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Eclectic at 15:27 PM on 15 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
Bob Loblaw @6 and David-acct @5 :
[Opinion] The concept of the Separation of Powers was "cutting edge" political thinking in the 1600's and 1700's. The famed American Constitution was a great achievement for its time. But, with the wisdom of hindsight, there is much room for criticism & improvement ~ only part of which has been "fixed" by Constitutional Amendments.
Analogy : the famed first airplane - the Kittyhawk biplane - was a great achievment. Cutting edge. Two pairs of wings, and a control lever system. [Stretching the analogy . . . the Congress, the Executive, and the SCOTUS.] Subsequent developments included the triplane with three pairs of wings. [The third pair corresponding to the States Legislatures?]
By analogy again : Adam Smith's economics theory (largely laissez-faire) was well-suited to the village economies of the 1700's and prior times. Unfortunately, the subsequent growth of city populations and of new technologies & communications , has led to a complex society which requires complex control systems (just as an elephant's body requires more complex systems than does a simple earthworm).
The point I am coming to, is that nowadays there is much overlap in the functions of Congress, Executive, and SCOTUS. In practical terms, we cannot regard them as fully separate. We engage in faulty thinking if we believe complete separation is possible ~ we are guilty of a False Dichotomy (Tri-chotomy?). We waste our time if we see Separation as being some form of Holy Writ which must never be questioned or examined or modified. The Constitutional Founding Fathers dealt with the problems facing them, and made a remarkable experimental creation. How could they have foreseen the problems of future vast developments? (including the current gridlocked paralysis of Congress/Executive . . . failing to deal intelligently with problems.)
To boil it down : please put aside doctrinaire thinking, and look at the realites. The reality is that all "wings" and control levers are influenced/manipulated by powerful individuals & groups ~ and we live in a plutocracy only slightly mollified by the democratic citizenry. Twas ever thus, throughout history. Nevertheless, we must do better.
And on the airplane analogy : there are still a lot of Fokkers** who still favor a triplane design. ** a Red Baron reference, of course ;-)
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Doug Bostrom at 12:24 PM on 15 July 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #28 2022
Speaking after hours and with tools down, it seems to me also that Reynolds is veering into the other lane, enough to see paint lines passing beneath tires. Hence "replies" rather than "answers."
When it comes to investigating and characterizing communications of the kind treated by Reynolds, it's a very good thing to have a group of "coders" parsing raw data. Typically this would apply to responses to open ended questions in surveys. It's a standard, reliable means of neutralizing researcher biases, part of the social sciences survey methodology toolkit. Here we don't have a "survey" per se but we do have communications that may unpack differently when read by different people, and the same improving methods and practice would pertain.
Reynolds' methods section mentions nothing about coders. Reynolds is distinguished in his field, but for matters such as this perhaps would do well to team up with a colleague more centered on social science research methods (and here I'm speaking far beyond my own pay grade but this is still a fairly uncontroversial suggestion, I think).
[Upon further reflection, it's surprising that this piece wasn't offered as a "perspective" but rather is classified as a research article, especially given its apparent total reliance on the author's personal, necessarily unique interpretations of communications he cites. And it does seem that after our stellar performance in the "unintended consequences" department over the past 250 years or so, an abundance of circumspection is arguably a virtue, not a fault.]
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Bob Loblaw at 10:36 AM on 15 July 20222nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Grindupbaker:
Your formatting and general writing style make it hard to understand exactly what point you are trying to make. Most of the first part seems to be bog standard radiation and cloud physics.
The point where I disagree with you is where you say "...and then are re-emitted with 50% of it going down and warming the surface are incorrect because they do not include a tropospheric temperature lapse rate which is an absolute requirement. "
The 50% up, and 50% down is entriely correct. In fact, the IR emission rate is completely independent of direction, and is equal in all directions - spherical, to be precise. One half of that sphere is summarized as "upward", and one half is summarized as "downward".
You could also do two halves going horizontally - e.g., north/south, or east/west - or any other direction you wish, but the up/down summary is the one that is most useful.
And it is most useful for the reason you touch on: the vertical temperature gradient. If you think of a single height, where you have 200 W/m2 emitted upward, and 200 W/m2 emitted downward, you need to ask "what about the layers above or below this one?"
- The layer above this one is probably cooler, so it might be emitting 199 W/m2 upward and downward.
- The layer below this one is probably warmer, so it might be emitting 201 W/m2 upward and downward.
- so each layer is surrounded by other layers that are emitting more (if warmer) or less (if colder), so that you have a net IR flux from warm to cold. Even though at any single height the locally-emitted IR is equal up and down.
- The total IR flux (either upward or downward) at one height is a combination of the IR emitted in that direction plus an IR transmitted from layers "upstream", minus the IR absorbed at that height.
- Three different terms, that you need to think of individually: emitted, absorbed, transmitted.
The reason any horizontal "halves" of the IR emission sphere are of little interest is because the temperature gradients are so small. No temperature gradient - no net IR difference.
And you are correct that local heating/cooling is dependent on the aborption of that radiation - plus any exhanges of non-radiative energy (convection, evaporation/condensation of water), minus losses through emission.
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Bob Loblaw at 09:56 AM on 15 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
Or are you using the phrase "enforce regulation" to mean "create it"?
Regulations passed by the legislative branch can and will be written to provide flexibilityto the executive branch, as in my speed limit example. The executive branch could be assigned the task of improving highway and road safety, and the flexibility to choose to do this via speed limits, traffic controls, driving test requirements, etc. The legislative branch does not need to pass a law stating every individual aspect of what is allowed on any individual road.
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Bob Loblaw at 09:52 AM on 15 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
David-acct:
The executive branch cannot enforce regulation? Then who does? The judicial branch? That only includes the judges and court systems, not the police, not the bulding inspectors, health inspectors, not the tax auditors, etc.
In my definition of "executive branch", I am including pretty much all the government departments, all the government employees that work in them, etc. And yes, they act as a consequence of the duties assigned to them through legiislation. But legislation includes assigning responsibilities to monitor and assure compliance with the laws that are passed, adjust regulations, and charge people that break those laws.
In what you appear to be claiming, the legislative branch would have to approve each indivudal speed limit on each individual road, instead of giving the executive branch the power to assess appropriate speed limits, set them, and pursue offenders.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:15 AM on 15 July 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #28 2022
“Communication of solar geoengineering science: Forms, examples, and explanation of skewing” is interesting with some points meriting some consideration. I have not thoroughly read the item. But I have read enough to make the following critical observations (making no mention of points I consider worthy of consideration). I will carefully read the entire document to see if my initial impressions presented below need to be revised.
1. The author appears to have sought out examples that fit their desired conclusions. Then they played some games to get a 'best fit'. They provide no examples of the opposite of the type of examples they chose to focus on.
2. The author appears to be unaware that there is an important distinction between solar radiation modification (SRM) and medical treatments (they make many subjective comparisons between SRM and medical treatments - like "This important distinction can be clarified by analogy. Despite its own risks and negative side effects, chemotherapy is sometimes used to treat cancer."). Most medical treatments by something like:
- initial rigorous testing on non-humans,
- if the non-human treatment passes that initial testing then testing is done on a small number of carefully selected humans,
- if that testing is passed then testing is done on a larger and broader population,
- if that testing is passed then testing is done on an even larger and broader population.
And medical treatment tests are often done for a long periods of time to potentially discover unanticipated long-term consequences. COVID-19 vaccine testing was an exception to the longer-term testing of other medical treatments because of the clear evidence of the risk of significant harm done by COVID-19 infections.
There do not appear to be any non-planetary objects to meaningfully experiment SRM on. There are not hundreds of planets to have the second testing run on. There are not thousands of planets to have subsequent testing done on. There is this only one planet that, without humans messing it up by behaving like an asteroid, should be habitable for humanity for 10s of millions of years.
It is absurd to suggest that it is acceptable to run a global experiment on the planet. It is especially absurd to suggest the ‘need for, and benefit of, an SRM global experiment’ because leaders will not do what needs to be done (disappoint a portion of the global population that believes it is superior). Global Leadership needs to rapidly end the continued forcing of CO2 and other ghgs into the atmosphere )(which is an unacceptable global experiment that is not ‘mitigated’ by additional global scale experimentation).
3. The conclusions by the author regarding reasons for concern about how scientific presentations on SRM may be interpreted fails to mention the potential for political leaders (policy-makers) to be tempted to consider the potential for SRM to be a ‘solution’. The author appears to be unaware that some policy-makers have already exhibited a willingness to seek excuses for increasing harm to be done to future generations by the global leadership of the current generation failing to effectively reduce the harm being done. Some political game players may even selfishly consider it acceptable to delay the reduction of harm done, do more harm, because ‘future generations should be able to develop and use SRM’.
That said, climate science is complex. And the diversity of action plans in response to the undeniable harm being done deserve consideration - never losing focus on the need to limit the harm done, and never forgetting how unexpectedly harmful human actions can be.
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David-acct at 07:53 AM on 15 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
Bob you comment indicates that you dont like the structure of the US Constitution and the separate powers to each of the three branchs of the US Government. As previously discussed, Congress is the branch that enact laws, the actions of the executive branch are limited to the laws passed by congress. Under the US Constitution, the executive branch can not enforce regulations or create "new law " not enacted by Congress. Whether that is good or bad is a separate and unrelated issue.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:41 AM on 15 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Likeitwarm:
"Runaway" is very definitely the wrong term for what you are asking.
You should start by reading the post that shows up as #3 on the list of Most Used Climate Myths (top left side bar of every screen here).
https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives.htm
Maybe go down the list, where you will probably continue to find material for many of the questions you seem to want to ask.
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Likeitwarm at 03:36 AM on 15 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Bob Loblaw:
I just meant warming to a point that causes unacceptable harm to human habitation. Maybe "runaway" is the wrong term. Maybe "harmfully warm" would be better.
I'm just posting what I think to see where I'm right or wrong. I appreciate your input. I'm going to withhold posting until I do more reading.
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grindupBaker at 03:06 AM on 15 July 20222nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
The underlying heat-adjustment effect works like this:
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"GREENHOUSE EFFECT", TRYING TO WARM IF THE QUANTITY INCREASES
- The "greenhouse effect" in Earth's troposphere operates like this: Some of the "LWR" aka "infrared" radiation heading up gets absorbed into cloud above instead of going to space so that's the "heat trapping" effect of a cloud. The top portion of the cloud radiates up some of the LWR radiation that's manufactured inside the cloud but it's less amount than the LWR that was absorbed into the bottom of the cloud because the cloud top is colder than below the cloud and colder things radiate less than warmer things. That is PRECISELY the "greenhouse effect" in Earth's troposphere. It's the "greenhouse effect" of liquid "water" and solid "ice" in that example. You can see that "greenhouse effect" of liquid "water" and solid "ice" for all the various places on Earth from CERES satellite instrument at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1VBCt8GLc at 7:50. It's the pink one labelled "Longwave....26.2 w / m**2" so cloud globally has a "greenhouse effect" of 26.2 w / m**2.
- Solids in the troposphere have the exact same effect as the "cloud greenhouse effect" above for the exact same reason.
- Infrared-active gases in the troposphere (H2O gas, CO2, CH4, N2O, O3, CFCs) have the exact same effect as the "cloud greenhouse effect" above for the exact same reason. Non infrared-active gases in the troposphere (N2, O2, Ar) have no "greenhouse effect" because their molecule is too simple to get the vibrational kinetic energy by absorbing a photon of LWR radiation or by collision. The "greenhouse effect" really is that simple, and it's utterly 100% certain.
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SUNSHINE REFLECTION EFFECT, TRYING TO COOL IF THE QUANTITY INCREASES
- Clouds (liquid "water" and solid "ice") absorb & reflect some sunlight and the "reflect" part has an attempt-to-cool effect, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the "greenhouse effect". You can see that "sunlight reflection attempt-to-cool effect" of liquid "water" and solid "ice" for all the various places on Earth from CERES satellite instrument at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1VBCt8GLc at 7:50. It's the blue one labelled "Shortwave....-47.3 w / m**2" so cloud globally has a sunshine reflection effect of 47.3 w / m**2.
- Solids in the troposphere absorb & reflect some sunlight and the "reflect" part has an attempt-to-cool effect, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the "greenhouse effect".
- Infrared-active gases in the troposphere (H2O gas, CO2, CH4, N2O, O3, CFCs) do not absorb or reflect any sunlight (minor note: except a tiny portion in the high-frequency ultraviolet where O2 & O3 has absorbed most of it already in the stratosphere above the troposphere).
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NET EFFECT OF THE 2 ENTIRELY-DIFFERENT EFFECTS DESCRIBED ABOVE
- The net result of the 2 entirely-different "cloud" effects is that clouds have a net cooling effect of 21.1 w / m**2 as seen in the blue-hues pictorial at left on screen at either of my 2 GooglesTubes links above.
- The net result for solids in the troposphere is a net cooling effect because the change in this effect by humans is the "global dimming" atmospheric aerosols air pollution effect and that's a cooling effect (separate from its cloud change effect).
- The net result for infrared-active gases in the troposphere (H2O gas, CO2, CH4, N2O, O3, CFCs) is a warming effect because their 2nd effect above is negligible, essentially zero.
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Cartoons or text that describe a "greenhouse effect" in which photons from the surface are absorbed by infrared-active gas molecules and then are re-emitted with 50% of it going down and warming the surface are incorrect because they do not include a tropospheric temperature lapse rate which is an absolute requirement. Explanations of the "greenhouse effect" which include phrases like "the radiation from the surface does not directly heat the atmosphere" are incorrect because there are simple laboratory experiments which prove that infrared radiation does indeed heat the CO2 infrared-active gas and its surroundings (which means, of course, that molecular vibrational kinetic energy is converted on collision to molecular translational kinetic energy before it happened to "thermally relax" and emit a photon and thus no photon was "re-emitted" in that case).
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Cloudy winter nights don't cool as much as clear-sky winter nights. It is PRECISELY the "greenhouse effect" in Earth's troposphere which causes that. -
michael sweet at 23:11 PM on 14 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Likeitwarm,
The last time that CO2 was 400 ppm (It is currently 419 ppm) the sea level was over 23 meters higher than it is now. That amount of rise would flood most of the major cities worldwide and inundate a very large fraction of the best farmland in the world. I could go on with bad effects but those are enough to give any thinking person fits. I note that sea level rise accelerated rapidly the last ten years and is now over 10 mm per year. Pray that it goes back down.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:51 AM on 14 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Likeitwarm: what exactly do you mean by "runaway heating"? Unless you are willing to define your term, you are playing word games.
If CO2 content stabilizes at any point (450, 500, 600ppm, take your pick) then temperature will stablize at some new value (2, 3, 4 or more degrees warmer than it was at 300ppm CO2), and it will not continue to increase indefinitely. It will not "run away". But that new, stable temperature will have plenty of bad consequences.
Even if we were to manage to burn every gram of fossil fuel we can find, and raise CO2 to 1200ppm or more, we still won't see a perpetually-increasing temperature. No "runaway". A new equilibrium will be found. There is no reason to expect anything like Venus.
After all, body temperature is only 37C (98.6F), and if you get a fever and your temperature goes up to 41C and stabilizes at that point, you still run a pretty large risk of death. Your body temperature does not need to keep rising more ("runaway") to be a serious problem.
Unless you have some other (odd) definition of "runaway".
Should you wish to discuss "runaway greenhouse effect" myths, there are two possible threads here:
https://skepticalscience.com/Venus-runaway-greenhouse-effect.htm
https://skepticalscience.com/positive-feedback-runaway-warming.htm
It would be worth your time to read those posts (and possibly the comments) in full.
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Likeitwarm at 09:42 AM on 14 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Bob Loblaw:
If there is no prediction of runaway heating, what is all the hub-bub about CO2?
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Likeitwarm at 09:38 AM on 14 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Bob Loblaw:
Thanks for taking the time to point out my mis-understandings.
I didn't realize the article had been posted to SkS. It was news to me. I should have figured climate hawks like yourself would have read it. My mistake.
I will keep reading and post any questions I might have.
Best to you.
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Petra Liverani at 13:23 PM on 13 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
My apologies, DB. I didn't realise there was more than one moderator so I addressed you as Bob.
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Petra Liverani at 13:18 PM on 13 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Bob,
I'd argue that the comment was not off-topic but very much on point. It related to the topic of disinformation and this is what the post is about - disinformation.One way of inoculating oneself against disinformation is to see how it is created and managed and in my comment there is a link to a perfect illustration where the alleged disinformation agent himself tells us - through a journalist who interviewed him - how he created disinformation in relation to AIDS and how the disinformation campaign he was involved in was managed. Please explain how the comment was off-topic. Because it related to AIDS doesn't make it off-topic if - at the same time - it relates to how disinformation is created and managed.
No one has to believe it, of course, because the alleged disinformation agent doesn't use his real name and doesn't provide any names that aren't already in the public domain but that is not reason not to publish. The fact that it cannot be authenticated is not a reason not to publish the comment because it is worthwhile considering and holding up against the information one already has to see if it matches up. Can it stand up against the information we already have about AIDS? That is up to us as individuals to decide, not the moderator.
Moderator Response:[BL] You are not listening. From the Comments Policy:
- All comments must be on topic. Comments are on topic if they draw attention to possible errors of fact or interpretation in the main article, of if they discuss the immediate implications of the facts discussed in the main article. However, general discussions of Global Warming not explicitly related to the details of the main article are always off topic. Moderation complaints are always off topic and will be deleted.
Arguing about moderation is a moderation complaint.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:00 AM on 13 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Likeitwarm:
The paper by Mulmenstadt et al that you mention was covered in this blog post at Skeptical Science, around the time it first appeared. (SkS reposted the Carbon Brief article.)
In that post, a key summary is:
However, the lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief that fixing the “problem” in rainfall simulations “reduces the amount of warming predicted by the model, by about the same amount as the warming increase between CMIP5 and CMIP6”.
So, the results are not as earth-shattering as you seem to want to imply. Uncertainties in cloud feedback are a well-known part of climate modelling and understanding, and this paper represents one more small step in helping understand the consequences.
As for your description of the water cycle:
- A wet surface evaporates more than a dry one. This transfers energy as latent heat into the atmosphere, and reduces the energy transfer as sensible heat (thermal energy). Thus, it priimarily changes the balance in how the energy reaches the atmosphere, not the total.
- What evaporates evenutally condenses and falls out as precipitation, but it rarely condenses or precipitates over the location it evaporates. Most extra water vapour is transported to other regions, where it falls as precipitation.
- Oceans receive far less water via precipitation than they lose as evaporation.
- Land areas (mostly) are the opposite - much more precipitation than evaporation.
- Increased evapoation does not necessarily lead to increased cloud cover at the evaporation location. Any changes in cloud type, amount, etc., are strongly depndent on when and where and how that cloud eventually forms.
- This complexiity is why cloud feedbacks are still an area of active study.
- The current understanding remains that clouds provide neither strong negative or positive feedback.
As for your discussion of "runaway warming" - nobody is predicting such a result due to CO2, so you are arguing a strawman.
And as to "self regulation of the temperature of the atmosphere" - the simple fact that climate has changed in many ways, for many reasons, over centuries and millenia is strong evidence that this is not true. Perhaps try reading the "Climate's changed before" post that reponds to our number 1 myth listed in our "Most Used Climate Myths" in the top left sidebar of all our pages.
I have worked through some darn cold sunny days in winter - much colder than overcast days in summer - to illustrate how incomplete your cloudy/sunny day closing statement is.
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Eclectic at 04:50 AM on 13 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Likeitwarm @26 :
Yes, it seems cooler on cloudy days than sunny days ~ during daytime.
But warmer nights, when it is cloudy.
Overall effect, rather close to neutral.
The paleo evidence shows no "runaway" , but it does show that the global climate can become very hot indeed.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:18 AM on 13 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
To supplement Bob Loblaw’s response to David-acct’s claim made @2,
I am pretty sure that Section 111 was passed after 1965.
Check out the recent SkS reposting of Climate Adam’s “Climate Change: We Were Warned!”. The entire video should be watched. But the part starting at 3:10 in the video conveys the following fact: In 1965 prominent climate scientist Charles Keeling wrote a report to the President of the USA which included a Section titled “Carbon Dioxide from Fossil Fuels – The Invisible Pollutant”.
So it appears that leaders in the USA since 1965 were aware that CO2 from fossil fuels was able to be considered to be a pollutant.
But there is a more fundamental point in response to the claims made by David-acct @2. There are undeniably harmful consequences from the type of thinking exhibited in the SC majority decision. It is a decision that fundamentally ‘allows more liberty to be more harmful’ vs. ‘implementing understandable restrictions on harmful actions that the marketplace (of ideas and of commerce) fails to effectively limit’. Claiming that such a decision is the correct interpretation of the constitution appears to only be explained by one of the following:
- The USA Constitution and its current set of Amendments is a fundamentally flawed guiding document for governing (limiting the harm done) by actions within the nation.
- Interpretations of the Constitution and Amendments can be harmfully incorrect, and the Constitution is flawed because of wording that is open to such interpretations.
- The abuse of the powerful science of misleading marketing can harmfully compromise even the Best Intentions.
There do not appear to be any other common sense explanations. Which one is it? My suspicion is it is a combination of all 3.
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Likeitwarm at 02:02 AM on 13 July 2022Clouds provide negative feedback
Being a layman, it seems to me that the normal water cycle cools the surface through conduction and evaporation. That energy is eventually released to the upper atmosphere through convection and condensation of cloud formation. Low warm clouds in turn will block more radiation from the sun keeping the ground cooler, negative feedback: Johannes Mulmenstadt et al 6/3/2021 paper.
"As the atmosphere warms, part of the cloud population shifts from ice and mixed-phase (‘cold’) to liquid (‘warm’) clouds. Because warm clouds are more reflective and longer-lived, this phase change reduces the solar flux absorbed by the Earth and constitutes a negative radiative feedback."
See an article about this paper "Cooling effect of clouds ‘underestimated’ by climate models, says new study"
This process seems that it would cause self regulation of the temperature of the atmosphere preventing the possibility of the atmosphere from ever overheating and becoming uninhabitable, i.e. runaway warming. Maybe in a repeating cycle such as more co2=>more warming=>More h2o=>more warm cloud cover=>more cooling=>less co2=>less heating=>less h2o=>less warm cloud cover=>more heating=>more co2 and so on. This seems that it could cause long periods of heating and cooling, maybe decades. Let me know where I'm wrong.
I always thought it was cooler on cloudy days than sunny days. -
Petra Liverani at 12:33 PM on 12 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Bob,
I posted a comment that has disappeared. I don't know whether glitch or moderated. If moderated, can you please give grounds.
Moderator Response:[DB] The comment in question was removed due to being off-topic. Please construct all comments to better adhere to this venue's Comments Policy, which is not onerous and one that the vast majority of participants here have no difficulties in adhering to. This is not optional.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:01 AM on 12 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
Part of the law - at least in Canada, and I'm pretty sure in the U.S. - is to delegate regulation to the executive branch.
If Congress had to pass a new law for every act of regulation of a new chemical, nothing would ever get regulated.
Some would probably think of that as a feature, not a bug, though.
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David-acct at 10:40 AM on 12 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
Under the US constitution and the separation of powers, this decision was correct. In the US, congress makes law, the executive branch executes the law. At the time of passage of section 111 , would have taken a serious stretch of language to interpret congressional intent to treat CO2 as a pollutant.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:43 AM on 12 July 2022Supreme Court sharply limits EPA power plant authority
Indeed, the conservative biased judges (some selected for appointment due to the efforts of people like Charles Koch - see "2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27") do seem to have come to conclusions that do not bode well for the future of development of improvements that limit harm done in the USA (especially limiting damaging results of actions in the USA on Others, especially all the Others in the future impacted by un-limited ghg emissions).
If this type of thinking had been applied decades ago, imagine all the important regulation of pursuits of profit, like Building Codes, having to have their details created and updated by Congress ...
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michael sweet at 01:11 AM on 12 July 2022Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
A post here summarizes and links an article that shows nuclear power cannot provide a significant amount of world energy and the uranium supply is too small.
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michael sweet at 01:09 AM on 12 July 2022What role for small modular nuclear reactors in combating climate change?
A new article in Energy Policy reviewes current plans to builod nuclear reactors and future possible builds. They find that the contribution of nuclear before 204 0will not be significant (less than 5% of all energy). They find that the supply of uranium is too small to support additional reactors. They find breeder reactors to be unreliable and unlikely to be developed before 2050.
The highlights read:
Highlights:
Nuclear power's contribution to climate change mitigation is and will be very limited.Currently nuclear power avoids 2–3% of total global GHG emissions per year.
According to current planning this value will decrease even further until 2040.
A substantial expansion of nuclear power will not be possible.
Given its low contribution, a complete phase-out of nuclear energy is feasible. (my emphasis)
They have a good review of the extremely limited supply of uranium and why the WNA article referenced by MacQuigg is incorrect (with references).
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:41 AM on 11 July 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
"How Charles Koch Purchased the Supreme Court’s EPA Decision" and "Energy charter treaty makes climate action nearly illegal in 52 countries" expose that the science has been well enough established and communicated to global leadership, including business leaders. But some leaders still win by being harmfully misleading, by choosing to excuse and reward those who deserve to be disappointed and penalized.
The science was clear enough 30 years ago for all global leaders to understand. The problem has been a lack of interest among a significant portion of leaders. They are not interested in doing what they understand needs to be done. Their reluctance is clearly because what needs to be done would drastically alter developed global impressions of wealth, prosperity, and what it means to live a good life and be a decent human.
The timing of the original Energy Charter in 1991 is amazingly coincidental with the solidification of understanding that existing and new fossil fuel developments were at significant, and deserved, risk of near-future policy restrictions. And other actions by people like Charles Koch appear to have been urgently initiated based on the same timing of global awareness of the need to restrict many activities some people were deeply interested/invested in.
It would be great if the risk of fossil fuel investments was deemed to have been established global leadership understanding in 1990. That would mean that attempts to use the Energy Charter to claim that ‘current policy actions cause a loss of future benefit’ could be summarily dismissed. The counter-argument would simply be that the delay of required leadership corrections of the ‘market-place failure to limit climate harm’ has more than adequately rewarded investors who gambled on profiting from fossil fuels. But, of course, players like Koch buying influence can clearly bias judgments in their favour.
The real problem for all aspects of the pursuit of Sustainable Development is the many ways that wealthy powerful people fail to honourably pursue increased awareness and improved understanding and apply what they learn to reduce harm done and be more helpful to people needing assistance to live at least decent basic lives. Many of them prefer to put their efforts into ‘protecting their interests’ to the detriment of all Others, especially to the detriment of future generations who have no power to penalize them.
In Addition: The following is part of the Overview of the International Energy Charter.
“The International Energy Charter reflects some of the most topical energy challenges of the 21st century, in particular:
• the full scope of multilateral documents and agreements on energy developed in the last two decades, and the synergies among energy-related multilateral fora, including the Energy Charter, in view of follow-up action
• the growing weight of developing countries for global energy security
• the “trilemma” between energy security, economic development and environmental protection
• the role of enhanced energy trade for sustainable development
• the need to promote access to modern energy services, energy poverty reduction, clean technology and capacity building
• the need for diversification of energy sources and routes
• the role of regional integration of energy markets”What I note to be ‘glaringly missing’ is the need for the highest consuming portion of the global population to dramatically reduce its energy consumption and for the richest to strictly limit how harmful their remaining consumption harmless to provide the example for others to aspire to develop towards.
Also, the term 'Energy Poverty' is being used in the Charter. That term is abused by people promoting discourses of climate (action) delay. Refer to my comment @14 on the SkS item “Skeptical Science tackles 'discourses of climate delay' and 'solutions denial'”
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clima4 at 03:48 AM on 11 July 2022Skeptical Science New Research for Week #27 2022
Synoptic analysis of the most durable pollution and clean waves during 2009–2019 in Tehran City (capital of Iran)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-021-04990-5Moderator Response:[BL] Link activated.
The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.Also, note that the Comments Policy discourages link-only comments. As this is your first post, some latitude is given, but please keep this in mind.
The paper you link to is nearly a year old. It is not exactly "New Research".
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:38 AM on 11 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra,
Not allowed? It is perfectly allowable when it pertains to establishing the merits of information and the disconnection of disinformation from reality, which is what this thread is about. There are in fact many similarities to the misinformation seen about climate, as the playbook of deception is shared by many. Similar also is the propensity of some to subscribe to faulty information that they find attractive, regardless of how implausible or unsupported it may be.
You have clearly stated earlier that you subscribed to a wild theory with no basis in reality whatsoever because you have been subjected to misinformation, which you found seductive, and have resisted evaluating it against facts and quality information, which you prefer to ignore.
Your contention was initially that actors were posing as Covid patients. I have pointed multiple ways in which this is just not possible physiologically, but completely ridiculous on its face because of all the aspects involved in such a scheme and the scale of it. You have brought absolutely nothing in support of this wild theory.
You are now launching another attempt to escape the corner in which you painted yourself. I note that you are not even remotely trying to defend the "theory" that all these patients were actors faking it. That one is such a ridiculous house of cards that it crumbles from just looking at it for more than a few seconds.
As I have previously disclosed, I am a professional, I don't really need Google to sort out symptoms and features of viral respiratory diseases, but even if I did, it would do absolutely nothing to help solidify a wild paranoid vision. Some features are, in fact, very distinctive of Covid, but that's not even the point.
You seem to now try to move goal posts toward a different argument: that these truly very sick people were sick with something else than Covid, their symptoms being due to that other thing, possibly another virus. This does not help your position at all. It implies that there was really a pandemic of something going on, because there were literally millions of sick people. No previous event at my hospital has ever filled the entire ICU with people all sick with the same thing. Since everyone coming in with these symptoms was subjected to a respiratory panel and nothing would result positive except the SARS CoV2 PCR, the logical conclusion is obvious.
You are now left with the contorted hypothesis that all these sick Covid patients did not have Covid but something else, that was not identifiable in any way, and did not result positive in any of the tests for respiratory viral diseases. However, the entire medical profession called it Covid and went as far as elaborating an immense scheme to have positive lab results for the non existent Covid disease. Makes perfect sense.
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MA Rodger at 00:17 AM on 11 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
BaerbelW @90,
You don't address the rather woolly ideas put forward by Petra Liverani @88. Thus:-
1. "Implausibility" (which either is lacking 'reason' or is lacking 'probability') is not at all the same as "incredulousness" (which is an unwillingness to accept offered evidence) with an argument from incredulity being a logical fallacy.
2. A "fair hearing" for an oft-repeated "challenge" may not appear "fair" to the challenger. And a hypothesis is tested against evidence, not against "opposing hypotheses" which should stand or fall on their own merits. (There can, of course, be competing hypotheses that are considered to fit the available evidence.)
3. Non-controversial evidence (which presumably what is meant by "tangible evidence") does not of itself take precedence over inexact or disputed evidence. Precedence would be determined by the level to which a set of evidence tests a hypothesis.
4. An ad hominem argument (which considers the source of evidence rather than the evidence itself) is well-know to a logical fallacy, although there are a few exceptions to it being a fallacy. -
BaerbelW at 16:49 PM on 10 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra Liverani @88
Have you actually and really tried to prove yourself wrong as explained in this other and very helpful article from Thinking is Power?
https://thinkingispower.com/why-trying-to-prove-yourself-wrong-is-the-key-to-being-right/
Your comments here read as if your mind is already very much made up and that you reject anything contradicting what you think is happening.
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Petra Liverani at 16:06 PM on 10 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Philippe @86
Discussion of the medical side of covid is not allowed. Just to say, if you think certain symptoms are specific to covid, please ensure you've checked that is the case. One way to do this is to do an internet search of the symptoms within date periods prior to covid. -
Petra Liverani at 15:47 PM on 10 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
This is my advice for critical thinking:
1. Don't dismiss hypotheses on the basis of implausibility. To do so is really indulging in the logical fallacy, Argument from Incredulity or Argument from Ignorance. Things can seem implausible due to lack of contextual information.
2. The scientist aims to prove their hypothesis wrong. If someone or something challenges your current thinking give that challenge a fair hearing. Check it out. If you hold an hypothesis to be correct ensure it stands up against any opposing hypotheses. Do your best to make sure all the evidence fits your hypothesis while not better fitting any opposing hypotheses.
3. Focus on the most tangible evidence first. This is an area where I think people really go wrong. What does the most tangible, the least easy to dispute evidence say?4. Judge by content, not source.
I shall leave it there. It's been interesting arguing with you and it's helped clarify my thoughts. Unfortunately, if only it were a matter that people can simply agree or disagree on. It's so much more important than that.
Moderator Response:[BL] Once again, you show that you have your own idiosyncratic definitions of words or concepts - definitions that run contrary to the ideas you are trying to present.
Implausibilitiy is not an argument from incredulity. Implausibilty is an assessment of probability- and highly improbable "explanations" do not need to be given equal weight during an investigation as much more likely ones. We do not need to include Gremlin Theory in every search for an explanation. Every story of a problem on the International Space Station does not need to include a segment with a representative of the Flat Earth Society to argue that the space station must be fake because there is no way to "orbit" a flat earth.
Argument from incredulity. consists of simple "I cannot believe" statements, which you have been using frequently. You have now reached argumentum ad nauseam (or WIkipedia's version, if you prefer), which is against the following part of the comments policy.
Comments should avoid excessive repetition. Discussions which circle back on themselves and involve endless repetition of points already discussed do not help clarify relevant points. They are merely tiresome to participants and a barrier to readers. If moderators believe you are being excessively repetitive, they will advise you as such, and any further repetition will be treated as being off topic.
Scientists don't prove things, and "challenges" that have been repeatedly debunked to not deserve examination again, and again, and again, and again, and again. See argumentum ad nauseam again (and again, and again, until it sinks in).
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Petra Liverani at 15:34 PM on 10 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Nigel @85
"You have to 1)provide hard proof of conspiracies and 2) hard proof that anomalies dont have innocent explanations."
I never use the word conspiracy, Nigel, as the only kind of conspiracy I'm interested in are psychological operations so the only term I ever use is psyop. It's funny how the term "conspiracy theorist" is applied to a number of people who don't necessarily speak in terms of conspiracy themselves nor concern themselves too much with the conspiracy side of things.
I'm not concerned with the conspiracy side of things, I'm simply concerned with what the information available tells us.
What I'd say needs to be put forward for the case for a real pandemic are undisputed facts that support it, not disputed claims, as undisputed facts can certainly be put forward that are completley consistent with and tend to favour the fake pandemic hypothesis. If only disputed claims can be put forward for the real pandemic hypothesis we do have to wonder about that. Of course, I don't suggest that just because a claim is disputed it's false but it doesn't look good, does it, if only disputed claims can be put forward for your hypothesis while for the opposing hypothesis undisputed facts can be put forward.
Undisputable facts that are either consistent with or favour the fake pandemic hypothesis
1. Without bombardment from government and media we would have no clue that there was a dangerous pandemic (outside normal seasonal flu and cold pandemic).
2. The alleged covid does not have a set of symptoms that distinguishes it from cold, flu and other respiratory illnesses.
3. The PCR test is not a diagnostic test and yet it is used to determine cases of covid with no requirement for clinical diagnosis - in fact, if someone shows no symptoms they are designated "asymptomatic". The combined "lack of diagnostic test" with "asymptomatic" is the perfect combo, no?Moderator Response:[BL] Every single claim of yours that "it can be faked" is - at a fundamental level - an acceptance of a conspiracy theory, whether you use the word or not.
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:13 AM on 10 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra,
Nonsense. These are normal, early steps to be taken in the initial stages of a suspected outbreak of what seems to be a new disease. That is what epidemiological vigilance consists of. Further steps ensue once the pathogen has been identified and confirmed to be either a known one or something new. Trying to color this with nefarious intent by the use of the grandiloquent language you inflict on everyone simply shows a level of paranoia that prevents logical thinking entirely.
I note that you used this to deflect and change the subject from rationalizing away the impossible tasks faced by the so-called actors hired to play out the supposedly fake disease. In fact, you did not address a single one of the points I made.
I am still waiting for your explanations. How does one "imaginary patient" create all the diagnosis findings, including hypoxia, ground glass opacities, etc and test negative for the whole respiratory panel to the exception of SARS CoV2? You put forth the conspiracy theory, the onus is on you to make it believable. So far I see only hand waving and deflection.
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nigelj at 10:03 AM on 10 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra @80
"What I'm talking about is points favouring one hypothesis over an opposing hypothesis and doing the same the other way."
The problem is the points you put forward didn't really favour your fake covid hypothesis. They can either be argued either way, or were irrelevant or silly. This was all obvious in Eclectics respsonse. And I could take various historical events and find points that favour a faked hypothesis, eg the 911 tragedy. This doesn't make it fake of course, because you have to look widely at things.
I'm trying to get across to you that your a line of thinking ultimately goes nowhere, and doesnt prove anything. You have to 1)provide hard proof of conspiracies and 2) hard proof that anomalies dont have innocent explanations. Its the same standard of proof we apply to anything else in life whether science, criminal cases, etc, etc, so why not conspiracies?. There is no reason not to. So you tell me why we shouldnt require hard proof of conspiracies?
"I can say that the fact that we, as individuals, would never know that there was a pandemic unless government and media told us is perfectly consistent with fake pandemic."
We would know precious little about the world of current events if the governmnet and media didn't keep us informed. Using your idea you could claim everything is faked. And you are ignoring that plenty of research has been written on covid, that can be googled and purchased, so not needing the media or government, and so you have to claim that is all a conspiracy as well, which becomes more and more impossible to take seriously.
"Are there any facts you can put forward that simply cannot be refuted that favour real over fake?"
I gave you three links. I believe their points are largely irrefutable. Some people might dispute the claims, but I dont care about that. I'm highly educated and quite happy with my ability to determine what is credible, and other sensible, highly qualified people accept the covid data. Not interested in what the flat earthers have to say.
"you need to use claims that are disputed, for example, numbers of covid cases and covid mortality statistics"
There a difference between disputed claims on exacly how many people have died and the fact that a lot of people have clearly died. You seem to think the dispute suggests its all a conpiracy. The more logical conclusion is its hard to measure precisely and some countries might like to downplay the data. I've said this before, but you dont seem to understand and largely ignore most of the points people raise because they dont fit with your narrative.
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MA Rodger at 01:16 AM on 10 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra Lnerani @82,
Seriously?
You perhaps didn't pick up the 'tell' at 1:58 into the video where it says:"Every thinking person knows; this is absolute nonsense."
And of course the "this" refers to Frank's little video.
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Petra Liverani at 23:30 PM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Philippe @76
"There had been multiple warnings, including H1N1, H5N1, MERS, SARS CoV-1, an others."
Well, yes, indeed there were multiple "warnings".
This is an article about SARS-1 (horrible background I'm afraid)
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/health/sars.shtml
I quote below. Sound familiar?
"Health officials have developed these guidelines for suspected and probable cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).- Respiratory illness of unknown cause since Feb. 1st, 2003.
- Temperature greater than 100.4 degrees.
- One or more symptoms of respiratory illness such as cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing.
- Within 10 days of symptoms, the patient travelled to a place where SARS has spread in the community or had close contact with a suspected SARS victim.[7]
Not one single symptom distinguishing SARS from any other flu-like illness, except international travel? Somebody tell me this is a joke. At the beginning of the SARS ‘crisis, the Hong Kong health minister was interviewed’ by the BBC News Night team. Like a single tree falling silently in the forest, he admitted there was no definitive test for SARS and that this illness is identified by a particularly vague set of symptoms. He also admitted that its description covers a multitude of existing syndromes.[8] Needless to say, the interviewer did not ask whether these SARS deaths might therefore be attributable to an existing, common illness. The World Health Organisation has also admitted that a large number of suspect SARS cases turn out, on further investigation, to have other common causes.[9]"
Moderator Response:[BL} Very early in this discussion I warned people to not turn this into a discussion of the science of Covid - and related illnesses are getting way off topic.
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Petra Liverani at 23:05 PM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
MA Rodger @77
The link was to the 3.5 hour film, JFK to 9/11 Everything is a Rich Man's Trick. Research since has taught me the filmmaker's got a few things wrong and there's a couple of golden nuggets he misses but it's still probably still the most eye-opening document I've looked at. -
Eclectic at 23:01 PM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra Liverani @80 ,
The one point, PCR test, proves uniquely the Covid pandemic. Testing, proved by different laboratories throughout the world (except Antarctica).
I get the shadow of a hint of a faint suspicion that your persistent ignoring of the PCR evidence . . . points to you pulling the collective leg of readers.
Or that perhaps you live in Antarctica, and don't get out much.
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Petra Liverani at 22:10 PM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Nigel @74
"Basically i could take almost any historicial event and write 5 or 10 points suggesting it could have been staged. Its not hard and proves nothing. Many facts can be explained both in conventional ways and as a staged event."
What I'm talking about is points favouring one hypothesis over an opposing hypothesis and doing the same the other way. I don't think the nature of reality allows it to be done both ways, it can only be done for the correct hypothesis.
So what I put to you, Nigel, is to put forward a case for the real pandemic hypothesis favouring fake.
I can say that the fact that we, as individuals, would never know that there was a pandemic unless government and media told us is perfectly consistent with fake pandemic. It doesn't rule out a real pandemic perhaps but it's perfectly consistent with fake and I'd say tends to favour it but it's just the one point and not conclusive.
Are there any facts you can put forward that simply cannot be refuted that favour real over fake? Of course, you can argue that there aren't necessarily any claims that aren't disputed that support real over fake, you need to use claims that are disputed, for example, numbers of covid cases and covid mortality statistics, but that you believe those statistics and so they're good enough for you. But if you're willing to engage, can you put forward any undisputed claims that favour real over fake? -
Philippe Chantreau at 09:31 AM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Indeed, to Moliere's own death and collapsing on stage while playing the Imaginary Patient.
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Eclectic at 07:52 AM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Philippe @76 :
Well said. You set a very high bar for conspiracy theorists to jump over ~ but they will try to jump (and will succeed, if only in their own minds).
Yes, an actor who agrees to die, is certainly a Method Actor.
Please be kind enough to expand on your Moliere reference, which largely has gone over my head. I have only heard of the titles of his works; never read them. Probably my first encounter with Moliere was via the Scaramouche novel ~ where the trajectory of the protagonist does indeed slightly follow Moliere's earlier life.
Were you alluding to "The Imaginary Patient" . . . or to Moliere's own death ( Tuberculosis of the lungs, I gather) . . . or to something else . . . or all of the above? [Rather off-topic, but interesting, in this chaotic thread.]
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MA Rodger at 06:41 AM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra Liverani @69,
I'm not then sure why you should be ceaselessly amaze (as you say you are @67) by "that type of response" if such response "is common to all arguments."
And within an interchange, if the recipient of "the fact ...knows the fact has no value as a meaningful argument," they would presumably point to it being a statement of "no value" and not let it pass unanswered as though it did have value.
And beyond prevnting your coment @69 from passing unanswered, I am intrigued to know what this world-inverting "link in FB" would be which you mention @73. -
One Planet Only Forever at 06:13 AM on 9 July 2022SkS Analogy 4 - Ocean Time Lag
Evan,
It appears that you may be doing the most that can be expected of a individual – pursue increased awareness and improved understanding and apply it to be less harmful and more helpful. But changes of individual actions are only part of the solution (note: ‘individualism’ is identified as a specific strategy of ‘discourse of climate (action) delay’ presented in the Cambridge Core article “Discourses of climate delay” that is referred to by the Desmog article “Climate Deniers and the Language of Climate Obstruction” that BaerbelW provided a link to in comment 1 on the SkS post “Skeptical Science tackles 'discourses of climate delay' and 'solutions denial'”.)
The following quote about the ‘individualism discourse’ is from the Cambridge Core presentation:
“Who is responsible for taking climate action? Policy statements can become discourses of delay if they purposefully evade responsibility for mitigating climate change. A prominent example is individualism, which redirects climate action from systemic solutions to individual actions, such as renovating one's home or driving a more efficient car. This discourse narrows the solution space to personal consumption choices, obscuring the role of powerful actors and organizations in shaping those choices and driving fossil fuel emissions (Maniates, Reference Maniates2001). Blame shifting in this way can be explicit – “Yale's guiding principles are predicated on the idea that consumption of fossil fuels, not production, is the root of the climate change problem” (Yale University). But it can also be implicit, such as in the social media campaign run by BP – “Our ‘Know your carbon footprint’ campaign successfully created an experience that not only enabled people to discover their annual carbon emissions, but gave them a fun way to think about reducing it – and to share their pledge with the world.”
This is not to suggest that individual actions are futile. Rather, a more productive discourse of responsibility would focus attention on the collective potential of individual actions to stimulate normative shifts and build pressure towards regulation. It would also recognize that regulations and structural shifts are complementary to supporting individual behaviour change.”
Note that in spite of Yale University producing/hosting Yale Climate Connections the high level position of Yale is less helpful than it could be.
So, in addition to pursuing increased awareness and improved understanding of how to change what you do to reduce the harm done by what you do, it is important to politically engage in efforts to help others be more aware and better understand the required changes to help achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals (less global warming helps). One way to do that is to understand the importance of, and ways to improve, political policy pursuits like Green New Deals. One improvement I note regarding most Green New Deal presentations is adding mention of the importance of limiting consumption combined with limiting how harmful the remaining consumption is.
That circles back to the 10% causing 50% concern you raised. The better way to think about the solution is that a major problem is the desires of the other 90% to develop to be like the ‘10% most superior humans’. Those ‘10% most superior humans’ need to set a ‘superior’ sustainable example for the 90% to aspire to. They need to dramatically reduce their consumption and constantly pursue ways for their reduced consumption to be less harmful and more helpful to others including future generations.
As far as helping others, I would suggest you can relax about concerns that you personally fail to be more helpful to those who live less than a decent basic life. That guilt trip is part of the ‘individualism discourse of delay’. My perspective is that collective government action at all levels (municipal up to national and international) is the best mechanism to help people sustainably improve their lives to at least decent basic lives. Acts of charity should be able to focus on the joy, for the charity giver and recipient, of providing improvements beyond that basic decent life. It is a tragedy to expect individual actions to address a systemic problem like a portion of the population not being able to live at least a decent basic life. Economic development can only be part of the systemic solution to poverty if the economic activity is sustainable and harmless. That said, I support groups like Red Cross, Food Banks, pursuits of sustainable assistance for the Homeless, Amnesty International ...
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Philippe Chantreau at 06:12 AM on 9 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
What is plausible and what is not. An interesting question to consider when faced with disinformation.
Anyone who knows anything about microbiology knew that it was always a matter of when this would happen, not a matter of if. It was discussed in my microbiology class. I wrote a short paper in that context. There were large scale epidemics before, they halways had been limited by the means of transportation of people, the speed of such means, and the modes of transmission of the disease. Anyone with even vague notions of microbiology knew that, with global travel of people going at 80% of the speed of the sound throughout the World, a global pandemic of a respiratory illness was not just probable, but inevitable. There had been multiple warnings, including H1N1, H5N1, MERS, SARS CoV-1, an others. So, in summary, if "someone had told" me, back in 2019 about this coming, I would not have been the least bit surprised. But then again, it's not like I knew nothing of the subject.
Add to that wild animal populations under ever increasing pressure from humans, with contact between humans and wild reservoirs increasing in frequency and all the ingredients are gathered. This was common knowledge and was the reason why there were plans for possible pandemics being worked out well over 20 years ago.
Now, let's consider that it's a "fake disease" and that everyone who has been critically ill from this was, possibly, an actor. You'll need lots of them. Said actors will have to simulate shortness of breath well enough to convince EMS personnel, but also should be able to reduce their measurable pulse oximetry while breathing at or above 35 breaths per minute. These patients were routinely found struggling, with a pulse oximetry in the 70s or lower. That is a feat of acting. Then, once they got to the hospital, they had to keep up the act and be able to produce a sample of arterial blood showing severe hypoxia and often hypocarbia as well, without acidosis and even some alkalosis in many cases, because of the low CO2. Of course, they also will need to create patchy ground glass opacities on x-ray that are characteristic of the fake disease, and CT findings to match. Now, keep in mind that you'll have to train tens of thousands of people to do this. Since there is not really a way to simulate it, it has to actually be done. I'll leave to the conspiracy theorists what means could be used to achieve that goal. A drug? Poison? Some alien technology? There has to be something.
Then, once these actors are hospitalized, they will have to continue with their act, persisting in their inability to exchange gases, but now in a much more controlled environment where whatever means was used to cause the symptoms and "simulate" disease can be more readily identified by health care personnel. Unless, of course, said personnel are in on it. I did not see any significant increase in my pay, and nobody talked to me about this, could have I missed out?
Considering their acuity, these people will be in a unit where they will have nursing care 24 hours a day, and will be on a monitor continuously measuring their heart rate, repiratory rate, pulse oximetry, you could add end-tidal CO2, and blood pressure every 15 minutes or continuous with an arterial line. So, if the hypoxia is simulated by use of a substance, it would be much more likely to be detected.
Of course, now these "actors" are so invested in the whole scheme, we are discussing what to do if they need to be intubated and put on a ventilator (breathing machine), how far we'll go with support, re-assessing what to do in case of cardio-respiratory arrest, etc. That is some serious acting. The better ones of them manage to also raise their D-dimer and throw clots in their pulmonary arteries, because acting is just literally in their blood. Meanwhile, we are furiously testing for every respiratory pathogen known and the only one that turns out positive is the SARS Cov2. That means inevitably that all the labs are in on it as well, whether they are part of a hospital system or independent.
Then, they push the act to the point where they can no longer survive unless the work of breathing goes to a machine. The best ones decline and decide to die, Moliere would approve. I guess they figured with all the money they made from their "act" their families will easily be able to move out of the trailer into a real house. Except the ones who don't need money that badly, who knows their motive?
Others go on the vent. Hypoxia persists, of course, because their lungs are essentially destroyed. They are so good at acting that they can give the appearance (and functionality) of ground glass opacity to 85% of their lung tissue. We can't maintain a p/F ration conducive to life with them unless we flip them on their stomach and paralyze them to ensure total compliance with the vent. Oscar nominations on the way. At the height of the Delta wave, our ICU is full of nothing but them, and the other critical patients not positive for the fake disease have to be bedded in a nearby unit.
This would mean that there would have to be even more people engaged in supporting the work of the actors than the actors themselves. Whatever they are using to cause the symptoms would have to elude highly knowledgeable and experienced EMS, physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, pathologists, lab workers, unless of course we are all in on it, and we all go along and are eager to participate. Millions of dedicated professionals eager to participate in a fraud and disregard all the principles that guided them through their lives up to that point. Some would have to be actors themselves and push it unto the lethal end. Others would have to see their relatives do that.
Plausibility scales and Occam's Razor can certainly point in a given direction...
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Evan at 22:02 PM on 8 July 2022SkS Analogy 4 - Ocean Time Lag
OPOF thanks for your references and comments.
Some are quick to note that 10% of the people cause 50% of the GHG emissions (read here). Get rid of the 10% of the biggest emitters (that probably includes me), and we still have a monumental problem.
I think about the harm my emissions are doing, and I'm trying to minimize them. I drive an EV, eat predominantely vegetarian, planning to install geothermal heat pumps for home heating/cooling. I don't fly for pleasure anymore. But my GHG emissions are still unsustainably high, and I don't know what to do about it. I care about those suffering the consequences of my actions, but simply don't know how to drop my emissions to a sustainable level.
It is not just the wealthy, greedy people causing the problem. It is also ordinary, decent, hard-working people who have grown up in an age where fossil fuels power society. Many acts of kindness and charity carry a carbon footprint. It is impossible to do anything in our society without some level of carbon emission.
And this is part of what makes it such an insidious problem to solve.
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nigelj at 17:41 PM on 8 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Ooops. I meant the Sanish Killer flu of 1919.
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nigelj at 17:39 PM on 8 July 2022How to inoculate yourself against misinformation
Petra Liverani @73
"Who would have thought three years ago that the world would have been turned upside down by a respiratory illness? If someone had told you in 2019, "Hey guess what? Because of a new respiratory illness, no one will be allowed to travel for months, we'll all have to stay home, we'll all have to go around in masks, we'll have to take a series of jabs if we want to visit our parents in their nursing home and won't be allowed to visit loved ones in hospital, a vastly greater number of people will work from home, etc," would you have believed it possible?"
I was expecting something like Covid to come along, ever since reading about the Spanish killer flu of 2019 a few years back. I thought it was just a matter of time and that the world was a bit overdue for sometthing like covid. I thought the world would mobilise mask wearing and speed up vaccine rollout. I did not think countries would have the courage to lockdown economies, but after seeing Italy I can see why it happened.
Basically i could take almost any historicial event and write 5 or 10 points suggesting it could have been staged. Its not hard and proves nothing. Many facts can be explained both in conventional ways and as a staged event. To prove a conspiracy you do actually need hard proof, not circumstantial evidence, and you need to show anomalies cannot possibly have simple innocent explanations. Imho you have failed in all of this regarding covid.
The second half of your comments is typical thinking of conspiracy theorsts. Some people are very prone to conspiracy thinking:
psychcentral.com/blog/conspiracy-theories-why-people-believe
As I previously stated some conspiracies are real and proven, and obviously we should all have a healthy scepticim of the authorities. I certainly do. But large conspiracies are implausible because of the practical impossibilities of organising them and keeping them secret.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:26 PM on 8 July 2022SkS Analogy 4 - Ocean Time Lag
Evan,
This is a good update of the presentation of the technical points regarding future global temperatures.
The future depends on the rapidity of changes (or delay of changes) of how humans live to limit the harm done by accumulating global warming impacts. The future temperature depends on the collective actions by humans today and in the future. And the tragic starting point is the current damage done and the time required for the massive required corrections of how people live due to the lack of responsible limiting of harmful over-consumption through the past 30 years.
I have one important point of elaboration.
In addition to climate “... scientists, such as James Hansen, refer(ring) to global warming as an inter-generational issue, because the time lag means that the heating due to our emissions are only fully felt by later generations.”, policy development experts such as Stephen M. Gardiner have presented the ethical and moral hazard of expecting the developed socioeconomic-political systems to effectively and equitably limit the damaging climate change impacts. Developing sustainable solutions requires significant systemic changes.
Stephen M. Gardiner’s book “A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change” presents an important perspective (note it was written in 2011). The book should be read in its entirety. But a reasonable understanding can be obtained by reading the abstract and the summary statements regarding each chapter of the contents on the following Oxford University Press Scholarship Online website for the book.
The following is a key point in the Abstract: “...the key issue is that the current generation, and especially the most affluent, are in a position to pass on most of the costs of their behavior (and especially the most serious harms) to the global poor, future generations and nonhuman nature. This tyranny of the contemporary is a deeper problem than the traditional tragedy of the commons.”
The ‘human caused global warming and resulting climate change’ problem is a case of some people benefiting from actions that are unsustainable and harmful to others. The ‘benefit by some causing harm to others’ distinguishes the climate change challenge from a tragedy of the commons problem (where all those benefiting from the commons are harmed by the collective damage and over-consumption). And human caused global warming is not the only development where Others who are harmed have little or no ability to limit the harm done to them and get those who harm them to make full amends and reparations for the harm done.
Rather than just saying global warming is inter-generational, it is important to understand that human caused global warming is one of many developed international and inter-generational tragedies that the developed systems fail to effectively govern because the people who benefit from the damaging unsustainable activity can, and will, misleadingly manipulate public beliefs to powerfully compromise the governing of things and to protect their interests.
