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Comments 8801 to 8850:
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Eclectic at 11:48 AM on 13 December 2019It's magnetic poles
Brp7312 @6 ,
you seem to have restricted yourself to the first definition of "fossil" that you found by googling.
And just below that, on the same page, is the word's French & Latin origin, where "fossil" translates as something dug up. Which sounds a pretty good term for a hydrocarbon fuel which is dug up out of the ground. This also fits with the OED definition number 1.
Of course, even more futile nitpicking will indicate that the alcohol in vodka made from potatoes . . . must be a form of fossil fuel !!
And please don't make a pseudo-semantic attack on the "greenhouse effect" of GreenHouse Gasses [GHG's] . . . or why electric current does/doesn't flow from Positive to Negative.
Brp7312 , if you really wish to complain about the travesties of inappropriate word usage, then please go to the WUWT website and complain about their science-deniers calling themselves "skeptics" and "realists". Watt a Larf ! ;-)
Science-deniers and real skeptics are "magnetic poles apart" (which is the only phrase I could use, to link these past two posts to being on-topic ).
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Brp7312 at 10:14 AM on 13 December 2019It's magnetic poles
Daniel, hydrocarbons do not come from fossils. The definition of a fossil is
"the remains or impression of a prehistoric plant or animal embedded in rock and preserved in petrified form"
I am not disagreeing with the rest of your post, just the incorrect term fossil fuels. Hydrocarbons are neither an impression, petrified nor preserved. They are the degraded remains of organics.
Moderator Response:[DB] The term has been long accepted for use in communications to the public (here, here and here; many other references exist).
"Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from the remains of dead plants and animals.
In common dialogue, the term fossil fuel also includes hydrocarbon-containing natural resources that are not derived from animal or plant sources."
[PS] Fossils fuels are however the remains of prehistoric plants and animals. The "fossil" bit is useful in distinquishing hydrocarbons from organic versus inorganic sources (eg mantle methane).
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thejean at 09:42 AM on 13 December 2019CO2 lags temperature
Hi Folks! Great site, learning Kt of CO2 info!
On this particular topic, I do have some questions regarding CO2 solubility. CO2 solubility decreases with increasing temperature, we all know that. We also know it's in equlibrium with the ocean and atmosphere. However, I can't find any solid data indicating the actual soluble CO2 levels in the ocean.
However, CO2 solubility is quite high and is above 300 ppm even at elevated temperatures. So, shouldn't our oceans be constantly absorbing CO2 and never truly be releasing it? I mean, a small temp rise would only release CO2 if we were at saturation (and I don't believe we are otherwise the pH of the ocean would be much lower). Also, once CO2 enters the ocean, it converts to carbonic acid and then bicarbonate (alkalinity). So, My understanding is that in order to release CO2 below saturation you decrease pH to convert bicarbonate to CO2 per the carbonate equilibrium.
I guess what I am trying to figure out is why the ocean would release CO2 when it's aqueous concentration is well below it's solubility limits for the temperatures we are looking at? I have modelled it and it seems I can easily get seawater to accept CO2 concentrations up to 1000 mg/L at ocean temps
This brings me to my next question which is why the oceans would offgas when the concentrations never exceed 300 ppm historically (within the timeframe that is being considered in the graphic at the top of this topic) and the delta T never increased more than 4degC?
Does anyone have a link to any good papers describing this in more detail with actual CO2 solubility charts and references to ocean pH and such? I have scoured the web and haven't found anything that I would be willing to take to the bank. I really want to understand better how this small temp rise would have been capable of releasing this much CO2 into the atmosphere) when most of this CO2 is almost immediately converted to bicarbonate and would require a substantial pH shift to drive it out of solution. I'm not syaing for a minute that this is not the case but clearly I am missing something and just want to learn...
Moderator Response:[PS] on short time frames (less than 800-1000 years), ocean/atmosphere chemistry is complicated. The OA is not OK series, starting here, takes you through the gritty detail. You are correct that oceans are currently absorbing CO2 (getting more acidic) and will continue to do so for hundreds of years.
Should also say that "The warming causes the oceans to release CO2" in article is simplistic. There are multiple CO2 reservoirs involved in ice-age cycle, especially asian wetlands and maybe clathrates. Determining the precise sources/sinks of CO2 is still an unconstrained problem as far as I am aware.
As always, the IPCC reports are a good summary and index into the literature. See Chp 6 of AR5 WG1, esp 6.2 forward
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Doug Bostrom at 07:55 AM on 13 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49, 2019
Thanks Jeff. Sadly due to mental fragmentation I twice found what I thought were author-supplied copies of the paper. Drawing a blank— have contacted IMBIE to see if they can cough an accepted submission version or whatever.
Moderator Response:Check your email
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BaerbelW at 07:12 AM on 13 December 2019Cranky Uncle crowdfunding campaign launches!
Just a little heads-up that the iPhone/iPad app will become a reality as the first goal of $15.000 was reached within a week! Here is John Cook's cartoon for the occasion:
Want to make the Android version available as well? Click here!
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Jeff T at 23:44 PM on 12 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49, 2019
The link below the Greenland headline leads to a paper about the Antarctic, not about Greenland.
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Eclectic at 20:24 PM on 12 December 2019It's cooling
Rtc1956 @313,
thank you for the reference to website "temperature.global"
. . . where a very strange global temperature chart is shown !
Whatever data processing/ manipulating/ cherry-picking they've done, they have somehow produced a chart which is divorced from reality.
Have a look at 2016 figures ~ global temperature (presumably some sort of average) is shown as varying by over 3 degreesC in the course of that year !!! How on earth that could happen, requires a Harry Potter explanation.
They claim they are using "unadjusted" METARS (weather stations at airports) collated by NOAA/NCDC . . . which would be very heavily weighted to Northern Hemisphere landmasses of course. Which would not represent an honest global picture. Yet they also claim to use buoy data (presumably oceanic) which might add some sort of Southern Hemisphere weighting . . . but that sounds funny too, in view of the colossal 3 degree fluctuation in 2016. None of it seems to make sense.
Rtc1950, it is IMO just someone playing silly burgers with selected data.
There are two other commonsense filters that can be applied :-
(A) If world temperature has been cooling (and recent years being persistently cool, according to that website's temp chart) . . . then we would be seeing an increase in world ice, and a lowering of global sea level. Which ain't in evidence.
(B) There would be massive headlines & news reports around the world . . . cheering millions celebrating in the streets . . . and Miss Greta Thunberg would be promptly demoted from her (just announced) front cover of Times Magazine as "Person of the Year for 2019" ;-)
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Rtc1956 at 18:07 PM on 12 December 2019It's cooling
I would be grateful for any information on a site called www.temperature.global.org which supposedly shows consistent cooling. Is their methodology flawed? Any thing I can use to counter what they publish would be appreciated.
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nigelj at 17:53 PM on 12 December 2019In-depth Q&A: How ‘Article 6’ carbon markets could ‘make or break’ the Paris Agreement
“As you go forward, the role of forests, soils, blue carbon, technological solutions [to removing CO2 from the atmosphere], those all come into play. But in the early stages this is about squeezing as much carbon as possible out of the global energy system.”
It's happening in reverse. In addition to the criticisms of emissions trading schemes in the article, all emissions trading schemes have done in New Zealand and probably elsewhere is mostly encourage tree planting because this is just easier than reducing emissions.
This is even worse because its of mostly plantation forests which are of very limited use to the climate problem.The pressure to cut down trees are far too large to ever put much reliance on forestry sinks. It should be the lowest priority thing. For gods sake, we have a population heading to ten billion people!
There is more potential in using regenerative agriculture to enhance soil sinks because the land is just sitting there, and probably high tech negative emissions solutions. But they are all mopping up solutions, and not as high priority as reducing emissions.
While in theory it souldn't matter which comes first, planting trees or reducing emissions, it does matter in the good old real world, because by delaying reducing emissions the task has now been made very hard politically requiring a faster ramping up of emissions reductions by a higher price on carbon, and its the one that hits the public hardest and is most visible.
IMHO the whole emissions trading concept deserves a great deal of scepticism. It sounds like a free market economists dream to me. NZ bought a whole lot of international carbon credits that turned out to be worthless and caused a scandal. Anything as bureaucratically complicated as an ETS doesn't inspire confidence. It's worse than a tax code.
Fortunately article 6 is voluntary.
It's all about electricity grids really. It always has been. Get this right and transport and industry is half solved. If electricity generation is not solved everything else is a fantasy dream. Any carbon sinks or the like will always be chasing emissions.
We have to have zero carbon electricity grids as the number one priority, using renewables or nuclear power or both, probably both. Government's have to bite the bullet and fund this directly or force it to happen or perhaps use a carbon tax. It's too late for messing around with emissions trading schemes, especially at global scale. That's my two cents worth.
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Daniel Bailey at 07:55 AM on 12 December 2019There is no consensus
In the early 20th century human activities caused about one-third of the observed warming and most of the rest was due to low volcanic activity. Since about 1950 it's all humans and their activities.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0555.1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.522Further, the detection of the human fingerprint in the observed tropospheric warming caused by the increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases like CO2 has reached 6-sigma levels of accuracy.
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michael sweet at 05:35 AM on 12 December 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
Hefaistos and Eclectic,
Realclimate often reviews articles on the AMOC. The author's list of Hefaistos link was very long and of competent people.
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John Hartz at 05:01 AM on 12 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
OPOF@66: Way to go!
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:00 AM on 12 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz @57,
I tried to reduce my comment to the 250 word maximum recommended for Letters to the Editor of the NYTs. But the results end up being too incomplete, too open to misinterpretation, and too easy to unjustifiable counter-argue against.
In comment sections there is the ability to engage in a back and forth to clarify points made. There is no similar opportunity with Letters to the Editor.
So I sent a revision of my full comment to the Editorial Board as a concern regarding a couple of serious inaccuracies and omissions in the otherwise brilliant Opinion “The World Solved the Ozone Problem. It Can Solve Climate Change” produced by the Editorial Board of the NYT, for their consideration.
As I am not a paying subscriber to the NYTs, just one of the many free subscriptions based on giving them my email, so my comments may not get a lot of attention. But maybe.
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ERRATA at 01:52 AM on 12 December 2019There is no consensus
@Postkey
Are those peer-reviewed articles publicly available maybe?
And I also wonder if there is any conclusion (concensus) about how significant actually is AGW (what percentage of "global warming" is contributed to humans)?
Thanks!
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Eclectic at 18:10 PM on 11 December 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
Hefaistos, thank you for pointing out the Frajka-Williams et al. 2019 Review Article.
As a layman, I had last encountered the subject of AMOC speed, in the Bryden et al. 2005 (and later) paper . . . suggesting a 30% slowing over the period 1957~2004 (but they emphasized the uncertainties).
It is reassuring to see more extensive data, showing a high level of natural variability, with little or no trend over the past 24 years.
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Hefaistos at 15:23 PM on 11 December 2019The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
The AMOC is slowing is disputed by new research. Seems that the AMOC slowdown has reversed, and that it has incredibly large variability.
Reported in paper "Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: Observed Transport and Variability"
Eleanor Frajka-Williams, et al. 2019. Open source, link below."From first transbasin measurements retrieved at 26◦N by the RAPID array, a number of startling results have emerged (summarized in Srokosz and Bryden, 2015): that the AMOC ranged from 4 to 35 Sv over a single year, had a seasonal cycle with amplitude over 5 Sv, and that the dip in 2009/10 of 30% exceeded the range of interannual variability found in climate models. The international efforts to measure the AMOC in the Atlantic at a range of latitudes have delivered new understanding of AMOC variability, its structure and meridional coherence. In situ mooring arrays form the primary measurements of the large-scale meridional circulation,[/b]."
AMOC has been above its historic mean for the last 5 years or so, see attached graph.
Figure caption: FIGURE 6 | A time series of AMOC transport (MOCρ ) at the OVIDE section (eastern subpolar gyre: Portugal to Cape Farewell) for 1993–2017, constructed from altimetry and hydrography. The gray line is from altimetry combined with a time-mean of Argo velocities; the green curve is low-pass filtered using a 2-year running mean. The black curve is from altimetry and Argo. Red circles are estimates from OVIDE hydrography with associated errors given by the red lines. The mean of the gray curve is given by the black dashed line (Updated from Mercier et al., 2015).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00260/full
Moderator Response:[DB] Please limit image widths to 450 to avoid breaking the formatting of the page. Hyperlinked URL.
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michael sweet at 08:18 AM on 11 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
John ONeill,
Thank you for the information on how hafnium is obtained.
Unfortunately, that was not what we were discussing. Abbott 2012 (also linked in the OP), states that there are many rare elements used in the construction of nuclear plants that do not exist in enough quantity to build a lot of nuclear plants. The lack of these materials means that nuclear can never produce more than a very small (<5%) fraction of world power. Hafnium is one of several materials mentioned by Abbott (others list additional materials).
Unfortunately, zirconium is also one of the materials that cannot be obtained in quantity. Obviously you cannot purify hafnium from zirconium if not enough zirconium exists. (Alternately it does not matter if you have enough hafnium if you do not have enough zirconium).
In about 2005, nuclear supporters claimed that renewable energy could not be used to power the world because there was not enough concrete and steel to build the wind turbines. Renewable advocates responded with a peer reviewed paper (Jacobson 2009) which showed all the materials needed to build a renewable system existed except for rare earth metals for the turbines. The turbines have now been designed so that they do not use rare earth metals.
Abbott challanged the nuclear industry with13 problems building out a large amount of nuclear that he felt cannot be solved, The nuclear world has responded with answers like yours. No data and hand-waving suggestions to produce required materials from mines that do not exist.
If you want to answer the question: "Does enough hafnium exist to build out (amount of nuclear you want to build)" you need first to find out how much hafnium is in each reactor. Then you need to find out world hafnium production and consumption. Then you can determine if there is enoug hafnium left over from other uses to build out the nuclear plants.
Then you can do the same for zirconium and beryllium. Since there is only enough uranium in known economic reserves to provide all power to the world for 5 years you should probably only build out a small amount of nuclear or you will run out of uranium.
Nuclear supporters' constant use of the amount of materials in the Earth's crust indicates to me that they do not want to seriously answer the question. There is a gigantic amount of nickle in the Earth's core, a virtually unlimited amunt of helium in the Sun and billions of tons of uranium in the ocean. The problem is that it is not possible to economically obtain any of these materials.
In the Earth's crust some materials have formed economic deposits and are economically available. Others have not concentrated and are not economic to mine in quantity. You must provide information on proven reserves of materials like hafnium, zirconium and uranium to support the claim that enough of these materials exists. So far the nuclear industry, and nuclear supporters on line, have made no attempt to answer Abbott's questions.
Good luck.
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nigelj at 05:36 AM on 11 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz, apology accepted and appreciated. Not many people apologise these days so thanks. Not need to discuss the specific issue further. Were good.
I would just add that 'generally' in my experience half the problems and friction people have on the internet seem to be a result of misinterpretations. I know I misinterpret people sometimes, and sometimes its my fault for not reading carefully enough, and sometimes its their fault for lack of clarity, and sometimes it's a bit of both.
It's probably because we are dealing with complicated issues, but theres never enough time to really write with crystal calrity, and its harder to clarify things than in a verbal face to face conversation. Although that's no excuse really. It's important to define exactly what we mean and sometimes seek clarification before ploughing ahead.
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John Hartz at 02:19 AM on 11 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
nigelj@63: My apology. I misinterpreted what your wrote in your comment #50.
We're good.
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John ONeill at 21:11 PM on 10 December 2019Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
Regarding previous discussion on the scarcity of hafnium limiting nuclear power - hafnium is invariably present in zirconium ore, at about 1-3%. The two metals are so similar chemically that for most purposes this does not matter. However, the behaviour at the nuclear level is very different - while zirconium has a low neutron cross-section of 0.185 barns, that of hafnium is 104. So for nuclear uses, the hafnium must be separated out, or a 2% hafnium component would cause the zirconium fuel cladding to absorb over ten times as many valuable neutrons. Once separated, the hafnium is available for control rods, where its neutron appetite is a virtue, and it has the same strength and corrosion resistance as zirconium. There are thousands of fuel rods to only scores of control rods, so the real question should be, would a much larger nuclear industry run out of zirconium ? Since the elemental abundance of zirconium in the Earth's crust is about two orders of magnitude greater than that of uranium, and the mass of uranium in a fuel loading is much greater than the mass of the cladding, that is not credible. Further, if uranium supplies ran low, the industry would have to move to reprocessing spent fuel for plutonium. Since that involves cutting up and melting the used full rods, the zirconium would also become available for re-use. In any case, fast reactors, which get much better fuel mileage on plutonium, are more likely to have stainless steel cladding. Fast neutrons are less prone to parasitic absorption, and there are more of them per fission.
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Simple QED at 20:54 PM on 10 December 2019500 scientists refute the consensus
Carbon emissions as the cause of global warming claimed to explain the recent severe weather on the Earth may be misleading. Small Earth temperature increases, say 1 K per year, caused by carbon emissions are thought the cause of recent severe weather. Since 1 K temperature changes in a small room over a year are impossible to verify, yet the entire world seems to believe preposterous claim of temperature increases of 1 K over the entire Earth. Solar irradiation received by the Earth provides a scientific argument if solar heat is causing global warming. But solar irradiance data over the past century is relatively constant, and therefore variations in Sun temperature have been dismissed as the cause of global warming. Hence, carbon emissions producing the preposterous 1 K per year are by default considered the cause of global warming.
In this regard, it is more likely the sun temperature is changing by a small amount to cause the 1 K temperature - if in fact, the temperature increase per year is 1 K. Today, the sun temperature is 5800 K. Based on Black Body relations, the figure below shows the change in Earth temperature T above that for the Sun at 5800 K when the the sun temperature is higher or lower than 5800K. For example, if the sun temperature is 5820 K or 20 K higher than 5800 K, the Earth temperature is 1 degree K higher. Since it highly likely the sun temperature fluctuates more than 20 K during a year, global warming is more likely caused by the Sun than carbon emissions and is much greater than the 1 degree K per year claimed by scientists.
www.nanoqed.org/resources/2019/Warming.jpg
By the Black Body argument, a higher rise than 1 K in Earth temperature is occurring, but although more realistic than the small 1 K estimate also can never be verified. Regardless, the constancy of solar irradiance at the top of the upper atmosphere over time challenges the foregoing black body argument. It therefore appears the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere is thinning [1] to allow more solar UV and EUV radiation to reach and heat the lower atmosphere, the lower atmosphere actually controlling the weather on Earth. If so, the ozone layer may be of far greater importance than carbon emissions, but data to support this argument is lacking.
Time will tell if global warming by carbon emission or loss of ozone is correct. More research on thinning of the ozone layer is recommended.
[1] C. Jackman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, “The Impact of Energetic Particle Precipitation on the Atmosphere,” presentation to the Workshop on the Effects of Solar Variability on Earth’s Climate, September 9, 2011.
Moderator Response:[PS] This little gish gallop is offtopic. Use this the search function (or the Arguments menu item) and comment on the relevant article after reading the article. On the measurability of a temperature change of 1K, please revise Law of Large Numbers and acquaint yourself of how temperature change is actually measured. Especially why anomalies rather than absolute temperature is used. This paper is a good place to start. Dont try complaining about measurability till you have reviewed this. Arguments about the sun go to "its the sun". Arguments that is ozone (really!) go here. Take a moment to think about what experiment would differentiate warming from change in CO2 versus that from some change in O3.
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nigelj at 11:34 AM on 10 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz @60 and 61, the quote you posted clearly implied junk science and industry obfustication posted in the media was at least "a reason" for the failure to make legislative progress, even although it was clearly not the only reason. Hence the rest of my comments. Or maybe we have crossed communication on it. Not a big issue anyway.
And yes the NYT article does vindicate my position. I have to crow about that a bit. "I told you so comes to mind!"
I agree probably only a small number of people read comments, and Im sure I read a study finding this somewhere, but I suspect sometimes those people can be influential. I prefer to apply the precautionary principle of applying pushback because we can't ever be certain about who reads what, plus I confess I quite enjoy the verbal fencing, plus what OPOF says about it. We dont all need to be doing it.
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One Planet Only Forever at 11:05 AM on 10 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz,
I am revising my comment @55 to be a Letter to the Editor at the NYT.
Regarding comments on News Sites. My own reason for reading and posting comments is to expand awareness and understanding to help better argue against the claims made-up by the people who are trying to excuse harmful unsustainable beliefs and actions.
I learn by reading comments from others. And I hope others learn from what I share.
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John Hartz at 09:19 AM on 10 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
nigelj & OFOP:
Score one for your side...
Comment threads can influence climate change attitudes by altering perceived consensus by Eric W Dolan, PsyPost, Dec 8, 2019
With the following caveats...
Over the decade, many MSM websites have eliminated comment threads from the materials posted on them.
I have yet to see any statisitcs about the number of people who actually read what is posted on commnt threads to climate-related articles other than those people who are posting comments. I personally belive there aren't that many.
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John Hartz at 09:08 AM on 10 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
nigelj@59: I am baffled by what you meant when you wrote:
John Hartz @54 thank's for the pertinent, sensible and interesting quote. But it said in part "This cascade of phony (climate) science was not the only reason legislation aimed at reducing carbon pollution foundered in Congress. " This is the exact sort of junk science and myths posted by denialists all over the internet, and yet you seem to think pushback is a waste of time, so I'm a bit baffled by that.
The sentnce that you have quoted in the above has a context. It is followed by these two sentnces...
As Bill Clinton and Mr. Gore discovered after signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, there was little enthusiasm in either party for a treaty that essentially required America and other industrial nations to do most of the heavy lifting while giving other big emitters, among them China and India, a far easier path. Still, industry’s relentless obfuscation played a big role, especially among Tea Party Republicans.
Do you take issue with them?
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Doug Bostrom at 12:51 PM on 9 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2019
Analogies don't function in the mind of folks bent on not understanding even as analogies are a very useful way of giving people a leg up on unfamiliar topics. Nor will this web site penetrate diamond-hard dogma.
Fortunately research tells us that the intractably intransigent are distinctly in the minority. :-)
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Doug Bostrom at 12:47 PM on 9 December 2019What would Bill Ruckelshaus do?
I had the privilege of speaking w/Bill Ruckelshaus earlier this year. Still sharp as a tack, perhaps even sharper— advancing age takes away a little of our patience for fools. Ruckelshaus had to deal with a lot of those in his time.
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scaddenp at 06:54 AM on 9 December 2019It's the sun
Deucarra, sailingfree - remember that outgoing must match incoming for conservation of energy. Perhaps need to look at how the Stephan-Bolzmann law is derived?
As it is, temperature is function of power. (T4 ~ to incoming energy flux), so the comparison is entirely valid. If energy flux changes, then surface temperature must change to maintain conservation of energy.
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nigelj at 05:52 AM on 9 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz @54 thank's for the pertinent, sensible and interesting quote. But it said in part "This cascade of phony (climate) science was not the only reason legislation aimed at reducing carbon pollution foundered in Congress. " This is the exact sort of junk science and myths posted by denialists all over the internet, and yet you seem to think pushback is a waste of time, so I'm a bit baffled by that.
Anyway, I think its its worth spending some limited time pushing back against climate denialists and debating with them, providing its done right. The "facts dont convince anyone" claim is a bit simplistic for me, and only really applies to hard core denialists, and its hard to know if someone is a hard core denialist. I would rather apply the precautionary principle, and apply some push back.
What matters is how we push back, because a lot of people do it badly and get lost in detail, and they get bad tempered. Often its best to be short and to the point with some key information of use to ordinary people, always with one internet link to a key document.
Many websites are unmoderated and denialists will just spam so you have to be careful not to get into long converstations that give them a platform to go on and on. You aren't ever going to get them to say "maybe you are right" so what you post is more for the general interest of everyone. Bear that in mind.
I engage in more length with denialists on this website sometimes, because the moderated format at least leads to vaguely useful and interesting discussion and they aren't allowed to sloganeer and spam.
But yes I agree with you that most of our efforts should go into promoting positive change and "doing stuff" and raising awareness, rather than worrying too much about the denialists.
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John Hartz at 05:48 AM on 9 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
As documented in this article, the fossil fuel industry continues its quest to shape the international response to man-made climate change. It's happening in real-time at the ongoing COP 25 conference in Madrid.
COP25 summit: fossil fuel groups accused of trying to influence climate talks, AFP/South China Morning Post, Dec 7, 2019
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John Hartz at 04:56 AM on 9 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
OPOF@55:
Thank you for challenging certain statements made in the New York Time's editorial. Suggest that you forward your commentary to the newspaper's Editorial Board — perhaps in the form of a Letter-the-Editor.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:37 AM on 9 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz @54,
A better story to tell regarding helpful leadership actions would be the Good Leadership actions by Responsible Conservatives in Australia to temporarily sacrifice their popularity by enacting undeniably helpful and sustainable gun control legislation.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:22 AM on 9 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz @54,
Your links continue to be enlightening. The NYTs Editorial is generally helpful. But it includes ways of telling the story that exposes a sinister reality about the storytelling in the USA (and many other supposedly more advanced nations).
One of those things is in the quote you chose to share from the article.
"As Bill Clinton and Mr. Gore discovered after signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, there was little enthusiasm in either party for a treaty that essentially required America and other industrial nations to do most of the heavy lifting while giving other big emitters, among them China and India, a far easier path."
That is an accurate presentation of the claims that were being made, and continue to be made. But it is an incomplete presentation and misrepresentation of what the Kyoto Protocol required and why it required it.
Everyone should seek out the original development documents, or at least read the final document. The details missed and misstated include:
- There is a debt owed by each nation for its history of contribution to the current day problem.
- Every human has equal right to be as harmful as every other human, a presentation of 'all people are equal' that leads to understanding that every nation has the right to increase its impacts to the same per-capita levels as other nations.
- The highest per-capita impacting nations need to lead the correction of ways of living by reducing their per-capita impacts, to set the upper limits for the less developed nations to develop up to.
- Since the end requirement is the ending of fossil fuel use it will be beneficial for the more developed nations to help the less developed nations develop more directly to sustainable activity, not follow the path of increased fossil fuel use followed by a need to undo or correct that development.
- The nations with the highest current day debt (due to total impacts to date) also owe the less impacting and less developed nations assistance in 'adapting' to climate change impacts already created.
- That means that the Sustainably Corrected future would have less perceptions of superiority and dominance by the current day "Winners of perceptions of Superiority".
That fuller understanding has been 'removed from discussion, maybe never introduced in the first place' by leadership in some of the supposedly more advanced nations, making them undeserving of being considered 'more advanced nations'. It makes them nations deserving ridicule for having developed misleading storytelling propaganda systems, and apparently not realizing that it has happened, all in pursuit of 'harmfully selfishly tribally trying to maintain and increase unsustainable perceptions of superiority relative to others'.
This is something that has been able to be understood for decades. Edward S. Herman (with Noam Chomsky) produced Manufacturing Consent in 1988 as a presentation of Herman's Propaganda Model (Movie of the same name made in 1992). And Alan MacLeod produced an update on Manufacturing Consent in the 2019 book Propaganda in the Information Age.
How stories get told and what stories get told matters (even News Reports and Science Publications are stories). And the harmfully correction resistant among the powerful understand that very well.
I appreciate that that is 'not a solution'. But any claimed solution that is not based on understanding the problem 'is not a sustainable solution'.
Another quote that exposes a sinister aspect of the way climate change stories get told is "Climate change, by contrast, has for a long time been seen as remote, something for future generations to worry about, and in polls has appeared far down on the list of voters’ concerns."
That misrepresents the unacceptability of acting to benefit today in a way that future generations cannot continue to enjoy (fossil fuels are non-renewable). And it dismissively brushes away any sense of guilt about causing harmful challenges that Others (the future generations) will end up having to deal with. It also highlights the grotesque unacceptability of basing Leadership action on Popularity and Profitability, especially in a socioeconomic-political system that is undeniably perverted by propaganda pressures to defend unsustainable developed perceptions of Superiority.
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John Hartz at 01:45 AM on 9 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
nigelj @50:
I encourage you and everyone following this comment thread to read:
The World Solved the Ozone Problem. It Can Solve Climate Change., Opinion by the Editorial Board, Sunday Review, New York Times, Dec 8, 2019
Particularly germane to our discussion is this paragraph:
Finally, despite predictable industry warnings of economic ruin, the efforts to protect the ozone layer and clean up the nation’s waters and air faced nowhere near the campaign of denial and disinformation mounted by Exxon Mobil and other big fossil fuel companies — companies that knew perfectly well what their products were doing to the atmosphere — to confuse the public about climate change and to derail serious attempts to address them. This cascade of phony science was not the only reason legislation aimed at reducing carbon pollution foundered in Congress. As Bill Clinton and Mr. Gore discovered after signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, there was little enthusiasm in either party for a treaty that essentially required America and other industrial nations to do most of the heavy lifting while giving other big emitters, among them China and India, a far easier path. Still, industry’s relentless obfuscation played a big role, especially among Tea Party Republicans.
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sailingfree at 13:45 PM on 8 December 2019It's the sun
deucarra @ 1278: You are quite correct.
I assume that others, as I do, "eyeball" the average incoming irradiation and compare it to the slope of the temperature curve.
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nigelj at 11:46 AM on 8 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz @51
"The climate denier ranting and raving in the blogosphere have had very little impact on the real world."
I wouldn't be too sure about that. Plenty of ordinary people I know are sceptical about AGW climate science ,and they repeat the sort of slogans posted by denialists all over the internet, particlurly on blogs, so its fairly obvious where they get their information. It then spreads by word of mouth like an infection.
And some of these ordinary people are in positions of power to make changes, but they are being infected by the denialists.
Of course I dont think the impact of blogs is huge. Media articles by denialists probably have a bit more impact.
"The lobbyists employed by the fossil fuel industry and their allies and the campaign donations made by the fossil fuel industry and their allies have effectively prevented any worthwhile political action on climate change for decades."
This is a big part of it. The book Dark Money is relevant although I sus pect you have read it.
"BTW, I vigorously engaged climate deniers on the comment threads of media outlets and elsewhere for a few years before I realized that doing so was a waste of my time and energy."
I engage people with sceptical climate views for various reasons. Firstly there's always a chance some of them will change their minds. Even a few hard core denialists like Richard Mueller change their minds, although they are exceptions to the rule.
Do remember just because someone fights with you and never gives in on the internet, doesn't mean they aren't listening to what you say. People are reluctant to admit error, and change their minds openly in public, or admit you have a point, because its human nature.
However I have no illusions. Many denialists will be denialists for life even if sea level rose 20 metres.
Secondly I'm currently living alone, and I enjoy debates, and I get very bored with television. Thirdly debates here with denialists often raise some interesting issues. But its not for everyone. I totally respect people who don't wish to engage with denialists.
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One Planet Only Forever at 10:31 AM on 8 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
BillyJoe,
My full comments and their entire context are what I meant and said. And further clarification can certainly be provided.
I try to comment based on the objective of expanding awareness and improving understanding applied to achieve and improve the Sustainable Development Goals.
There is almost an endless depth of understanding associated with that (the global community has been developing it since the 1960s). Climate Science is only part of the understanding of the Climate Action Goal. And the Climate Action Goal is only one of the 17 categories of Goals (and each Goal category contains a diversity of goals).
However, what is clear is that limiting the impacts of human induced climate change is a Keystone Goal because more rapidly achieving it makes it easier to achieve almost all of the other Goals (and delaying the corrections makes the future worse). And exceeding 1.5 C brings about uncorrectable changes (some have already occurred such as initiating the collapse of an Antarctic Ice Shelf and Extinctions of many forms of life).
Now to your response regarding the statement made by AOC. "We really don't know what she actually meant and it doesn't matter." Anyone uninterested in asking for clarification of what she said deserves to be challenged regarding their apparant lack of interest in pursuing increased understanding.
That is what a legitimate Skeptic would do.
And the same applies to the claims made based on misinterpretations of Mann's interview, claims made years after the interview without asking Mann for clarification. A legitimiate skeptic would have sought clarification before making a claim about what was meant.
And that is what I meant regarding Potholer54. I do not know if Potholer54 approached either Mann or AOC for clarification. If not, he piled on to the criticism based on an interpretation of the statements. I am being a little hard on Potholer54 because he has a history of Journalism. That means he should know about investigating and verifying understanding before reporting.
The parties deserving ridicule are the people who were not legitimately skeptical and just 'went along piling on', like the group that still claim that the climate-gate climate scientists should have been more careful about what they said in their emails. Ridicule is also to be directed at every storyteller in a position of information influence who failed to investigate and interrogate the initiators of the original 'sin' of Climate-gate: the data thieves, those who went through the emails to find the few bits to abuse out of context, those who created the initial misleading claims, the powerful people who likely coordinated it. And everyone who bought into the misleading mess without first applying legitimate skepticism and pursuing improved understanding deserves ridicule.
What is being exposed by the Climate Science case is the Lack of Legitimacy of Games based on Popularity and Profitability. Those are clearly not measures of Merit or Worth. They are just impressions of Winning. How the winning happens is important. Thta differentiates deserved Winning from undeserved Winning. Sustainable (deserved) Impressions can only be achieved through Sustainable actions.
Popularity and profitability can be seen to not care about the ways of Winning (or the ways of lawmaking or enforcement), and therefore can be rather useless as a means to achieve Sustainable Results. In fact, they can be seen to develop harmful results and powerful resistance to correction.
The likes of Greta and AOC attract and expose the people who deserve to be ridiculed and dismissed until they are corrected. And anyone who reacts powerfully negatively to them is likely a lost cause. They are likely part of the group that will need to be Responsibly Governed and Limited until they learn to change their minds, which may mean they end up always being governed and limited by Responsible Others (and angrily demand more Freedom to believe what they want and do as they please but deservingly never get it).
The future of humanity is actually at stake here. The Sustainable Development Goals are the path to a lasting future for humanity. Anyone with Other interests needs to have their awareness expanded and understanding improved. Anyone preferring to resist the required corrections deserves to be angry and disappointed.
Extinction Rebellion appears to be on to a Good Thing, upsetting people who need to be disturbed.
WPotholer45 may be quite helpful. All that I clearly questioned was Potholer54's helpfulness in the specific cases that I have identified may be deserving of ridicule, his potential lack of effort to expand awareness and understanding regarding interpretations of things AOC and Mann said.
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John Hartz at 10:05 AM on 8 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
Billy Joe:
No, I am not kidding.
The climate denier ranting and raving in the blogosphere have had very little impact on the real world.
The lobbyists employed by the fossil fuel industry and their allies and the campaign donations made by the fossil fuel industry and their allies have effectively prevented any worthwhile political action on climate change for decades.
BTW, I vigorously engaged climate deniers on the comment threads of media outlets and elsewhere for a few years before I realized that doing so was a waste of my time and energy.
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BillyJoe at 09:25 AM on 8 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
John Hartz, you are kidding, right?
Through moderation, this site is shielded from commentary by climate deniers, but try to write anything about climate science on any unmoderated forum and see the mountains of nonsense you have to put up with.
Climate deniers have had so much impact that they have effectively prevented any worthwhile political action on climate change for about three decades.
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John Hartz at 08:52 AM on 8 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
BillyJoe @48: You wrote:
The climate denying blogosphere predictably got great mileage out of it.
Who cares? The "climate denying blogosphere" has little impact on the real world. Let them wallow in their own poppycock!
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:53 AM on 8 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2019
ed56 @19,
People who resist expanding their awareness and resist improving their understanding and resist applying what they learn to help develop a sustainable and improvable future for a robust diversity of humanity fitting in to a robust diversity of life are not "... natural grown inhabitants of this planet".
They are products of the socioeconomic-political systems and story-telling that they developed in. They are humans who have allowed their ability to be 'helpful members of a robust diversity of humanity' to be over-powered by the 'harmful selfish enticements and motivations of the socioeconomic-political systems' that can be seen to develop harmful unsustainable results and develop powerful resistance to correction.
Climate science and the resistance to accepting it is clearly the largest case study proving that point. But similar examples exist related to every other Sustainable Development Goal.
Whenever the harmful correction resistant portion of the population sense that learning would threaten a developed belief and resulting personally liked actions they will be tempted to use all available methods to evade 'learning to be helpful rather than continue to be enjoy being harmful'. That is on bold display everywhere. It is even tragically succeeding at temporarily winning unfettered power in some of the 'supposedly most advanced nations'. And it is having significant influence even if that harmful portion of the population do not win unfettered power. Popularity and profitability are hard to effectively fight against.
The future of humanity is at stake. And there are indeed two camps. And one of them clearly deserves to be Governed and Limited by the Other Camp. The Nature and Humanity camp must govern and limit the Popularity and Profit Camp.
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BillyJoe at 07:24 AM on 8 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
OPOF, you seem to be quite happy to defend the indefensible. AOC saying "the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change" is not defensible at any level. The statement is wrong on its face. We really don't know what she actually meant and it doesn't matter. The climate denying blogosphere predictably got great mileage out of it. And, hopefully, if AOC had her time back again, she would not have fed them this goldmine quote. But she won't learn any lesson from this incident if she keeps her head in the sand and brushes it aside as obvious exaggeration as you have done.
On the other hand what did you mean by the following:
"And very few reporters who started piling on to the original misleading claims about what Mann said appear to have bothered to actually better understand the issue before piling on (potentially including Potholer54)"
I know you don't like the guy, but what does "potentially including Potholer54" even mean? If he actually did pile on Mann then you need to link to where he does so and not just say that you think he might have done so if he had thought about it or whatever else you meant by that statement.
Potholer's latest video now has over 40,000 views and over 2,300 comments. Climate Adam's video is now dead in the water. You might not like his style but he is having a significant effect here.
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RedBaron at 06:47 AM on 8 December 2019Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change
Here is even more independent confirmation that the rate of sequestration is reasonable and repeatable.
Soil Carbon Sequestration and the Soil Food Web
First a simple video made by Dr. Elaine Ingham explains what I have been posting about here for several years. Including the same rate of sequestration found all over the world well within the 5-20 tonnes CO2e/ha/yr found by Dr Christine Jones decades ago and confirmed by many others.
And now Dr David Johnson tosses his hat in the ring as yet another independant researcher obtaining results in this same range.
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ed56 at 04:00 AM on 8 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2019
Nigelj, science denial may be a special problem in den US (much less in Europa, where I sit), but then again it is not a challenge for natural science.
It may be one for sociology, and I miss information here from this perspective.
You all know better what the effect of this website is, from my superficial perception it could have the effect of further splitting the (social) camps.
Remember, the other camp is also a natural grown inhabitant of this planet ;-) -
One Planet Only Forever at 02:15 AM on 8 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
nigelj,
Trying to be brief, clear, attention getting, and unable to be misinterpreted is very hard.
Even warning about the end of the world "as we know it" does not say what needs to be said.
If "all of the SDGs, but especially the Climate Action Goals, are not achieved by 2030 and improved on after that time", humanity will have a much tougher time developing a sustainable future that can be improved by new sustainable developments.
The world humanity developed in is already irreversibly negatively affected in many ways. And lack of action towards achieving all of the SDGs by 2030, and improving on them all, makes it worse.
We are already seeing extinctions of life forms as a result of the harmful unsustainable ways of living that the current fatally flawed developed socioeconomic-political systems encourage because popularity and profitability are claimed to be "Irrefutable Proof of Good and Deserving". And the climate change tipping point of one of the Antarctic Ice Sheets has already been passed.
The robust diversity of life for a robust diversity of humanity to sustainably be a part of is being irreversibly damaged. And a very slow changing physical planet has also been irreversibly impacted by sped up changes.
The Harm of CO2 from fossil fuels is a by-product of the harm of human competition for perceptions of superiority relative to others. The developed systems, especially ones that measure merit by popularity and profitability but do not effectively limit what is allowed in the competition, are "the world as we know it" that actually needs to be ended by 2030, the sooner the better.
Actions that are likely to be sustainable should be the only actions allowed to compete. And if new learning identifies that an action is not as sustainable as originally thought, a good system would rapdly shut it down, not caring about how popular or profitable it was, and not caring to 'protect the perceptions of wealth that had been developed'. That was done with MTBE (google it). But it is essential for the system to care to make sure everyone is helped to rapidly transition to a sustainable way of living as the developed unsustainable action is very rapidly terminated.
Correcting the massively incorrect system and its current day developments means a lot of people who perceive themselves as winners actually have to admit they are 'less deserving' and need to change how they live and be more helpful to others as they give up personal benefits.
Try to say that briefly. It is what the SDGs and the GND are all about. But it cannot be 'stated briefly'. And more careful communication of climate science will not do it.
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John Hartz at 23:47 PM on 7 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2019
nigelj @ 17: You wrote:
Sadly the article was also rather vague on just how to reach the hard core denialists but rather than throw too many facts at them it might be useful to talk about motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. Thus they are not being told they are wrong or have the wrong facts. But the rest of the article was great.
My advice to you and everyone — Ignore the hard core denialist and focus on getting the majority of people to move from climate awareness to climate action.
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MA Rodger at 20:05 PM on 7 December 2019CO2 was higher in the past
Livinginawe @98,
You pose an interesting thought (which I think can be addressed on-topic).In essence, I don't think mankind's could ever become saviour of a living world by boosting atmospheric CO2 levels.
If we look tens-of-thousands of years into the future, there is talk (eg see this Wikithing page, although the reference it makes Berger & Loutre (2002) is not as defininte) that in 50,000 years time the world will face an ice age that will not be dodged by our emissions. By that time the impact of our emissions on the atmosphere would be much diminished. But an ice age does not of itself reduce the amount of carbon about. Rather it sucks it out of the atmosphere into oceans and frozen soils.
While these dips in CO2 could soon make life for C3 plants very difficult, C4 plants can survive at atmospheric CO2 levels well below 100ppm. And there are also aquatic plants which maybe even benefit from colder waters enriched by CO2.Over the longer term, hundreds-of-millions of years, the increase in solar strength will increase rainfall and thus increase rock weathering drawing down carbon into the geology via the slow carbon cycle(as this NASA web-page terms it) while the release of carbon back from geology via volcanic activity is presumably fixed and will not respond enough to compensate. Thus the 60,000Gt(C) on the planet will more-&-more become trapped in the geology (currently about 10,000Gt(C) is in trapped in rocks) and atmospheric CO2 levels will drop.
The works of man so-far have release ~700Gt(C) from FF with perhaps 1,500Gt(C) of FF reserves and so they don't amount to anything significant in the grand scheme of things.
Mind, as the sun warms the planet creating a wetter world which draws down more CO2 into the rocks, that loss of CO2 will cool the world and act as a brake on the process. The loss of CO2 would be something like 500My of the strenghening sun, so after that sort of time period the wetter climate would have no CO2 'brake'.Over the last 50My we have seen atmospheric CO2 levels drop but that atmospherc loss of perhaps ~5,000Gt(C) was probably driven by the Himalayas being weathered down in the wet climate of the tropics with a feedback of lost CO2 cooling the climate and drawing further CO2 into the oceans (where most of the planet's carbon resides today). So the rate of loss of atmospheric CO2 over the Cenozoic era probably shouldn't be projected into the future with any confidence.
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nigelj at 16:29 PM on 7 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
OPOF @ 15, AOC probably meant to say: the world "as we know it" is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change" which is fine. Unfortunately she didn't. But I get your point.
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nigelj at 16:22 PM on 7 December 2019Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48, 2019
Regarding "Flat Earthers, and the Rise of Science Denial in America," linked by John Hartz.
A good read with mostly convincing conclusions, but it was not clear what it meant by denialists. I think what you have is "hard core" denialists who have gone slightly crazy and have a very extreme view of climate science. There are many moderate sceptics who are just slightly sceptical and people who are rather "impressionable" and easily swayed. The risk is the hard core denialists infect these moderates. This is the war zone we have to be wary of.
These are two largely different groups, because we are all sceptics of everything to some extent. Facts wont change hard core denialists minds, with a few exceptions, because they are driven by ideology and conspiracy theory beliefs, but I believe facts do change the minds of the moderatly sceptical people. The article failed to make the distinction so sends a bad message.
Sadly the article was also rather vague on just how to reach the hard core denialists but rather than throw too many facts at them it might be useful to talk about motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. Thus they are not being told they are wrong or have the wrong facts. But the rest of the article was great.
These denialists seem to go over board with conspiracy theories and they really do "believe". I remember reading about the illumaniti conspiracy and it can be seductive, but I have a big internal wall that stops be falling for this sort of thing, and a careful study of the origins of the group shows its harmless. But that sort of study takes effort to find reliable information and recognise it. Makes me wonder if denialists are often just lazy.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:59 PM on 7 December 2019Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?
nigelj @ 34,
I share your experience as an Applied Science Professional seeking justification for any claim or decision made (and trying to make sure my claims or decisions had a robust basis). My most common move regarding a claim was to ask the claim-maker (Sales-pitch deliverer) to provide a clarification or more detailed justification and independently investigate the issue.
That led me to challenging "technical Sales Reps" in ways that resulted in them changing their sales pitches. In some cases they realized they had been caught making a claim they could not defend and they changed.
To be as correct as possible here is what Mann said:
"A runaway greenhouse effect means once the planet gets warmer and warmer, then the oceans begin to evaporate. And water vapor is a very strong greenhouse gas, even more powerful than carbon dioxide. So you can get to a situation where it just — the oceans will begin to boil, and the planet becomes so hot that the ocean ends up in the atmosphere. And that happened to Venus."
And many years later some people, including the infamously incorrect Watts of WUWT, started claiming Mann had incorrectly declared the "End of the world". And very few reporters who started piling on to the original misleading claims about what Mann said appear to have bothered to actually better understand the issue before piling on (potentially including Potholer54). Few if any appeared to ask Mann what his comment or clarification was. And nobody asked the originators of the misleading claim making like Watts to explain themselves (just like few, maybe nobody, are asking the misleading climategate claim-makers to explain themselves).
The same thing happened to AOC and her "End of the World" remark. AOC was most likely correctly commenting regarding the need to achieve all of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, not just the climate change goal. But it is still correct to have said it if her comment was restricted to climate change because of the potential for significant irreversible future consequences if serious climate impact correction is not achieved by 2030 (the date for all of the SDGs). Many people did not bother to ask her to clarify what she meant. She could have, and probably would have, done that. And some reporters, after obtaining a better understanding of what she meant, could have asked the people who criticised her 'sales-pitch' what they think of the clarification (some of them would dislike the achievement of the SGDs, but probably would try to not admit it).
It is important to understand that people like Trump do not like to be asked to explain themselves (that is why he limits his interviews and loves His One Way Rallies with his Loyal Fans). AOC and Mann are the opposite (in spite of claims that they are just appealing to 'their base' with their sales-pitches).
Not all sales-pitchers are bad. The intention is what matters most. And seeking clarification of a sales-pitch helps determine if it is intended to improve awareness and understanding to help develop a sustainable and improving future for humanity, or is harmfully misleading and hoping to be appealing.
Helpfully tugging on Heart-strings can be effective. And a jolt to get the heart pumping can also work. But, tragically, the likes of Trump prove that anger and fear based passion is more motivating. The likes of Greta and AOC appear to be on to that, but in a helpful rather than harmful way.
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