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Joe Wiseman at 03:35 AM on 31 August 2014Climate Change Impacts in Labrador
The Ostrich
As a species I sometimes wonder if we most resemble the ostrich. If we duck our heads, ignore the problem for long enough, it will just, maybe, hopefully, please, go away. Or perhaps our approach is more like Bill Clinton's solution to gays in the military - don't ask, don't tell! After all, if nobody talks about it, it isn't there, is it?
My brother-in-law, a house painter and his friend, who is working in the Alberta oil patch sum it up this way: "it's been about 150 years since the Industrial Revolution and we've done this much damage to the environment. We might get another 100 years out of it all."
At a church luncheon, a fellow parishioner relates to me his experience of reading about the poisoning of the St Clare River at Sarnia. "I was there the night the company put that stuff in the ground and supposedly sealed it off." There was pain in his eyes and no doubt, in his heart and in his soul. I stated that it was amazing how many people I speak with, ordinary people, blue collar workers, who understand that we are gradually destroying the planet. He casually observed, "there will be a revolution."
It's hardly unlikely that for some inexplicable reason, I am the only guy who has these conversations. It is more likely that most of us see the truth for what it is. We are gradually, speeding up, speeding up, speeding up, destroying the very planet that gives us life. Suicide or madness? Take your pick, I can't figure it out.
I wonder who our political leaders talk to? Do they have these conversations or are they shielded for their own protection? They don't appear to be losing much sleep about it all as the oil companies drill away, as the auto manufacturers continue to turn out the gas combustion engine, as poisons are released into our rivers, lakes, oceans, landfills - anywhere the millions upon millions of barrels of poisonous waste can be hidden for awhile. Long enough, they hope, to finish making the money, packing up and leaving the deadly stuff behind. Perhaps, like Chernoble, the animals will have another paradise, free of humans, in a future that may be as inevitable as the prediction of my house painter friend - a hundred years or so.
Is it possible to change a future that is rushing towards us virtually unhindered except for sporadic demonstrations and vocal minorities who are often perceived as "radical", "inhibiting progress", "tree-huggers", "terrorists", "trouble - makers", etc? Most days are like today - I simply have no idea whether we have the rational or empathetic ability to slow down, stop and possibly reverse the race to the "end of the human race."
Joe Wiseman
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John Hartz at 03:13 AM on 31 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
@Russ R: Do you have any coincern about the ecological damage being done by the mining and processing of the bitumen in the Alberta Tar Sands?
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mbryson at 02:56 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
Other patterns of troll behaviour include the 'look over there' response to unwelcome evidence, and the zombie-like reemergence of refuted claims and arguments. Together, they create a simple-minded dance whose steps always circle back to the same conclusions: telling new evidence forces trolls to change the topic, but once the new evidence has faded from the headlines, the zombie claims it had refuted revive to walk the land again, befuddling new victims and reinforcing the convictions of people with strong commitments and short memories.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:19 AM on 31 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
Russ said, "Here's one that I would be strongly in favour of: Stop ALL government subsidies. "
That's a very nice sentiment, but you know as well as the rest of us, that's probably the least likely approach be implemented. Tell us which politician is going to stand up to say, "My constituents want no more government subsidies for any projects!" Yeah... right.
Let's talk about solutions that actually are viable, like a revenue neutral carbon tax. Tax and dividend. This very likely to be the one and only politically viable solution. Still not easy, but one that is genuinely viable.
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Russ R. at 01:43 AM on 31 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
Andy,
"I have estimated the effect of the oilsands on the climate in this post based on the paper by Swart and Weaver. Please let me know if you have a problem with it."
At least you admit that the entire oil sands' impact would be "barely visible", and even that's over the many centuries it would take to extract the entire resource. The Keystone XL pipeline, over its entire useful lifetime, could carry only a fraction of the oil sands. So, a fraction of barely visible is indeed... to small to measure. So it sounds like we're in agreement.
"Could you a) Point us to a decision that would produce a climate effect big enough to measure and; b) let us know if you would be in favour of it. "
Here's one that I would be strongly in favour of: Stop ALL government subsidies. All of them. Every single one. When people pay the full costs of their consumption, they'll consume less.
"My guess is that the only policy decision that would produce a big effect is if one of the the big emitting countries introduced a hefty carbon tax. I would be heartily in favour of this, but my recollection is that you are skeptical of the efficacy of carbon taxes."
As for carbon taxes, when you tell me how you plan to solve for carbon leakage to jurisdictions that aren't going to impose such taxes, maybe I'll agree with you. Alternately, tell me how you intend to get every jurisdiction to agree to a uniform carbon tax.
With that issue solved, I'd happily support a carbon tax (really any consumption tax) in place of an income tax.
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jgnfld at 01:37 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@christd3
The proper response to the "fires occur naturally" meme is to suggest they light a bonfire in their own living and then report back on how that went for them personally. This actually IS a correct analogy.
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Jim Hunt at 01:30 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@Chris #21
At what venue might an analogy assist then?I negotiate the maze of twisty passages, all alike, in the perhaps naive belief that some people read that stuff who aren't dyed in the wool "skeptics". Am I in fact wasting my time?
My first Arctic map was carefully cloned from (un)Real Science, where Steve/Tony unaccountably neglected to paper over the "Pole hole"!
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chrisd3 at 00:57 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@PluviAL #20
The accepted wisdom seems to be "not to feed the trolls," I disagree; it is bothersome and a never-ending battle, but a necessary fight.
I agree. "Don't feed the trolls" is good advice for real trolls--the ones who are there only to disrupt and irritate.
But that's not the main aim of most the "skeptic" commenters (although they certainly don't mind if they disrupt and irritate). Most of them, with the exception of the professional disinformers, actually believe what they write. They are pushing a point of view. It's important not to leave this stuff unresponded to. The number of people who just read comments is much larger than the number of commenters. Bad science can look like good science to them if no one rebuts it.
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chrisd3 at 00:48 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@Jim Hunt #16:
Well, arguing with Steve/Tony and his followers is utterly hopeless. It's a twisty maze of passages, all alike. No analogy is going to help.
By the way, your first Arctic map--is that a map, or a drawing of a chicken? :)
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PluviAL at 00:47 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@ One Planet Only and For Ever: Exellent distiction. The term Troll and and Trolling is almost meaningless to me. I too see the "disinformation agent" as distinct from their "target to disinform," and then the "disinformed." And then there is the rare person who actually believes differently based on reason.
I take it as a job to adress the issue against the disinformed, and the disinformeres. I think I can tell the difference by the way they respond. But it seems if we let them just say nonsense without correction, the disinformation effort wins.
The accepted wisdom seems to be "not to feed the trolls," I disagree; it is bothersome and a never-ending battle, but a necessary fight.
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mancan18 at 00:42 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
There are several principles that might also be relevant in debating with climate deniers and their associated trolls.
First, you might be dealing with a possible variation of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which, in this case, would be; that if you’re ignorant, then you don't know you’re ignorant because you don't have the skills to realise that you are ignorant.
Second, there's a quote from Alexander Canduci's book "Triumph and Tragedy" about Rome's Emperors describing the Eastern Emperor Basiliscus (ruled 475-476) which states: "It says a lot about a man's character if he can completely ignore his own manifest inadequacies". This could be applicable to some of our so called business leaders and politicians who are deniers out of ideology and self-interest.
And third there's Euclid's "pons asinorum", his bridge of fools for students studying geometry, which in climate science relates to how greenhouse gases and warming relate to each other. Those who don't even accept this basic principle are probaly not worth debating anyway, because if you argue with a fool, people mightn't know the difference. Unfortunately, sometimes it is necessary because you might need to actually question a denier to reveal their ignorance. The trick is to do it without appearing smug and arrogant. Sadly, deniers and trolls don't make it easy, but then all you asking of them is to pay attention to the real world, listen to the people who have devoted their lives to studying it, assimilate the information and come to a proper scientific conclusion. This after all that is what real science is about anyway.
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chrisd3 at 00:41 AM on 31 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@jenna #15
OK, here's an example. A common "skeptic" argument is that temperatures rose in the past (before the use of fossil fuels); those increases must have had natural causes, which means that the current warming must also be natural.
In an attempt to show that things can have more than one cause, I've used this: "My neighbor's car accelerated when he pushed it off a cliff. Therefore stepping on the accelerator cannot be what's causing my car to go faster now." They do not get this. They go off about how comparing climate change to driving is stupid.
Or there's this very common one: "Wildfires occur naturally, therefore today's fire cannot have been caused by careless campers as the fire service claims." The usual response to this is that there's no evidence that climate change causes wildfires. (Yes, I know, it's bizarre.)
It really doesn't matter what the analogy is. Make any analogy regarding climate change. They never get it--or they pretend not to.
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jgnfld at 23:45 PM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@jenna...
Already done above. The Galileo [ and I could add Copernicus/Einstein/ulcer...] Gambit is a clear example in that deniers deny the basic phenomenon that the Earth is warming "just like" the above thinkers provided much better explanations for phenomena everyone in the world already agreed occurred in the first place. No. It is not at all "just like". They are false analogies.
The correct analogy would be that deniers are like flat Eathers, young Earthers, and, for a good real science analogy, the uniformitarian resistance to the concept of the horizontal movements of continents.
Another correct analogy would be that deniers act like parts of the economic/political entities affected by lead, asbestos, HFC, tobacco, and acid rain emitters/producers. The arguments provided by the deniers in each case really are "just like". And very wrong in the very same ways for the very same reasons.
What christd3 is pointing out is that, among other analogies, deniers are incapable of discriminating case #1 from cases #2 and #3.
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Jim Hunt at 23:36 PM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
Chris/Jenna - Surely "analogies" are ripe for "misunderstanding", deliberate or otherwise?
I actually have an entire website devoted (almost) entirely to debating Arctic sea ice science with "skeptics". You might find the current "debate" instructive:http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/08/is-arctic-sea-ice-extent-up-because-the-ice-is-thicker/
What "analogy" do you suggest I use in my thus far vain attempts to get the real scientific message across?
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jenna at 23:08 PM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@chrisd3 #14: I'm not really sure what you mean about "skeptics understanding analogies". Could you give a couple of examples?
Thx,
Jen.
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wovenlander at 22:36 PM on 30 August 2014Discussing global warming: why does this have to be so hard?
Russ R. is I think correct to draw attention to climate change (mitigation) policy as a factor in people's response to climate change.
Some people, particularly on the right, reject claims about global warming because they reasonably expect that it will invoke a highly-centralized, "world government" policy response, and this is ideological anathema to small government conservatives and libertarians. Think for example of the reaction on the right to cap-and-trade, or the UN's Agenda 21 action plan for sustainable development.
Imagine also, someone who believes the evidence for global warming, but does NOT believe that human society as a whole will get its act together to do anything about it (arguably, this is a thoroughly rational posture). Such a person might be motivated mainly to secure his/her own safety/prosperity, in the face of whatever disasters may lie ahead. Such a person's rational choice is to accumulate as much personal wealth as possible, rather like a first-class passenger on the Titanic competing for a seat in a lifeboat. The ship is going down, most of the passengers will die, and nothing can change that!
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chrisd3 at 22:26 PM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
@Alexandre #11: There's another area that's begging for psychological examination: The "skeptics" never, ever, understand analogies. They fixate on what's different, ignore what's the same, and announce that the analogy is "moronic."
In my experience, the failure rate on "skeptic" comprehension of analogies is close to 100%.
I'd love to know why this is. Do they actually not get the analogies, or are they just scratching for some way around them?
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chrisd3 at 22:17 PM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
And then there's the "So you are saying ..." formulation, which is followed by something that's not even close to what you actually said:
"Increased CO2 inevitably leads to warmer temps."
"So you are saying that CO2 is the only cause of climate change?"I love that one.
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GSR at 22:05 PM on 30 August 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #34
Good-o. I have not been keeping abreast of the attacks on the Paper. I went on WUWT for the first time last week and found it stragely compelling. There is a patina of seriousness that qiuckly gives way to editorial promotion of stuff like this:
About Face! Why the World Needs More Carbon Dioxide
Yes it's a book. Check on Amazon if you don't believe me
The other thing I discovered from the site is that David Middleton is the ne plus ultra of carbon scientists.
Next week I'll be joining Nation Review Online's climate blog. For those who have not had the pleasure it's called Planet Gore. Sounds serious.
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Sapient Fridge at 21:51 PM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
The best tactic I've found for tackling climate change deniers in a public forums is to ask them this question:
"If the planet were really warming then what evidence would be enough to convince you to change your mind?"
The subsequent exchange usually makes it clear to everyone that absolutely nothing, either real or theoretical, would be enough to convince them to change their viewpoint.
This is very similar to debating with creationists. As someone said:
For a creationist to accept evolution, no evidence is good enough.
For a creationist to believe in a god, no evidence is good enough. -
GSR at 14:03 PM on 30 August 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #34
I did not know of that rule. Safest not to link then.
José Duarte has written a piece on his blog personally and professionally attacking John and Dana. Parts of it have been reprinted in WUWT.
He attacks the rating methology and says that the 97% result was reliant on social science papers. It probably rises to the level of defamation. Will there be a reply?
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - The comments policy prohibits "link only" comments. It is necessary to provide some discussion or context.
As for a reply - a quick scan reveals it to be a tinfoil hat-laced rant with no substance. Surely a self-professed polymath can crunch some numbers and come up with a solid estimate of how those few papers change the consensus figure of 97%?
And here's a rough guide - self-professed Econometrics expert, Richard Tol, carried out an 'analysis' of Cook et al (2013) that conjured up 300 rejection papers from thin air - more than three times the number of rejection papers found in the entire rating process - and yet the consensus figure only dropped to 91%.
Note also that the authors rated their own peer-reviewed research papers and came up with a 97% consensus.
I don't believe any reply is necessary, nor desirable.
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GSR at 13:25 PM on 30 August 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #34
[snip]
Moderator Response:[RH] Please add substantive discussion to link related posts, per SkS policy.
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Andy Skuce at 12:35 PM on 30 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
Russ, I have estimated the effect of the oilsands on the climate in this post based on the paper by Swart and Weaver. Please let me know if you have a problem with it.
You say that not allowing KXL would produce a climate effect that is"too small to measure". Could you a) Point us to a decision that would produce a climate effect big enough to measure and; b) let us know if you would be in favour of it.
My guess is that the only policy decision that would produce a big effect is if one of the the big emitting countries introduced a hefty carbon tax. I would be heartily in favour of this, but my recollection is that you are skeptical of the efficacy of carbon taxes.
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Alexandre at 09:54 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
There's a serious problem of psychological projection in the way 'skeptics' discuss climate science. Things like "vested interests of alrmists" or "CAGW is driven by emotion, whereas skeptics are driven by science" make me think this is a vast unexplored ground for psychological research.
One day it will be dismissed as an absurd that today people point to research grants as an economic power big enough to overthrow the multi-trillion dollar fossil fuel industry.
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mjibrown at 09:09 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
I agree that not all the tactics I discuss are trolling, but they are definitely tactics commonly used by trolls I have encountered (and used by others who aren't trolls).
Flawed logic isn't trolling, but claims of fraud (without evidence) and equating sciences with religion can be (depending on the intent).
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:53 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
The power of carefully developed and targeted misleading marketing is undeniably a tool the climate change deniers revel in abusing.
And I would not use the term 'trolling' to refer to attempts to keep other people from better understanding a subject like climate science. Those efforts are not just attempts to trigger an emotional response from the target, the more commonly understood objective of a troll.
Those who attempt to discedit the developing better understanding of climate science attempt to appeal to people who have a strong tendency to be srongly motivated to believe a made-up claim that suits their interest. That is not the same as trolling, it is far more damaging.
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mjibrown at 08:41 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
Nick Cater of The Australian and Centre for Independent Studies (an Australian libertarian think tank) used an interesting variation of the Galileo Gambit when attacking the Press Council.
Rather than emphasise the comparison of Andrew Bolt to Galileo (which would very absurd), Cater compared the Press Council to Galileo’s accusers (still absurd).
Press Council adjudications seem considerably milder than accusations of heresy and the inquisition. For a start, the Press Council didn't force Andrew Bolt to recant his views. Also, issues of statistical significance and not misrepresenting the UK MET office seems more grounded in reality than a 17th century theological argument against a heliocentric cosmology.
Some key parts of the Press Council adjudication follow:
“The Press Council has concluded that Mr Bolt was clearly entitled to express his own opinion about the Met Office data but in doing so he needed to avoid conveying a misleading interpretation of the Met Office’s own views on its data”.
Given the great public importance of these issues, Mr Bolt should have acknowledged explicitly that all of the three changes in question were comparatively short-term and were statistically compatible with continuance of the long-term trends in the opposite direction. On the other hand, the article referred to the possibility that global warming has merely “paused” and it emphasised the need to “keep an open mind” on these issues. Accordingly, despite concerns about the manner in which the available evidence is presented, the Council’s decision is not to uphold these aspects of the complaint.
The Council emphasises that this adjudication neither endorses nor rejects any particular theories or predictions about global warming and related issues. It observes that on issues of such major importance the community is best served by frank disclosure and discussion rather than, for example, failure to acknowledge significant shorter- or longer-term trends in relevant data."
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:39 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
longjohn119 @ 2,
I would like to claim an exception to the Al Gore Corrollery to Godwin's Law.
I will occasionally bring up Al Gore's book "The Assault on Reason" as recommended reading. Like I just did here.
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mjibrown at 08:37 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
One tactic I could have mentioned is "We can all agree... " or "It is uncontroversial... " followed by a statement that most scientists would either disagree with or class as a debatable.
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jgnfld at 08:23 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
The Galileo Gambit is wrong at a deeper level. NO one denied that the planets moved "funny". With deniers, they are denying the phenomenon itself, not the explanation for it.
A better analogy would be with plate tectonics which is also mentioned by deniers. Those against plate tectonics denied (nonvertical) movement itself, not the explanation for movement.
But of course they would come off looking rather worse in that analogy.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:06 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
There's even a "Galileo Movement" in Australia set up to fight against carbon taxes. They were the folks who foot the bill for Monckton's tour.
I'll not link to them for obvious reasons.
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wili at 07:46 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
Nice article and comments. In my experience, Scott D. Weitzenhoffer's comment on arguing with Creationists applies equally well to most denialists:
"Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory."
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Rob Honeycutt at 07:08 AM on 30 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
Here's an argument corollary to Russ' posted above.
I made the calculations to estimate how many calories I would burn if I were to walk to the store, half mile away. It would require me to walk a total of 1600 steps, based on calculations that agree with other's assessments that will only burn 113 calories.
That's just too little to have an impact on my growing waistline, thus I shouldn't even try.
The point is, it's 169 million tons of CO2e that shouldn't be going into the atmosphere in the first place. You can do the same calculation for every single thing that needs to be done to lose weight or to end emissions of CO2. The only way you make progress is to get off your a— and do all of them.
You don't wait for the next thing that will maybe be a better solution. As coaches say: "Just do it."
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Russ R. at 06:22 AM on 30 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
" I also take a different route to get to the same general answer as John Abraham's."
I took the same route as John Abraham in assessing the maximum amount of CO2e emissions that Keystone XL could possibly generate and I came up with 169 million tonnes of CO2e per year, virtually the same value as he arrived at.
But unlike Abraham (or anyone else here), I took the logical next step of estimating the impact of Keystone XL's potential emissions on the planet's temperature, and I come up with a result that is remarkable in its insignificance... less than 1/100th of a degree Celsius per century. Absolutely trivial.
Feel free to play with your own assumptions. Calculations and sources here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/78507292/Keystone%20XL.xlsx
All I ask is that next time you're arguing to block the construction of this pipeline, please be upfront about the actual impact it will have on climate.
Too small to measure.
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longjohn119 at 05:54 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
Godwin's Law - As an online argument grows longer and more heated, it becomes increasingly likely that someone will bring up Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. When this event occurs the person guilty of invoking Godwin's Law has effectively forfeited the argument.
The Al Gore Corollary to Godwin's Law - As an online argument on Climate Change grows longer and more heated, it becomes increasingly likely that someone will bring up Al Gore. When this event occurs the person guilty of invoking Al Gore's name has effectively forfeited the argument and lost the debate, badly.
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Composer99 at 01:51 AM on 30 August 2014What I learned from debating science with trolls
Some techniques are comically simple. Emotionally charged, yet evidence-free, accusations of scams, fraud and cover-ups are common. While they mostly lack credibility, such accusations may be effective at polarising debate and reducing understanding.
Those appear to be the perennial favourites of the "regulars" who blight the comment threads of Dana & John's posts at The Guardian.
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US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
wilbert - Perhaps by implementing carbon taxes to make producers of energy pay the actual (societal) costs of fossil fuels and emissions rather than just profiting on the low price of their feedstocks? If that was done consistently renewable power becomes almost a no-brainer in terms of utility profitability.
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wilbert at 23:48 PM on 29 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
(And what about not build Keystone and get energy from non-carbon sources instead?).... Could you expend that comment? How can that be done?
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MA Rodger at 21:43 PM on 29 August 2014Southern sea ice is increasing
Klaus Flemløse @15.
If you look at narrower bands of latitude, the "step function" you have identified occurs between 70ºS and 55ºS. Another feature of such analysis is the decreasing interannual variation with increasing latitude. The variation is strongly linked to ENSO. I would guess most of the "step function" is actually those high southern latitudes reacting to ENSO which has generally been a lot more negative since 2007 than the period 1981-2006.
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Andy Skuce at 14:51 PM on 29 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
It is odd that many of the proponents of Keystone XL argue that we absolutely must do it because it will make so little difference to outcomes.
A recent paper may provide a new way of looking at big energy infrastructure projects.
“One of the things that makes climate change such a difficult problem is that it lacks immediacy,” Steven Davis of the University of California, Irvine, told environmentalresearchweb. “It’s going to have huge impacts in the long run, but its effects on our day-to-day lives seem small. The way we’ve been tracking carbon-dioxide emissions reinforces this remoteness: the annual emissions we monitor are small relative to the cumulative emissions that will cause large temperature increases. The alternative we present, what we call commitment accounting, helps by quantifying the long-run emissions related to investment decisions made today.”
Open-access paper by Davis and Socolow here
i will be looking at the Erickson and Lazarus paper in more detail in an article here next week. I also take a different route to get to the same general answer as John Abraham's.
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Tom Curtis at 14:35 PM on 29 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
RussR @1, ah yes! The "do evil now lest somebody else do it before me" school of moral philosophy. You must be so proud.
On a more pragmatic level, that Keystone XL is the preferred option to export the oil from tarsands shows that profitability will be less, or prices higher with the alternative. Therefore not building Keystone will result in the extraction of less oil from the tarsands in the long run regardless of any other pipeline built.
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Russ R. at 13:44 PM on 29 August 2014US State Department underestimates carbon pollution from Keystone XL
John Abraham lists three possible alternatives regarding Keystone XL:
- Build Keystone and pump tar sands.
- Not build Keystone but extract the equivalent oil somewhere else.
- Not build Keystone and instead, use our energy more wisely, saving money and reducing pollution.
There's another very real alternative that he fails to consider.
- Not build Keystone XL and extract tar sands regardless.
"Since 2012, the billionaire Irving family has been advocating a proposal called Energy East. The 2,858-mile (4,600-km) pipeline would link trillions of dollars worth of oil in land-locked fields in the western province of Alberta to an Atlantic port in the Irvings’ eastern home province of New Brunswick, north of Maine, creating a gateway to new foreign markets for Canadian oil. The $12 billion line, ...would pump 1.1 million barrels per day..."
So, by blocking a 830,000 bpd pipeline that would transport tar sands bitumen to the United States, you're increasing the likelihood of building a 1,100,000 bpd pipeline, to ship the very same oil to countries like India and China that have far worse environmental and pollution regulations.
Well done.
And for what? Because you'd like to avert in imperceptible amount of warming (less that 0.007 C) over a century?
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link. (And what about not build Keystone and get energy from non-carbon sources instead?)
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scaddenp at 13:31 PM on 29 August 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
I fail quite to understand what point you are making here? Sealevel rise from Antarctica comes from the loss of ice sheet, not ice shelves. The main issue with the loss of ice shelves is the buttressing effect on glaciers. Where shelves have been lost, glacial calving rates have gone up. If you want to see what is the real issue, start with this paper. It is discussed in the NASA press release here.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:55 AM on 29 August 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #34
sw @1... a) No, Christy merely pulled a fast one on you by improperly applying baselines. LINK
b) The models are not failing. LINK
sw @2... a) Engineers are not climate scientists. Next time you have an electrical problem in your home, are you going to call a plumber?
b) Religion is faith in something without any evidence. Climate change has 150 years of research and data behind it.
c) Mann's original graphs (MBH98/99) only go back to the MWP, not past it. You should actually read the paper. Or better, read any of the dozen papers that have been written on the same subject since 1999.
d) Why was Greenland green? When? 65 million years ago? 250 million years ago?
e) Christy again? Really?
f) Yes you are. I don't suspect any of these posts will survive the next hour.
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jetfuel at 10:29 AM on 29 August 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
I did some research on smithsonian.com and found out that Antarctica is much larger than the US lower 48 in area. The Ross Ice shelf is about the size of Texas. It lies on a shallow sea and the shelf is less than a km thick. It has always been melting from underneath. The study of Ice shelf loss recently done over a long period found that 85% of all ice shelf loss was from along the penninsula. There, the sea is warmer, has more currents, and the shelves are numerous, small, and farther from the S. pole. The shelf sits on the ocean anyway and won't add much to sea level rise because it is not on land. Right now, these shelves are surrounded by possibly the most extensive sea ice ever since records started being kept. The ice shelves are mostly the thinnest ice cover thickness areas of Antarctica, sit over the ocean, and are a small fraction of Antarctica'a huge area. They also get heavy snowfall and if they were to melt significantly, there would be an abrupt end to the melt as the area that has ocean under ice would be used up, leaving the vast majority of Antarctica's land ice still totally protected from the warm water of the sea being underneath. Really nothing new here, as this water has always been underneath the ice.
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2014 SkS Weekly Digest #34
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Moderator Response:[PS] Welcome to Skeptical science. Please read and thoroughly digest the comments policy. Note particularly, "Make comments in the most appropriate thread". No gish gallops like your one. "No sloganeering.".
Use the search function on the top left to find appropriate place to comment. Stick to topic and produce evidence to back your position. References to peer-reviewed literature are best.
If you just want a rant there are plenty of other sites which would welcome your comment. Stay here if you want to discuss actually the science.
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Klaus Flemløse at 03:55 AM on 29 August 2014Southern sea ice is increasing
@12
I have tried to include a discontinuity at September 2006 in the sea surface temperature(sst):
In this case the fit is better and the SST is increasing, but not significantly. Is the discontinuity comming from an error in sea ice cover data?
Can someone tell me if there is a know error in NOAA data around 2005-2010 ?
What am I going to believe?
Moderator Response:[RH] Need to keep the width of the images limited or they break the page formatting. I added a zoom so you can see the details (or at least I thought I did). Edit: Okay, next best thing is an added link to the full sized image. ;-)
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Temp record is unreliable
Ashton - Marohasy's article is an online publication through the Sydney Institute, "a privately funded not-for-profit current affairs forum encouraging debate and discussion", in Sydney Papers Online, which is most definitely not a peer-reviewed publication.
Your above claim about its review status is wholly in error. And there is no sign that anyone with knowledge or expertise on the temperature records had critical input to the article.
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ianw01 at 23:18 PM on 28 August 2014Athabasca Glacier: a tragic vanishing act
michael sweet @17:
It would seem that my comments misled you: I'm not interested in listening to deniers over experts. I was just seeking to better understand the relationship between glaciers and river flows, primarily because that is likely going to be the way that Albertans experience global warming in a way that might change a significant number of minds.
Andy Skuce @18:
Thanks for the interesting link. The point it makes about the boost to flows from glacial melt masking the coming problems is important. (It is similar to the storage of heat deep in the oceans in that it delays unavoidable consequences.) And your analogy about the behaviour of glaciers as well managed dams concisely describes their value.
Tom Curtis: @19:
Good point about the relationship between land area and freezing level in the mountains - I had not considered that.
jimb @20:
Nope! :-)
Bob Loblaw @27:
Good catch! I'm not sure where that typo came from.
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John Mason at 19:52 PM on 28 August 2014Climate Change: the Terminological Timeline
And just for completeness, here's the abstract in Science:
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