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SingletonEngineer at 00:04 AM on 24 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Quote: "2) massive government investment in renewables..."
This recommendation (demand?) is an illogical insult to one's intelligence in at least two ways: (1) The claim that renewables, by themselves, are the best available response to the threat of climate change; and (2) governments are wholly responsible for the cost of transition to low CO2 emitting technologies.
We need to ensure that our future is energy-rich. I'm convinced that this will require, as a minimum, two essential features:
1. That the desirable shift is to low- or zero-CO2 emitting technologies.
2. That renewables, ie wind and solar energy plus percentages of geothermal, wave and tidal sources, will not by themselves be an adequate response - nuclear power is an essential component of the mix, as also severely reductions in industrial processes that result in CO2e emissions, such as current primary methods of smelting iron and manufacturing cement.
Moderator Response:[JH] Please speify the source of the quote you have cited.
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wili at 22:41 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
I would like to thank SkS for publishing and highlighting the thoughtful and insightful piece by Margaret Klein Salamon. I'm afraid that, when it comes to psychology, many of us have the same views that some denialists have about climate--just as some of them seem to think: "We are in climate all the time, so they think we know all there is to know about it and don't need 'experts' to tell us the truth."
...so with psychology...may of us seem to think, basically, something like, "We are observing our own and others psychology all the time, so we can just rely on our common sense to know all about it."
This piece is an important corrective to that attitude.
Moderator Response:[JH] You're welcome.
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wili at 22:27 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
nigel, is it possible that one of the concerned villagers in your story might have said to the scientist, who was trying to warn people about just how dangerous a large tiger could be, somdthing like:
"Blatant scaremongering about worst case one in a million chance scenarious isn't going to help. People could get fatigue over too much of all this, and a sense of hopelessness can prevail, and cynicism because some scares in the past have come to nothing."
??
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BBHY at 18:37 PM on 23 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Lomborg's logic: If you are driving your car on a one hundred mile trip, the first mile is only 1% of the distance, so it's not worth bothering to drive that mile. The second mile is also only 1% of the distance, so don't bother driving that mile either. And so on.
Therefore, your best method of travel is to wait patiently for someone to invent teleportation, so you can arrive at your destination instantly.
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nigelj at 16:50 PM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Tom Curtis @83
I agree.
Eugenics is probably not even a great example of an alleged scientific consensus that eventually changed, because it has two elements that can be confused.
The first is the belief that genetics leads to inherited disabilities etc. Theres truth in this with some, and I assume most scientists at the time agreed, although I don't know.
The second is eugenics proper, including forced sterilisation etc,etc. This is more of a political, engineering and ethical issue. It appears plenty of politicians supported this, as laws were passed, and I can see why, but its wrong to assume some majority of biologists supported such a thing, and theres no evidence they did. It could have a small minority, and your membership numbers suggest it was unlikely to be a majority.
Eugenics was taught in schools, no question, but this doesn't even mean all teachers believed in it, and many may have had doubts. Such things are largely curriculum decisions, made by politicians and the authorities.
My understanding is the whole Eugenics thing fizzled out after the awful abuses of Nazi Germany. For what its worth I'm instinctively sceptical and a bit repulsed by anything remotely like eugenics, as in the measures promoted like enforced sterilisation, etc, for all sorts of reasons. There would have to be compelling reasons for anything like this, and I havent seen any. Maybe some people meant well, to prevent problems, but the cure was worse than the disease.
On the other hand we have this modern issue of designer babies, etc. So ethical issues and freedom of parental choice issues are back again.
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Digby Scorgie at 15:13 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
nigelj @2
Methinks there should be a postscript: "The biologist did leave as requested and is currently working at a top university in Europe."
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Tom Curtis at 14:28 PM on 23 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
chriskoz @14, I think you have misinterpreted Nikolov and Zeller (2014). Their full equation for planetary temperature with no atmosphere (Tna) is give by equation (14) {(4a) in Nikolov and Zeller (2017)}, and does indeed include terms for the Cosmic Ray Background Radiation (Rc), geothermal heating of the surface (Rg) and regolith heat storage (ηe). However, they state:
"Similar to Eq. (10), here one can also safely assume R c = 0.0 if S o > 0.15 W m−2 and R g = 0.0 in most cases. This reduces Eq. (14) to (11a) with the regolith thermal enhancement factor..."
They then give equation (16) as the reduced form without either the (negligible) effect of the cosmic background radiation or geothermal heating, and it is the equivalent of equation (16) {equation (4b) in Nikolov and Zeller (2017)} that is used in Nikolov and Zeller (2017) (which also discusses the reasons for ignoring geothermal and background microwave heat sources). In both papers they give the threshold at which Rc and Rg can be ignored as an insolation >0.15 W/m^2, ie, nearly a hundred thousandth of that at Earth.
The regolith thermal enhancement factor represents storage of incoming solar energy by surface rocks (the regolith). Heat storage and conduction in the outer rocks is in fact an important factor and is responsible for maintaining night time equatorial temperatures on the Moon at around 100 K, rather than around 2 K as per the background radiation. So, while I cannot confirm their treatment of it, I can confirm that it is a legitimate factor. It is negligible on Earth only because of the far greater heat transport by ocean and atmosphere - factors neglected in the hypothetical Tna which assume no ocean, atmosphere, or surface ice, or vegetation (and that albedo is consequently equivalent to that of the Moon).
Where I can say emphatically that Nikolov and Zeller are in error is in their attribution of the cause of the extra 90 K of surface warming they find. To begin with, the calculation of the effective radiative temperature {(Te), Equation (3) in Nikolov and Zeller (2014) and Nikolov and Zeller (2017)} assumes the surface temperature to be equal at all points. That is not the case on Earth, which would require near infinite thermal conductivity for it to be the case. As unequal temperatures allow the radiation of more thermal energy for the mean surface temperature, that means the greenhouse effect causes more than 33 K warming to the Earth's mean surface temperature. That is, part of the additional 90 K warming estimated is due to the GHE.
The largest part of it, however, is due to the thermal transfers by atmosphere and ocean that greatly restrict the temperature extremes on Earth, and reduce them still further in the upper troposphere. Needless to say, it is not due to a "pressure induced thermal enhancement".
Curiously, there is a pressure induced thermal enhancement of a type involved in the surface temperature of planets with atmospheres. It is, however, a component of the greenhouse effect. In particular, in planets whose atmospheres are optically thick enough, the surface temperature is a function of the altitude of the temperature of effective radiation to space, and the adiabatic lapse rate. The adiabatic lapse rate is, in turn, largely a function of the pressure gradient in the atmosphere.
As has been explained ad nauseum to a variety of deniers, however, adiabatic processes can explain the slope of the thermal gradient with altitude, but a slope by itself does not explain the temperature at any particular location. To explain the temperature, you need the temperature of a point on that slope. That point is the effective altitude of radiation to space. With no greenhouse gases, the point of effective radiation to space is the surface, resulting in no thermal enhancement. With greenhouse gases, that point is lifted above the surface with a consequent enhancement of temperature.
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nigelj at 13:40 PM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
The following was written by some guy on another website. I hope he doesn't mind me copying it to here. Its rather brilliant and amusing, on climate denialism, and scaremongering. In fact it's more of an analogy and allegory.
"One hot morning near a remote village at the edge of a large forest, a group of villagers discovered a strange large animal in a clearing, apparently asleep. They went back and inform the village elders, who called in the local chamber of commerce, and also summoned the only biologist in the region.
Later, the biologist arrived and reported back to the village. “This is a very dangerous situation. That animal is a large predator. It has huge canine teeth, an absence of molars, eyes relatively close together for focused hunting, and large claws. My best estimate from the body pattern is that it is a large feline. Judging from the stripes, it is a “tiger”. While it is still asleep, it will wake and hunt, perhaps tonight. I got a rough reading from my infrared camera, and its metabolism seems consistent with a large cat. You would do best to evacuate the village, but you MUST keep a large distance, and DO NOT DROP OBJECTS ON ITS TAIL.”
The chamber of commerce spokesperson replied “Don’t listen to this alarmist! It’s a good thing that we invested in an internet satellite station for the village. The pictures of locals dropping sand on its tail have gone viral. We’re making tons of money and creating jobs. Next step is pay-per-view when they drop something bigger. Besides, the epistemology of this job-killing so-called expert is completely warped. The teeth and claws could be for symbolic threat displays during mating season. Besides, you haven’t even observed it move, let alone what it eats. It may not even have any nerves in its tail. We suggest that it’s an estivating herbivore that will be in a torpid state for months, and slow-moving when it does awake.”
The biologist exclaimed “This is nonsense! It can’t be an herbivore with those teeth, and cats have never been observed to estivate, although they do sleep a lot after a large meal.”
The chamber spokesperson scoffed “You haven’t even proven it’s a cat. You’ll need an autopsy or a DNA sample for that. You didn’t get one, did you? You haven’t even demonstrated that it has nerves in its tail. They’re your assumptions, and you’re obliged to demonstrate them. Otherwise, it’s the null hypothesis that it’s not dangerous, won’t wake for a long time, and has no nerves in its tail. You’re illogical. Leave now.”
“Leave now, leave now,” the villagers chanted.
The pay-for-view was the sensation of the season, but nobody from the village ever appeared at the big city bank to collect their money.
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Tom Curtis at 13:36 PM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
nigelj @78, some idea of the prevalence of suport for eugenics can be gained from membership in the American Eugenics Society:
"Peak membership of the AES was in 1930 with 1,260 members. Although New York, California, and Massachusetts were the states with the highest memberships, every state in the US had at least one member. The 1930 cohort of the AES consisted predominantly of wealthy men and women, and few scientific professionals from fields relating to eugenics. However, in reaction to the eugenic atrocities of World War II, support for eugenics and AES membership began to drop. By 1960, the AES has less than 400 members, most of whom were male scientists and medical professionals. After that time, the AES's focus shifted to genetic analysis and to the investigation of the factors driving human evolution."
For comparison, in 1930, 2071 PhDs were awarded in the sciences in the United States (p387). Of those, 318 were awarded in medicine or biology (excluding agricultural science). The total membership of the American Eugenics Society was, therefore, equivalent to just four years worth of additions to the relevant expert group, with the scientists being members being equivalent to perhaps one years addition.
It would be wrong to suppose that all scientists who supported eugenics supported it strongly enough to join the American Eugenics Society, but it would be hard to argue from these figures that even a majority of relevant experts supported eugenics.
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scaddenp at 12:09 PM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike, one of us is misunderstanding derivation of H-W equation. As far as I can see and literature would seem to support it, H-W implies that sterilization of individuals expressing a rare defect would make negliable difference to incidence in the general population. T J Norton did the calculations for Punnett in 1915. Consider also fatal defects (eg cystic fibrosis until recently) which dont require sterilization to ensure those expressing it dont breed. Still prevalent in the population.
Some eugenists knew this at least - Jennings goes for rhetoric "propagation of even one congenitally defective individual puts a period to at least one line of operation of this devil. To fail to do at least so much would be a crime." Others believed "genetic feeble-mindedness" wasnt rare, despite data from LR Penrose, who was expert on mental deficiency genetics, demonstrating the hetrogeneity of causes. I remain unconvinced that support for eugenics was rooted in science rather than in sociopolitical values of the time - and I do accept that the turning tide on eugenics and close examinations of its assumptions was due to more to changing political values (rise of nazism) than further advances in science.
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nigelj at 07:56 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Bob Loblow @80,
Thank's for that reference. I had never heard of Mortons Demon. The science explanation on the perpetual motion things is interesting, and it's actually a better analogy for how a transistor amplifies a current.
Of course denialists do indeed filter out everything they don't want to hear. They have a big mortons demon.
I think a lot of people would also look in the mirror and simply not care. The psychopathy, sociopathy demon.
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nigelj at 07:33 AM on 23 July 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29
Blatant scaremongering about worst case one in a million chance scenarious isn't going to help. People could get fatigue over too much of all this, and a sense of hopelessness can prevail, and cynicism because some scares in the past have come to nothing. I find myself tempted to scaremonger, and I'm an inveterate worrier, but I'm just going to pull back.
Of course climate change is very serious, and well proven now, and even the likely scenarious are grim enough to anyone remotely intelligent.
I think we need "controlled" and measured scary stuff. Scary enough to get the seriousness across to people, but without going overboard or spending media time focussing on very unlikely doomsday scenarios too much. (although I personally find these fascinating). People lead busy lives, and only have so much time available to digest news on global problems, so its important to get messages on climate change sensible and measured. We need an urgent message, but not crazy low probability messages.
There are plenty of things happening that are scary enough with weather changes, and changes in rates of ice loss in the antarctic. Just highlighting this in a concise, measured, urgent way should be enough, and the right approach to get through to most people.
Of course you are right people will feel still fear, and it's completely absurd to water down the message to prevent this, but neither should the message be exaggerated.
I also agree you have to wonder if demand driven responses like rather weak looking carbon taxes ar cap and trade will be enough (and I admit I have promoted these).
We are delicately walking around the issue, trying to find something gentle that may be politically acceptable, and the trouble with this approach it sends a message that the problem is not considered that urgent, so people then take it even less seriously with less pressure put on politicians for change. Perhaps it's necessary to cut through everything with much sharper policies that just keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Ideally it would be good for a market lead response, but because attempts at this have been so weak, we are now left with limited time, and a need for more of a more government lead response. The stuff needs to be simply kept in the ground.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:46 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
How would they feel? That depends on how strong their Morton's Demon is. They possibly would not notice, and for sure would not see a parallel with their own behaviour.
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nigelj at 06:28 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Bob Loblaw @77, yes exactly we get these endless, frustrating denialist arguments, and one only hopes the public see the contradictions.
In a couple of years we will probably get a la nina, and they will be back to "global warming has stopped." Another zombie resurrected.
Some of these denialists should look in a mirror occassionally, and ask themselves how they would feel if their friends or family fed them a constant line of lies, deceptions, and nonsense every day.
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nigelj at 06:12 AM on 23 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike Evershed and others, the problem we have is no apparent study trying to measure the alleged scientific eugenics consensus. It may have been nearer a 50 / 50, or 60 / 40, so a weak sort of consensus. We will probably never know of course as too much time has gone past.
And the alleged scientific consensus on eugenics could have been more of a political consensus, or even a consensus of clinicians who felt they may benefit from implementation.
But I appreciate the point being made, some consensus positions have been abandoned or changed.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:30 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
In this discussion of "consensus", it is worth remembering that the studies looking at the level of consensus in climate science are not trying to make an argument that "climate science is correct because there is a consensus". Rather, they are a counter-argument to the "skeptic" false argument that there is widespread disagreement in climate science.That argument is currently #4 on SkS's list of climate myths.
The finding af a very high degree of consensus on the key points of anthropogenic climate change is direct emprical evidence that disproves that key "skeptic" zombie myth. That the "skeptics" then switch to an argument that "consensus doesn't prove the science is right" is an example of shifting the goalposts. It is largely an attempt to divert attention away from the fact that their "no consensus" argument has been disproven. Of course, once the "debate" on "the consensus can be wrong" quietens down, the "skeptics" will usually return to the "there is no consensus" argument, and the cycle continues. That is why it's a zombie myth.
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Mike Evershed at 22:23 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Re: Scadenp: I think it is fair to say that the nature of the scientific "consensus" on eugenics was different from that arising from the climate change literature. Perhaps "widely accepted" would be better? Anyway the reason for posting was that I looked up Haldane's views, which were rather interesting . Here is a brief exerpt from the introduction to his book "Heredity and Politics" from 1938, written when the whole idea was starting to become discredited (not leats by the Nazis): Haldane says:
"It may well be that an increase in our knowledge will fully justify the application to man of certain measures which have led to improvements in the quality of our domestic animals. As one who is endeavoring to increase this knowledge, I can even say that i hope it will do so. But I believe the facts on human heredity are far less simple than many people think them to be. And I hold that a premature application of our rather scanty knowledge will yield little result, and will merely serve to discredit the branch of science in which i am worikng"
Incidentally - for non biologists - I would say the Hardy-Weinberg equation is irrelevant here as it applies to populations not subject to selection pressure. The whole point of Eugenics was to apply such pressure.
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scaddenp at 20:34 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
By all means find an appropriate thread. However, I remain unconvinced by "There was a scientific consensus in favour". Science literature seems very lean, nor did "university courses" appear to be science courses. It did most certainly rest on finding from evolutionary theory, but science, unlike many social or political theories is bounded on empirical constraints and the rigor by which a theory/model can account for observations. Biologists (eg Haldane, Holmes, Muller), strongly questioned it's assumption and the long bow it was drawing from evolutionary biology. The Hardy-Weinberg equation was published in 1910 and more or less rips the floor from under it. That it could be promoted despite this discovery smacks mightily of racism and politics. Reconciling the desire for "pure stock" for humans while frantically breeding hybrid plants takes that special attribute of human irrationality so common in "pseudo-skeptics".
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Mike Evershed at 17:29 PM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Thanks to nigelj and scaddencap others for good contributions to the debate on consensus. I don't want to prolong this, but just to complete the eveidence trail, the source for the second part of my statement (on the adoption of eugenic laws across the USA) is "A Century of Eugenics in America" edited by Paul A Lombardo in which it is stated that:
"In 1907 Indiana passed the first involuntary sterilization law based on the theory of Eugenics. In time more than 30 states and a dozen foreign countries followed Indiana's lead".
This isn't the right thread to say where I think the anthropogenic warming hypothesis is most vulnerable to challenge (NB not wrong, but most vulnerable to challenge). But I'll try and find one.
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nigelj at 11:57 AM on 22 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Chriskoz, ok well given English is not your native language, you have a rather good defence. My excuse for bad spelling is laziness.
I tend to keep home laptops for ages as well, my last windows vista laptop was at least 7 years old, but became very slow, probably due to spyware, and the fan became ominously noisy. But it was basically perfectly fine for general home use.
I splashed out on a new core i5 laptop that was on sale. Like you say web pages are so loaded up with videos, general junk, and sneaky advertising you need power and decent broadband just to make them work. Its a peculiar thing like a treadmill we are on at times, where you need new electronics just to get certain basic services to work.
But on the other hand, some of the graphics are nice especially educational graphics.
Many of my other home appliances are quite old. I could buy all the latest and greatest for cash and hardly notice, but I cannot see the point. The washing machine does the job just fine.
I don't even own a dishwasher. I'm the dishwasher.
My television is a basic 32 inch flat screen. As someone bought up on picture tube televisions, I still marvel at the great quality of even a basic flat screen tv. I dont think the new super high resolution screens offer enough transformation to be tempting. It's becoming more and more money for diminishing returns.
I do however look at electricity efficiency. I bought a new fridge recently, as the old one was possibly becoming a fire risk, and had poor efficiency.
And I do have my little obsessions. I have a lot of books, and a very up market audio system, and a nice car because I hate unreliable cars. But it's not a big, gas guzzling car. That's about it. To some extent the article is also preaching to the converted with me.
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chriskoz at 11:25 AM on 22 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
nigelj@3,
Thanks for your support, especially to my T-Man opinions that frequently attract moderators' scorn, so un-diplomatic and utterly negative they are. But I just cannot help it because if I said anything positive about such absurdly misplaced human character - the likes of which are commonly found in corrective centers (sic! - that's in US) rather than in any public office - I would be hypocritical. But I prefer to be honnest even if I risk infringing on the rules of my playing here (as Hillary infringed with her "basket of deplorabled").
About my spelling mistakes: I use an old (~7y) laptop at home and already dodgy keyboard deceives me. While I pay attention to people's names (with a notable exception of T-man) as not to offend anybody, I ignore my offences to the English language when I did not learn it 100% yet (BTW English is my fourth language and its Australian dialect the fifth) or when my finger slips on a dodgy keyboard.
And here we come back to the topic: I try to re-use and recycle the stuff as much as possible, that's why I keep my laptop for so long as it's perfectly fine for web surfing, though becoming slow due to extreme amount of junk some web pages are throwing at me now. Luckily SkS is not the worst in this regard. So, the OP video, in my case, preaches to the long-time converted. But it's invaluable if shown to those who create so much waste and call it the effect of progress. And physical objects are not the only examples of the "stuff". It's also electronic junk as I;m alluding to above. In the old www days (when I was still a schoolboy then uni student) I was as fascinated by it as today but in recent years I find its power not increasing at all, and graphical interface often delivering no better information at all but only forcing me to upgrade to more powerful computers. The "stuff" is also a wasteful use of electronic sources such as www bandwidth, which must be backed by stronger devices and more energy use.
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chriskoz at 10:27 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
I went after the very first sentence of (Nikolov Zeller 2016) refered by supak@6, so extraordinary this sentence is:
A recent study has revealed that the Earth’s natural atmospheric greenhouse effect is around 90 K or about 2.7 times stronger than assumed for the past 40 years
Said "recent study" is listed as the first citation therein, so I followed it wandering who on Earth could have inspired those two fellows with such revolutionary knowledge. That reference goes to (Volokin ReLlez 2014) which states that:Earth’s total ATE (Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement) is ~90 K, not 33 K, and that ATE = GE + TE , where GE is the thermal effect of greenhouse gases, while TE > 15 K is a thermodynamic enhancement independent of the atmospheric infrared back radiation.
They define the "Thermodynamic Enhancement" as "regolith heat storage and cosmic background radiation on nighttime temperatures".
So "regolith heat" being internal planetary energy source, the above claim would obey the energy conservation and Stephan Boltzman law only if their "cosmic background radiation" component was ~2 times stronger than GE component (i.e. 90K-33K = 57K), which is absurd given that we know cosmic vaccum is glowing at 3K. So, they invent the absurd "adiabatic pressure boosting" to develop fantasies of an alternative universe where temperature is something else than the measure of total kinetic energy in the system.
The interesting part is that Volokin and ReLlez are the fictional characters created by Nikolov and Zeller (but associated with the real company Tso Consulting Limited in UK) as explained by the authors in erratum to it : "to guarantee a double-blind peer review of our manuscript".
Funny, how two fabricators succeed delivering their delirium by inventing sock puppet authors they can then cite in support of their alternative reality.
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scaddenp at 09:36 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
A quick glance at papers at the time would suggest eugenics was largely a sociopolitical movement and the biological principles claimed in support were controversial, not consensus within the scientic literature. However, I cannot find any attempt to measure concensus on the subject, or even whether undesirable traits could be extinquished from breeding.
Nonetheless, I am with Nigel in saying that scientific consensus can be wrong. The food pyramid is example of an ever-shifting consensus as knowledge increases. However, it should be noted that a strongly held scientific consensus is very seldom wrong. Setting policy against the advice of a strong scientific consensus in favour of ideology is irrationale.
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nigelj at 06:59 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Just going back to this climate denialism and fear issue. I think most of us have some healthy scepticism about climate science, but we see that the denialiist myths are nonsense and we move on. We may own autobobiles, but are not ruled by fears of change.
We see more stubborn denialists, and they mostly seem to have political issues, or vested interests, and thats the big difference. You only have to read internet blogs etc. I would say genuine contrarian denialists would be in the minority.
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nigelj at 06:35 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
People are getting too defensive about the idea of consensus. It's accurate to say some scientific consensus positions have been wrong, or at least been partly wrong. The consensus positions on intake of saturated fats and salt have both been partly changed recently. I'm assuming everyone is aware of this, its been in the media enough.
The consensus position is of course extremely important and generally proves to be correct. It is a majority position. It reflects years of research and a slow testing of ideas before arriving at a settled view.
But it is also going to vary in veracity. Theories on saturated fats and salt were based on a limited number of studies, and pretty old research done when techniques had limitations. Climate science is based on a huge number of up to date studies, debated and examined ad nauseum. This gives me more confidence.
If politicians want to question climate science, and its fair that they do, they better be prepared to listen and think calmly and put ideology aside. They better be open minded about the answers, because the answers are not guesswork. One hopes they have enough brains to see that there are obvious holes in the usual denialist myths.
Its also about the degree of consensus. 90 - 97% is pretty high and is a global consensus, so deserves more respect than a few scientists in America going on about eugenics.
But the bottom line is this. When it comes to decision making by politicians, you either go with a consensus, or the claims of some fringe group or individual. We have had many such fringe alternative views which have proven to be nonsense, like homeopathy.
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michael sweet at 06:11 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike Evershed,
If eugenics were "not fringe but widely held and taught in universities" that is not the same as consensus. 97% of researchers studying AGW agree with the IPCC reports. The fact that papers were published in scientific journals shows that scientists were discussing the merits of this idea. That does not mean that a consensus, or even a majority of scientists thought that Eugenics were a good idea. From your reference it appears to me that Eugenics was always a fringe scientific idea, not a consensus idea. Often politicians use fringe scientific ideas to justify what they want to do (look at the Republicans use of Climate Deniers).
According to your reference Eugenics was only debated slightly (there were only two primary proponents of Eugenics in the USA) in the Scienitfic literature for 20 or 30 years. By contrast, AGW has been reviewed for over 150 years with the last 50-70 years being intense study.
Eugenics is an interesting discussion, but Eugenics was never a scientific consensus. You need to find a situation where scientists were actually in consensus on a subject, not just debating the topic.
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nigelj at 06:04 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Supak @6, the research you quote appears to be claiming adiabatic air pressure, analogous to compression, causes recent global warming.
They are wrong. Heres a good explanation from Dr Roy Spencer (of all people). I only have a very general sort of knowledge and memory of gas laws, but can get what they are saying.
www.drroyspencer.com/2016/07/the-warm-earth-greenhouse-effect-or-atmospheric-pressure/
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:20 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Mike Evershed,
At the time of Eugenics and Nuclear Weapons development the global community did not have clearly presented and well justified governing objectives like the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and their earlier presentation in the results of the 1972 Stockholm Conference. It could be argued that humanity did not have any sense of its global future responsibility back then. Everyone was focused on being the Winner realtive to Others any way they could get away with - even through actions that could be understood to be globally net-negative actions (as long as the Winner could percieve that they were better off than those Others).
So, since at least 1972 what is understood to be acceptable has significantly changed regarding climate science. Leaders today have no excuse for still trying to get away with delivering Poor Excuses rather than delivering Good Reasoned Leadership based on the fullest awareness and best understanding currently developed to improve the future for all of humanity by acting to correct understandably unacceptable developed popular and profitable activities in the sub-set of humanity that they are leading.
In retrospect, politicians arguing against Eugenics were probably acting more responsibly based on the current best understanding of what leaders are supposed to do than people in positions of leadership who defended the activity with Poor self-interested Excuses.
Science is not the question or concern. The proper/helpful/ethical application of science is the issue.
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Mike Evershed at 01:26 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
For new readers this question concerns whether scientific consensus should be challenged by politicians. I cited the case of Eugenics. Steven A Farber from the Carnegie Institute wrote in 2008:
"It is important to appreciate that within the U.S. and European scientific communities these ideas were not fringe but widely held and taught in universities. The report of the Eugenics meeting was the lead story in the journal Science on October 7, 1921, and this opening address was published, in its entirety, beginning on the first page of the issue."
Source: "U.S. Scientists' Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907–1939): A Contemporary Biologist's Perspective"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757926/
Moderator Response:[JH] Thank you for providing the source of the first half of the statement you made in Comment #67, i.e.,
There was a scientific consensus in favour, many university courses in the USA on the principles and practice, and laws passed in many states as State politicans followed the consensus.
What is the source for the second part of your statement?
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ubrew12 at 01:16 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
supak@6: Final observation: when moist air moves over you before the clouds, and you start heating up, what happens to the barometric pressure? It goes down, exactly in the wrong direction if this 'adiabatic compression' theory of greenhouse warming were correct.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:05 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Bjorn Lomborg, like many others, has a long history of trying to create the best possible 'Poor Excuses' for not needing to rapidly reduce the global burning of fossil fuels.
His 2007 book "Cool It" made economic assessments similar to other denier-delayers. They basically try to Excuse Less Acceptable Behaviour by making claims about the economics. But what they essentially do is try to justify why a portion of current day humanity should be able to prolong their ability to get personal benefit from:
- an activity that future humans cannot continue to benefit from (even the most fortunate ones) because it is the burning up of non-renewable resources, so it is undeniably unsustainable.
- an activity that is undeniably damaging in many ways, not just the challenges and extra costs created for others, particularly the future generations, by the generation of massive amounts of excess CO2.
They go further than that fundamentally undeniably unacceptable marketing action. They deliberately compare the 'costs to others as they figure it' to 'the costs and lost opportunity to the portion of the current generation who have to correct their ways to reduce the costs and challenges cretaed that others will face - as they figure it'. They then try to claim that if 'the costs to not make problems for others' are greater than 'the costs imposed on others' (all as they figure it), then the ones behaving less acceptably are justified. Of course they understate the future costs because they completely ignore anything they cannot quantify as an action required by the more fortunate (they count building high sea walls at "their cities" based on the low estimates of near term sea level rise - not the longer term sea level rise - and ignore flooding of land less fortunate people live on. They also overstate the 'costs' of correcting the behaviour of the ones who benefit from behaving less acceptably. And they completely ignore all the other costs of burning fossil fuels (they just look at the climate costs - as they figure them)
And the worst of that group actually discount the future costs at the highest rate they can get away with because that is a common business practice when comparing alternative project options that a busines could take. That discounting is only legitimate if the same person faces the current and future costs/benefits of the action.
In a proper evaluation there should be no 'costs or challenges or reduction of resources available to others' created by a pursuit of benefit by someone. Clearly, 'being proper' would not suit 'their interests'. Reduction of 'impacts on others' is what is required regardless of claims that the reduction of harm to others is 'small'.
So I consider Byorn to be clearly in the group of people to be read/aware of, but only in order to be on alert for the shifting types of thinking and misleading marketing being developed by those who want to deny the unsustainable/unacceptability of the ways that so much of the so called advanced nations' economic activity has developed. They could also be called Anti-Correct People because they fight against actually correcting things that clearly need to be corrected (including resisting correcting their thinking regarding climate science and the changes it points out need to happen for the benefit of the future of humanity).
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ubrew12 at 01:03 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
supak@6: I did look at the paper. I'm not qualified to peer-review it, but have a couple observations: " the atmosphere does not function as an insulator reducing the rate of planet’s infrared cooling to space as presently assumed [9,10], but instead adiabatically boosts the kinetic energy of the lower troposphere beyond the level of solar input through gas compression."
How do you adiabatically pressurize an atmosphere? The authors admit sunlight and IR energy are streaming throughout it, and convection is obvious: so what is adiabatic about that? Also, the term 'adiabiatic' is a thermal ideal: it doesn't exist anywhere, even in the most ideal of laboratory conditions. There's no way it could exist for something as plugged into the Universe as an atmosphere.
"the... absorption of thermal radiation by certain gases [in the lab]... does not imply an ability of such gases to trap heat in an open atmospheric environment." Yes, it implies exactly that.
"This is because, in gaseous systems, heat is primarily transferred... by convection... rather than radiative exchange." I've taken classes in combustion (long ago): if you do not include radiation in your modelling equations, you will absolutely reach the wrong conclusion. Just because convection is larger doesn't justify simply ignoring radiation.
"If gases of high LW absorptivity/emissivity such as CO2, methane and water vapor were indeed capable of trapping radiant heat, they could be used as
insulators." But Eunice Foote studied greenhouse gases in 1856 specifically because she observed how hot it got under the moist air that precedes a storm: "The high temperature of moist air has frequently been observed. Who has not experienced the burning heat of the sun that precedes a summer's shower?"Maybe your authors need to get out more.
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ubrew12 at 00:26 AM on 22 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
supak@6: I didn't look at the paper, just the journal its in. According to Desmog " 'Environment Pollution and Climate Change' is being led by a climate science denier who is advising... the Heartland Institute... Climate scientists have told DeSmog that anyone considering publishing in the “pseudo journal” should steer clear or risk damaging their reputation... After just two issues, the journal has published six papers claiming to refute the science linking human activity to dangerous climate change" That's the danger with many online journals: no peer-review, its just pay-to-play. Potholer54 has an instructive recent video (26.7') that focuses on this danger and how to spot sham journals like this one.
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Mike Evershed at 00:18 AM on 22 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Re moderator PS question about politicians resisting scientific consensus - once classic example is Eugenics and the compulsory sterilisation programmes. There was a scientific consensus in favour, many university courses in the USA on the principles and practice, and laws passed in many states as State politicans followed the consensus. Here in the UK there was some political resistance which was enough to prevent compulsory sterilisation becoming law - although to our shame it still happened in some institutions for "medical reasons". I am not trying to be provocative here - my point is still simply that consensus isn't enough. Science cannot put itself above criticism.
Moderator Response:[JH} You state:
There was a scientific consensus in favour, many university courses in the USA on the principles and practice, and laws passed in many states as State politicans followed the consensus.
Please document and link to the source(s) of your claims.
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michael sweet at 20:46 PM on 21 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
The Lomborg article is here. HIs argument is that since Claifornia only emits 1% of the world CO2 any actioon will have no effect and is a waste of time. He claims that since electricity rates go down when solar generates power that solar power is impractical (I wonder why lower costs to customers qualifies as a failure to compete). He suggests more research into new green energy (he does not suggest any technology that might be better than current technology) and doing nothing until those new technologies are developed.
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nigelj at 19:34 PM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Ok it was a cheap shot, but things are conspiring to make us buy stuff. While we can of course choose to resist some of this, other things don't give us so much choice. The whole system has to change.
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nigelj at 19:27 PM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Less stuff sounds good, but you are up against the still popular "greed is good" neoliberal economic agenda, and keeping up with the jonses, and massive science driven marketing campaigns.
Add massive built in obsolescence, and appliances that are cheaper to replace than repair, and often so cheap to buy resistance is useless.
Wheres the prozac?
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rkrolph at 18:32 PM on 21 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
There was an interesting article today in the Los Angeles Times by Bjorn Lomborg called "We're handling climate change all wrong". I am curious what anyone's take is on this. Sorry, I don't have a link to the article.
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Digby Scorgie at 12:43 PM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
adrian smits @65
When the reality is alarming, there is good reason to be alarmed. Pretending everything is fine will not save you.
Moderator Response:[PS] If you put adrian smits site:realclimate.org into Google, you get a feel for hsi take on reality. The very first entry into The Borehole.
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adrian smits at 11:26 AM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
I too will recuse myself because this site is unreliable and incapable of accepting anything but an alarmist point of view.
Moderator Response:[PS] Unsupported nonsense. This site sticks to published science. You need to go elsewhere for fantasies.
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nigelj at 11:19 AM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Chriskoz, while I agree with most of your views, particularly regarding T Man, I wish to direct your attention to your words "casual language, direted, yong?
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chriskoz at 10:39 AM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
"stuff a biggest culprit for overheating planets"
(should be the planet)
A typo/mispronouncement. We know only one Planet, on which "stuff" is made. If any such planet exists somewhere else in universe, it's so far away that we won't be able to locate it needless to say interact with it within the same timespace.
Casual language in this series (understandable as direted at yong people) should not be too casual so as to become incorrect.
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supak at 06:13 AM on 21 July 2017Planet Hacks: Stuff
Heh. Never mind. I remember now. They're just digging up old stuff and putting a new date on it.
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link. Please learn how to do this yourself with the link tool in the comments editor
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supak at 05:33 AM on 21 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
Never heard of this paper, New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model, by Ned Nikolov* and Karl Zeller
Deniers crowing about this latest CO2 slayer. Anyone have any critique of what they're doing?
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/New-Insights-on-the-Physical-Nature-of-the-Atmospheric-Greenhouse-Effect-Deduced-from-an-Empirical-Planetary-Temperature-Model.pdf
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Tom Dayton at 01:32 AM on 21 July 2017Climate's changed before
Excellent article new at RealClimate: "The climate has always changed. What do you conclude?"
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thoughts at 00:41 AM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
To MA Rodger above, re your response below to thoughts @50.
You say "I am trying to point out that some people seem to deny evidence for good reasons. I have probably said that too many times already."
Too many times? Indeed so. And as your "trying" seemingly cannot be improved upon, I suggest it is time for you to stop.
I will stop now. This site seems convinced that anyone who questions the AGW agenda is stupid, fearful, or self-interested. My suggestion that maybe that is not the case will not be heard. Thank you for your time. Carry on among yourselves!
Moderator Response:[DB] This user has recused themselves from further participation here, finding the burden of compliance with this venue's Comments Policy too onerous.
Inflammatory and sloganeering snipped.
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Eclectic at 00:39 AM on 21 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
Perhaps rather than fear, it is resentment which is a prominent motivation of climate-denialists. (And resentment is but one point on the calm-versus-anger spectrum.)
In a changing world, conservatives look backward to a halcyon time — and resent whatever/whoever is causing a different future. Denial, resentment, anger, come together in a rejection of "the new reality" which is coming down the tracks. Immigration and demographic change bringing more of the ethnically/culturally/racially "different", who produce change in society & customs; and "unconservative" pressures, leading to alterations in governmental styles & taxation systems : these things can be resisted & voted against, to some extent.
But the physical alterations of the world with rising sea levels, melting ice, and altering climate/weather-patterns ..... those physical changes are resented so much, as to be better dealt with by steady denial. By ramming the head into the sand, so that an unpleasant reality need not be faced & addressed.
The tip of the denier pyramid is the wealthy group whose cynical selfishness impels them to propagandize & manipulate the lower orders of the pyramid — to postpone social change for as long as can be achieved.
Strictly speaking, all this climate-denialism is insane — insanity defined (in practical terms) as : "dealing with reality inappropriately".
Combine that insanity and anger — and we get that outspoken denialism which we see in the Anglophone world particularly. And we also see the on-line insanity & bizarre non-logic exhibited repeatedly by [for example] "CosmoWarrior" in his past (& current) iterations. And the on-line insanity & bizarre non-logic of WattsUpWithThat and similar websites.
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SingletonEngineer at 23:33 PM on 20 July 2017Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill
The red/blue format, whilst nowhere near reasonable presentation of science, might backfire in Scott Pruitt's face.
If it reaches an audience that is currently anti-science and convinces a measurable fraction to change their stance, the result might start a landslide.
Yes, I know... I'm an optimist. But whatever we have been doing in the 38 months since the Colbert U-Tube clip hasn't got the train to the end of the platform. let alone travel to the destination.
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MA Rodger at 21:37 PM on 20 July 2017Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump
thoughts @50.
You say "I am trying to point out that some people seem to deny evidence for good reasons. I have probably said that too many times already."
Too many times? Indeed so. And as your "trying" seemingly cannot be improved upon, I suggest it is time for you to stop.
Of course, the OP does rather support the idea that the reasons underlying denial can be "good" in that the OP concludes by stating that such reasons are not "bad".
"These factors don’t mean climate deniers are stupid, nor are Trump supporters. It doesn’t mean that they are bad people or immoral in any way. Rather, it tells me that their brain handles fear differently than mine and yours."
That said, the contrary idea that climate deniers are indeed stupid is given support by none-other-than than JS Mill who sees the stupidity infecting right-wing politics as undeniable:-
"I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it."
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DPiepgrass at 21:06 PM on 20 July 2017Humidity is falling
There is another, simpler and probably more common version of this myth, in which "humidity" means "relative humidity", even though "absolute humidity" or vapor pressure is what determines the greenhouse effect from water vapor.
A political operative on Forbes writes:
Relative humidity has substantially declined in recent decades, defying global warming computer models predicting higher amounts of atmospheric water vapor that will exacerbate global warming.
... Rather than keeping pace with modestly warming temperatures, relative humidity is declining. This decline has been ongoing, without interruption, for more than 60 years. After more than six decades of consistent data, we can say with strong confidence that absolute humidity is not rising rapidly enough for relative humidity to keep pace with warming temperatures.
The main trick here is to exploit your limited understanding of the relationship between temperature on the one hand, and the two different humidities on the other. However, the Forbes version of the myth goes further and links to a implausible graph made by the AGW denial organization "Friends of Science" - can anyone guess where this graph came from? It shows quite different information than the relative humidity graph posted by Tom Curtis.
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