970s were already fighting against being responsibly restricted, to maintain their understandably undeserved status and opportunity to increase their status.
Sustainable Development awareness and understanding was and continues to be a response to that absurd and repugnant reality. And it can undeniably be claimed to be divisive. There is undeniably a helpfully correct side of expanded awareness and improved understanding, and a harmful side needing to be helpfully corrected or governed and limited.
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richieb1234 at 21:10 PM on 13 January 20202019 in climate science: A continued warming trend and 'bleak' research
As a relative newcomer to the climate change issue, I find it surprising that our preferred figure of merit is global mean surface temperature (GMST). Is it advisable for the IPCC to state their goals in terms of limiting global warming to a GMST rise of 1.5 degree C, or even a 2.0 degrees? People I talk to are not alarmed by those figures. They see that much change every day of their lives.
Climate deniers find it very easy to raise doubt about whether the temperature measurements are accurate; whether calculating a global aveage is meaningful; whether that small a temperature difference is dangerous; and whether "that small an effect" is just due to natural fluctuations. We end up debating whether models are validated and how much committed heating there is. [Have we already passed 1.5 degrees?]. It sometimes seems like a losing battle.
Moreover, none of the consequences of global warming arise from GMST. They arise from the addition of heat to the oceans, the ice sheets, the soil and the atmosphere.
Wouldn't Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI) or ocean heat content (OHC) be more compelling figures of merit? These numbers are enormous; the equivalent of detonating a nuclear weapon every few seconds. They are more easily attibutable to fossil fuel. They have direct impact on consequences such as sea rise, ice melting and drought. And future projections are less dependent on models.
I would be vey interested in hearing other opinions on this question.
Very Respectfully, --Richieb1234
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eschwarzbach at 19:41 PM on 13 January 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #2
Unfortunately the simulation title is incorrect, making the wonderful video unusable in arguing with deniers. The title should make it clear, it is about anomaly, or more understandable, deviation from a base.
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John ONeill at 18:44 PM on 13 January 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Michael Sweet - sorry, that was just an error, not an insult. The beryllium was proposed for Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors, but not used in the end. Sorenson's Flibe reactors are currently just one of many paper reactors. So apart from very small amounts for welding flux, and only in Candu fuel rods, my statement is correct.
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nigelj at 16:49 PM on 13 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Great attitude Claire. This is a model of how to talk to climate sceptics and denialists, in that context anyway. I take my hat off to this woman and learned a lot.
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