Re: global warming is b/s? nice hatchet job

["Tomas L. Byrnes" <tomb () byrneit net>]

Ah yes, if you can't discuss the facts, mock your interlocutor.

The earth is warming, that's a fact. Man's effect might be to warm it
through greenhouse gasses, or cool it through soot and particulate
emissions. It's most likely to warm it. Why is that necessarily such a
bad thing?

BTW: I'm old enough to remember the "Club of Rome" nuttiness in the
'70s. I'm just skeptical when we're told the Sky Is Falling, and that we
must therefore give the people who are telling this control over every
aspect of our lives.

The use of science as a justification for statism does not have a pretty
history.



-----Original Message-----
From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org]
On Behalf Of Alex Eckelberry
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 8:08 AM
To: Rich Kulawiec; funsec
Subject: Re: [funsec] global warming is b/s? nice hatchet job

> so perhaps it's expecting far too much of them to grasp a complex
multivariate stochastic process.

I completely agree.  I was discussing global warming with a co-worker,
who believes that it's all hogwash.  I asked, curiously, if they were
familiar with just once key and relatively simple concept  --
thermohaline circulation.  

A blank look.  

Ok, that was maybe a hardball question, so I stepped it down.  I then
asked if they were familiar with the concept of convection.  A blank
look -- I then explained "that's how the hot water gets spread out in
your bathtub".  They were amazed at the science. 

The problem is on both sides, however.  Many people who believe in
global climate change also don't understand even the basics of the
science, but take it up because it's in line with the political beliefs.


Your point about ice breakups is a good one.  This is feedback in
action, something which no model can predict -- and it's the scariest
part of the problem. 

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org]
On Behalf Of Rich Kulawiec
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 8:36 AM
To: funsec
Subject: Re: [funsec] global warming is b/s? nice hatchet job

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 07:01:42PM +0300, Gadi Evron wrote:
> wow, just... wow. Even if this is real it is a master-piece of how to 
> discredit, write fake and unsubstantiated:

Quite.  The pity is that some of lesser intelligence will actually
believe this nonsense.  Then again, some of the same apparently think
the earth is 6,000 years old, so perhaps it's expecting far too much of
them to grasp a complex multivariate stochastic process.

BTW, I've been doing some reading on sea ice breakup mechanisms -- some
of which are well understood, some of which are partially understood --
and one of the things that's becoming clear is that cracking seems to
have far more of an accelerative effect than previously thought.  In
2001, the IPCC said that major ice retreat would probably not occur
before 2100.  In 2007, some of the folks at NOAA said that by 2050,
summer ice would be gone.  And in 2008, an NSDIC report stated that
sumer ice could be gone by 2030: Arctic amplification (which wasn't
expected to kick in for another decade) has pushed the melt cycle past
the tipping point.

See for instance:

        
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

All of which indicates that the most pessimistic models...aren't yet
pessimistic enough.

---Rsk
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