A Civil Heretic’s Take on Global Warming
BY: NCViking
Freeman Dyson is considered by many one of the preeminent physicists of our time, he is also an Anthropogenic CO2-caused Global Warming Climate Change skeptic that has garnered the ridicule of many. He has been branded “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and “a mad scientist.” At 85 years old, it is easy to dismiss him as losing his mind, but according to a neurologist friend of his, this is definitely not the case. Freeman Dyson also does not have a PhD, though is widely recognized and decorated by over 21 honorary degrees from some of the world’s preeminent universities. He is also not a climatologist, but a scientist who insists his broad view of the subject gives him enhanced clarity and that so-called experts are too often crippled by the mistaken belief that they “know it all”. Dyson also has an aversion to consensus in science and claims the evidence is insufficient to draw the conclusions that have been “supposedly” agreed upon. He is a humanist who advocates using our time and energy on more practical issues that effect us and ones we can have impact over, like war, famine, species extinction, overfishing, deforestation, etc.
It’s a shame I feel the need to call out his credentials and defend his mind set prior to listing his opinions on Global Warming Climate Change, but the ignorance-powered runaway AGW ideology train requires I do so. Even though doing this doesn’t stop this religious locomotive from running over him and the many others who disagree using tracks of subjective dismissal on it’s way to profoundly change our lives.
Below is from an excellent article in the New York Times about Dyson called “The Civil Heretic“. The writeup is very long so I just pulled out his opinions on the subject of AGW below. If you want to read the full article, follow the link.
Dyson says he doesn’t want his legacy to be defined by climate change, but his dissension from the orthodoxy of global warming is significant because of his stature and his devotion to the integrity of science. Dyson has said he believes that the truths of science are so profoundly concealed that the only thing we can really be sure of is that much of what we expect to happen won’t come to pass. In “Infinite in All Directions,” he writes that nature’s laws “make the universe as interesting as possible.”
Among those he considers true believers, Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, whom Dyson calls climate change’s “chief propagandist,” and James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and an adviser to Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dyson accuses them of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee a Grand Guignol of imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth, and he blames the pair’s “lousy science” for “distracting public attention” from “more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.”
“The climate-studies people who work with models always tend to overestimate their models,” Dyson was saying. “They come to believe models are real and forget they are only models.” Climate models, he says, take into account atmospheric motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of sky, soil and trees. “The biologists have essentially been pushed aside,” he continues. “Al Gore’s just an opportunist. The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers.”
The warming, he says, is not global but local, “making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.” Far from expecting any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, he says the carbon may well be salubrious — a sign that “the climate is actually improving rather than getting worse,” because carbon acts as an ideal fertilizer promoting forest growth and crop yields. “Most of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is now,” he contends, “and substantially richer in carbon dioxide.” Dyson calls ocean acidification, which many scientists say is destroying the saltwater food chain, a genuine but probably exaggerated problem. Sea levels, he says, are rising steadily, but why this is and what dangers it might portend “cannot be predicted until we know much more about its causes.”
Dyson has said that it all boils down to “a deeper disagreement about values” between those who think “nature knows best” and that “any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil,” and “humanists,” like himself, who contend that protecting the existing biosphere is not as important as fighting more repugnant evils like war, poverty and unemployment.
Dyson has great affection for coal and for one big reason: It is so inexpensive that most of the world can afford it. “There’s a lot of truth to the statement Greens are people who never had to worry about their grocery bills,” he says. (“Many of these people are my friends,” he will also tell you.) To Dyson, “the move of the populations of China and India from poverty to middle-class prosperity should be the great historic achievement of the century. Without coal it cannot happen.” That said, Dyson sees coal as the interim kindling of progress. In “roughly 50 years,” he predicts, solar energy will become cheap and abundant, and “there are many good reasons for preferring it to coal.”
Dyson says it’s only principle that leads him to question global warming: “According to the global-warming people, I say what I say because I’m paid by the oil industry. Of course I’m not, but that’s part of their rhetoric. If you doubt it, you’re a bad person, a tool of the oil or coal industry.” Global warming, he added, “has become a party line.”
What may trouble Dyson most about climate change are the experts. Experts are, he thinks, too often crippled by the conventional wisdom they create, leading to the belief that “they know it all.”
Dyson says he thinks they sound presumptuous. As he warned that day four years ago at Boston University, the history of science is filled with those “who make confident predictions about the future and end up believing their predictions,” and he cites examples of things people anticipated to the point of terrified certainty that never actually occurred, ranging from hellfire, to Hitler’s atomic bomb, to the Y2K millennium bug. “It’s always possible Hansen could turn out to be right,” he says of the climate scientist. “If what he says were obviously wrong, he wouldn’t have achieved what he has. But Hansen has turned his science into ideology. He’s a very persuasive fellow and has the air of knowing everything. He has all the credentials. I have none. I don’t have a Ph.D. He’s published hundreds of papers on climate. I haven’t. By the public standard he’s qualified to talk and I’m not. But I do because I think I’m right. I think I have a broad view of the subject, which Hansen does not. I think it’s true my career doesn’t depend on it, whereas his does. I never claim to be an expert on climate. I think it’s more a matter of judgment than knowledge.”
(About An Inconvenient Truth) “I think Gore does a brilliant job,” Dyson said. “For most people I’d think this would be quite effective. But I knew Roger Revelle. He was definitely a skeptic. He’s not alive to defend himself.” “He certainly is a good preacher,” Dyson replied. “Forty years ago it was fashionable to worry about the coming ice age. Better to attack the real problems like the extinction of species and overfishing. There are so many practical measures we could take.”
I blog about this subject quite a bit because I believe it to be one of significant importance. Not so much in the predicted dire consequences of AGW by some; but in the gross fallibility in the theory and the hysteria, defamation, indoctrination, enviro-rioting, politics, policy and other goofy actions being considered by our government and many others around the world that may have dire consequences on our lives. Dissent is growing and growing and growing for good reason. Ignoring and subjectively dismissing this dissent is akin to foolishness. Speaking of which, here is our favorite comedic fool opining on the subject of Global Warming Climate Change: Steven Crowder …
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This guy… this Dyson guy… he is such a tool for Big Oil. I mean, look at his hair… and his ears. He is obviously mad. Next thing he will say is that the Holocaust did not happen, or that the Earth is flat. Denying man made Global Warming is like denying the sun will come up. Is it any coincidence that his guy’s name is the same name used in Terminator as the guy who invented the technology that made the man-destroying machine’s possible? He is obviously indifferent to anything buy his giant Chevy Suburban which he uses to drive through local community gardens and running over little kitties and puppies.
Viking, why do you hate our pets so much?
I am hugely interested in the global warming debate and read up often and almost as often change sides. I don’t believe i am guilty of flip flopping, but learning more every time I do read something. I believe that having few years left on the planet may jade your opinion. I believe in global warming due to human influence,AND natural cycles leading to ice ages and subsequent warming. I feel both sides are again exaggerating their claims to gain audiences. I understand that sensationalism makes the news more interesting, but personally find it disturbing. CO2 emmissions are a problem that we must address. Alternate fuels must be explored. Green energy is possible, though may need to be subsidising by fossil fuels.We borrow this planet from our children. Lets try to leave it a better place than we found, or minimally do no harm. I always try to leave rental properties I have leased in better condition than I found them. It it a pride thing more than deposit(though currently money has been a motivator). Dyson should be thinking clean the oven, mop the floor, before his lease runs out.
Dyson, according to the characterization in the article is fastidious, so I wouldn’t worry about him being clean
. He also believes in leaving the planet in better shape and feels the (debatable) CO2-based AGW stuff is taking valuable resources away from other known worthy causes.
Proud… I agree with you almost all the way (despite my tongue-in-cheek response off the bat). There has to be balance approach to all of this, and we need to be good stewards of this planet. I just object to the huge government, tax us to oblivian, unfriendly and hypocritical approach to the matter.
For example, if environmentalists were serious about the “pollutant” CO2, they would be serious about nuclear energy, which produces zero CO2, but they are against that too. They would also not be against windmills in Cape Cod (Kennedys) or solar panels in Mohave (Feinstein).
It appears, and I may be wrong, that Environmentalists have been throwing things up on the wall for years to halt technology development and personal freedom in order to get to a place where our belief that we are superior to the beasts of the world is proven completely false. They want others to change the way they work and live, but they do not want to lose any of their comforts.
We can not “drill baby drill” forever, but we certainly can take the balanced approach advocated by you and others which will lead to not only picking up cans, but a prosperous capitalistic society.
Human influenced co2 emissions are not debatable, this is real. It is bad, now the debate “how bad is it”. Refusing to acknowledge there is a problem is irresponsible, as would turning off all coal fired plants. Today it is no longer true that actions speak louder than words as the word is every where and actions are few. Doesn’t mean don’t act though. A/C is run in my home only when heat inside exceeds 78. Heat comes on at 65. I do ride a bike where it is practical. I don’t allow the store to bag the milk or cat food.I do buy local goods where ever possible (not necessarily the cheaper goods). I am doing what I can and try to encourage others to do the same.
Proud… I hear you, but I have only issue on your assumption that CO2 emmissions are bad. I don’t think there is enough information in to make that assumption. We don’t even know if it is bad if the average temperature of the earth would increase 1 or 2 degrees. There are plenty of scientists who have argued that people are more likely to die from cold than heat, and increased carbon dioxide would increase production of trees, plants, and food… which is beneficial to the environment as well.
more co2 also equals less oxygen.A simple experiment can be performed with common materials to support my claim. Twist tie your head in a plastic bag.
Proud… accordinng to Wiki (not the greatest source in most cases, but this one is pretty uncontroversial), the Earth’s atmosphere is made up of “roughly (by volume) 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases.”
I don’t think we are in any danger of squeezing the oxygen out.
The notion that AGW is a huge spending boondogle and that ignoring AGW will somehow save us all that money is ridiculous. Regardless of the cause of GW, the continued rise in GW has serious ecological impact that will require humans to adopt (read, stop doing what you are doing now and do something else). Agriculture and industries requiring water supplies would be the most affected.
- whether the earth cools or heats up, humans will have to adapt. Higher temperatures will cause some areas to no longer produce food (such as much of the Sudan). It will also increase the number of insects world wide. Efficient agriculture (above what we already do in the US) will need to be developed.
- water sources will dry up. Water storage and use technologies will replace current limited water resources.
- lack of snow fall in some areas will affect ground water quantity.
- rising ocean coastlines will displace humans in certain areas: low lying islands and low lying coast lines.
- there may be political disruptions as ill equipped societies cannot cope with changes fast enough.
- The CIA, under GW Bush, has stated that GW is a major threat to the US, so there you go skeptics
Global warming skeptics have a credibility gap: they have historically used non-scientists to argue their points. For example, of the growing, growing, growing links above, I looked at this open letter to the UN. There are 94 names, of which less than 10 are climatologists.
Most notable of these is Timothy Ball, who is famous for denying that CFC’s caused depletion of the Ozone layer. Nature has since proved him quite wrong!
Also notable is his prediction of no net increase in temperatures since 1998. Aside from the serious misuse of statistical data, 2005 was just as hot as 1998. For the last 40 years, temperature trends have been up in a way that coincides with runaway CO2 model predictions.
Although many GW skeptics claim that the problem is just a huge ruse to spend billion if not trillions on dubious engineering projects, not doing anything about GW is very costly. Either way, money is going to have to be applied to the problem.
Wrong. A simple look at the IPCC ice core data shows absolutely nothing is occurring out of the ordinary regarding temperatures. Everything else is speculation and dogma.
BTW – your dismissal of the merits of the open letter signers is an absolute joke. We can let the readers follow the link, read the credentials and come to their own conclusions.
The IPCC ice core data samples shows the record back 800,000 years. Periodically, 4 times so far, there is a warming event that causes the following cycle: as temperatures rise, glaciers melt releasing more of the ocean, which in turn releases more CO2. The process takes approx 600 years.
There is a reason why climate scientists have not come to the conclusion that NC Viking has. It can be shown that CO2 traps infrared. The CO2 accelerates the melting trend and allows the planet to warm consistently (as opposed to being radically cold and warm at the same time of year but at different places in the temperate areas).
There is a measured CO2 rise since 1750 (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html). Modern CO2 did not come from a natural event. It comes from human activity.
Since it is known that CO2 traps heat and since it is known that it is increasing, the logical conclusion is that it will increase global temperatures.
I have stated that AGW skeptics can’t find scientists to support their conclusions. You can imagine that they know about the ice core data and have not changed their views.
I am sure NC Viking is still not convinced.
Again, it hasn’t. We are naturally warming out of the little ice age and the ice core data shows absolutely nothing out of the ordinary cycle of the climate. In fact this current cycle is somewhat cooler than the last. Dr. Carter’s video on the subject is quite enlightening, though Mike dismisses it for his use of sarcasm and humor (nothing to do with the facts); and says it is incomplete, though he is simply presenting the only reliable, measured, lab tested data available and used by the IPCC. Everything else is fallible modeling with unreliable inputs, theory, speculation and dogma.
Here is an interesting link on the causes of the increase in atmospheric CO2. More question marks. I am sure the credentials of the author will also not meet Mike’s personal, subjective litmus test.
Also, here is a pro GW article from NASA on understanding the rising CO2. I noticed a few interesting things within the pro-GW slant. An admission that: “While we are able to accurately measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, much about the processes that govern its atmospheric concentration remains a mystery. Scientists still do not know precisely where all the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere comes from and where it goes.” And it also later points out that “Carbon dioxide generated by human activity amounts to only about four percent (my point: a tiny fraction of a tiny greenhouse gas) of yearly atmospheric uptake or loss of carbon dioxide” and goes on to conclude we are tipping the CO2 balance, yet 1. We don’t even know what that balance is 2. The ice core data shows CO2 up down, up down…historically, naturally 3. We are considering dramatic efforts to fractionally reduce a fraction of a fraction of greenhouse gases and expecting to save the planet. 4. CO2-induced warming is inconclusive at best.
My point is concluding these theories as substantiated enough for dramatic action is foolish. To avoid repeating a long argument, check out the comment string underneath this blog entry between Mike and I to see more debate on this. We go into much more detail in our arguments.
My test is a scientist in climatology, hopefully someone with a long history of climate research, say going back to 1980’s or later. That is not a personal litmus test – it is the basic test of any expert any where.
It is hardly subjective. It is the standard that NASA, NOAA, Washington Post, and other reputable organizations employ.
A post from yet-another-blogger copying data from yet-another-blogger doesn’t meet that standard. Nor does 94 signatories to a letter to the UN from c-class particle physics and geography professors.
Your dismissal of skeptics is nothing but subjective and you are even describing a portion of your litmus test in your last comment. It is a poor debate technique, indicative of a very week argument and a common tactic used by believers of CO2-AGW. Try letting your argument stand on it’s own merit with your counterpoints, and not by belittling and subjectively dismissing skeptics. It would make it more credible.
Is that a fuel tank you two have for heads? That would explain the denial. They have “PRO PA ane running all round their brain”.
NC Viking,
I would say that your habit of quoting c-grade bloggers quoting other bloggers is a weak defense. The only reason you cannot quote a real scientists is because real scientists use rigor that they must defend in public (called the peer-to-peer review).
With my response I provided a reasoned explanation of the ice core data. In other posts I have provided data and links. Your complaint falls of deaf ears: I will not accept 3rd grade non-scientific pseudo science suspect experts.
Your comment also said that “absolutely nothing is occurring out of the ordinary regarding temperatures.” The data in your link for Jennifer Marohasy site refutes your point.
The chart she quotes is form weather questions and shows something remarkable is indeed going on.
Temperatures are approaching those of the Middle Ages Warming Period (MAWP). The question is what is driving these. We know the incidence of sunlight (solar luminosity) and we know the tilt of the earth. They are not the same today as they were during MAWP. Therefore we cannot conclude that they are from the same cause.
This isn’t a normal cycle. A cycle would have expected warming trends every 600 years, which we are not. There is a poor correlation between the warming today and MAWP. Although MAWP was used as an argument by early GW skeptics, these facts have cause cycles to be dropped as an argument.
Next is the observation in your post that scientists don’t know all of the sources of CO2. That is different than saying that they know many of the major sources and can use these sources to project where they will be in future years.
We can measure human activity emission. We can project their growth as development continues: more cars, more home heating, etc… So it is possible to simply say what scientists have bee saying all along: if humans continue to produce CO2 at the levels they have been, then we expect that global temperatures will continue on average to rise.
Dr Carter is a geologist who recently started doing non-peer review publications on climate. I doubt he could pass a peer review. His assertion is that climate warming stopped in 1998.
A quick look at another chart in Jennifer Marohasy site shows how this is an utterly misleading statement. 1998 was an El Nino year, a weather pattern that peaked temperatures. He is using a single high point to base his entire argument. Laughable.
Again, get a real scientist to present counter facts.
Dismissing one of the preeminent physicists of our time, dismissal that there is any silencing of skeptics, an unfounded dismissal of the scientists listed in the U. S. Senate Minority Report because you don’t like Inhofe, and ultimately your unfounded dismissal of the scientists in the open letter is quite frankly ridiculous. Seems as if you are doing this, and blatantly belittling them by calling them 3rd graders, because their peer review of the AGW is skeptical. Are you a PhD Climatologist, renowned Physicist or Geologist? Are you qualified to dismiss the credentials and merits of all of these dissenters out of hand? Again, this is a very poor debate method and doing a great disservice to your argument. Stick to point counterpoint and let the argument stand on it’s substance and merit. I will not fruitlessly feed your personal litmus test when it is so obviously tainted by your opinion on the subject. My argument stands, the readers can decide.
You conveniently did not argue the scientific point. It has turned into a credentials issue.
Expertise matters. I dismissed the 94 using the objective criteria I outlined above: only a handful are climatologist with research credentials. To accept them would be the equivalent of going to a proctologist for legal work.
It’s not that I like or dislike Inhofe. His 650 signatures of “experts” has been dismissed roundly by everyone. It includes science fiction writer Michael Crichton and futurist (and dear friend) Ray Kurzweil – and he is for GW! For a sample of what is being said about it, look here and here. You can’t really believe Inhofe after that last link.
Following the logic in your post, you have disqualified yourself from ever talking about GW since, as you put it your are not a PhD Climatologist, renowned Physicist or Geologist.
Just by the way, Physicists have nothing to do with climate. Geologists can measure what happened in the past, but can’t predict the future (geology measures past events) and unless it’s molten lava cannot predict the future.
But I can tell a climatologist whose been peer reviewed from a blogger with no expertise in the field — and so can you. So stop throwing around pseudo facts from pseudo science.
There is a reason — one which you should at least think about, hopefully answer — as to why experts don’t agree with you.
Just to set the record straight, I said 3rd-grade not 3rd-grader. The best is 1st-grade (or top grade).
I argued in our last comment string on the subject quite thoroughly and listed a link so that all can see the debate and come to their own conclusions. I am also calling out the ‘credentials or subjective dismissal issue’ because you are using it as a means to dismiss my argument and you keep doing so. It’s a poor method of debate and an attempt to shut someone down by spin, indicative of a weak argument. Again, let your argument stand on its merit. I do not subjectively dismiss your sources, references, or other. I counter them with my own. It’s all there, let the readers decide.
Expertise is important, so is reason and debate. A thought that astrophysicists, particle physicists, geologists, botanists, meteorologists, chemists, earth scientists, oceanographers and some of the world’s brightest people have nothing to add scares me. Your attorney analogy is grossly flawed. It is more like trying to understand the human body and mind while only relying on the expertise of an orthopedist. Yes, the Earth is that complex. It’s foolish.
By the way, are the quotes from dissenters in that ‘Inhofe’ link then fabricated? Quite a conspiracy here.
Many qualified people do and I have provided plenty of instances of such that you have subjectively dismissed. Again, dismissing and stifling dissent is quite foolish.
Got it. I misinterpreted this, but it is still wrong.
It was rhetorical aimed at your reasoning and methods, not mine.
Some, it seems, have given up debate and reason to blind faith in so-called experts. This is quite dangerous.
Still no scientists? I’ll post when you get some.
The rest of the reply you posted made little sense. Of course the specialists you list, “astrophysicists, particle physicists, geologists, botanists, meteorologists, chemists, earth scientists, oceanographers and some of the world’s brightest people” have something to add, but it ought to be in their area of expertise, not in some other random specialty that they only marginally understand.
I think by now I have driven my point.
I have listed many of them (including climatologists) countless times including the subject of the post, and they hardly ‘marginally’ understand the subject, it is all interrelated – give me a break. Nice point.
Try to dismiss 32,000 scientists – from PhD’s to BA’s – in many areas who read Hansen’s report and concluded it was junk science – based upon their expertise in reading scientific reports.
Then, what about the 600 others who have recently come out to refute the lack of “scientific” truth – including some who had to sue to have their names removed from the UN’s report – a panel which is NOT made up of scientists.
Then, consider the 5 judges on the panel which awarded Gore his Peace prize. They were socialists and Greenies – not scientists. Remember that there is a Nobel Prize for Science – WHICH GORE DID NOT GET. Then, do some research – find the articles showing the errors in “research” of those who claim the seas are rising, the ice melting, the polar bears drowning. (love the idea they can swim 12 miles to catch a seal for dinner).
Then, go to Icecap’s site and read the articles of specialists in the field. Then, go to the recent Climate Convention held in New York to read the transcripts of those who presented. Then, review the Czech president’s comments about global warming.
Then, review George Soros’s support of Hansen’s report – @ $750.000 worth. Then, review how Gore has bought the company which will be getting him millions as it “cures” global warming.
Then, review the Green Party and the UN’s plans and resolutions to stop using energy as we know it, to reduce the size of our families, to create a One World Order in which IMF will be in control of a One World currency. If that is not enough to convince you that Global Warming – not called Climate change because we’re in an 10 year cooling period – then you really can’t be helped. Oh – Gore had to remove slides from his presentation because they were scientifically wrong. Oh, Gore’s movie used sections from a Hollywood movie to show the ice floes. There are also about 10 other sites made up of educated people who have reviewed the original study and have concluded it is bunk.
That is about 33,000 against global warming and 2 – Gore and Hansen – for – such odds. Oh – remember there was an ice age a few thousands of years ago and – gee whiz – the ice melted!!! Man made global warming ? I don’t think so. Where is the logic?
I could go on because there is so much more. For example – using the data from the same month twice in a chart showing temperature averages. Using November’s info for December will make it seem it is getting warmer. It also points to shoddy scientific research or an attempt to lie about the conclusion. Forgetting to include large areas of the earth in the creation of charts showing temperatures. Using wrong data to show the icecap melting – but it isn’t. Or showing penguins in danger in the North Pole – even though they don’t live there.
This has been a joke but unfortunately the cap and trade policies and taxes will affect us all. The demands to reduce CO2 will break our economies. I tell those who really want to curb the “problem” to plant a tree, protect the Rain forest (I learned that in 6th grade), make parks everywhere, put plants in our homes, hold your breath for 5 minutes out of every one hour. We need to conserve and protect our environment because it is the right thing to do. The end does not justify the means, however, as some have purported. To encourage the climate change fiasco to continue is just ignorant.
Hi Linda, thanks for commenting.
The comments between Mike and I under this particular post are not good debate. He believes that I am unable to provide any credible ’scientist’ to refute the so-called consensus on CO2-based AGW. I believe that the many scientists that I have listed are indeed quite credible, for which he subjectively dismisses, and that my argument stands in the other comment string on it’s merit. If you haven’t yet, check out the point-counter-point of this debate in the comment string under the post: “Meteorologists Censored for Speaking Out Against Climate Change Hysteria“.
Ultimately it comes down to this for me:
In order to buy into the mainstream hysteria on C0-2-caused global warming catastrophe, you need to believe this:
1. Mankind has a total understanding of our climate (or oceans for that matter) to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that anthropogenic CO2 is warming the planet to catastrophe and/or that acid levels in the ocean is due to human activity and not another cause;
2. Mankind has the enormous power and understanding to prevent this huge, complex planet’s warming, cooling or next ice age for that matter; and
3. If Mankind commits trillions of dollars in an effort to reduce his/her collective CO2 footprint there will be a perfect, consistent climate for all creatures to enjoy.
Hi Linda,
– As you have pointed out, the world can to some extent clean up CO2 by planting trees (or plants). Cap and Trade is designed to provide incentives to do so. It would allow a coal burning power plant to offset it’s CO2 emissions by buying and planting trees, or hiring someone to do it. We produce much more CO2 than can be cleaned by plants alone, but it is a very important step to reducing much of the CO2 in the atmosphere.
– Cap and Trade will help the US to keep jobs at home, so long as Cap and Trade taxes CO2 producers like China.
– I don’t believe its 32,000 scientists against 2 – Al Gore and Hansen. There are several objective reasons: you don’t have a source, you don’t source even one, Inhofe would have listed them instead of his ridiculous list of 650. The most egregious part of your post is that there are way more than Gore and Hansen who have written and posted articles about Global Warming.
– Global Warming is not about warming in this decade first last decade. It is about a process that traps infrared rays that when it turn runaway will produce significant (and run away – unstoppable) temperatures. Humans will stop the process before we get that far: technology, etc.. will do it. The question is when are we near what is called the “tipping point.”
– The reason scientists fear the runaway process is because of the significant, unprecedented rise in CO2. While CO2 is produced by a number of sources, including fires, volcanoes, cows, and human activity: burning coal, driving cars, flying planes. Volcanoes have been pretty constant in the last 1000 years, and fires are way down. So people are making a contribution.
– Equally, I don’t believe the accusation that sloppy science has copied the same month twice. The entire GW debate does not rest on a single month of temperatures. It rests of 800,000 years of ice core data. It doesn’t rest on one person, one chart, one month. It is the cummulitive work of thousands of climate scientists.
– Scientists aren’t idiots. In your post you’ve tried to show that scientists showed penguins in the North Pole. You may have seen that in a movie, or YouTube, or blog, or some other unathoritative source, but you can rest assured that scientists who work for reputable institutions would not make such misrepresentations, nor could they keep their jobs if they did. I am sure that on this point NC Viking and I can at least find some common ground.
– There is no Nobel prize for science. There are Nobel Prize’s for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Economics, and, of course, Peace.
– The chemistry of CO2 was established in the 1700’s, so no one is going to an award for that science. Now if you can find a way to chain hydrocarbons as strong as steel and lighter than air, now that would be a chemistry Nobel.
– The physics price usually goes (in recent times) to quantum or sub particle physics. It’s about finding the lowest possible building blocks.
– Finally, the UN isn’t going to take away your right to drive a car or make you use a new world currency. That is ridiculous. The single world currency deserves it’s own little post, which I will add below.
Just a little about the Single World Currency (WC).
The world today already has a single world currency, the US Dollar.
The Single World Currency (WC) does not mean you have to cash in your Dollars and start using new International Notes. It is used to establish a value independent of any one country.
The Dollar was a stable currency until about 2000, when it suddenly started to lose value. The drop in value of the dollar was a major contributor to the rise in world oil prices. Oil producers are very sophisticated and they have a value they establish for their product, which they then express into Dollars.
The problem with the value of the Dollar dropping is that countries like China or Russia, who hold Dollars see their assets dropping. In the US you feel it in food and oil prices. You cannot buy $100 worth of groceries today like you could back in 2002.
The US can no longer backup the value of the Dollar any longer. To do so would require selling gold, and it doesn’t have enough gold to do it. It also cannot pay off it’s creditors. The US has sustained significant deficits through the following: Regan $3.5T, Bush $5.5T, Obama $1.2T, Johnson $1T.
A WC means less inflation and market stability. Here is how that works. Let’s assume we establish a WC and say that 1 WC is equivalent to 1 USD. Oil producers will say a barrel of oil will now be $50 WC, instead of saying $50 USD.
A year from now the Dollar could be worth more, say $1.20 USD = 1 WC. In that case, oil would still be 50 WC, but in this example, oil would only cost us $41.67/ barrel.
More likely, we won’t be any better at managing inflation a year from now, so oil would still be 50 WC, but we would have to pay $60 USD.
Today, oil producers just bump the price to $60.
It’s all in how we manage our money.
This is debatable; some argue negative effects and carbon tariffs could be disastrous. I believe the program is not necessary and will be costly.
Humans contribute about 4% of the earth’s generated carbon dioxide. So cap and trade efforts are aimed at reducing at the very best 15% of this 4%, that is if the world participates. Also, no one is absolutely sure on what the ‘tipping point’ is or even if there is one. There are many credible scientists who believe and many credible scientists who do not. Healthy debate is still going on and attempts to stifle it are dangerous.
I agree, scientists don’t intend on being sloppy and are certainly not idiots. Some can be arrogant and ignorant in thinking they ‘know it all’, like Freeman Dyson points out. They do have very limited and fallible information to work with. The ice core data is probably the best resource for historical data and modern satellite temperature readings for current times. Climate is a very, very complex web to unravel, and we have just a marginal understanding of it. Modeling is what fills in the gaps. Modeling that is inconsistent, variable, limited in inputs (some good, some poor) and full of assumptions. Conclusions of absolution from this fallible modeling is driving policy along with a ‘so-called’ consensus and dismissal of skepticism. This, I believe is quite foolish and I personally speak out about it in this blog.
15% of 4% would be VERY GOOD INDEED. It would be HUGE.
CO2 increase in the atmosphere (the part not absorbed by the oceans) has grown from from 1960 – 2008 by 70 ppm, from 310ppm to 380ppm. I’ll take your number of 4% of the atmosphere. The world, just since 1960, has increased CO2 by 22% of 4%, so 15% would roll back to the 1960’s — and it would keep rolling back as we continued to grow!
The cost depends on what the cost figure includes. Let’s say the cost is $2T. The cost to a company for moving to green technology is equipment replacement. Once the go green they don’t pay any cost whatsoever.
Looking at this completely from a conservative’s point of view, companies will move to the most cost effective solution.
The $2T is an estimate of costs over 8 years. However, it’s not quantified by anyone further. Here is why that’s a scary number than doesn’t mean what you think it means:
- the number could be the amount all companies world wide have to pay. Assuming that world GDP is $40T/yr, then over 8 yrs, world GDP is $320T. Caps and Trade is about 1/2 of 1%.
- the number could be just for US companies. Assuming GDP stays at $14T/yr, that is $112T over 8 years. The cost is 1.5% of GDP.
- the number could assume that no one does anything but pay the tax. If they 100% go to green then at some point some companies are paying $0.
- we could just pay a tax and plant trees. We could give a tax break, then everyone has to pay for the budget shortfall. Then you’d pay for someone reaping a huge benefit. That goes against my free market principles.
- we could just tax CO2 producers: oil, gas, coal etc… You are paying for that tax when you consume those products. But now you would have a choice. You could buy green. Maybe you’d finally like a new home heating system that uses solar; maybe that electric company provides you with wind power. Suddenly you have a choice to not pay. Now that appeals to my free market principles!
About the tipping point. If 70ppm in 40 years rose temperatures, it is not difficult to imagine that the next 40 years will cause a rise of 100ppm. Now we’ll be at 480ppm. The costs of cleanup will be significantly larger. I can’t figure out why paying more, much more, is something you want.
Also, you are willing to accept, tout even, a $2T without “a total understanding of” what’s in it, yet that’s what you require of climate.
Scientists apply confidence values to complex systems. They can tell that smoking will lead to lung cancer without having “a total understanding of” the processes. The analogy works partially, humans are not climates. Climatologists have developed a way to assign confidence. They look at the error factors in a value and they determine both how much higher and lower a value can be. That then determines the confidence.
Scientists are not idiots. Most are not arrogant either. Almost none would venture a scientific conclusion or opinion outside of their area of study.
There is an estimated 384 ppm of CO2 (2007) in the atmosphere. 4% of that is estimated from human activity, which calculates to 15.4 ppm anthropogenic. Lets assume reduction is on that 15.4. If the goal is 15%, that is a reduction of human output of 2.3 ppm. So from 384 to 381 ppm and that’s provided there is stasis from the other 96% naturally occurring CO2. Have I simplified this too much?
Using your 1.5%, this is roughly equivalent to all of the annual federal revenue generated from corporate income taxes, to put it into perspective. That’s quite a financial impact for a problem that doesn’t exist, in my opinion.
How about we not tax.
‘If’, is the key word here. There have been times in our planet’s history of CO2 levels as much as 4400 ppm and temps being similar to today. It’s debatable whether an increase of 100ppm CO2 is even a problem.
This is a poor comparison, and I reported Obama’s own numbers.
This is another poor analogy and assumes a lot. How about pushing a theory as fact that pollen causes lung cancer.
Some can be arrogant. I would also hope people from any part of the scientific community would call out poor methods and modeling used to reach an absolute conclusion and/or prediction, especially one policy makers are using to impact our lives so profoundly. Besides, the CO2-based AGW issue, being as incredibly complex as it is, requires the input of many, many fields, any one of which has the right to object to the conclusions if they find them misleading or wrong.
Listen, this has been covered in the last 200-300 years. It’s called peer review. I know you understand it, I know you know how it works. It takes out all of the sloppy work and misconstrued conclusions.
Peer review is brutal. The banter in this blog is like two long time friends compared to what happens in peer review. I don’t think you’ve ever been in a peer review. The language of the review is professional but biting.
For example, they would say, “The author’s conclusion is not supported by the evidence. The data collected fails to account for mechanisms discussed in Watts[1989]. We recommend not publishing at this time. We are unwilling to review this research further within the current publishing year.” That’s a serious blow for a professor.
I have spoken with hundreds of scientists and doctors and I have never found a single one arrogant.
Actually, you quoted Congressional OMB numbers, but you still don’t understand the number, which surprises me because of your insistence that “a total understanding of” the subject (any subject) is needed. You either have, or have not, a total understanding of it or you should post.
The intent was to show the disparity (some would have used harsher language) between the standard you use to judge AGW and random budget numbers.
It isn’t. The budget is 20% of GDP. Businesses pay 25% of those revenues, so the business tax percentages are 5% of Federal revenues. Individuals make up about 50%, or 10%. Since this a carry through cost, the 1.5% costs are equivalent to the 1/10 of federal taxes. If an individual buys from green companies they pay 0%.
The increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases since the start of the industrial era is to human activity that cannot be satisfactorily explained by natural causes alone. This is clearest for the most recent 50 years, which is the period when most of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations took place and for which the most complete measurements exist.
That is the conclusion of scientists and the IPCC.
From that conclusion, and the papers that go with it, we take the last 50 years, 1960-2010 and measure just the increase, approx 70ppm (380-310ppm). You quoted 384ppm for 2007, consistent with the numbers I gave. CO2 is not uniform across the world.
The 70ppm over 50 years gives an average on 1.2ppm increase per year. CO2 is accumulating at a much faster pace now than it was in 1960, closer to 2.8 instead of 1.2, but we can use the average for this calculation.
The total concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (we both agree) is approx 380ppm, so 15% of that (your number) would be 57ppm. A VERY GOOD NUMBER INDEED.
After my previous post I started to think that you had inadvertently come to the same conclusion that the IPCC reached. We can stop CO2 increase in the atmosphere. Your math proves it!
We can agree on this CO2 chart CO2 chart. You posted it and I’ll accept as probably accurate.
It shows that CO2 being nearly 1000 ppm at the end of the Cretaceous period (end of the giant lizards). Except for a minor bump around 50 million years ago, CO2 has been way (way!) below 400ppm.
The physics of CO2 is well established. CO2 does not need to read 50% of the atmosphere to create a runaway effect. In fact it is likely to be a very serious problem at 6%. Here is an example of what has happened before.
Hansen predicted in congressional testimony 20 years ago that the polar cap would be melting. Prediction that has come true.
So far you have chosen to look at a fact: 384ppm and say nothing wrong, when scientists say anything past 350ppm is unacceptable. You are looking at a fact like: it’s never been this high in 50 million years, and say it’s all good.
Science isn’t good enough, facts aren’t good enough, and reason isn’t good enough. The fact that Inhofe can’t produce a scientist of merit isn’t good enough.
In my last para, I mean to have said
Itappears that nothing is good enough for you. Science isn’t good enough, facts aren’t good enough, and reason isn’t good enough. The fact that Inhofe can’t produce a scientist of merit isn’t good enough.
Some of their peers are saying exactly what you are illustrating and getting lambasted for it and are lambasting back, just as you describe. It’s still being debated – which is good. Freeman Dyson believes some are arrogant and he has spent his career immersed in it.
No. The quote was in the Washington Times, from an Obama staffer after they had apparently grossly underestimated it. I don’t understand the rest of your point.
1.5% of GDP is a rough estimate of revenue from all corporate income taxes, – from the CBO. My point was to illustrate the impact of that number you presented.
384ppm is all anthropogenic? I thought NASA estimated only 4% was attributable to human activity.
Maybe, provided the other 96% of naturally occurring CO2 remains in stasis but it still is minimal. No bang for the big bucks on this one.
And temperatures were around the same … why?
Wow, modeling an ancient climate… no variability there. Let’s stick to the data.
Because it has warmed in the last 20 years out of a cool cycle, that’s what happens – ice melts. The debate is in what has caused that warming, anthropogenic CO2, the sun or natural cycle.
You are right: the science is not good enough yet to conclude CO2-based AGW will cause an impending catastrophe as fact, and many disagree with some pretty good arguments.
The only facts are the lab tested data and modern satellite temperature readings. Everything else is speculative and theoretical modeling with incomplete data. The models don’t even accurately take into account the complexity of clouds! Why? It’s too complex to figure out yet. They can’t even figure out the clouds and we are to believe they understand the whole system to an absolute factual conclusion? One to take action or we all will die? This is unreasonable.
Back on the Inhofe scientist thing. Readers can follow the link to it and judge for themselves, without your subjective dismissal.
This is reasonable, in my opinion.
No, I think you missed the math. The 70ppm added from 1960-2010 is anthropogenic. Let’s call that the added part.
384ppm is the total 4%, so 15% of 4% is the same as saying 15% of 384ppx. That number turns out to be 57ppm. Let’s call that the part that is subtracted.
If we added 70ppm in 50 years, then subtracting 57ppm would be terrific !
I’d be happy if we reduce CO2 by 2%, or 7ppm per year.
And temperatures were hardly the same. Look at the chart you quoted, specifically this chart.
Except for two ice ages shown (significant drops in temperatures), the chart shows that 438 million years ago, when CO2 was at 4000ppm, temperatures were 250C above normal (from 13C now to somewhere between 38C). The chart shows a significant correlation between temperature and CO2.
We’ve already covered the ice data CO2/temperature lag as being release of trapped CO2.
The chart also shows that around 700ppm, the CO2 heat trap process is a runaway process. Temperatures stay high until CO2 drops below 700ppm.
Not fair. The reason we had to go that far back is because you brought it up. Some comment up above you said: “There have been times in our planet’s history of CO2 levels as much as 4400 ppm and temps being similar to today. It’s debatable whether an increase of 100ppm CO2 is even a problem.”
So I looked it up and the chart said something completely different. You do want me to respond to your comments don’t you?
So we can either discuss the points you raise, or you can give that type of nonsense response.
That’s not what Hansen said. Hansen said CO2 was causing the warming, that CO2 is accumulating, and that there was no other attributable source of CO2 production other than human activities (industrial, fossil fuel burning, land use).
The deniers dilemma is this: they look as a few years of data and call it a cooling trend, or they see a one year rise in ice and call it the end of global warming, or they claim that no one really knows (except them), but they cannot find the cause of CO2 increase.
Listen, scientists have already measure forest fires, camp fires, volcanoes, but it all comes down to this: take the production of CO2 per country for a factory, for a car, for a coal burning plant, multiply it out by the number of people — take into account that the US produces more CO2 than Ethiopia, and so on. Adjust that number down for absorption by plants and the ocean and what you are left with is what is added to the atmosphere.
I know: no scientist, no science is good enough for you. No fact is good enough.
Got it. I figured I had over simplified it. Still debatable that this estimate is ‘terrific’.
Is that an ice age where the dip is? Funny how temperature pattern has little correlation to the CO2 patter and CO2 is naturally decreasing even as average temps were high in the Cretaceous. It’s all over the place.
Fair enough. My point: Complex (largely unknown) system vs. lab data. You are comparing modeling an ancient climate to data. Both are likely variable and fallible but the degree of which the modeling is absolutely dwarfs the data.
Ok, you say he is right, I said the debate is about what has caused that warming, anthropogenic CO2, the sun or natural cycle.
Bringing up short-term cooling and year in ice growth could be used only to counter short-term fear mongering, but it is incomplete. One can look at the ice core data and see nothing out of the ordinary – this is hard to ignore. Also, the correlation of temperatures to CO2 being all over the place in geologic data sets, that CO2 seems to lag warming in ice core data, and that models are incomplete and fallible should stimulate further debate.
NASA has said with affirmation that the rise in CO2 is anthropogenic, then in the next paragraph they admit “we don’t really know where all the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from and where it goes.” Isn’t this important? We should find out. This is just another question mark of many that makes it impossible to be definitive about all of this.
Why do you keep saying this? You are not presenting facts. You are presenting a ‘theory’ and defending it. Fine. I am countering it with what I and many believe to be good arguments and questions. I personally believe the theory is fallible and that hysteria is unreasonable. I believe debate is not over and acting on this, which can have a significant impact on our lives, is foolish.
Watch this video series from Michael Crichton. He was one of my favorite authors along with Tom Clancy because they so thoroughly research their subject matter, and I am a nerd. I also believe he was one of the brightest individuals of our time. I deliberately chose this video series because it’s not about AGW (he only mentions it briefly while remaining in the context of his presentation). You can agree or disagree or dismiss him for his use of the occasional sarcasm or humor, or that he is on an Inhofe list, but I think you may find it interesting.
I am still curious regarding the math, so I worked it out a little further. Keep in mind; I am not a mathematician by any means. Just trying to work out reasoning on this point with some basic math.
I may still be making this too basic and generalizing for simplicity, but it raises questions.
Too many questions.
I think that your math points are largely accurate. If we leave the growth of man-made CO2 intact (that is, do nothing) we’ll have by the end of this century CO2 levels approaching 550-750ppm, depending on the study. What is currently 4% of all CO2 will be 50% man made, and worse, the amount of CO2 will have doubled.
We can reduce CO2 by going to new energy sources like non fossil fuels (cannot do so immediately), or we can Cap And Trade, providing existing businesses a way to reduce emissions.
Then, instead of 550-750ppm, we’ll be at 350ppm. That’s huge.
To look at it in numbers form, assume 15% of 4% of 384ppm, or roughly 2.25 ppm. Humans are adding about 2.0 ppm at the present rate, so it produces a net drop. The difference is, roughly going from adding 2.2ppm each year and dropping -.5ppm.
It will take a few years to implement, but the impact is immediate.
I looked at the Carter video link above. A couple of interesting major points jump out at me:
- he specifically accepts that it is warmer now as a result of human activity
- he is not-so-neutral given the language. We should agree that the validity of the science should be debated by climatologists. He says scientists. For example, a quantum physicist is a heck of a scientist, he just wouldn’t know one cloud from another anymore than you or I would.
That choice of language makes him a non-professional in the field. You would never hear that from any other scientific professional. They are experts in what they know.
Carter, to me, is just an interesting contributor but not a climatologist. A very important distinction.
Good posts.
I’m not sure we can reduce the overall CO2 to 350ppm with only a slight impact on 4% of this total. Keep in mind, even in that 4% includes unsequestered CO2 with a 200-300 year life in the atmosphere, so the only impact is on production.
Not really. If you see my generalized calculations, we will continue to add CO2 (not subtract) into the atmosphere. 15% is on that annual production. We are just reducing the rate in which we add it so the human portion of CO2 ppm will continue to rise for at least another 100 years because of the 200-300 life in the atmosphere. And all of this is assuming that the 96% portion of natural CO2 is stable and constant, which is doubtful. NASA admits we don’t understand enough of what’s going on here to know anything for certain.
And again, doing this likely will have no impact on the climate in the short term, and it is debatable whether it would in the long term either. We just don’t know if there is even a danger in this to take such profound steps.
He said he is in the middle of the debate. Not a denier in warming as you point out, not a believer in catastrophe.
Note: he is a geologist that specializes in historical climates and has a HUGE say in this. Here is why:
Issue: Earth temperatures have risen over the last 100 years.
Lucky 13 Questions (in order of importance):
Q1: Is it part of the natural, historical earth cycle? Geologists, Geophysicists, Paleoclimatologists, like Dr. Carter, Historians
Q2: Is it the sun? Astronomers, Physicists, like Feeman Dyson (side note: evidence is mounting that clouds may be influenced by cosmic rays), Climatologists
Q3: Is it changes in the atmosphere? Climatologists, Chemists, Physicists
Q4: Is it naturally occurring from the planet? Earth Scientists, Geologists, Geophysicists, Botanists, Zoologists.
Q5: Is man influencing temperatures? Climatologists, Economists, Earth Scientists, Geographers, Engineers, Chemists
Q6: What could be the effects on our oceans? Oceanographers, Chemists, Marine Biologists, Geologists, Earth Scientists
Q7: Effect on the land? Biologists, Botanists, Earth Scientists, Geologists
Q8: What would be the effect on weather? Climatologists, Meteorologists
Q9: What would be Effect on man? Historians, Economists, Anthropologists
Q10: Are good scientific methods and data being used to draw conclusions? All of science
Q11: Who is mostly informing the public on the subject? Media, Governments
Q12: What should be done? Governments, Politicians, the free markets, and ultimately the people
Q13: Is it a problem? ALL
I may be leaving some out, but ultimately everyone in some fashion has a say in this. Debate and reason is vital; hysteria, attempts at silencing and dogma is not.
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