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Comments 8651 to 8700:

  1. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    BillyJoe @21

    After the literally decades of work that James Hansen has done, why include the comment at all if your intent is to inform. It totally misrepresents the massive contribution that James Hansen has made to science as a whole and climate change specifically. It was a cheap shot for pure entertainment value and nothing more.

    Potholer's latest video is more meaningless nitpicking as he's going after Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for claiming that we have a very limited amount of time to deal with this crisis which is what all the information is saying, not just on climate change but as far as biodiversity and the presence of life itself on Earth.

    Read the peer-reviewed article I linked above on how humans have killed half the life on Earth already. And as report after report is now indicating, this process is accelerating not slowing down. And climate change is a huge part of that. You'd expect someone concerned about that to be for bold ambitious plans that are now needed after decades of inaction. 

    I get absolutely no impression of that from Peter Hadfield, just petty shots at others who he apparently is convinced lacks his brilliance. 

    There was also a piece from 2013 all about how projections of negative impacts of climate change on a global scale are just one more myth. I can't turn on the news without the latest climate change linked disaster being reported on. I've been caught in several myself with weather so extreme and dangerous I feel like I'm in a disaster movie.

    Watch Potholer's video on science vs. "feelies" to get a sense of the contempt that Hadfield shows for those who dare to be emotional at all about this catastrophe. Which he would probalby claim isn't a catastrophe at all.

    Climate Adam has a constructive purpose, he is presenting what can often be difficult to understand concepts in a way that allows people otherwise not well versed in science to connect with. In some regards with the same sense of whimsy as employed by science communicators like Carl Sagan.

    With Peter Hadfield I'm often left wondering if I'm not in the presense of a sociopath for the almost total lack of empathy he seems to have. Emotional intelligence is a real thing and Adam has heaps of it over Hadfield is my impression.

    Eaxch to his own, I get value from the Climate Adam videos and think they teach more than talk down to his audience. 

    Potholer54 is a master class in how to talk down to literally everyone else on the planet.

  2. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    @ 17 Philippe Chantreau,

    Here is what we are up against. 

    "no convincing evidence supports the theory that herbivory benefits grazed plants." Belsky 

    The American Naturalist
    Vol. 127, No. 6 (Jun., 1986), pp. 870-892

    Now I happen to agree with the Bison study you posted. It's nothing new though. That Belsky from 1986 was arguing against the very same observation made and scientifically quantified back in the 1950's. In fact the first truely modern use of biomimicry to develop a science based improvement in grazing was Grass Productivity (1957) André Voisin in France.

    Much later Alan Savory began to see and develop his expansion of Voisin's work in Africa. He developed ways to help make the system more universal and include a much wider range of extreme environmental conditions where it can work.

    But the Belsky-ites had all the power and repeatedly people continue to claim not only is the rotational grazing not working, the claim that it is biomimicry of observed coevolved symbiotic beneficial grazing found in wild herds was equally wrong. She published more than 45 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on African and North American grasslands, many of them blaming livestock grazing for upsetting the delicate balance of native plants and wildlife in the arid Interior West. Now we have Briske taking up where Belsky left off.

    The problem is that while she did identify the problems with overgrazing, she failed in understanding that undergrazing was equally or in some cases even more harmful. 

    In short if a person can't identify the wild symbiosis between grazers and grasslands, then clearly they have no chances at all of understanding biomimicry of that beneficial relationship using livestock. And so more and more livestock was removed from the West and the deserts spread and are still spreading because of this.

    More importantly though is that the grasslands (and their symbiotic grazers) are the cooling system of the planet. So there is huge AGW mitigation potential in getting those grazers back out on the land.

  3. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    Doug_C, James Hansen's "boiling oceans" was a ridculous comment, as he himself has admitted. It even got into his book though he promised to amend it in the next edition. Apparently there would have to be 5 times the carbon reserves we actually have and it would all have to be burnt to produce enough CO2 to cause a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth.

    But Potholer simply shows a video of him making his claim and then says "I think we can safely say that the oceans won't boil" and then moves on. He doesn't get stuck into him. Elsewhere he put James Hansen in a favourable light though I can't remember where.

    I'm surprised you say that you don't want entertainment but at the same time write in support of Climate Adam. He is almost all entertainment - if you like that type of entertainment. You do. I prefer Potholer. No problem. As I say, each to his own.

    But, seeing that you made the claim, I would like to see you provide an example of where Potholer misrepresents someone's position. As for him not being a researcher, no he is not, and he is at pains to explain that he is not even clever having graduated bottom of the class. He is simply giving an account of climate change as advocated by climate scientists. I haven't been able to fault him except for some minor tangentially realted points mentioned above. But he gets the climate science right.

    He also exposes frauds like Monckton and Crowder - who are blatantly misinforming the public about climate change - by tracing down their original sources and showing how those sources do not say what those climate deniers say they are saying. In fact, often the opposite. I have no problem him being "rude, condescending and supercilious" towards these frauds.

     

     

  4. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    BillyJoe @19

    I'm not criticizing his production values, but the content. I'm not looking for entertainment in regards to fossil fuels and climate change. Like so many people I want an acceptance of the scale and threat on a policy level.

    I don't need to see someone deriding James Hansen who has put out a great deal of peer-reviewed wotk on this subject over half a century for entertainment value at best and possibly to discredit Hansen at worst.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNgqv4yVyDw&t=27s

     

    In the same way I don't like sound bites on the news that are often used to misrepresent someone's position, I find it highly disigenuous for Peter Hadfield to try and typify a genuine climate change researcher in this manner. If he has so much to offer then do it in peer-reviewed journals.

    But that isn't whatHadfield is doing, he's a performer in this discussion, not a real researcher.

    You kicked off this part of the discussion by making it clear how much you dislike Climate Adam based on his personal approach.

    I find Peter Hadfield to be rude, condescending and supercilious. Maybe that plays well to his audience, but considering he's doing to it sell his viewpoint on what is an existential threat while quite possibly doing more harm than good, I see absolutely nothing of value from his work.

    I do not feel that way about Climate Adam.

  5. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    Eclectic, yes Potholer seems to think that the more research that is done the more it looks like the MWP was global. But that was one of his earlier videos and, at present, the consensus is that the MWP was regional.

    And, speaking of consensus, he is of the mistaken opinion that there is no such thing as a scientific consensus - because science is not a democracy or not the result of a vote. But that just illustrates that he does not understand the meaning of the term.

    He also mentions the aluminium battery in a positive light whereas, in fact, is more of a scam than anything else. And solar panel roads, a venture that was always going to fail from the time it was proposed.

    He also rejects the term "climate denier" even though he has a horde of them commenting on his videos. And "Louder with Crowder" on whom he did two videos is such an obvious climate denier it's not funny. Of course he may have changed his mind after this experience. 

    But I enjoyed the videos and they were very informative. I defintiely do not understand Doug_C's comment at all. A hell of a lot more thought and time has been put into Potholer's videos and they are both educational and entertaining. Each to his own, I guess. 

  6. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    Philippe Chantreau @17

    I agree. My first job was working on a ranch in the BC interior in the late 1970s where the cattle were grass fed and moved from area to area to preserve the resource. That is what real ranching is.

    SInce then the feedlot system has expanded and like most industrial agriculture the main focus is on scale and profit. Smaller scale ranching that is focused on grassfed beef managed in a sustainable manner is completely different from filthy and polluting feedlots that use large amounts of grown feed. Much of the risk from things like e coli beef contamination has come from the highly unsanitary feedlots where cattle are packed into as little space as possible as they eat, defecate and emit methane. And are then shipped off to slaughter.

  7. Philippe Chantreau at 05:52 AM on 3 December 2019
    Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    I've been starting to think that Red Baron is on to something. This came out recently.

    Problem is how to integrate a different way of doing things in the intensive argriculture model we have nowadays, where the operation is an industrial undertaking and the product is a commodity to be exchanged in order to maximize the profits of a few actors.

    There is hardly such a thing left in the Western world as a farmer, agro-industrial conglomerates rule. They care less about the nutritional value of their product, the land, the sustainability, than they do about profits.

  8. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    RedBaron @15

    That's a very interesting concept and something to look at seriously. There are concerns with having so many methane emitting livestock around, but all agriculture and ranching is not the same when it comes to net emissions and shouldn't be treated as such.

    Personal beliefs towards diet and the consumption of meat is not a relevant perspective when it comes to something like climate change mitigation. Or restoring ecosystems to a much more robust state.

    We're going to need every tool in the box to work through this growing catastrophe.

  9. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    The main problem I have with Climate Adam is he completely misses the boat on agriculture and thus has made inaccurate assessments on the potential of soil sequestration for reducing atmospheric CO2 and CH4.

    He knows his specialty and has a PhD which I respect. But he really fell down the Vegan rabbit hole into fantasy world when it comes to agriculture. The problem being it is not his specialty, so he can't see where he is wrong and is so strongly biased by Vegan talking points he misses the single biggest climate mitigation potential there is....

    RESTORING THE CLIMATE THROUGH CAPTURE
    AND STORAGE OF SOIL CARBON THROUGH
    HOLISTIC PLANNED GRAZING

  10. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    After watching just a few Potholer54 climate change videos I can see his approach and attitude is not for people like me. It's like listening to a machine for all his concern for the billions of people caught in the cross hairs of this looming catastrophe.

    I vastly prefer Climate Adam to the emotional blackhole I get sucked into trying to relate to someone like potholer. 

  11. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Nyood,

    to add to Philippe's and Nigelj's comments, I shall yet again be rather tiresome to readers, in once again pointing out your major errors.

    Lindzen and Curry are intellectual failures.    And it must be very sad (for any true skeptic) that you are forced into the corner of admitting they are "the best"  of the opposition to mainstream science.

    Dr Curry is a minimizer who goes outside of scientific truthfulness, in order to give her uncritical followers the impression that hardly any global warming is the result of the Greenhouse effect.   She creates a cloud of confused ideas ~ rather like the way a squid creates a cloud of ink to conceal things.

    Prof Lindzen was a scientific force in the 1980's , but in the past decades his (initially reasonable) Iris Hypothesis has proven to be wrong, and his future projections of global surface temperature have proven to be very wrong.   Worse still , he seems to have fallen into a religious belief that Jehovah would not permit the Earth to warm by more than a fraction of 1 degree.   Quite unscientific.

    Please note that I am not saying Lindzen and Curry are unintelligent or legally  insane.   The question of their intellectual sanity is arguable.

    Nyood , it must be disappointing for you, that you cannot suggest anyone 'better'  than Lindzen or Curry.   Nor am I aware of any 'better'  contrarians, capable of providing even a small amount of evidence to challenge the mainstream science.

    And I will not bother to detail all the falseness of your ideas about the Hockeystick.   It is one more area where you seem very reluctant to educate yourself ~ likewise with Climategate !

  12. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    nyood @56

    "you accept the political behaviour by the "11" as legit and only consequent. "

    Virtually all organisations have their office politics. I accept this isn't always a great thing, but the problem for me is you are not providing convincing evidence that the scientists in question have done anything significantly wrong. You are not being objective.  

    "In the end the IPCC is not researching itself but only analyzing and interpreting and they have a clear mandate, so even the egomaniac behaviour of M.Mann can be excused, he is only doing his job."

    The only mandate is the IPCC have to review the science and see where it leads. You have provided no evidence otherwise. Careful you dont slander people. Real sceptics are clear about what they mean by 'mandate'

    "It is just not fair, the IPCC is mising an organ that tries to falsify itself, here you will claim that they do that carefully, I will say: This is up to the skeptics that are cornered, shamed and excluded and people like Lindzen or Curry are no lunatics, just to name the best.

    Its a interesting point you make and I agree we need sceptical points of view, but that does not mean I have to agree with what the sceptics say, and it does not mean its ok for a scientific journal to have a board completely dominated by sceptics and Mann was justified in being annoyed by this, and scientists were justified by being annoyed by the Soon / Balinaus paper as pointed out by PC above. You have to see things in context. This was one paper and scientists haven't taken the same  stance over all sceptics papers. If they had, their might be cause for genuine concern.

    "Sceptics cornered shamed and excluded?"

    This is a wild exaggeration. Please note the IPCC goes out of its way to include sceptics in its review teams, eg Dr Vincent Grey. Please note the official investigations of climategate went out of their way to include sceptics. Please note that the scepetics have dozens of journals they can publish in, and they keep telling us how much research they publish.

    Some sceptics deserve to be shamed: I have quoted a few examples such as Moncton and Soon, but you refuse to engage and discuss.

    "9 separate investigations have completely exonerated all scientists of all charges"

    "This might be true, at the same time they were scolding the "11" for a lack of ingenuousness and transparency"

    There is no might be true about it. It is true.

    "The "Hockestick" that you use in the OP is an audacity and always will be."

    This is a composite of multiple detailed studies of the MPW. Not sure what more you would expect. How many studies would be enough for you? 

    Calling it an audacity doesn't make it an audacity. Perhaps it doesn't tell you want you want to see, so you throw mud at it.

    "This is the political thinYou know this. You know that warming periods are missing. "

    All I know is all the studies of the MPW I have seen show it was weak and I've seen dozens of studies.  I have no particular reason to doubt their veracity. Manns analysis was criticised for some bad statstics or something but the shape of his graph has been replicated over and over by other scientists using different methods. Thats good enough for me. Why would that not satisfy you?

    You sound like you are just angry that the science doesn't match how you want it to be, for whatever reason.

  13. Philippe Chantreau at 15:59 PM on 2 December 2019
    Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    I note that you do not adress any substantive point about what was happening behind the e-mails that you so eagerly condemn on the Soon/Baliunas communications.

  14. Philippe Chantreau at 15:57 PM on 2 December 2019
    Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    I can only infer from your response that you condone the pitiful Soon/Baliunas piece and associated perversion of peer-review as "acceptable" scientific behavior. So be it then. 

    The IPCC compiles scientific research, published in scientific journals. Its goal is to identify where the weight of the evidence points. If Curry or Lindzen have insights to share, they need to hack it out in the literature, like everyone else.

  15. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    @nigelj, Philippe Chantreau. Comments 53, 55.

    Thanks for all the detailed replies, i can see where you are coming from and that you accept the political behaviour by the "11" as legit and only consequent. I can not change this view, only express that it does not go along with my understanding of scientific behaviour.

    In the end the IPCC is not researching itself but only analyzing and interpreting and they have a clear mandate, so even the egomaniac behaviour of M.Mann can be excused, he is only doing his job.

    It is just not fair, the IPCC is mising an organ that tries to falsify itself, here you will claim that they do that carefully, I will say: This is up to the skeptics that are cornered, shamed and excluded and  people like Lindzen or Curry are no lunatics, just to name the best.

    To the moderators reponse which i want to shorten with:

    "9 separate investigations have completely exonerated all scientists of all charges"

    This might be true, at the same time they were scolding the "11" for a lack of ingenuousness and transparency.

    Since i am called upon to read the OP again i want to conclude with a final note and then i will stop bothering you:

    The "Hockestick" that you use in the OP is an audacity and always will be.

    You know this. You know that warming periods are missing. You are aware of that it is targeting the public and media that do not know better.

    It is the very manipulative method that you accuse the skeptics of.

    This is the political thinking and acting i am talking of.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] "The "Hockestick" that you use in the OP is an audacity"

    The "Hockeystick" has long been affirmed and validated as correct by science and has been independently replicated by numerous independent bodies, including this one from the Trump Administration in 2017:

    Hockey Stick Validated as Correct

    Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive, off-topic posts or intentionally misleading comments and graphics or simply make things up. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
     
    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion.  If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter, as no further warnings shall be given.

    Ad hominems, accusations of impropriety and political ideology snipped.

  16. Philippe Chantreau at 12:03 PM on 2 December 2019
    Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Nyood at 51 cites e-mail in which the infamous 2003 Soon/Baliunas paper is discussed. That calls for some context.

    This paper was so bad that it really could not make it in a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. This was a problem for fake skeptics, who denigrate the peer-review process and the validity of proper science publishing, but nonetheless trumpet loudly any and every "paper" they think defends their camp if it has even only the appearance of being peer-reviewed.  The timing of pending legislation further suggests that this was a poor attempt at presenting in Congress a competing point of view to what by then had necome well established scientific understanding. Unfortunately for Imhofe and others, their chosen paper was total bunk.

    The Soon/Baliunas paper was a piece of junk, squeezed through a unusual process that could be worked to allow for hand picking friendly reviewers. It was a blatant perversion of the true peer-review mechanism and its intention, and it benefited from an organized publicity campaign to attract attention that it could never have gathered on its own merits.

    It is entirely legitimate that real scientists be up in arms against such an underhanded and dishonest campaign. Any researcher worth their salt who sees such deceitful nonsense as Soon/Baliunas being elevated to the same level of validity as careful, sincere scientific work should be outraged, and should do something about it. It is only in our weird post-truth world that someone can manage to twist this situation into conspiratory paranoid wordage.

    The Soon Baliunas paper was so bad that half of the editorial board resigned in protest when they realized what had happened. In Nyood's selected quotes, the authors express surprise and doubts about Von Storch himself, some of it seemingly rooted in not knowing his character well. It should be said that Von Storch showed integrity and attempted to do the right thing; he unfortunately met a very different attitude from the likes of De Freitas, Legates amd others, and separated himself from the journal with the following words:

    "editors used different scales for judging the validity of an article. Some editors considered the problem of the Soon & Baliunas paper as merely a problem of 'opinion', while it was really a problem of severe methodological flaws. Thus, I decided that I had to disconnect from that journal, which I had served proudly for about 10 years."

    There is plenty more to read on this pathetic fiasco, including that the "paper" was in part underwritten by $53,000 from the American Petroleum Institute, or how the journal had been specifically targeted by so-called skeptics because they identified weaknesses in the review process.

    So, as it turns out once again, the concerns of the people cited by Nyood were entirely legitimate, justified, and their reaction was appropriate. A lack of such reaction in a case like this would be suspicious, not the other way around.

  17. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    BillyJoe @12 , you must certainly be "a glutton for punishment" ~ being up to Potholer54's video #35 already!   But they are a bit addictive in their humorous style.

    I would be interested to hear your critique of his videos, and especially about any errors you notice.  Off the top of my head, I can think of the way he somewhat "up-played" [is that a word?] the magnitude/extent of the Medieval Warm Period ~ but then again, the video was made in 2012, before the publication of later research.  And again, his comments may have been intended rhetorically to "draw in" the more Conservative viewers and lull their initial antagonism.

    If you do comment further, I hope it can be on this thread.  Possibly the moderators will approve it as being on-topic, as videocentric comment (not just ClimateAdam's videos).   Katherine Hayhoe is an excellent speaker, too.  Quite a star performer !

  18. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    sdinardo, I did say "each to his own".

    I'll have a look at Katherine Hayhoe's "Global Weirding" after getting through Eclectic's suggestion of Potholer54's series of 50 videos. I'm at #35 and it is far more informative and entertaining than anything I've seen from Climate Adam (although I have picked up a couple of minor errors probably related to the fact that his earlier videos are nearly ten years old).

  19. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    blub @47, modelling an existing physical process and using it to predict future trends is completely different from making a new scientific discovery  or making an engineering invention. I fear it is therefore you who need to improve your critical thinking.

  20. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    nyood @51, I hear where you are coming from, and I have already read many of these emails ages ago, but I have to agree with eclectic. I would say a lot of the paranoia is in your own reaction to them, and you are indeed making a mountain out of a molehill.

    Mann was expressing his frustrations with a publication stacked with climate sceptics. I can understand this. It's hardly sinister and no different from the rhetoric we hear from sceptics themselves!

    Perhaps he went too far suggesting other scientists not submit to that publication, but meh. I dont know. Seems like a molehill to me.

    The pause was longer than was expected so obviously caused some concern and worried discussion among scientists, so I'm not sure why this is seen as a big deal, but in the end it turned out to be understood better, and a nothingburger. I've explaned this @30 but you fail to acknowledge the comment, learn and move on.

    There's certainly no reason to read anything sinister or questionable into the scientists discussion at the time about the pause. Scientists sometimes express doubts like anyone else. Your reaction to this is either verging on hysterical, or is contrived.

    You do not seem to apply the same standards to the sceptics. Look at the awful politicised stuff written by C Moncton, and W Soon who failed to declare funding sources and got caught and censured. There's a long list of far more troubling things than anything about climategate.

    Since you just repeat the same stuff over and over, and have not responded to most of the specific points I have made, I wont be responding to you further until you change to something else.

  21. CO2 was higher in the past

    Thank you michael sweet and nyood for your enlightening thoughts;

    I knew I was off topic, but I'm new to the forum and I didn't understand how vast the forum is. I also realize my question was more philosophical in nature and does not merit discussion on this forum...so thank you for responding. The forum seems filled with intelligent people presenting good data and I shall greatly enjoy delving through its contents.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Your question and statements were on-topic and such are always welcome here.  As you note, the site is quite vast (thousands of discussion threads exist, on all of the near-several-hundred most-popular denier mantras and years of blog posts and re-posts).   You can either use the Search function to find threads to review or look at the Taxonomy of denial (or sorted by Popularity).

  22. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Nyood , you use the phrase "borderline paranoid".

    The reading of your posts suggests (strongly) that you should give that term a great deal more thought ~ using introspection.

    (But it's a sad fact that the paranoid cannot usually be reasoned out of their paranoia, in large or small matters.)

    Another phrase to think on: # Making a mountain out of a molehill.

    Meanwhile, despite all the controversy, the physical Earth is warming . . . ice is melting; seas are rising and acidifying.

  23. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    @ Ma Rodgers and nigelj

    I feel like you do not want to understand why i find it hard to trust people that talk like this. These "11" are the elite, they lose all intregrity with the leaking and i am scared by people like you that are willing to accept such behaviour considering the enormous power these "advisers" have:

    M.Mann:

    "It is pretty clear that the skeptics here have staged a bit of a coup, even in the presence of a number of reasonable folks on the editorial board30(Whetton, Goodess, ...). My guess is that Von Storch is actually with them (frankly, he’s an odd individual, and I’m not sure he isn’t himself somewhat of a skeptic himself), and with Von Storch on their side, they would have a very forceful personality promoting their new vision.There have been several papers by Pat Michaels, as well as the Soon andBaliunas paper, that couldn’t get published in a reputable journal.This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that—take over a journal!"

    "So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board.."

    This is borderline paranoid. This extreme focus on public and media perception and on control of the peer reviewed processes is way beyond any professional behaviour.

    P.Jones:

    "I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met(eorological) Office press release with Doug’s paper that said something like—“half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998”!Still a way to go before 2014.I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying “where’s the warming gone”? I know the warming is on the decades scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away."

    There are countless emails of this kind. Please try to be neutral and read them all, you can skip the skeptical explanations in black like i did and read only the colored quotes:

    climategate

    This is all about power, i avoided to get into the political side of climate change, i was all busy with the science, eventualy i turned my atention to climategate and my worst apprehensions came true. Climategate reads like a second - rate thriller, this is indeed sinister.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  You keep rehashing old lines of inquiry that have been utterly exhausted.  Please re-read the OP of this post and the linked articles within it.  Why?  Because 9 separate investigations have completely exonerated all scientists of all charges:

    "The manufactured controversy over emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit has generated a lot more heat than light. The email content being quoted does not indicate that climate data and research have been compromised. Most importantly, nothing in the content of these stolen emails has any impact on our overall understanding that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming. Media reports and contrarian claims that they do are inaccurate."

    And, as discussed here:

    "Far from exposing a global warming fraud, “Climategate” merely exposed the depths to which contrarians are willing to sink in their attempts to manufacture doubt about AGW. They cannot win the argument on scientific grounds, so now they are trying to discredit researchers themselves.

    Climategate was a fake scandal from beginning to end, and the media swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The real scandal is the attacks on climate science which have done untold damage to the reputation of the scientists involved, public trust in science, and the prospects of mitigating future warming."

    Further, the court has ruled that academic emails can be withheld:

    "emails are proprietary records dealing with scholarly research and therefore exempt from disclosure"

    Continuing to keep rehashing the same tired points without providing any new, credible sources to support your position is sloganeering, a practice that runs afoul of this site's Comments Policy.

    The science has long moved on.  If you do not have any new, credible sources, you should too.

  24. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    @BillyJoe 2, I'd add Katherine Hayhoe's "Global Weirding" series as an effective climate-change-explainer to the masses.  As for Climate Adam, let's grant perhaps that there is room for differenting 'styles' in presentation depending on intended audience, as long as there is accuracy?  

  25. CO2 was higher in the past

    LivinginAwe @98

    The plants have already adapted to the long term decline of CO2 in earth history. This is why grasses and other C3 type plants evolved. The most sturdy plants are believed to be able to deal with even 50ppm.

    Eventualy all CO2 should be stored in primerly limestone, yet the decline is very steady and it will take many more million years to completly deplete all CO2 if that ever happens. After our ice age, when Antarctica moves away from the pole again, which is expected to happen in ~90 mio years, the ice age will end and the warming oceans will release the "rest" of the CO2 that is still held by them (1000-2000 ppm).

    My take on this is that earth has already experienced these situations, there is a barrier when it comes to warming that saves us from overheating and there is also a barrier when it comes to cooling and CO2 declining that saves life.

    So in a way you are right, CO2 might help our plants and the greening effect is already documented by Nasa, but we do not know how the plants will deal with this sudden increase of CO2 made by us.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  "CO2 might help our plants and the greening effect is already documented by Nasa"

    According to the most recent research, the Earth stopped getting greener 20 years ago:

    "the vegetation greening trend indicated by a satellite-derived vegetation index (GIMMS3g), which was evident before the late 1990s, was subsequently stalled or reversed"

    Note that this 2019 research paper was published AFTER the 2016 NASA article on that topic and contains later information.

    Further discussion here:

    "The study published yesterday in Science Advances points to satellite observations that revealed expanding vegetation worldwide during much of the 1980s and 1990s. But then, about 20 years ago, the trend stopped.

    Since then, more than half of the world’s vegetated landscapes have been experiencing a “browning” trend, or decrease in plant growth"

    Further discussion of such is off-topic for this thread, but can be pursued here, "CO2 is plant food".

  26. One Planet Only Forever at 05:42 AM on 2 December 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48

    jgestiot @2,

    I agree that All economic activities that are contrary to the achievement of Any of the Sustainable Development Goals, and improvements and expansion of that understanding, need to be corrected. And Policy that correctly Governs the Economic activity will be required because the freer socioeconomic-political systems have proven to Develop problems and Develop powerful resistance to correcton.

    Responsible Governing of human activity is required for humanity to have a sustainable future. It would be nice if the entire population pursued expanded awareness and improved understandig and applied that learning to help achieve and improve the Sustainable Development Goals. But that is a Fairytale Fantasy. The reality is that Responsible Governing will require some self-correction resistant people to be externally corrected 'against their harmful desired free-will'.

  27. One Planet Only Forever at 05:30 AM on 2 December 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48

    jgestiot @2,

    Total population is a concern. But the real concern is the Total Impact of the Total population.

    A Total population of 1 billion having essentially the same impact as the current total global population Solves Nothing.

    That is why the earliest global leadership agreements required the largest and earliest reduction of impacts to be from 'The largest impacting portion of the population'.

    That is still the requirement, getting all of the highest impacting people to dramatically reduce the impact of how they act. That then sets the 'Bar' for All Others to aspire to develop to:

    • upper limits on those who have lower impact but need to improve how they live
    • lower limits for the people who need to 'Catch Down' to the reduced levels of impact corrected to by the leaders of the reduction of impact (All higher impacting people must participate in the reduction, not just Those Who Care).
  28. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Blub;s latest post here seems to be a variant of "you don't know everything, so you know nothing", which allows him/her to reject anything that science has established that goes against his/her desires to believe (or disbelieve). If science can be wrong, then it must be wrong when it disagrees with blub.

    ...and of course confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, etc. only afflict other people, not blub.

  29. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48

    Although every single bit helps, there is no solution to Climate Change until we start dealing with human population. If we halve our carbon footprint and in the meantime we double our population, we are left with the same problem. In my opinion, we should implement a worldwide one-child policy and move away from economic policies that promote unsustainable growth. 

  30. One Planet Only Forever at 02:54 AM on 2 December 2019
    Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry

    nigelk @28,

    In addition to a photon from a higher energy CO2 molecule going in any direction, reducing how much energy 'Goes up and out', the increased movement of CO2 molecules transfers movement energy to other molecules in all directions, so that is also energy that does not continue to 'Go Up and Out'.

    Less energy 'going directly up and out' means it will be warmer inside of the stuff that intercepts the energy on its way 'up and out' if there is more of that stuff.

  31. One Planet Only Forever at 02:46 AM on 2 December 2019
    Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry

    nigelk @28,

    Your description seems pretty close to complete.

    The UCAR Center for Science Education explanation of "Carbon Dioxide Absorbs and Re-emits Infrared Radiation" is more complete, including the mention of the "Vibation" effect Climate Adam included in his video.

  32. CO2 was higher in the past

    Livinginawe,

    You are way off base.  The world was doing fine before humans evolved.  Wiping out a large percentage of all living creatures (both animals and plants) does not count as "saving" the planet.

    Read some of the historical accounts of how much life existed before humans came to a location.  They describe so many fish on the Grand Banks fishery that ships were slowed by running into them and they could be scooped up in baskets from the surface.  There were so many whales in the Gulf of St. Lawerence that the noise of them breathing at night made it difficult for sailors to sleep.

    Life adapts to slow changes.  The problem with AGW is that the change is way to fast for life to evolve (in addition to the many other harmful pollutants humans release).

  33. CO2 was higher in the past

    Noting that atmospheric CO2 levels have been falling since the Jurassic period and was approaching a level that some scientist claim cannot support plant life (150 ppm)...Is it possible that mankind has evolved to SAVE the living planet instead of DESTROY it? Of course, we may well bring about our own distruction and most of the animal life on the planet...But wasn't the earth headed for a cold death? Carbon and oxygen has been locked away in carbonaceous sedimentary rock, coal, oil, and methane gas. Alas, along comes man to extract all that carbon and oxygen from the ground and breathe new life into a dying planet. 

    What are your thoughts? Am I way off base? (I honestly mean no harm and I certainly do not want to start an angry debate...It has just been a curious thought of mine for over twenty years).

  34. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    I'm not sure what "critical thinking" blub @47 expects.

    Of course, stock market prices are not goverened by physical processes and I have no inkling of the meaning of his terms "robust model" and "accurate." The remaining examples he provides appear to concern a mixture of issues regarding modelling problems or limits to scientific knowledge. I don't see how GCMs relate to any of this, again assuming that is the concern expressed. And that said, you don't even need a GCM to demonstrate GHG-induced Climate Change. I consider the argument set out by the commenter up-thread (all eight comments extant and snipped)  appear to be simply arguing that there is no ontological truth, something which is philisophically correct but scientifically flat wrong.

  35. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Blub @47 ,

    . . . and why haven't we invented anti-gravity yet?

    . . . and why not a cure for every cancer?

    . . . and biological regeneration to give humans a 1000-year lifespan?

    . . . etcetera.

    Blub ~ when you have ignited some critical thinking in yourself , then perhaps you will see your way clear to actually discussing the topic of this thread.   Rather than hand-waving and discussing confirmation bias (without insight).

  36. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    This will be my last post on this site in hope of igniting some critical thinking.
    If modelling of complex physical processes is robust why don´t we haven´t already predicted high temperature superconducting materials on which we could transfer energy without loss?
    Why were we not able to model plasma confinement for the last 60 years to enable nuclear fusion which would enable abundant cheap energy?
    Why are there no models to predict stock market moves accurately?
    Why are we not able to model even solar cell processes accurately?
    Are robust models accurate?

  37. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    nyood @28,

    I fear you rely on the commentaries of climate change deniers rather than the source documents they cherry-pick from.

    Tom Wigley was taking issue with Kevin Trenberth in 2009 not 1997 (1997 also the date of the hockeystick work)  and it was an entirely civilised and understandable interchange (although the actual e-mail thread does suggest that there was some history to the interchange).

    Wigley argued that the global temperature evolution 2000-10 could be explained by ENSO, volcano & solar variation (as per Foster & Rahmstorf 2011) but this was not entirely what Trenberth was saying (note the CERES reference). Then Trenberth responds pointing this inexactness out with perhaps allusions to some past interchange.

    I fail to see how this 2009 interchange in any way relates to uncertainty in climatology being kept private, unless it is within the febrile mind of a climate change denier.

  38. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Please get some knowledge on CONFIRMATION BIAS!

    All you do is bullying and i am getting moderated? strange site...

  39. Why does CO2 cause the Greenhouse Effect?! | Climate Chemistry

    Sorry if this question is too simple.

    Am I correct in thinking that the primary mechanism of CO2 heating the atmosphere is

    - infrared photon strikes a CO2 molecule

    - CO2 molecule moves faster as a result, transferring energy to other molecules in the atmosphere

    and the secondary mechanism is

    - infrared photon strikes a CO2 molecule

    - at some later time, CO2 emits an infrared photon

    - if that photon happens to go downwards, it will either strike another CO2 molecule, or strike the earth's surface

    thanks

  40. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    We live in the age of Youtube and memes, I don't half understand the appeal, but sitting with my 13 year old nephew and some of his friends and watching them totally enjoy them, I'm guessing Climate Adam is reaching younger people btter than some dry presentations as Nigel says.

    As for carbon dioxide, how many times does it need to be explained that it traps heat, that's the issue here. Not whether it is also used in photosynthesis to create the hydrocarbons life on Earth is based on.

    Us humans have already killed half the life on Earth and we're heading for eliminating much if not most of the remaining biosphere, it's really hard to see how we're going to survive that kind of ecological collapse.

    Understanding extinction — humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth

    As Nigel also says, why get sucked into a discussion of whether carbon dioxide is "good" or "bad" when the only issue in regards to catastrophic climate change is whether it traps heat and if it is effective in doing so in the Earth's atmosphere.

    All the evidence says that carbon dioxide is highly effective in moderating the Earth heat budget, it's the most important persistent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. If you removed all the CO2 then within decades the water vapour would be gone as well leaving an Earth that is hardly livable.

    Increase the atmospheric concentration and Earth warms so rapidly that isotherms migrate poleward so fast most of their associated biotas can't keep up or adapt and they go extinct. When half the Great Barrier Reef dies in two years and with everything else going on with this crisis, should we be wasting any effort pandering to those who would deny your house is on fire just to watch you burn.

  41. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Nigelj @43 = Blub or Blurb ?

    Tch, tch, tch . . . please leave the humorous comments to the good Blub.

    He is doing very well with the levity & logical legerdemain.   Rather than argue any sort of coherent case against AGW, he prefers to deflect into a sophist's jungle of Ultraviolet Catastrophes, Post-Modern Nihilism, Vitamin-C in apples, and the astounding suggestion that the world's climate scientists are ignorant about QM & black body radiation.   Goodness me, what next?

    I am chuckling as I wait for Blub to explain how String Theory disproves Global Warming by CO2/greenhouse.

  42. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    Regarding the health dangers of CO2, I recall reading somewhere that a couple of people have died  in homes in the UK when they started using new types of highly sealed window joinery units, and airtight house construction,  so when people closed all the windows in winter they literally asphyxiated. You really need to leave a few windows open all the time, just very slightly, to prevent both CO2 build up and dampness. If you wake up feeing headachy and sluggish or just bad,  its probably high levels of CO2 in the room.

  43. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    I have to confess I'm not a huge fan of Climate Adams style, as I have said before, but this is probably a generational thing as I get older. His style would probably connect well with younger people much better than a dry sort of dissertation and hes very genuine.

    What concerns me is he gets sucked in to repeating over and over that CO2 is not bad, which is exactly what the denialists want him to say. But very smart people can sometimes be naieve like this.

  44. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Blub, oops apologies for calling you blurb. A typo. Hopefully you can see the funny side of it.

  45. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    Eclectic, thanks. They are not really for me though I'll take a look but something I can recommend. It does looks like they're more for the educated layman than for the general public (and you are right about the low rez early videos!)

    Hank, yes I thought I recognised the name and it is these four exchanges that I remember. It was marvellous to see the 20 claims progressivley retracted over the course of those four videos until there was only one left. 

  46. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    "Give me 10-100Million dollars and i will design a model which will show that cimate correlates with anything you want it to correlate..."

    Sure. Go to FF companies and put your case. Coming up with an alternative model that excuses them would be fanastic. Of course, FF companies have massive modelling resources themselves (I worked for years on basin modelling) but for some reason choose to spend money on what is politely called PR, rather than trying for an alternative model.

    Frankly you are just demonstrating how little you know about how climate models are  constructed. 

    As far as I can see, since the science is doesnt say what you want to hear, you are frantically trying to find excuses for disbelieving the science but are unable to show any actual evidence. Ie you are indulging in motivated reasoning, not critical thinking. Can you think of evidence that would change you mind? If you cannot, then your beliefs are based on your values and identity, not on reason and observations. This is not the site for you. "You cannot reason a person out of a position they were not reasoned into".

  47. One Planet Only Forever at 10:57 AM on 1 December 2019
    Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    blub @39,

    Review the Most Used Climate Myths on this site (top of left hand side).

    Also review the "links by Arguement" under "Resources".

    There are plenty of robust examples of "What is not causing the warming". Many of them also are robust examples of "What is not causing the increase of CO2".

    Robust evidence indicates what is not happening, as well as indicating what is actually happening.

  48. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Blurb @36

    "Now I perfectly understand why alarmists are getting more and more heat from all kinds of movements. Not even one reply was actually based on sound understanding of science or refering to my content instead nothing but insults and mantra like repetition of empty arguements like:"

    Actually alarmists seem to be getting less and less heat from denialists. Even The Heartland Institute is pulling back a little bit. 

    Calling your comments incoherent is not an ad hominem. It's a simple fact they are hard to read and decipher.

    "So it is with climate models. They are not perfect, everyone knows that, but they are good enough to be taken seriously, especially given whats at stake. = OPINION"

    No its not opinion. The implications of climate change for the planet are well documented in the last IPCC report. If you want to arge that its an opinion whether they are serious fair enough, but that doesnt make the science or modelling an opinion. However its hard to see on what basis why any sane person would try to argue climate change is not serious.

    "Give me 10-100Million dollars and i will design a model which will show that cimate correlates with anything you want it to correlate..."

    It would be a junk model and would likely not be published and would certainly be ridiculed. Denialists have published a few curve fitting models like this and they have not fared very well.

    "Nigelj mentions: "There is an understanding of why variations in tree ring growth relate to temperatures, ie causation. You seem utterly confused and incoherent."

    No you are quoting me selectively. I said  "tree ring proxy data is not based only on correlations between tree rings and temperatures. There is an understanding of why variations in tree ring growth relate to temperatures, ie causation. You seem utterly confused and incoherent."

    "Actually you seem confused... Now for the third time: my arguementation was actually not that tree rings in particular are bad proxis, but that proxy studies in general are not confirmed or evident by statistical correlation or robustness and that the thought chain of doing so has no logic or causality. You do not seem to comprehend."

    Your two different criticisms both imply tree rings are bad proxies. You are just stating your opinion about proxies with no supporting evidence, just an empty assertion. Proxies have their uses an nobody claims they are highly accurate, thats why they have quite large error bars. Start with looking up tree ring proxies on something like wikipedia below.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendroclimatology

    The logic and causality seems obvious enough, here is part of the picture:

    "Dendroclimatology is the science of determining past climates from trees (primarily properties of the annual tree rings). Tree rings are wider when conditions favor growth, narrower when times are difficult. Other properties of the annual rings, such as maximum latewood density (MXD) have been shown to be better proxies than simple ring width. Using tree rings, scientists have estimated many local climates for hundreds to thousands of years previous. By combining multiple tree-ring studies (sometimes with other climate proxy records), scientists have estimated past regional and global climates."

  49. Here Are 3 Climategate Myths That Have Not Aged Well

    Hi One Planet Only Forever,

    thanks for your kind reply.

    You mention: "...you would unlimately not be able to sustain any perceptions you create that do not actually match or reasonably explain the robust diversity of observations and information that is available."

    Have you ever considered that this "robust diversity of observations and information" is actually not as robust as you say? And if so wouldn`t the first part of your sentence also aply to WMIP5 models?

    Can you elaborate on what actually "robust diversity of observations and information" means in terms of physical causality of climate change?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Sloganeering snipped.

  50. Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

    mrkt, that's just an unpublished web document.  So not actually a peer-reviewed document of any credibility.

    Unlike some previous studies, which had some methodological flaws (like not being published), this study presents a different, sobering look at increases in atmospheric CO2 levels:

    "Growing evidence suggests that environmentally relevant elevations in CO2 (<5,000 ppm) may pose direct risks for human health. Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations could make adverse exposures more frequent and prolonged through increases in indoor air concentrations and increased time spent indoors.

    We review preliminary evidence concerning the potential health risks of chronic exposure to environmentally relevant elevations in ambient CO2, including inflammation, reductions in higher-level cognitive abilities, bone demineralization, kidney calcification, oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction.

    This early evidence indicates potential health risks at CO2 exposures as low as 1,000 ppm—a threshold that is already exceeded in many indoor environments with increased room occupancy and reduced building ventilation rates, and equivalent to some estimates for urban outdoor air concentrations before 2100.

    Continuous exposure to increased atmospheric CO2 could be an overlooked stressor of the modern and/or future environment. Further research is needed to quantify the major sources of CO2 exposure, to identify mitigation strategies to avoid adverse health effects and protect vulnerable populations, and to fully understand the potential health effects of chronic or intermittent exposure to indoor air with higher CO2 concentrations."

    Jacobson et al 2019 - Direct human health risks of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide

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